Peter attacked me on friendly [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

magicalsushi

Jul 23, 2007, 11:27 AM

I just had Victoria Declare War on me as friendly (+5 or +6). Same religion, then the new religion version of the UN put a vote and halted the fighting of 'brothers' before much blood was shed.

Is this as odd as Peter doing it?

Nobody is ever supposed to do it at all, so it's equally odd/not odd for Peter or Victoria to do it. Nobody will ever attack you at friendly. However, what can happen is that they decide to attack you while pleased, build some units, send them your way, then declare war once they reach your borders. If they become friendly in the meantime, they will declare war - once they've decided to do it, it will happen. Leaders such as Gandhi or Elizabeth will never decide to declare war while pelased, but neither Victoria nor Peter are shy about doing so. Unless something's changed fundamentally in BtS, this is how war declartions work.

There's one exception to the "no war decisions at friendly" rule. Catherine will do pretty much anything for pretty mcuh anyone. If someone pays her enough, she'll declare war on anybody, however she feels about them. Unless there's another Cathinerine-esque personality in BtS (doubtful!), she's the only one who behaves like this. Probably just as well!

Dida

Jul 23, 2007, 12:25 PM

GoodSarmatian

Jul 23, 2007, 12:36 PM

In Warlords I have been attacked by a friendly Ragnar, but Peter and Victoria ?
There should be some kind of non-agression pact that can only be canceled 10 turns in advance to prevent this.

DrewBledsoe

Jul 23, 2007, 01:00 PM

It's good to see the AI doing this. I meant human player sneak attack friendly AIs all the time. I will attack anyone if that's part of my global strategy.

This will only be a problem is AI just attack anyone randomly without a bigger plan.

And then without wanting to sound like a broken record, we reach the old problem of diplomcay not being up to the rest of the game. You can attack a friendly nation, exactly as you could a mortal enemy, and not receive any penalty for it. Backstabbing a supposed ally should have a HUGE negative penalty with all nations. How can you ever be trusted again? But it doesn't.

If you the player, want to attack supposed allies, atm thats up to you. It's not a very nice way of playing, but you'll get away with it most likely. If the ai starts doing the same, then whats the point in diplomacy anymore? If you've gifted tech or resources or whatever to an ai, milked the relationship to a point of "best buddies" over hundreds or thousands of years, then just because you're weak for a moment, they dogpile in a war on you? Then all diplomacy has been removed from the game, and its just about who has the most troops.

Im not saying this is the case with BTS, and please don't someone say that this is a "really good tactic" because it isn't. If you tried it with a group of humans in MP, no-one would want anything to do with you after that. You do it in SP because at the moment their are no real diplomatic reprecussions (that's the 2nd time for that phrase in as many days)

Anyways, rant over ;)

MirvShag

Jul 23, 2007, 01:06 PM

DrewBledsoe

Jul 23, 2007, 01:21 PM

Well I have a guess as to why Victoria declared war on me, I think it was +5. All land was used up and she only had two neighbors. Me and Hannibal. Hannibal had more military so my only guess is she wanted to expand and lowest military took priority over who to attack.

Sorry to butt in again, but if she was at "Pleased" (or better) status with both of you, why should she have to attack anyone? If by attacking you, she immediately took a say -8 "you have attacked your allies!" penalty with Hannibal (and anyone else known to her), then she would be taking a huge risk. I'll bet Hannibal had a redline "we couldn't betray our closest friends" if you'd asked him to join you. But she just proved that she was willing to attack her closest friends! With a -8 penalty, he may have gone to unfriendly, and liable to join your side against her betrayal. It would make backstabbing an extremely dangerous tactic....

Anyways, you get my point, I'll shut up again.

MirvShag

Jul 23, 2007, 03:45 PM

Good point. So I don't know why. She didn't have any other friends besides me in a 7 player standard game. It completely surprised me as my overall strategy had her as a friend for a long while.

There is one thing I remember that might also have factored in. We had a +5 religion and a -1 close borders I believe. Then a random event came up that a royal couple or what not had arguments over the wedding between our two civs. and we got a -1 for past bad relation event or something like that. Sorry I didn't recall this before. But she Declared quite a while after that event and the -1 could have been removed.

But in theory it could have been +5 -1 -1 = +3. or maybe the random event has more of an effect then just a -1 that is unseen. I don't know.

