In three recent games, I have made all the right diplo decisions to butter up an AI player for a PA only to have them refuse when the time comes. I gift them resources and gold, get their state religion and favorite civic, etc. I get to +12 or better (one time +22) relations and when I (or they) reach Communism the option for PA is red and when I mouse over I get this annoying message:

"We are doing fine on our own."

What causes this? Is there any way to avoid this? If an AI player is saying this, is there any way to bring them along for the big win?

make someone else stronger :mischief:
this just says that this AI is the power leader (the game looks at the power ranking and decides to disallow a PA if the AI's Team power is greater than 50% of the total power of all players - i.e. if the AI plus all its vassals (I think vassals are included) is by far the strongest it will refuse).
just take care you don't fulfill the criteria yourself - since then you'll see "You have grown too powerful for us" :evil:

From the CvTeamAI.cpp file:


if ((getPower(true) + GET_TEAM(eTeam).getPower(true)) > (GC.getGameINLINE().countTotalCivPower() / 2))
{
if (getPower(true) > GET_TEAM(eTeam).getPower(true))
{
return DENIAL_POWER_US;
}
else
{
return DENIAL_POWER_YOU;
}
}


I'm no code expert, but I think this means that if your power plus the AI's power is greater than half of the total power of all players, you cant make a PA with that AI.

As suggested, make another AI more powerful by gifting them a military tech that will allow them to upgrade units.

So, if I understand this right, if there were 4 AI instead of 2 then the AI would have been more likely to give the PA since power for each would be lower.

There were only two AI civs in a couple of the games and only three left in the third game, so that might be the problem. I'll try with more AI players and see if that solves the problem.