IDLF's AI Bible

[unmerged(27879)]

Very good thread IDLF .

May i ask you a special question with AI modding ?

How can you make an AI warmongering extremely well ?
I reworked China in my GC , they now don't get any bad Revolution Events in the 16th Century at all , start with Manchu + Korea + Japan annexed + 15 more Provinces north of Manchu and 5 Land tech and 50000 Gold .
I also made a few conversion Events for them that fire every 50 years and give the Chinese 100 free conversions and -200% Inflation in total .
China has also Cores for whole Asia , Afrika and half Europe .
So far so good .

My goal is that China overwhelms until 1600 at least whole Asia and then competes with my for world dominance .
Unfortunately in my games so far China has not done so well , normally they conquer only South Asia and then stop . I gave the Timurids 1000 starting gold but changed nothing else . They do extremely well normally and keep their possessions + conquer India .
China is still much stronger then Mughals but they don't attack them .

The 2nd nation i improved greatly ( but not as much ) are the ottomans , they do extremely well and achieve at least their historical expansion , often more . I didn't change their AI-File .

Here my changed AI-File for China :

#
# Europa Universalis.
#
#
# Chinese AI
# 
#
# Henrik Fåhraeus 01-10-2001
#
#

continent = { asia } 
region = { india indonesia } 
area = { Amur Baikal Kazakhstan Formosa Persia Oman Malabar Ceylon Sudan Ethiopia Aden Tanganyika} 

# The amount of provinces we try to colonize at the same time
expansion = 3

# % of the time we prefer to establish a tradingpost if both are good.
tradingpost = 1

# Bonus for areas to establish colonies adjacent to previous ones.
neighbour = 100

# Bonus/Penalty for establish colonies adjacent to other countries.
enemies = 0

# 100 = max trader rate, lesser means slower focus on sending a trader.
traders = 100

# 100 = Total monopolist, will refuse trade as much as possible.
monopoly = 25

# 100 = Total warmonger, 0 = absolute pacifist
war = 90
ferocity = no

#if possible we WILL go counter reform
counterreform = no

#Which countries to conquer if possible. (to guide nation historically)
combat = { CHG MOG DAI MCH KOR CHA CAM AYU MLC VIE TAU MYA PEG ASS TIB ARK BGL }

#How important is it to gather troops close to base
base = 0.1
#How important is it to be as close to target position when gathering troops.
front = 50.0

#Evaluation factors for conquer plans 
conquer = 
{ 
	# multiply enemy province value 
	enemy = 1.0 
	# multiplying supply factor 
	supply = 0.5 
	# factor for distance to not owner provinces 
	distance = 50.0 
	# factor for owned provines 
	owner = 1.0 
	# Multiplier for provinces not in supply. 
	notsupply = 15.0 
	# Multiplying the base constant for conquer. 
	base = 50.0 
} 

# Modifiers for garrison plans 
garrison = 
{ 
	fortress = 1.0 
	strategic = 3.0 
	size = 1.0 
	supply = 2.0 
	war = 5.0 
}

What else can i do to make them better warmongers ?

China also gets +50% Tax income and +0,5 Morale because i gave it to them as religion boni since they are the only Confucian .
Finally Confucians have many sliders so China should be perfect for becoming a 300 province empire .

Thank you in advance for suggestions how i can enchance their performance by adjusting their AI-File even more

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Very good thread IDLF .

May i ask you a special question with AI modding ?

How can you make an AI warmongering extremely well ?
I reworked China in my GC , they now don't get any bad Revolution Events in the 16th Century at all , start with Manchu + Korea + Japan annexed + 15 more Provinces north of Manchu and 5 Land tech and 50000 Gold .
I also made a few conversion Events for them that fire every 50 years and give the Chinese 100 free conversions and -200% Inflation in total .
China has also Cores for whole Asia , Afrika and half Europe .
So far so good .

My goal is that China overwhelms until 1600 at least whole Asia and then competes with my for world dominance .
Unfortunately in my games so far China has not done so well , normally they conquer only South Asia and then stop . I gave the Timurids 1000 starting gold but changed nothing else . They do extremely well normally and keep their possessions + conquer India .
China is still much stronger then Mughals but they don't attack them .

The 2nd nation i improved greatly ( but not as much ) are the ottomans , they do extremely well and achieve at least their historical expansion , often more . I didn't change their AI-File .

