They need to hotfix AI agression now

godman85 said:

I've played 7. please don't spam 1 liners trying to be cool.


THis is emperor level too.

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Sill not a sample size one can draw any conclusions from.

I'm really enjoying the AI aggression in this expansion.

I have played 8 different games up to 250 turns each on different maps, sizes and always random civs.


The current one I am in, 60 turns in and this is what has happened;

Ghengis Khan has taken a city state
Alexander has 3 cities
Every other civ has 2.


Last game I played;

No matter that I was trading greatly with Atilla, at turn 200 he declared war on me, Siam and Denmark. He took 2 cities from Siam, razed them and expanded. He took Denmark's capital and the overwhelmed what I had... and no I was not allied with Siam or Denmark, he just wanted to go in dry on everyone.


Every game has been significantly different and much, much more pleasant.

On an island game, tiny, as someone else has said before, civs have been eliminated before I even met them.

One game, 250 turns passed on pangea and not a single person DoW'd, no city states were in trouble, nothing. Complete peach.

One game, Assyria declared war on me and India @ turn 50.


It has just been crazy and much more enjoyable. If you guys want war, make war. Quit letting the AI do it all.

Diplomacy actually matters and the AI are dicks when they show true intentions, i.e. Atilla said to me "I am tired of playing nice to you" when he declared. Siam informed me he was planning something.

I haven't played many singleplayer games, but on Immortal I have been going cultural rather than through conquest and every time I have been attacked/backstabbed my neighbours.

I have had wars declared on me by Poland, the Zulu, Greece, Songhai, Japan, Egypt, and India. I really feel the complaints here are mostly from a lack of sample size. My games still have the same amount of irrational AI I have seen in previous games...

Knight2007 said:

I have played 8 different games up to 250 turns each on different maps, sizes and always random civs.


The current one I am in, 60 turns in and this is what has happened;

Ghengis Khan has taken a city state
Alexander has 3 cities
Every other civ has 2.


Last game I played;

No matter that I was trading greatly with Atilla, at turn 200 he declared war on me, Siam and Denmark. He took 2 cities from Siam, razed them and expanded. He took Denmark's capital and the overwhelmed what I had... and no I was not allied with Siam or Denmark, he just wanted to go in dry on everyone.


Every game has been significantly different and much, much more pleasant.

On an island game, tiny, as someone else has said before, civs have been eliminated before I even met them.

One game, 250 turns passed on pangea and not a single person DoW'd, no city states were in trouble, nothing. Complete peach.

One game, Assyria declared war on me and India @ turn 50.


It has just been crazy and much more enjoyable. If you guys want war, make war. Quit letting the AI do it all.

Diplomacy actually matters and the AI are dicks when they show true intentions, i.e. Atilla said to me "I am tired of playing nice to you" when he declared. Siam informed me he was planning something.

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Just to add, I got beat on turn 126 just now in a different game.

I picked Venice, was trading with everyone, including Denmark.

I had a sea and 2 land trades to him, had a few units and walls. He still declared war and had 4 catapults, 5 swordsmen and 2 spearmen.

Just dominated an Emperor game with culture as Poland. One scout the entire game. I kid you not. One scout at the beginning was all I needed to dominate the game culturally. AI is a joke thus far.

fat_tonle said:

Just dominated an Emperor game with culture as Poland. One scout the entire game. I kid you not. One scout at the beginning was all I needed to dominate the game culturally. AI is a joke thus far.

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I remember when one game meant something when it came to sampling, oh wait...

God, people can't stop the QQ.

The AI is a lot smarter about waging wars now. Still got their mind cramps sometimes (AI will never measure up to human IQ on any turn-based strategy game EVER, not just Civ), but mostly now the diplomatic dynamics are more realistic: AI will try to make alliances and concert their denouncements/DoWs, will play to their Civ's strengths (from what I've seen so far they get generally more aggressive when their UUs kick in), and willact like they have a clue about what they're doing most of the time, which is a big upgrade from vanilla/G&K.

And the usual battle-crazed psychos are still psychos, just like they should too. Get a game with Montezuma as your closest neighbor and see what happens, lol.

