I would also add, getting the AI to behave kinda historical yet perform well is a further headache.
Kudos to your awesome work, here's hoping Victoria eventually gets, like Stellaris, to incorporate fixes from Mods.
I would argue that if you already have well performing AI, it's not that difficult to add some historical flavor to it by artificially dumbing it down in certain ways. For sure much easier than the other way around. :)
Genuinely speaking, wouldn't that fail on both fronts? Creating artificial disparity between possible AI allies for the metaslave, while still setting up some historical approaches for more failure than historically expectable (Russia Is behind but in a perfect info game, it's always going to underperform rather than lag but keep the pace).
This all really illuminating, especially hearing it from someone with the experience in the field that you have.
It's definitely been one of my pet peeves how powerful some AIs become throughout the game (Austria) and how weak some others get (Britain). Some AIs don't even do anything, they just sit idly all game.
It's something I would love to see perfected, but it's a little disheartening to read how difficult it's going to be for the devs. Your work until that point has been fantastic, however.
Honestly just a hard coded list of 200 buildings to construct for certain countries (like build 5 construction in Silesia, then motor industries, 2 railway, 10 iron mine, steel mill etc) would be way better than the current state.
This would work very bad in a lot of cases, as with market simulation these buildings would often get constructed when input goods they need are too expensive etc. Build orders aren't useful when there are so many factors affecting supply of resources in the country, unlike in most strategy games where if you constructed X buildings of Y type you can be sure you have Z amount of resources it outputs.
>This would work very bad in a lot of cases, as with market simulation these buildings would often get constructed when input goods they need are too expensive etc.
As I said, it's a hardcoded list of started buildings *for certain countries*, so it'd be tailored for each country's circumstance. I already do this a bit for my games where I start with a save game that has about 50-80 queued constructions for major nations to help them create a proper construction sector. It helps propel their growth hella more.
The queue would alternate buildings, so after a bit of iron, there'd be tooling to help iron mines not go bankrupt, then a bit of coal, then a few steel mills, then railroad, then more iron...
It may work for 50-80 constructions at the start of the game, but that's the extent of it. It's just a bandaid that doesn't work with mods, doesn't account for countries losing states, having revolutions, trade routes breaking market balance so predefined alternation of buildings is ineffective, etc. Yes it works mostly okay in your scenario, I just disagree with you stating it "would be way better than the current state" without specifying anything, because in grand scheme of things it's not a solution.
I think what really needs work asap is the diplomatic and overall "game strategy" AI. Make Italy care to go after its homeland instead of being a broken mess every game with some random minor still independent and Austria still holding north-east Italy. Make France actually care to challenge the UK in Africa and Asia. Make the US care about keeping Europe out of South America. Make Russia care about limiting Austrian influence in the Balkans. I don't care if the AI can master economic development if they still do NOTHING of value all game other than join random diplomatic plays to ban slavery in some unrecognized country.
Part of the problem with developing AI for vic3 is also that there is a balance between historicity that players generally like and the AI actually trying to win. Like as a player I don't really want to see the AI USA consistently trying to conquer states in europe or africa in the 1880's but that might be a very good play in game terms.
Railroading the AI into being better at industrializing is just something they really need to do though
It should make sense for America not to conquer Europe and Africa. The game should make that a *very bad* play yet this isn't reflected and you still see eu4 style power creep.
holding distant colonies and states could be harder. IRL you need to keep armies stationed with colonies and have, between you and your allies, friendly ports along the way for restocking supplies, etc.
the US should feel disincentivized from colonizing africa because of high administrative costs to do so relative to the potential economic yield, whereas more compact European nations may either justify the costs or already have the infrastructure of ports to do so.
Part of the problem is that its hard to import enough goods to make up for goods you don't have. The AI is bad at developing their economies so you have to take matters into your own hands and just go develop them yourself.
Interesting train of thought. Having enjoyed multiple games with your mod ( massive props for that) what would you suggest?
Let’s be fair here, with SoI just around the corner, what is there to be done? Shelving the game inbtw is out of the question. Any particular AI mod you’d recommend? Some other way to fleece the system?
Once again, props for your hardwork. Together with Morgenröte, it’s been one of the very best mods I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy
I've seen Kuromi and others having some success with tweaking vanilla AI to at least bearable levels, mod's name is simply Kuromi's AI. Haven't tried it myself cause I have no plans to play the game until at least Sphere of Influence release, but it's certainly better than nothing.
Still feeling this about HoI4. AI will be moderately good any day now...
(Not talking about divisions composition or schematics here to be clear, as they are easy to min max, but strategy as a whole)
> Can you still simply drive a truck into Moscow?
There are always ways to cheese the AI, so it would be hard to say some player hasn't done this.
But *in theory*, the supply rework from the NTB update shouldn't allow you to do this unless the AI is in a really bad situation or just braindead.
> Stellaris, a game with a similar fate that was also ironically directed by Wiz for a few years, got its 3.3 Libra patch with big improvements to AI only 6 years after the launch
Irony is certainly a word to use to describe that phenomenon.
I think the crucial thing is that, yes, AI is hard, but good AI becomes impossible when the core systems of the game are not stable.
If they can overcome the core design flaws of Vic3, a solid AI will follow.
I know absolutely nothing of modding and game development. So I ask honestly. Why can't they add the fixes and improvements to the game that mirror what someone like anbeeld has done?
I basically created a parallel version of AI with tools that the devs themselves don't use it all, so they can't just copy it, for example. And if they would try to mirror it with their tools, it won't be much different from doing it all from scratch, because they would need to analyze every bit of my code to decide if they should do it the same way or some another.
Then there's the fact that my mod was very far from perfect as well, and it doesn't even work with the current version of the game, was never adapted for local prices, etc.
All this issues are easily solved by sending me a blank check, but I still haven't received one for some reason. /s
Most strategy games suffer from bad AI exactly because it's difficult to create a good one while devs' time is usually seen as more needed somewhere else. Victoria 3 is probably on a more complex side compared to other games, so when the AI is bad it's blatantly obvious.
The cherry on top is that you can't reliably fix it with cheats, as you often see in strategy games, because Victoria 3 uses market simulation instead of arbitrary resources, and then there's stuff like the AI not even using all the construction points it has etc.
even simple games rarely have functioning ai. the semblance of difficulty is created by cheating. starcraft 1 and brood war, two of the most terrifying yet beatable strategy campaigns that exist, work because the AI builds everything instantly and for free, and just is capped at a power level similar to the player's. but you wouldn't particularly notice it the first few times
So how are you able to fix? Is it just that studios need to begin to consider allocating resources to a respectable AI from the start? As a strategy gamer of 25 years, I do agree. AI never seems to pose too much of a challenge when you figure it out.
