Giving the AI territories is like asking a two-year-old to take care of a houseplant.

[devide-et-impera]

Why? They don't do the job. When the AI is given territories through diplomacy, it completely ignores them. Not development, nor recruitment, no sense. This phenomenon seems not to happen if the new territory borders the AI faction to which it's given. But say you're Sweden and conquer a string of territories in India. You want to share this new wealth with your ally, Austria and give them Mysore. They thank you. Twenty turns later: Mysore still has no garrison and no new buildings. The only thing the AI does is cut taxes to stifle revolts. Has CA ever addressed this issue?

The AI seem to be acquiring territories like the Barbary States since the last patch through diplomacy, because there are never any of their units in these regions. While it's good to see that the AI can trade regions like this, it counts for nothing if they never do anything to defend or grow them.

[CerealGuy]

completely agree once Cherokee asked for Afghanistan for one of their lands (forgot the name) and it didn't even destroy the buildings to make it native American
1.why are the Cherokee interested in that territory
2.why arnt they building in it if they want it

[EmperorJulian]

I've noticed just this problem in my last Austrian campaign. Denmark as usual folded like a house of cards, so I wanted to help them out. I figured I'd do so by handing over Courland and Lithuania to them, territories I didn't need or want give how far East they were. Plus the territories bordered Sweden in Estonia and that would give the Danes a front to attack the Swedes and maybe win back some land. Well, they never built any units in Lithuania at all, and in Courland they just built low level militia and never attacked Sweden. Of course, Sweden never attacked them either, it's like neither faction new what to do in that situation. I've had similar issues occur whenever I transfer lands to the AI in other situations. I really have to wonder, late in my game I traded Lombardy, Savoy and Hannover for Florida, Georgia, New Mexico the Windward Islands and French Guyana (as a settlement for a war between myself and Spain/France). What struck me most was how undeveloped the American lands were. Just by upgrading them I made the exchange far more profitable for me in the long run. Sigh, when will you learn AI, when will you learn!

[BevanTan]

Maybe trying to set the Campaign AI difficulty to Hard would help?

[Elmar]

Maybe trying to set the Campaign AI difficulty to Hard would help?

Why? The AI doesn't get any smarter with an increase in difficulty, so if it's doing patently daft things, it will continue doing so irregardless of difficulty.

Anyway, might there be a genuine bug at work here?
I saw the same thing when, as Sweden I was heavily sponsoring the Prussians to prevent them going the way of the dodo.
I had the opportunity to take East Prussia from both rebels and Russians, and restored them to Prussia both times. But at no time did the Prussian do anything with the province. No garrisons build, no garrisons moved over despite adjoining lands and seemingly sufficient troops. They must have had the money, as I was bankrolling them for 15-20k a turn and donated all the techs required for wealth. When the Russians retook a practically undefended East Prussia the Prussians were in like a shot and threw them out and seemed to garrison and build in the province as normal.
I thought it a bit odd but chalked it up to daft AI but if you guys are also seeing similar stuff, it could be that the AI has a blind spot in regard to provinces that it acquired by diplomacy.

[Humble Warrior]

Unfortunately this disease is rife throughout Empire. The whole thing looks nice, like a flashy porsche, but when you look deeper, it`s all shoddy. Wires sticking out, parts incomplete. sure the CAI works on the face of it, but of course individual factions don`t make use of lands they have. Land battles look smart, but the BAI shows all kinds of faults: shooting through its own, unable to retreat, etc. Even ship battles are incomplete - for some reason you can never see what ships you captured at the end of a battle.

And of course we have unrepairable Fort walls, non-retreating CAI, terrible sieges, etc, etc.

It`s like a cowboy outfit who came to fix your house, they leave it looking nice on the outside, but after you`ve lived in it for a day, you see that loads of annoying things have been left undone. the love for ETW just is not there and now it`s as good as abandoned.

ETW is one of the first TWs that really had no love. CA should never have bothered taking on the 18th century.

[irish437]

Even the territories they have don't get maximized. For example, looking around in my French campaign, Spain could be building lucrative mines all over central and S. America and they leave this towns poor.

[emperor77]

Unfortunately this disease is rife throughout Empire. The whole thing looks nice, like a flashy porsche, but when you look deeper, it`s all shoddy. Wires sticking out, parts incomplete. sure the CAI works on the face of it, but of course individual factions don`t make use of lands they have. Land battles look smart, but the BAI shows all kinds of faults: shooting through its own, unable to retreat, etc. Even ship battles are incomplete - for some reason you can never see what ships you captured at the end of a battle.

And of course we have unrepairable Fort walls, non-retreating CAI, terrible sieges, etc, etc.

It`s like a cowboy outfit who came to fix your house, they leave it looking nice on the outside, but after you`ve lived in it for a day, you see that loads of annoying things have been left undone. the love for ETW just is not there and now it`s as good as abandoned.

ETW is one of the first TWs that really had no love. CA should never have bothered taking on the 18th century.

Agreed.