Here my changed AI-File for China :

#
# Europa Universalis.
#
#
# Chinese AI
# 
#
# Henrik Fåhraeus 01-10-2001
#
#

continent = { asia } 
region = { india indonesia } 
area = { Amur Baikal Kazakhstan Formosa Persia Oman Malabar Ceylon Sudan Ethiopia Aden Tanganyika} 

# The amount of provinces we try to colonize at the same time
expansion = 3

# % of the time we prefer to establish a tradingpost if both are good.
tradingpost = 1

# Bonus for areas to establish colonies adjacent to previous ones.
neighbour = 100

# Bonus/Penalty for establish colonies adjacent to other countries.
enemies = 0

# 100 = max trader rate, lesser means slower focus on sending a trader.
traders = 100

# 100 = Total monopolist, will refuse trade as much as possible.
monopoly = 25

# 100 = Total warmonger, 0 = absolute pacifist
war = 90
ferocity = no

#if possible we WILL go counter reform
counterreform = no

#Which countries to conquer if possible. (to guide nation historically)
combat = { CHG MOG DAI MCH KOR CHA CAM AYU MLC VIE TAU MYA PEG ASS TIB ARK BGL }

#How important is it to gather troops close to base
base = 0.1
#How important is it to be as close to target position when gathering troops.
front = 50.0

#Evaluation factors for conquer plans 
conquer = 
{ 
	# multiply enemy province value 
	enemy = 1.0 
	# multiplying supply factor 
	supply = 0.5 
	# factor for distance to not owner provinces 
	distance = 50.0 
	# factor for owned provines 
	owner = 1.0 
	# Multiplier for provinces not in supply. 
	notsupply = 15.0 
	# Multiplying the base constant for conquer. 
	base = 50.0 
} 

# Modifiers for garrison plans 
garrison = 
{ 
	fortress = 1.0 
	strategic = 3.0 
	size = 1.0 
	supply = 2.0 
	war = 5.0 
}

What else can i do to make them better warmongers ?

China also gets +50% Tax income and +0,5 Morale because i gave it to them as religion boni since they are the only Confucian .
Finally Confucians have many sliders so China should be perfect for becoming a 300 province empire .

Thank you in advance for suggestions how i can enchance their performance by adjusting their AI-File even more

Set your warmonger setting up to 100. And I can't vouche for 50.0 front. I don't know what that will do. Feel free to fill me in if you've noticed it actually doing something desireable.

How many diplomats does China get? He may be diplomat starved, especially if he has many vassals, as AIs spend them on giving cash to their vassals. This could cause him to not be able to DOW for lack of an available diplomat.

You can also increase his DIP artificially with an AI only event with this line here.

command = { type = DIP which = 9 value = 4800 }

This will ensure he has plenty of spare diplomats. You can also give Confucian +?? diplomats per year.

Inflating his economy by DP shifts will help him too. You can make it like this.

command = { type = domestic which = serfdom value = -10 }
             command = { type = domestic which = mercantilism value = -10 }
             command = { type = domestic which = aristocracy value = -10 }
             command = { type = domestic which = centralization value = 10 }
             command = { type = domestic which = innovative value = -2 }
             command = { type = domestic which = land value = 10 }

Make sure you give him the DIP increase along with these, or else he'll get a crappy amount of diplomats on account of the - aristocracy. Ideally you want to do this all in January 1st 1419. And put this

name = "AI_EVENT"

for the name. This will make it an invisible event. The DP shifts cause his economic strength to be inflated on account of the increase to trade and production efficiency and indirectly to trade income from merchants. This enables him to read himself as being economically larger than his neighbors by an even larger margin, so he will be more quick to DOW them. He'll also tech faster because of them and if that is undesireable than simply make the innovative shift -10, instead of just -2.

You're also going to have BB problems with a hyperaggressive AI like this. You can use an event like this to get rid of it.

event = {
	id = ???????
	trigger = { ai = yes badboy = 22 }
	random = no
	country = CHI
	name = "AI_EVENT"
	desc = "AI help for excsessive BB"
      date = { year = 1421 } 
	offset = 360
      deathdate = { day = 1 month = january year = 1820 }
	action_a ={ 
		name = "AI help for excsessive BB"
                 command = { type = stability value = 6 }
                 command = { type = badboy value = -35 }
                 command = { type = revoltrisk which = 120 value = -2 }}}

You can make a chain of these BB reducing events by making the next one have the event number of the last one in their trigger like this

trigger = { ai = yes badboy = 22 event = ?????? }

And of course the "AI-EVENT" part makes the event invisible. It will not show up in the game log.