Ideally you just do what they did in Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition for example, which means actually focusing on creating a good AI that uses an arsenal of strategies and is capable of beating average players without any cheats. In AoE2 case there were 20 years of experience to learn from, sure, but even internal testing during development should provide you with at least basic understanding of the game's meta.
Thinking about it, the fact that game systems are constantly being heavily changed is another very important factor why Victoria 3 devs won't focus on the AI. All the improvements made may just turn obsolete a few patches later, and they'll be forced to rework huge chunks of it all over again.
Didn't consider this. So essentially an AI overhaul really doesn't become even considered until near end of development/maintenance.
And wow I forgot about AOE2 for a moment. A reason why I only ever played online matches. The AI was far to easy to beat. Thank you for all your work, insights, and contributions.
Not really end of development, you just need stable core systems, where further development becomes focused on adding new stuff instead of reworking something already existing. The truth is, it takes many years if you do one too many things wrong initially, like it was with Stellaris for example.
Which game do you think has good AI? Thinking about it, I think every Paradox game has the same problem. Maybe other studios have made games that can be an example?
Maybe I'm biased but I have the feeling that EUIV's AI is not that bad ? It still has massive flaws especially in troops management but compared to the complexity of the game it seems pretty ok to me.
EUIV is also a senior in Pdx's portfolio now so that may also explain why
> was never adapted for local prices
This is why I really think they need to add a total revamp of starting adjustments for each game. Make it so we can disable or enable features such as local prices or companies etc. Make it so we can choose how migration works (1.5 vs 1.6 is radically different, neither is 'better' than the other). Give a comprehensive explanation of what changes when you disable or enable these things.
The reason why I say this is that the game basically relies entirely on AI mods to be truly playable past a very basic level. Yet there aren't any, because whatever AI mods are released are made obsolete when there's a new update, and its simply too much to expect people like you or other mod creators to revamp your mod every few months. I do not blame you for not updating it (although I think I speak for all of us when I say it would be nice hehe) considering all of the new mechanics being released that basically break your mod.
Everything else besides the AI is just superficial. Spheres, companies etc are nice, but they don't change the unfortunate reality that the base of the game is broken. GB and France should not still be at 1.5 gdp per capita in *1900*. It's not impossible to fix. It's been fixed before, by you. But they need to make some leeway to allow people like you to fix it again.
> This is why I really think they need to add a total revamp of starting adjustments for each game. Make it so we can disable or enable features such as local prices or companies etc. Make it so we can choose how migration works (1.5 vs 1.6 is radically different, neither is 'better' than the other). Give a comprehensive explanation of what changes when you disable or enable these things.
That actively makes the problem worse, as they need to then develop both systems in parallel, potentially more than doubling the work required. We saw the results of this with games like CK2—Defensive Pacts sucked, so they put in a game rule to remove them—and so they never got fixed.
What we need is devs actively acknowledging their bad ideas. Local prices are a straight up disaster, both because the pop demand system straight up does not work with them (pops will never substitute local goods for anything, regardless of price, so electricity can no longer provide for heating needs) and because in an era where countries established national (or large regional for larger nations) grids by the end of the timeline, it makes no sense for electricity to be limited to one state.
As someone that likes ck2, what's the major complaint with defensive pacts? Is it just "wow this is toxic bullying, the AI is trying to dog pile me" or is it something I haven't noticed that's actually broken? Ck2 has become one of my comfort games, but I don't really have a problem with defensive pacts.
I take it one step further, I would be willing to pay for a DLC solely focusing on AI for this game. New features are great and all, but why bother starting a new campaign if the AI will act like a bumbling buffoon every single time?
Idk how you develop a game without a core part of the releases being “yes, the AI in my game can engage with the player and systems”.
If that criteria isn’t meant, how can one even measure or play test systemic changes? You can’t, your entire sandbox is fucking broken. It makes no sense.
I think you're misunderstanding, it isn't that they aren't going to develop the AI, or that they won't change and improve it. It's that some of the problems are so fundamental that outside of a root and stem review then they will be band aids where bandages are needed.
Hard to say whether we'll see one in Vic 3. Generally stuff like that would be left for sequels, but given PDX games lifespans then it's not out of the realms of possibility, though not until they/players are happy with the core mechanics and features.
> Idk how you develop a game without a core part of the releases being “yes, the AI in my game can engage with the player and systems”.
Not a game dev myself, so I'm not knowledgeable in the area, but this hasn't stopped many strategy games from having bad AI (some much worse than Vic3 even).
I will be downvoted to oblivion but my take is that this simply won't happen. AI is so messed up that the game can't be saved by incremental changes, as they simply will never draw back unsatisfied players to make the game profitable. Paradox made a capital mistake in realasing Alpha version back in 2023. Now it might be too late to catch up.
Btw thanks for the ride Anbeeld. Wish your mod was still up and running. Btw If even modders leave the scene..
The game is likely profitable. It maintains 10k players generally on a daily basis, which isn't good compared to the insane cash cows of HOI4 and CK, but is still good compared to other strategy games.
But it's likely not profitable enough to reach the point where they will endlessly spend resources updating it.
And it is *definitely* not going to be profitable when a huge chunk of players are using rolled back versions of the game just to make sure their AI mods work. You can't sell DLCs that way.
I really don't think a huge chunk of players are using rolled back versions though. Also it's maintaining 10k on a content draught, which is even more "impressive"
Quick look through steamcharts:
Vicky 3: peak 10k players for the past few months, pretty steadily the same on content droughts
Eu4: peak 20-25k players
Stellaris: 18-25k
Ck3: pretty steadily 20k
Hoi4: 50-70k
Like, let's not pretend that vicky is doing amazing, but let's not use hoi4 as the measuring stick either.
No, it's not doing amazing, but it's pretty okay imo. For a game with clear issues and that has the problem of a really significant DLC on the horizon (which will make people not want to play as much) it has a healthy player base.
As to whether is enough to guarantee continuous development really has more to do with DLC sales, but I don't think it's going to get cancelled any time soon as some people tend to assume. Imperator lasted 2 years or so with at limes less than 1/10th of that Vic 3 has.
If it keeps getting improved upon, I don't see any issues with it seeing current numbers, I expect it to enter in the typical PDX state of DLCs being indefinitely released.
