Why are AI allies so useless?

[piemeister]

Prussia game. Declared on Poland and called in Denmark and Austria.

Denmark has PU over Norway and Sweden, and in this game, Austria got a PU over Hungary and Muscovy. We should have EASILY beaten the Poles and the Lithanians. But you know what happens?

Denmark keeps their entire army on the Scandanavian Peninsula. Sweden kept theres in Gotland, but eventually moved it to their Finnish provinces- so they had land access through Muscovy into Lithuania- and did NOTHING. And then AUSTRIA WHITE PEACED MONTHS INTO THE WAR!!!!

Why can they do that? I spent a really long time gathering favors for these dimwit stupid ♥♥♥♥ing AI to do absolutely nothing in a war that ended up costing me the run. Thanks for nothing dip♥♥♥♥♥. What a ♥♥♥♥ing joke. Why is the AI in this game so ♥♥♥♥ing terrible?

[Belgian Problem]

You relied on AI. You're fault.

Also, are you telling me you've never accepted a call to arms and decided to not contribute to perserve your forces, manpower and money to avoid the diplo-hit?

Sounds like you came here just to rant.

[Infinity]

Ai should be used to deter attacks and coalition, not really useful when attacking unless you command their armies by making them attach to your troops.
In general before declaring a war consider if you can beat their armies on your own, rely on your allies for sieges and distraction.

[brian_va]

Ive had a different experience since the last patch. started brandenburg today myself. poland called me into war with teutonic order who was allied with mecklenburg. i had set their 2 provinces as interest, and sieged them down right away. poland peaced them out and gave me both provinces in the peace deal. back to the teutonic order war, i had danzig and the other one required for prussia set as vital interest. sieged them both and the capital, poland took the southern chunk, gave me konigsburg or whatever its called, and left teutonic order as 3 provinces all divided by poland and myself.
later, i set an objective for brunswick in a war against pomerania and they did as i asked a couple times. ive never seen that before. it seems to me that the ai logic has been changed somewhat to not dissapoint the player and be more helpful. of course, it could all just be good luck as well.

[Yxklyx]

Save and reload. AI armies sometimes get stuck.

[SirTalkALot]

Just a note. If the subjects of Demark and Austra were disloyal they would only fight defensively.

[Wumpus, Bringer of Death]

I just use the AI allies to destroy or demoralize the enemy armies and siege provinces that I don’t want.

[the_panther]

Austria likely did not desire any Polish land, so they did not consider this their war. Furthermore, they knew they would get nothing but a token share of any gold you took if you won. The only reason they agreed to join the war was because they did not want to lose the alliance.

So, of course, they could not be expected to help you. In fact, if they got into an important war at the same time, like say defending HRE territory, they would white peace out of yours as soon as possible.

I call this intelligent (almost human like) AI programming. If I were Austria in this scenario, I would likely have done the exact same thing.

You did not say if Austria and Poland are rivals, which is the most important thing for an AI actively fighting an enemy in your war. Based on what you wrote, I would guess they are not rivals and Austria even hopes to eventually upgrade alllies by dumping you and changing to Poland/Commonwealth.


Also, Denmark tends to be a bad ally for many nations. Sweden is usually disloyal and does not fight. Denmark almost never marches through Scandanavia to fight a war, it is just too far for them.

You could have probably got Denmark to help you by getting military access through northern Germany. They WILL usually march through Germany to fight a war, but almost never through Russia or Novgorod.

Once you get a lot of game experience, you can begin to shrewdly guess which allies are the best to get for your nation and can be expected to help. With only 189 hours of game play, you are still very much a rookie.


My advice? Learn from your mistakes and do not blame the programming. Blame yourself only, since that is how to get better at this game.

[piemeister]

that makes more sense, thank you