Subscribe to download
Expert AI

(Updated for patch 1.7.1, enjoy!)

This mod improves a plethora of different modifiers for the AI only. The purpose of this mod is to give the player a much more challenging game by putting him at a significant disadvantage compared to AI. This mod is meant for those who are looking for a greater struggle and challenge in their campaigns than legendary difficulty alone can give them. Some may call it AI cheating, some may call it unfair, but this is exactly what this mod is about; a battle royale and survival of the fittest. Proceed with caution!
===========================================================================
-Significantly reduced recruitment cost
-Increased income from vassals
-Slightly increased campaign movement range
-Reduced building construction cost
-Reduced redeployment cost
-Reduced upkeep cost for units
-Small boost to replenishment rate
-Lowered character salary
-Faster unit mustering speed
-Increased experience for generals
-Increase post battle loot income
-Higher recruitment rank for units
-Higher fatigue resistance in battle
-Faster ability recharge for generals in battle (romance only)
-Bigger general aura radius

-Scaling boost to income from commanderies based on faction rank. The higher the faction rank, the higher the income boost modifier.

-Scaling boost to max armies for both AI and player based on faction rank (6 max armies at rank 1, 8 at rank 2, 10 at rank 3, 12 at rank 4 and 15 at rank 5). The only way to increase the max number of armies is now faction rank. All other sources that used to increase army (e.g. technologies, positions in the court etc) have been removed.

-The potential strength of each faction will now be higher than vanilla but more random. What that means effectively is that when you load a new campaign (which is when the dice rolls in the code to decide the relative strength of all factions) you can now expect more randomness. As a result, campaigns will not be boring anymore with the same factions stomping the map every time. Now even minor factions have the chance to become strong, which will make your campaigns more interesting and dynamic. These changes do not affect personalities. Personalities are same as vanilla. There are some minor adjustments for certain historically major factions to make sure they still remain relevant.

-All factions will now be more aggressive and will behave as if they are a major faction. The personalities of each faction leader are still unchanged, but you can expect the behaviour of minor AI factions being similar to major factions in terms of their ambitions to become emperor.

-Budget allocation for all the different faction leader personalities has been adjusted. The AI will now spend more gold to build armies, to build their commanderies and in diplomacy.

===========================================================================
You need to start a new campaign in order to properly apply all the changes introduced by the mod.

Campaign Tip: Considering that these AI buffs apply to all AI (both hostile and friendly), this results in an indirect buff to your vassals considering that they too enjoy these buffs. It is recommended to create vassals whenever you see fit, they are certainly going to carry their weight (but they may also drag you into more wars...!)
===========================================================================
Here I will include gameplay mods of other creators that I have tested myself and strongly recommend to use it with my mod, as they compliment each other very nicely:

- "Better AI Templates" by Alex Zhao
As explained earlier, it reworks AI templates and budget allocation so that the AI ends up using better units and spending more gold to make better armies. Make sure you put my mod above 'Better AI Teamplates' in the mod load order. That is because we both make changes to a specific table and need to make sure that my mod overrides his.

===========================================================================
I have finished writing a guide with some advanced concepts and tricks for the base game. Many of the concepts (especially commandery build, reforms and army build number 3) can be applied to beating the AI with a bit more ease in this mod. It's a bit lengthy but I think it's worth a read.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2414275203


Feel free to use the discussion thread I have opened right below to share your thoughts and/or feedback!

-Credit for the mod picture goes to his artist named "ElConsigliere" on deviant-art.