As has been reported in the 1.4.1 Beta Patch Notes thread and Customer Support forums, AI diplomacy in the 1.4.1 beta branch is badly broken. The AI will immediately declare war on any faction the player joins, often resulting in ~4 simultaneous wars. The other factions do not interact with each other in any way: they will stay locked in their original wars, never make peace with each other, and never initiate new wars. This is a major AI bug and will hopefully be addressed soon.
It occurred to me that there is a silver lining to this glitch. In any fresh playthrough, AI factions will stay locked in their original wars indefinitely, barring player intervention. This provides precise insights into each faction's relative capabilities against a single neighbour. Having a safe border (as Vlandia and Khuzait do, on the edges of the map) is immaterial: every border in 1.4.1 is safe apart from the sole warfront prescribed by the game's starting conditions. These are: Khuzait vs Northern Empire, Vlandia vs Sturgia, Battania vs Western Empire, Aserai vs Southern Empire.
Starting Conditions
As a reminder, these are the starting conditions of the game:
Simulations
These are the outcomes after 4 separate simulations in which the player takes no action, for a period of 4 years ( Spring 1088 ). In effect, these are the outcomes of the 4 wars forming the game's starting conditions: Khuzait vs Northern Empire, Vlandia vs Sturgia, Battania vs Western Empire, Aserai vs Southern Empire.
Results
Recommendation
The next beta branch should consider:
It occurred to me that there is a silver lining to this glitch. In any fresh playthrough, AI factions will stay locked in their original wars indefinitely, barring player intervention. This provides precise insights into each faction's relative capabilities against a single neighbour. Having a safe border (as Vlandia and Khuzait do, on the edges of the map) is immaterial: every border in 1.4.1 is safe apart from the sole warfront prescribed by the game's starting conditions. These are: Khuzait vs Northern Empire, Vlandia vs Sturgia, Battania vs Western Empire, Aserai vs Southern Empire.
Starting Conditions
As a reminder, these are the starting conditions of the game:
Simulations
These are the outcomes after 4 separate simulations in which the player takes no action, for a period of 4 years ( Spring 1088 ). In effect, these are the outcomes of the 4 wars forming the game's starting conditions: Khuzait vs Northern Empire, Vlandia vs Sturgia, Battania vs Western Empire, Aserai vs Southern Empire.
Results
- The fact that Northern Empire borders with Sturgia, Battania, Western Empire, Southern Empire, Khuzait does not matter. They will only be fighting Khuzait, and lose 1v1 in repeated simulations.
- The fact that Sturgia could struggle to reinforce far-away Tyal against Khuzait, horrible geography and travel times, etc, is mostly irrelevant in 1.4.1. They will only ever be fighting over the Varcheg/Omor region, to hold off Vlandia, their locked foe - and they will lose 1v1 in repeated simulations.
- Aserai vs Southern Empire appears evenly matched, very slightly favouring Southern Empire.
- Battania vs Western Empire appears evenly matched.
- This will not come as a shock to anyone who's been playing the game for a while, but Khuzait is far too strong. I wouldn't say Northern Empire is necessarily weak: the other Emps have the same troops and manage just fine against their respective foes.
- Either Vlandia is too strong, or Sturgia is too weak; perhaps a bit of both but I'm inclined to blame Sturgia's infantry focus and lack of cultural campaign mobility to offset it. Importantly: these outcomes do not stem from factions being surrounded, or war-crazed leader AI (Raganvad can't get dogpiled in 1.4.1 unless you join Sturgia).
- Some modest proportion of the game's snowballing woes since launch could perhaps be attributed to starting conditions that give Vlandia and Khuzait free land to nibble on from their comparatively weaker starting rivals. Those early wins go on to dictate the tempo of the entire game, with Vlandia and Khuzait building on early victories (more wealth, more fiefs, higher tier armies).
Recommendation
The next beta branch should consider:
- Nerfs to Khuzait's campaign performance (e.g. fix their campaign movement speed bonus to only affect cavalry, or drastically reduce the amount - in practice Khuzait culture currently gives a free 0.4-0.6 'Feats' speed bonus permanent effect, even in all-infantry armies)
- Buffs to Sturgia's campaign performance (giving them their culture bonus, so they can successfully pick their battles at least on home turf, might be enough).
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