Sick of people making excuses for 2000 years of peace

I have had plenty of wars go on in my games, but the problem for me is that no one is choosing ME to go to war with. I had the worst amount of solders and around Mayans and Germany with Attila on the other side. Attila hasn't even picked on any of the CS states.

I told the Mayans not to settle near me (and they told me to shove it and settled hear my lands anyway.) they had several reasons to hate me and had a significantly better army, but has been on neutral this entire time. And speaking of Neutral, that seems to me that Civs are staying neutral for way too long. They start to get friendly with me well past 150 turns.

Greece is on the other continent. I settled a colony with him he didn't like it. It's turn 251 in the Renaissance Era (prince) and I seen a single siege unit but hasn't done anything for the past 15 turns.

While an adjustment was needed to mitigate the warmongering from G&K,, I think it is an issue to at least look into; obtain some sort of response from Faraxis to find out is this is truly working as intended.

Well, just got double-teamed by Carthage and Korea, both of which had been friendly with me the whole game. Carthage went first, and just as I was licking my wounds from successfully fending them off, Sejong outright told me he was going to kick me while I was down so I can't threaten him later. And they've gotten quite good at the grand strategy of war, only attacking cities they have a decent chance of taking. Still not so good at the tactics, however - they took one city by surprise-attacking me, but I held them off at their next target by simply targetting their melee units so they couldn't take my city, even as their seige weapons and archers continued to pound the city's already crippled defences into dust (rather than attacking my units, which is what they should have been doing).

Seems like we always have 'controversies' with every XP when someone's favorite strategy is voided by changes to game AI.

I generally find the revised AI good in the sense that the AI can now compete on many more points than simply posing a military threat. The AI economy seems more competent and they go for various wonders consistently.

I have noticed increased diplomatic stability even among the warmongers (ie: less suicidal) but I've also been the victim of an AI who had waged a successful elimination of a neighbouring Civ and I was its next target. With Maria being an era ahead of me militarily, I just gave up for now and may revisist that game in the future as I know I will have to play a lot of defense.

I'm not sure where I stand here, but the vitriol from the OP is a little off-putting and I really don't want to wade through pages of ad-homenims. Can anyone update on where we stand on this issue? (much obliged)

Zet said:

If you want war, there is the declare war button. The OP probably wants the AI to suicide their units into his cities early on so he can retaliate afterwards and easily out take some cities.

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i want to lose when i should. Is that a crime?


Its like playing a fighting game and no matter what difficulty you put it on, the enemy just blocks the whole fight.


my 2 archers should be begging to get wtfstomped.

IdiotsOpposite said:

I agree! I really do! And I would love to have a tech race with the AI, or having my culture and tourism relentlessly compete against theirs (although with the way the mechanics are, given how hard culture scales compared to tourism pre-atomic era, this turns into a massive stalemate, really).

The only thing I don't want is this:

Well, started a game. Better build 8 composite bowmen because you know there's going to be a DoW before turn 50.

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But aren't there are a few civs that should excel at very early warfare since that's what they're good at and have the early UU (perhaps Zulus, Huns and ?)?

_hero_ said:

That's not quite a thorough enough study IMO. You proved there were still wars, but what is needed is a comparison of how many wars there were before BnW prior to Renaissance and how many there are now. If there was 5 wars on average in GnK and there's 1 war on average in BnW that goes just as far to prove that the AI is passive as it does that they are aggressive.

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I think the point myself and many others are making is that fewer wars is not necessarily a bad thing. Wars almost always end badly for an AI-they either get slaughtered by the player or grind against waves of units from another Civ. Starting a war also harms gold, science and happiness, sometimes for lengthy periods. The AI now has more things it needs to build, as well, with scarcer gold. With BNW encouraging more cooperation, it's not surprising that there are fewer wars in the early game

Put it this way: if they AI were more aggressive in BNW, many would be worse off and the game would be easier for me because they'd have wasted their money and hammers on troops. We now have a more rational AI, doing well to address many complaints about it, with AI partnerships being much, much more stable.

The "downside" is less early game wars. Ideology, in my limited experience, seems to make wars larger and more likely. You used to plan around an early DoW (on higher difficulties at least). It certainly still happens now, just seemingly less often. I don't see why that's a bad thing when the tradeoffs are the ability to form long lasting partnerships with an AI.

