avoiding harsh peace terms

this has probably been discovered already, but in case it's not common knowledge, if the ai comes to you offering peace terms and you are at risk of being swamped by superior forces you can often avoid the harshest parts of the peace terms - the gpt demand, by simply setting all your citizens in your cities as unemployed, so that your gpt goes into the minus, make peace, then set them all back to work the tiles - good way to avoid having to pay the harsh gpt terms the ai often demands. with this is the more obvious fact that you should be using all your gold to buy something (anything) before making peace and selling/trading any lux you can as well.

woodshadows said:

this has probably been discovered already, but in case it's not common knowledge, if the ai comes to you offering peace terms and you are at risk of being swamped by superior forces you can often avoid the harshest parts of the peace terms - the gpt demand, by simply setting all your citizens in your cities as unemployed, so that your gpt goes into the minus, make peace, then set them all back to work the tiles - good way to avoid having to pay the harsh gpt terms the ai often demands. with this is the more obvious fact that you should be using all your gold to buy something (anything) before making peace and selling/trading any lux you can as well.

Click to expand...

Hmmm....

It never occurred to me to artificially deflate my gpt and clean out my treasuries and luxuries before trying to settle for peace, but then, I'm a poor sport in single player which means I often refuse to continue games with significantly stronger AIs, so...

Let me try this the next time I lose a city instead of rage quitting.

sounds like cheating to me.

mdl5000 said:

sounds like cheating to me.

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This is one of the few times I'm going to agree with the naysayers and say that it sounds more like sloppy AI coding to me.

I would consider it more of an exploit. Similar to when you are about to declare war on someone, and sell them as many luxuries and resources possible to grab some extra gold.

But hey, if I ever jump up to deity, I would probably have to use it.

I would agree with those that say it's an unfair way to get more out of a dumb AI. Any time you are doing something before or after trading with an AI that you would not do during normal gameplay, something is wrong.

I'd say if you don't currently plain to maintain peace for the duration of a deal, don't trade for a lump sum of gold.

In the same way, I'd say if you wouldn't make a citizen move that you wouldn't want to keep for the foreseeable future (at the end of a war, you might want it sometimes for a bit of culture, science, or production) or are buying a building with the intent of reducing the money in your coffers, it's not really right to do it.

This is certainly an exploit, but I'm going to be doing it in my games, and I'm going to do it because the AI is so bad at assuming it's winning. I'm sick of fighting a war, that I know is a stalemate, but the AI thinks it is destroying me despite not taking one of my cities, and possibly destroying between 1-3 of my units.

I just want the AI to realize that the war is a stalemate, and if I can force an even peace through an exploit, then I'm going to do it.

What I hate is when the AI refuses to agree to peace with you unless you give up X # of cities. No matter how many times you smash their invasion forces they refuse to entertain any peace treaty which doesn't include certain cities from you.

yeah it's dumb when the AI want like 6 cities in order to make peace... just say you don't want peace if you don't want it instead

Peace negotiations are , imo , among the dumbest things in CiV . Like when you are about to conquer an AI's last city in the very next turn and you offer a peace asking only for a few gold , then you get an answer like 'Hey this is not a fair deal , take the peace without giving you anything ' . Then you just eliminate him and asking ' Seems fair enough now , huh?' .

While I think the negative gpt thing makes sense (as is buying things with your gold), giving away your luxuries is less logical. If you have to give them away anyway, it doesn't matter to whom.

Demmian said:

Peace negotiations are , imo , among the dumbest things in CiV . Like when you are about to conquer an AI's last city in the very next turn and you offer a peace asking only for a few gold , then you get an answer like 'Hey this is not a fair deal , take the peace without giving you anything ' . Then you just eliminate him and asking ' Seems fair enough now , huh?' .

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You know what's even funnier? The AI doesn't want to give you everything because of a system put in place to punish Lump Sum DOW.

It's called deal breaker - declaring war to break deals or DOWing the same AI again

smallfish said:

You know what's even funnier? The AI doesn't want to give you everything because of a system put in place to punish Lump Sum DOW.

It's called deal breaker - declaring war to break deals or DOWing the same AI again

Click to expand...

Working as intented , i guess .Seriously , I was not talking about asking for everything to sign a peace . Even if you ask for a single gold to sign a peace , you still get the ''not fair'' answer .

I find this doesn't work. Suppose the AI wants 50 /turn from me for peace. I reduce my GPT to zero or negative, and reenter negotiations. The AI tells me peace is not possible at this time. (Or the AI demands a city).

Here's hoping this stuff is exposed in the C++. It probably will be.