But yeah, Victoria my friend, same religion, she had no other friends declared war on me. But the cool part is the early UN religion wonder put a stop to the war and she returned to +5 religion and -1 close borders.

Dida

Jul 23, 2007, 04:28 PM

And then without wanting to sound like a broken record, we reach the old problem of diplomcay not being up to the rest of the game. You can attack a friendly nation, exactly as you could a mortal enemy, and not receive any penalty for it. Backstabbing a supposed ally should have a HUGE negative penalty with all nations. How can you ever be trusted again? But it doesn't.

If you the player, want to attack supposed allies, atm thats up to you. It's not a very nice way of playing, but you'll get away with it most likely. If the ai starts doing the same, then whats the point in diplomacy anymore? If you've gifted tech or resources or whatever to an ai, milked the relationship to a point of "best buddies" over hundreds or thousands of years, then just because you're weak for a moment, they dogpile in a war on you? Then all diplomacy has been removed from the game, and its just about who has the most troops.

Im not saying this is the case with BTS, and please don't someone say that this is a "really good tactic" because it isn't. If you tried it with a group of humans in MP, no-one would want anything to do with you after that. You do it in SP because at the moment their are no real diplomatic reprecussions (that's the 2nd time for that phrase in as many days)

Anyways, rant over ;)

I don't see why it isn't a good tactic if the AI is looking to win by conquest or domination or simply to beef up its score for a time victory.

The AI should try to win the game, by whatever means; and if that involves attacking a friend, so be it. Humans do it, the best AI are those that behave like human.

DrewBledsoe

Jul 23, 2007, 04:42 PM

I don't see why it isn't a good tactic if the AI is looking to win by conquest or domination or simply to beef up its score for a time victory.

The AI should try to win the game, by whatever means; and if that involves attacking a friend, so be it. Humans do it, the best AI are those that behave like human.

What utter BS. I'm won't even bothering dignifying this with any further arguement.

RogueFighter

Jul 23, 2007, 04:59 PM

Peter's actions bring to memory the old days of Montezuma and his ludicrous agressive behavior. (After Warlords he calmed down). I've declared war on a pleased, and they still were pleased after. :laugh:

Lord Olleus

Jul 23, 2007, 05:00 PM

At least it will give you a little time to prepare for war after you gave horses to the Mongols.
And it will prevent AI blunders like Mao giving in to my tech demands and then declaring war the next turn...

Thats not a blunder, thats very clever. Often before declaring war on a civ I demand all of their gold in diplomacy (its bit of role playing on my side; I like having a cassa belli before attacking); and sometimes they accept. Too bad for them - I still attack.

Hero

Jul 23, 2007, 05:04 PM

What utter BS. I'm won't even bothering dignifying this with any further arguement.

Good idea. Take Honest Abe's advice:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

GoodSarmatian

Jul 23, 2007, 06:45 PM

Thats not a blunder, thats very clever. Often before declaring war on a civ I demand all of their gold in diplomacy (its bit of role playing on my side; I like having a cassa belli before attacking); and sometimes they accept. Too bad for them - I still attack.

Probably you didn't understand.
I demanded a tech from him and he agreed. One turn later he declared war.
Why does he pay tribute to his stronger neighbour and attacks one turn later ? He could have just refused, or he could have waited a few turns to build up his forces.
Needless to say I crushed him.

jodonnell

Jul 24, 2007, 02:00 AM

Is there any mod/component that makes the diplomacy play more like DrewBledsoe suggests? I too am tired of diplomatic efforts amounting to nothing because the AI doesn't follow its own rules, and the player isn't held accountable for being a psychopath (why does nuking/razing someone's cities count for less than being a different religion?) Even the venerable 'Master of Orion' had some sort of diplomatic trust system wherein backstabbing allies was (shock!) a bad idea. The way the AI tends to go bonkers and gang up on the player towards the end of the game is absurd too, as is the way other AI nations have no problem allowing huge armies to march across their territory in order to come war against you (one of the major issues the US military faces in modern operations is obtaining overflight rights or local bases.)

