The number of AI alliances

**nochy** · March 03, 2018, 09:30 AM

Hi, in my playthroughs as german Leugi and gaullish Averni on N/N and H/N, I noticed that the number of military or defensive alliances between AI factions is too few, only around 4 to 6 factions have military or defensive alliances until turn 70. So, I would like to ask that how many alliances between AI factions is in your playthroughs? Does it become better later in the game? If you can please include difficulty, turn and submodes that you have used, perhaps some submodes can affect this.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · March 03, 2018, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by nochy

Hi, in my playthroughs as german Leugi and gaullish Averni on N/N and H/N, I noticed that the number of military or defensive alliances between AI factions is too few, only around 4 to 6 factions have military or defensive alliances until turn 70. So, I would like to ask that how many alliances between AI factions is in your playthroughs? Does it become better later in the game? If you can please include difficulty, turn and submodes that you have used, perhaps some submodes can affect this.

Normal for campaign difficulty is for beginners. The AI's various actions will be minimal of course. Try a VH game and let us know.

**Hoplitus** · March 03, 2018, 09:59 AM

I think normal is totally ok especially with the changes to diplomacy and AI aggressivness. But 70 turns in is not very much in a DeI campaign. Let the AI develop more and you'll see more alliances.

**nochy** · March 03, 2018, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Greek strategos

Normal for campaign difficulty is for beginners. The AI's various actions will be minimal of course. Try a VH game and let us know.

I also tried Data Venia mod, apparently it is equivalent to having a very hard campaign on vanilla DeI. I played as a Dacian nation and till turn 25, there have been a confederation between AI nations, but no military or defensive alliances has happened.

Originally Posted by Hoplitus

I think normal is totally ok especially with the changes to diplomacy and AI aggressivness. But 70 turns in is not very much in a DeI campaign. Let the AI develop more and you'll see more alliances.

I think the best and the most natural way for containing the player's expansion early is to have more AI alliances, it is better than giving AI artificial bonuses.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · March 03, 2018, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Hoplitus

I think normal is totally ok especially with the changes to diplomacy and AI aggressivness. But 70 turns in is not very much in a DeI campaign. Let the AI develop more and you'll see more alliances.

Originally Posted by nochy

I also tried Data Venia mod, apparently it is equivalent to having a very hard campaign on vanilla DeI. I played as a Dacian nation and till turn 25, there have been a confederation between AI nations, but no military or defensive alliances has happened.

To be honest I have forgotten how playing with N campaigns feels. I almost exclusively use VH or Data Venia.
AFAIK AI's choices are most of the time random. But you'll certainly need more turns to check things.

**Ichon** · March 03, 2018, 10:42 AM

Certain factions seem far more pre-disposed to defensive alliances almost entirely based on initial conditions if they are natural allies (sharing borders with same enemies). After that it takes a very long time for AI to make any alliances and even in situations where they definitely should it doesn't happen. Not sure how much that can change- diplomacy is hard to code and CA doesn't pay it too much attention though it has slowly gotten better.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · March 03, 2018, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Ichon

Not sure how much that can change- diplomacy is hard to code and CA doesn't pay it too much attention though it has slowly gotten better.

Indeed. Most of the AI's dip features are hard-coded or just not applicable. For example we could set a parameter for AI to follow and most of the time this specific parameter will be completely ignored.

**Dago Red** · March 03, 2018, 11:10 AM

I haven't played Vae Victus since it was called Magnar mod, but diplomacy and alliances were notably rationale and fun to interact with. To this date, I don't think DeI has done that much with diplomacy compared to that. It will be nice to see the brainpower here used to overhaul this completely. The most annoying thing are the factions that want to trade with you and love you (looking at you Knossos and Rhodes), and then keep breaking those treaties every few turns. It's nonsense.

In general, I see a lot of alliances forming though. As others noted, turn 70 isn't that long.

**KAM 2150** · March 03, 2018, 11:41 AM

You would be surprised Dago how much in fact there was done for diplomacy in DeI.

Overal campaign AI is tied to diplomacy AI. If you make rationale diplomacy, you create brain dead AI as you will eventually have good relations with everyeone and have zero war declarations, especially later on. Also for some reason how good AI is at managing armies depends on how unlikely it is to make alliances etc. Without that, even if AI will declare war on you, it will not send armies or won't commit forces in any serious way.

We used to have easier diplomacy but it ended with all of the above.

This is why we have 3 diplomacy settings in DeI, regular one, softcore and hardcore. Depending on faction you play or your strength, you pick which one you prefer. AI in Rome 2 is not dynamic so if it is easy to deal with early on, it gets much, much easier when you get more power, hence no challange.

Now if you actually pay attention to our diplomacy, it gets rather easy after time and alliances mean more instead of random factions have 10+ def allies and 6+ military allies etc. Also the more wars you have, the more AI will be likely to declare war on you so you can't just charge in and thing everyone around will be ok with that. Thanks to that, isteand of having dozens of random allies, my faction has maybe 1-3 allies, which is also more accurate to those times.

**Dago Red** · March 03, 2018, 10:41 PM

Interesting. I don't understand how this AI works. I only know the old faction stances and attitudes (not sure what the proper name is, but the categories used to have names like Napoleon, Cesar, Stalin, etc). Those made some sense coupled with how aggressive they were set at. But the tie between that campaign AI and diplomacy has always been fascinating.

In DeI the diplomacy seems MUCH better than previous versions, don't get me wrong. The more realistic monetary amounts involved are a serious improvement -- you can actually cut some deals now! The ebb and flow of alliances and disputes also seems rationale overall. I just had another round of trade deal breakdowns playing tonight. Nothing seems to changed, relations are better if anything, and there were no lost ports. Knossos was again a culprit, along with Bithynia. There really seems to be an issue with Knossos and Rhodes trashing non-aggression and trade deals for no reason, then wanting them back again within a few turns.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · March 04, 2018, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Dago Red

Interesting. I don't understand how this AI works. I only know the old faction stances and attitudes (not sure what the proper name is, but the categories used to have names like Napoleon, Cesar, Stalin, etc). Those made some sense coupled with how aggressive they were set at. But the tie between that campaign AI and diplomacy has always been fascinating.

In DeI the diplomacy seems MUCH better than previous versions, don't get me wrong. The more realistic monetary amounts involved are a serious improvement -- you can actually cut some deals now! The ebb and flow of alliances and disputes also seems rationale overall. I just had another round of trade deal breakdowns playing tonight. Nothing seems to changed, relations are better if anything, and there were no lost ports. Knossos was again a culprit, along with Bithynia. There really seems to be an issue with Knossos and Rhodes trashing non-aggression and trade deals for no reason, then wanting them back again within a few turns.

I have seen this with various factions. It's just the randomness of Rome's2 engine. Nothing less nothing more.