Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

The AI only takes note of every 10 levels, so 1, 11, 21, 31, etc. are the critical levels.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

Oh! Thanks, QM. That's good to know.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

quantum_mechani:

I always kept it at 10 or 20, so it seems I need to move it by one point. And what AI does when all provinces have the same PD? And I am sure it won't attack 1000 army with PD 0 instead of empty probince with PD 21...

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

It's based on the AI's belief that it can successfully take a province if it declares war on you. For instance, you can heavily defend all your provinces except 1 with no PD and eventually the AI will look at your army graph and decide you're weak. It'll build up what it thinks are a sufficient number of troops and attack you.

Now if you have more than 1 "open" province it just makes the AI attack you faster. It seems like the AI is always at war with at least 1 nation in order to expand, so if all of its neighbors appear tougher than you it's just a matter of time before they attack you.

Further, the reason you get ganged up on is because one nation declares war on you and you expend resources to defeat them, gather more lightly defended provinces while at the same time losing troops. Another nation attacking you just increases the number of lightly defended provinces and lost units, encouraging more opponents to gang up on you.

That's my take on it anyway. I've never had a border nation attack me when they had nothing to gain. Occasionally they declare war on you via a message but they're always ready to take something the next turn.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

As far as exactly which provinces the AI will attack, that's harder to predict, though PD certainly does play a role. The big advantage of the higher PD on borders is preventing the AI from declaring war in the first place.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

I've noticed that the AI seems to balance PD vs. gold income. There are probably other factors as well but thats the only one I've noticed a pattern for.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

sector24:

Well, AI declares war when it is on the other side of the map and no chance to be close to me for many many turns. And just throws some distance spells at me.

I have now strange situation, bordering with Ermor but he didn't attack me even once. And we have border for like 30 turns. And Ermor has enormous army [like 3x bigger then next one, it is MA].

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

Plenty of PD on the border?

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

I was talking primarily about your neighbors, I do admit that occasionally you get a message from someone you've never seen but I am not exactly sure why that is. My best guess would be that they may have expanded up against stronger neighbors on every front and need someone to go to war with.

Re: The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP
 

Thats true, only so far as it goes.

In SP, I routinely steer attacking AI's where I want them to go by making even a 1 pt difference in pd.

While I usually use the 21 breakpoint, it works pretty much anywhere.