If actual diplomacy resembled CivIV diplomacy in any form, people wouldn't be talking about the US-Iraq war; they'd be talking about the Canada-US war, and Sweden would be happily marching troops across Denmark and Germany to invade Switzerland.

adhdprez

Jul 24, 2007, 03:01 AM

I would like to also see more severe diplomatic penalties for attacking your allies.
I barely distinguish between my friends and enemies, and attack based on who has the weaker military or the best resources or wonder cities.
I just went after my neighbour and best friend because I wanted to control the Hindu Holy City. I didn't really need to keep him as a friend since I have others pleased with me, but they shouldn't be so pleased after what I just did.

woody60707

Jul 24, 2007, 04:44 AM

If you DOW on a friendly, you should take a huge war wariness hit.

IRL if the US attacked Canada, the US would surely win. But US goverment would almost just as surely be gone when people wake up the next morning and find out what Bush has done, and then go burn down the white house.

klokwerk

Jul 24, 2007, 05:00 AM

The problem is a human player will more often than not attack a friendly civ if he can win something major by doing so, we look at 'opportunities'. That's not like in real life of course, but we don't manage a civ in game the way a president rules a real nation... I like the game when it's challenging and the AI feels 'human', but I can understand others prefer a bit more 'roleplay'.

It seems to me very logical to allow the AI to 'play' more like a human (which means being able to betrail more) and to look at this 'opportunities' too, because otherwise it's a too big penalty for the computer player if he has to be friendly with you and you can attack when you want at the same time...

Blake explained very well these 2 different AIs (personality AI / player AI), and in my opinion it's a step in the good direction to make them feel more like a player. In normal mode though (no 'aggressive AI' option), personality profiles still care very much and friendly AIs should in general keep you as a friend.

magicalsushi

Jul 24, 2007, 10:46 AM

Sorry to butt in again, but if she was at "Pleased" (or better) status with both of you, why should she have to attack anyone?

I think you're reading too much into "pleased". The way things are currently implemented, *some* AI leaders will not attack people they're pleased with, some will. *No* AI leaders will attack people with whom they're friendly (apart from under the very specific circumstances I've explained before). Surely that's realistic? Not every person is compeltely trustworthy in real life. Some people will backstab their friends if it suits them. In the game, Peter and Victoria are both that kind of person. Victoria will sometimes hesitate, Peter won't think twice. Gandhi won't even consider the idea in the first place. This all seems pretty reasonable to me. "Pleased" means nice leaders will leave you alone, ordinary leaders will consider attacking you but usually not do it, and untrustworthy leaders will attack you without caring about your relations. "Friendly" means they like you too much to attack you, no matter who they are. It's much stronger than "pleased", and I do think it's right that the two levels of relations are different like this. Things are fine as they stand, regarding the actual "go to war" decisions. As for the diplomatic consequences...

If by attacking you, she immediately took a say -8 "you have attacked your allies!" penalty with Hannibal (and anyone else known to her), then she would be taking a huge risk.

Yes, but the AI doesn't think. It doesn't have any kind of creative ability or foresight; it can't see links between causes and effects. Sure, we could hard-code an extra rule that says AI leaders won't attack civs with whom they share lots of common friends, but I'm not keen on small-scale firefighting like this. The real issue, if you want smart diplomacy, is that the AI is not programmed to think, just to look through a set of rules, roll some eletrconic dice and act on the result. AI *can* be programmed to analyse situations properly and act according to its own conclusions, rather than relying on inflexible rules like "if attitude == friendly or (attitude == pleased and diceRoll < 50%) then declareWar = false" or whatever.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we could set it up so that declaring war on your friends' friends causes substantial diploamtic penalties...but the AI's actual behaviour would not change at all unless someone changes it; it wouldn't automatically adjust to take account of the new penalties. As things stand, there is no direct link between the diplomatic penalties for declaring war and the rules governing AI behaviour. People keep saying things like "Victoria probably wanted to expand, and there was no room" - hopefully they're just speaking figuratively, but I suspect not everyone realises just how little intelligence there is in Civ's artificial intelligence. Victoria didn't "want" to do anything; she has a very limited understanding of what benefits her, or how to go about getting it. She just does what the rules and the dice tell her.

aelf

Jul 24, 2007, 10:56 AM

It seems to me very logical to allow the AI to 'play' more like a human (which means being able to betrail more) and to look at this 'opportunities' too, because otherwise it's a too big penalty for the computer player if he has to be friendly with you and you can attack when you want at the same time...

Blake explained very well these 2 different AIs (personality AI / player AI), and in my opinion it's a step in the good direction to make them feel more like a player.

Then remove diplomacy altogether. What's the point? Let's all go back to the good old world of Civ2 AI. Mass inevitable AI nukes, anyone?