And hoping there are still programmers around who are interested enough to fix it.

woodshadows said:

this has probably been discovered already, but in case it's not common knowledge, if the ai comes to you offering peace terms and you are at risk of being swamped by superior forces you can often avoid the harshest parts of the peace terms - the gpt demand, by simply setting all your citizens in your cities as unemployed, so that your gpt goes into the minus, make peace, then set them all back to work the tiles - good way to avoid having to pay the harsh gpt terms the ai often demands. with this is the more obvious fact that you should be using all your gold to buy something (anything) before making peace and selling/trading any lux you can as well.

Click to expand...

Avoided looking at this for ages because I was afraid it might be something like this. I`m always impressed by the Human`s ability to find ways around even the most complicated programs without using any cheats or hacks, but by being smart and out thinking the system.

It`s a clever idea and not really a cheat, but an exploit. However, now I`ve seen it, it`s going to be really hard not to use it. Hope the Devs patch it up so the AI will know the Player has purposefully made everyone unemployed! Or so that the Player can`t do that during war or something. You can`t realistically make everyone not work in real life.

smallfish said:

You know what's even funnier? The AI doesn't want to give you everything because of a system put in place to punish Lump Sum DOW.

It's called deal breaker - declaring war to break deals or DOWing the same AI again

Click to expand...

I wish they had managed that better. I had a game where England declared on me every time peace was up, while I was dealing with another two angry civs on the other side of my land, so I just kept killing her army and taking peace. When I finally got around to her, I declared, left her with one city, and after that no one would ever give me anything for peace again, because I declared war on the same AI from which I took peace before.

But then, just like when they won't take reasonable peace terms for whatever reason, it's just something you have to deal with. It's not a perfect system, but...oh well.

adsin15 said:

What I hate is when the AI refuses to agree to peace with you unless you give up X # of cities. No matter how many times you smash their invasion forces they refuse to entertain any peace treaty which doesn't include certain cities from you.

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I hate it when I play an OCC game, and another civ refuses to offer me a fair peace deal like forever, due to the fact I just have one city and a small (but quite effective) military. Even though I massacre them every time they try to mess with me, they insist on terms where I have to give them every last thing I have, in order to get peace with them. So this goes on for thousands of years (or centuries, later in the game) in a stalemate, often with several different civs at the same time. Would be funny, if it didn't cause so many stupid negative issues for the player with other stuff in the game.

Socratatus said:

Avoided looking at this for ages because I was afraid it might be something like this. I`m always impressed by the Human`s ability to find ways around even the most complicated programs without using any cheats or hacks, but by being smart and out thinking the system.

It`s a clever idea and not really a cheat, but an exploit. However, now I`ve seen it, it`s going to be really hard not to use it. Hope the Devs patch it up so the AI will know the Player has purposefully made everyone unemployed! Or so that the Player can`t do that during war or something. You can`t realistically make everyone not work in real life.

Click to expand...

In SP I'd hate for devs to spend time on this type of fix. MP I could see how it would be impactful but in SP, just don't do it.

Even better if what the Creepy Old Man stated is true. Nothing to offer the AI for peace, then he has no motivation to stop the war.

I've just finished a game...and won a Science Victory as the Byzantines, where I was at war with Germany...from very near the beginning...Germany was the the runaway civ....far stronger militarily, but I was able to destroy wave after wave of attacks with an Archer which gradually got stronger...progressing to Crossbow...Gatling Gun... Machine Gun...with extra range and logistics...

But his peace terms were always ridiculous... I was even able to capture two of his smaller cities once I had artillery and a few horse units... Eventually I gave into a lump sum payment, gold per turn, some luxuries, just to buy some time.

I then worked my strategy...I was close to Berlin and got closer with a couple of citadels.... Once I had rocket artillery and modern armour and a couple of Bombers... I "pounced"...I DOW'd and captured Berlin in two turns ...which ended his Space Ship program...then quickly captured two other medium size cities. I was merciless.. you get that way after a 1500-year war...

It was actually an exciting game...he had almost all of the CS's as allies...but his peace terms, except for the one I finally took, would have killed my game... What surprises me is how the AI are able to produce such a vast military...and sustain the loses.. I lost very few units in all of this, but the AI continued to believe it had me "on the ropes"....

But at least the game held my interest right to the end... It's interesting how these games can go...sometimes I've gone the entire game with no warfare; in other games..like this one...it's virtually continual warfare....but you have to keep trying...somehow with this game, I knew I had a chance...not a guarantee, but a chance, at ultimate victory...