They need to hotfix AI agression now

I usually play GnK on deity, but for BNW I opted for the second highest setting. As many other here I chose the Shoshone and immediately began with my traditional opening of scout, monument, worker, archer.

I found France to be my closest neighbour on a smallish continent and anticipated some sort of early aggression. For some time, 100 turns or so, he kept to himself, content to share kind words of sweet affection. The wooing lasted until I, being a greedy bastard, decided to place a city near Salomons Mines thus stealing it just before he was about to place his third city in the proximity.

Then all hell broke loose.

Unbeknown to me France had secretly amassed a huge army against which I stood no chance of survival. He bumrushed my newfound city that had nothing to protect it save a solitary pathfinder and a newly bought archer. His first wave of warriors and archers was enough for me to realize I was beat.

I decided to quit that game, chalking it up as a clear, and quite deservedly so, loss due to me being unable to adjust to the new conditions.

New game, same nation. Standard speed, this time on emperor (6).

Totally different experience. It started out a little chaotic, closest neighbours being Spain, Holland, the Incas, Germany and Pocahoncha - in order of distance to my capital. I'm currently on turn 299 and during that time our continent have been ravaged in perpetual war. Everybody periodically hates anybody, and I have had a hard time keeping my small tech-lead and been navigating the diplomacy game like a drugged up rat in a maze made by cats.

We are currently in 1858 and I expect to be attacked any time soon by that Inca-fellow as he has done several times before against both me and our closest neighbours. I tried my best to just get along, even sending caravans to him instead of the much more lucrative spanish.

We have just finished a joint war against Holland that got eradicated in the process, but ever since I captured Amsterdam our relationship have been at best guarded and right now he is hostile.

Luckily my new best friend, the kind ruler of Germany, with whom I share a long history of happy lux-trading, have promised that he'll cover my back if any shenanigans were to happen. He is placed on the opposite end of the Incan empire, and I hope my defensive pact will make the coming war more manageable.

All in all: I found a great diversity in the two games and look forward to the end-game which I suspect will be me trying to get a spaceship in orbit against the Ottomans who clearly are going for diplo throug world congress and Germany who I give an outside chance if they manage to munch up the Incas from the rear in our forthcoming war.

I'm pretty sure I will win in the end, I almost always did in GnK anyway when I had a lead in the midgame. But I'm curious to see how much of a race it will be. :)

Btw Spain have so far established 5 cities, Germany at least 4 as I can see, so they certainly doesn't just stop at 3.
 
I'm playing a game as the Maya atm. I've opted for aggressive settlement as my strategy of choice and i'm on emperor difficulty, standard settings.

First civ i found was Mongolia, they were churning military units out as fast as they could, having a whale of a time. I see an amazing city spot just 5 tiles from their capital, about 15 from mine, so i grab it for a second city and figure i can hold it. I pressed end turn anticipating the wrath the come down upon me, but lo and behold, Mongolia offered me a declaration of friendship.

I've now played about 100 turns on from this, continuing to expand around him. He has only his capital and no room to expand. He also has a very large army. Yet he continues to offer me friendship agreements and we couldn't be better friends. I honestly don't understand, he's just sitting there letting himself be trodden all over. Right now i might as well be playing against a city state for all the good he is as an opponent.

This just seems plain wrong at emperor level... I'll keep playing in hope, but having heard of other stories around here this has left me a little unsettled (ironically).

I'm on a continent with England and the Celts too, the Celts are busy pushing Catholicism and the English Protestantism, and live right next to one another, but they are quite happy to just preach away at everyone in the world and get on with each other. England's also going for an expansive strategy and is my other neighbour. She's been shouting at me for expanding and i've been ignoring her but again no kind of conflict has occurred. War not emerging yet for us is interesting, not a bad thing, but i'd expect it to occur eventually.

From my experience, gold is not an issue. There is plenty of it around for all parties on my continent, and Mongolia has a very large army. They just won't use it...
 