[Praefectus praetorio]

...for some reason you can never see what ships you captured at the end of a battle.

Just move your cursor over the captured ship image and it will tell you the name of the ship and the class of the ship. But yes, its shame that the image is only a question mark.

[Blofeld2k]

Yep, same thing in my campaigns, GB wants Finland, Poland Dagestan, etc etc.

[EmperorJulian]

I'm working on putting together an AAR, I swear its going to get done! (I digress). Point is I want to see if the same things happen in this campaign as last. My Austrian campaign on M/H was pretty much the same as the campaigns I'd experienced in 1.0. I'd been lead to believe the AI had become drastically more aggressive, and at least my initial tests as minor factions on H/H proved that out. But once I went back to Medium I really don't see much of a difference, except possibly that 4 wars instead of 2 start on turn 1. Fortunately, not getting attacked by everyone gives a more sand-box feel to things, and so more fodder for writing. At any rate it will be good for comparison. It really is too bad, ETW always had potential, potential that will now likely never be realized. What a shame.

[Huberto]

My Austrian campaign on M/H was pretty much the same as the campaigns I'd experienced in 1.0. I'd been lead to believe the AI had become drastically more aggressive, and at least my initial tests as minor factions on H/H proved that out. But once I went back to Medium I really don't see much of a difference, except possibly that 4 wars instead of 2 start on turn 1. Fortunately, not getting attacked by everyone gives a more sand-box feel to things, and so more fodder for writing. At any rate it will be good for comparison. It really is too bad, ETW always had potential, potential that will now likely never be realized. What a shame.

I've been playing Austria on hard settings with DMUC 5.1, and I am about half way through a long campaign. The whole time it's been non-stop war, musical chairs for the AI and with at least 2 in a state of war with me, usually three or four. I suppose that's OK but there doesn't seem to be any l logic I can get my head around regarding the declarations of war except that it's hard, in the sense that someone always steps up to war to replace someone else that makes peace.

Trying to play Metternich with the AI only adds to the frustration for reasons the OP points out. Then there is the problem of working alliances with minor states -- both Hannover and Wurttenburg were allies who sent armies to join my wars, leaving their home provinces lightly garrisoned. Of course then they were immediately conquered in one turn by an enemy major power. Seemed deliberate almost.

Also, at the the very beginning of the campaign I decided not to join the UP in some silly war of agression against Westphalia and that seems to have spoiled everyone's regard for me, even France and Spain (who hate the UP). But I'm doing just fine because it's very hard to lose against the BAI.

Conclusion:

It appears that we have reached a point in the development of these games where now it simply must be all about the AI. I am so tired of hearing excuses from the Company and its fanboy apologists about why the AI doesn't function well. Going forward, TW needs to be all about AI, AI, AI.

[Abspara]

Blame it on shoddy workmanship and poor post release support. it could be good if CA had any integrity about the quality of their products, but from the looks of it, they don't.

[EmperorJulian]

I've had more opportunity to study this during my Spanish campaign. The difficulty is figuring out just what the problem is. It does seem that the AI places -no- value, whatsoever, in regions not acquired by force. This seems to apply as much to regions gifted to the AI by the human, as well as regions occasionally traded from one AI faction to another (this does occur, rarely). I wonder if this was a deliberate programming decision on CA's part? Is there perhaps some actual logical reason why the AI would treat gifts of land was worthless? I had the opportunity in this campaign to transfer two regions taken from the English to the Danes. The Danes had one region at the time, only Iceland, and I should think they'd appreciate having a whole lot of the St. Lawrence river to exploit economically. Of course within 5 turns both regions had been lost to the Iroquois. I saw something similar take place when I transferred Morocco to France. The French held Morocco for years and years, built one unit, then lost the region when Moroccan rebels took Tangier. France never did anything in the area except build buildings.

It certainly seems that the AI is aware that it has new land, it does do SOMETHING. But it will do nothing to defend those acquisitions, since they weren't taken by force, and thus, they hold no value. I suppose that's the very definition of Total War. This applies even when the AI is gifted regions that apply to its victory conditions for free. Not just areas that the AI doesn't necessarily care about. Here's one final example. I was at war with Austria and gifted them Belgium for peace. Austria did nothing to defend Belgium and quickly lost it to France, may ally. France keeps a garrison in Belgium and defends the province against attack. But Austria, given the area for free, did nothing. Go figure.

[Final Frontier]

Interestingly enough, the AI will attempt to take back land given by the player if it loses it. The Crimean Khanate, my protectorate as Russia, did it for the land bordering Georgia. (Long story, but I wanted a buffer while I tamed Sweden)

[Hilarion]

I suppose it's impossible for this problem to be fixed by a mod?

[average650]

I suppose it's impossible for this problem to be fixed by a mod?

I think some mods have improved it in small ways, but I don't think we have enough access to really overhaul it.

[scott_e]

hmm, interesting thread. Did not realise the mods were more difficult in ETW than older versions of the product. Some protectionism going on maybe ?