Question for you guys

[Oxberger]

When you are playing a faction that shares several borders with other factions does it seem like you are the main focus for the AI? I have sort of noticed this before, but playing as Thrace it is sticking out like a sore thumb. In the start of my Thracian campaign I was allied to Illryia who shortly attacked me. They only sent a small army and sort of haulted attacks on me. A few turns later Macedon attacks me. By now I'm figuring hey Greeks/Macedon will go to war and/or Illryia and Greeks will go to war. Wrong. The greeks have remained neutral which is unheard of when I played as other factions. I toggled on FOW and found out that the Greeks have just been roaming Macedon/Illryian lands and not attacking. I asked them for an alliance and they agreed, but have yet to do anything to Macedon/Illryia.

I'm playing with NM mod and Joey's animation pack if that does anything to help you guys answer this.

[JoeyJubb]

Well my animation pack does zilch to the AI, the problem you're describing is inherient in all mods of RTW. The AI has a kind of "if it's human and if it borders me I'm going to kill it" attitude - there are rare occasions that factions will honour alliances, protectorships etc; some may even just remain neutral for very long periods.

The bottom line is though, if the AI has to fight to expand, you can garuntee it'll pick you to fight with!!!

Actually the real bottom line is for using my animations... hehe

[Invoker]

This is a major problem with the AI to me that I've ranted and raved about on numerous occassions. Say you are Rome. Now, you're minding your own business when Carthage decides to stomp on your turf, even though they have plenty to worry about with the Iberians and Numidians. One thing I found is that if you turn off prefers naval invasions (set it to no) in the descr_sm_faction.txt file, you only have to worry about factions actually on your borders; that means no Illyria shipping over tiny armies every other turn when you're Rome.

But with land borders, the AI seems obsessed with the human player. I find it near impossible to keep a peaceful border with anyone for very long, unless that border comes into existence while the neighboring faction is busy with some other war (the mitigating factor in this problem is that the AI doesn't like fighting more than one war or front at a time). But the AI can and often does live relatively peacefully with each other at least some of the time, though they tend to still be aggressive with one another.

I personally just wish the AI didn't register the human player as a human, and it treated other AIs and the human player the same.

[Oxberger]

This is a major problem with the AI to me that I've ranted and raved about on numerous occassions. Say you are Rome. Now, you're minding your own business when Carthage decides to stomp on your turf, even though they have plenty to worry about with the Iberians and Numidians. One thing I found is that if you turn off prefers naval invasions (set it to no) in the descr_sm_faction.txt file, you only have to worry about factions actually on your borders; that means no Illyria shipping over tiny armies every other turn when you're Rome.

But with land borders, the AI seems obsessed with the human player. I find it near impossible to keep a peaceful border with anyone for very long, unless that border comes into existence while the neighboring faction is busy with some other war (the mitigating factor in this problem is that the AI doesn't like fighting more than one war or front at a time). But the AI can and often does live relatively peacefully with each other at least some of the time, though they tend to still be aggressive with one another.

I personally just wish the AI didn't register the human player as a human, and it treated other AIs and the human player the same.

Exactly. I can remain allies for several years with factions that are far beyond my borders(Parthia, Bactria, etc). The only time an ally that shared borders with me and remained allies was the gauls playing as Greeks, but then they eventually attacked me.

So there's no way of making the AI more agressive towards each other?

[The Walrus]

Exactly. I can remain allies for several years with factions that are far beyond my borders(Parthia, Bactria, etc). The only time an ally that shared borders with me and remained allies was the gauls playing as Greeks, but then they eventually attacked me.

So there's no way of making the AI more agressive towards each other?

There was a thread in the mod workshop about a diplomacy discovery. I believe in the descr_strat. Which might make it more realistic

[Ares82]

I think there was a discussion on the official total war forum regarding this. There was a theory that went something like this. Basically instead of AI factions having their own goals, there seems to be a general goal that ALL the AI factions share and that is not to let the human player win. That is why they usually fight to the bitter end and almost never except a cease fire even if you just took 5 provinces from them and they are down to just one.

I don't know whether there is actually code somewhere in the AI that says this, but it certainly appears to make sense.

[Oxberger]

Hmm I'll do some browsing......from my modding experience total conversion mods change a lot of files so I wasn't sure if posting in the general section would get better results.