I think they toned down the early game rushes somewhat, and I'm torn. I think aggressive AI should be a menu toggle, like social policy saving, because some games I like to not get medieval until it's the medieval era, but other times it's just sorta boring and lame. I agree that it is probably a combination of trade routes promoting peace in the AI script along with the AI having tons of new faith, trade, and culture buildings and wonders to spam instead of units. I suspect it will be patched soon, especially for the warmongers, because they are rather passive.

The first game I won I literally expanded past and through a Civ, limiting them to 3 cities on the mainland. I built bow units to prepare to hold the outposts against a hard DoW that never came. That civ died a quiet economic death in the renaissance after it fell 20 techs behind the rest of us with nothing but a wimper and some complaining in the world council. 2 Outposts were 4 tiles from his capital. And we were differing religions. In vanilla even ghandi would've tried to at least clear out a direction to expand in.
 
I honestly like the AI the way it is. Not having to deal with a DoW in the first 200 turns (I play on Marathon) no matter who my neighbors are is honestly rather refreshing. I will admit that some people like it that way, and perhaps there should be an Aggressive AI option for those people who prefer that. But don't finally take away my rational AI just because they don't war early enough for your tastes. I sort of like being able to send a caravan to the Moroccans without having to worry that it'll just get killed 5 turns later when they randomly decide "MUST KILL".
 
Selereth said:
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.
Click to expand...

I am playing in King, solely because I am playing Random Personalities and I want to learn about the new AI.

ajok said:
does "random personalities" change it??
Click to expand...

I have been playing RP in Civ V for a long time now, I wouldn't have it any other way. Ghandi acting like Catherine, Catherine acting like America etc. It adds new flavor to the game, every game... since you don't know who has what AI traits.

fat_tonle said:
So just trade with Atilla and Monty and your good?
Click to expand...

No, lol far from good. Like I had said, in my experience, I had multiple trade routes with Atilla and he still went in dry on me, out of nowhere. Mind you I had 10 musketmen, 6 composite archers and 13 cities. He didn't care, he came from land and by sea and destroyed me... like, no chance at all.

Just before this we were in a DoF.
 
I've started dozens of games in BNW and found that in some games the AI was a bit more passive than they used to be, but in others they were even more aggressive. I for one love this change, because I'm not guaranteed to always get an early DoF or an early DoW even from the same civ. Sometimes one of the more aggressive civs want's to be my bff, other times they covet my lands and try to take them.
 
I haven'd had much opportunity to play, right now. But from my small experience with BNW and from what I can read here, some thoughts come into my mind.

1. AI settlement
- The AI seems to settle less cities in BNW, which might be clever, as there are new consequences in BNW (increasing science penalty, less AI happiness,...)
- Less cities mean less border tension -> lower DoW probability
Possible Solution: increase the default number of civs in relation to map size.

2. Less gold on the map; traderoutes to compensate this
- The AI has to strugle for gold now. As trade routes have a limited range (especially early game), the only trading partners are the colse by civs.
- As trade routes seam to be evaluated in the decision to go to war or not -> lower DoW probability
Possible Solution: Again: Increase the default number of civs in relation tho map size. If there are more possibilities to trade, going to war with one neighbour doesn't harm as much, as if you would wage war against your only trading partner.

3. Early UU's
- The two points above and maybe several other tweaks may have in fact towned down the overall AI aggression. This harms especially those civs with early military UU. Personally, I think that civs as Greece and Huns (among others) should definitely wage early wars, no matter what.
Possible Solution: Raise their aggression level. Or, maybe even better: Might it be possible to alter the aggresion level depending on the era? Greece might get a +4 modifier during the ancient era, scaling down slowly when the game moves on to more modern times.