P.S.: One of the five games I started with BNW so far, I had Harald as a neighbor, and he simply sat around doing absolutely NOTHING for the whole game. It wasn't a matter of not attacking - some civs do play peacefully for the whole game now and still give you a hard time later with quick spaceships or whatever. But this game, Harald simply seemed to freeze - he didn't build cities (I was Venice so he had lots of room), didn't build armies, didn't do anything at all diplomatically with anyone. Other AIs were behaving normally in that game but poor Harald got struck with swine flu or whatever. It was just odd. Maybe there's some sort of bug with the AI?

I've completed around a thousand turns and two complete games and at no point did I feel the early game was tedious. I favor the builder style gameplay as well. The early game is all about getting trade going, managing barbarians, and jockeying for position. Nothing tedious about it.

I'd say the aggression has definitely been turned down, and probably just a bit too far. The 'follow these 8 steps exactly' builds that where nearly required in immortal/diety play to get an army up large enough before the first DoWs wasn't all that fun. And generally as long as you were able to beat and flip those early DoWs you wouldn't have too many challenges left. Now it seems that there's nearly no danger of early war unless you instigate it. It's just a footrace to the ren. to see who has the best situation when the congress stirs things up.

If you have an aggressive neighbor he should make some prelimanary incursions. I just played a game bordered by Alexander, Atila and Siam and never got DoW'd. I'd say the current is better than the hyper-aggressive, but that's just too passive.


Even it is setting based (which it might be. I usually play emperor-huge-marathon) but if those settings are causing the issue, well that's a bug and it needs to be fixed. Or the options removed, but that'd be bad as well.

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yeah I agree with this. I would like agression turned down from how it was on G&K on deity. but not as much as it has been.

Knight2007 said:

Just to add, I got beat on turn 126 just now in a different game.

I picked Venice, was trading with everyone, including Denmark.

I had a sea and 2 land trades to him, had a few units and walls. He still declared war and had 4 catapults, 5 swordsmen and 2 spearmen.

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What was the difficulty level? I'm having a hard time on Prince, seems they increased the difficulty of the AI for each respective level, I was last to found a religion in my Poland game; didn't get Taoism until 1050 AD or somewhere around there.

Half the players are saying the aggression is the same. A third are saying its gotten weaker. And then the rest are neutral or have said the AI is even more aggressive [See any of the early screenshots/threads from BNW coming out and massive attacks on cities].

Again, its lack of sample size more than anything or people are playing on too easy of levels

If attacking you means that the AI loses its trade route gravy train, it's not going to do it. I also see less city-state bullying and attacking for this reason.

why it must be war? this is NOT a war game, man! AIs can actually get advantage from you without declaring wars like establish trade routes, making demands or making friends to trade gold, etc

I'm curious if it's actually just a bug, and not developer design.

I dont know if we ar eplaying different games but im in the middle of my 1st BNW game and after reading all this i was taking it a little easy on the military, was focusing on trade playing as Morocco on continents / emperor / standard everything.

My continent is shared with Russia, Germany and Ethiopia, and its really cramped for space, in G&K i would have had to play war as the AI would continually dow me due to proximity.

They arent doing that in BNW, i have been able to DoF with germany as he doesnt "covet my lands" but the other two have been neutral.

I guess i annoyed cath a little when i settled my 3rd city and when i bought a couple of tiles close to cathy both times she asked me not to do it again and i kept my promise.

We all traded with each other and kept building an empire and then at turn 170 Cathy did DoW me, with quite a sizable army it was more of a challenge than the Dows in G&K since she had taken the time to build her army.

I like this AI, they are not psychotic and they seem sensible. I dont know how people are going through entire games with only scouts.

I had to to fight hard to keep cathy at bay and get her to agree to peace, shes got muskets now and i have only pikes + swords and xbows, i need to get some military techs asap or im kaput

so far happy with game as far as AI aggression level is concerned.

I'm in UK so only an hour's play but Greece was a little more passive than usual. I'm playing on Prince with Pathfinders to get the hang of things and he DOWed on turn 90-ish, the moment I'd built the Parthenon. I've often wondered if Civs prioritise/covet their own wonders..? Also, I seem to be the only person with any gold yet I don't have a trade route...

I’ve only played three starts, and only for the first 100 turns. Just trying to get a feel of the new mechanics and the way it all works together.

With respect, I think the OP and many others here complaining, are missing the point.

How did the game use to play in the first 100 turns?:

Get 2-4 cities up and an army of 6-8 CB’s and NC by turn 70-100.

Did I have to worry about unit maintenance? No.
Did I have to worry about balancing unit maintenance against building maintenance? No.