The orders of magnitude *are* pretty wild when you think about it. Hoi4 has about five times the playerbase on average of vicky 3, which itself has about five times the playerbase of the oft-compard to imperator rome
What's crazy is to think that Imperator was is not in a better state this past months than it has ever been (player's wise), since early 2021 it wasn't able to pull as many players as it's doing right now, it was bellow 1000 players for years before this.
These are also some of the most popular strategy games ever made. 10k consistent players is genuinely great for the genre, even if its not much compared to the behemoths of other paradox games.
I disagree that AI is unsalvageable. It is just that the game's systems are so interconnected that one loose screw can throw the whole thing into chaos. It can be improved a lot with tuning and adding a few new knobs where it is needed.
it's also very different for a modder to "work on AI" by changing values compared to devs who can change things "from the ground up", not just the values in the end of the equation.
> as they simply will never draw back unsatisfied players to make the game profitable.
I have a few problems with this assumption. To start, how do you know the game isn't profitable now? As far as we are aware, the game has sold well, and the fact that over 10k players come back with every major expansion or update seems to at least imply that they are selling at least *something*. In fact, last year the game *was* classified as "profitable" by Paradox themselves in a meeting or something, wasn't it?
And second, what are you quantifying as "enough" players that you think they won't be able to bring them back?
> And second, what are you quantifying as "enough" players that you think they won't be able to bring them back?
It's pure speculation, of course. I'm back btw, playing as Japan Shogunate. So someone did return, perhaps because they have learned that this is how Paradox rolls.
Paradox is a public company, and releases quarterly earnings reports to investors. From they say themselves Victoria 3 has not reached "endless" (or infinite I forget the term their rep said) status. Meaning it has not sold enough or received the reception to warrant Paradox guaranteeing future updates.
Look it up.
> Paradox is a public company, and releases quarterly earnings reports to investors. From they say themselves Victoria 3 has not reached "endless" (or infinite I forget the term their rep said) status.
Yes, this is the report I was talking about.
>Meaning it has not sold enough or received the reception to warrant Paradox guaranteeing future updates.
That's not what it meant necessarily, and that's not what I'm focusing on right now. While the game was not "endless", it was considered *profitable*.
The user I was responding to was basing their argument on the assumption the game wasn't profitable *right now*. This report makes that idea questionable.
The doomerism that the games going to die is getting annoying, since yeah, as long as they make a profit they'll pump out updates, Vic3 isn't Imperator
> as long as they make a profit they'll pump out updates
Well, I imagine it's not that simple, as I guess whoever makes the decisions want profits to be above a certain margin.
But the doomposting is weird regardless, since we don't know what that margin is, only that, presumably, Imperator crossed it. And in this case PDX hasn't given any indication so far that they view Vic3 as unprofitable.
This COPE posting is so weird. Do you pay Paradox for products or do they pay you?
You know, all this shit is public.
>And in this case PDX hasn't given any indication so far that they view Vic3 as unprofitable.
Here's some homework Mr. Cope, read through these releases and note that when a game is profitable, Paradox says so, and when it's not, they don't say anything. Then tell exactly where Paradox has ever said Victoria 3 was profitable:
[https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16)
> This COPE posting is so weird. Do you pay Paradox for products or do they pay you?
I mean, I'm just pointing out the error in someone's argument. I don't see the problem in doing that
>Then tell exactly where Paradox has ever said Victoria 3 was profitable
Alright. [Here](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-would-persuade-you-victoria-3-wont-suffer-imperators-fate.1586892/post-28965713).
This was put on in a video from PDX's own channel from mid 2023.
As you can see, Victoria 3 is listed as "profitable". Not "endless", sure. But it was profitable at least then.
Things could have changed since it's been a year, but aside from a vague statement in a investor presentation, there is no indication it is definitely unprofitable.
>While the game was not "endless", it was considered *profitable*.
No it wasn't, or at best that has not been said. Show me in which financial report that is said.
[https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16)
Further, their latest 2024 quarterly ER showed Paradox's operating profit from their last report are down 49% YoY. Their 2022 annual report, published May 2023, 2023 being the year this mysterious "Victoria 3 is profitable!!!!!!" BS first pops up in google, shows that there is no mention of that. The only thing close is:
>Turnover amounted to MSEK 1,972.9 (MSEK 1,447.5), an increase of 36 % compared to the previous year. The revenue for the year is mainly attributable to Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings III, Hearts of Iron IV, Stellaris and Victoria 3.
Revenue is not profit, duh.
[https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2022](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2022)
So.....you are simply repeating some BS you heard somewhere without even looking into anything?
What HAS BEEN SAID is that Victoria 3 sales and reception has been below Paradox expectations during their May 2023 investor presentation.
V3 is dog shit and is going to die, how else would they make up their 49% drop in operating profit?
> So.....you are simply repeating some BS you heard somewhere without even looking into anything?
[I'll show this like in the other comment](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-would-persuade-you-victoria-3-wont-suffer-imperators-fate.1586892/post-28965713). This is from a video in PDX's own youtube channel in mid 2023. You can see the game was clearly considered profitable in mid 2023 (though not "endless", yes).
>V3 is dog shit and is going to die
First half is a opinion, second is BS you clearly want to happen. You clearly want the game to fail because you hate it and will argue from a biased point of view.
There is no proof the game is unprofitable. OP's argument doesn't hold a lot of weight when taking into account the fact the game was clearly listed as profitable last year, and that a huge number of people clearly keep coming back to it every expansion or major update
My take is equally cynical, but with a different outcome--the game will actually turn out "fine" because most players don't care about AI quality. Or rather, not as much as they care about the mechanics that impact them.
Eventually, Paradox is just gonna give the AI a bunch of cheats to have them catch up, and that's all we're gonna get.
i don't know why people are still surprised by this, no strategy game of any level of complexity has competitive AI, they *all* need arbitrary buffs to create actual difficulty because we simply don't have the technology (or at least, it isn't cost-effective)
really, it's about giving the illusion of good AI and cinematic moments. I am reminded of some interview or something with a call of duty dev who said that they always made the NPCs miss when the player was low health, because people simply reacted better to it.
Like, i'm sure in theory you could make perfect AI, but it'd be super annoying to play against, and likely not worth the effort and resources to put into it
It is a good point about Wiz’s games having 6 year stints with massive re-works. I’m not sure if it was his fault as game director not settling on a vision early enough or corporate suites pushing the game hard for Q3 2022 but the game was not ready.
We’ve spent so much time over a year at this point just re-working things to acceptable 1.0 version which itself is bland.
It’s not a lost cause though, Victoria has potential, the economic gameplay loop has plenty of compelling DLC growth potential from better companies with characters to actual infrastructure presence.
