Inaccurate Italian AI

[Cagliostro]

I had noticed in my games that the Italian AI never seems to attempt to regain the Austrian part of Italy (Venice and the like), though they often expand into France and/or Switzerland. So I went to the Italian AI files to see if I could mod them. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Austria was not even listed as a potential foe of Italy! There is a very slight Austrian bonus (10, compared to 20 for Turkey and 60 for Ethiopia) in the ITAlate.ai, but that only gets implemented if Hungary exists, something which never happens in a normal game.

Otherwise, Italy does not start gearing up to attack Austria until the 1914 AI switch, which is absurd - even if one hopes for Italy to assault Austria in 1914, the AI has to have some time to build up to assault a foe that is generally going to be vastly militarily superior.

What's worse is that if Hungary does exist and the late AI fires, the 1914 military AI never takes place at all, leaving their interest in Austrian lands at 10.

Probably the default Italian AI should show an interest in Austria of about 20, and the "destroy Austria" AI should probably kick in about 1902, when the Italians signed a secret guarantee that they would not attack France in honoring the Triple Alliance.

 

[OHgamer]

I had noticed in my games that the Italian AI never seems to attempt to regain the Austrian part of Italy (Venice and the like), though they often expand into France and/or Switzerland. So I went to the Italian AI files to see if I could mod them. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Austria was not even listed as a potential foe of Italy! There is a very slight Austrian bonus (10, compared to 20 for Turkey and 60 for Ethiopia) in the ITAlate.ai, but that only gets implemented if Hungary exists, something which never happens in a normal game.

Otherwise, Italy does not start gearing up to attack Austria until the 1914 AI switch, which is absurd - even if one hopes for Italy to assault Austria in 1914, the AI has to have some time to build up to assault a foe that is generally going to be vastly militarily superior.

What's worse is that if Hungary does exist and the late AI fires, the 1914 military AI never takes place at all, leaving their interest in Austrian lands at 10.

Probably the default Italian AI should show an interest in Austria of about 20, and the "destroy Austria" AI should probably kick in about 1902, when the Italians signed a secret guarantee that they would not attack France in honoring the Triple Alliance.

the ITALate ai kicks in if one of the following exist :

year = 1890
owned = { province = 1303 data = FRA } #French takeover Tunisia
exists = HUN #austria falling apart
technology = 4304


so HUN does not have to exist to switch the AI at some time in the 1880s.

As for the question of ITA going after Austria, keep in mind that players prefer the AI to be relatively historical. Except for the alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italy did not go to war with Austria until it formed an alliance with Britain and France in 1915, and in fact was part of the German-Austrian alliance system from the 1880s until 1914. Italy would not have gone to war with Austria on its own - it would have been likely suicide for Italy. This is why there is no combat for AUS in the first ITA ai, and only a slight one in the second. The focus is more on getting ITA to try to form alliance with either Germany or Britain, and if that ends up leading to war with AUS, then ITA will have backup support.

Giving ITA a higher combat value against Austria would likely result in ITA getting steamrolled by the Austrians, which would be more problematic an AI behavior.

 

[Cagliostro]

Giving ITA a higher combat value against Austria would likely result in ITA getting steamrolled by the Austrians, which would be more problematic an AI behavior.

Obviously I don't want it to get steamrolled; however, Italy historically would have been very likely to go after Austria if it had spotted a chance to. As it is, Italy's relatively high combat value often makes it expand ahistorically into France and Switzerland, which is a worse solution than attacking Austria, where at least it has cores and substantial historical interest.