mad to death AIs...

[Naokaukodem]

Last Prince game the Pangaea was separated like in two, the two parts being separated by a City State. Up the west part was China and myself south. China wanted to plant a city north west of my lands, I declared war in order to kill his settler. Bribed two CSs in the middle, right south to China. China took them both. OK, I'm liberating them. I'm taking China cities. Ok now in the East part of the Pangaea, England is whore expanding. ing ! She took out Germany who was in between her and another civ, not counting Alexander north. Then she took that another civ. The funny thing being, while this other civ was getting beaten shamelessly, its only apparent worrying was to denounce me. I really don't get it. I'm at the other edge of the map, this other civ gets beaten to death by England, and it will never ever consider an alliance with me ? Just denouncing me over and over... "hi, I will die but you are a moron !" How ing rabid can AIs be, it's beyond my understanding. Comon, it's just a game.

 

[joncnunn]

The game mechanics don't allow you to denouce someone your already at war with, so wasn't able to denouce China.

The red text will probably give you which form of envy that other civ has over you. It could be wonder or city state envy since it shouldn't be land envy in this case. Or if you've DOWed more than one civ in that game, could be that as well.

 

[Naokaukodem]

The game mechanics don't allow you to denouce someone your already at war with, so wasn't able to denouce China.

It's not about me denouncing china, it's about the 'other' civ to multi-denounce me when being beaten to death by england.

The red text will probably give you which form of envy that other civ has over you. It could be wonder or city state envy since it shouldn't be land envy in this case. Or if you've DOWed more than one civ in that game, could be that as well.

In fact every civ was denouncing me without distinction. the silly thing being that

1) I only declared war once while they themselves did multiple times
2) It was because an aggression (wanted to plant between me and a city state i was building a road to)
3) Took only one CS

And most importantly:

4) I didn't like England because it was whore expanding and aggressive, I would have done a good ally of this 'other' civ. But it multiple denounced me anyway, which i feel is silly. By the way, why care to denounce if you will die soon ? (if not why to barely denounce by the way...)

 

[Yngvi]

Regarding #3: if you take "only" one CS, that is still a massive diplo penalty with some civs, no matter the context. It often makes no sense; the CS could be an ally of an AI that DOWed you and is threatening your flank, but it is enough for some other civs to hate you forever.

 

[Yngvi]

Just another thought; if by take you mean "ally with," that can be just as bad. In a recent game England was a long time DOF ally, but she tried to bribe away one of my CS allies, I bribed it back, and soon she was in Guarded/Denounce mode.

I just hope G&K is able to fix the really stupid CS/diplomatic/diplo victory issues. This is really the most incomplete, half-baked part of the game right now.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Just another thought; if by take you mean "ally with," that can be just as bad. In a recent game England was a long time DOF ally, but she tried to bribe away one of my CS allies, I bribed it back, and soon she was in Guarded/Denounce mode.

No : really conquered. All in all I find stupid this denouncing thing, it puts legimity in moves that aren't. If it would have been denouncing the great warmongers only, I would understand, but denouncing seems to be tied too much with each others strategic needs. Heck, "denounce" does not serve strategy, it must serve ethics. Denouncing has absolutely not any kind of importance in the game by the way, beside warning you that if you are weaker, you will soon face a DOW. And, has anyone ever denounced an AI ? Well OK I did, but it did to me only bad things, AKA being DOWed when unprepared.

I just hope G&K is able to fix the really stupid CS/diplomatic/diplo victory issues. This is really the most incomplete, half-baked part of the game right now.

Amen. But I fear that it's the whole concept that is biased.

 

[PhilBowles]

It's not about me denouncing china, it's about the 'other' civ to multi-denounce me when being beaten to death by england.



In fact every civ was denouncing me without distinction. the silly thing being that

1) I only declared war once while they themselves did multiple times

That just results in them denouncing one another as well, the AI doesn't judge whether you're more of a warmonger than anyone else - it applies the same penalty to anyone who meets the criteria (declare war, conquer CSes). In my current game everyone has declared war multiple times, and everyone has variously denounced and been at war with everybody else as a result.

 

[Yngvi]

@ Naokaukodem: As far as I can tell, besides warning you, denouncing only serves to split civs into blocks. "Monty will like me better because I denounced his enemy Oda." Other than that, it serves no purpose, except maybe releasing aggression.

 

[Naokaukodem]

That just results in them denouncing one another as well, the AI doesn't judge whether you're more of a warmonger than anyone else - it applies the same penalty to anyone who meets the criteria (declare war, conquer CSes). In my current game everyone has declared war multiple times, and everyone has variously denounced and been at war with everybody else as a result.

AIs should put a veto on denouncing if they feel you can help them. They should have a sense of global strategy.

