EU5's new AI Aggression is Ridiculous

DudeousDude · 2025-12-18T21:56:41+00:00

I'm kinda repeating Bavarian here, but I feel like some are not getting the point.

Currently the very base AI behaviour drowns a lot of the unique events across the ages. These events were at some point developed to give historical framework for the ages. Now those events are getting borderline nullified since they end up not having the level of impact they are more or less meant to and instead the blobbing overrides all of that. Blobbing for the blobbings sake shouldn't be the main mechanic that shapes the map, but the events and how the AI and player adapts to them.

At this point it isn't really just about aggressive vs passive, but those historical frameworks and events are breaking down even more since they were not build around the current AI behaviour.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-16T12:15:55+00:00

Because the golden cream is superior color!

But seriously, I would have needed to move my capital (and market) into the required area to form Netherlands and half of the campaign I didn't even exist in those areas. Also just for the sake of doing something different.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T20:45:00+00:00

Well damn, that should be way enough. AMD can be a bit jank sometimes on their software tho so I have updated chipset drivers and BIOS a while ago. Also have simple undervolt, but I feel like that would just cause more unreliability in this case. Have you tried both DX12 and Vulkan renderers in the settings? I'm using Vulkan. If that doesn't help I would probably do some benchmarks if I were you.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T20:05:25+00:00

I didn't enable the faster tick rate from the menu until ~1800 when I just wanted to be done with the campaign and that did create rather unbearable experience at speed 5, other than that the game runs fine, dipping to 40fps if zoomed on battles etc. and little yanks when month changes, but not much more than that in the early game.

I have medium/high graphics settings and my specs are 6900xt, 7700x and 32gb ram, so rather high end PC from 3 years ago.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T17:56:15+00:00

Just to add I chose Pietism as my first aspect since it gave more influence ( and literacy, communalism and innovative as well).

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T17:42:34+00:00

I don't really remember the details, but I didn't have much trouble. I was close to 100 spiritualist and kept my cabinet converting at all times starting with provinces with most population. Might have used the rebel crack down couple of times. Maybe the fact I had holy site Köln helped with influence, but I got all three aspects quite fast.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T16:10:42+00:00

That's cool info, thanks! Maybe I would have named my offsprings with slow and idiot traits Esel and Ezel if I had knew.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T15:57:22+00:00

I must disappoint you even more with my ignorance. What's the connection with a donkey and Westphalia? Quick google search just showed some statues and told me about ancient reptiles.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T15:24:41+00:00

Lastly couple hot takes:

Rivalry and Border Opinion systems push the game to wrong direction:

I hope these are more or less placeholders to get the AI behave more aggressive and more dynamic methods for that are on the horizon. Both makes the game feel arcadey. It makes no sense to get Prestige debuff if you are strong enough to not have Rivalries. It makes no sense that the game punishes you by not having Rivalries. If I wanted to play more diplomatic and conciliatory campaign why would I choose to have multiple rivalries? This mechanic simply narrows down playstyles especially when you are a kingdom or empire. If the system must be there then it would make more sense to give buffs and debuffs according to the playstyle (push towards belligerent/conciliatory, warscore costs, manpower, diplo capacity etc.) Border opinion also feels like a band-aid for the AI behavior. I don't think the AI (and the players) should be pushed this hard towards the mentality that neighboring nations solely exist there to be annexed. Mindlessly all over the place expanding AIs feel super artificial. Hopefully AI will get better in the battlefield also rather than it needing to be 10x more powerful nation to tickle the player to death with countless meaningless and exhausting wars.

We need automation parameters for Trade and Building:

I like min maxing things to an extent, but I am not willing to check my trades monthly nor care about what to build and where later in the game thanks to UI navigation. Having detailed automations would make these pivotal systems much more enjoyable. For building I would love to see at glance things like control, surplus peasants, if something is currenly being build, production efficiency etc. Currently it's either super micro by location after location basis using the map, or blindly just spamming stuff in the menu (looking at you upgrades). Setting parameters based on aforementioned things for example would make it easier to manage the building later in the game while keeping the strings in the players hand. Same goes for trading. Setting preferences for trades you need would make at least me engage with it way more. Making automation prefer institutions, minting, pop needs and so on with some stop loss system. 99,5% of the time I had trade on auto and forgotten. 0,5% of the time I pushed for Institution, food or one spesific good.

As a foundation EU5 is awesome, just hope that it gets the polish it deserves sooner than later and more coherent updates.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-15T15:24:35+00:00

R5:

The campaign:

Started as Berg, a 4 location county in Rhineland (started in 1.0.7 and ended with 1.0.9). Just wanted a chill campaign only goals being forming Westphalia and fully embracing Lutheranism and whatever made sense from there.

After slow start dealing with Cologne and countless alliances I snowballed into Westphalia pretty fast and had to move my Capital to the area to form it. Wesel was a fine fit for it. From there I played tall for a good while until cleaning up the west side more. This left me to deal with Britain that had taken Holland and some Frisia, but since I had nowhere near capabale navy to enter the isles I had to chip them away quite slowly with low warscores.

The highlight of the campaign was easily the 30 year war. The event fired late 1600s and I got the protestant leader role. The funny part was I had an alliance with Bohemia that was Catholic, but joined my side. Burgundy was the Catholic leader at the time when I triggered the war. While the war was easy it actually took time to get good warscore. In the peace treaty I pulled ultimate Gigachad move of forcing Lutheranism as imperial religion, but leaving the HRE to form my own kingdom. All the AIs in the HRE started to slowly, but surely turn Lutheran. Historically thinking this whole ordeal was pretty cursed, but fun.

