AI agents’ behavior in SSHIP

[Jurand of Cracow]

Hello,
I would like to share my observations about the AI agents’ behavior in SSHIP 0.9.2. This part of the game is related to the role-playing aspect of the game, the traits of the generals are made meaningful thanks to it (eg. Personal Security against the assassins, Piety against the Inquisitors) and some buildings are made more useful (esp. guilds for recruitment of the relevant agents).

• Inquisitors – in the SS6.4-BftB I had to watch Piety of the generals very carefully. This was because the inquisitors were very numerous and they would excommunicate my generals often. I’ve lost a number of generals in such actions, and I used my assassins to kill the inquisitors, risking the terms with the Pope. Therefore I prized high ancillaries giving Piety (Librarian, Privy Seal), I would go for a Crusade to gain Piety. All in all – very good feature for the gameplay. However, in the SSHIP I haven’t seen any inquisitor. This is bad for the gaming-experience, so I would like to have them much more numerous and (when they come) aggressive.
• Heretics, Witches – they come in limited numbers, with different Piety. In the region I play (borders of religions, pagans there) they should come more often (it was the case in SS6.4). Furthermore, even high-ranking heretics don’t do anything bad to my priests, they don’t try to attack, they just convert passively. The result is: my priests are little useful. I was careful to recruit them in the cities with the Theologians guilds, but it’s actually not needed in this mod, to be frank. I would like the heretics to be aggressive.
• Priests – the AI comes to my lands in moderate numbers. Thus they don’t make to much problems, as far as the religion is concerned. It’s more-or-less ok., but they could have come more numerous.
• Merchants – the AI very seldom try to take over the business. They also come with low Finance, so it’s easy to take over their businesses. And they are very few – I can take a sit on the best resources (gold, silver) since there’re no merchants… In the other mods (SS, HURB) it was not it was very hard to steal something, I had to be very careful if a foreign merchant approached. I would be very reluctant to hire a merchant from a city without Merchants Master Guild. I miss this feature for the gameplay, especially given comparatively high income from Merchants and easiness they get additional Finance.
• Assassins – I haven’t seen any attempts of assassination, although I spotted a few assassins. This is not good – before the generals’ characteristics “Personal Security” mattered. Now it’s a useless feature, no need to check for it, or to be careful with the generals with low PS.
• Spies – there’re few of the them appearing, they get into the settlements and rouse unrest. I think with good frequency, they make me to put my spies in the high-profit or high-unrest settlements. I think they behave as they should.
• Princesses – there are a few of them, and one has stolen my general, besides I’ve seen two other AI generals stolen (HRE by Rum, French by Novgorod) – I think this feature works ok.
• Diplomats – they wander around talking, no comments here.

To sum up: I think the Inquisitors, Heretics/Witches, Merchants and Assassins badly need making them more aggressive. It would be very good for an exciting gameplay and full use of the M2TW engine.

I’ve been playing only one long game with SSHIP (with Poland), so my experience might be limited. Please comment.

JoC

[nvm]

Not many people honestly miss inquisitors the way they used to be (you can lose your best generals, or king and heir to some random ! Yay!) but there might be a value to edit their strength yourself.

Heretics & witches never really did anything besides passively converting a region to heresy and giving any generals and priests in it bad traits. Even you probably really would NOT want heretics to be the same way as in SS - almost all of them have crazy high piety, and that means not only you have disastrously low chances to actually get rid of them with a Priest, you can only use a Cardinal against them, for the fear that any Priest you send will just become a heretic as well.

Same with merchants. Have you really SEEN just how low the chance to seize assets actually is for mechants that have roughly equal finance? I'm pretty sure either it's bugged or AI cheats on it, as any of their attempts in acquisitions on my merchants result in success more often than failure. You really would not want them to attack your merchants more often.

[Lifthrasir]

I tend to agree with nvm on that one. From my opinion, inquisitors are nothing more than a pain in the a... and don't really bring anything to the game play. But if you have an idea to make them "more interesting", I'm open to suggestion.

Heretics and witches, not sure how to make them more "active". But if so, it has to be done wisely. I mean there's no point to have a "super" heretic killing your priests, creating unrest and impossible to kill. That wouldn't be logical.
Just an idea, could it be possible to associate somehow heretics and rebels army spamming? For instance, there's an heretic in one of your regions and if you don't manage to kill him quickly, then the untrest increase and if you wait longer, then a rebel army spams.