You can also inflate his economic strength further by giving trade and infra boosts in AI only events. The AIs read their economic strength in their DOW descisions, so the greater the desparity the more likely they will be to DOW. But perhaps this is overkill. If he gets big early and isn't plagued by civil wars or excessive revolts(they are usually due to excessive BB)then he should DOW about as often as he is capable of. I'm assuming you don't want him to out-tech you? If so I'd playtest it a few times and make sure he isn't going up too fast. Skip the trade and infra boosts if he is. You can also make him have +10 mercantilism to restrict his annual merchant count too.

 

[unmerged(27879)]

Thanks for your advice IDLF .

I already gave China those suggested Slider Settings via the Scenario Editor and via edited Religion.csv he gets +5 Diplomats each year , +50% Tax income and +50 = 0,5 Morale .

And China already starts with 5 Trade and Infra Tech .
China should outtech me also i wouldn't mind if he is 1-2 CRCs ahead of me .

Do you think that BB could be a problem for China ? Does the AI suffer Badboy wars also like the humans do on VH ?
I intend to play this game btw on normal difficulty because at least if China works as i want them it will be tough enough on normal difficulty .
My idea was that if there are Bad boy wars for the AI also when China gets them it is so strong already that it should easily beat all attacking AIs .

China should just be a nightmare by 1600 and at least 200 Provinces big and still growing that i get a challenging opponent for 1700-xxxx who can maybe even defeat me .

Finally another Question :
I have rarely seen an AI get more then 5 War exhaustion . Is there an upper war exhaustion limit for the AI like 5 or 6 or can the AI also get 10 and higher war exhaustion ?

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Thanks for your advice IDLF .

I already gave China those suggested Slider Settings via the Scenario Editor and via edited Religion.csv he gets +5 Diplomats each year , +50% Tax income and +50 = 0,5 Morale .

And China already starts with 5 Trade and Infra Tech .
China should outtech me also i wouldn't mind if he is 1-2 CRCs ahead of me .

IC.

Do you think that BB could be a problem for China ?

Probably. The AI suffers BB wars but I doubt the other much smaller AIs will bother to DOW him often. BB slows tech and it slows stab. very much. That can cause revolts or civil wars. How often is the Chinese AI having to smash rebels?

Finally another Question :
I have rarely seen an AI get more then 5 War exhaustion . Is there an upper war exhaustion limit for the AI like 5 or 6 or can the AI also get 10 and higher war exhaustion ?

They can get more but they accumulate it more slowly than us.

 

[unmerged(27879)]

Probably. The AI suffers BB wars but I doubt the other much smaller AIs will bother to DOW him often. BB slows tech and it slows stab. very much. That can cause revolts or civil wars. How often is the Chinese AI having to smash rebels?

I edited out all nasty Rebellion Events from the China Event file and also changed rebels in random events to goldlosses .
So China only gets Rebels from Nationalism when it conquers northern europe or america ( has everywhere else cores ) and from war exhaustion/wrong religion .

Do you know how AI manages religion tolerance sliders ? With my conversion events buddhism and hinduism should be wiped out quickly so the ai should be able to tolerate all other religions quite well and only suffer rebels when they are in very long wars i hope .

Chinas conquest speed is still not good enough btw with the ai-file i posted there . They get 20-40 new provinces in the first 100 years that's too slow . Ottomans where i changed less get 40-60 new provinces in the first 100 years and do this way historic expansion . Could there be something hardcoded ? Maybe it is China's bad placed capitol cause it is on an edge while the Ottoman capitol is more central .

 

[unmerged(27879)]

Probably. The AI suffers BB wars but I doubt the other much smaller AIs will bother to DOW him often. BB slows tech and it slows stab. very much. That can cause revolts or civil wars. How often is the Chinese AI having to smash rebels?

I edited out all nasty Rebellion Events from the China Event file and also changed rebels in random events to goldlosses .
So China only gets Rebels from Nationalism when it conquers northern europe or america ( has everywhere else cores ) and from war exhaustion/wrong religion .

Do you know how AI manages religion tolerance sliders ? With my conversion events buddhism and hinduism should be wiped out quickly so the ai should be able to tolerate all other religions quite well and only suffer rebels when they are in very long wars i hope .

