What a ridiculuous but lucky incident..!

Playing as Joao II, I was at war with Brennus. And then the apostolic vote was held regarding the ceasefire. Just as the screen shot shows, most members voted for yes(including myself and Stalin). Now I ended my turn.

Beginning the very next turn, Stalin declared a war on me with a huge troops, which means that I'm sure to lose two cities in a couple of turns. oh I'm doomed.. But then a voting result pop-up box showed up. It turned out that this vote not only made peace between me and Brennus but also ended the future war (between Stalin) even before it starts. Ironically Stalin himself voted for yes. In effect I heard a truce fanfare a few seconds after matching DoW fanfare. This must be the shortest war ever possible I guess.(and the most peaceful one )

I'm not quite sure if it was labeled "stop the war against Joao II" or "Brennus"(guess former). Either way it is illogical for a resolution to take effects upon the future war. However it made me LOL and I was very lucky to avoid devastation & earned 10 turns.

Can you feel the depression of the pikeman & swordman heading back in the picture..

Remember it's only for 10 turns...
And you did seem to have lost a worker on this shortest war ever?

oh you are right.
100% of the casualty was civilian! (not the most peaceful war then..)

That's clearly a bug.

I wouldn't say it's a "bug". The event did exactly what it is supposed to do, which is end all wars against a Civ.

Now, if you meant that the AI was bugged, then yes, I could see that. It should have waited one more turn before declaring war.

Not a bug. Jimmy Carter appeared in the nick of time.

@JeBus
Maybe it's not technically a "bug" (nothing crashes, the AI is not in a loop, etc.), but at least I'd say it is a design problem/oversignt.
So yeah, I meant it as an AI bug. It is hard to think of a more illogical behavior on the part of the AI.

Actually, there are at least two possible scenarios in which Stalin's actions definitely make sense:

1. He could have been bribed by Brennus to enter the war, in which case DoWing the player would be an easy way to get the bribe without fear of immediate retaliation from the player.

2. He could want to improve his standings with Brennus, and DoWing you gives him positive diplo modifiers with Brennus.

That said, I still think that this should be addressed, because even if (1) were the case, then there's still an AI mistake (only that it's on Brennus part, i.e. bribing someone into war against a civ that has a pending "make peace" vote), and I don't think that the AI is smart enough to weigh (2) correctly. Most probably Stalin really didn't realize that there was a peace vote pending, displaying an AI behavior which could certainly be improved.

This happened to me as well. Boudica declared war on me, but I got the vote to end the war against me. In the interim of the vote and the result, Ragnar declared war on me. In this game, Ragnar would do whatever Boudica told him, so I had expected it. (Previously when Boudica declared war, I tried to get my "pleased" ally Ragnar to help, but he said he couldn't do that to a friend - he was "pleased" with Boudica as well. Then declared war on me). Anyway, it was funny to hear the war horn sound, see Ragnar attack me, hear the peace horn sound, then see Ragnar's face as he declared war on me, after peace was declared. Incidentally, in this case both Ragnar and Boudica voted no to end the war, but I had more than enough votes to override.

I got my revenge by attacking Boudica 10 turns later, waited for Ragnar to join in, then destroyed him. I don't usually do this, but he p'd me off.

Psyringe said:

Actually, there are at least two possible scenarios in which Stalin's actions definitely make sense:

1. He could have been bribed by Brennus to enter the war, in which case DoWing the player would be an easy way to get the bribe without fear of immediate retaliation from the player.

2. He could want to improve his standings with Brennus, and DoWing you gives him positive diplo modifiers with Brennus.

That said, I still think that this should be addressed, because even if (1) were the case, then there's still an AI mistake (only that it's on Brennus part, i.e. bribing someone into war against a civ that has a pending "make peace" vote), and I don't think that the AI is smart enough to weigh (2) correctly. Most probably Stalin really didn't realize that there was a peace vote pending, displaying an AI behavior which could certainly be improved.

Click to expand...

There is another possibility. Perhaps Brennus became Satlin's Vassal (or vice versa) that turn. This would cause war to be declared automatically, and also end when the cease fire came into effect. When you declared war later, did both civs join the war upon declaration?

This has happened to me before too, although I don't think I was about to get my a** handed to me by the AI. Also would say that this is not a bug, the resolution is to 'stop the war vs (player)' which is all wars between voting members and (player), which is exactly what happened, voting was still taking place after stalin declared war so the logical argument isn't even that solid.

Lets say that Stalin had voted against this proposal, he still would have had to go back since war still would not have been possible since there would not have been enough votes to continue the war effort no matter what. That is one of the beauties of having the AP since it does this.

JeBuS27 said:

I wouldn't say it's a "bug". The event did exactly what it is supposed to do, which is end all wars against a Civ.

Now, if you meant that the AI was bugged, then yes, I could see that. It should have waited one more turn before declaring war.

Click to expand...

I don't think that would work. I'm pretty sure the resolution creates 10 turn peace treaties between all members with the target civilization (even if they're already at 'peace'), so he would have had to wait 11 turns before declaring war.

