AI allies actually do things in NTW?

I gave up on trying to beat the Egyptian campaign in time (and lowering the difficulty would make it piss easy) so I decided to just move on and start the French GC. Since Piedmont-Sardinia in the Italian campaign just ordered its stacks of armies to wander around aimlessly I didn't have high expectations for the usefulness of my Confederation of the Rhine satellite-states going into the GC.

They were mostly defenseless at first, but once they had time to build up an army I was shocked! They didn't betray me in five turns like they would have in RTW or M2TW, they didn't even just sit there with two stacks doing nothing forever like they would have in ETW, but they actually did things. I'm still relatively early in my campaign but already I've seen good things.

They conquered territory and actually attacked my enemies and tried to conquer their lands...the Kingdom of Italy took Venice from the Austrians and was indispensable as an intimidating buffer against Austrian aggression in that area. Hessen (who isn't an ally to begin with, which goes to show it's not just smoke and mirrors achieved with very careful scripting) conquered Hannover and that Prussian territory that borders the Netherlands.

They also actually helped me directly. There was a large Prussian army in my defenseless region of Belgium that the Batavian Republic went and took care of. I left Prague undefended due to an emergency and Hessen actually left a stack by the city to defend it, and also left a stack by Berlin to support my main army (which was surrounded by lots of Prussian stacks). A Wurttemburger army saved my defenseless city in the Alps from a besieging Austrian force.

Overall I'm very surprised and impressed. If they were real instead of AI algorithms I'd be flattered (I was tempted to give them money gifts a couple times, and then I remembered that they can't appreciate the gesture ). Spain just sort of does nothing, though, but they're far away from the action and don't have line-of-sight with central Europe so I guess that's to be expected.

Has anyone else seen behavior like this or am I just really lucky?

In my Europe campaign as Nappy the Italian states help out a ton as do the German states once you get them to go to war with your enemies.

Wait so is the Grand Campaign for France the European campaign because I can't find it!

in my GB GC I have 3 protector, Brittany, Portugal, & Catalonia and they have done Nothing, I have even given
them money and land but no way

Originally Posted by James Cook

in my GB GC I have 3 protector, Brittany, Portugal, & Catalonia and they have done Nothing, I have even given
them money and land but no way

are you giving them money per turn because if you don't protectorates don't do anything
for instance i gave italy 8000 per turn,northern Italy,Venice, and a providence west of northern Italy to help me take out France as GB when that happened they sprang to life and used full stacks to invade and they took out bavaria,wuttenbourg,Switzerland,something west of wuttenbourg and southern France

Yes it is

thanks!

ok Ill try that, thx

now iam a greedy man, you think 1000x5 turns would do the trick

I encountered it several times, currently campaigning as France also, and I liberated Kingdom of Italy and Hungary, both helped me deal with Austrians and Russians armies whenever they entered my region near them. I even had Prussia helped me, back then I gifted them Hanover in exchange for an alliance, after our alliances got "friendly" I asked to declare war on Austria and Britain exchange for a few techs, they accepted, a few turns later, the Prussia army attacked and conquered almost the whole northern part of the Austrian empire including their capital while I took the southern part

I guess I do notice a difference between allies and protectorates. Protectorates take longer to build up a sizable force, and if they lose any of it it's going to take longer for them to get back on their feet. Try liberating countries and then cancelling the protectorate relationship (they'll still be your allies) and see if that changes anything.