[The Walrus]

Hmm I'll do some browsing......from my modding experience total conversion mods change a lot of files so I wasn't sure if posting in the general section would get better results.

Try this.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=60478

[mmmrrrr]

Fill all your border cities with full stack or close to full stack garrisons and the AI (usually) won't attack you. Kept peace with the Iberians on my border with them in Italy/Illyria/Thrace (yes, they conquered all of Northern Europe), like 5 border towns. It does tie up my economy a tiny bit (not that much though since I control the Aegean economic powerhouse), but I don't want to think of the costs if I opened a war with Iberia when the Seleucids and Carthaginians are already taking all my attention.

Edit: I've kept the peace for about 25 years with 4tpy (MetroNaval).

[Oxberger]

Fill all your border cities with full stack or close to full stack garrisons and the AI (usually) won't attack you. Kept peace with the Iberians on my border with them in Italy/Illyria/Thrace (yes, they conquered all of Northern Europe), like 5 border towns. It does tie up my economy a tiny bit (not that much though since I control the Aegean economic powerhouse), but I don't want to think of the costs if I opened a war with Iberia when the Seleucids and Carthaginians are already taking all my attention.

Edit: I've kept the peace for about 25 years with 4tpy (MetroNaval).

Problem with that is as Thrace you aren't very wealthy, but things have been taking a better turn in my campaign. Illryia has decided to get a truce with me and attack gaul(moving all of it's forces north leaving their southern cities weakly defended ), and Macedon started to focus on the Greeks and I took a lot of their cities.

Thanks for posting that link walrus; I'll be keeping an eye on that.

[dharos]

i don't know about you guys, but when i've played as the Sarmatians i've yet to be turned on by my Thracian neighbors/allies. granted, i haven't played too deeply into the campaign, but i think this is because usually Makedon attacks thrace, and i usually help them out with cavalry kickass support hehe

[CiusFortius]

Once you have a border with someone no alliance is safe, especialy if you are in an area that the faction expands to historically. For instance Carthage always goes for Siscilly, Egypt always expands west into africa, etc. Teh only alliances that work are distant ones. So for instance if you are at war with TSE as Pontus try to ally with Bactria and Ptolemics as they can't attack you but they can take your enemies from behind. If they are reluctant to go to war send some units out and find a place where the armies/navies are close together so that if you attack they will reinforce you and thus trigger a war.

Last night I had the same thing. TSE was my ally, after I had pushed Ptolemics back to a few scattered provinces and was just wrapping things up for no reason whatsover TSE blockaded a port of mine. They already had 4 other wars on their hands but decided to attack me too. Makes no sense. Its also realy irritating as I don't want to move further east as my Numidian empire stretches from Spain to Jerusalem already. I was planning on finishing off the last Ptelomic cities in Asia minor and then trying to get them as protectorates leaving them in the Arabic desert, before taking out Macedon before they conquor the world. Now I will have to leave Macedon alone till I have pushed the stupid TSE empire into India.

[Oxberger]

i don't know about you guys, but when i've played as the Sarmatians i've yet to be turned on by my Thracian neighbors/allies. granted, i haven't played too deeply into the campaign, but i think this is because usually Makedon attacks thrace, and i usually help them out with cavalry kickass support hehe

lol in my Thracian campaign the reverse is true. Sarmatians hasn't attacked me or shown signs of attacking me....maybe there's some special line in this alliance in a text document?

[The Walrus]

TAKEN FROM ancient empires descr_strat(a mod for RTRPE)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; >>>> start of diplomacy section <<<<
;DS_ALLIED			= 0	
;DS_SUSPICIOUS		= 100
;DS_NEUTRAL			= 200
;DS_HOSTILE			= 400
;DS_AT_WAR			= 600

