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[Mictlantecuhtli]

Except the AI in EU4 is blatantly unable to handle the simple mechanics of the game and therefore ignores most/all maluses the PC would get.

One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits, always having gold and monarch jedi points on demand.. A complete lack of usage of the trade system, as well.

Lets not forget the ability to completely ignore casus bellis with impunity and still get an entire group of their not-friends-but-allied-allies to gang up on you because you're the player. Meanwhile allies never join in on your wars despite the best of CBs because their aggression AI mechanics are set to suicidal.

No, the AI in EU4 is not broken, it simply doesn't exist and the cheating and ignoring of mechanics the player is otherwise forced to slog through makes this blatantly obvious that they don't know how to make an AI to play their own simple game.

[MoLAoS]

EU4 is not simple though. Having done work programming AI for various hobby games, making clever AI is not easy. A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years. How is a company supposed to compete with that writing AI from scratch when the AI can't afford to use more than 40%, if that, of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ram? Hell 90%-99% of humanity is too stupid to challenge me in a strategy game much less a computer.

[a1s]

the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ram

It's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.

A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.

The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)

[Karlito]

One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits

The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.

[chaoticag]

the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ram

It's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.

A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.

The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)

Well, chess has had about 30 years of programming behind it. Meanwhile, a decently good Go player can run laps around the best Go playing algorithms. Not all AIs are made equal, and past a certain point, you need to decide whether a game will ship with an advanced AI enough to challenge a player on their own merits, or well, the game coming out sometime this decade.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits

The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.

They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.

[a1s]

A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.

The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)

Well, chess has had about 30 years of programming behind it. Meanwhile, a decently good Go player can run laps around the best Go playing algorithms. Not all AIs are made equal, and past a certain point, you need to decide whether a game will ship with an advanced AI enough to challenge a player on their own merits, or well, the game coming out sometime this decade.

That's where the modding community comes in- the unspoken agreement between paradox and it's fanbase is that they give us an engine with a basic game running on it and we (well they, I never wrote a mod in my life) make a real game out of it.

As for AIs being born unequal, that is quite true. For example an AI will have a problem with even kindergarten level lateral thinking problems (you know, like 'why did the tycoon always go the the 4th floor') despite being better at the superficially similar 20-questions.

[MoLAoS]

the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ram

It's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.

A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.

The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)

True Chess computers are worth quite a lot. But Chess is an optimal game for a computer. Deterministic, simplistic, limited, two player. It's also been the focus of more money and massively high IQ people than Paradox will ever see in the entire lifetime of their company across all of their products.

It is true that I have significant trouble defeating the level 10 version of Chess Titans. But then I haven't played Chess actively since long before I downloaded it and I didn't spend any time at all memorizing game openings in all my time playing Chess.

[EnigmaticHat]

A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.

The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)

Computers are stupid.  A computer cannot "think".  It doesn't play chess in the sense that humans do, it just plays through thousands of possible moves and then judges the outcomes based on values a human set.  The only reason it works AT ALL is because Chess is an extremely simplified, predictable version of combat.  Also, chess is the same every time, which means a computer doesn't need to be adaptive to win.

The other cheat that computers commonly use is superior inputs.  A human has to order its fingers to press keys, but a computer can be plugged straight into a video game and enter inputs impossibly fast with complete precision.  They also typically can read the state of the game directly rather than relying on a single sequence of images and some sound the way humans do.  This is why aimbots work so well.

There are many, many things that modern computers are just flat incapable of doing, even if you restrict yourself to video games.  They can not effectively deal with simple unknown qualities, which is why most AIs will have FoW disabled and most games known for having good AIs that don't cheat will provide a lot of information to both humans and the AI (such as the relative military strength of countries in EU, not that its known for having particularly good AI).  Computers also cannot adapt their strategies in a non-scripted manner, which is why the AI will generally fail at any situation the developers didn't anticipate, even if a human would adapt in seconds.  They also stink at positional play.  Someone built a chess-like game, which I wish I could link you to but I don't remember what it was, but it was designed so computers couldn't play it because of the positional play involved.  It has a similar number of pieces and board size, but (back when I looked it up) computers could not beat skilled humans at it, even though kindergartners can learn to play it.  IIRC it was designed by someone who built a  chess computer, as a challenge for people who made chess computers.