@ Naokaukodem: As far as I can tell, besides warning you, denouncing only serves to split civs into blocks. "Monty will like me better because I denounced his enemy Oda." Other than that, it serves no purpose, except maybe releasing aggression.

The thing is that it's useless and dangerous : if you denounce one in order to please another one, nothing tells it will be efficient long term. The AI behavior particularly the one of your allies changes so much.

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Please cut back on the implied swearing (or edit out the swearing so the autocensor doesn't still leave it implied). Title changed.

 

[gozpel]

It's not about me denouncing china, it's about the 'other' civ to multi-denounce me when being beaten to death by england.



In fact every civ was denouncing me without distinction. the silly thing being that

1) I only declared war once while they themselves did multiple times
2) It was because an aggression (wanted to plant between me and a city state i was building a road to)

And most importantly:

4) I didn't like England because it was whore expanding and aggressive, I would have done a good ally of this 'other' civ. But it multiple denounced me anyway, which i feel is silly. By the way, why care to denounce if you will die soon ? (if not why to barely denounce by the way...)

You declared on a CIV first AND - 3) Took only one CS

That's what killed ya!

CS are like Caps in this game, do not kill them!

 

[Naokaukodem]

You declared on a CIV first AND - 3) Took only one CS

That's what killed ya!

CS are like Caps in this game, do not kill them!

Well it didn't kill me as anyway this 'other' civ died, but it pissed me off to see how far an ally of it I could be. If only it begged for help soon enough I could have slown England's domination. In the state I have a much bigger army than england, but feel is too far and i don't want to get this pain. Now I'm just waiting for the U.N. domination, which I must say is pretty boring. To say all I didn't completed this game yet, and as I started other games in the meantime, I doubt I will ever do.

 

[joncnunn]

You declared on a CIV first AND - 3) Took only one CS

That's what killed ya!

CS are like Caps in this game, do not kill them!

Agreed you get one free DOW OR a free complete wipeout for most civs. NOT BOTH

England actually likes city states more than most; and would have been a candidate to get upset even if you just killed that city state and never DOWed anybody at all.

 

[smallfish]

Agreed you get one free DOW OR a free complete wipeout for most civs. NOT BOTH

England actually likes city states more than most; and would have been a candidate to get upset even if you just killed that city state and never DOWed anybody at all.

Yeah, in current game of Archipelago (or small continents), Darius wiped out Singapore in Turn 100-something, and before you knew it England was getting pissed off with him. I believe they even had a dogpile-style war declaration where Persia was facing against almost everybody in the game. Then I attacked and took Persia's capital, and after the Peace Treaty I denounced him, and England jumped in next turn (along with my buddies India and Russia).

 

[PhilBowles]

@ Naokaukodem: As far as I can tell, besides warning you, denouncing only serves to split civs into blocks. "Monty will like me better because I denounced his enemy Oda." Other than that, it serves no purpose, except maybe releasing aggression.

That's a pretty big "only". As in, rather bigger than (say) "sharing this religion only serves to make Civ X with the same religion like me" in Civ IV (and, presumably, G&K). It's surely the essence of most diplomatic actions.

AIs should put a veto on denouncing if they feel you can help them. They should have a sense of global strategy.

How would you propose this is coded in a way the AI can recognise? Given that it is an AI, it does a reasonable job most of the time - some civs don't denounce often, and most won't denounce civs they have existing good relations with unless it's to win favour with another civ that dislikes the civ they're denouncing. But this system ultimately has to be programmed as a modifier-based system, and there are limitations to what that can do. It may be that the AI is programmed to preferentially denounce people it has lots of positives with if it's feeling weak itself - that way the negative for denouncing might be outweighed by all the positives, but it might get positives with an enemy it's afraid of that would reduce the negative modifiers it has with that player.

The thing is that it's useless and dangerous : if you denounce one in order to please another one, nothing tells it will be efficient long term. The AI behavior particularly the one of your allies changes so much.

This is generally only true if you consider individual diplomatic actions in isolation; you have to work to maintain relationships with other civs rather than just expecting a denunciation to make you a lifelong friend. And denunciations are often very effective at helping to cement relationships, especially since one denunciation will often make you one or two enemies but half a dozen allies if you target the unpopular civs and align yourself with the largest power bloc. I rarely go a game without having at least one long-term ally unless I'm playing for domination (and even in my last, domination, game Siam remained allied with me for most of the early stages).

 

[Naokaukodem]

How would you propose this is coded in a way the AI can recognise?

For example if they already lost cities to a foe, depending on how important those cities were (size/outputs/number of cities) if they are at war/truce with this foe, the balance of military forces between the two, etc...

And maybe utimately a score check to determine if the foe is in good position to win the game. If so, the conquered AI should try to have a sense of alliance with other forces. In other words : a gang up sense. (not in the defavour of the player always of course)