Montezuma Afraid?

[Itrade]

So I am losing my first Diety game, but that's okay because my only goal was to survive to the end, which looks like it is very close. Anyway, I noticed a few millenia ago that Montezuma's status with me changed to Afraid. It was odd, because throughout the game he had been the largest player: most land, most soldiers, best tech, massive amounts of wonders. The only thing I had going was my religion and the amount of civs I was friendly with (all of them, though no DoFs because that would have pissed some of the others off) and the fact that every war of his against me in the past had resulted in massive casualties on his behalf while I left with mounds of XP for my next Great General.

Anyway recently he's become afraid of me again, despite the fact that he's researching Future Tech and steamrolling Sweden with his Giant Death Robots while I've just discovered flight and all my soldiers have been donations from City-States.

I made some demands to goad him into war sometime back in the Medieval ages so that I wouldn't the warmonger label among the other leaders. It didn't work, so I just declared war on him anyway and hoped that the label wouldn't stick, and it didn't.

I think I ought to also mention that he is at war with every other Civ on the planet thanks to some clever diplomacy on my part. I'd attach the save, but it's 3.8MB and apparently the forum max is 2. Here are some pictures instead.

Spoiler :

 

[smallfish]

He was a runaway who ran over Polynesia, Spain, Songhai.

I was a runaway who ran over Danes and Incans.

He had way bigger land and military, not to mention tech. Yet...

"oh great leader, please be a shining example to those of us who can't ever match you."

 

[Itstrucktwice]

Monty is the leader most likely to be AFRAID of you. Every game I have with the Aztecs he is AFRAID at some point throughout the game.

 

[Itrade]

He eventually won the game with a spaceship victory. He first built the United Nations, and then every successive turn was a storm of updates as City-State allegiances changed hands as fast as the other civs could afford to coup/bribe them. It was insane.

Anyway, does anyone know why he was afraid and how his being afraid would have affected diplomacy with him? I know that friendly civs pay out better and hostile civs are stingier with trades, but having Monty afraid of me didn't seem to change things except he never declared war. I thought I might be able to leverage it to demand stuff from him but that didn't work.

 

[MyImmortals]

I think you also might need units near his boarders for a successful demand just like with city states perhaps?

 

[pollock]

Montezuma is never afraid you must be mistaken

 

[Profanity]

Montezuma is never afraid you must be mistaken

Maybe the smoke from the fire he keeps standing above finally got to him.

 

[GThreepwood]

How many times has a Civ been afraid to you guys ?
For me once.
Austria was Afraid but quickly became annoying and Hostile, so i settled this problem by

DESTROYING ALL HER CITIES AND (ALMOST) RAZING THEM ALL !!!!

 

[Itrade]

Okay, I just got Germany afraid of me in another Diety game, and I think I figured out what makes it happen. You need to have won many (three or more, I think) wars against them, probably by destroying more units from them than they can destroy from you. I think it helps to have declared the wars and to have the other civ be the one proposing peace.

Having a civ be afraid of you is better than having them be friendly in terms of trade, because Germany was willing to give me gold, strategic resource, and an embassy in exchange for accepting his embassy into my capital. Afraid leaders also won't attack you until your status with them changes back over to friendly.

 

[binhthuy71]

I've had Austria, the Aztecs, the Koreans, and the Chinese Afraid of me in different games. I have never been able to determine what triggered that status. In every instance the Afraid civ was geographically remote, I had not been at war with it, and I wasn't the top dog in military strength. OTOH, I usually have a top-ranking gold pile and I understand that the AI takes that into account when deciding whether or not to DoW so maybe that's it.

 

[ShowOfForce]

I've only seen afraid from monty if I take an early military lead then it usually is gone before turn 100. I saw it once from ghandi when we were neighbors and I had nukes (vanilla) before him. That was also the only time he's ever given into a demand of mine.

 

[Tachii]

I remember in one of my games (forgot if it was G&K or not) the AI was afraid after I cleared some barbarian camps or something, lol. Like, I wasn't in a war with any other AI or anything. Pretty weird stuff.

And Montezuma chose Freedom? Lolwtf.

 

[smallfish]

I remember in one of my games (forgot if it was G&K or not) the AI was afraid after I cleared some barbarian camps or something, lol. Like, I wasn't in a war with any other AI or anything. Pretty weird stuff.

And Montezuma chose Freedom? Lolwtf.

That's President Montezuma for you!

He believes in the Right to be Sacrificed

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

That's President Montezuma for you!

He believes in the Right to be Sacrificed

I'm pretty sure the Monty AI is coded to go for a cultural victory if it doesn't think it can win domination. Not sure exactly how the script works, but if Monty is on his fallback victory path, then I can see him taking Freedom. Strange, though.

 

[binhthuy71]

I'm pretty sure the Monty AI is coded to go for a cultural victory if it doesn't think it can win domination. Not sure exactly how the script works, but if Monty is on his fallback victory path, then I can see him taking Freedom. Strange, though.

When I took Freedom in my current game who should pop up but Napoleon congratulating me on taking that tree. I nearly fell out of my chair.

 

[smallfish]

I'm pretty sure the Monty AI is coded to go for a cultural victory if it doesn't think it can win domination. Not sure exactly how the script works, but if Monty is on his fallback victory path, then I can see him taking Freedom. Strange, though.

Nah, he will take Freedom even if he is conquering folks left and right, and spamming cities like no tomorrow. I've seen him take out his entire side of "East v West", and then go with being called "Mr. President" - not sure how he is going to go with Cultural with that many cities in his spammy hands.

 

[Putmalk]

The AI - especially leaders - aren't hardcoded to do anything. Montezuma is like every AI, he will choose his victories randomly leaning toward the flavors he is given. But AI is AI and they rarely make intelligent decisions - but the Monty AI is the exact same as the Gandhi AI or any other AI.

 

[ipride362]

I don't play Deity, but In my games with Montezuma, he typically is always afraid of me, looking to play buddy cop as I go trolloping through other civs.

Maybe I'm just an aggressive expander, I like to be protected and I always have a strong military and always choose to win when I know I have a victory (Sun Tzu of course). I think it's the continued strength and high success rate of your military as well as the strength of your economy coded into the game that affects leaders "morale" number towards you. The AI must be coded to "sense" power and the AFRAID moniker must be an expression of that. Also, Monty is an aggressive leader. You playing the same way must also be coded to "scare" the AI because they "fear" you will win the game the same way they are trying.

Also, who here always conquers the Aztecs to avoid this problem? I do. Hassle free games when you get rid of the Aztecs, Mongols, and Germans.

 

[Putmalk]

Honestly Afraid strikes me as being highly random - I've had AIs stronger than me go afraid at turn 13 on emperor. It's quite meaningless. I don't even know the benefits?

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

This is opinion based on anecdotal evidence, but I think it could be linked to the AI losing early units (settler/worker etc.) to barbs, while you snag an upgrade and maybe gain a unit or two. Seems like deity can make this even more likely due to the fact the AI just has that many more units about at the start and barbs show up almost immediately too.

Like the poster above, I currently have in my deity game as Ethiopia (well had actually, heh) the same issue with Austria. She was afraid and a friend and then she expanded as close as possible. When she took the CS that was behind me, that was it and I thanked her for building me three nice cities, Chichen Itza and the Temple of Artemis. She then was eliminated from my region and I left her with her single satellite city well up the coast in the middle of Sulieman's ICS who had already denounced her. Now I have 9 cities and my religion is rolling like a wildfire.

Was surprised to find out that when I took the CS she had annexed(?), I was not given a choice to liberate, only to raze/puppet/annex.