Matrix Games Forums

I have noticed that the coalition against the leading player sometimes forms very quickly and sometimes when the leader only has a very small glory lead.

An example is the recent 1792 game that I am playing as France. I have a lead of maybe 20 to 30 glory and it is 1796 and I am fighting all of Europe (and getting swarmed under). I selected a 23 year game with highest glory being the winner. It seems that with that much time and that little of a lead the coalition should not be formed as multiple powers could easily surpass me in the 19 odd years that are remaining.

I would ask the designers to consider adding logic to check the amount of time remaing, the glory point victory conditions and the amount of the players lead when considering the impacts on relations and declarations of war. Some type of a weighted scale would seem appropriate to prevent the swarm the leader coalition from forming when the lead is minor and the time left is significant.

As a historical refernce, the major coalition of all the major powers (except Turkey) against France did not occur until 1813

The section of code that determines this is affectionately known as the "BadBoy" code, and it has been tweaked several times. It is NOT just based on current glory score.

Badboy code has to do with # of conquered provinces, glory score, time of the game, and relative power considerations. Anybody can qualify for the badboy - and I have done so with each country. A player can't be the badboy in games on the lowest 2 difficulty levels.

Basically, the AI decided that if they didn't stop you now, they wouldn't be able to later... And it was probably a pretty good decision.

Misc Notes:

• Notice that you can trigger BadBoy (and see the "All of Europe is alarmed" message) and then later the alarm stops - or switches to someone else. In a long game, Europe may become alarmed at several different players at several different times.
• Countries are less likely to surrender to the BadBoy.
• Making protectorates might postpone being declared the BadBoy.
• How do I minimize the effect of BadBoy? - When you are the BadBoy, some countries CAN'T hurt you (due to formal peace, or being at war with someone you are at war with), and others may choose not to (allies with either really good relationships, or too little military power). Try to keep the other countries at war with one another, so only one side of the wars can attack you at a time: if you get all of Europe attacking you, things can be difficult.

as the man says, use the game to work for you

early in the game make friends ! (can be HARD to do)

but stuff like I will not attack you for 5 years, if you do not attack me for 3 years seems to work

eary on, you can get a lot of other nations to DOW on others, by offering them money

plus work the Surrenders to you advantage

make a nation tear down some of there walls, does wonders for Armies marching though !

somebody else, skuttle some ships

a trick, you are at peace for 18 months after a war with that nation, and them with you, make them DOW war on somebody 15 or months down the road (try to make sure they are not allied with them first

Lock some one into a long term tready, and then trade with them, they will start to like you very much

the Diplo side of the game can be very strong

I have had some fancy ones

get England and Sweden to DOW on Prussia, then next month, get Spain and Turkey to DOW on Aus, then next month get Russia to DOW on Sweden and Turkey, then get Spain to DOW on England

and then watch everyone go crazy (1792)

of course, at times it also ties you up pretty good, but at times you want to be tied up (oh wait, that is another forum)

The problem I run into is that I consider the AI not overly intelligent on some of its treaty decisions and have tried not to game the system to obtain treaties that I don't think a normal human player would agree to. As a result I usually don't have a web of treaties and wars to stop the mass attack kill the glory leader syndrome. I was hoping for an ability to create something similar to what happened historically, where France rose in power all the way from 1792 to 1812 with a few intermittent periods of peace for consolidation (except for the Spainish campaign). The hope was consideration might be given to how much time is left in the game as a variable in the decision routine for attacking the leading player.

I guess I will try more diplomacy actions and keep the choices to what I think are more reasonable options for the AI to accept.

yes lol I almost always have a web of secret and public treaties, bribes, marriages (bordering on incest), and the accompanying nearly unreadable diplomacy advisor. It really gets confusing, but I love it![:'(]

The hope was consideration might be given to how much time is left in the game as a variable in the decision routine for attacking the leading player.

I think what you are saying is that you don't think that particular factor is weighted heavily enough. (Since I told you it IS a factor in the decision.)

Right?

ORIGINAL: Windfire
peace for consolidation (except for the Spainish campaign). The hope was consideration might be given to how much time is left in the game as a variable in the decision routine for attacking the leading player.

Time remaining or glory remaining already has a large effect on the chances of attacking the lead player. In order for an AI coalition to form against a human player who is not yet 50% finished with the game (either in terms of score or time limit) that human player must also have conquered many provinces. I'll look over the routines again and see if there's a way I can tweak the time limit/glory limit factor.

BTW, The routines were intended to strongly encourage players to pay attention to diplomacy, so that they couldn't on average just strong-arm their way into victory.

So far the balance seems fine. As Turkey (the #1 player), I have been fighting a coalition of all of the other players for over 7 years. And every battle I win only makes it worse. I have been purely defensive, unable to lauch an effective counterstrike. Austria is the only nation I have a chance of getting to surrender to me. Recently, diplomatic efforts and bribes have managed to pry Britain and Russia out of the alliance and I "helped" along a war between the other nations that crushed Sweden and crippled Prussia.

And that is probably as it should be. If you read the history of the times, the Great Powers shifted alliances quickly upon perceived threats. And France had to fight all of them together on several occasions. Only French diplomacy mitigated the opposition.

If you, as a great power or The Great Power feel persecuted....well then, Good. You probably should be persecuted, as well as shot at and reviled. Welcome to the Big League.

I flagged it as an issue as the game started in 1792 and I set it to go all the way to 1815. I set the victory condition to highest glory score. The current year is 1796 and I just recently defeated Austria from the start of the game war and I am now fighting 4 of the major powers as they do not like me. The three that I am not at war with don't like me much either. I have only conquered the two provinces that I took from Austria. I have 245 glory to the next players tally of 207. The one potential contributor is that I am trying the game on the Napoleon level of difficulty.

It still seems odd from a game perspective and a historical perspective to have a coalition form this soon.

Windfire, I do agree that the situation you describe doesn't sound like they should have ganged up yet. Let's give Eric a chance to review the code and see if it can be tweaked down a little.