Is it fair for the player to complain that the AI does go to war when he or she isn't doing it either? I don't know if you can have your cake and eat it too, particularly when it's very easy to solve the lack of early game wars yourself with a few clicks. That's an issue I want those favoring increased aggression from the AI to address.

I'm pretty sure that you can still declare against an AI, and there's a good chance they'll send their units in unoptimally and you can kill them. Of course, you'll have to deal with the fact that you're treated as a warmonger and the penalties that come with it. War now comes with a more interesting risk/reward decision, and I think that's a good thing.

godman85 said:

i want to lose when i should. Is that a crime?


Its like playing a fighting game and no matter what difficulty you put it on, the enemy just blocks the whole fight..

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Except he doesn't. I did actually report a couple pages back that I was in a game yesterday that was total bloodbath, as warlike as any game I've ever played.Two civ's were completely eliminated, and one had a huge empire at the time.

But you complainers ignore posts that contradict your complaints, which seem pretty baseless from my experiences so far.

Game's already been out a few days, and you and Buccaneer are speaking as if you had the benefit of massive experience with the game. You don't. Try actually playing it for a while rather than screaming the sky is falling base on inductive logic.

steveg700 said:

Game's already been out a few days, and you and Buccaneer are speaking as if you had the benefit of massive experience with the game. You don't. Try actually playing it for a while rather than screaming the sky is falling base on inductive logic.

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Fanboyism at its finest. BNW is PERFECT guys! Your all just noobs!

I would offer you the same advice you sarcastically give to everyone else, before going on these long tirades try actually playing the game more before fanatically defending it.

It seems like a normal fun game of Civ5 for the first 200 turns, but then you realize that no mater what you do, the A.I. is not trying to stop you from winning at all.


Moderator Action: Words like "fanboy" or "noob" directed at other players are not acceptable. keep it civil please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I'm on game three of BNW and I've been attacked every game on Prince and I play peacefully. I'd say Japan is the most likely of Civs I've encountered in BNW to attack aggressively. Attila is also aggressive. In Vanilla Greece was the worst possible neighbor, Russia also bad.

Even with me having only one city Japan attacked my Siam early in ancient times warriors and archers only.

I call .

Magic of Friend said:

Fanboyism at its finest. BNW is PERFECT guys! Your all just noobs!

I would offer you the same advice you sarcastically give to everyone else, before going on these long tirades try actually playing the game more before fanatically defending it.

It seems like a normal fun game of Civ5 for the first 200 turns, but then you realize that no mater what you do, the A.I. is not trying to stop you from winning at all.

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You know, I can't make what he said match up with what you claimed he said in any way at all.

Small sample sizes? Check. Confirmation Bias? Check. I'm pretty sure there's a Texas Sharpshooter in here somewhere as well ...

Moderator Action: Do not answer to flaming post, report them instead please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Buccaneer said:

But aren't there are a few civs that should excel at very early warfare since that's what they're good at and have the early UU (perhaps Zulus, Huns and ?)?

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There may be more to it than just being good at early game warfare. In fact, in BNW, an early game UU may be more of a disadvantage. Consider that it is now more time consuming to get your economy up and running, since the removal of gold per terrain types, your economy is based on:
1) selling luxuries
2) trade routes
3) roads between your cities
4) religious tenets
5) Policies
I may have missed a couple, but those are the key ones. There are two dynamics in place. Either it takes time to get them up and running (1, 3, 4, 5) or they make your local relationships critical to keeping the gold flowing (2). Based on this, even the ai may not be able to afford an early army, and if they can, it may be funded by gold that is coming from its most likely targets.

I absolutely agree that the AI in my first couple of games has been much less aggressive early on. I have not be DoW'd yet, and I haven't seen any early wars - although it does take some time to find all of your opponents on the Continents Plus maps I am fond of playing. Moreover, I dropped from Immortal to King and now Emperor to learn the game, so it may change as the level increases.

I submit though that this less aggressive behavior may be largely due to game mechanics and not ai tweeking to deliberately make them less aggressive. It may be the new normal under BNW.

