AI too Pacifist towards each other

One problem I have with Civ4 in particular is that I find that the AI are too pacifist with regard to each other (not towards the human player, quite on the contrary).

They are simply not programmed to take into account who is winning (especially tech wise) and to try and form some sort of intelligent / coordinated alliance to take down whoever is in the lead.

I have played too many games where you have maybe 3 AI's on a massive continent and at least one of them will never be involved in ANY war throughout the ENTIRE game. This especially tends to be the case with the most high tech AI. They just sit there for 6000 years not waging a single war or being attacked and even thought they are leading, no AI attempts to take them down, instead they just focus on you, who is trying to stop the leading AI. Almost like a coordinated gay alliance.

This in itself makes the game unrealistic (as neighbors allways have disputes at one time or another). Need examples? China / Mongolia, Greece / Turkey, Germany / France, UK / Scandinavia (vikings). So for any Civ to simply not be at war for 6000 years in just unacceptable. I would like to add that as a result of this pacifism, the game becomes boring as a result, (especially late game where the high tech nation just stays ahead of the game).

I believe the introduction of unexpected wars, even between close allies could make things more interesting. In civ3 at least you could bribe the AI's 90% of the time to wage war on an enemy - their willingness to accept was based on what you were willing to give them instead of how much they liked you which is much closer to real world politics. Did Hitler and Stalin like each other? No, but they signed a non aggression pact in the late 30's.

Civ4 is the only game in the series that really suffers from this "AI pacifism towards each other". Yes they do wage war on each other but I hate seeing certain civs (usually the high tech ones) that are never involved in any war at any point in the entire game. For me, this is unacceptable and historically unrealistic. None of the other Civ series I have played had this problem, at least not on this scale. Oh, yeah, I tried choosing "more aggressive AI" - in that game all the AI declared war on me, and none towards each other. I have since uninstalled the game.

With the introduction of a patch that addresses this issue, I would be happy to give it another shot. Also, it would make the game more interesting towards the end.

Ironic how before it was totally the other way around in civ3....

My question for you though is to ask if you mix up people like Toku and Alexander, who have a fascination for declaring war in you games? If you put too many peaceful civ leaders in the game and not enough warlike ones then the game will be just as unrealistic as you are claiming it to be.

lost_civantares said:

Ironic how before it was totally the other way around in civ3....

My question for you though is to ask if you mix up people like Toku and Alexander, who have a fascination for declaring war in you games? If you put too many peaceful civ leaders in the game and not enough warlike ones then the game will be just as unrealistic as you are claiming it to be.

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Yeah, you are spot on, regarding how different it was in civ3, but i LIKED civ3 in that respect. Never had a problem with AI in Civ3 and I would even ask Firaxis to refer to Civ3 as a good reference of how AI should be with regard to each other.

If Tokugawa and Alexander are in my games, they usually declare war, thats for sure. Having said that, it still does not justify certain AI's (even though not aggressive) NEVER being involved in ANY war whatsoever for 6000 years. The gap between aggressive / non aggressive AI's is too huge.

If you play on Prince or above which is what I do, typically the AI (mali is a good example) will sit on their cheating f@t@sses, research faster then you, be leading in the game, never get involved in any war and no one will ever attack / stop them. Instead other AI's will come and attack you, though you are not leading, and you cannot even bribe anyone else to attack the leading civ like you could in Civ3 because "we dont like you enough" comes up, so you dont even have an OPTION to bribe them like you did in Civ3. Again this is politically unrealistic.

Unless Firaxis addresses this very-simple-to-fix but serious issue, I simply wont be playing this game anymore coz its darn unfair / unrealistic. Unlike with the other Civ's, with Civ4 I feel like I am playing an old fashioned "all AI's against human, lets help each other win" type game. Really no "intelligence" or true feeling of interactivity whatsoever in that respect.

Firaxis, please address this issue as I feel the rest of the game is really great, just this thorn truly stands out. If this is addressed I would even go ahead and buy the expansion

Have you given Blake's BetterAI Mod a shot - it sounds like some of your wishes are fulfilled there...

