Simple AI peacetime army placement tweak

[Canute VII]

@Gnivom

Hi, I repeatedly noticed how suboptimal the AI places its army during peacetime. E.g. I was playing England and the scottish AI had its army on low maintenance in a province bordering me directly. Obviously, the moment I declare war, and march my army which had been waiting on full maintenance in the neighbouring province over, (most of the time) the AI will not be able to move its army away quickly enough nor to regain full morale from increased maintenance just before start of battle. Even the terrain of the province is not optimal for the AI, it simply seems to place its army in the capital (which is not optimal given current game mechanics).

During peacetime AI should always prefer to place its army

• on defensive terrain (hills, mountains, woods) if available
• away from the border (if the country is big enough), possibly behind fort ZoC (especially if army is not on full maintenance)

That would go a long way to protect its armies from being sniped easily. THX

 

[Gnivom]

Hi! It is supposed to think like that already. I will keep this in mind though when working on army AI. If you still have a save file of when their troops were unnecessarily on the border, that might help. Thanks!

 

[Zoe1444]

Hi! It is supposed to think like that already. I will keep this in mind though when working on army AI. If you still have a save file of when their troops were unnecessarily on the border, that might help. Thanks!

As far as I've observed the AI always keeps its troops on its capital if it can. If you cut off their capital from their troops in a war they will repeatedly ask for military access as they want to put their troops on their capital. Scottish capital is Lothian, which borders England, so they sit their troops there and do the normal AI low maintenance while not at a war/preparing for war.

They'll even put all their troops on an island if its their capital (looking at you every Caribbean colonial nation). I'm not sure what the solution is but always keeping troops on their capital is almost always a bad idea since it's so predictable.

 

[Gnivom]

As far as I've observed the AI always keeps its troops on its capital if it can. If you cut off their capital from their troops in a war they will repeatedly ask for military access as they want to put their troops on their capital. Scottish capital is Lothian, which borders England, so they sit their troops there and do the normal AI low maintenance while not at a war/preparing for war.

They'll even put all their troops on an island if its their capital (looking at you every Caribbean colonial nation). I'm not sure what the solution is but always keeping troops on their capital is almost always a bad idea since it's so predictable.

I was not aware of that actually. Seems like some simple rule someone put up long ago. The AI now has a decent threat evaluation system, and should try to stay in safe provinces if not planning an attack, and certainly with low maintenance. It might bu sufficient to just remove their desire to be in the capital then

 

[Canute VII]

It still happens:

Save game attached.
@Gnivom

 

[Gnivom]

Thanks for the save file. I was now able to fix this issue

 

[Canute VII]

Great!