Upgraded to 1.04. Some really good and some really bad observations

[ajnatalo]

First, off thank you to the developers for continuing the updates.

The Good: So far my turn processing time is lightning fast. Mere minutes for turns and several years have past. This includes turns where there are several major powers at war. If the game keeps it up, I will be very pleased. Second, not sure if this is a "good" or not but the AI even on normal aggressive setting, is really aggressive. In my game, someone must have really ticked off the Czar because Russia has been DOWing everyone non-stop. Sweden, Ottomans, Austrians, everyone gets a DOW. Also America keeps trying to beat up Mexico, it is constant.

The Bad: The constant wars lead to my first bad observations. Whenever a peace is reached, be it scripted or by the AI, the nations that were at war end up with mutual supply and mutual passage after the war. This allows units to just wander around the map. And then, with the aggressive AI, a few years later war starts back up and its all sneak attacks. I don't think the game was designed to operate like that, especially with the sneak attack prestige penalty.

Some more bad, which is mostly just seeing things that have been around since launch that aren't fixed. Firstly and probably most importantly, the American Gold Rush events early in the game still put the "Wine" resource on the map. Vineyards of course require the "Fruits" resource to operate. Therefore, unless a player changes the event after every update, America will lack those resources in California.

Secondly, Beirut still starts off with 10% loyalty for Liberia and not the Lebanese. Not overly important but clearly a typo somewhere.

Overall I call the update a huge success. Faster turn speeds and restoring functionality to the development level augmenting colonial decisions is a big help.

[loki100]

..

The Bad: The constant wars lead to my first bad observations. Whenever a peace is reached, be it scripted or by the AI, the nations that were at war end up with mutual supply and mutual passage after the war. This allows units to just wander around the map. And then, with the aggressive AI, a few years later war starts back up and its all sneak attacks. I don't think the game was designed to operate like that, especially with the sneak attack prestige penalty.

....

this is the one that worries me. Problem is PoN was released with a fairly (too?) passive diplomatic AI, its clear the WoN code has made it very keen to attack. I'm wondering if the solution is to use the settings to make the AI less aggresive ... but am not sure if this affects the diplomatic behaviour or just its actions on the battlefield?

[ajnatalo]

Loki, I have tried lowering "aggressiveness" to the lowest setting. Still seeing problems. Its constant, especially with Russia going after the Ottomans, USA attacking Mexico and/or Spain are also constant. The two issues that result is for one thing, the diplomatic items that are generated are not removable by normal means, as in they can't be cancelled by the player so switching factions is out as a solution. The only thing I haven't tried but am thinking about is scripting in more defensive alliances to make the AI see a bigger potential enemy for declaring war but that has potential to severely back fire.

[loki100]

Agree. This worries me much more than the others bits some people are making noise over (which is not to say they aren't important but there are player derived solutions if that is what is needed). The problem is an aggressive war seeking AI is great for WoN but wrong for PoN. I realise the original was too passive - hence all the new events and scripts to encourage it to act a bit more but this level of agression will produce a game closer to say Victoria rather than the slower (more realistic) pace of PoN - and also most of these wars cannot produce any real gains as there will be no valid mechanism for territorial gains etc.

I don't think defensive alliances will work - not least I have never seen the AI honouir one. I fear this will need one of the Phils to have the time to investigate the core game code.

[Pocus]

We can reduce the overall will of AI to go to war, sure. How would you rate the extra aggressiveness now, twice as much as before? Even beyond that?

[Siegfroh]

For me, it seems the problem is not so much or not only the frequency of wars, but the resulting treaties and their consequences:

Whenever a peace is reached, be it scripted or by the AI, the nations that were at war [color="#FFD700"]end up with mutual supply and mutual passage[/color] after the war. This allows units to just wander around the map. And then, with the aggressive AI, a few years later war starts back up and its [color="#FFD700"]all sneak attacks[/color].

Of course, both aspects can be adjusted.

Does the aggressiveness setting in the AI Options influence the AI's inclination to declare war, or only its behaviour in the field during a campaign ? Or both ?

And can the AI's liking for declaring wars be changed manually by the player (changing a number in a certain file), or is it determined in the .exe file ?

[loki100]

We can reduce the overall will of AI to go to war, sure. How would you rate the extra aggressiveness now, twice as much as before? Even beyond that?

It is of a very different character. In my AAR I went from 1850 to about 1865 with no European wars apart from those triggered by script - or my own actions. Then a long running Anglo-German war started. Now that may well be realistic but its also quite static and a static world hampers the options of a player of a smaller country. From a simple test with the new patch by the end of 1851 I had wars between Belgium and Germany and as ajnatalo has reported Russia triggered a couple.

If it was feasible I'd suggest three aspects. First a general toning down would be good - the era is not one of regular Great Power wars. Second if the aggresive state cannot gain anything (ie their is no European territory it can claim and no colonies it could take) then it really shouldn't start a war except for the next idea - and if it does end it as a white peace asap and no other terms or changes? Third make the likelihood of war between A and B key off the 'interests' and mutual relations. There are a lot of scripts designed to reflect growing tensions (or alliances) so this becomes dynamic and it also allows states to become opposed due to past wars etc - so it might be a reason not to cash in all your war score as bad relations raise the risk of the loser seeking revenge.

If feasible, this would create the sort of situation that Christophe was trying for with his diplomatic amendments - and all the new events derived from his work would help guide the AI, plus the scope for the player to create an alliance against them of states they have offended?

@Siegfroh

Interests etc are scriptable but the basic war like intent is in the .exe.

[ajnatalo]

In reply to Pocus, I have seen more than double the number of wars between great powers. I am in 1858 currently as Great Britain and currently Austria and Russia are ganging up on the Ottomans, Austria is occupying Parma and Tuscany, Prussia is picking on Belgium and Holstein, America is attacking Spain, and lastly Japan is nominally at war with China but doing nothing on that front. For most of those listed conflicts, its the second war within the decade and for Russia, Ottomans its more. The Russia/Ottoman issues may be caused by my scripting white peace between them to try to not have a broken Crimea event chain and secondly, to find a way to prevent those extra diplomatic treaties from being generated. I have achieved neither goal. The added diplomatic treaties create some weird scenarios, like Russians sneak attacking Ottomans in Medina. That would have been impossible without a supply and passage treaty. Another problem is that those treaties cannot be cancelled by the player. As Great Britain, I was supporting Belgium when Prussia went to war with them. I declared on Prussia, after making some gains i asked for peace, Prussia and Britain now each have a supply treaty and a passage treaty. When I hover the mouse over those items, it says can't be cancelled. I will have to script their removal and probably for all world powers every few years or so to try to keep things clean. To be clear, I said mutual passage and supply in my original post and that was accurate but not precise. What gets generated is each power gives supply rights to the other and each power gives passage rights to the other. The diplomatic item that is actually created is not the mutual passage/supply item but rather both a supply/passage right given and a supply/passage right received. These items cannot be cancelled, even after the peace treaty expires.

For what it is worth I was playing with the aggressiveness setting on normal and tried turning it down. But as Siegfroh pointed out neither of us know if that affects this part of the game. I adjusted it hoping that it would make the AI less hawkish. It so far has not.