Total War: WARHAMMER II

Total War: WARHAMMER II

81 ratings
"Passive" AI's made Active
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
Tags: mod, Campaign
File Size
Posted
Updated
15.310 KB
10 Feb, 2020 @ 5:59pm
4 Dec, 2020 @ 5:15pm
3 Change Notes ( view )

Subscribe to download
"Passive" AI's made Active

Description
OVERVIEW

I made this mod because I got frustrated when some minor powers would refuse to interact with me diplomatically no matter what I did. My positive reputation with them would go up and up and up, and they'd still refuse to sign a simple trade deal or non-aggression pact. It's not that they were a threat to attack me - they just wouldn't do anything.

When I looked into the game's database, I found out that certain Dark Elf, Lizardman, and Skaven minor powers were defined as "passive" AI's.

This mod "tricks" the game so that it thinks "passive" AI personalities should behave the same way as generic minor powers of their respective cultures.

This is an AI mod. Its most visible affect is on diplomacy, but it can also (for example) influence how the AI uses its armies.


WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN GAME

For example, the first screenshot is from the unmodified game. If you look at the description of the Deadwood Sentinels, you can see that their personality has the traits "minor power" and "passive", and you can see that although they are "friendly" to me, and although I am #1 in power and they are #67 in power, and although I am at war with their only enemy, they are barely willing to consider a non-aggression pact (although that would be hugely to their advantage), and certainly not willing to trade. I don't think that this is good strategy on the part of the AI, nor is it fun game play.

The second screenshot is of the same situation (I reloaded the same save game) but with this mod active. You can see that the Deadwood Sentinels' personality traits have changed to include "Supremacy" and "Underdog", and they would be happy to sign a non-aggression pact with a country that they are friendly with and which is vastly more powerful than them, and that they are also interested in a trade deal.


SUMMARY

The mod will work with save games, and you can stop using it at any time and the AI's will return to vanilla behaviour.

The mod will make it a bit harder for the player, in that these minors will resist more actively if the player invades them. It also makes it a bit easier for the player, because these minors will cooperate with the player if they are friendly. I don't expect the mod to make much difference to the overall balance of power, because these are all pretty minor factions. But it should make the game world seem more like an active, living place.

I haven't created any new behaviours in this mod - the game already has default AI rules for generic minor Dark Elf, Lizardman, and Skaven factions, and this mod just tells the game to use those rules for the "passive" factions as well.

CONFLICTS: Jadawin's "AI Tweaks - No Anti-Player" and AS3086's "There is No Betrayal after the Victory over Chaos" mods. In general, I've given this mod a minimal footprint and I don't expect it to conflict with other mods, but it's an AI mod and may conflict with other AI mods.

I made a mod that should prevent the AI's Anti-Player vendetta and won't conflict with this mod here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2612265914

Technically, the mod changes 18 records in the table "cai_personalities".


As of patch 1.9.0, the minor powers that are typically affected in an otherwise vanilla game are:
Dark Elves: Bleak Hold (both campaigns), Bloodhall Coven (Vortex), Cult of Excess (both), Drackla Coven (Vortex), Deadwood Sentinels (both), Ghrond (both), Klarond Kar (both).
Lizardmen: Southern Sentinels (Vortex), Teotiqua (Mortal Empires), Tlaqua (Vortex), Tlaxtlan (both), Xlanhuapec (both).
Skaven: Ferrik (Mortal Empires), Gnaw (both), Kreepus (Mortal Empires), Mordkin (both), Spittel (both), Volkn (Mortal Empires).

I write "typically" because the game will sometimes assign different AI's depending on difficulty setting and/or which faction the player is playing.

There is one Tomb King minor faction with passive AI, and I thought that was very thematically appropriate for that faction so I did not change it.
54 Comments
HughJanus69 4 Jul, 2022 @ 4:21am 
does this mod still work?
Alaric 27 Sep, 2021 @ 10:56am 
Thank you very much for the tremendous and quick work! Wish you had a Patreon or something :-)
Misty  [author] 26 Sep, 2021 @ 11:15am 
I've posted the new mod and put a link to it in the mod description. Check it out and give me feedback on whether it's working. The code looks good, and it doesn't crash the game (which is always nice), but I don't have any good "very hard" save games where I can see the AI doing anti-player behaviour and then play the same turns again to see whether that doesn't happen if the mod's running. I expect that the way the other mod would work, if you start using it in an existing game, would be that the AI wouldn't issue new anti-player attacks, but existing anti-player attacks might continue to be carried out over several turns.
Alaric 26 Sep, 2021 @ 8:15am 
Thank you very much for your quick answer! If you may make a miracle and make both work together that would be perfect. I really think I am not the only want who want to be able to have non-passive AI and non player-focused AI to have a real fun active and fair sandbox campaign. Thank you again !
Misty  [author] 26 Sep, 2021 @ 7:47am 
Good question!

I looked into it, and I have an idea for a mod that will remove the "anti-player" without conflicting with this one (by tweaking a different database table). I think I'll be able to do that within 24 hours. I'll update within 24 hours either way.

As a workaround, if you use both this mod and Jadawin's at the same time, nothing will break. If Jadawin's mod gets priority, this mod will simply be ignored. If this mod gets priority, the minor AI's may display anti-player behaviour, but the AI's that aren't effected by this mod will follow the rules in Jadawin's mod - that is, all of the major AI's won't override their normal behaviour to attack the player.
Alaric 26 Sep, 2021 @ 3:48am 
Hello there! Any chance to combine your mod with the "no anti-player" mod from Jadawin's that you said is in conflict?
I love both your mods, and having a lot of active factions is great, but it would be even better if it did not mean all AI around me in Legendary tag-team against the player while ignoring each other
Saphirre 1 Sep, 2021 @ 2:22am 
Hi @=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil
Can I have a link please? :)
=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil 31 Aug, 2021 @ 2:01am 
There are mods that change the pirate fleet Ai
Saphirre 31 Aug, 2021 @ 1:18am 
Hi @Misty :) Thank you for your answer.
Basically I would like Rogue AI Fleets to attack all armies on sea/boat (not on land, or maybe only ports) every time they can (when they have the range). Currently it only focuses on the player faction... It's not a good design in my opinion, it's not fair and not "realistic". I can imagine they skip to kill themselves between pirates but not other factions !
I have some idea to create new mechanics for them, but I don't know if it's possible or hard to do.
(If you want I can try to explain what I have in mind, and sorry for my bad English it's not my main language).
Misty  [author] 30 Aug, 2021 @ 11:14pm 
Pirates' AI's are not affected.

I'm presuming you're talking about the Rogue Fleets, not how the AI plays the playable Pirate factions? I had a brief look at them, and they use the same default AI as the land-based Rogue Armies. (5 of the Rogue Armies, including Vashnaar, have a different AI if you're playing on Very Hard difficulty or above, but most of them use the same AI on all difficulties.) So, to the extent that they act differently from land-based Rogue Armies, it's because of the different context. Land based rogue armies are by default pretty passive too. (to be continued)