How to Maximize the AI?

[Plow565]

In my current game as spain I'm dismayed to the AI acting foolishly, Austria building supply depost on sardinia. France having most of its armies in eastern germany DESPITE Ile de France being under siege and several austrian corps running amok in the south. While I know that no computer AI is gonna be brilliant, I was hoping for something a little better than this. I'm playing on Normal Difficulty with all the countries on normal strength. My question is, what can I do to maximize the 'intelligence of the ai.' Does changing the difficulty make them play smarter, or just give them more money? I hate making up for bad AI by giving it a huge budget, so I want to know the best way to improve the situation.

[malthaussen]

That's a good question, and one I'd like to see answered myself. How do the initial choices of strength and power effect the game? Apparently, different power levels at least add varying extra random units to a country. I'd like to know what other effects there are.

-- Mal

[carnifex]

do a search for "difficulty" - you will see lots of speculation and very few actual hard answers

for example, I've posted several times asking for a breakdown of what the difficulty levels do - at which level does the AI get combat bonuses and what are they - but this seems to be some kind of secret i suppose

[malthaussen]

I've run across another strange aspect of the AI in the test I'm running now. I finally brushed up against the Froggies, and I see their armies all contain nothing but infantry and cavalry. This has me open-mouthed in astonishment. A French army without artillery? That's like a British army without Irishmen!

-- Mal

[Russian Guard]

That's really odd - I rarely (well never, actually) play the Frogs and so run up against them rather often [:'(]

It has been my experience that they almost always have ghastly amounts of Artillery present...

[malthaussen]

Must've been a fluke. I started another test, and this time they have plenty of guns. Well, they did until I captured them.

-- Mal