Think about it: would you go to war?

of course my title has to be badly misspelled T_T

The AI seems more logical now


all of your trade routes are making you an economic power house, if you went to war against the 3 civs you are trading with you'd lose over 300 gpt. so why on earth would you ruin that?

I'm just asking, because there seems to be people on this board who hate that the AI doesn't declare war when they seem your face anymore.

after playing 7 games since the BNW was released, I've seen a decrease in conflict in the ancient and classical eras, a few skirmishes in the middle ages.. and BIG WARS during Ideology time periods.

Agree 100%.

I posted a thread along similar lines before I saw this.

Same experience here. AI is not a psychotic sociopath schizophrenic anymore, it stopped DoW'ing with a reason "because I can", (most of them anyway), but it does still fight.

Yeah, honestly it seems what people miss the most is that the AI would stupidly declare war on you and then send its units into your borders to be massacred, leaving you with nothing more to do than march in and take their capital, as they no longer have an army to defend it. I won so many wars this way it was absurd. They really needed to fix this, and it seems that they have - but obviously you can't please everybody.

I think the main problem here is the slow early development.

Am I the only one who think the game has become harder in that regard? I find that my production is a lot slower than I'm used to, but then it looks like the AI is on the same boat.
I also found the AI being more active on pursuing early wonders which also contributes to their lack of early army.

Only those civs who ignore early wonders and favor early conquest (Assyria, Zulu, Huns) seem to be prone to attack relative early.

The AI now, warmongers apart, seem to pursue other victory conditions more actively and not rely on war alone (where it sucks).

Bad Wolf said:

Yeah, honestly it seems what people miss the most is that the AI would stupidly declare war on you and then send its units into your borders to be massacred, leaving you with nothing more to do than march in and take their capital, as they no longer have an army to defend it. I won so many wars this way it was absurd. They really needed to fix this, and it seems that they have - but obviously you can't please everybody.

Click to expand...

You can set the percentage of units AI sends to attack in the game code already.
I set mine to keep 45% of their units in cities and that trick stopped working completely.

Still, have you guys tried a domination-only game? Wouldn't make much sense not to war on that setting.
Honestly if they war in domination then it's no problem. You want a war game, set domi VC.

Also try deity or at most immortal and see if things change... emperor and whatever are meant to be easy I believe.

I am in the middle of my first game as Venice. I was a bit shocked when the Pointiest Sticks list came out and I was first. I haven't really focused on an army at all, but I think I could pretty much march over any of my neighbors with very little resistance. I don't want to, as that wasn't my plan for victory. But I could.

I fended off an early attack by Norway. He had a pretty good plan of attack with a bunch of warriors, archers and a catapult, but I was able to fend him off with a few archers and such. I thought it would be tougher than it was based on my low troop levels.

Since then, no one has even tried to challenge me. I am sure they will later, but as for now, I'm pretty much just building up wonders, collecting gold and buying a few city states. It's fun, but I don't feel this constant threat from all sides as I normally would on a Pangea.

Many of the "WAAAH AI DOESNT ATTACK ANYMORE" crowd tend to be used to the armies of the enemies committing Hara Kiri on themselves by stupidly attacking a city. Even if they were to capture said city, their losses would generally be huge. The AI attacks with more caution now, but if they DO attack, prepare for a massive onslaught (Spent the last 12 turns barely hanging on to Constantinople from a half maritime half land based onslaught from Denmark...)
Also, keep in mind that the AI now also plays the diplo game. Early warmongering = bad relationships = late game retaliation from the World Congress. In my current game we're only at the second seating, and already there's a "boycott Aztecs" motion due to them having taken out Brazil.

Loucypher said:

Many of the "WAAAH AI DOESNT ATTACK ANYMORE" crowd tend to be used to the armies of the enemies committing Hara Kiri on themselves by stupidly attacking a city. Even if they were to capture said city, their losses would generally be huge. The AI attacks with more caution now, but if they DO attack, prepare for a massive onslaught (Spent the last 12 turns barely hanging on to Constantinople from a half maritime half land based onslaught from Denmark...)
Also, keep in mind that the AI now also plays the diplo game. Early warmongering = bad relationships = late game retaliation from the World Congress. In my current game we're only at the second seating, and already there's a "boycott Aztecs" motion due to them having taken out Brazil.

Click to expand...

