Sick of people making excuses for 2000 years of peace

Six-thousand years of friendship (multiple DoFs, trades, research pacts, freed their workers, joint wars, etc.) with the Inca, and then they declare war on me (while I'm fighting a mutual enemy) on turn 313. Apparently I shouldn't have voted against them that one time in the World Congress.

The AI may be "smarter" in ways that mean they declare war less often, but they are no less coldly sociopathic. Thanks Pachacuti!

wait till ppl start to realise they can use there early uu's ( greece etc) to bully cs for early settler.

as for the early game peacefulness, to early to tell. but with the importance of trade routes early war is more of a gamble

GhostSalsa said:

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.

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Ok man!

So far, after two marathon immortal games with BNW, (Venice and Carthage), I quite like the aggression level. it seems more sensible, and I get the impression a lot of it has to do with the map size, resource density, victory conditions and civ/city-state ratio. Most of the AIs that are being passive, are generally doing it at the same time as me. This leads me to believe their behavior was toned back from going power mad with their difficulty bonuses to actually following the same trends in the tech tree as the player generally does. They just do it all better.

Course that's only two games, but in the last one, 6 civs lost their capitals by around medieval era, 5 of those had nothing to do with me. I did invade the ottomans below me, they had been playing passively, as a lot more civs do now, I won't deny that. curious as to why that might be I was looking around his cities' buildings and improvements, he started on the bottleneck of a jungle peninsula with two religious city states on it, me being the closest civ, and until then being friendly and non-threatening. He had founded his own religion, with cathedrals, pagodas, worked jungle culture thing, all his cities had monuments and amphitheaters. The one person next to him (me), was friendly, and on the edge of a desert with a ton of production.

If I'd been in his position I wouldn't have done a single thing differently, he was going for the best option he had, and it would have worked out great for him had he not died.

I haven't analyzed anyone elses behavior and position quite so much yet, but I get the feeling that if you did, all those 'overly-peaceful' civs would make sense. All the new peaceful alternatives to everything make non-aggression, not just viable, but arguably entirely expected and superior, with warfare being secondary to accomplishing the former's goals, which is how it should be. Vanilla, especially, was pretty much just a convoluted RTS it was so focused on warfare, These peaceful civs are just a by product of the game fleshing out the other aspects.

Though it's possible I'm giving the AI too much credit, again, I'll need more games, but I get the feeling this is intentional and really good for the game.

P.S. the moment I took over the ottomans, claiming about 4 times the area of land as any other civ behind a bottleneck I got DoW by every (13) other civ, around 8 of them backstabbing me. So maybe that's another reason the AI hesitates early.

P.P.S Both games I lost due to just falling too far behind economically, despite doing well militarily.

ptoss1 said:

Ok man!

Spoiler :

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I get the feeling I've seen that screenshot elsewhere by someone being told to stop posting it as they had apparently been posting it everywhere.

MadDjinn said:

So someone upthread suggested using the Firetuner to autorun some games to see if there was wars 'before Renaissance'.

I did that earlier today and guess what? there were wars before the Renaissance in all 3 games.

The first 2 games had Prince AIs, while the last one had Deity AIs.

all 3 games were on a Pangaea map, with everything else as default for standard speed/standard map size.

Anyone can do it. The only thing you can say is that the early game AIs have less overall units due to needing to sink hammers into trade routes rather than excess units. Also, with the need for the trade routes to stay positive gold vs the river gold, the AI can't just sit back and use idle hammers to spam an army. It's got to use the hammers more wisely, which it seems to be doing (though not optimally or efficiently).

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I agree with this djinn as mad as he may be. It was my observation also that the AI is not broken , it just makes better decision about going to war.In my game (and my wife"s) , they were huge variation in term of frecquence of wars. But it felt by far more natural than the usual declaration of war before turn 60 however I may be.
In fact I even had a case were the IA could see that my military was weaker but since I would still take some time to be taken out , and since I was more usefull alive , the IA left me for a while (ultimately that was a mistake because I m a human and therefore smarter but still). All and all I don t complain , all of the occurences or non occurence of wars really felt natural.

EDIT : And btw I m currently still playing in low difficulty , the one I m playing right now is with Theodora on kings ,continent + script , I m right between a cornered Napoleon on the south stuck in ice and toundra and an overpowered Attila who took Amsterdam on turn 30+ with a huge land and tons of cash. Me in the middle playing noobgame went stonehenge + hanging garden + one city ... you bet your ass they ve been on mine likecrazy dogs since the beginning. The rest of the story is usual , I m smarter and even so they have a significant military power and military science advantage I manage to repell them but they only stop the time to catch their breath and go at it again. The first Dow on me was 3 turn before I finish my late HG (thx king difficulty) so must have been somewhere around turn 40 or 50.
So could OP have a word with Attila and Napoleon and explain them that now they don t go to warnow that it s BNW so that I can finish propagating my uber religious text itinerant preachers unity of the prophet fever ?

Buccaneer said:

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

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Regardless of how much you respect, they also haven't had enough games to know what they're talking, and if they're going on tirades like this, then they deserve less respect (unless their penchant for kneejerk melodrama is what you respect in people).

Thing about his complaint is, it's easy to disprove because all it takes is a game like the one I had where everyone's killing each other. If it's some grand statement that such-and-such never happens, and then it happens, then that grand statement is in need of revision.

ptoss1 said:

Ok man!

Spoiler :

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I'm impressed the civ in that screenshot is in positive happiness but it clearly won't be for long with so many low-pop puppets about to bubble up. Science gen is way behind at Middle Ages. Altogether looks like a loss - but would have been in G&K, too.