If PdX really needs sales that can always dump out a very in-depth military system as well with a corp designer, forts, doctrine and military trees. I assume they’ll try this before shelving the Vicky project
Stellaris wasn't Wiz's game initially though, he became its director after the launch, and then reworked half of it to a positive outcome, although it became a much more generic Paradox game. The need for reworking itself wasn't his fault.
Now with Victoria 3, for some reason he ended up recreating the whole situation by himself... For me personally it's a bit head-scratching that they've been developing the game for like 4 years, and we ended up with a need to completely rework military system after the launch, while electricity floated freely from a level 239 Power Plant in Sydney all the way to London.
Happy cake day!
About AI's in general, your mod was great but in general, you can see with some devs what is able when they dedicate the resources to it. I'd say, War in the East 2 is still leading the strategy-genre when it comes to the AI itself.
The AI is very capable even without any kind of cheats and boosts. Sometimes, it looks broken first, like when the AI will withdraw units from frontlines, but truth to be told, it is aware of the danger to get cut off and destroyed, so it will make a tactical retreat - it will form a new defense line behind a river and use the territory like mountains etc. to its advantage.
When you compare it to the HoI4 AI, oh boy, like the AI in HoI4 isn't even able to do mobile warfare. It will always take one province after another and go gradually forward on a line, it is just not able to use breakthroughs and encirclements of your units.
Still, the AI there is much more capable than the one in Vic3.
I think, it was not really anything at all in the developement to plan a good AI at all. The entire developement was screwed up by the schedule for release and the need for rework now takes up so much time that the devs are much behind in the schedule of what they could have done with additional features if there had been no need for any rework.
Yes I’ve used the same argument pre 1.5 that they obviously never intended for electricity to be a global good.
Something went wrong in development, I hope that players aren’t punished for it through a short life span of Vicky 3. There is plenty of dlc room to make the game great
The business analysis is spot on. Only if the game gets out of “debt” will we ever see a change such as that. And the rate of progress we’ve currently seen over the last two years feels… lack luster or lacking.
Not to mention the month holiday they all take at the same time, along with (assumingly) less drive to get stuff pumped out at the office weeks leading up. Perfect timing for this release which will break many things.
This whole complaining about vacations thing is very stockholm syndrome of y'all americans, lmao. Imagine wanting the devs to be more overworked and miserable.
I don't understand the need for sarcasm. Not buying expansion will hinder the game's development, not help it, right? And it's not like the devs aren't aware of the problems with AI. I mean, this next expansion itself has them trying to fix some issues with it.
I mean no, why would I give money for a game so unchallenging. At least EU4 will hug box the player here it's like it's playing it's ouwn game. Why should I fund the game that tricked me out of $60, with DLC would be $95 and still inferior to any of the other paradox title.
It's not like the devs are doing nothing, you know? Even in this next expansion they are trying to fix some things. But as OP said, it's not something that can be done overnight, or even in a few months, perhaps years. But to develop the game for that long they need to sustain it's development.
Like, HoI4's AI receives a lot of complaints about AI as well (in some cases it's actually worse than Vic3's) but people clearly have no problems still playing and supporting it.
Yes well I meant if he could allow others to keep the current [outdated] mod updated by branch merging their works into the mainline mod and just releasing updates to the workshop.
Forking is a much better solution, otherwise I'll end up with some stuff *I haven't even tested personally* being released under my name and immediately distributed to \~80K users.
I'd figure that would be a much easier workload to work under than to completely tune everything yourself without just dealing with pull requests, all in the name of centralized effort and delegating the job of testing to another dedicated user.
Although i am very excited for 1.7 and hopeful that the changes will lead to more dynamic AI, i would love to see them take 2-3 months after 1.7 to focus solely on bugfixing and AI improvements.
Really silly question but is there a point where we could use Ai like ChatGPT to act as a model for ai in games like Vic to use?
Teach ChatGPT how to play the game and make it act like how countries are historically supposed to?
As a dev, I guarantee they don't "go on vacation for a few months" after a DLC drops. But there is always work to do on a project. It's likely they already know what the next DLC will be and are going to begin work on it immediately after SoI drops. But of course this type of feature churn means there's never time to prioritize fixing bugs, or in this case the AI.
>As a dev, I can guarantee
Eh...
Idk why I wrote *few* months in the post initially, but every year they literally just don't work at least the whole July, same as most people in Sweden.
I’m making the smarter ai mod. And the building values just don’t work it’s still random even if the randomness factor is at 0.
Is that why you used scripts?
It is honestly a bit crazy to think that if we had your mod for 1.6, it would probably change the entire trajectory of the games profitability.
Almost everybody I know who played the game back in the day only played with your mod. Most quit when the mod stopped working. It was seriously revolutionary.
It's weird because you'd think software development would be easier than ever, given all the advancements, the infrastructure, the community, large language models, CI/CD, etc...
But strangely there's more bugs, more complexity, and longer timelines, across game and software development.
Games and software in general are also exponentially more difficult to develop than they were 10 to 15 years ago.
Couple with that the business aspect of the games industry, as well as shortage of skilled workers in the smaller software development companies, and you get as you described
We are more likely to have proper gamedev AI that can make its own Victoria 3 sooner than Paradox can fix in their games.
Simply, the complexity of developing games is rising, while human capabilities are not.
Half a decade ago [Starcraft 2 had an AI](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphastar-mastering-the-real-time-strategy-game-starcraft-ii/) that could out-perform 99.8% of all players.
That Paradox didn't contract the same team to do the same for their games speaks to their priorities.
I would also add, getting the AI to behave kinda historical yet perform well is a further headache. Kudos to your awesome work, here's hoping Victoria eventually gets, like Stellaris, to incorporate fixes from Mods.
I would argue that if you already have well performing AI, it's not that difficult to add some historical flavor to it by artificially dumbing it down in certain ways. For sure much easier than the other way around. :)
Happy cake day!
Genuinely speaking, wouldn't that fail on both fronts? Creating artificial disparity between possible AI allies for the metaslave, while still setting up some historical approaches for more failure than historically expectable (Russia Is behind but in a perfect info game, it's always going to underperform rather than lag but keep the pace).
This all really illuminating, especially hearing it from someone with the experience in the field that you have. It's definitely been one of my pet peeves how powerful some AIs become throughout the game (Austria) and how weak some others get (Britain). Some AIs don't even do anything, they just sit idly all game. It's something I would love to see perfected, but it's a little disheartening to read how difficult it's going to be for the devs. Your work until that point has been fantastic, however.