About merchants, same remark as nvm's one. It seems that in some cases the AI is just stealing your business and then move away to steal another faction's business. It doesn't try to use the resource itself

[Jurand of Cracow]

I think that if there’s an element in the game, it should be meaningful for the gameplay in some way. For instance, you care about the feature “morale” of your generals, because in the battles your troops may rout – and the general make them not. Or you care about HP of the general, because if it’s low, he may get killed (witness from RTW the features of Phyrros: he died in my first battle, ‘cause I was not attentive). Or you care about Chivalry to boost the cities.
But why to bother about Piety of your generals if there’s no excommunication? It adds a bit to keeping an order in the settlements, but that’s all. Having low-Piety king is not a problem.
To my mind, the issue of inquisitors was very important for the decisions in the game: low Piety king attracts inquisitors to the country, low-Piety generals may be excommunicated. You’d avoid it, or run with your generals, or get your assassins to kill low-rank inquisitors etc. It made Piety meaningful.
It’s like you add Usurper and Regent issues – they make attributes Dread and Chivalry meaningful, or the Rightful Heir trait, or Blood etc.

I remember the over-active heretics and inquisitors in SS6.4 (there’re was even a submod Weaker Heretics). I think in the SSHIP they might appear more often and with better stats, but not be so buffed-up like in SS6.4.

Why to bother about Personal Security of the generals if the AI assassins don’t try to kill? It was not bad that your 10-star general could have been lost due assassination – actually this is exactly what one of the traits is for: more stars, lower personal security. Besides, now the assassins are useful only for the human player, who can use it wisely.

Merchants – it’ almost an exploit that my merchants can use silver/gold places without any counter-action from the AI. And it becomes mechanical for me to produce merchants and change them while they die of old age. I liked the choice in the SS6.4: spending a 550 fl. on a merchant was not just an easy way of making money, I also needed to take their life-span into account. And I paid attention to their Finance features, with 8-star put on the high-value resource. The game was to get more and more up. Meaningful. If it’s mechanical, then it’s better to remove merchants entirely, adding to the income from the markets.

To sum up: I think one may find a mid-way solution with the inquisitors, assassins, merchants. But I understand it’s not on the agenda of SSHIP scripter. For me, agents add to the gameplay, role-playing and challenge for the players. I lack this dimension in the SSHIP.

[MWY]

There are inquisitors, they just appear later. Sometime around when the inquisition started historically. Piety also does have other influences on traits/ancillaries.

I've never seen a heretic actively kill a priest. I'm pretty sure it's not possible.

Assassins are just not that common in europe anymore. Which is more historically correct. Go to the middle east, and see what happens there.

Merchant mechanics are way better now. You are supposed to watch how they behave and switch resources from time to time, because otherwise they might lose a bit of finance.

And yes the AI was cheating with merchant overtakes. I reduced it quite a bit.


Oh and by the way: There is NO WAY to influence the AI in terms of prioritising their recruitment of an agent of to influence the agents behaviour at all. The only thing that can be influenced is the overall recruitability. And I don't think that spamming assassins was common in europe at that time. The later the game goes and the more cities grow, more assassins will show up.

[Lifthrasir]

In addition to MWY's comment, how many kings have been burned by Inquisitors?
How many Nobles had the same treatment while being in favor of their ruler by the Inquisitors alone?
Even the Templars case is a perfect example of political-religious complot.
I really don't think that the inquisitors work in the right way in game. You can keep your generals pious to be in favor of the Pope and avoid excommunication. or for similar reason. That's just an example

[bigdaddy1204]

I disagree with the OP about merchants. In my SSHIP campaigns, enemy merchants are always attacking my merchants. You can be certain that any merchant on a valuable resource will be attacked, and in nearly 100% of cases, the enemy merchant will be successful. I often see enemy merchants with max. skill level, making them almost impossible to challenge. I find the AI merchants have a huge unfair advantage versus the human merchants. In all my campaigns, one of the most important things I do is train as many assassins as possible, to kill off enemy merchants and protect my own merchants, as well as to hunt down heretics. I find that enemy heretics always have a massive advantage over my own priests. The failure rate of my priests against heretics is nearly 100%, making assassination the only real chance of removing them. This makes assassins extremely important in my campaigns. For the record, I always play on very hard/very hard. What difficulty was the OP playing on?

