Strategy on higher difficulty

Redaxe said:

It doesn't happen all the time, can someone confirm please?

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It only "works" when they're willing to offer peace at ALL. If they declare war on you, they will NEVER accept peace for at least 10 turns. If they still feel they are doing sufficiently well, they will STILL not accept peace.

Basically you have a continuum that goes like this...

1. No peace
2. Peace but they want your cities
3. Peace but they want your gold/luxes
4. Even peace.
5. Peace but they'll give you gold/luxes
6. Peace but they'll give you cities

However (for whatever reason), if the game is willing to offer #2 or #3, it'll also accept #4. But it won't accept #4 if it's in position #1.

Thankyou for clarifying.

beetle said:

My experience is that if you can negotiate at all, then white peace is an option. I am pretty it was not that when I was playing GnK, and it might not always been that way in BNW, but I have no idea when it changed. I would swear that the computer used know better when it was losing too.

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This sounds like a bug, it feels strange that the AI would never be in a state that they can accept peace but only on their terms.

Should we consider it an exploit to offer white peace when they request cities/gold to accept peace?

Yes, I would characterize it as a bug. Many players do feel like it is an exploit when the AI thinks they should be getting cities/gold. If you are in a situation where you really take advantage of it, that is, your city is about to fall, then the game should mentally be chalked up as a loss. But it happens just as often when your are stalemated, and keeping up the war is no longer even useful for leveling up units.

Yes but for the OP I would say with such an underinvestment in military the AI won't accept white peace. You may have to accept that game as a loss and retry.

vanatteveldt said:

This sounds like a bug, it feels strange that the AI would never be in a state that they can accept peace but only on their terms.

Should we consider it an exploit to offer white peace when they request cities/gold to accept peace?

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Meh. Keep in mind they'll insist on continuing to war as long as they think they can destroy you. Had a game recently where Shaka sent his Impi swarm at me. I had a trio of highly leveled crossbowmen sniping two per turn with some melee shielding. This went on for like 50 turns, he kept losing two units per turn without killing or seriously hurting anything.

Never would offer peace at all.

AI is not capable of accurately judging the state of a war in many cases.

^^I had a similar situation with small continents. I booted an Dido off my continent with zero losses, even though she had sent like 20+ ships and units. I had almost no navy, and I was not really interested in her lands anyway. She’s asking for multiple cities for peace, but I am not even getting xp at this point because I have sunk every thing. I gave her white peace. It does not feel like an exploit. It does feel like something is broken.

How the AI decides the bargaining to end the war is completely beyond me. It seems that the key factors could be:

- it's losses in the war, though not necessarily due to you, since we've all had those situations where you agree to DoW someone the other side of the map and after a while they offer you a chunk though you didn't lift a finger

- your military strength relative to theirs

- how important each of their items is to them - sometimes they will offer you 3 cities but not a lux, for example

It doesn't bother me much, since I am a capital sniper and will make almost any peace once I have their capital and there is nothing to gain from the war.

When it does bother me is when I'm in a similar position to the last few posters. They DoW'ed me, I am just killing everything they send, but they won't give up. I suspect they are counting units or something. One example that springs to mind is when Monty sent between 20 and 50 (I lost count) Jaguars into my Bowmen/CB trap on a mountain pass bottleneck, and wouldn't back down. I could probably have pushed forward and taken his city but there was no point since I was playing OCC Science on King or Emperor. It's more annoying than anything, plus I'd like the 3GPT they'd give me for the lux that they are the only one not buying...

Thanks, everyone. I was playing at emperor level. After reading tons of tips on these forums like going for national college early and stealing workers, I just kicked ass at my first game at immortal level. Playing as Germany.