Yeah Carthage DOWed me out of nowhere and within a couple of turns there were half a dozen African Forest Elephants at my door, supported by archers and chariots.

Oh the irony. You make the point... "it's not worthy".

Early aggression is overnerfed. It became crap with G&K and now it's nerfed again.
That's the problem.

Ancient Unique units has now one role: have good promotion kept with upgrade. There is no glorious conquests. Early game was never (in whole civ history) so boring/decisions lacklusting.

I just tried Genghis Khan. Took over 5 cities&states in < 100 turns. I'm now at -35GPT and near 20 unhappiness and behind in tech... Even building mass settlers pays off more than just capturing every city around you. Warmongering itself it just not profitable imo unless you can capture a really big nice city with lots of wonders. Especially because courthouses take like 30-40 turns to build early game.

Loucypher said:

Many of the "WAAAH AI DOESNT ATTACK ANYMORE" crowd tend to be used to the armies of the enemies committing Hara Kiri on themselves by stupidly attacking a city. Even if they were to capture said city, their losses would generally be huge. The AI attacks with more caution now, but if they DO attack, prepare for a massive onslaught (Spent the last 12 turns barely hanging on to Constantinople from a half maritime half land based onslaught from Denmark...)
Also, keep in mind that the AI now also plays the diplo game. Early warmongering = bad relationships = late game retaliation from the World Congress. In my current game we're only at the second seating, and already there's a "boycott Aztecs" motion due to them having taken out Brazil.

Click to expand...

To further prove your point, this is what happened to Assyria in my game.

http://plonq.org/up/51e1590bdd96f.jpg

The world still hated them even after I practically eradicated them.
Poor Ashurbanipal, only Indonesia felt pity for him

Falconiano said:

You can set the percentage of units AI sends to attack in the game code already.
I set mine to keep 45% of their units in cities and that trick stopped working completely.

Still, have you guys tried a domination-only game? Wouldn't make much sense not to war on that setting.
Honestly if they war in domination then it's no problem. You want a war game, set domi VC.

Also try deity or at most immortal and see if things change... emperor and whatever are meant to be easy I believe.

Click to expand...

Im playing domination-only right now. (Assyria/kiing/world) and even if they are not as psyco as before, they go to war.

Loucypher said:

Many of the "WAAAH AI DOESNT ATTACK ANYMORE" crowd tend to be used to the armies of the enemies committing Hara Kiri on themselves by stupidly attacking a city. Even if they were to capture said city, their losses would generally be huge. The AI attacks with more caution now, but if they DO attack, prepare for a massive onslaught (Spent the last 12 turns barely hanging on to Constantinople from a half maritime half land based onslaught from Denmark...)
Also, keep in mind that the AI now also plays the diplo game. Early warmongering = bad relationships = late game retaliation from the World Congress. In my current game we're only at the second seating, and already there's a "boycott Aztecs" motion due to them having taken out Brazil.

Click to expand...

Thats why i love to control world congress

I like the possibility of co-operation with the AI but it should be more warlike, at least to protect its own interests. I robbed the world's only warmonger Assyria of its City-State allies with no army of my own and only got a denouncement despite their army outnumbering mine vastly. We weren't even trading because I had him embargoed earlier.

There should be more war and more benefits to war. The game gets boring if you don't even need a standing army for defense.

Spiri2al said:

all of your trade routes are making you an economic power house, if you went to war against the 3 civs you are trading with you'd lose over 300 gpt. so why on earth would you ruin that?

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That is precisely what people said in 1913. It didn't work out so well....

All 3 games I have started have commenced with an Assyrian rush on my territory and me putting them down and being labeled as a warmonger .
In my current game . Korea and Shoshone DOW me for no apparent reason( i had taken out assyria early on) both on friendly(shosone had just DOF a few turns earlier ) then switched on me. 5 turns later Japan dow me too ....
I wish I was experiencing this supposed lack of warmongering on behalf of the AI

I'm in a current game as Venice (around turn 200). Assyria has DOW'd me three times so far, and after putting them down again, the Incas have just now DOW'd me.

In a previous game, I had no DOW's at all, and in this game it's happening a lot.

newarkinvaders said:

All 3 games I have started have commenced with an Assyrian rush on my territory and me putting them down and being labeled as a warmonger .
In my current game . Korea and Shoshone DOW me for no apparent reason( i had taken out assyria early on) both on friendly(shosone had just DOF a few turns earlier ) then switched on me. 5 turns later Japan dow me too ....
I wish I was experiencing this supposed lack of warmongering on behalf of the AI

Click to expand...