[Jurand of Cracow]

enemy merchants are always attacking my merchants. You can be certain that any merchant on a valuable resource will be attacked, and in nearly 100% of cases, the enemy merchant will be successful.

well, I've never seen it yet in SSHIP. I've got two merchants on gold (one in Hungary) and three on silver (in HRE, while being Poland...). But I'm playing on.

I often see enemy merchants with max. skill level, making them almost impossible to challenge.

that's right - they get better finance fast, and get maxed soon. But they stay on resources, no further wandering or sniping my merchants.

I find the AI merchants have a huge unfair advantage versus the human merchants. In all my campaigns, one of the most important things I do is train as many assassins as possible, to kill off enemy merchants and protect my own merchants, as well as to hunt down heretics.

to my mind it's exactly the reason the AI merchants have the unfair advantage - because human players have brains, can learn and use other means.
I do the same with the assassins if I have money and limit allows. anyway, it's not an issue with the passive AI merchants and few heretics.

I find that enemy heretics always have a massive advantage over my own priests. The failure rate of my priests against heretics is nearly 100%,

I've killed a few heretics with a good bishop (recruited from the theologians' guild). I attack them only if I have decent chance of winning (>50%). There're also few those high-ranking heretics I couldn't do much against so they are spreading their faith till their natural death.

What difficulty was the OP playing on?

VH

[Alavaria]

There are inquisitors, they just appear later.

Part of it is also something like the percentage of Heretic religion in Catholic areas. The POWER of in-settlement conversion by buildings and the neighbour-network effect (all settlements are catholic) means that a couple of heretics cannot actually do much (and there's a few max piety ones I've seen too). It may help that the pope just doesn't have any settlements either (meaning no Heretics in Papal States territory, if that is special for any reason).

Though a couple of my generals are maniacs who among other things hate Catholics and so on, they're pretty spread out so I would imagine crossing the continent would only put one at risk, as though I couldn't put them on a boat or something...

I also assume that Orthodox/Muslim faction people just straight up don't care about it.

[Jurand of Cracow]

There are inquisitors, they just appear later. Sometime around when the inquisition started historically. Piety also does have other influences on traits/ancillaries

In addition to MWY's comment, how many kings have been burned by Inquisitors?
How many Nobles had the same treatment while being in favor of their ruler by the Inquisitors alone?
Even the Templars case is a perfect example of political-religious complot.
I really don't think that the inquisitors work in the right way in game. You can keep your generals pious to be in favor of the Pope and avoid excommunication. or for similar reason. That's just an example

For me, the inquisitors are not necessarily the institution of inquisition, or the very inquisitors we had in Europe. It's rather a mechanism for incentivising the player to care about Piety. A kind of balancing mechanism: you can have high-Dread general, good for battles and scarring the citizens, but watch out - people are religious and they don't take being unfaithful easy. It's dangerous for a noble or a king. Nobles would lose their positions, kings would face usurpers with public support. The Polish king Bolesław II (Śmiały) was banished in 1079 exactly for this: he killed a bishop in 1076 and after some time there was a political backlash with religious background as well (as we may infere from the sources, you know how weak they're). In this sense, all the inquisitors attacks in-game are "political-religious complot"s, in Lifthrasir words.
So the inquistors might by not historical per se (there was never inquisition in Poland, no people burnt at stakes (almost, at least as compared to the Western Europe), but it adds to historical feeling in the gameplay.


Piety - to my taste, for now the impact of Piety attribute is too small (traits, ancillaries, favour of Pope, lower unrest in the settlements). If I recall well, in the Broken Crescent there's the effect that if you put low-Piety general into a settlement with many faithful citizens, the general rouses much of unrest. So you care about the attribute. In SS6.4 were the inquisitors - you need to care about Piety. In SSHIP the incentives are too small. Why not to have full-Dread generals? But this is probably just my taste.

[Lifthrasir]

I'm convinced that there's a better other way to make piety more "important" in game rather than using the Inquisitors. Your example is a perfect one to represent my point of view. Boleslaw II was banished due to polital-religious reasons but not by the action of any Inquisitor (too early anyway). The other point is, if you implement such mechanic for Catholic factions, then something similar must be adapted for other religions factions. And in that case, Inquisitors again aren't an option.