4. Opportunism
- As stated in this thread already, war WAS an ubiquitous experience in previous times! If a neighbour is an easy prey, all civs should consider to take advantage of this. However, I am all for some differences in the leaders's character, here. But at least some leaders should be more willing to DoW a player with weak military than others.
- I think of three general levels:
__a) the warmonger civ; they play for dominance and will prepare for war, no matter what (the Huns, Aztecs, Assyrians, Mongols, Zulus, ...)
__b) the opportunists; they may play peacefull, if you have a decent military, but will attack, if they see an opportunity (England, Germany, Persia, ...)
__c) the peaceful ones; They will stay peaceful, if you are not a warmonger yourself (India, Siam, Netherlands, ...)
Possible Solution: As in G&K backstabbing was all to common, they towned the backstab-level down a little bit. Maybe it is time to raise it again? Maybe there has to be a new leader flavour for this, too? Opportunism? Or is there something like this, already? Anyway: USE IT!

--

I will have to play way more games to make up my own mind here. But, generally speaking, I will be happy if it turns out that - depending on the general situation and luck based leader roll - every new civ game is different. For some games, a peaceful progression will be enjoyable. As long, as this is not so in every game!
 
I didn't notice any difference in AI's psychotic behaviour patterns on Deity, to be honest.

First game was with Poland, spawned in northern end of Pangaea with France & Indonesia to the west and Aztec & Portugal to the east. Brilliant location with salts and such, so i went liberty, expanded to 4 and puppeteer'ed 2 Portuguese cities with CB's. (t.77) Meanwhile, France and Indonesia stopped warring between themselves only to backstab me (both had DoF with me) and both started throwing waves of archers, catapults, CB's and whatnot at my two bordering cities. Which was a lost cause, as my western front was scattered with mountains and generally hilly terrain. The rest of the world was warring between themselves too. Finally, Monty declared from the east on turn 90. Given the amount of units i have (9 CBs, Machinery unlocks on turn 99), looks like i am in a pretty good shape to harvest most of their troops and strike back. With Poland's UA + cultural ally, commerce tree will be filled pretty quickly i guess, so i can proceed to the decisive phase of warmongering.. Managed Pyramids and Oracle too.

So i stopped, saved and rolled a new map to try out Indonesia on large islands. I read this thread with people claiming AI is more peaceful, so i figured i won't need much army in opening stages. Wrong. Turn 90, an embarked force of 6 triremes and a bunch of Swords/Jaguars/Cat's land near one of my satellite cities (Monty was 20 hexes away from me) and i am smoked, basically. Oh, did i mention i had DoF with Monty? Also, he had immediate borders with Gustav and Alex, but who cares, when there is a juicy target with no army across the Ocean :lol:

I didn't do anything to trigger any bad reputation in second game, even submitted to Monty's constant bullying of CS (which i pledged to protect), who were unlucky to spawn on the same island as him.
 
Monthar said:
I've started dozens of games in BNW and found that in some games the AI was a bit more passive than they used to be, but in others they were even more aggressive. I for one love this change, because I'm not guaranteed to always get an early DoF or an early DoW even from the same civ. Sometimes one of the more aggressive civs want's to be my bff, other times they covet my lands and try to take them.
Click to expand...

Having played 5 games to about turn 100, a couple on Emperor and 3 on King, some on huge/epic and some on standard/standard, the above is my experience.

Each game felt different.
 
Moriarte said:
I didn't notice any difference in AI's psychotic behaviour patterns on Deity, to be honest.

First game was with Poland, spawned in northern end of Pangaea with France & Indonesia to the west and Aztec & Portugal to the east. Brilliant location with salts and such, so i went liberty, expanded to 4 and puppeteer'ed 2 Portuguese cities with CB's. (t.77) Meanwhile, France and Indonesia stopped warring between themselves only to backstab me (both had DoF with me) and both started throwing waves of archers, catapults, CB's and whatnot at my two bordering cities. Which was a lost cause, as my western front was scattered with mountains and generally hilly terrain. The rest of the world was warring between themselves too. Finally, Monty declared from the east on turn 90. Given the amount of units i have (9 CBs, Machinery unlocks on turn 99), looks like i am in a pretty good shape to harvest most of their troops and strike back. With Poland's UA + cultural ally, commerce tree will be filled pretty quickly i guess, so i can proceed to the decisive phase of warmongering.. Managed Pyramids and Oracle too.