I don't recall the OP mentioning Aggressive AI, so poster should be talking about a normal game, where this shouldn't be happening. I haven't encountered this problem, though, but I am already unhappy about the way some events affect diplomacy in a frivolous manner.

aelf

Jul 24, 2007, 11:02 AM

I think you're reading too much into "pleased". The way things are currently implemented, *some* AI leaders will not attack people they're pleased with, some will. *No* AI leaders will attack people with whom they're friendly (apart from under the very specific circumstances I've explained before). Surely that's realistic? Not every person is compeltely trustworthy in real life. Some people will backstab their friends if it suits them. In the game, Peter and Victoria are both that kind of person. Victoria will sometimes hesitate, Peter won't think twice. Gandhi won't even consider the idea in the first place. This all seems pretty reasonable to me. "Pleased" means nice leaders will leave you alone, ordinary leaders will consider attacking you but usually not do it, and untrustworthy leaders will attack you without caring about your relations. "Friendly" means they like you too much to attack you, no matter who they are. It's much stronger than "pleased", and I do think it's right that the two levels of relations are different like this. Things are fine as they stand, regarding the actual "go to war" decisions.

I don't see why this should be the case. If so, players know they definitely cannot trust Peter and will always kill him off. If you see Peter nearby, you must kill him. That really makes the game more sophisticated and fun, right? Do we really want so many Montys?

Yes, but the AI doesn't think. It doesn't have any kind of creative ability or foresight; it can't see links between causes and effects. Sure, we could hard-code an extra rule that says AI leaders won't attack civs with whom they share lots of common friends, but I'm not keen on small-scale firefighting like this. The real issue, if you want smart diplomacy, is that the AI is not programmed to think, just to look through a set of rules, roll some eletrconic dice and act on the result. AI *can* be programmed to analyse situations properly and act according to its own conclusions, rather than relying on inflexible rules like "if attitude == friendly or (attitude == pleased and diceRoll < 50%) then declareWar = false" or whatever.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we could set it up so that declaring war on your friends' friends causes substantial diploamtic penalties...but the AI's actual behaviour would not change at all unless someone changes it; it wouldn't automatically adjust to take account of the new penalties. As things stand, there is no direct link between the diplomatic penalties for declaring war and the rules governing AI behaviour. People keep saying things like "Victoria probably wanted to expand, and there was no room" - hopefully they're just speaking figuratively, but I suspect not everyone realises just how little intelligence there is in Civ's artificial intelligence. Victoria didn't "want" to do anything; she has a very limited understanding of what benefits her, or how to go about getting it. She just does what the rules and the dice tell her.

The AI is more advanced than that. This is Better AI, after all, and there are many things the AI can take into account in a game.

VoiceOfUnreason

Jul 24, 2007, 11:05 AM

Does anybody know for certain whether DOW is based on player2player attitude, as opposed to team2team? A number of people get confused by WFYABTA, in part because it uses the team2team attitude.

oedali

Jul 24, 2007, 11:25 AM

There's one exception to the "no war decisions at friendly" rule. Catherine will do pretty much anything for pretty mcuh anyone. If someone pays her enough, she'll declare war on anybody, however she feels about them. Unless there's another Cathinerine-esque personality in BtS (doubtful!), she's the only one who behaves like this. Probably just as well!

EDIT:

Here are the BTS leaders in terms of their "backstabbing" likelihood. Added new leaders to bottom of the list in red.

These guys have the highest chance of declaring war at "Pleased":

ALEXANDER
CATHERINE
LOUIS_XIV
MAO
MONTEZUMA
QIN_SHI_HUANG
VICTORIA
WILLEM VAN ORANJE

These still might declare war at Pleased but less likely than the 1st group:

BISMARCK
ELIZABETH
GENGHIS_KHAN
HUAYNA_CAPAC
ISABELLA
JULIUS_CAESAR
KUBLAI_KHAN
MANSA_MUSA
NAPOLEON
PETER
RAGNAR
ROOSEVELT
SHAKA
STALIN
TOKUGAWA
GILGAMESH
PACAL
SURYAVARMAN
ZARA YAQOB

These ones are loyal, i.e. they will never declare war if they're Pleased.