Blake said:

I have no intention of making an AI you can win against every single time, I want an AI that will beat you and that will try to win itself (I'm basically committed to removing all anti-human bias ...).

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Arkatakor said:

They are simply not programmed to take into account who is winning (especially tech wise) and to try and form some sort of intelligent / coordinated alliance to take down whoever is in the lead.

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The AI does seem to take into account the power graph. If the tech leader has a good lead in power (and the chances are high) the AI will be much less likely to declare war, whether it's vs a human or another AI.
ALso, I hear players constantly moan about the AI backstabbing. In reality the player is much more likely to betray friendships in the interests of winning the game - something you'd normally attribute to a 'psycho' AI. When the AIs have a relationship of 'friendly' or 'pleased' it's much more likely to mean something and they're unlikely to mount a desperate, game-saving attack on an ally. This has benefits for the player too and actually brings meaning to diplomacy. Human players have a win-at-all-costs and friends-be-damned attitude. AIs don't.

I've seen plenty of AI-AI declares in my games. Often it's the usual suspects (Mony, Napoleon, Caesar), but not always. Almost without exception though, the declaree is weaker than the declarer, which is what you'd expect really.

Almost like a coordinated gay alliance.

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Where does that come from? It's just offensive.

Arkatakor said:

Yeah, you are spot on, regarding how different it was in civ3, but i LIKED civ3 in that respect. Never had a problem with AI in Civ3 and I would even ask Firaxis to refer to Civ3 as a good reference of how AI should be with regard to each other.

If Tokugawa and Alexander are in my games, they usually declare war, thats for sure. Having said that, it still does not justify certain AI's (even though not aggressive) NEVER being involved in ANY war whatsoever for 6000 years. The gap between aggressive / non aggressive AI's is too huge.

If you play on Prince or above which is what I do, typically the AI (mali is a good example) will sit on their cheating f@t@sses, research faster then you, be leading in the game, never get involved in any war and no one will ever attack / stop them. Instead other AI's will come and attack you, though you are not leading, and you cannot even bribe anyone else to attack the leading civ like you could in Civ3 because "we dont like you enough" comes up, so you dont even have an OPTION to bribe them like you did in Civ3. Again this is politically unrealistic.

Unless Firaxis addresses this very-simple-to-fix but serious issue, I simply wont be playing this game anymore coz its darn unfair / unrealistic. Unlike with the other Civ's, with Civ4 I feel like I am playing an old fashioned "all AI's against human, lets help each other win" type game. Really no "intelligence" or true feeling of interactivity whatsoever in that respect.

Firaxis, please address this issue as I feel the rest of the game is really great, just this thorn truly stands out. If this is addressed I would even go ahead and buy the expansion

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With all due respects I believe I have diagnosed the TRUE cause of this Frustrating AI Syndrome: Needs to Get Better at the Game disease.

It does sound a bit like one team manager on a Saturday afternoon complaining that the other team 'played too negative', meaning 'they wouldn't let us score!'.

Its unfortunate that some of my points are being missed out in these replies. I have the impression that people have not read my arguments carefully enough, namely that Civ3 (or its predecessors) do not have this problem that I am speaking of at all.

Just read and try to register the following:

A civ that does not get involved in ANY form of conflict with its neighbor (or anyone else for that matter) in the ENTIRE game (6000 years) simply defies reality. Is anyone gonna debate that point or are they gonna say that I am a "moaner" of "need to get better at the game". Again, the previous Civs did not have this problem - Read my points carefully before commenting please.

As for getting better at the game, I have played enough games of all Civ versions to know how to play and what i'm talking about. Btw I used to play on prince as the AI already has a significant research advantage (especially late game). Yes, I have beaten prince before and would be willing to reinstall the game, buy the expansion and take on a higher level if the AI were a bit more competitive towards each other.

Regarding the proposition to play a mod, well it seems kinda silly that I have to download a mod just to compensate for some AI glitch, which again, i'll repeat is NOT PRESENT in the previous civ versions.