So i stopped, saved and rolled a new map to try out Indonesia on large islands. I read this thread with people claiming AI is more peaceful, so i figured i won't need much army in opening stages. Wrong. Turn 90, an embarked force of 6 triremes and a bunch of Swords/Jaguars/Cat's land near one of my satellite cities (Monty was 20 hexes away from me) and i am smoked, basically. Oh, did i mention i had DoF with Monty? Also, he had immediate borders with Gustav and Alex, but who cares, when there is a juicy target with no army across the Ocean :lol:

I didn't do anything to trigger any bad reputation in second game, even submitted to Monty's constant bullying of CS (which i pledged to protect), who were unlucky to spawn on the same island as him.
Click to expand...

The difference with playing on Deity and Prince, as many here seems to be basing their opinions on.
 
ColdFever said:
Do you actually read what others are posting?
  1. Builders are also disappointed, because the early "gold farming period" feels tedious.
  2. If you can be sure that the AI will never attack during the early game (except for Shaka and Attila), this can be used as an exploit (and also feels tedious).
  3. If the early game AI is so passive that it often does not expand, the player can take the best land easily. This also is a kind of exploit.
Click to expand...

1 - These people may be playing the wrong game if creating trade networks "feels tedious"
2 - Sample size is too small to determine the AI "will never attack during the early game". There are settings that can be adjusted to possibly change this, such as difficulty level, map type, and random personalities.
3 - The AI could certainly be better at picking city locations, but again I think people need to bump up the difficulty level if they are finding this to be a problem.
 
I don't know what it is, but in my game the AI just refuses to make military units.

I'd hardly say it's due the lack of trade routes. I play on a standard map with about 17 civs and 20 city states and the map is cramped. So you'd say there would be a lot of border tension and trade possibilities (on the continent I play on right now there isn't any room for settlers anymore).
But there have almost been no denounciations and only three wars (I declared war on China twice since it was building cities near me and there was nothing to protect them, the other war was between Japan and China but nothing seemed to have happened in that war)
And when i look at my military advisor he sais that my army is among the strongest there is right now while I only have 2 Kris Swordsmen, 2 Catapults a Composite Bowman and a Spearman. It's hilarious how little the AI is suddenly concerced with war.
It makes the game suddenly boring in a whole other perspective.
Firaxis finnaly made peace time interesting, but not interesting enough for it to last whole millenia.

Please fix this! Or at least add an 'aggressive ai' option like in the previous titles!
 
Perhaps those who are experiencing a too passive AI might want to share their saves. This might help others to see what is going on. Maybe the very first turn save and a later game save. Maybe looking at the files and playing the games might help people figure out if there is a bug where certain AIs are just freezing and not building units and/or not DOWing.

It might also be interesting to see a few people playing these maps from the beginning and seeing if they get different results and why. But that's just the inner playtester in me.

Note: I'd share, but unfortunately won't have the ability to play before Sunday and might not even finish a game before next weekend.
 
RaybanDK said:
I usually play GnK on deity, but for BNW I opted for the second highest setting. As many other here I chose the Shoshone and immediately began with my traditional opening of scout, monument, worker, archer.

I found France to be my closest neighbour on a smallish continent and anticipated some sort of early aggression. For some time, 100 turns or so, he kept to himself, content to share kind words of sweet affection. The wooing lasted until I, being a greedy bastard, decided to place a city near Salomons Mines thus stealing it just before he was about to place his third city in the proximity.

Then all hell broke loose.

Unbeknown to me France had secretly amassed a huge army against which I stood no chance of survival. He bumrushed my newfound city that had nothing to protect it save a solitary pathfinder and a newly bought archer. His first wave of warriors and archers was enough for me to realize I was beat.

I decided to quit that game, chalking it up as a clear, and quite deservedly so, loss due to me being unable to adjust to the new conditions.

New game, same nation. Standard speed, this time on emperor (6).

