Wow, AI are really unfair with coalitions....

[DS]

Alright. So I'm playing a relatively peaceful game. I'm not smashing faces at every opportunity. Most of the time I've been protecting my allies in defensive wars and teching and annexing vassals. Meanwhile, the Ottomans have been warmongering all game; if it wasn't for me, they would probably have most of Eastern Europe and all of the Middle East by now. I formed a coalition against them, and a couple smaller nations have joined and left over time, but for the most part, the coalition wasn't really much of a threat to him, other than myself.

A bit later in the game, Bohemia starts conquering massive amounts of territory from Ukraine. I think he took like 6 provinces in a peace deal, and this was only shortly after taking 5 more a few years ago. Not one person is in a coalition against Bohemia.

Then the Ottomans win a war with Georgia and take like 6 more provinces from them, and the way they took provinces happened to cut off one of my own, so I decided to go to war with the Ottomans, and took 4 provinces, so I could ensure that all of my territories weren't cut off. This is quite literally the first time I've taken land in a peace deal in over 100 years, because I've been focusing a hell of a lot on Westernizing and catching up on tech, and I didn't really want to fight wars with Bohemia when he had a massive tech advantage. At any rate, after taking those 4 provinces, one of my allies broke alliance, and 6 people, including Bohemia and the Ottomans, have formed a coalition against me. Ridiculous! I'm not even being aggressive! I wouldn't be so mad if everyone else wasn't completely ignoring Bohemia while they conquer half the map.

Update: Ukraine (my former ally who broke alliance with me) joined the coalition against me. As if _I_ am worse than Bohemia, who raped half his land. My god.

[Brennus]

Did you broke a Truce or something, allies usally don't break up with you if you haven't done something nasty. Also the overexpensation plays a big role in how you are seen by the other nations, and border's troubles too. Try to see why they hate you so much in their diplomatic screen. Also you might want to become papal controler or whatever it is called in english and also defender of Faith if you're the spearhead in the fight against the Ottomans. Maybe call for a crusade and more will join your side. Hope it helps? I'm a new player so I don't know much.

[archangelita]

problem is the AI could be designed to maybe consider the player a bigger target for any action, just to keep you focused on the game :p

[Free Luigi M.]

It's just how aggressive expansion works. Your neighbours will hate you if you take more than 2 medium provinces. The more your neighbours, the more you have to watch out. Being an inland power you have to be extra careful. Lay low for a while and those nations should start leaving the coalition against you.

[DS]

What you guys are saying makes perfect sense. They SHOULD hate me. I mean, I did aggressively take 4 provinces. What I'm pissed about, though, is that the Ottomans and Bohemia, especially Bohemia, are WAY WORSE than I am, but nobody seems to care.

[DS]

Originally posted by archangelita:

problem is the AI could be designed to maybe consider the player a bigger target for any action, just to keep you focused on the game :p

Probably.

[archangelita]

maybe you conquered much better lands, and the enemies just occupied some 1 base tax useless area....

[Snakejuice]

Originally posted by archangelita:

problem is the AI could be designed to maybe consider the player a bigger target for any action, just to keep you focused on the game :p

When you start a new game you can choose an option exactly like this, but it's not enabled by default.

[Hewlett]

Originally posted by DS:

What you guys are saying makes perfect sense. They SHOULD hate me. I mean, I did aggressively take 4 provinces. What I'm pissed about, though, is that the Ottomans and Bohemia, especially Bohemia, are WAY WORSE than I am, but nobody seems to care.

Bohemia is a part of the Holy Roman Empire, basically the Emperor, which in this case is Austria wouldn't even care. They have probably formed a coalition against Bohemia already but lost. Most of the time Bohemia would ally it self to the Northern Europeans such as Denmark and it makes big difference.

Sometimes Austria is also too tired (War Exhaustion) from fighting multiple wars with little rest each time.

Also they might have a Conquest Casus Belli against those provinces, which means it won't even raise the aggressive expansion percentage that much. If it's a Re-Conquest Casus Belli, then it won't even raise the aggressive expansion percentage.

On the other hand Ottomans are pretty strong and they already hate you for having a different religion.

Make sure to also keep your relationship high with other countries. I mean those next to you already hate you a little bit and taking 4 provinces at once can take you to -60 or -100 relationship penalty. If your relationship with other nations is greater than -100 then they are more likely to form or join a coalition against you.

I think too as archangelita mentioned that AIs tend to focus more to the players decision and then decide what to do from there. Take France for example, they take advantage of your low manpower count and always try to take over Provence and Burgundy, every game they always get a coalition against them. This is the same for the Ottomans and even Burgundy.

EDIT: If you don't have any Casus Belli on those lands that you've taken then yes, your aggressive expansion metre will rocket sky high. xD

[Talonmaster]

The A.I. is still ♥♥♥♥. They need to cheat like this to even stand a chance in most cases.

[DS]

Those are... good points theone4224. I guess I'll have to consider that in the future.

[luckz]

Check if Bohemia has/had cores on any of the provinces?
The Ottomans like don't, but check anyway.
Does the ledger show you aggr. expansion for other nations?

[DS]

Originally posted by Victor Vulture:

Check if Bohemia has/had cores on any of the provinces?
The Ottomans like don't, but check anyway.
Does the ledger show you aggr. expansion for other nations?

Bohemia had way more aggressive expansion penalty than I did. I only had like 80 or 90 opinion penalty for people right next to me, Bohemia had like 160.

Cores? Nah. He'd never owned those provinces before, and he was far beyond his natural borders.

[Sword_of_Light]

Originally posted by Joe Chip:

Lay low for a while and those nations should start leaving the coalition against you.

Operative word being 'should'. As the Ottoman Empire, I would snatch up one or two provinces, and as suggested, laid low until the scary nations like Poland and Lithuania dropped out. But this doesnt always work - because sometimes the coalition decides its time to slaughter everything in your entire empire (the Mamluks want Kurdistan, and the Poles, Serbs, Georgians, Persians, and Lithuanians join in for a game of Dogpile the Human). And if you're not playing a European nation, expect anywhere from 3-1 to 10-1 casulalties, even if you win the battle on morale. Mamluks have equal or lower tech? Too bad, you're still losing 300 men a day to their 40. What? You had 28k to their 24k? Still doesnt matter - you're still getting punched in the face, because the battle sim in this game and EUIII makes no sense.

-Don

[Tasty Bunny]

Although it is true that 8 lucky nation(Otto is one of them, bohemia is NOT) have 25% -AE bonus, overall, nothing wrong there. You just need to know better at how AE works.

For example, there are achievement called "Big blue blob", which required to held "100" all european territory until 1500 as a France, which mean you need to conquer almost *70* province within 56 year. You can do that without single coalition formed against you.

I understand your frustration, but believe me, just play more and you will know what was wrong about your previous play.

[brian_va]

Have to admire this one, drug up a 5 year old Post to complain about dlc.