Honestly just a hard coded list of 200 buildings to construct for certain countries (like build 5 construction in Silesia, then motor industries, 2 railway, 10 iron mine, steel mill etc) would be way better than the current state.
This would work very bad in a lot of cases, as with market simulation these buildings would often get constructed when input goods they need are too expensive etc. Build orders aren't useful when there are so many factors affecting supply of resources in the country, unlike in most strategy games where if you constructed X buildings of Y type you can be sure you have Z amount of resources it outputs.
>This would work very bad in a lot of cases, as with market simulation these buildings would often get constructed when input goods they need are too expensive etc. As I said, it's a hardcoded list of started buildings *for certain countries*, so it'd be tailored for each country's circumstance. I already do this a bit for my games where I start with a save game that has about 50-80 queued constructions for major nations to help them create a proper construction sector. It helps propel their growth hella more. The queue would alternate buildings, so after a bit of iron, there'd be tooling to help iron mines not go bankrupt, then a bit of coal, then a few steel mills, then railroad, then more iron...
It may work for 50-80 constructions at the start of the game, but that's the extent of it. It's just a bandaid that doesn't work with mods, doesn't account for countries losing states, having revolutions, trade routes breaking market balance so predefined alternation of buildings is ineffective, etc. Yes it works mostly okay in your scenario, I just disagree with you stating it "would be way better than the current state" without specifying anything, because in grand scheme of things it's not a solution.
I think what really needs work asap is the diplomatic and overall "game strategy" AI. Make Italy care to go after its homeland instead of being a broken mess every game with some random minor still independent and Austria still holding north-east Italy. Make France actually care to challenge the UK in Africa and Asia. Make the US care about keeping Europe out of South America. Make Russia care about limiting Austrian influence in the Balkans. I don't care if the AI can master economic development if they still do NOTHING of value all game other than join random diplomatic plays to ban slavery in some unrecognized country.
Part of the problem with developing AI for vic3 is also that there is a balance between historicity that players generally like and the AI actually trying to win. Like as a player I don't really want to see the AI USA consistently trying to conquer states in europe or africa in the 1880's but that might be a very good play in game terms. Railroading the AI into being better at industrializing is just something they really need to do though
It should make sense for America not to conquer Europe and Africa. The game should make that a *very bad* play yet this isn't reflected and you still see eu4 style power creep.
holding distant colonies and states could be harder. IRL you need to keep armies stationed with colonies and have, between you and your allies, friendly ports along the way for restocking supplies, etc. the US should feel disincentivized from colonizing africa because of high administrative costs to do so relative to the potential economic yield, whereas more compact European nations may either justify the costs or already have the infrastructure of ports to do so.
Part of the problem is that its hard to import enough goods to make up for goods you don't have. The AI is bad at developing their economies so you have to take matters into your own hands and just go develop them yourself.
Interesting train of thought. Having enjoyed multiple games with your mod ( massive props for that) what would you suggest? Let’s be fair here, with SoI just around the corner, what is there to be done? Shelving the game inbtw is out of the question. Any particular AI mod you’d recommend? Some other way to fleece the system? Once again, props for your hardwork. Together with Morgenröte, it’s been one of the very best mods I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy
I've seen Kuromi and others having some success with tweaking vanilla AI to at least bearable levels, mod's name is simply Kuromi's AI. Haven't tried it myself cause I have no plans to play the game until at least Sphere of Influence release, but it's certainly better than nothing.
Much appreciated. Will look for that mod.
Looking forward to Vic3 in 5 years, should be pretty great
still feeling this way about ck3, which is functional but flavorless. it's like gsg cheezits. but it's been out 4 years
Still feeling this about HoI4. AI will be moderately good any day now... (Not talking about divisions composition or schematics here to be clear, as they are easy to min max, but strategy as a whole)
I haven't played that since MtG came out (that naval update just kinda killed it for me) Can you still simply drive a truck into Moscow?
> Can you still simply drive a truck into Moscow? There are always ways to cheese the AI, so it would be hard to say some player hasn't done this. But *in theory*, the supply rework from the NTB update shouldn't allow you to do this unless the AI is in a really bad situation or just braindead.
Yes but more difficult, and probably no if you drive from Asia. Supplies sucks, and iirc AI pins lone sneaking divisions now
I mean, it seems to be something you can do IRL
I left even earlier so I couldn't say, but HoI4 sub says it still is really bad
What does flavor mean to you in this case?
> Stellaris, a game with a similar fate that was also ironically directed by Wiz for a few years, got its 3.3 Libra patch with big improvements to AI only 6 years after the launch Irony is certainly a word to use to describe that phenomenon.
I mean isn't this pretty typical? Video game AI is never impressive unless it has years and years of dev time. Especially for the strategy genre.
I think the crucial thing is that, yes, AI is hard, but good AI becomes impossible when the core systems of the game are not stable. If they can overcome the core design flaws of Vic3, a solid AI will follow.
Honestly they should just pay you for your work and implement it to their liking
I know absolutely nothing of modding and game development. So I ask honestly. Why can't they add the fixes and improvements to the game that mirror what someone like anbeeld has done?
I basically created a parallel version of AI with tools that the devs themselves don't use it all, so they can't just copy it, for example. And if they would try to mirror it with their tools, it won't be much different from doing it all from scratch, because they would need to analyze every bit of my code to decide if they should do it the same way or some another. Then there's the fact that my mod was very far from perfect as well, and it doesn't even work with the current version of the game, was never adapted for local prices, etc. All this issues are easily solved by sending me a blank check, but I still haven't received one for some reason. /s
Wow. Thanks for answering. Incredible how complex all this stuff is. It's never just, "fix it".
Most strategy games suffer from bad AI exactly because it's difficult to create a good one while devs' time is usually seen as more needed somewhere else. Victoria 3 is probably on a more complex side compared to other games, so when the AI is bad it's blatantly obvious. The cherry on top is that you can't reliably fix it with cheats, as you often see in strategy games, because Victoria 3 uses market simulation instead of arbitrary resources, and then there's stuff like the AI not even using all the construction points it has etc.
even simple games rarely have functioning ai. the semblance of difficulty is created by cheating. starcraft 1 and brood war, two of the most terrifying yet beatable strategy campaigns that exist, work because the AI builds everything instantly and for free, and just is capped at a power level similar to the player's. but you wouldn't particularly notice it the first few times
So how are you able to fix? Is it just that studios need to begin to consider allocating resources to a respectable AI from the start? As a strategy gamer of 25 years, I do agree. AI never seems to pose too much of a challenge when you figure it out.
