Aggressive AI and other musings

[George Geczy]

Also will Ruges Mod ever be a scenario for SRU?

I would like to see some of the Mods be offered as a scenario, however we need to do a couple of things first. I also need to find out what the status is of different mods, and the interest of the modders to be included in base game

As well, I'm hoping that by fall we'll have some more support in the engine for mods, and also find out from our Modders if they have any interest in Steam Workshop support. But, that's all a slightly different topic than the one at hand.

[BlackSoulReaper]

"More Random" and 'More AntiHuman' is simply bad practice imo. If you want super random and super anti human you can easily use the random war cheat code. I really think that instead of that just more actions to push an AI into war based on x variables. (Like how I mentioned spheres members attacking rival sphere members/negative diplomatic actions. ).

[number47]

I just tried out the new update and on high volatility I had cb of 44% against North Korea...and that's it, 0% on any other country in the world. What's even more strange, my provocation was 0% against all the countries in the world meaning not a single country had any cb to attack me. I suspect the same is no matter what country you take and that migh be the reason why there are no wars in modern maps. I played on those settings for a year and the only war was the one I started to colonize Liberia. Oh, I must not forget, my DOW on Liberia against whom I had 70% CB made no change in how world felt about me...only a minor increase (maybe 20-30%) in provocation in 3-4 countries. If this is not WAD, than maybe you should look at it more closely.

I believe there are still some issues to be dealt with the current system before implementing new stuff...I spy with my little eye something starting with R..............relations?

[Juergen]

A more challenging AI is,in principle, a good idea.
Having the AI "ganging up" up on a human player because hes human is a bit of a hack of course. But the goal is of course to have an enjoyable and challenging game. Being allowed to turtle forever without any competition isnt very intersting.

And unless Im overlooking a different option taking land away from the players is the only direct way to offer competition .
Any plans to bring embargos back ?
Can the AI use spys, fund insurgencies effectively ?

Different levels of aggressiveness would be ideal:
Level 1 ) Being uncooperative, but neutral
2 ) Supporting the players enemies (selling vehicles, tech)
3) Actively defending the players enemies AKA "proxy wars"
4) Directly fighting the player with conventional means
5) Assisting said attacks with occasional nuke strikes
6) The big red button (especially now that everyone has it)



What I dont quite understand yet in how far this aggressive behaviour is "worked into the map" or a lobby option.
If it can be simple switched off completely there is no argument against it.

[ricey]

A more challenging AI is,in principle, a good idea.
Having the AI "ganging up" up on a human player because hes human is a bit of a hack of course. But the goal is of course to have an enjoyable and challenging game. Being allowed to turtle forever without any competition isnt very intersting.

And unless Im overlooking a different option taking land away from the players is the only direct way to offer competition .
Any plans to bring embargos back ?
Can the AI use spys, fund insurgencies effectively ?

Different levels of aggressiveness would be ideal:
Level 1 ) Being uncooperative, but neutral
2 ) Supporting the players enemies (selling vehicles, tech)
3) Actively defending the players enemies AKA "proxy wars"
4) Directly fighting the player with conventional means
5) Assisting said attacks with occasional nuke strikes
6) The big red button (especially now that everyone has it)



What I dont quite understand yet in how far this aggressive behaviour is "worked into the map" or a lobby option.
If it can be simple switched off completely there is no argument against it.

+1

[kkania]

A concern here is that countries should have a unique flavor, which influences their goals and behaviors. Some of this is achieved - at least at the beginning of a game - by different OOB's, research done and economical capabilities, but it still devolves at a certain point into "rolling through country #34, #62, #78". Having everyone gang up on you results in a generic red vs. blue scenario. However, if countries start to act upon their goals - say, secure coal supplies from neighbors - it would be impossible to anticipate with the current UI. Games like EU do this via the core system and scripted events, and SR could use its underutilized messages framework I guess. I'd love to see the solution being something more than param value tweeting - easier said than done, I know!

[BlackSoulReaper]

A more challenging AI is,in principle, a good idea.
Having the AI "ganging up" up on a human player because hes human is a bit of a hack of course. But the goal is of course to have an enjoyable and challenging game. Being allowed to turtle forever without any competition isnt very intersting.

