another strange AI diplo quirk

Shortly after conquering Babylon in my most recent, my relationship with Alexander went from "Friendly" to "Hostile."

One of the negative modifiers was that I am "a warmongering menace to the world," which makes sense after wiping Arabia and Babylon off the map (not my fault they were wonder-building wimps).

Another is that he "covets lands I currently own," which again makes sense, given that my conquest of Babylon puts me right at his border.

The strangest modifier, though, is that I have "built wonders that [he] coveted!" This one literally came up the turn after taking Babylon, as Nebudchadnezzar had built the Oracle and the Temple of Artemis, among others. Thing is, of course, is that I didn't build them.

edit 1: I guess I should point out that I had built the Great Library and captured the Great Lighthouse and the Statue of Zeus, which meant I was in possession of five Greek wonders. I wonder what the maximum is to avoid that hit with Alexander?

This isn't the first time I've had this happen in a game with Alexander, by the way. I've heard that AI leaders are hardwired to go after wonders that their civilization built in real life, and there are so many ancient Greek wonders that it's almost a given that you're going to get this modifier with Alexander. Kind of a curious/frustrating quirk to make Alexander even more aggressive towards you.

edit 2: For the purposes of that diplo modifier, does the Sistine Chapel count as "Roman"? is the Forbidden Palace a Chinese wonder or a Mongolian one? and does that modifier depend on the AI personality as well as nationality?

Umm.. like you said, Babylon had the two wonders (Artemis and Oracle).. Alexander now wants them.

You do realise that once you conquer a city you gain any passive bonuses those wonders provide? They aren't razed, they stay, so you now are the proud owner of Artemis and Oracle. and now gain the 10% food bonus in all cities and.. whatever passive bonus Oracle has.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

Umm.. like you said, Babylon had the two wonders (Artemis and Oracle).. Alexander now wants them.

You do realise that once you conquer a city you gain any passive bonuses those wonders provide? They aren't razed, they stay, so you now are the proud owner of Artemis and Oracle. and now gain the 10% food bonus in all cities and.. whatever passive bonus Oracle has.

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I agree, it does not matter to Alexander who owns the wonders, he wants them for himself.

Alexander is something the forum's auto-censor doesn't allow to post. Never trust him, never befriend him. Kill him asap and spare yourself a headache. In addition to being one of the most aggressive and deceptive leaders, he tends to grab all CS and has the highest potential to become a runaway.

nokmirt said:

I agree, it does not matter to Alexander who owns the wonders, he wants them for himself.

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that makes a lot of sense. I'm not much of a wonder builder - particularly in games against Greece - so I've really only seen it come up twice.

whatever passive bonus Oracle has.

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nothing, really, except a GS point. one of the most useless wonders in the game.

Kill him asap and spare yourself a headache.

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that was my intention, but I had to get through Arabia and Babylon to get to him. and I had to briefly had to make peace with him to buy off some of his allied city-states...that's what makes him as big of a pain to deal with as Siam.

teddybroosevelt said:

that makes a lot of sense. I'm not much of a wonder builder - particularly in games against Greece - so I've really only seen it come up twice.



nothing, really, except a GS point. one of the most useless wonders in the game.



that was my intention, but I had to get through Arabia and Babylon to get to him. and I had to briefly had to make peace with him to buy off some of his allied city-states...that's what makes him as big of a pain to deal with as Siam.

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A free policy is NOT a useless wonder, especially since thet Policy does not increase the cost of the NEXT policy.. However, it provides NOTHING once it's build afterwards for the civilizations that conquer a city with it.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

A free policy is NOT a useless wonder, especially since thet Policy does not increase the cost of the NEXT policy.. However, it provides NOTHING once it's build afterwards for the civilizations that conquer a city with it.

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Culture and great person points are not nothing. But your general premise is sound: Oracle is not a wonder one should covet.

As I said, a great scientist point is always nice. But I can't see a time when I'd really need the free policy enough to go for the Oracle, aside from possibly a cultural victory. Especially when it comes early enough in the game where building it comes at the opportunity cost of extra expansion/military/infrastructure.

That's my main issue with the Great Library as well, but at gunpoint I'd rather have the free tech and library than the free policy.

I think the biggest problem with Great Library is that if you're going tech, you're better off buying libraries in your smaller cities and hardbuilding one in your capital while you research Philosophy so you can rush National College. And by that point it's usually too late to go for Great Library, although there are some games where the AI puts it off for absurdly long periods of time. Well, that and the fact that on higher difficulties early wonders are hard enough to get as it is, meaning it's hard to set up a good slingshot.

