Matrix Games Forums

Hi

I'm enjoying my first ever foray into Napoleonic warfare with EiA.

However, playing against the AI I realised that what unfolded was nothing like the Napoleonic Wars at all. The Victory Conditions do not seem to give historical objectives guiding nations towards something like a strategy that may have pertained in reality. All that happens is simply governed by a relatively random scramble for victory points. Alliances seemed to last forever and all invasions were little local affairs. France never ventured into Spain and never got further then Munster! Austria won by being permanently at war with France and allied with Prussia, meanwhile nibbling away in Italy and the fringes of Turkey.

Now, I realise this is all faithful to the original board game (which I never played) and is very much like a more detailed version of Diplomacy set in the Napoleonic era, but has anyone managed to coerce nations to follow something resembling an historical strategy? Not to force them but to gently guide them in that direction, it being in the national interest historically.

Overall, there seemed to be no implementation of Napoleon's 'Continental System' to prevent British trade, which I believe was one of (just one of) the major driving forces behind these wars.

Yeah, it's pretty random. I did make some changes for v1.21 to make the AI more "historical" at higher difficulty settings of medium and hard, but that's basically enhancing the Natural Alliance Table to make the AI more friendly/hostile as appropriate.

Once I get v1.23 out with bug fixes for loaned corps/fleets, I would like to return to AI enhancements to improve AI allied operations. And modifiers for British trade can be worked in. And other stuff.

But... Without hardwiring certain historical constraints and restrictions into the code, it's unlikely to ever be historically realistic. Certainly not as a single player versus 6 AI opponents. My goal is to at least make the AI competent and challenging enough to be a decent substitute as needed for multiplayer games. Spain or Turkey for example, and maybe Prussia, so smaller PBEM groups of 4-5 can play a faster game and still enjoy a few surprises.

Thanks, pzgndr, that's interesting.

I wouldn't particularly want the AI (or human players for that matter) to be forced into essentially following a scripted plan!

What would be nice, in an entirely re-vamped EiA, or more accurately in a new game based on the EiA idea, would be for the major nation states to have asymmetric objectives that pertained to the actual historical situation. Then players, AI or human, would be influenced to seek those objectives but not forced to do so.

For instance, France would be seeking to extend its frontier eastwards into specific regions, and a 'major victory' would be to actually annex the Low Countries entirely. Language would be important too. Coalescing all francophone regions into one greater France should be an objective.

Well. I think some can be modded.

AI relations in tables could be enforced. Actually there is some randomness.
Other weak point is that AI initial placement ignores future alliances. If you are a human player playing france it usually means Prussia Crushed no matter what IA does.

Same for relations with minors.

There are a lot of misconcepts in minors viewed in historical way. For example Ottoman Empire is not need to be done. Ottoman Empire was already formed and all northern Africa Minors (except morocco) should be ottoman provinces.

Game engine does not allow to change already formed kingdoms in play. For example, poland or Sweden or C of the Rhine cannot be resized, and things like that