And unless Im overlooking a different option taking land away from the players is the only direct way to offer competition .
Any plans to bring embargos back ?
Can the AI use spys, fund insurgencies effectively ?

Different levels of aggressiveness would be ideal:
Level 1 ) Being uncooperative, but neutral
2 ) Supporting the players enemies (selling vehicles, tech)
3) Actively defending the players enemies AKA "proxy wars"
4) Directly fighting the player with conventional means
5) Assisting said attacks with occasional nuke strikes
6) The big red button (especially now that everyone has it)



What I dont quite understand yet in how far this aggressive behaviour is "worked into the map" or a lobby option.
If it can be simple switched off completely there is no argument against it.

The levels of aggression are what we need of nice fluid diplomacy/war escalation. Instead of random declarations of war.

[YoMomma]

All i can add AI should use "entrench".

For example Syria declare war on Turkey. They should protect their main crossings south, cause they should expect retaliation.
Not alot of troops just few entreched arty and light infantry should do the job for the ai to react a little better.

This is especially needed by countries like China and Russia so the whole country isnt left up for pickings.

Would be real cool if special forces did this and ai builds leg infantry in modern campaigns too. Leg infantry like speznatz and rangers are still pretty popular along their militairy.

What also helps if ai build troops in peace time. It doesnt do that since last patch....or well hardly. Most AI regions are left with tons of patrol boats, arty, AA, etc. but no tanks or infantry 1 year in imo.

[nicholas70]

I just tried out the new update and on high volatility I had cb of 44% against North Korea...and that's it, 0% on any other country in the world. What's even more strange, my provocation was 0% against all the countries in the world meaning not a single country had any cb to attack me. I suspect the same is no matter what country you take and that migh be the reason why there are no wars in modern maps. I played on those settings for a year and the only war was the one I started to colonize Liberia. Oh, I must not forget, my DOW on Liberia against whom I had 70% CB made no change in how world felt about me...only a minor increase (maybe 20-30%) in provocation in 3-4 countries. If this is not WAD, than maybe you should look at it more closely.

I believe there are still some issues to be dealt with the current system before implementing new stuff...I spy with my little eye something starting with R..............relations?

I've noticed something similar with regard to CB, and it isn't just on the modern maps but all eras just not to the same extent. One thing I've noticed is, absent a few exceptions, it seems CB tends to decrease over time. The only time this doesn't seem to hold true is when there are constant wars, and even then it seems rare that unscripted wars will start.(I'm thinking CW here) I played as NK for 3+ years in CW with max hot relations and military setting at hard, and even after taking over 4 or 5 countries NATO never declared war. I finally just quit because having all NATO countries having max CB and provocation against me and not reacting in any way to my aggressions was just lame. I figured the AI needed to react in some way to what I was doing, but allies and enemies alike did absolutely nothing to indicate they were even alive and not just having their ministers run things for them while they were afk. I'm playing another CW game now that the games been patched again and hopefully things will be different. I suppose one solution to these issues is have CB level(and relations in general) remain static absent any action between the impacted parties, and then have the AI be essentially forced to declare war after a certain amount of time when it's relations with another country are in the dumps. (I'm thinking max CB, high provocation, and really low diplo and civil relations for 1+ year = 50% chance of war each year that passes) Hopefully such a change would help things even though I did try forcing a few wars during my NK game and even when key AI players were at war they didn't act at all like they were.

[Infamousjoe]

I have just registered but have put nearly 700 hours in play time in the game (though this may be considered a short timer for many of you). I have been reading these boards for a while but never felt the need to comment on anything, until this subject arose.

Conceptually this is my favorite game of all time but unfortunately 30+ hours of play can leave you with a somewhat empty feeling as the AI does not seem to act in a way that causes you to become immersed in the world.

