Messing around with AI aggressiveness/behaviour/etc, but still disappointed with the results?

[JaeSunRyoo]

Hey all,
I've been meddling around with a few features related to the AI (cai_personality_table or something) to make all factions [hyper] aggressive in the GC. I've also modded the upkeep/training costs of most faction troops, as well as increasing army/navy capacity to 40 per stack. (It makes for some truly epic battles when the opportunity presents itself, mind you).

So let me ask: if I've set all AI behavior to be destructive, militaristic, etc, AND they have multiple full stacks (of not 20, but 40 units) AND are at war with me, is it still part of the defect in RTW2 in that that AI really is too passive, even if you mod the personality of the AI?

Situation: playing as Rome. At war with Carthage+satrapies, as well as Egypt. Was at war with Athens and Sparta, but gave up after fighting them near to their deaths and not mine. Didn't want to see them die without giving up a hell of a fight.

But what is more concerning about this is that Carthage, Libya AND Nova Carthago have SEVERAL stacks of medium-good quality troops, as well as some siege equipment here and there. This isn't even a situation where the AI is too POOR to afford such armies. They can. They have the potential to harass my mainland, Corsica et Sardinia as well as the lower two settlements of Magna Graecia. Reminder: they have several stacks of BOTH navy and land units, that being said at 40 each.

Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to load up a new game for the behaviors to work? Still kinda sad that Knossos won't come out of it's little hiding hole, even if it has a stack of 40 units. Maybe it's the fact that I applied this self-made mod to a save game that it won't work?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jae

N.B. I hope I haven't posted in the wrong forum.

[Col.KanKrusha]

EDIT - thought about this and in retrospect the thing that would help you most is editing the sub personalities instead of the main Cai personality o



Firstly, the AI is fighting itself as well as you do there may be something it is worried about that you can't see. Second the AI is not very good at executing naval invasions. Thirdly if you have a big stack the AI will become reluctant to attack even if it has a much bigger stack or several stack. That seems to kick in as you approach 20 units in a stack so if you have 20 units and AI has 40 it will be reluctant to attack.

Made you on Norma or hard difficulty? Easy difficulty might be too passive.

lastly be a bit more selective in the values you increase. If you make the Ai both very aggressive and very defensive it will get stuck.

Also remember there is general aggressiveness as well as faction specific (or is it Ai sub-personality) aggressiveness to tune.
You get better results from tuning the sub personalities as they over ride the mainpersonality.

That's all I remember. Long time since I looked at these files.

[JaeSunRyoo]

Thanks for replying

First: true, the AI may be fighting itself, but at the time of this save, there was hardly anything going on per se. How do I know? Agents. There was relatively little happening in the surrounding areas/provinces, apart from war-mad factions like Egypt and Selucids fighting heaps of factions. That's normal.

Second: I've heard that the AI is horrible with naval invasions. Was hoping that they had patched this up in EE, but alas, disappointment.

Thirdly: what? Are you serious? You're telling me that with several stacks, right next to one of my settlements, and enemy AI would be reluctant to attack?

Wow. That is quite disappointing indeed. Even after expanding army limits to 40 and given the fact that, let's say the Dalmatae had 3 full stacks (40) next to the border of Iader. I have a 20 stack of Evocati cohort. Would they really be reluctant to attack?

The difficulty is on VH. The only reason I don't play legendary (yet) is because of the battle implements (e.g. you can't use the mini map, etc). Don't mind the auto save policy, nor the bonuses the AI receives/the penalties I get/the minimized bonuses I get, nor the overall increased difficulty. I'd take it on, if not only for the battle interference change.

As for values, I made everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, super aggressive, as well as "destructive" in the cai_personalities table.

Sub personality will be needed to be looked at. I don't know where that is, per se, but I'll go have a look.

Anyways, thanks for answering. Nice to see a fellow Kiwi on the forums.

Jae

[Col.KanKrusha]

Kia ora dude,

Dammit, you made me look at the files you bastard!

You know, I wonder if you have done something funny that is not working. I only made minor changes to aggressiveness in my mod and it made a good difference without being overboard.

Try leaving miltary_behaviour_policy on balanced and just increase military_aggressiveness_policy a little bit. Dont make everyone the same or you lose some character in the ai.

I also adjust cai_personality_cultural_multipliers because they were too extreme for "natural enemies" so you always ended up at war. I also made natural friends a little less friendly.

AI cant do anything without money! Reduce budget for agents (cai_personalities_budget_allocations cap and allocation percentage) and reduce max number of agents (cant remember sorry :-) ) Then increase budget for army and navy a litte bit but not too much or they cant build.

you are welcome to download my mod and see what I did. I dont know if it works anymore but you can at least check out the files
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil.../?id=420484106

[JaeSunRyoo]

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for giving me help on the matter. The matter has been resolved.

Sincerely, Jae