I could go on.  Computers either suck or cheat at 99% of games ever made.

[chaoticag]

That's where the modding community comes in- the unspoken agreement between paradox and it's fanbase is that they give us an engine with a basic game running on it and we (well they, I never wrote a mod in my life) make a real game out of it.

Definitely, though the AI is adequate for my wants, as I tend to play the games pretty casually. Not that I don't like the games or anything, but until CKII it was hard for me to break into the games what with all that goes on without you knowing it. Still, the modding community does pump out some impressive things, and I can respect that.

But yeah, not expecting to see an AI play the game well to be honest, though I have been suprised by things such as the gal civ AI, so who knows.

[a1s]

The other cheat that computers commonly use is superior inputs.  A human has to order its fingers to press keys, but a computer can be plugged straight into a video game and enter inputs impossibly fast with complete precision.  They also typically can read the state of the game directly rather than relying on a single sequence of images and some sound the way humans do.  This is why aimbots work so well.

You say that like it's a bad thing. A computer is designed to 'work' a set of data really quickly and precisely, than send the solution (this could be an answer to a question like "where to send the forces", or it could be a literal firing solution) down the pipes as fast as possible. It's like saying humans cheat at bowling because they can use fingers to guide the ball, instead of having to push the ball with their heads.

There are many, many things that modern computers are just flat incapable of doing, even if you restrict yourself to video games.  They can not effectively deal with simple unknown qualities, which is why most AIs will have FoW disabled and most games known for having good AIs that don't cheat will provide a lot of information to both humans and the AI.

Actually estimating army strength based on indirect factors (let's say a countries population and the size of their GDP, but not how much people they draft, guns they buy and new guns they research) would be an AI's strong suit. Of course if you knew how an AI works, you could fool it into thinking whatever you wanted, but that will happen every time someone finds out your methodology (which, yes, the AI can't change on the fly, except to go to a pre-made backup). Here's a game which neatly illutrates the concept.

Someone built a chess-like game, which I wish I could link you to but I don't remember what it was, but it was designed so computers couldn't play it because of the positional play involved.  It has a similar number of pieces and board size, but (back when I looked it up) computers could not beat skilled humans at it, even though kindergartners can learn to play it.  IIRC it was designed by someone who built a  chess computer, as a challenge for people who made chess computers.

Was it Arimaa?

[fivex]

One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits

The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.

They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.

I've never seen this happen.

[EnigmaticHat]

Was it Arimaa?

Oh wow, there was no way I was ever going to guess that name.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits

The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.

They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.

I've never seen this happen.

..... You must not have played much. The AI breaks truces all the time, I'd call it near-constant but in reality its mostly directed towards the player due to the AI not knowing how to play the game and therefore suicide attacking the PC.

I've had multiple cases of bordering countries breaking truces a year after a peace agreement, even declaring wars outright without a CB and still getting full support from allies, because the AI literally gets no penalty from doing so. Why? It doesn't know how to deal with the simple mechanic of stability hits.

With all this chess talk, I'll give a comparison: If chess were a Paradox game, the AI would know how to move the pieces [the simple basic premise of running the game -although the economic and stability functions are turned off for the most part-] but not how to utilize the back row of units [the diplomacy, war nuances aside from outright suicide wars/steamrolls, trading mechanics], the complexities are lost entirely on the computer and it gets curb-stomped because it only knows how to utilize the pawns on the gameboard in a limited scope.


Some people enjoy this.

Some people look at the board and say there's a complete game. I agree, EU4 is a complete game with neat mechanics.

Yet, it doesn't matter if what you're competing against doesn't know how to use half the pieces.

[This analogy leaves out the fact that Paradox AIs blatantly ignore the maluses and penalties incurred on the player for making basic gameplay decisions. Modding cannot fix this entirely, unfortunately.]

[fivex]

What settings  are you using? No handicaps and no lucky nations makes the ai cheat very little. Hard AI makes the AI specifically target you.