Therefore here are a few recommendations which I believe would drastically improve game play.
1. More action - Cause the AI to gang up on the player or any nation which is starting wars with a low Treaty Integrity (which should be caused by DOW w/lack of CB). The real world does not tolerate mad men as can be seen throughout history, though in some cases the madman is powerful enough to cause some to hesitate.
2. End endless wars- Cause DAR to decrease with every passing year of an ongoing war (both Player and AI) and cause the AI to have a min DAR before it begins to seek peace and a lower level where the AI aggressively seeks peace. This would emulate real life where long wars begin to lose public support. There are not many modern wars which have lasted more than 10+ years.
3. More Espionage Options - Add the ability for your spy sabotage mission to frame another nation causing CB between those nations if successful. This would allow you instigate proxy wars you want to fight in. Lots of real world examples.
4. Open Proxy Wars- Add a diplomatic option were you can request a country to DOW another country in exchange for money, materials or treaties with perhaps a min CB requirement . This would allow you to start proxy wars. Lots of real world examples
5. More Chaos – Make increased hot relations increase the negative relations while having no effect on the positive relations.
Though there other changes I would love to see these are the top. I freely admit I have no programing experience and therefore have no idea the difficulty involved.

As a side note I realize that you are a small studio where many programmers seem to have other jobs and I really do appreciate the effort you and your team have put in. I also realize new revenue is only generated by new game purchases which will slow as the product ages. I would be willing to make donations, if there was a way to do so in order to help finance the ongoing updates.

Thank you for such a great game.

P.S. I play CW mostly and the French routing into Russia needs to be addressed.

[ZEvans96]

I love Infamousjoe's suggestion on how to deal with endless ai wars. Please make it happen! lol

[Kristijonas]

I love Infamousjoe's suggestion on how to deal with endless ai wars. Please make it happen! lol

Yes, great suggestion. It would not be ideal, but atleast it would be SOME way to stop endless wars.
I also agree about chaos - this game really needs it...

[nicholas70]

I have just registered but have put nearly 700 hours in play time in the game (though this may be considered a short timer for many of you). I have been reading these boards for a while but never felt the need to comment on anything, until this subject arose.

Conceptually this is my favorite game of all time but unfortunately 30+ hours of play can leave you with a somewhat empty feeling as the AI does not seem to act in a way that causes you to become immersed in the world.

Therefore here are a few recommendations which I believe would drastically improve game play.
2. End endless wars- Cause DAR to decrease with every passing year of an ongoing war (both Player and AI) and cause the AI to have a min DAR before it begins to seek peace and a lower level where the AI aggressively seeks peace. This would emulate real life where long wars begin to lose public support. There are not many modern wars which have lasted more than 10+ years.


P.S. I play CW mostly and the French routing into Russia needs to be addressed.

I do agree that the way endless war occur in game is an issue, but I'm not sure that I agree entirely with your proposed fix. I've noticed many of the wars that seem to fall into this area are between powers that are unable to effectively engage in war in the first place. I'm thinking of a game I'm playing were the USSR declared war on Spain.(shocking, the CW actually going hot) At the time of the war declaration the USSR had no effective way to invade Spain or really gain anything by declaring war making the declaration of war flawed from the start. Absent the USSR declaring war on the rest of Europe and working its way over there what's the point? I mean the USSR isn't even producing nukes(bizarre), so the damage it could do from afar is very limited. In fact the only thing I could think of that the USSR gains from the war is war drives up the consumption and price of military goods globally of which it is one of the leading producers. This brings me to another reason making wars easy to stop could cause issues. If I player wants to make tons of money I could simply stock pile vast amounts of mil goods and then after years of stock piling declare war on a few countries just to drive up the value of my holdings, knowing that within a few years the AI will sue for peace to stop an endless war. I of course could continue to do this a couple of times per decade in game and make some insane profits.

The other cause of endless wars seems to be caused by extreme resource shortages which though they still appear to happen are not quite as bad as they used to be. Most of these wars will end at some point, and perhaps the best way to deal with these is to have the side that is slowly losing either surrender outright or its government simply being overthrown resulting in at least some level of peace. Another possible option would be to allow for a ceasefire between warring parties which wouldn't end the war but at least temporarily suspend hostilities.