Did I have to worry about DOW’s? Yes. Did I have much choice? Not really.

How does the game play now in the first 100 turns?:

Can i rush an archer army? With a little thought, and planning – Yes, ish, BUT – doing so requires trade offs and sacrifices, concerning build orders, unit costs, civ choice, and tech sacrifices:
For instance, a decision to play piety hard and leverage religion, or a decision to not build any non-essential buildings, or a decision to go tradition and stay defensive. A decision to choose a civ with an early UU, given that armies and upgrading are difficult early.
Do I have to think hard about build orders and building maintenance and trading that off against unit maintenance? Yes, I do.
Do I have to worry about DOW’s? Hard to say from the different posts, but from different accounts the answer might be no. Does this mean I have more choice in the way I play? IMV, yes.

Different strategies……different trade offs. Each with an advantage.
I can warmonger, but it'll cost me. i can turtle and that'll give different advantages.

To me, the second set of 100 turns is right now more interesting than the first (I've played a lot of G and K).

I’m not forced into a particular set of opening moves. Balancing unit and building maintenance is now tricky. None of this is boring to me.

If you find the G and K set of 100 turns more interesting than the BNW, then at the risk of sounding harsh, perhaps you should be playing GandK?.

BNW seems to be a completely different game. I’ve not gone beyond 100 turns, so I’m no expert. But just in that 100 turns the differences are huge. I get a city, a seed, I can grow it in different ways. Eventually that seed will turn into a stronger set of cities with the ability to build and army and war – if I wish it. Or a single city. But it’s up to me if I want to play that way. I like this.

Maybe after a month or two, players far better than me will have narrowed down the opening strategic decisions to the optimum, and it’ll be necessary to make the AI more assertive in the early game. But, honestly, right now, while we’re all just getting to know the new mechanics to ask for a hotfix? I’m sorry, but it seems rather selfish and narrow minded if you ask me - I hope that doens't come over as flaming or trolling, I'm just calling it the way I see it.

_megafone_ said:

God, people can't stop the QQ.

The AI is a lot smarter about waging wars now. Still got their mind cramps sometimes (AI will never measure up to human IQ on any turn-based strategy game EVER, not just Civ), but mostly now the diplomatic dynamics are more realistic: AI will try to make alliances and concert their denouncements/DoWs, will play to their Civ's strengths (from what I've seen so far they get generally more aggressive when their UUs kick in), and willact like they have a clue about what they're doing most of the time, which is a big upgrade from vanilla/G&K.

And the usual battle-crazed psychos are still psychos, just like they should too. Get a game with Montezuma as your closest neighbor and see what happens, lol.

P.S.: One of the five games I started with BNW so far, I had Harald as a neighbor, and he simply sat around doing absolutely NOTHING for the whole game. It wasn't a matter of not attacking - some civs do play peacefully for the whole game now and still give you a hard time later with quick spaceships or whatever. But this game, Harald simply seemed to freeze - he didn't build cities (I was Venice so he had lots of room), didn't build armies, didn't do anything at all diplomatically with anyone. Other AIs were behaving normally in that game but poor Harald got struck with swine flu or whatever. It was just odd. Maybe there's some sort of bug with the AI?

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I had a dud Harold who planned on invading but never did. But then I looked at the list and it stated he had -20 unhappiness and was in a revolution.

WChrisMullen said:

If attacking you means that the AI loses its trade route gravy train, it's not going to do it. I also see less city-state bullying and attacking for this reason.

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So just trade with Atilla and Monty and your good? Here's the thing with my one scout victory as Poland. I didn't have access to a major Ocean until I purchased a CS with a gifted Merchant of Venice (from Patronage). I had no outlet to send ships out until 1900ish. So all my trade partners were intra-continental. They of course had access to the major waters but still kept my trade routes none the less. Harold was only a few water tiles away (no problem for him). I was buffered by a forest, a CS and the Mayans, from the Turks. Also there was hardly a tech discrepancy. No siege units ever attacked me in battle the few DOW's I had.

Also, how does culture work in the game exactly? Is it purely defensive or what? I notice the the AI get more friendly when I overwhelm them with culture. What about Tourism? If I pump that out they are going to be less aggressive toward me? I also dominated the World Council toward the latter stages. Would have won a diplo victory if I had just been able to discover people sooner.