ASOKA
AUGUSTUS
BRENNUS
CHURCHILL
CYRUS
FREDERICK
GANDHI
HANNIBAL
HATSHEPSUT
MEHMED
RAMESSES
SALADIN
WANGKON
WASHINGTON
BOUDICA
CHARLEMAGNE
DARIUS
DE GAULLE
HAMMURABI
JOAO
JUSTINIAN
LINCOLN
PERICLES
SITTING BULL
SULEIMAN

In addition, DE GAULLE might take a bribe from another AI and declare war even if he's Pleased, and Catherine might do it even at Friendly. These two are the only exceptions.

And as magicalsushi and others pointed out, NO AI will declare war at Friendly - if they were at Friendly when they attacked you that means they must have made up their mind when they were Pleased.

BTW, these values do NOT take into account the AI's general tendencies to declare war, it's only a measure of how likely they are to override that decision based on attitude. i.e. does not mean that Victoria is more warmonger than Brennus.

GoodSarmatian

Aug 01, 2007, 01:33 PM

And as magicalsushi and others pointed out, NO AI will declare war at Friendly - if they were at Friendly when they attacked you that means they must have made up their mind when they were Pleased.

Not true.
In Warlords Kublai Khan attacked me in the modern era although he was Friendly for almost a thousand years. But I can understand it. I felt too safe and neglected my military and we were the only civs on our continent (after we exterminated Montezuma and Napoleon together). He could have invaded other continents though...
I was also attacked by Ragnar who has been Friendly for a very long time (also Warlords).
Again I was the only one he could attack as he didn't have Astronomy and our small continents were connected by sea, but this time I had a much better military and I was his only possible trading partner.
I don't believe the AI decides to attack me and then waits 100+ turns to prepare for war.

Kaenash

Aug 01, 2007, 01:46 PM

Even though I was way ahaed on the power graph, I hammered him, then got a ceasefire and he immediately went back to friendly. He had put Stalin in control of some colonies, and Stalin was furious with me from day 1.

Does this mean you have to also take the colony/vassals attitude into account now?

I also noticed that Sitting Bull made Darius a non-capitulated Vassal even though they were last and second last on the score. Never saw this before. Uniting to form a more powerful bloc

I was playing as Stalin and I had made all these deals with Germany and he was actually PLEASED with me. We even jointly invaded poland.

Strangely, on June 1941 Germany INVADES me unexpectedly. I thought at first the game was broken until I realized that was historically what happened and wasn't a civilization game at all.

DrewBledsoe

Aug 01, 2007, 01:50 PM

I was playing as Stalin and I had made all these deals with Germany and he was actually PLEASED with me. We even jointly invaded poland.

Strangely, on June 1941 Germany INVADES me unexpectedly. I thought at first the game was broken until I realized that was historically what happened and wasn't a civilization game at all.

Yeah, and then France, England and Poland immediately signed a truce with Germany and joined a dogpile on Russia....Oh no wait a minute.......

oedali

Aug 01, 2007, 02:01 PM

Not true.
In Warlords Kublai Khan attacked me in the modern era although he was Friendly for almost a thousand years. But I can understand it. I felt too safe and neglected my military and we were the only civs on our continent (after we exterminated Montezuma and Napoleon together). He could have invaded other continents though...
I was also attacked by Ragnar who has been Friendly for a very long time (also Warlords).
Again I was the only one he could attack as he didn't have Astronomy and our small continents were connected by sea, but this time I had a much better military and I was his only possible trading partner.
I don't believe the AI decides to attack me and then waits 100+ turns to prepare for war.

Hmm not sure how that happens but good point. I've been reading posts about AI attitude and war declarations since Warlords and I repeatedly read that the AI is programmed never to declare war at Friendly. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of how the AI is programmed can help us understand.

andrewlt

Aug 01, 2007, 02:19 PM

The AI should try to win the game, by whatever means; and if that involves attacking a friend, so be it. Humans do it, the best AI are those that behave like human.

I agree. The AI should act like a human player. When the AI is losing, it should start sending you multiple messages whining about how you're cheating and that you should turn off your maphacks. Then, when it is down to its last few cities, it will start making insulting comments about your mother. Around this time, it will also share its map and techs to all the other AI in the game so they will have an advantage over you. It will give its wealth and cities to your closest rival to further spite you. It will try to hide a city in the middle of nowhere to waste your time while you're trying to finish getting a conquest victory. Finally, it will quit the game as you're about to finish it off, so you get a "tie" instead of a "win".