[Zuikaku]

Endless wars are serious issue. I see some of the players prefers it that way. some even try to explain that if wars are not endless and Ai is more prone of making peace, that could be exploited by players. I have the problem to take "hey, that can be exploited" as a valid argument. Just in case you didn't noticed - everything can be exploited by the player, so maybe we better all uninstall the game to avoid this And endless wars can be exploited too. Look at the shape of the AI regions that are fighting endless wars. Stripped of units, stripped of resources, stripped of cash - an easy prey for any player who want to exploit the situation and even easy prey for other AI rulers. There is no single historical or gameplay argument not to correct AI obsession with endless wars in this game! Endless wars are game killers!

possible solutions:

- AI should refrain itself from declaring wars on non-neighbouring regions or overseas regions.

- AI should refrain itself from declaring "stupid wars" (Chile declares war on Italy)

- AI should be less prone to make multiple and conflicting alliances (alllied with Germany, UK, France and USSR at the same time), but it should be more prone to honour alliances it make.

- at any time there should be a random chance that AI regions will make peace. these random checks should be done every month.

- AI regions should more often offer peace, especially when losing territory badly, when low in units, low in cash or low in resources.

- low DAR should increase AIs willingness to offer or accept peace.

- AI ruler without allies should be more prone to make peace

- small AI regions or AI regions fighting multiple regions or more powerfull regions should offer peace more often and bee more interested in making peace.

[Infamousjoe]

I do agree that the way endless war occur in game is an issue, but I'm not sure that I agree entirely with your proposed fix. I've noticed many of the wars that seem to fall into this area are between powers that are unable to effectively engage in war in the first place. I'm thinking of a game I'm playing were the USSR declared war on Spain.(shocking, the CW actually going hot) At the time of the war declaration the USSR had no effective way to invade Spain or really gain anything by declaring war making the declaration of war flawed from the start. Absent the USSR declaring war on the rest of Europe and working its way over there what's the point? I mean the USSR isn't even producing nukes(bizarre), so the damage it could do from afar is very limited. In fact the only thing I could think of that the USSR gains from the war is war drives up the consumption and price of military goods globally of which it is one of the leading producers. This brings me to another reason making wars easy to stop could cause issues. If I player wants to make tons of money I could simply stock pile vast amounts of mil goods and then after years of stock piling declare war on a few countries just to drive up the value of my holdings, knowing that within a few years the AI will sue for peace to stop an endless war. I of course could continue to do this a couple of times per decade in game and make some insane profits.

The other cause of endless wars seems to be caused by extreme resource shortages which though they still appear to happen are not quite as bad as they used to be. Most of these wars will end at some point, and perhaps the best way to deal with these is to have the side that is slowly losing either surrender outright or its government simply being overthrown resulting in at least some level of peace. Another possible option would be to allow for a ceasefire between warring parties which wouldn't end the war but at least temporarily suspend hostilities.

While I agree that this method of ending wars could be exploited, I am not sure about the long term effectiveness of that exploit.
1. The player would also be suffering DAR penalties which in theory should have some impact to his/her economy.
2. If the player didn’t have adequate CB to DOW another country, let alone multiply countries, for the purposes of making money when the AI sues for peace then the player may be subject to “Dog pile on the rabbit” by the other countries. Assuming that change was made in the AI behavior.

- AI should refrain itself from declaring wars on non-neighbouring regions or overseas regions.

- AI should refrain itself from declaring "stupid wars" (Chile declares war on Italy)

I don’t have an issue with the AI starting these type of wars as long as it then makes effort to prosecute the war. If the 2 countries are land locked from each other then the AI tries to make the needed land, sea, and air alliances need to engage.
If the AI is unsuccessful then in time it offers peace.

- at any time there should be a random chance that AI regions will make peace. these random checks should be done every month.

- AI regions should more often offer peace, especially when losing territory badly, when low in units, low in cash or low in resources.

- low DAR should increase AIs willingness to offer or accept peace.

- AI ruler without allies should be more prone to make peace

- small AI regions or AI regions fighting multiple regions or more powerfull regions should offer peace more often and bee more interested in making peace.

While not a fan of random peace, as it can make the game disjointed if a county is making great progress in a war then for no reason offers peace, I fully agree with the other recommendations.