Civ's telling you secrets: did ever one come true?

Uberfrog · Jul 20, 2012

In my current game, Pacal came up to tell me how Harun al-Rashid was going to launch a sneak attack. Arabia being on the far side of the other continent, I shurgged it off. Then a few turns later a load of caravels and camel archers came sailing by. I moved a Frigate and a Sea Beggar to their vicinity and they dispersed harmlessly back to a nearby Arabian colony.

I was almost impressed.

nefloyd · Jul 20, 2012

Yep. Got word from England that Attila was launching a naval force at me. He was on a large island with city-states on islands around him. I'd been planning to attack him (he was getting too close to cultural vic) and had my own submarine/battleship/carrier/bomber force building up not far from him. I bribed those city-states, asked England if she wanted to attack him, and together we DOWed. Sure enough, he had a massive embarked fleet with many privateers, ironclads, and a few loaded carriers and some infantry. I took his fleet head-on, my subs crushed his carriers, battleships and bombers tore through the rest. The city-state forces on either side of him hammered at the rest of his fleet, and England came from behind. His whole civ got annihilated in about 5 turns. It was glorious.

Bechhold · Jul 20, 2012

No which annoys me as you think SOMETHING would happen.

HeraldtheGreat · Jul 20, 2012

rsadiwala95 said:
believe your own spies Rather than AI's, 10 times i have been warned about a war, and 10 times i actually Had that War....and always, i was prepared Due to The Spy...!! spies are Super

You mean to say that it is more reliable to receive Intrigue directly rather than receive a tip-off from another civ?

Minor Annoyance · Jul 20, 2012

There is a bug in this though. I once got a report that one landlocked civ was on it's way to the city of another landlocked civ with navel escorts.

Lyoncet · Jul 20, 2012

Minor Annoyance said:
There is a bug in this though. I once got a report that one landlocked civ was on it's way to the city of another landlocked civ with navel escorts.

I think that message just means "by sea," not the "with warships" the wording implies. So it could have been true.

chazzycat · Jul 20, 2012

sometimes they will want to attack you just based on overall military strength, but if your force is stationed right at their entry point, they will give it up once they see you there.

Gucumatz · Jul 20, 2012

Whenever I am warned of an impending attack... I bribe some of the potential aggresor's neighbors to attack him/her. It effectively ruins any chance of him wanting to attack me most of the time.

PhilBowles · Jul 20, 2012

In one game I learned of a German plot against me from my spy, only for my scout to find the landsknechts gathering later in the same turn. And the war did go ahead, though it took a while.

In another, I learned of a plot by Isabella against Persia. The next time I learned of a plot, it was of Isabella preparing to attack Darius - so the same AI plan was in place and had progressed further. No idea if it was derailed by my declaration of war and capture of Santiago and Barcelona; I haven't returned to that game yet.

Bear in mind that spies give you a lot of advance warning - they can warn you of something that may not go ahead for 100 turns, making it easy to think it's never going to happen.

Minor Annoyance · Jul 20, 2012

Lyoncet said:
I think that message just means "by sea," not the "with warships" the wording implies. So it could have been true.

No, it was a great plains map and there was no water at all between them and plenty of open land to walk through.

GIO888 · Jul 20, 2012

Dudes saying "nothing happened" after a warning.

Of course nothing happened. The intelligence given makes you do something different and the would be attacker reacts to that. Its really cool if you think about it!

Lyoncet · Jul 20, 2012

Minor Annoyance said:
No, it was a great plains map and there was no water at all between them and plenty of open land to walk through.

Was there literally no water at all? I should have been clearer by writing "embarked" and not "by sea," since I think it triggers if they have any embarked units, but if there weren't even lake tiles then I'm as stumped as you are.

GIDS888 said:
Dudes saying "nothing happened" after a warning.

Of course nothing happened. The intelligence given makes you do something different and the would be attacker reacts to that. Its really cool if you think about it!

Possibly, but in an OCC as Ethiopia, I had probably 20+ different instances of being warned, after which I just continued clicking "end turn" without moving anyone or producing anything (usually working on buildings or wonders) and nothing happened. So there's more going on than just plans being abandoned because the player reacted to the warning.

PhilBowles · Jul 20, 2012

Minor Annoyance said:
No, it was a great plains map and there was no water at all between them and plenty of open land to walk through.

