Does the AI bother to declare war?

I've started 3 games so far, 1 single-player, 1 2v2v2v2 with a buddy, and another 3v3v3 with a couple buddies.


In my single-player game, I'm almost to the renaissance with Morocco. Germany and the Huns are north of me and have expanded like crazy towards each other, and have fought on-and-off while generally ignoring me. Now that I became friends with Germany, the Huns just invaded me.

In my 2v2v2v2 game, I was playing as Indonesia and in-between the Assyrians and Spanish (who were on a team). I tried to fortify my flank because I saw a siege tower and a couple spears, but then I went into the fog and saw another 2 siege towers, another spearman, and 2 archers. I ended up losing my 2nd city (of 3) right as it finished building a composite bowman. So I lost 2 bowmen when that city got taken, and was left with a composite bowman, a Kriss swordsman, a spearman, and 0gold with -7 gpt. On the other continent, my buddy playing as Portugal was non-stop invaded by Zulu for over 100 turns. He could make zero progress, because the zulu just make Impi forever, which are insanely good, and cost nothing. Someone we managed to save my capital and stabilize me, and I went on to conquer both Spain and Assyria to take my continent, and the Zulu/Venice team has been eliminated on the other. Non-stop war for over 250 turns.

In my 3v3v3 game, there has been lots of expansion but nobody has been to war yet. I'm the Shoshone and have basically pinned Babylon up against his coast, he only has 2 cities and no room to expand. I could see him putting tons of swordsman and pikeman along our border, so I put a massive army up on the border, too. I've just had a line of fortified troops for over 100 turns, as if he knows he doesn't stand a chance if he were to invade. He still hasn't made his move.

it's all part of the plan

1) observe that the AI doesn't know how to move units
2) make the AI declare war less often
3) tell everyone how you made the AI smarter
4) ???
5) profit

On my current game as Brazil, large size, standard speed, Prince, the Ai was notably more docile than the previous expansions. I was right beside Ethiopia and my borders were touching theirs yet I'm now in the Industrial era and they still haven't declared war on me. In fact, no one started a war until the Industrial era until Portugal thought that it would be a bright idea to backstab Ethiopia and then DoW on me even though I had a superior army.

I'm not trying to complain about the AI but if I get stuck beside someone like Montezuma I expect to get attacked, since he always declared war on me within the first 50 turns. If they could tone the aggressiveness up just a bit then I think the AI would have the right balance between peaceful and warmongering.

And somehow the AI seems dumber in combat. Ethiopia declared war on Portugal and had ten times the size of Portugal's army, yet they couldn't seem to take out Portugal's cities even though Ethiopia has maybe, 5 cannons and 10 riflemen while Portugal has like, one unit?? All Ethiopia is doing right now is marching his troops back and forth at the edge of Portugal's lands, like he's not actually attacking the cities. That is definitely different behavior than what I experienced in Gods and Kings. It's a tad concerning because i feel that if i really wanted to i could just easily win a domination victory now since the AI doesn't seem to put up much of a fight. Ah well, one can only hope for patches in the future that will possibly tweak this behavior.

Biz_ said:

it's all part of the plan

1) observe that the AI doesn't know how to move units
2) make the AI declare war less often
3) tell everyone how you made the AI smarter
4) ???
5) profit

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Step 4) hide the bad AI from humans by distracting them with new features

I reckon we can expect a post launch balance patch to improve on these issues just like we did with every civ game and expansion soon after release

Only in the middle of one game, but I'd hardly call the AI passive. Boudica was ready to pounce on me when I was weak, and Germany is only too happy to accept a meager bribe to go to war. I would say that the DoW came somewhat later than I was expecting (on Immortal), though that example is hardly compelling.

Still, I strongly prefer it this way. The last G+K game (also on Immortal) I played had a schizophrenic AI, with messy wars across the whole continent. It made the game too binary for me, and there was less of a sense of being part of the world. The systems in BNW encourage cooperation, and isolation stings for a warmonger. War is still quite powerful, but both the player and the AI face steeper consequences for initiating it.

Playing as Shoshone, King difficulty, Pangaea, standard size and time, there was quite a bit of warfare. The Zulu declared war on my three times by 100 AD (not sure what turn that is) and gave me a heck of a time. Attila wiped out Assyria before they even got started, but then was himself conquered by the Inca and Brazil. Rome was up to its usual warmongering, earning everyone's hatred. In the first world congress I proposed on embargo against them which passed easily and Rome was never ever able to get it repealed. One curious thing: even though the game showed Rome lose 345 gold per turn, total gold remained fixed at 46 every turn, and it didn't seem that any units were ever disbanded.

It seems like the AI actually has reasons to DoW now. I'm glad that not everyone declares war on each other anymore... Also I think that the more agressive AIs will declare war more often, which makes sense; warmongering Babylon and a passive Atilla?

From what little ive seen in the game without trade routes there is no gold. So it wouldnt really make sense for the AI to go nuts with war.

glider1 said:

Step 4) hide the bad AI from humans by distracting them with new features

Click to expand...

^this

It's all about trade, if your map make it hard to get cash, then the AI's wont be so DoW happy, on the other hand if the AI get access to enough gold to field an army it will DoW as nutty as in G&K.