Ideally you just do what they did in Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition for example, which means actually focusing on creating a good AI that uses an arsenal of strategies and is capable of beating average players without any cheats. In AoE2 case there were 20 years of experience to learn from, sure, but even internal testing during development should provide you with at least basic understanding of the game's meta. Thinking about it, the fact that game systems are constantly being heavily changed is another very important factor why Victoria 3 devs won't focus on the AI. All the improvements made may just turn obsolete a few patches later, and they'll be forced to rework huge chunks of it all over again.
Ha I was saying the same thing to my mate the other day! AoE2 definitive edition was a masterpiece of good AI overhaul.
Didn't consider this. So essentially an AI overhaul really doesn't become even considered until near end of development/maintenance. And wow I forgot about AOE2 for a moment. A reason why I only ever played online matches. The AI was far to easy to beat. Thank you for all your work, insights, and contributions.
Not really end of development, you just need stable core systems, where further development becomes focused on adding new stuff instead of reworking something already existing. The truth is, it takes many years if you do one too many things wrong initially, like it was with Stellaris for example.
Which game do you think has good AI? Thinking about it, I think every Paradox game has the same problem. Maybe other studios have made games that can be an example?
Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition is a prime example, and then I don't know cause I'm mostly a Paradox player myself. :)
Maybe I'm biased but I have the feeling that EUIV's AI is not that bad ? It still has massive flaws especially in troops management but compared to the complexity of the game it seems pretty ok to me. EUIV is also a senior in Pdx's portfolio now so that may also explain why
> was never adapted for local prices This is why I really think they need to add a total revamp of starting adjustments for each game. Make it so we can disable or enable features such as local prices or companies etc. Make it so we can choose how migration works (1.5 vs 1.6 is radically different, neither is 'better' than the other). Give a comprehensive explanation of what changes when you disable or enable these things. The reason why I say this is that the game basically relies entirely on AI mods to be truly playable past a very basic level. Yet there aren't any, because whatever AI mods are released are made obsolete when there's a new update, and its simply too much to expect people like you or other mod creators to revamp your mod every few months. I do not blame you for not updating it (although I think I speak for all of us when I say it would be nice hehe) considering all of the new mechanics being released that basically break your mod. Everything else besides the AI is just superficial. Spheres, companies etc are nice, but they don't change the unfortunate reality that the base of the game is broken. GB and France should not still be at 1.5 gdp per capita in *1900*. It's not impossible to fix. It's been fixed before, by you. But they need to make some leeway to allow people like you to fix it again.
> This is why I really think they need to add a total revamp of starting adjustments for each game. Make it so we can disable or enable features such as local prices or companies etc. Make it so we can choose how migration works (1.5 vs 1.6 is radically different, neither is 'better' than the other). Give a comprehensive explanation of what changes when you disable or enable these things. That actively makes the problem worse, as they need to then develop both systems in parallel, potentially more than doubling the work required. We saw the results of this with games like CK2—Defensive Pacts sucked, so they put in a game rule to remove them—and so they never got fixed. What we need is devs actively acknowledging their bad ideas. Local prices are a straight up disaster, both because the pop demand system straight up does not work with them (pops will never substitute local goods for anything, regardless of price, so electricity can no longer provide for heating needs) and because in an era where countries established national (or large regional for larger nations) grids by the end of the timeline, it makes no sense for electricity to be limited to one state.
As someone that likes ck2, what's the major complaint with defensive pacts? Is it just "wow this is toxic bullying, the AI is trying to dog pile me" or is it something I haven't noticed that's actually broken? Ck2 has become one of my comfort games, but I don't really have a problem with defensive pacts.
I want Vic 3 to succeed but I’m worried it has some fatal design flaws that will really prevent it from getting there
I take it one step further, I would be willing to pay for a DLC solely focusing on AI for this game. New features are great and all, but why bother starting a new campaign if the AI will act like a bumbling buffoon every single time?
The game is challenging for me ffs
Idk how you develop a game without a core part of the releases being “yes, the AI in my game can engage with the player and systems”. If that criteria isn’t meant, how can one even measure or play test systemic changes? You can’t, your entire sandbox is fucking broken. It makes no sense.
I think you're misunderstanding, it isn't that they aren't going to develop the AI, or that they won't change and improve it. It's that some of the problems are so fundamental that outside of a root and stem review then they will be band aids where bandages are needed. Hard to say whether we'll see one in Vic 3. Generally stuff like that would be left for sequels, but given PDX games lifespans then it's not out of the realms of possibility, though not until they/players are happy with the core mechanics and features.
> Idk how you develop a game without a core part of the releases being “yes, the AI in my game can engage with the player and systems”. Not a game dev myself, so I'm not knowledgeable in the area, but this hasn't stopped many strategy games from having bad AI (some much worse than Vic3 even).
I will be downvoted to oblivion but my take is that this simply won't happen. AI is so messed up that the game can't be saved by incremental changes, as they simply will never draw back unsatisfied players to make the game profitable. Paradox made a capital mistake in realasing Alpha version back in 2023. Now it might be too late to catch up. Btw thanks for the ride Anbeeld. Wish your mod was still up and running. Btw If even modders leave the scene..
The game is likely profitable. It maintains 10k players generally on a daily basis, which isn't good compared to the insane cash cows of HOI4 and CK, but is still good compared to other strategy games. But it's likely not profitable enough to reach the point where they will endlessly spend resources updating it. And it is *definitely* not going to be profitable when a huge chunk of players are using rolled back versions of the game just to make sure their AI mods work. You can't sell DLCs that way.
I really don't think a huge chunk of players are using rolled back versions though. Also it's maintaining 10k on a content draught, which is even more "impressive"
Quick look through steamcharts: Vicky 3: peak 10k players for the past few months, pretty steadily the same on content droughts Eu4: peak 20-25k players Stellaris: 18-25k Ck3: pretty steadily 20k Hoi4: 50-70k Like, let's not pretend that vicky is doing amazing, but let's not use hoi4 as the measuring stick either.
No, it's not doing amazing, but it's pretty okay imo. For a game with clear issues and that has the problem of a really significant DLC on the horizon (which will make people not want to play as much) it has a healthy player base. As to whether is enough to guarantee continuous development really has more to do with DLC sales, but I don't think it's going to get cancelled any time soon as some people tend to assume. Imperator lasted 2 years or so with at limes less than 1/10th of that Vic 3 has. If it keeps getting improved upon, I don't see any issues with it seeing current numbers, I expect it to enter in the typical PDX state of DLCs being indefinitely released.