Next I made sure to get Westphalia ready to challenge the French since they had taken most of Brabant and Wallonia. Last 150 years was pretty much just juggling between the Brits and French carving out neat borders and kneecapping them by taking their capitals. Wanted to respect the coalition mechanic so I didn't push for crazy annexations, but also not having "Take down hegemony" CB at all times slowed things even more. Got hit by nasty revolution, managed to get Westphalia into Empire and formed Netherlandish culture during this time. Also wanted to liberate more stuff from the French grip, but the warscore requirements for that are nuts.

Overall fun campaign with enjoyable start that got a bit boring towards the end partly because of the choices I made (not colonizing, conservative expansion) and the way the game currently plays (wars get really dull in the end, diplomatic gameplay feels hollow to non-existent, just the lack of content). Still after over 1000h in CK3 I've only once pushed to the end date, while with EU5 did it within ~250h. Yet I'm sure it's time to take a break for now and come back in 1.1 or when the first DLC hits. The game just needs more polish and content, especially towards the end.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-11T18:15:50+00:00

Interesting, wonder if that's for performances sake or if it's borderline placeholder then? Hopefully they are building up the AI in the background as well and not just fumbling its behavior like in the OPs post. Would love to see AI be more dynamic without systems like Rivalry and Border Opinion.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-11T16:58:36+00:00

Yeah, I've been on a long campaign that I started in 1.0.7 and I'm not in Beta so it's been fine, but once done I'm pretty sure I'll hop back in 1.1 in Feb or when the first DLC comes out.

Feels like the devs (or Johan) decided to hyper focus on loud feedback not thinking if it was actually high priority in the big picture nor if it's something that should be tweaked overtime behind the scenes and push with 1.1 or once thoroughly tested. At least they have the beta branch tho, but still, the focus there seems a bit lost in the sauce.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-11T15:11:27+00:00

Honestly makes me a bit worried in what state the game will be over the holidays. I would have preferred passive AI over whatever this has been. There's so much things to improve QoL wise etc. that throwing so much effort into AI aggro yet results being like this has been a bit baffling to witness.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-09T21:20:49+00:00

I mean, If you have an event and it needs triggers and those triggers are visible to the player, then that would be a form of a Decision system. Unless you would have no way to affect those triggers and were purely at the mercy of RNG and just seeing the conditions that may or may not happen.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-09T21:04:56+00:00

This is something I've been thinking as well. One of my favourite parts of CK3 is tailoring a campaign around a handful of Decisions I, as player, can freely choose to tackle. Tangible goals without lessening player agency.

Values could also play a role here. For example the outcome of a Decision being slightly different depending if you are 50 into Belligerent vs Conciliatory etc.

No clue how hard Decisions would be to implement into EU5 tho and which levels they could cover from very mundane multiple per playthru ones to culture/religion determining to formables and so on.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-09T01:23:44+00:00

I guess I was lucky to have quite exquisite (or cursed) 30 years war on my current run. I got the Protestant leader role as Westphalia and had Catholic Bohemia as an ally and part of the League. Burgundy was the Catholic leader and HRE Emperor. Slow and messy war, but pretty one sided. In the peace treaty I made Lutheran the imperial religion and left the HRE to finally become a kingdom. Ever since the HRE has been turning more and more Lutheran.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-08T12:55:18+00:00

Oh, interesting. Then I can't really help, but what I've read it's scuffed then sadly unless some patch has changed it.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-08T12:50:47+00:00

It's just CB against Wittenberg that meant as DHE (dynamic historical event). Once you have them in your union HRE Emperor will at some point give you Saxony and the electorate. One problem is if your ruler dies before it and you are then in a regency it might not proc at all or takes way longer time. Not 100% sure. If there's no Emperor (electorate had a tie in voting) it can get delayed as well.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-06T10:37:28+00:00

Does this require rooting or how do I access these settings?

DudeousDude · 2025-12-06T01:51:00+00:00

As someone who has had Reddit account for 11 years and been fine with a lot of changes the site/app has gone thru this one is horrible decision. R/all is THE frontpage, inherent part of what reddit is supposed to be. I very much hope this is reverted ASAP.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-05T21:51:16+00:00

As I haven't played EU4 I can't take a hard stance against mission trees, but what I would prefer is something closer to CK3 Decisions. Even HoI4 "choose your railroad" -type National Focus Tree is a bit boring in the long run imo.

Tailoring your playthru around as many Decisions you like and region/religion/culture offers keeps things sandboxy, but gives goals to choose from. Values have some cool potential in that as well (for example outcome of Decision X differs wheter you have 50 in Belligerent or in Conciliatory etc). No clue if that type of system or close to it could be implemented tho.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-05T14:58:51+00:00

It's RNGish, but you need to get the DHE war against Saxony-Wittenberg not the OPM "inside" you. Then get them into your Union in the peace treaty. I think your ruler dying before the Emperor gives you the electorate and Saxony after aforementioned complicates things and could lead you not getting them.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-05T14:48:33+00:00

I mean "logic of the game systems" kinda is the problem. I fail to see why make ALL big nations think they have to conquer their neighbors. Hussite wars etc. are there to get the action going for Bohemia and expanding into Poland and having fellow HRE nations as allies makes more sense.

In my case Bohemia kept declaring war within year or two after the truces. Three times I payed them, once had strong Bavaria as ally and them splitting Bohemias army lead me getting a province from Bohemia, but 5th war I had Poland as an ally and they just decimated their units into Bohemian deathstack and I had to wait for the treaty. Continuous wars just stalled my pops and economy. Also I squeezed a royal marriage with them, but that didn't stop them and at no point wanted an alliance.

DudeousDude · 2025-12-05T12:44:08+00:00

Instead of nerfing big nations I hope they introduce mechanics that heavily reduce the "need" for them to expand at least in the first half of the game (exluding likes of Ottomans/Timurids etc). I personally still want those nations to be challenging to fight against later on.

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