If you had to buff the AI with modifiers to increase difficulty, which modifiers would you give them?

[ENFP]

I've had a lot of success with making CK3 and Eu4 more fun in my megacampaigns by giving the AI advantages through modifiers, but I always snowball effortlessly in Victoria 3. It seems a lot tricker in Vic3 to buff the AI in the same manner--what modifiers would you want to see in a difficulty mod?

 

[Secret Master]

Construction speed bonus?

 

[Bisonmask]

Flat and percentage construction speed for Major and Minor powers, more maneuvers, lower infamy against unrec states, research bonus, something to block naval invasions or restrict them all sound good to start

 

[Aloraand]

The thing is, eu4 ai plays the game reasonably, it's just not as good as the player at min maxing, so giving it modifiers makes it more competitive. Vic3 ai does not play the game reasonably, so you are better off fixing it.

E.g. there's a define that tells the ai "queue building only if when it finishes, you have at least this much reserves." The last time I looked, the value was positive, so the ai doesn't deficit spend. Change that to -0.5 (so it stops building after 50% of debt is taken) and suddenly ai deficit spends and is better without artificial buffs.

Another example, the ai doesn't choose the amount of construction based on net income, it rather does it by GDP, population, and investment pool reinvestment. So it chronically either has too little or too much construction. The former caps it's growth, the latter causes oscillating demand for construction goods, which the ai can't really handle well (before queuing, the profit of iron is low, so it doesn't build iron, even if it's really high). Change this value to something more reasonable, and the ai will suddenly start growing its economy at a similar rate as they player.

The amount of construction the ai starts with is too low vs income. You can add construction sectors to their economy so they start at the desired amount.

Lastly, you have the economic strategies. France can for some reason start the game wanting to be an agrarian economy, you can tweak those so each AI starts with either industrial or resource strategy.

I've done these (very crudely) in the past and the result was that the ai continuously build and had economic growth, but it still did stuff like Russia queueing 10 power bloc statues at the beginning of the game.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Flat and percentage construction speed for Major and Minor powers, more maneuvers, lower infamy against unrec states, research bonus, something to block naval invasions or restrict them all sound good to start

I use mods to halve infamy across the board and another to reduce it even more against unrecognized powers and it's a much more active world even if China gets carved up a little too often.

 

[Cymsdale]

I'm generally against such things, but if I had to choose probably loan interest reduction.

 

[Life is Comedy]

I never tried anything like triggered modifiers in V3, but you might have a slight adaptation according to country size.

Small ones (OPMs) need like sone kind of radical generation reduction.

Medium ones might need some investment efficiency.

Big ones I'm not sure

I agree with @Cymsdale that reflducing the interest rate might be useful. To at least give a slight chance to the AI to recover from death spirals (again, especially OPms)

A different kind of mod with big impact already on the workshop, is one that changes Ai only landowner interest group to help all countries to eventually at least get rid of peasants army and more importantly isolationism. And this actually helps a lot.

 

[ENFP]

The thing is, eu4 ai plays the game reasonably, it's just not as good as the player at min maxing, so giving it modifiers makes it more competitive. Vic3 ai does not play the game reasonably, so you are better off fixing it.

E.g. there's a define that tells the ai "queue building only if when it finishes, you have at least this much reserves." The last time I looked, the value was positive, so the ai doesn't deficit spend. Change that to -0.5 (so it stops building after 50% of debt is taken) and suddenly ai deficit spends and is better without artificial buffs.

Another example, the ai doesn't choose the amount of construction based on net income, it rather does it by GDP, population, and investment pool reinvestment. So it chronically either has too little or too much construction. The former caps it's growth, the latter causes oscillating demand for construction goods, which the ai can't really handle well (before queuing, the profit of iron is low, so it doesn't build iron, even if it's really high). Change this value to something more reasonable, and the ai will suddenly start growing its economy at a similar rate as they player.

The amount of construction the ai starts with is too low vs income. You can add construction sectors to their economy so they start at the desired amount.

Lastly, you have the economic strategies. France can for some reason start the game wanting to be an agrarian economy, you can tweak those so each AI starts with either industrial or resource strategy.

I've done these (very crudely) in the past and the result was that the ai continuously build and had economic growth, but it still did stuff like Russia queueing 10 power bloc statues at the beginning of the game.

Wow, sounds like the AI could use some big overhauls in terms of how it builds. I've noticed stuff like this in my own observer games, but I didn't realize it was so bad that the AI doesn't even build in a deficit. I guess it really believes in the gospel of balanced budgets!

 

[Life is Comedy]

To be honest, deficit spending only truly works on the scale it does because you can "defeat" the ai both economici and Military "easily".
Once you know what you are doing, its not like the AI will steal your most valuable state bringing your default down and bankrupting you for example. Or outcompete your industries making your investment a lost investment.

It's also why I really don't like when people tell beginners to deficit spend. That's something you should do once you grasp the overall game. Not whilly nilly

 

[Aloraand]

It's also why I really don't like when people tell beginners to deficit spend. That's something you should do once you grasp the overall game. Not whilly nilly

Generally, I think you should deficit spend on GPs, you shouldn't on unrecognised nations. The in between is highly situational. For the AI, there's one define for all of these, if you turn it on, the GP ai will continuously build more often, which then makes it more competitive. The other nations will also often get their debt taken on by the now richer GPs, so it's not too detrimental for the game in my experience, but it does lead to more bankruptcies in smaller nations (which tbh is a buff for ai gps).

 

[FranklyJustNess]

I think it would be great if AI had a bonus to law pass chances. Player can make long time strategies about what laws to pass and when in order to optimize their country the best, and since AI doesn't really chase law changing as much, it lags behind a lot on this front, so having it pass things its trying to faster would probably be a neat change.

 

[Vohen]

Coincidence or not, just this week I posted this on reddit, which might be useful here.

What I have to say is that usually I rather to give the player penalties than buffing the AI, as it might break balance from their side (rate of expansion, revolts, etc etc).
This is even more important for a mega campaign as just buffing the AI might lead to the world simply consolidating into a few blobs by the end of the first game.
But Vicky3 is an exception, the AI could really use a economic boom, so that I poted in the reddit thread could be a solution:

"I'm thinking the economy needs a boost for the AI for competitiveness, so an IP efficiency and interests boosts would be in order, but I'm trying to run away from throughput bonuses in fear of actually breaking things.

For the player, I'm thinking on giving penalties on the political front, like IG approval, movement activism, legitimacy, and less/more loyalists/radicals from SoL changes. Though an interest penalty could also be nice to slow down deficit spending."

Edited because I hit the post button without meaning to do it...