Regarding my "gay" statement, apologies about that - it was a distastful annotation.

To conclude, I would really like to hear what Firaxis has to say about this point - until they remedy it, i'll content myself with playing other games.

I guess in Civ war is a very purposeful affair. If it isn't advantageous for anyone to declare war then they simply won't do it. Perhaps a more realistic approach is when diplomatic tension and differences of religion become so intolerable that there doesn't seem to be any other option besides war. War is supposed to be confusion anyways .

Scaramanga said:

I guess in Civ war is a very purposeful affair. If it isn't advantageous for anyone to declare war then they simply won't do it. Perhaps a more realistic approach is when diplomatic tension and differences of religion become so intolerable that there doesn't seem to be any other option besides war. War is supposed to be confusion anyways .

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Again try and register this simple point:

For any Civ to simply not be at war or enter some form of conflict or another with its immediate neighbor for 6000 years in just unacceptable. My problem is not that it happens, but that it happens ALL THE TIME in every game i play.

Again from my original post:

This in itself makes the game unrealistic (as neighbors allways have disputes at one time or another). Need examples? China / Mongolia, Greece / Turkey, Germany / France, UK / Scandinavia (vikings), India / Pakistan, Iran / Iraq.

I feel like I am shouting in vain here and am rather disappointed at the lack of adequate feedback in this forum. Perhaps I have just wasted my time.

I suppose I just don't understand exactly where you're coming from. You say 'unacceptable' and 'unrealistic'. As far as realistic goes I'm not sure that the games goal is to be realistic. It's a strategy game. If the other leaders were to self-destruct just to keep you entertained, to make it easier for you to beat them, or just randomly for the sake of 'realism' I'm not sure that would make for a very good game. I'm not stupid (probably no-one reading this thread is); the simple point was registered a while ago but I don't think it's a very good point.

Also, I don't recognise the problem. I've seen a number of AI-AI declares; Nap is particularly trigger-happy it seems to me. I've managed to instigate a couple of wars via bribes too, which is particularly satisfying!

I'm running Vanilla 1.61. What level are you playing on? Map type and size? # of civs?

I must admit I didn't feel like trying to build bridges since you said you were done playing anyway. How can I try to help make your gaming experience better when you won't play anyway? I'd rather not waste my time then. That's how I's feeling.

Bagpuss said:

I suppose I just don't understand exactly where you're coming from.

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Play the previous versions of Civ, namely Civ3

Bagpuss said:

Also, I don't recognise the problem. I've seen a number of AI-AI declares; Nap is particularly trigger-happy it seems to me. I've managed to instigate a couple of wars via bribes too, which is particularly satisfying!

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That was my other point - in many cases (unlike Civ3) you dont have the OPTION to bribe the AI regardless of the fact that you may have the ability to propel him 1000 years into the future with your techs on offer.

I actually reinstalled the game recently. I play Vanilla 1.61, prince, continents, standard / large.

In my latest game I took Mali and was on one of two major continents with about 3-4 civs per continent. Guess what? 4 civs declared war on me in the entire game and NONE DECLARED WAR ON EACH OTHER (yes in the entire game)... Is my point so hard to understand?

Oh, i forgot, i need to get better at the game... but... i'm winning majorly - darn, must be coz i am only playing on prince and the AI does not have enough unfair research advantage. Plus its only 4v1 at this point. I think the others also have to rally to help their AI brethren...

Well that's balls (mostly) that they all gang up on you and befriend each other. On the other hand, doesn't it make it more interesting seeing as you are winning?

On my own note, I just played a game (same settings nearly) in whichall but one of the civs has gone to war, and they keep going to war with each other. That one that never has was losing.

AIs hardly declare war on each other and if they do (maybe because the player bribe them etc) they don't attack each other. It's very annoying.

taillesskangaru said:

AIs hardly declare war on each other and if they do (maybe because the player bribe them etc) they don't attack each other. It's very annoying.

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I have been heard...