Is it me or is the AI in BNW the same old thing?

Well, I've read about the AI being more peaceful in BNW. So tired of the aggressive AI of vanilla, I bought BNW. But in my experience, the AI is just as aggressive as before.

For instance, I had this one game on King as Assyria. I settled like 3 cities. I had high growth and it started off as a good game.

But than Shaka comes out of nowhere with a ton of units and declares war. And I started to think to myself "Oh man, this is the same old BS all over again".

Then I played another game as Assyria. I get a good 3 cities going and it's all good. I get attacked by BOTH SIAM and GERMANY.

So for the people saying the AI is less aggressive, what are you smoking? It seems the same to me.

I don't know what it is. When the game was just released, I never got in any wars. The AI just wanted to trade and were friendly, or I was placed on my own on a 3rd continent without anyone to worry about.

I never see any of the above anymore. Civs declare war over the smallest things, and they will keep hating you forever. It almost seems like the game was patched or something. Maybe it was just (bad) luck.

I played an Immortal game as Venice on a TSL world map... Three times in a row I restarted to get a peaceful game, and each time Byzantium, France and Germany all declared war around turn 50, within a few turns of each other. In the first game I had no army and was wiped out, in the second I had Archers and kept them at bay, and in the third I went for Composites and proceeded to murder them... But regardless of my army composition, they all came at me at the same time in each game. I just said 'meh' and abandoned the game.

Then I've played games where there are almost no wars until the Industrial era... It seems that it depends whether the AI is aggressive or not, but on *what* it depends I haven't a clue about. To be fair I haven't played that many games in BNW, preferring instead to work on my world map.

1. Trade: did you send trade routes to them? Sending caravans reduces chance of early war. Trading lux and strategics can also help establishing good relations

2. Forward settling: Settling in direction of your neighbors, especially near their capital, will lead to war in most cases

3. Attacking city states they protect: In my games always a road to war

4. Weak military: Obviosly, why they should not attack a weak opponent?

5. Shaka: be prepared, he will attack in most games regardless of relations, as soon as impis come ol

caiman0815 said:

2. Forward settling: Settling in direction of your neighbors, especially near their capital, will lead to war in most cases

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Now that I think of it, it might be that settling your capital counts as 'forward settling' on the world map in question, because Venice is literally 6 tiles away from Paris and Berlin iirc. If this is the case then it should be changed imo... I want other options than warmongering in the early game, regardless of how near or far my capital is from the AI's. It's not like there's room to move Venice around on that map...

Greizer85 said:

Now that I think of it, it might be that settling your capital counts as 'forward settling' on the world map in question, because Venice is literally 6 tiles away from Paris and Berlin iirc. If this is the case then it should be changed imo... I want other options than warmongering in the early game, regardless of how near or far my capital is from the AI's. It's not like there's room to move Venice around on that map...

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Europe on TSL maps is a battlefield due to it being so cramped. The euro-centrism of civilization can be really visible.
For a fun peaceful game, try Polynesia.

I think there are several factors involved as to why games will be predominantly peaceful or become constant warfare.

First and foremost is just how crowded is it? The AI nations have a mandate (excepting Venice) that "Thou shalt expand or die." If they're jammed up against one another and you, they tend to pick the weakest neighbor and invade. Even on a Huge map, if the player has LOTS of City-States and many player positions, by the late Classical era, nations will begin to feel the need to expand via conquest.

Second thing to look at is, historically speaking, just how aggressive were the actual leaders? Mercantile leaders tended to NOT resort to war at the drop of a hat. Historical warmongers WILL be inclined to go to war just because they feel they have the advantage. So pick opponents that didn't have a long history of military conquest and you probably won't be seeing nearly as many wars.

Third thing, from a very personal point of view, is to maintain a very substantial Military, even if you don't use it. The AI seems drawn to attack what it perceives as "easy pickings". Nobody _wants_ to attack someone that is hugely bigger military-wise. The two exceptions are A) How crowded is the map?, and B) Does the player look like he's closing in on a Victory? The latter can make even sane nations behave like they're suicidal.

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Comparatively speaking, no, BNW isn't all that different from vanilla or G&K. The notable differences are the World Congress, revamped Caravan system, slightly enhance Religion dynamics, seriously altered Culture mechanisms, and additional things to do. That is, more buildings to build, more Wonders to scramble for, etc. The additional civilizations are also enjoyable to explore as potential player positions or as possible opponents. Some of the details are subtle, and may not be obvious at first = more exploration via gameplay = more game playing = more "bang for your buck".

It must be play style or something because I never get declared on in BNW it seems. I almost never build a military, but I always make sure to take good care of my relations and do trade routes. I typically play on king.

That's just Shaka being Shaka, he will covet your lands and plot war even if you are antipodal from him.

A sample size of two is not enough. Especially when one is Shaka.

