Losing AI wants peace but will not offer anything for it.

I'm currently playing Russia in a large Earth map. I control all of Europe and European Russia. I am fighting a war against Rome, who currently only controls West Africa. I took and razed the nuisance cities he planted in my Europe, and also his North African cities. Rome is also at war with a very powerful Mongolia, whom I paid to attack Rome (didn't take much since they'd been at war before.) Mongolia took his central African cities and CS allies. Rome even used to be at war with America (who controls the Middle East and is also losing to Mongolia), but they made peace. I sold one of the Roman cities I captured to America.

Anyway, the issue here is that Rome is starting to ask for peace, as well they should after I've taken five cities from them. In fact, Rome is down to three cities. However, the only peace they will accept is a simple peace treaty with nothing else offered. When I talk to them first, Augustus says "I know when I'm staring defeat in the face", yet he never offers anything in exchange for peace. When I ask "what will it take to end this conflict?", he only offers peace for peace, and when I place additional demands on his side of the table, he rejects them.

This is despite the fact that both me and Mongolia could completely wipe him out singlehandedly, and even if he makes peace with me, he still has Mongolia to deal with. Mongolia was already damaging the city of Rome itself, last I checked.

I should also mention that this war is the first war Rome and I have had, and that it started when he backstabbed me after millennia of being friendly.

So, under what circumstances does an AI not offer anything for peace in a war it's clearly losing? Although Rome is in dire straits, he still had around 300 gold and was making around 50 gpt last time I checked. So it's not that he has nothing left to give me.

Once they lose their cap, or close to it, it's like they stop caring and wont give you anything anymore. It's like the AI is saying fudge this. Kill me or I'll troll you for the rest of the game.
That's my experience atleast.

Foffaren said:

Once they lose their cap, or close to it, it's like they stop caring and wont give you anything anymore. It's like the AI is saying fudge this. Kill me or I'll troll you for the rest of the game. That's my experience atleast.

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LoneRebel said:

...Mongolia was already damaging the city of Rome itself, last I checked.

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I think the problems is that Rome still has its capital. I never seem to get decent peace offers until I take the AI capital.

It could also be soldier count.
I'm sure there is some math behind it but I don't know it or where to find it. Try searching the forums.

beetle said:

I think the problems is that Rome still has its capital. I never seem to get decent peace offers until I take the AI capital.

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It's possible. Nevertheless I seem to remember other games where I was not yet threatening the enemy capital directly (I'd only destroyed his invading forces and moved my troops in around one of his other cities), and yet they still offered me gold and resources and even cities in exchange for peace.

Foffaren said:

It could also be soldier count.
I'm sure there is some math behind it but I don't know it or where to find it. Try searching the forums.

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I'm pretty sure I outgunned Rome by far at that point. My military advisor was saying "with our numbers, we should be able to absolutely crush the Roman Empire!"

So it's still a mystery, hmm...

Update: Mongolia has captured Rome and Ravenna, leaving the Romans with just one city. I eventually accepted Augustus's ridiculous offer of peace and nothing else because I was sending settlers across the world to settle Australia, and I didn't want stray Roman caravels killing them.

I wanted to keep Rome alive with a few cities as a buffer between me and Mongolia. Genghis is friendly with me, but considering how large his military is, I do not want him as a neighbor.

Foffaren said:

Once they lose their cap, or close to it, it's like they stop caring and wont give you anything anymore. It's like the AI is saying fudge this. Kill me or I'll troll you for the rest of the game.
That's my experience atleast.

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Yes , i think something does happen when AIs get too far behind the player and/or other Civs. If you let a civ live after such an event the diplo suddenly goes to pot ,and the unit movement also breaks down, ( archo's,workers being built,but,not being moved )

I actually read somewhere that AI diplo can get locked into a "permanently unforgivable" state ,where no amount of time , or anything else will bring the slider back up. It would be just as annoying if : the slider was set to get stuck on the top end , where : no kind of denouncing/waring/backstabbing could produce anything but , the other civ singing your praises. Imagine nuking the world while : they offer gifts,friendship.....

Something worth a shot for the situation in question, it has been said in other threads that : the AI tends to be more amiable towards ending war when: they have a lot of pillaged improvements.

Sometimes the AI just becomes stubborn and won't offer anything for peace, even if they're getting crushed. It depends on the situation and on the AI.

No need for the vanilla tag on this as it applies to G&K and BNW as well.

Basically the AI still thinks it has a bigger army than you. Unit loss ratio is a rounding error in the formula used.

But if you take one of their major cities then that will register as an economic loss which may be enough.

Yeah this happens to me as well. Ais sometimes don't always offer that much money for peace and make you look like a bad person. However, there's a lot of good videos out there that are not as entertaining as the polycast or the stories and tales section but do have players obtaining much gpt and gold for peace from the ai.

Yeah I never get concessions when I'm clearly superior and surrounding their last few cities. However if I'm surrounding their capital with a great force and they still feel like they might be in the game, they'll usually try and give me a whole bunch of random cities, lux, and gold.

project_ako said:

Yeah I never get concessions when I'm clearly superior and surrounding their last few cities. However if I'm surrounding their capital with a great force and they still feel like they might be in the game, they'll usually try and give me a whole bunch of random cities, lux, and gold.

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No, that's too happy. I usually take the money instead. On second thought, relying on zoos would be dangerous in real life so taking a resource or two from ais won't hurt only if you have unhappiness.

As another thought, if you're winning the war by enough, sometimes they have nothing to offer you. If their gpt is negative and their gold pool empty, all they might have is two cities, and the way they add up the offer it might not yet be enough to say "have a city, but please don't kill me". Anything less than that would come up as a blank offer.

What amuses me is when you are winning a war, and they offer you a terrible city, and you instead ask for all their gold and for 30 turns all their gpt, but take the terrible city off the table, and they then thank you for your mercy and generosity and are superfriendly after.

Foffaren said:

Once they lose their cap, or close to it, it's like they stop caring and wont give you anything anymore. It's like the AI is saying fudge this. Kill me or I'll troll you for the rest of the game.
That's my experience atleast.

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This would explain North Korea

Anywho, the AI has been like this since Civ Rev. They just never quit until you wipe them out if you're the runaway. I preffer them to capituate like in Civ4.

Foffaren said:

Once they lose their cap, or close to it, it's like they stop caring and wont give you anything anymore. It's like the AI is saying fudge this. Kill me or I'll troll you for the rest of the game.
That's my experience atleast.

Click to expand...

Yeah, this has been my experience too. I think once you beat an AI civ down to the point that it doesn't have any viable chance of winning the game, it's programmed not to give you anything. The AI can't rage quite, so it does this instead. In one game, I declared on France about 4 times. The first three, I just killed a settler and maybe a unit or two and I always got gpt, resources, or a city in the peace deal. In the last one, I took all of his cities but Paris, destroyed all of his military, pillaged every tile, and ringed the city with artillery. He wouldn't accept anything but straight peace even though he still had gold and gpt available. I just stayed in perma-war with him for the rest of the game and used Paris to gain xp for my artillery.

Well, that must be it. It's either the AI's version of ragequitting when they believe they no longer have any chance of winning the game, or what redwings said about some AIs just being more stubborn than others sometimes. Because compared to other wars where the AI has offered absurd amounts in exchange for peace, there was no logical reason for him to do differently this time.