My General Thoughts on the Campaign AI So Far

[TheSavage]

After playing about 10 different ETW campaigns with most of the major and a few minor factions, I've made a few other observations about the ETW vanilla CAI.

Obviously, there are two huge problems with the AI:
1) No naval invasions (and unlike in M2TW, there are really NO naval invasions, zero, zip, zilch, extremely disappointing)
2) The AI in general is too passive.

I've concluded #1 is probably an actual bug, I suspect that it will be very difficult or impossible for a modder to fix, and will probably require a CA patch.

As for #2, though, I don't think the AI is as broken as we think. Yes, it is far too passive, but...

It seems in ETW, more than previous TW games, the decision of the AI to start a war is hugely dependent on two factors:
1) faction relationship
2) military balance... probably overall to some extent but especially on the border

These factors obviously played a significant role in previous TW games, but in ETW I think they are dominant. Whereas in previous TW games the AI would start wars and launch invasions when it had little chance of success, in ETW I think the AI is much smarter in that it doesn't launch hopeless invasions... When it invades, it tends to invade with overwhelming force, which IMO is a very good thing.

The problem is that if the AI cannot muster this overwhelming force, then it won't invade, which makes it seem passive when compared to M2TW and RTW. So to some extent, the problem of passivity results, in large part, from the AI being smarter and more realistic.

Unfortunately, this can also be somewhat boring, so how to fix it? I've looked at the AI files, and while some of them are straightforward, I have no idea what most of the settings could possibly do, so modding the AI directly isn't a great option until we get some documentation.

When playing around with the bonuses that the AI factions get depending on difficulty, however, I noticed something very interesting. When I increased the "cheating" in the AI's favor and reduced the AI's unit recruitment and upkeep costs, all of a sudden the AI became much more aggressive! The AI could afford to recruit and maintain far more units, which in turn allowed the AI to have bigger garrisons and standing armies. This meant the AI could muster the forces necessary to launch an overwhelming invasion more easily.

So for now, this is the best workaround I can come up with to help increase AI aggressiveness and increase challenge and excitment. If anyone is interested, I've uplaoded a version of the difficulty settings I've been playing with. This is definitely a beta and needs tweaking, but here's what's been changed:

DISCOUNTS THE AI IS GETTING
Normal
Land recruitment cost: was 10% -> now 20%
Naval recruitment cost: 8% -> 18%
Land upkeep: 20% -> 30%
Naval upkeep: 20% -> 30%
Hard
Research rate: 35% -> 50%
Land recruitment cost: 20% -> 40%
Naval recruitment cost: 15% -> 35%
Land upkeep: 30% -> 50%
Naval upkeep: 30% -> 50%
Recruitment points: 1 -> 2
Naval recruitment points: 1 -> 2
Very Hard
Research rate: 50 -> 75%
Land recruitment cost: 40% -> 60%
Naval recruitment cost: 33% -> 53%
Land upkeep: 50% -> 70%
Naval upkeep: 50% -> 70%
Recruitment points: 3 -> 4
Naval recruitment points: 5 (no change)

The results are on hard and especially on very hard, the AI is significantly more aggressive... not perfect, but better.

If you want to try it, just unzip and place in your data directory. You'll also need to add this line to the user.empire_script.txt file:
mod savage_difmod.pack;

Finally, obviously diplomacy and the CAI are closely interlinked. While ETW diplomacy definitely needs some improvement (like reducing endless AI wars), it does seem the ETW diplomacy is much deeper than previous TW games, so I am hopeful.

Let me know if you notice the same change I did.

[Actus Reus]

Ok.. I have seen people mention the lack of Naval invasions everywhere, why doesnt that single topic have its own sticky?

I mean the game is broke in a number of ways, but this has to be the big one!

I have never played a game in this genre as good as ETW (despite the downfalls), I've had them all since Shogun, but this one MAJOR problem is making me bored of the game already the only reason I keep coming back is in hope some bright spark has fixed the naval invasions...

Not that much time may have passed sisnce release, and I dont want to come across as whining, because I'm sure all of us want this, but you cant blame me for being impatient..

Its like being given chocolates (the best chocolates in the world) and then getting kicked in the balls or finding a turd in the box...

The enjoyment the game has to offer would be magnified ten fold if only the naval invasions were solved..

On the latest Darth Mod he's stated that he has done work on this but needs alot of testing to find out, BUT it may be hard coded!!! Im no modder but hard coded sounds pretty GASH..

I'll stop ranting now..

WHATS THE POINT IN HAVING THE OTHER 2 THEATRES IF NO ONE LEAVES EUROPE !!!

sorry..