Also, settling three cities and then being attacked... it must be near turn 100 if not after, which is fine. In Gods and Kings, the AI often rushed you at ~50-60 on higher difficulties. I'm not even sure "less aggressive" are the correct words, rather the AI seems to be slower to start. Add about 30 turns on to their actions and it seems to mimic G&K.

From your message you seem to imply that "less aggressive" should mean zero war. Shaka is designed to bring war, and I'd be more concerned if he went full pacifist.

I like water worlds, or naval buildup on conitinents and the AI seems to ignore my Navy. Last game i rose to Number ! in military strength, mostly Navy. When i went to Rome ( largest and most advanced ) to declare war he said, You should know that your military is pathetically weak ... He sued for peace a few turns later, but i wanted his wonders.

Immortal and below: settle no more than 2 cities ( total 3) to avoid war. Settle away from AI unless already a friend.
Deity: can settle more cities, but never settle towards non-friend AI unless you prepare for a fight.

Be smarter about it and give the AI reasons not to go to war with you. Unless it's an aggressive military oriented civ, most will be happy to stay friendly as long as you don't stand in the way of them expanding and give them a reason to keep good relations (trade routes). Nothing else seems to bring about a DoF quicker than a trade route.

Even militaristic civs can be bought off. If they have lots of military and look like they want to use it, give them money or luxuries to attack someone else. Most of the time they'll be happy to do it.

I recently had that situation with Gustavus. I was expanding a lot (although not near him), and he must have thought my cities looked good, as he was advancing his military towards me. I was just in the process of settling a city near him to open up a trade route, so I caught him in the act and paid him to attack his other neighbour, the Shoshone. He took the money and about turned. I then planted the city and immediately sent the trade route to Stockholm. Now that he had a reason to be matey, he offered a DoF the following turn. Shoshone were nowhere near me, so I offered to declare on them for some cash from Gustavus for the diplo bonus. Worked out nicely in the end, as I hadn't really built up much military at that point.

This is what I like about BNW. The AI won't just go for you every game, like on GNK (military civs excepted). Forming partnerships is worthwhile now, even if you will still get backstabbed occasionally.

If you expand aggressively, the AI will attack you FAR more often. If you sit back and grow tall with 3-4 cities, in general, you'll be left alone (barring the homicidal AIs like Monty etc).

That, to me, is the biggest flaw in BNW atm. Tall and Wide growth are supposed to be balanced now due to the science penalty per city etc. But the AIs still hate you when you grow Wide but love you and trade and make DOFs and RAs left and right if you just go Tall.

So unless you want to warmonger, going Tall seems to be the superior choice. You save a TON of production and upkeep by not needing a military for more than anti-barbarian duties.

EEE_BOY said:

Immortal and below: settle no more than 2 cities ( total 3) to avoid war. Settle away from AI unless already a friend.
Deity: can settle more cities, but never settle towards non-friend AI unless you prepare for a fight.

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That's why I did. I usually only settle 3 cities and I still get DoW'd.

I can usually fight them off; but still, it's annoying in a game where the AI is supposedly more peaceful.

It has been my experience in BNW that if I don't start the wars nobody does. Well, that's a slight exaggeration but it is definitely more peaceful in the majority of the games compared to my experience in vanilla and G&K.

I tend to play on large maps using a continent style map script of my own with 10 civs and 20 city states, epic speed. My script creates quite a few small island chains which the AI may see as room to expand (although they rarely settle on them).

I often hand pick a mix of mean and wimpy neighbors but early war is still very rare. Mid and late game wars seem to almost require me to incite them either through diplomacy or my own warmongering. My last game had the Huns and the Iroquois locked in eternal war on their own continent together but neither was really winning. I can't remember the last game where the AI DoW'd me.

The biggest change I've seen with BNW is that the AI is often running negative GPT early in the game and they're quite a bit slower to expand beyond 3-4 initial cities.

BNW is definitely not "the same old thing". There have been countless threads on just how different, if not opposite, it is to GnK.

They no longer declare war on you a turn after you have 6 archers and 400g and researched construction so you can take over their good cities and double your empire before turn 80 without diplomatic penalty. So, an improvement?

As I have argued in the long initial debates about the "less aggressive" Brave New AI, the AI is much more situational-aware in BNW; you can see that in the new code. You have to give it to Beach et al, they did a magnificent job in making an AI that is more dynamic. Does it need adjustments? Hell yes! Is it broken? No. Is it better? Hell yes! Now you have to be much more situation-aware too... and gone are the suicidal guaranteed DoWs of the past, where you could adopt a defensive stance, destroy their predictable attack every single time, and then mop up the attacking civ easily-rinse-repeat-win.

CivAddict2013 said:

That's why I did. I usually only settle 3 cities and I still get DoW'd.

I can usually fight them off; but still, it's annoying in a game where the AI is supposedly more peaceful.

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And when that might be? First 100 turns, 150, 200?
And don't count games with Shaka as neighbor.
I wish I was this lucky