Lyoncet said:

Culture and great person points are not nothing. But your general premise is sound: Oracle is not a wonder one should covet.

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I haven't experimented with this much, but someone once said that when the AI covets your wonders, its usually not just because they are Ramesses, but also that you have built wonders that originated in their civilizations.

Given that, it makes sense for Alexander to covet the Oracle, just as Wu Zetian would covet the Porcelain Tower even long after its immediate bonuses have passed (she did in one game, and it was an unpleasant experience).

A little bit off-topic, but today as playing as Rome, Alex planted a city close to my borders very early. Maybe turn 15-16 or so and then have the stomach to complain that I settle cities too close to him?

All I can say is What???? And apologies of course, after all, I have only my cap.

Then 20 turns later he settle a city right on my borders, no need to tell you what happened later. But all in all, diplo is ridiculous and I don't care how some ppl defend this "mechanism" as it's plain stupid many times.

Covet my lands when you've seen it, not before! I can be a travelling circus and might not HAVE any land, what do you know, AI?

And in another thread I mentioned killing off everything on my continent, I can't be a warmonger if they never set eyes on my lands.

Wonders that AI likes is slightly different, but still stupid that you get a penalty for it, by capturing them. Maybe the envy shouldn't happen right away, maybe in 30 turns or so, then we can talk progress of diplo.

The warmonger penalty abroad makes some sense.
I agree with the "Settle near you rcities" stuff, it annoys me when I don't know where he resides but yet still warns me, but will go ahead and settle cities near MY borders without MY permission!

My main complaint about the current Diplo is how hypocritical the AI is.

Arabia and Babylon: You could have left each of them a useless city left each to avoid the wipe out of civ major diplomatic penalty.

Yup; Alex before coveted Babylon's lands which you now own, so it transferred to you.

And yup, Alex had been coveting some Great Wonders built by Babylon which you now own.

It's not so much the number of wonders you have but which ones; I think the AI is programmed to develop wonder envy whenever it starts a wonder but is beaten out to it.
Flavors are used to make it more likely that certain AIs will go after certain ones; but it's not so much a "Greek" wonder as something is a "Growth" wonder.

The main one you missed that you could have gotten was the "they think we are building cities too fast"; which you can also get by CONQUERING cities "too fast".

In general, someone programmed the Civ V AI to behave like an il-mannered human over the internet. (The type of person that many would dis-invite from ever playing again)

Arabia and Babylon: You could have left each of them a useless city left each to avoid the wipe out of civ major diplomatic penalty.

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that's what I did with the Aztecs (and, oddly enough, with Greece) but Arabia's last city (he had only built two) had a few luxes I didn't have. I also wiped out Babylon because I was annoyed about him having the Great Wall.

Here's a good one: I'm Venice and apparently I'm building cities too aggressively

I enjoy being considered a war mongering menace to society based on actions that took place 3000 years before the current game year . Its also nice to be considered a war mongering menace due to the evil of being attacked by 4 civilizations at once and defending myself ......

Alexariel said:

Here's a good one: I'm Venice and apparently I'm building cities too aggressively

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I have a better one: Wiped out Morocco. My friends (DOF) looked the other way, but Darius apparently thinks I am a warmongering menace to the world (he hates warmongers).

Some turns later he adopts Autocracy....

TheKingOfBigOz said:

A free policy is NOT a useless wonder, especially since thet Policy does not increase the cost of the NEXT policy.. However, it provides NOTHING once it's build afterwards for the civilizations that conquer a city with it.

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The Oracle is technically one of the best Wonders in the game, but the benefit becomes really apparent in the last third of the game. It's like.. without it you'd be hard pressed to choose between 2 vital policies and with it you'll have them both. Late game culture costs for a new policy can easily get to like 8000 and that's say about 35culture/per turn times say 225 turns. And you actually get the boost right when you build it.

My other favorites would be the Hanging Gardens and Petra, because they're the only ones that give you a food bonus and that's really powerful and Petra is just awesome on general principle. Really fun to see the brutal yield of 10 desert squares.

Another great benefit to all three is that they're usually easy to get. The AI rarely prioritizes for them (and obviously it's a pretty safe bet for Petra whatever the game is).

the petra is really good when you find barringer crater early game and it's surrounded for miles around by ONLY desert... It's quite a nice spot afterwards actually