Liegence said:

They'll get over it eventually unless you continue to DoW. Some civs are more tolerant of it than others. Some will love you if u attack their enemies.

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I thought dennis said on a live stream they are going to reduce the xztmonger penalty so they didn't changed that? Appearently not.

digrosz said:

It seems like the AI actually has reasons to DoW now. I'm glad that not everyone declares war on each other anymore... Also I think that the more agressive AIs will declare war more often, which makes sense; warmongering Babylon and a passive Atilla?

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i've heard from peoople that the warmongers still are agressive monthy stills dows you with jaguars

same thing on emperor!!

Being in the UK and not being able to play until tomorrow, I can't give my own views on this. However, it appears to me that there's plenty of evidence from both sides that either the AI is more passive, or just as aggressive as before. IMO, if barbarians have been made more aggressive like I've also heard, then making the AI a little more willing to work on its economy is a good idea. Having an army without a good economy can only be a bad thing once that army is destroyed. Someone with a good economy can replace that army easily.

On a side note, I'm still baffled by the complaints about warmonger penalties. If you're going to declare war, you SHOULD be penalised for it diplomatically. War is not a nice thing. If you're declaring war, people SHOULD get pissed off at you. Not necessarily everyone - DOWing Atilla should not annoy Harun if Harun and Atilla hate each other too. But if you're intending on a domination victory, the number of wars you get into should definitely get people worried about you. For them to remain friends and to happily hand you money and the keys to your victory is just ridiculous. If you're going domination, you should want the AIs to start fighting back - isn't that more exciting than an AI that simply ignores your warmongering ways and rolls over for you?

The Gold draught paralyzes the AI in the early game.

By intentionally introducing an early game gold drought, Firaxis effectively implemented an early game AI handbrake that can kill the early suspense.

The AI still has the same aggression values, but it just cannot follow the AI path because of a lack of gold. Either the early draught of gold should to be cured, or perhaps the unit costs in the early game should be reduced to free the AI from is agony.

SalemSage said:

Being in the UK and not being able to play until tomorrow, I can't give my own views on this. However, it appears to me that there's plenty of evidence from both sides that either the AI is more passive, or just as aggressive as before. IMO, if barbarians have been made more aggressive like I've also heard, then making the AI a little more willing to work on its economy is a good idea. Having an army without a good economy can only be a bad thing once that army is destroyed. Someone with a good economy can replace that army easily.

On a side note, I'm still baffled by the complaints about warmonger penalties. If you're going to declare war, you SHOULD be penalised for it diplomatically. War is not a nice thing. If you're declaring war, people SHOULD get pissed off at you. Not necessarily everyone - DOWing Atilla should not annoy Harun if Harun and Atilla hate each other too. But if you're intending on a domination victory, the number of wars you get into should definitely get people worried about you. For them to remain friends and to happily hand you money and the keys to your victory is just ridiculous. If you're going domination, you should want the AIs to start fighting back - isn't that more exciting than an AI that simply ignores your warmongering ways and rolls over for you?

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It bothers me that you get penalty for declaring war instead for taking cities if you want to liberate some cities you are a warmonger ?

apocalypse105 said:

It bothers me that you get penalty for declaring war instead for taking cities if you want to liberate some cities you are a warmonger ?

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Seems a little over the top, but not too bad. The main problem is that the AI doesn't know you're on a liberation mission. All they know is that you declared war. Which is a shame, because I quite like liberating, too.

Even then though, if you apply handwaving real world logic to it, you could make the argument that not everyone would necessarily believe you were just in it to liberate a civ or city state. Some might not even think your intention is a good thing, thinking that it's been several hundred years now and that civ is essentially a part of the bigger civ you hope to take on.

...Now if the liberated civ ALSO thinks you're a warmonger, that's when you know things are getting kind of silly

I have never seen such docile AI, and they have armies, it's not just gold issue. I am on immortal Earth as Shoshone and no one not one civ has DOWed anyone for 130 turns. I am replaying the first 150 so I can say that no one declared war for 130 turns TWICE. And there are some civs like Poland and Siam that have huge armies, twice my size, and nothing. And I got domination in mind and I am fielding 10+ CBs plus assorted other units. Yes I know science has been slow

A few civs has asked for a common DoW but I declined and they stayed pat. I wish the other AI was back, this is boring.

I haven't had any wars in my game yet, but I'm thinking that it's just because I'm kinda of separated from the other Civs on my continent by land and City State buffers. I'm not going to take anything from that considering my sample size is 1.

I suspect that the AI is programmed to be less likely to attack a neighbor if it is the only place it has to send trade routes. So early on when trade routes are short, unless they are surrounded with places to send caravans, the AI will be reluctant to attack.

This actually makes sense on low to mid difficulty levels where it would need the routes to fund an invasion force. However, on high difficulties, where the AI can afford an invasion on its own, it probably still values those trade routes and so does not attack. Even though it does not need them, they are probably marked as important in the AI's calculations. It is not until trade routes get extended and can be sent elsewhere that the AI seems comfortable with attacking a neighbor.