But it's not necessarily an awful decision. If the peace treaty doesn't pass, he's dogpiling you. If it does pass, he got a free worker and you can't retaliate for 10 turns (and he may have gotten a bribe as well). Does the AI really care if a human player gives him a '-3 you declared war on me' modifier?

First off the main problem is as I underscored the resolution should not be able to affect future events. I stress it was future event in my point of view. Voting is one turn earlier than Stalin's Dow - or fraction of a turn if you want to divide a 'turn' into players.

Stalin's voting turn is exactly when he DoW'ed me. But, as everyone knows he must have voted first and then DoWed me(both in the same turn). Even if this is implemented or conceptualized in other ways than human player, this vote should be synchronized across all the players, which means that if I understand the voting is upon this and that ongoing wars, all other AI should do the same. I certainly was not able to imagine Stalin-JoaoII-war when I voted.

And I would say Stalin's behavior is a glitch in AI rather than a bug. As @Psyringe and others noted one can make up reasons to explain what Stalin did.

Witten - the resolution is not passed until ALL TEAMS have voted. So, the resolution comes up on your turn. You vote yes. Then (let's say) it's Stalin's turn. He votes yes and declares war on you. The resolution has still not passed because there are more AIs that need to vote. They then take their turns, when your turn comes around, all players have voted and the resolution passes. So, it did not block a "future" war at all, it blocked one that was declared while the voting was going on. Unless I've missed something...

witten said:

First off the main problem is as I underscored the resolution should not be able to affect future events. I stress it was future event in my point of view. Voting is one turn earlier than Stalin's Dow - or fraction of a turn if you want to divide a 'turn' into players.

Click to expand...

Hmm, whether it's a future event is actually debatable imho. It was arguably a future event for those AIs that took their turn (and voted) before Stalin DoWed you. It wasn't for the AIs that took their turn afterwards because when those gave their vote, they knew that it would affect Stalin too. However, no matter whether we define the war with Stalin as a "future" or "parallel" event, the problem remains the voters before Stalin's turn the situation to vote on was different than for the voters after Stalin's turn.

witten said:

this vote should be synchronized across all the players, which means that if I understand the voting is upon this and that ongoing wars, all other AI should do the same. I certainly was not able to imagine Stalin-JoaoII-war when I voted.

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "synchronized". If you mean that the vote should be a "sub-turn" (i.e., as soon as the resolution is put forward, the game loops over every player, and every player gives his vote, but cannot do anything else), then yes, this would solve the problem described above. However, such a sub-turn would be quize a hassle in PbeM and Hotseat games. And depending on the internal workings of Civ4 (which I don't know) it may be very difficult to implement such a sub-turn - perhaps too difficult for too little gain, considering that the problem only arises in a special situation doesn't come up often, and simply preventing the AI from declaring war in such a situation might be an easier fix.

Very well said, Psyringe!

Psyringe said:

witten said:

First off the main problem is as I underscored the resolution should not be able to affect future events. I stress it was future event in my point of view. Voting is one turn earlier than Stalin's Dow - or fraction of a turn if you want to divide a 'turn' into players.

Click to expand...

Hmm, whether it's a future event is actually debatable imho. It was arguably a future event for those AIs that took their turn (and voted) before Stalin DoWed you. It wasn't for the AIs that took their turn afterwards because when those gave their vote, they knew that it would affect Stalin too. However, no matter whether we define the war with Stalin as a "future" or "parallel" event, the problem remains the voters before Stalin's turn the situation to vote on was different than for the voters after Stalin's turn.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I meant. The voters should agree on what they are talking about in the first place. This along with my post would give answer to cymru_man's claim.

Psyringe said:

witten said:

Stalin's voting turn is exactly when he DoW'ed me. But, as everyone knows he must have voted first and then DoWed me(both in the same turn). Even if this is implemented or conceptualized in other ways than human player, this vote should be synchronized across all the players, which means that if I understand the voting is upon this and that ongoing wars, all other AI should do the same. I certainly was not able to imagine Stalin-JoaoII-war when I voted.

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "synchronized". If you mean that the vote should be a "sub-turn" (i.e., as soon as the resolution is put forward, the game loops over every player, and every player gives his vote, but cannot do anything else), then yes, this would solve the problem described above. However, such a sub-turn would be quize a hassle in PbeM and Hotseat games. And depending on the internal workings of Civ4 (which I don't know) it may be very difficult to implement such a sub-turn - perhaps too difficult for too little gain, considering that the problem only arises in a special situation doesn't come up often, and simply preventing the AI from declaring war in such a situation might be an easier fix.

Click to expand...

I used the word synchronization because I thought it seems similar to the synchronization problem in multiprogramming(often found in OS design, etc), where it is crucial to ensure many programs communicate in a consistent manner. A sub-turn would completely solve the problem but that'd be overkill.

So how about changing the phrase to "Stop the war between CivA and CivB, CivC" instead of ".. against CivA"? Civs vote upon the same subjects, and AP actually halts certain wars, not all against CivA.

What are you playing here that you are researching mathematics in 1050AD in more than 8 turns, while Brennus has already researched Divine Right?

Bizzaro world.

I was playing extreme ICS hence poor tech & score.

ICS? Acronym I'm not familiar with...