Chinas conquest speed is still not good enough btw with the ai-file i use and also posted here . They get 20-40 new provinces in the first 100 years that's too slow . Ottomans where i changed less get 40-60 new provinces in the first 100 years and do this way historic expansion . Could there be something hardcoded ? Maybe it is China's bad placed capitol cause it is on an edge while the Ottoman capitol is more central .

 

[unmerged(31425)]

I edited out all nasty Rebellion Events from the China Event file and also changed rebels in random events to goldlosses .
So China only gets Rebels from Nationalism when it conquers northern europe or america ( has everywhere else cores ) and from war exhaustion/wrong religion .

Right but he may still be geting stab hits due to diplomatic actions and random events and if he gets them with high BB, he'll only go up in stab very slowly.

Do you know how AI manages religion tolerance sliders ? With my conversion events buddhism and hinduism should be wiped out quickly so the ai should be able to tolerate all other religions quite well and only suffer rebels when they are in very long wars i hope .

The AIs cheat with religion tolerance sliders. As soon as they have a non-state religion in their empire they get tolerance to it. So they can tolerate every religion fully if the situation arises where they have them all in their empire.

Chinas conquest speed is still not good enough btw with the ai-file i use and also posted here . They get 20-40 new provinces in the first 100 years that's too slow . Ottomans where i changed less get 40-60 new provinces in the first 100 years and do this way historic expansion . Could there be something hardcoded ? Maybe it is China's bad placed capitol cause it is on an edge while the Ottoman capitol is more central .

I wouldn't be surprised if front = 50.0 is causing some problems. How many vassals does China have regularly?

 

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I wouldn't be surprised if front = 50.0 is causing some problems. How many vassals does China have regularly?

Thanks for your tips again. Now i run it with front = 50.0 and it seems to work fine.
China had about 350 Provinces in 1780, so it conquered about 200 and colonized 100, that's quite ok .
The also strengthened Ottomans slow me down and then there comes the Uberchina as final enemy and i have out of a sudden exciting games again

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Thanks for your tips again. Now i run it with front = 50.0 and it seems to work fine.
China had about 350 Provinces in 1780, so it conquered about 200 and colonized 100, that's quite ok .
The also strengthened Ottomans slow me down and then there comes the Uberchina as final enemy and i have out of a sudden exciting games again

Sounds good. Biggest AI ever? Glad to be of help.

 

[almoravid]

A great work and a blessing for anyone trying to figure out how to make the ai behave like it should. Thank you! Now, a question: Are you sure having empty hitlists means less agression? I see the BPAI files have plenty of countries on the hitlists! I thought it helps to direct agression, not to provoke it (if you have to attack, attack one of these, and not that one).

 

[unmerged(31425)]

A great work and a blessing for anyone trying to figure out how to make the ai behave like it should. Thank you! Now, a question: Are you sure having empty hitlists means less agression? I see the BPAI files have plenty of countries on the hitlists! I thought it helps to direct agression, not to provoke it (if you have to attack, attack one of these, and not that one).

It makes a big difference. I noticed the same thing too with the BPAI. But after playtesting the matter alot, I realized Daywalker probably just made the lists historical, rather than playtesting them with AND without each one on the list and then paying attention to the difference it makes.

 

[unmerged(9404)]

I should have had this when I played the NPPBEM game.

Some comments, questions and nitpicks.

# No preferred areas at all. Default AI does not colonize.
#
continent = { }
region = { }
area = { }

You say this is only used exploration and colonization. However at some time it was argued it is also used for the ai to pick areas into which to expand via war (I believe Portugal vs Granada was one case where this was argued). Is this true or is this dispelled or still unknown?

You haven't updated your section on base and front in the ai file with the information from Daywalker yet.

chapter 2

(on when the ai will invest its monthly income in cash)

3)If an AI cannot pay for it's monthly troop or ship support costs, with it's annual income alone, it will pump just enough cash to pay for them.

4)AIs will also pump cash to pay for loan interests IF this combined with troop ans ship support cost cannot be payed for with annual income alone.

The ai doesn't have to do this. If a country has no cash monthly army/navy support is deducted of the monthly income before it is divided into tech/stab/cash investments. IIRC the same for loan interest.

Are you sure the ai mints for this purpose?

TCs also increase the base NOT net tax of a province by 1.

nitpick: they donot increase base tax but adjusted basetax. It's a minor difference and only useful when building forts or shipyards.