core_attitudes	romans_julii,	600		romans_brutii, romans_scipii, romans_senate
core_attitudes	romans_julii,	100		carthage
core_attitudes	romans_julii,	600		slave
core_attitudes	romans_brutii,	600		romans_julii, romans_scipii, romans_senate
core_attitudes	romans_brutii,	600		slave
core_attitudes	romans_scipii,	600		romans_julii, romans_brutii, romans_senate
core_attitudes	romans_scipii,	600		slave
core_attitudes	romans_senate, 	600		romans_julii, romans_brutii, romans_scipii
core_attitudes	romans_senate,	600		slave
core_attitudes	macedon,		0		dacia
core_attitudes	macedon,		0		britons
core_attitudes	macedon,		600		seleucid
core_attitudes	macedon,		600		greek_cities
core_attitudes	macedon,		600		egypt
core_attitudes	macedon,		600		slave
core_attitudes	egypt,		200		numidia
core_attitudes	egypt,		600		seleucid
core_attitudes	egypt,		600		slave
core_attitudes	seleucid,		0		parthia
core_attitudes	seleucid,		600		slave
core_attitudes	carthage,		200		romans_julii, romans_scipii
core_attitudes	carthage,		0		numidia
core_attitudes	carthage,		0		egypt
core_attitudes	carthage,		100		spain
core_attitudes	carthage,		0		slave
core_attitudes	parthia,		200		armenia
core_attitudes	parthia,		600		slave
core_attitudes	pontus,		410		armenia
core_attitudes	pontus,		600		slave
core_attitudes	gauls,		300		romans_julii, spain
core_attitudes	gauls,		600		slave
core_attitudes	gauls,		90		germans, britons
core_attitudes	germans,		90		gauls
core_attitudes	germans,		310		britons
core_attitudes	germans,		600		slave
core_attitudes	britons,		310		germans
core_attitudes	britons,		0		macedon
core_attitudes	britons,		600		slave
core_attitudes	armenia,		90		parthia
core_attitudes	armenia,		600		slave
core_attitudes	dacia,		90		romans_julii
core_attitudes	dacia,		0		macedon
core_attitudes	dacia,		410		germans
core_attitudes	dacia,		600		slave
core_attitudes	greek_cities,	600		romans_brutii, romans_scipii
core_attitudes	greek_cities,	600		slave
core_attitudes	numidia,		0		carthage
core_attitudes	numidia,		600		slave
core_attitudes	scythia,		600		slave
core_attitudes	spain,		410		carthage
core_attitudes	spain,		600		slave
core_attitudes	thrace,		0		seleucid
core_attitudes	thrace,		600		slave
core_attitudes	slave,		600		romans_julii, romans_brutii, romans_scipii, romans_senate, macedon, egypt, seleucid, carthage, parthia, pontus, gauls, germans, britons, armenia, dacia, greek_cities, numidia, scythia, spain, thrace

faction_relationships	romans_julii,		600		romans_brutii
faction_relationships	romans_julii,		600		greek_cities
faction_relationships	romans_julii, 		600		romans_scipii
faction_relationships	romans_julii,		600		romans_senate
faction_relationships	romans_julii, 		600		slave
faction_relationships	romans_brutii, 		600		romans_julii
faction_relationships	romans_brutii,		600		romans_scipii
faction_relationships	romans_brutii,		600		romans_senate
faction_relationships	romans_brutii,		600		slave
faction_relationships	romans_scipii,		600		romans_julii
faction_relationships	romans_scipii,		600		romans_brutii
faction_relationships	romans_scipii,		100		romans_senate
faction_relationships	romans_scipii,		600		slave
faction_relationships	macedon,			600		slave
faction_relationships	egypt,			600		slave
faction_relationships	egypt,			600		macedon
faction_relationships	egypt,			600		greek_cities
faction_relationships	seleucid,			600		slave
faction_relationships	seleucid,			600		egypt
faction_relationships	carthage,			600		slave
faction_relationships	parthia,			600		slave
faction_relationships	pontus,			600		slave
faction_relationships	gauls,			600		slave
faction_relationships	germans,			600		slave
faction_relationships	germans,			600		gauls
faction_relationships	britons,			600		slave
faction_relationships	armenia,			600		slave
faction_relationships	dacia,			600		slave
faction_relationships	greek_cities,		600		slave
faction_relationships	numidia,			600		slave
faction_relationships	scythia,			600		slave
faction_relationships	spain,			600		slave
faction_relationships	thrace,			600		slave
faction_relationships	slave,			600		romans_julii, romans_brutii, romans_scipii, romans_senate, macedon, egypt, seleucid, carthage, parthia, pontus, gauls, germans, britons, armenia, dacia, greek_cities, numidia, scythia, spain, thrace
faction_relationships	numidia			0		carthage
faction_relationships	dacia			0		scythia
faction_relationships	seleucid			0		armenia, parthia, thrace
faction_relationships	thrace			0		seleucid, parthia
faction_relationships	parthia			0		seleucid, thrace

This should be at the very bottom of the descr_strat. Use the link Here for help