Surely they could still attack by sea along the coast if that was a better route (or the AI was planning to exploit the generally higher strength of ships vs. cities than melee land units of the same era)? That would probably trigger the same notification.

trewqh · Jul 20, 2012

Adjuvant said:
"Plotting against" is pretty mild and meaningless.

This. It could mean sending a spy against you or paying another civ to declare on you. (Do AIs do that?)

Lyoncet said:
Possibly, but in an OCC as Ethiopia, I had probably 20+ different instances of being warned, after which I just continued clicking "end turn" without moving anyone or producing anything (usually working on buildings or wonders) and nothing happened. So there's more going on than just plans being abandoned because the player reacted to the warning.

Same here, even if you do nothing then the intel is very likely to not come true.

And I'm ok with it. For my own purposes I even interpret "marching towards" as "moving units in the general direction of".

Alrin Kharr · Jul 20, 2012

I once played a game on a Small Continents map where Boudicca was my closest neighbor, the only other civ on my continent. She was penned in by mountains and only had room to settle two cities initally. I had a spy in her capitol because I figured she might try to attack me at some point and I wanted a warning; what I got was a steady stream of messages telling me that she was plotting against someone different every 5 turns or so. She was basically no real threat to anyone, and she just sat there plotting vainly against the entire world, never actually able to follow through with any of her plans; she never declared war on anyone the entire game, but continued plotting against everyone under the sun right up to the end of the game.

draaibaar · Jul 21, 2012

GIDS888 said:
Dudes saying "nothing happened" after a warning.

Of course nothing happened. The intelligence given makes you do something different and the would be attacker reacts to that. Its really cool if you think about it!

No no no, I did nothing when I got several warnings against different civ's, because I felt strong and I was almost completely surrounded by allied city states.

Minor Annoyance · Jul 21, 2012

chazzycat said:
sometimes they will want to attack you just based on overall military strength, but if your force is stationed right at their entry point, they will give it up once they see you there.

Once I saw units moving towards me so I put a unit in a choke point and they couldn't pass. I think it only declares war right before it enters your territory. It was far enough from my territory that it was still considering itself to be in transit and would not consider declaring war to get past a blocking unit even if it was owned by the target. Eventually the went home.

Lyoncet said:
Possibly, but in an OCC as Ethiopia, I had probably 20+ different instances of being warned, after which I just continued clicking "end turn" without moving anyone or producing anything (usually working on buildings or wonders) and nothing happened. So there's more going on than just plans being abandoned because the player reacted to the warning.

It's possible the kept being interrupted by other concerns. Or they were just that weak that the aspired to it but never built up enough to ever make a move.

Alrin Kharr said:
I once played a game on a Small Continents map where Boudicca was my closest neighbor, the only other civ on my continent. She was penned in by mountains and only had room to settle two cities initally. I had a spy in her capitol because I figured she might try to attack me at some point and I wanted a warning; what I got was a steady stream of messages telling me that she was plotting against someone different every 5 turns or so. She was basically no real threat to anyone, and she just sat there plotting vainly against the entire world, never actually able to follow through with any of her plans; she never declared war on anyone the entire game, but continued plotting against everyone under the sun right up to the end of the game.

That's probably because the AI can't rage quit. They have to stay and plan, plan, plan for what they'll do when they win the lottery and can tell off their boss.

Bakspatel · Jul 21, 2012

Deggial said:
Every once in a while, there is the proposals of being able to spread wrong rumours and seed distrust between AI Civs.

I've started to get a feeling that your spies are deliberately giving false information. right now I'm in a game in which my spy discovered that Napoleon is building up a navy to attack the Iroquois. The problem is that it only had one city connected to the seas, which had 1 population. Somehow I seriously doubt that anyone could build op a sizable navy in such a city.

Furycrab · Jul 21, 2012

I've had a game where the AI warned me of Atila launching a naval attack vs me, at the time it was on the other side of the map with a serious pathing problem to get there.

He did.

PhilBowles · Jul 21, 2012

Bakspatel said:
I've started to get a feeling that your spies are deliberately giving false information. right now I'm in a game in which my spy discovered that Napoleon is building up a navy to attack the Iroquois. The problem is that it only had one city connected to the seas, which had 1 population. Somehow I seriously doubt that anyone could build op a sizable navy in such a city.

If this message counts embarked units as a navy, Napoleon could well have been moving troops into the sea at that city.

Civ's telling you secrets: did ever one come true?

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