7)Conversion attempts are also something that AIs like fairly well. They will conduct a decent amount of these if they have the money.

read through this AAR, an attempt to world conversion. A part of his plan to turn the whole world catholic was to let the ai do the job. Which only partially succeeded. I believe the main problem was that the ai would only have one conversion attempt going at a time. Maybe you can find some of his observations usefull for your bible

chapter 3

Spain and Portugal however will still only colonize unstarted colonies and TPs within the ToT, as long as it is still in effect.

Is this still true with the latest beta, making the ToT nonhardcoded?
You should explain that this relates to the TAGs SPA and POR.
I thought it didn't matter if the ToT was in effect or not; ie before ~1506 and after ~1650 they still didn't colonize outside their ToT.

AI explorer exploration is very tricky. For example, AIs, if they have certain sea zones on their "areas for expansion" will often re-explore them over and over without even exploring all of it. It's a bit frustrating when that darn AI keeps sailing in the same spot like an idiot, and he has all these other important areas farther away to explore and is taking his sweet time. The AI explorer won't even check every single area in that sea zone. This is why when you gain access to an AI's map, like from a capital sacking or a maptrade, you see bald patches in the AIs known sea zones, even if it is some time into the game and you, if you played that country would know all those sea zones already by then. It may become neccessary to remove those sea zones from later AI files, of a given country, to prevent his joyriding in known sea zones.

I suspect that the AI is reading that he still doesn't know every area of these sea zones but is then trying to only pass through the sea zones that have the briefest travel time. I've noticed that AIs often, when they go joyriding, will do it in the exact same specific sea provinces game after game after game. Also AI explorers will explore coastal provinces just fine, even without sea zones on their specified expansion areas. They will also sail up and down those coastal provinces too, unless they have already found all the provinces in that listed area, they will then only pass through it enroute to another expansion area target.

Might this [ai exploring the same piece of sea time and time again] not be related to the ai trying to explore land through ships? This is something I often do with my explorers.

chapter 5

1)How long has it been since they have been in a war.

Don't you mean the war exhaustion?

dharper's test results on core, culture and religion should be include in this

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Some comments, questions and nitpicks.

# No preferred areas at all. Default AI does not colonize.
#
continent = { }
region = { }
area = { }

You say this is only used exploration and colonization. However at some time it was argued it is also used for the ai to pick areas into which to expand via war (I believe Portugal vs Granada was one case where this was argued). Is this true or is this dispelled or still unknown?

I don't believe it. I'm almost positive it has no bearing on it whatsoever. Toio is the one who believes it effects where a country will pick DOW victims.

You haven't updated your section on base and front in the ai file with the information from Daywalker yet.

True. But I will.

chapter 2

(on when the ai will invest its monthly income in cash)

The ai doesn't have to do this. If a country has no cash monthly army/navy support is deducted of the monthly income before it is divided into tech/stab/cash investments. IIRC the same for loan interest.

To what extent AIs pump cash to pay for oversized armies I am not positive of. It could be that they are not pumping in 100% of the circumstances. But I do know for a fact, that when an AI has an excessive troop count, his inflation steadily increases. This could only be caused by pumping cash, at least to some degree or another. Thus he is pumping cash to support large armies. Now it may be that AIs don't pump cash for this, unless it's severe, but I don't know 100%.

Are you sure the ai mints for this purpose?

No more sure than that they are pumping for excessive troop counts. Obviously loan interest just compounds the problem.

nitpick: they donot increase base tax but adjusted basetax. It's a minor difference and only useful when building forts or shipyards.

IC.

read through this AAR, an attempt to world conversion. A part of his plan to turn the whole world catholic was to let the ai do the job. Which only partially succeeded. I believe the main problem was that the ai would only have one conversion attempt going at a time. Maybe you can find some of his observations usefull for your bible

I'll take a look at it.

chapter 3

Is this still true with the latest beta, making the ToT nonhardcoded?
You should explain that this relates to the TAGs SPA and POR.
I thought it didn't matter if the ToT was in effect or not; ie before ~1506 and after ~1650 they still didn't colonize outside their ToT.

Daywalker has claimed that they will only stick to the ToT until it expires. I'm not 100% sure on that one. However, he has also said that they will colonize outside of it before it is in effect, and that I'm certain is incorrect. OK, I'll point out the tag correlation.

Might this [ai exploring the same piece of sea time and time again] not be related to the ai trying to explore land through ships? This is something I often do with my explorers.

He does that too. But I was talking about when he explores specifically sea zones, often not adjecent to land, or sometimes they are but he already knows all the land. If you remove the sea zone from his area for expansion, the problem goes away. This is primarily an issue for AIs that MUST be in certain areas in a timely manner, like Portugal with Malacca or Spain with the Philippines.

chapter 5

Don't you mean the war exhaustion?