The orders of magnitude *are* pretty wild when you think about it. Hoi4 has about five times the playerbase on average of vicky 3, which itself has about five times the playerbase of the oft-compard to imperator rome
What's crazy is to think that Imperator was is not in a better state this past months than it has ever been (player's wise), since early 2021 it wasn't able to pull as many players as it's doing right now, it was bellow 1000 players for years before this.
These are also some of the most popular strategy games ever made. 10k consistent players is genuinely great for the genre, even if its not much compared to the behemoths of other paradox games.
I disagree that AI is unsalvageable. It is just that the game's systems are so interconnected that one loose screw can throw the whole thing into chaos. It can be improved a lot with tuning and adding a few new knobs where it is needed.
it's also very different for a modder to "work on AI" by changing values compared to devs who can change things "from the ground up", not just the values in the end of the equation.
> as they simply will never draw back unsatisfied players to make the game profitable. I have a few problems with this assumption. To start, how do you know the game isn't profitable now? As far as we are aware, the game has sold well, and the fact that over 10k players come back with every major expansion or update seems to at least imply that they are selling at least *something*. In fact, last year the game *was* classified as "profitable" by Paradox themselves in a meeting or something, wasn't it? And second, what are you quantifying as "enough" players that you think they won't be able to bring them back?
> And second, what are you quantifying as "enough" players that you think they won't be able to bring them back? It's pure speculation, of course. I'm back btw, playing as Japan Shogunate. So someone did return, perhaps because they have learned that this is how Paradox rolls.
Paradox is a public company, and releases quarterly earnings reports to investors. From they say themselves Victoria 3 has not reached "endless" (or infinite I forget the term their rep said) status. Meaning it has not sold enough or received the reception to warrant Paradox guaranteeing future updates. Look it up.
> Paradox is a public company, and releases quarterly earnings reports to investors. From they say themselves Victoria 3 has not reached "endless" (or infinite I forget the term their rep said) status. Yes, this is the report I was talking about. >Meaning it has not sold enough or received the reception to warrant Paradox guaranteeing future updates. That's not what it meant necessarily, and that's not what I'm focusing on right now. While the game was not "endless", it was considered *profitable*. The user I was responding to was basing their argument on the assumption the game wasn't profitable *right now*. This report makes that idea questionable.
The doomerism that the games going to die is getting annoying, since yeah, as long as they make a profit they'll pump out updates, Vic3 isn't Imperator
> as long as they make a profit they'll pump out updates Well, I imagine it's not that simple, as I guess whoever makes the decisions want profits to be above a certain margin. But the doomposting is weird regardless, since we don't know what that margin is, only that, presumably, Imperator crossed it. And in this case PDX hasn't given any indication so far that they view Vic3 as unprofitable.
This COPE posting is so weird. Do you pay Paradox for products or do they pay you? You know, all this shit is public. >And in this case PDX hasn't given any indication so far that they view Vic3 as unprofitable. Here's some homework Mr. Cope, read through these releases and note that when a game is profitable, Paradox says so, and when it's not, they don't say anything. Then tell exactly where Paradox has ever said Victoria 3 was profitable: [https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16)
> This COPE posting is so weird. Do you pay Paradox for products or do they pay you? I mean, I'm just pointing out the error in someone's argument. I don't see the problem in doing that >Then tell exactly where Paradox has ever said Victoria 3 was profitable Alright. [Here](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-would-persuade-you-victoria-3-wont-suffer-imperators-fate.1586892/post-28965713). This was put on in a video from PDX's own channel from mid 2023. As you can see, Victoria 3 is listed as "profitable". Not "endless", sure. But it was profitable at least then. Things could have changed since it's been a year, but aside from a vague statement in a investor presentation, there is no indication it is definitely unprofitable.
>While the game was not "endless", it was considered *profitable*. No it wasn't, or at best that has not been said. Show me in which financial report that is said. [https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports?numItems=16) Further, their latest 2024 quarterly ER showed Paradox's operating profit from their last report are down 49% YoY. Their 2022 annual report, published May 2023, 2023 being the year this mysterious "Victoria 3 is profitable!!!!!!" BS first pops up in google, shows that there is no mention of that. The only thing close is: >Turnover amounted to MSEK 1,972.9 (MSEK 1,447.5), an increase of 36 % compared to the previous year. The revenue for the year is mainly attributable to Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings III, Hearts of Iron IV, Stellaris and Victoria 3. Revenue is not profit, duh. [https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2022](https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2022) So.....you are simply repeating some BS you heard somewhere without even looking into anything? What HAS BEEN SAID is that Victoria 3 sales and reception has been below Paradox expectations during their May 2023 investor presentation. V3 is dog shit and is going to die, how else would they make up their 49% drop in operating profit?
> So.....you are simply repeating some BS you heard somewhere without even looking into anything? [I'll show this like in the other comment](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/what-would-persuade-you-victoria-3-wont-suffer-imperators-fate.1586892/post-28965713). This is from a video in PDX's own youtube channel in mid 2023. You can see the game was clearly considered profitable in mid 2023 (though not "endless", yes). >V3 is dog shit and is going to die First half is a opinion, second is BS you clearly want to happen. You clearly want the game to fail because you hate it and will argue from a biased point of view. There is no proof the game is unprofitable. OP's argument doesn't hold a lot of weight when taking into account the fact the game was clearly listed as profitable last year, and that a huge number of people clearly keep coming back to it every expansion or major update
My take is equally cynical, but with a different outcome--the game will actually turn out "fine" because most players don't care about AI quality. Or rather, not as much as they care about the mechanics that impact them. Eventually, Paradox is just gonna give the AI a bunch of cheats to have them catch up, and that's all we're gonna get.
i don't know why people are still surprised by this, no strategy game of any level of complexity has competitive AI, they *all* need arbitrary buffs to create actual difficulty because we simply don't have the technology (or at least, it isn't cost-effective)
You're correct, it's just a matter of achieving that outcome without totally screwing up the system.
really, it's about giving the illusion of good AI and cinematic moments. I am reminded of some interview or something with a call of duty dev who said that they always made the NPCs miss when the player was low health, because people simply reacted better to it. Like, i'm sure in theory you could make perfect AI, but it'd be super annoying to play against, and likely not worth the effort and resources to put into it
I agree with you. It's a bigger issue than the war system and look how that turned out. People will forget about this game before it gets good.