[nvm]

Full Chilvary generals are pretty useful for growing cities which otherwise just will not grow past a certain amount. Especially for Citadels, as there are very few places which would naturally become one.

A full Dread general is very useful because they keep order in cities WITHOUT encouraging growth which at times might be incredibly useful. However, dread actions will likely tank your reputation and stuff and that's probably not a thing to deal with. At least in Vanilla Medieval 1.0 attacking Scotland as England and getting excommunicated was my biggest mistake, for very soon I was at war with almost the entire Catholic world without a Crusade and it took me until like turn 80 to finally grab another city on mainland.

[Jurand of Cracow]

@nvm - I think your post relates more to the other thread, where Alavaria reports on his Pisa campaign. How he deals with the Dread generals and conquers the catholic factions in whole Europe withouth punishment of the type you, nvm, just described, is a mystery to me.

@MWY - ok, I got your point about assassins in Europe, I agree. But then their availability for the human player makes it possible to use in un-historical way, doesn't it?

@Lifthrrasir - ok, got your point on Inquisitors. You're right about non-historicity of the inquisitors per se. Concerning Piety, I'll try to make some use of it in my educational submod. But I still like the way the Piety was crucial for life of any general....

[Alavaria]

Full Chilvary generals are pretty useful for growing cities which otherwise just will not grow past a certain amount. Especially for Citadels, as there are very few places which would naturally become one.

Indeed, very useful. Bumping your Large Towns to Cities is a wonderful way to really boost your economy to "far too high" levels.

A full Dread general is very useful because they keep order in cities WITHOUT encouraging growth which at times might be incredibly useful.

Precisely. Also they scale perfectly with population (ie: it doesn't matter if there's 200,000 people, they're still orderly)

However, dread actions will likely tank your reputation and stuff and that's probably not a thing to deal with.

Yes, but for the second part not really, not if you're already fighting everyone and/or have planned appropriately for it. Maybe I'm too used to RomeTW's suicidal AIs

At least in Vanilla Medieval 1.0 attacking Scotland as England and getting excommunicated was my biggest mistake, for very soon I was at war with almost the entire Catholic world without a Crusade and it took me until like turn 80 to finally grab another city on mainland.

@nvm - I think your post relates more to the other thread, where Alavaria reports on his Pisa campaign. How he deals with the Dread generals and conquers the catholic factions in whole Europe withouth punishment of the type you, nvm, just described, is a mystery to me.

Yes, for factions at a distance from Italy, you really need to get a diplomat over there fast as feeding pope gold will save you from your sins. The pope has their own meter (basically your Papal States relationship) which you can manipulate to gain an advantage even if your reputation is the worst.

Arguably, historically accurate...

[nvm]

I was replying to "Why not to have full-Dread generals?" but maybe that was a bit of tact sure. What would be really awesome to balance it is if Dread could directly influence your relations with other factions or Papacy, or even reputation. Back in Rome:Total War your generals could have traits which increased your standing with Senate so it might be possible.

Would also nicely tie in with the fact that Mongols start with a bunch of very high Dread-generals. Now all we'll need is to remove the 2 dread and piety points from Lithuania's capital title to increase their survival, as they historically managed for quite some time.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I was replying to "Why not to have full-Dread generals?" but maybe that was a bit of tact sure. What would be really awesome to balance it is if Dread could directly influence your relations with other factions or Papacy, or even reputation. Back in Rome:Total War your generals could have traits which increased your standing with Senate so it might be possible.

Alevaria campaign shows that it may do not matter since you can buy yourself out even at the Pope. I have also doubts about how reputation works in SSHIP. In the other mods I managed to keep it balance or high, but here it's always despicable. And it doesn't influence much the game, sadly.

Would also nicely tie in with the fact that Mongols start with a bunch of very high Dread-generals. Now all we'll need is to remove the 2 dread and piety points from Lithuania's capital title to increase their survival, as they historically managed for quite some time.

The Vilnius title is now removed anyway, since after the change of the settlement name from Vilnius to Kernave, one cannot acquire the title (unless you change it in the EDA).