Magic of Friend said:

Fanboyism at its finest. BNW is PERFECT guys! Your all just noobs!

I would offer you the same advice you sarcastically give to everyone else, before going on these long tirades try actually playing the game more before fanatically defending it.

It seems like a normal fun game of Civ5 for the first 200 turns, but then you realize that no mater what you do, the A.I. is not trying to stop you from winning at all.

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Saying that people should at least play a few games before making a decision about changes to the AI personalities isn't exactly fanboyism.

I haven't had any problems seeing wars.

I generally maintain a decent standing military, though, which seems to discourage DoWs on myself, but often see other nations go to war (at which point I usually gift off a couple of my units to the likely loser to slow the expansion of whoever is the current front-runner)

Most of my games end with me and one, maybe two other civs having gobbled up all our neighbors. The AI is still definitely willing to fight it out, they're just a little more conservative about it. Which DOES hurt those civs that rely on early war - Attila tends to hit the middle of the pack early in with early conquests and then implode when he can't keep up, for example.

What about players that I admire and respect that have played a few games and said something along those lines?

Civsassin said:

There may be more to it than just being good at early game warfare. In fact, in BNW, an early game UU may be more of a disadvantage. Consider that it is now more time consuming to get your economy up and running, since the removal of gold per terrain types, your economy is based on:
1) selling luxuries
2) trade routes
3) roads between your cities
4) religious tenets
5) Policies
I may have missed a couple, but those are the key ones. There are two dynamics in place. Either it takes time to get them up and running (1, 3, 4, 5) or they make your local relationships critical to keeping the gold flowing (2). Based on this, even the ai may not be able to afford an early army, and if they can, it may be funded by gold that is coming from its most likely targets.

I absolutely agree that the AI in my first couple of games has been much less aggressive early on. I have not be DoW'd yet, and I haven't seen any early wars - although it does take some time to find all of your opponents on the Continents Plus maps I am fond of playing. Moreover, I dropped from Immortal to King and now Emperor to learn the game, so it may change as the level increases.

I submit though that this less aggressive behavior may be largely due to game mechanics and not ai tweeking to deliberately make them less aggressive. It may be the new normal under BNW.

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so what you are saying is that you realize the new system is flawed for early game, thus screwing over all warmongers and completely changing the dynamics of the game.

I have yet to see anyone go for a domination victory. Why? Because they just can't seem to pull it off. Might as well remove the option to build military.

godman85 said:

so what you are saying is that you realize the new system is flawed for early game, thus screwing over all warmongers and completely changing the dynamics of the game.

I have yet to see anyone go for a domination victory. Why? Because they just can't seem to pull it off. Might as well remove the option to build military.

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I'm not saying anything about the new system except that it is changed. Flawed is a matter of opinion. Some feel it is, and some feel it isn't. I was simply giving my opinion of why we might be seeing less early game aggression.

godman85 said:

so what you are saying is that you realize the new system is flawed for early game, thus screwing over all warmongers and completely changing the dynamics of the game.

I have yet to see anyone go for a domination victory. Why? Because they just can't seem to pull it off. Might as well remove the option to build military.

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From what I understand, it's just harder to wage war early on (and expensive), unless you have powerful early UUs (Assyria). Otherwise, you're better off just settling in and going to war by the time your economy's up and running and stable.

Assyria. That was the other civ I was trying to think of that should do well with an early war, if they gave the AI more incentive to do so.

godman85 said:

so what you are saying is that you realize the new system is flawed for early game, thus screwing over all warmongers and completely changing the dynamics of the game.

I have yet to see anyone go for a domination victory. Why? Because they just can't seem to pull it off. Might as well remove the option to build military.

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Perhaps you could mod it out and end the thread?

This isn't about which strategy used to work - waiting with some CBs etc.

Before BNW was released there were long threads discussing ways to make war more dynamic and remove the favoritism for archers. There was a clear demand for MORE war and MORE kinds of war.

The discussion in those threads about how to actually make melee units and field tactics relevant - they don't even seem to apply to the game we've been given.

And yes, the suggestion that people who like war should just go back to G&K is valid. It's what I'm going to be doing. Have fun playing farmville, everyone. Excellently balanced, lots of pretty buildings to make.