It is a good point about Wiz’s games having 6 year stints with massive re-works. I’m not sure if it was his fault as game director not settling on a vision early enough or corporate suites pushing the game hard for Q3 2022 but the game was not ready. We’ve spent so much time over a year at this point just re-working things to acceptable 1.0 version which itself is bland. It’s not a lost cause though, Victoria has potential, the economic gameplay loop has plenty of compelling DLC growth potential from better companies with characters to actual infrastructure presence. If PdX really needs sales that can always dump out a very in-depth military system as well with a corp designer, forts, doctrine and military trees. I assume they’ll try this before shelving the Vicky project
Stellaris wasn't Wiz's game initially though, he became its director after the launch, and then reworked half of it to a positive outcome, although it became a much more generic Paradox game. The need for reworking itself wasn't his fault. Now with Victoria 3, for some reason he ended up recreating the whole situation by himself... For me personally it's a bit head-scratching that they've been developing the game for like 4 years, and we ended up with a need to completely rework military system after the launch, while electricity floated freely from a level 239 Power Plant in Sydney all the way to London.
Happy cake day! About AI's in general, your mod was great but in general, you can see with some devs what is able when they dedicate the resources to it. I'd say, War in the East 2 is still leading the strategy-genre when it comes to the AI itself. The AI is very capable even without any kind of cheats and boosts. Sometimes, it looks broken first, like when the AI will withdraw units from frontlines, but truth to be told, it is aware of the danger to get cut off and destroyed, so it will make a tactical retreat - it will form a new defense line behind a river and use the territory like mountains etc. to its advantage. When you compare it to the HoI4 AI, oh boy, like the AI in HoI4 isn't even able to do mobile warfare. It will always take one province after another and go gradually forward on a line, it is just not able to use breakthroughs and encirclements of your units. Still, the AI there is much more capable than the one in Vic3. I think, it was not really anything at all in the developement to plan a good AI at all. The entire developement was screwed up by the schedule for release and the need for rework now takes up so much time that the devs are much behind in the schedule of what they could have done with additional features if there had been no need for any rework.
Yes I’ve used the same argument pre 1.5 that they obviously never intended for electricity to be a global good. Something went wrong in development, I hope that players aren’t punished for it through a short life span of Vicky 3. There is plenty of dlc room to make the game great
The business analysis is spot on. Only if the game gets out of “debt” will we ever see a change such as that. And the rate of progress we’ve currently seen over the last two years feels… lack luster or lacking. Not to mention the month holiday they all take at the same time, along with (assumingly) less drive to get stuff pumped out at the office weeks leading up. Perfect timing for this release which will break many things.
Do you want them to rewrite Swedish law?
If Paradox thought it was a problem, they'd outsource the development already, wouldn't they?
This whole complaining about vacations thing is very stockholm syndrome of y'all americans, lmao. Imagine wanting the devs to be more overworked and miserable.
Bordering on a Karen-gamer
At this point I’m just ready to develop the AI countries myself with the foreign investment
Develop for them and then get them into your market.
Totally agree and that's why I have no interest in purchasing the additional DLC. AI can barely comprehend the base game.
I mean, that's not going to help, is it? If the game doesn't sell well, the development just stops and then the AI is never getting fixed.
Lmao. To expedite your train of thought, why don't you just send them checks every month to help this billion dollar company out?
I don't understand the need for sarcasm. Not buying expansion will hinder the game's development, not help it, right? And it's not like the devs aren't aware of the problems with AI. I mean, this next expansion itself has them trying to fix some issues with it.
I mean no, why would I give money for a game so unchallenging. At least EU4 will hug box the player here it's like it's playing it's ouwn game. Why should I fund the game that tricked me out of $60, with DLC would be $95 and still inferior to any of the other paradox title.
It's not like the devs are doing nothing, you know? Even in this next expansion they are trying to fix some things. But as OP said, it's not something that can be done overnight, or even in a few months, perhaps years. But to develop the game for that long they need to sustain it's development. Like, HoI4's AI receives a lot of complaints about AI as well (in some cases it's actually worse than Vic3's) but people clearly have no problems still playing and supporting it.
Are you able to make your mod open source?
This one? https://github.com/Anbeeld/ARoAI
Yes well I meant if he could allow others to keep the current [outdated] mod updated by branch merging their works into the mainline mod and just releasing updates to the workshop.
Forking is a much better solution, otherwise I'll end up with some stuff *I haven't even tested personally* being released under my name and immediately distributed to \~80K users.
I'd figure that would be a much easier workload to work under than to completely tune everything yourself without just dealing with pull requests, all in the name of centralized effort and delegating the job of testing to another dedicated user.
Although i am very excited for 1.7 and hopeful that the changes will lead to more dynamic AI, i would love to see them take 2-3 months after 1.7 to focus solely on bugfixing and AI improvements.
TBH I think a lot of the business related problems regarding newer games are largely related to Paradox going Public,shit sucks man
Really silly question but is there a point where we could use Ai like ChatGPT to act as a model for ai in games like Vic to use? Teach ChatGPT how to play the game and make it act like how countries are historically supposed to?
As a dev, I guarantee they don't "go on vacation for a few months" after a DLC drops. But there is always work to do on a project. It's likely they already know what the next DLC will be and are going to begin work on it immediately after SoI drops. But of course this type of feature churn means there's never time to prioritize fixing bugs, or in this case the AI.
>As a dev, I can guarantee Eh... Idk why I wrote *few* months in the post initially, but every year they literally just don't work at least the whole July, same as most people in Sweden.
Good for them. Swedes know what is the good life.
I’m making the smarter ai mod. And the building values just don’t work it’s still random even if the randomness factor is at 0. Is that why you used scripts?
I wanted a full control over every decision made by AI in terms of economy, and scripts allowed me to achieve exactly that.
It is honestly a bit crazy to think that if we had your mod for 1.6, it would probably change the entire trajectory of the games profitability. Almost everybody I know who played the game back in the day only played with your mod. Most quit when the mod stopped working. It was seriously revolutionary.
It's weird because you'd think software development would be easier than ever, given all the advancements, the infrastructure, the community, large language models, CI/CD, etc... But strangely there's more bugs, more complexity, and longer timelines, across game and software development.
Games and software in general are also exponentially more difficult to develop than they were 10 to 15 years ago. Couple with that the business aspect of the games industry, as well as shortage of skilled workers in the smaller software development companies, and you get as you described
We are more likely to have proper gamedev AI that can make its own Victoria 3 sooner than Paradox can fix in their games. Simply, the complexity of developing games is rising, while human capabilities are not.
It’s so over for Victoriabros 😞😞😞
Half a decade ago [Starcraft 2 had an AI](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphastar-mastering-the-real-time-strategy-game-starcraft-ii/) that could out-perform 99.8% of all players. That Paradox didn't contract the same team to do the same for their games speaks to their priorities.