The game never rewarded conquering four civs at once, there was always a need for pacing, neighbor aggression and the buildup of "runaways" tended to lend to this pacing really elegantly before BNW, so that you grabbed some puppets early, hit education and got your happiness policies in place, then gunned for the runaway in a dramatic showdown.

The time-tested skirmish, recoup, final-battle plot (see every action movie ever). That is what CiV had on lock until now and what BNW has broken. Yes, it led to games ending when you hit Industrial. But the games had narrative structure.

Everyone keeps saying, "just declare war yourself, just declare war yourself," but when I play BNW all I think is, "why would I?" Everyone keeps saying "The AI is still conquering," but when they do, what do they get out of it? They don't become huge monsters for me to dream of slaying and plot against 100 turns in advance. I read these comments and all I can think is, "pfffft."

Big J Money said:

steveg700 said:

I've had one complete game as the Shoshome where I was the runaway. Nobody DoW'ed me, but they wouldn't have in G&K either.

Started a second game that was one of those maps where eight civ's are split between two continents. Was backstabbed by Japan, despite being his only available trade partner. I boxed him in.

On my third game now. Civ's have DoW'ed each other, but not me. Unlikely to happen until they can settle in closer to me.

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No, he shouldn't do that. That would be a biased test.

If warlike civs (defined as civs who have UA, UU, UB geared for war, AND are set to be warmongers/backstabbers in the config files) are not going to war or backstabbing anymore, then I agree something is not functioning as designed.

You shouldn't have to provoke Shaka to attack someone; that's the only way he's going to ever win.

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Didn't spot this post til just now, but the irrational sentiment it contains should be addressed.

Shaka can win just like anybody else. Having a military focus doesn't mean all other paths to victory are closed. Nor is having military might useless for any other goal than the dom victory.

If you want to prove that the AI won't attack you when it's in their interest to do so, then start by depriving them of a compelling reason to maintain peaceful, mutually-beneficial relations. Engaging in trade is a logical deterrent to war.

It's one thing to complain that the AI won't declare war when it's clearly in his best interests. It's another to complain that the AI doesn't act like the self-destructive backstabbing psychopath that we're used to.

Well, in my latest game, Shaka declared war on me on turn 102 (325BC) after he expanded toward me with the only negative modifier (covets lands that you currently own). We had an embassy, and I had a trade route going to him, he did this very surprisingly to me, as I was not even ready for it. I mean I have the units to take care of him (I hope), but I wasn't ready for it based on the fact that I thought we had a decent relationship going on...........SHAKAAAAA! why you do this to me

Nevermind, I killed all his units for 5 turns then he offered peace along with his silk and all his horses and iron...........he also declared on me while his empire was unhappy, I could tell becasue he had a 2% negative modifier when I attacked his units because of "Empire Unhappy"........of course this is on Prince difficulty

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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Of course, I absolutely agree. Civilizations that are geared for early warfare should do early warfare. And in my experience, which I'll admit is limited (as is everyone else's, of course), they do. If I leave my lands undefended or scantily defended against the Huns, I get an attack, and a strong one, more often than not. Sure, it's not a turn 40 10-warrior attack, it's more like a turn 110 6-spearman 4-CB 4-catapult attack. And let me tell you, the latter's a lot more devastating if you're not prepared!

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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Did you even read his post? He clearly said that the expansion's been out less than a week. He didn't even come remotely close to saying nothing was wrong.

You're angry for no reason.

Buccaneer said:

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

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Meaningless in a discussion like this. If you have 10 friends who feel this way, then I'll just have 20 friends who are better players than your 10 friends who feel the exact opposite way. It's pretty easy to have lots of friends who agree with you on the Internet like that.

GhostSalsa said:

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.

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Just because there was discussion about it does not mean it was the most requested feature. Given that this expansion was about overhauling culture/diplomacy as well as altering the gold aspects of the game, I'd say it was pretty obvious their focus was not in war here.

GhostSalsa said:

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.

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While we're making snarky comments. Enjoy G&K, I'm sure playing whack-a-mole with half a dozen CB will be very intellectually stimulating for you.

TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM.

You "stacking the deck" by cramming 12 civs on a tiny piece of land who should all hate eachother DOES NOT GUARANTEE WAR. why? THEY NEED MONEY!!!!! I can not stress this enough. If the AI can not make money due to being too cramped in the first place, they will not declare wars, make units, or generally do anything productive. I found this out when i tried to play a game on tiny islands as kamehameha. I didnt have issues because of my civ but many of the new ones were screwed from being sooooo poor. dont do that!!!! I played an exceptional game on an earth map at normal size on epic pace at prince difficulty as poland. Montezuma attacked me before turn 75. China before turn 150. I had only one player who had never attacked me by turn 200. This experience is PROOF that the game is not broken, you are setting up situations in which failure of the AI is guaranteed and yet dont understand why they arent playing? Experiment a little! this expansion was supposed to change things, whining that you dont like the change is kind of counterproductive, obviously you thought changes were needed in the first place if you bought the expansion.

Less aggression? Maybe if you get peaceful neighbours, yes, but also not for too long. My two recent games as Portugal I didn't finish:

1. Turn 50-60: Assyrians propose a war against overexpanding Napoleon, both me and them take French cities swiftly.

2. Turn 60: Romans declare war on the Japanese, win something and sign peace. Turn 80: Oda and frickin Gandhi who is on the other side of the continent propose to declare war on Augustus because he's being a pain. I agree to declare war after 10 turns, but 2 turns short of that date Augustus marches his army on me and declares war in a preemptive strike. I defended Porto and liberated Panama City. In peace I went to colonize. 15-20 turns after this war Augustus returns with a horde of legions and ballistas and takes Porto right away.

Those were on King difficulty. For me - no change in AI behaviour, it only makes smarter and more logical decisions as when to declare war.