Genghis is Bipolar and Elizabeth is a Dunce

[adyo4552]

First, the backstory:

I started my first game of Civ 5 BNW as the Shoshone on a continents map. I met Mongolia, the Ottomans, and Persia as my neighbors. Well, Persia settled too close so I took his city, and my Civ yearned for citrus and Ottomans refused to trade any so I took their capital city (with an abundance of citrus). Thereafter Persia unleashed a horde of missionaries to convert my blossoming empire, and that strangled my own religion so after a useless, dismissed demand to stop, I destroyed the rest of Persia. "I have robbed the world of a beacon of a beauty". Yeah, sure. Bye Persia. The Ottomans hate me, but they're weak and fractured. Mongolia though..

Mongolia has one city, and never once tried to expand. Their economy sucks, and every time I try to trade with them they seem to never want anything, which is fine I guess because they only ever seem to have 4 gold per turn to trade. Friendly towards me, also, despite my warmongering.

Seeking trading partners was a priority, since Persia was gone, Ottomans hate me, and Mongolia is useless, so I discovered the second continent and their four resident nations (England, America, Poland, Inca; in order of strength). Most of them already don't like me due to my warring past. Yet Poland was somewhat nicer to me due to some intrigue I shared with them, embassy exchange, minor stuff, and overlooked my warmongering.

Here is where things get weird: England has a monopoly on whales, and it is being demanded by all 10+ of my cities. She won't trade a whale for anything less than a stairway to heaven. So when England declares war on Poland, I pry some city-states from her grasp with trade routes and gold, and declare war on her. Poland likes me even more now, which is nice and secured a trade partner. However, Poland is far weaker than England, and after I defend Poland with ranged attacks by frigates, England turns its sights to a city-state nearby that allied with me. England had maybe 5 cannons and 5 rifleman; the city-state looked doomed, as one turn of attacks on it weakened it by a third.

So I'm thinking darn, I just gifted England this city. I go to negotiate peace, and she thinks she is near her end! Says she knows when her time is up, or something to that end, and is not only willing to accept peace (and forfeit the city-state England surely would have captured), but England also wants to GIVE ME ONE OF HER CITIES! Uhhhhh, ok? I thought this was really dumb, so I turned the offer down and instead took 100% of her gold (2k) and also a whale (we love the king!) in exchange for peace. Not sure why England would be so willing to give up a city, or her entire supply of gold, in order to get me (the civ with a weak presence on her continent) out of the battle. She stayed at war with Poland, but by then Poland had recovered and it is a surefire stalemate.

Even weirder: My religion is spread throughout my continent, on all my cities, and in Mongolia's one city (not in Ottoman cities though, screw 'em). I then propose a World Religion as my own, thinking that Mongolia will get two extra delegates and vote with me, since it is entirely my religion as well. Instead, after my proposal, Mongolia goes from my friend, to dencouncing me

Why would a friendly nation, that is a speck on a map surrounded by my powerful empire, denounce me out of the blue for proposing that its own majority religion become the world religion?

I'm starting to see why this game has such a bad reputation for its AI. I honestly think I could have programmed it better than that...

 

[sixty4half]

Mongolia was probably never your friend, they just acted like they were, so that's what the game displayed. Several AICivs have a tendency to do this.

Mongolia also tends to prefer taking City States due to it's UA and normally doesn't settle new cities with an uncommon exception. It happens, just not that often. They probably denounced you because they reached a point where they realized they couldn't militarily take a CS and wanted to settle a new city, but you've probably already expanded to all the good areas so they now covet your lands, have close borders, and most likely, you are allies with a CS they want relations with now. Those three negative modifiers combined into a Denouncement. Those three negative modifiers also wouldn't be visible in the diplomacy screen if Mongolia was faking being your friend.

I see people always claiming the AI makes no sense in this game. In reality, the reason the AI does things is quite like how humans act in this game, as you displayed when explaining your game. Persia "settled to close" so you took their city. They didn't necessarily provoke you, they just did something that would cause any leader (ai or real) to be annoyed. The Ottomans simply refused to trade a Lux to you. So you took their city. That wouldn't fly in the real world, your international relations would be . Persia did what it normally does and tried to spread it's religion, so you WIPED THEM OFF THE MAP. Religion is the number one reason for wars in the real world.

I'm not saying what you did was wrong, but understand, you are the aggressor in this game. Nobody, from what you said, did anything that necessarily wronged you in any way, but you took exception to it and did what you thought was needed. The AI does the exact same thing.

 

[reddishrecue]

The Mongolians and the English have their own uniqueness. One similarity of the two is that they appeared in vanilla. I noticed that you killed off a civilization and in higher difficulties, AIs won't tolerate such actions.