Totally different experience. It started out a little chaotic, closest neighbours being Spain, Holland, the Incas, Germany and Pocahoncha - in order of distance to my capital. I'm currently on turn 299 and during that time our continent have been ravaged in perpetual war. Everybody periodically hates anybody, and I have had a hard time keeping my small tech-lead and been navigating the diplomacy game like a drugged up rat in a maze made by cats.

We are currently in 1858 and I expect to be attacked any time soon by that Inca-fellow as he has done several times before against both me and our closest neighbours. I tried my best to just get along, even sending caravans to him instead of the much more lucrative spanish.

We have just finished a joint war against Holland that got eradicated in the process, but ever since I captured Amsterdam our relationship have been at best guarded and right now he is hostile.

Luckily my new best friend, the kind ruler of Germany, with whom I share a long history of happy lux-trading, have promised that he'll cover my back if any shenanigans were to happen. He is placed on the opposite end of the Incan empire, and I hope my defensive pact will make the coming war more manageable.

All in all: I found a great diversity in the two games and look forward to the end-game which I suspect will be me trying to get a spaceship in orbit against the Ottomans who clearly are going for diplo throug world congress and Germany who I give an outside chance if they manage to munch up the Incas from the rear in our forthcoming war.

I'm pretty sure I will win in the end, I almost always did in GnK anyway when I had a lead in the midgame. But I'm curious to see how much of a race it will be. :)

Btw Spain have so far established 5 cities, Germany at least 4 as I can see, so they certainly doesn't just stop at 3.
Click to expand...

Sounds like fun games. Love egen games are very different and you need to adapt to changing relations on a whim.
 
EgyptRaider said:
I don't know what it is, but in my game the AI just refuses to make military units.

I'd hardly say it's due the lack of trade routes. I play on a standard map with about 17 civs and 20 city states and the map is cramped. So you'd say there would be a lot of border tension and trade possibilities (on the continent I play on right now there isn't any room for settlers anymore).
But there have almost been no denounciations and only three wars (I declared war on China twice since it was building cities near me and there was nothing to protect them, the other war was between Japan and China but nothing seemed to have happened in that war)
And when i look at my military advisor he sais that my army is among the strongest there is right now while I only have 2 Kris Swordsmen, 2 Catapults a Composite Bowman and a Spearman. It's hilarious how little the AI is suddenly concerced with war.
It makes the game suddenly boring in a whole other perspective.
Firaxis finnaly made peace time interesting, but not interesting enough for it to last whole millenia.

Please fix this! Or at least add an 'aggressive ai' option like in the previous titles!
Click to expand...

I dare you to play the following style game;

Standard map size
7 civs
14 city states
Pangaea
No barbarians

with

Zulu
Atilla
Mongolia
Catherine
Carthage
Montezuma

Enjoy :goodjob:
 
played some more, and this is what I think.

AI will stay peaceful until they can find a better trade route.

They usually went war after extending their trade routes. Building colossus and such seems to put them in peace more.
 
I don't think the AI is less aggressive, I just think it plans more and looks for opportunities more.

In my Venice game Egypt settled very close to me very early on, and their Capitol was ridiculously close to mine. Normally this would be a dow at turn 50 at the latest. Instead he built up a truly insane army and waited till much later to attack me - even though I was pumping huge amounts of gold into his cities. Despite my great galleas his navy overwhelmed mine, and the attack force was far, far bigger than I've seen the AI use before. It was also better handled in general - the only reason I survived was because I got a couple of key techs due to research agreements elsewhere so I could switch to Frigates and Gatling guns. The AI has never done as well as he did at warfare - he even won the battle for naval supremacy which is definitely a first despite my great galleas.

That was only on Emperor level,and from an AI I don't traditionally associate with successful warmongering so I was quite impressed.
 
If you want a more agressive AI enable RANDOM PERSONALLITIES

Olso warmongers are agressive the reason why they sometimes don't declare war on you is because you are difficult to reach they usally try to conquer city states so they can reach you . However if the zulu's are close to you expect a war.

The Ai know takes trade routes and location into consideration when he declares war only a good change
 
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