No. War exhaustion could be a factor, but I doubt it. We know the AIs are reading how long have they been in uninterupted war for peace settlement purposes. The longer he's been at war, the more likely he is to lower his requirements for peace, with a given warscore. Mind you there is a random factor in this as well. AFAIK, there is a random factor in darn near everything the AI does.

But the AI is also keeping track of HOW LONG has it been SINCE he was last at war. WE, could play into that. But I doubt it as it would be unneccessary. It is also possible that how long the war the AI was in, is being factored in, in addition to this.

Also another thing I've noticed is the AIs' tendency to DOW less frequently as the game progresses. It could be that his war clock is increased in length, as the game progresses. Or it could have something to do with economic factors being weighed. Anotherwards, it could be that they require larger economic desparity, as the game progresses, to make a DOW. Either theory is viable with what I've seen, though I think the former is more likely. But certainly something is happening in the engine to make the AIs less disposed to DOWing mid and late game. This BTW, is why, my later AIs files in EP have higher warmonger settings than zero, even if they really shouldn't be fighting too many wars.

dharper's test results on core, culture and religion should be include in this

Those tests show that culture and religion are not factors at all. I never claimed they were. In fact I never even suspected they were. The core claims I don't know 100%. It seems logical to me that core claims or CBs, or both seperately, are being weighed, but it is evidently much less of a factor than hitlists, if this is the case, consequently it is much harder to discern, without a rigged expirement.

So unfortunately there isn't a whole lot from those tests that I could put into the guide. It was the things that were GOING to be tested, but were abondoned, that would have shed some light on the matter. What was discovered to be the case, I already knew and stated such in the AI guide you just read.

 

[unmerged(13277)]

Daywalker has claimed that they will only stick to the ToT until it expires. I'm not 100% sure on that one. However, he has also said that they will colonize outside of it before it is in effect, and that I'm certain is incorrect. OK, I'll point out the tag correlation.

Dang… how is it that what I say (whether it is true or not) get screw so badly so often? Do not quote me or “Daywalker said” if you are not sure what it is I’m talking about.

So let me set this strait ones and for all. Now you can believe or not, does not really matter, but this IS how I say it works (and in fact knows it works). Bear in mind that it might recently have been changed in the newest beta (I have my doubts tho). I have not done this test lately, so I do not know whether it has changed or not.

1) Spain and Portugal will start new colonies inside their respective parts of the TOT only. The will never ever start a colony anywhere else at any time.

2) They will - or rather can, colonize captured or pre-build colonies outside the TOT, but it is low on the priority list. This was made in one of the v1.07 betas, before that they did not do this either.

3) It does not matter whether the TOT has popped or not. The actual TOT event is irrelevant to this. It works like listed above before the event and it works like that after the event. It works like this for all 400 years of the game.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Dang… how is it that what I say (whether it is true or not) get screw so badly so often? Do not quote me or “Daywalker said” if you are not sure what it is I’m talking about.

So let me set this strait ones and for all. Now you can believe or not, does not really matter, but this IS how I say it works (and in fact knows it works). Bear in mind that it might recently have been changed in the newest beta (I have my doubts tho). I have not done this test lately, so I do not know whether it has changed or not.

1) Spain and Portugal will start new colonies inside their respective parts of the TOT only. The will never ever start a colony anywhere else at any time.

2) They will - or rather can, colonize captured or pre-build colonies outside the TOT, but it is low on the priority list. This was made in one of the v1.07 betas, before that they did not do this either.

3) It does not matter whether the TOT has popped or not. The actual TOT event is irrelevant to this. It works like listed above before the event and it works like that after the event. It works like this for all 400 years of the game.

I agree with all of this.

I just looked up the post I was thinking of when I thought you claimed they would colonize outside the ToT.http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3611784#post3611784
But obviously I misunderstood you and you had it right all along. So my apologies.

 

[unmerged(136143)]

what about this code?

# Bonus for areas to establish colonies adjacent to previous ones.
neighbour = 50

why not a setting higher than zero?
i ve done a little test with the france , with a negative value the france put his colonies/tps, an in louisiana another in west africa/mauritania another in antilles ,we say random,istead with a positive value he put the colonies/tps only ,for example in luoisiana ,after that he starts the colonization in another "his area"....but i havent tested enough this setting