Don't look at it as the AIs are worried because of your warmongering, but more because you are winning those wars and are getting too strong (and potentially dangerous).

Spiri2al said:

The AI seems more logical now

Click to expand...

Yes and no as in yes that they do take more consideration in diplomacy now. No in that most seem to be dreadful for warfare, which is pretty much against historical terms of speaking.

This is my experience in my Europe map after three BNW games
England & Celts: I usually play the map for Renaissance style games but included the Celts a while ago to prevent England from becoming too powerful without enough competition. While in G&K they always tried to exterminate each other (with success), the British Isles have gone silent. With the exception of one denouncement from England to the Celts nothing happened there.

France: Used to be the biggest warmonger in the map. They killed the Netherlands on multiple occasions and on a regular basis went to war against Spain. In these three games France did nothing besides capturing a small Portuguese city in France and plotting against England because Elizabeth found it funny to settle next to Paris. They didn't even bother asking others for going to war.

Spain & Portugal: Only in one game was Spain quite aggressive against Portugal and kept attacking her. She didn't bother Maria I the other games and Maria I didn't bother anyone else.

Denmark: The fearsome and warmongering Vikings went pacifist and became best buddies with everyone nearby.

Sweden: See Denmark

The Netherlands: Only showed interest in aggression in one game by searching for aid to start a war. But the lack of support prevented them from actually going for it.

Germany & Austria: They usually didn't go well together and fought plenty of battles in the past. They do not seem to be bothering each other so much anymore.

Poland: Shows interest in warfare but only started one war against Austria because of my participation. Result: Poland didn't bother to send troops while I captured Vienna which was guarded by one composite bow archer and lacked any walls: The Habsburgers had no army. Nearby Bratislava supported and nearly sacked Vienna - imagine a CS performing better than a civ. Poland was hated a lot for just that single war while the only thing they did was organizing it.

Byzantium & Ottomans: The Byzantines always had difficulty surviving against the Ottomans (thankfully, making Piety available in the Ancient era finally got them working on religion so I don't have to turn on any mods to support them), also (in the past) with the Huns bugging them from the North. Byzantium and the Ottoman's near proximity always led to tensed diplomacy. Now they both get along with each other up to the point of making declaration of friendships.

The Huns: The mighty Huns used to be a bugger for nearby civs. Now they only pick on CS.

Mongolia: Went pacifist

Russia: Went pacifist

Arabia: Before G&K had a bit too much space and profited greatly from it, while usually not bothering to fight the Ottomans. I gave them and the Ottomans new concerns by adding Assyria to the area. Unfortunately for Arabia they've had a hard time surviving. One game they got exterminated and that led to a global denouncing and cooperated warfare against the Assyrians.

Morocco, Songhai and Zulu: To keep North-Africa occupied and the civs on the European side of the Mediterranean I also added the Songhai and the Zulu far more north than they should be. The results are interesting: one game Shaka went pacifist, one they nearly destroyed Songhai and the last one they bugged Morocco. Songhai went to war against Morocco once.

Venice: Played them in every game and I had no issues with anyone. Perhaps the combination of the Alps and few settling areas demotivated anyone from trying to attack me.

Despite the map has gotten more crowded with civs and CS, warfare is almost non existent and increased the dullness of playing on my map a lot. I want my warmongering AI back!

Luckystrike77 said:

Don't look at it as the AIs are worried because of your warmongering, but more because you are winning those wars and are getting too strong (and potentially dangerous).

Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, the warmonger penalty is now triggered on city capture rather than declarations of war -in my Assyrian game Shaka decided I was a warmonger (oh, the irony) when I took Linz. The penalty disappeared after a while, but reappeared after I captured Innsbruck.

But yes, I found the happiness penalty absolutely crippling now that every point of unhappiness directly affects unit strength. Possibly I should have razed some of my conquests, but I found myself stopping and annexing to get the courthouses, which slowed my pace of conquest too much.

Strangely the only civ that may now be able to warmonger moderately successfully may be Songhai, because they may now be the only ones who can afford to buy courthouses with the proceeds of city capture.