Psycho BNW AI ganging up on people?

[ubergeneral]

Ok here is a possible bug in BNW, I'm debating weather this should go here or in the bug fourm. However since the Shuffle of Doom is here in the fourm, I figured this goes along the same lines.

In another thread one poster says that the AI was able to reconize he was running away in tech and wonders, so 4 AI Dowed him and put him back in his place.

I was playing a game with Japan, going for a cultural victory. Unfortunatly I lost GL to portugal which caused me to lose another wonder I was planning on using the free tech to get the plans for.

Later on I decide that portugal must die because they had too many wonder I wanted. Before I could DoW them they DoW me! While fighting them Siam backstabs me too! In the end there is alot of fighting. No Civs lose cities, however after the war, I attack and kill two city states that were in the way.

This got me the warmonger penalty. Later on Portugal DoWs me again. She had a large army but I'm efficiently killing her troops. However for some reason, the whole world turns evil. Everyone not involved with the war thinks I'm so dangerous that they all denouce me, embargo me and DOW me.

I don't understand why. What other civs were doing to each other is far worse than what I could do. Yet for some reason the AI seemed to mislabel me as a runaway and therefore everyone had to gang up on me.

World Congress is really good for hurting a big runaway civ. Embargo and standing army tax hurts! But it should be used on big civs, not ones already having issues with stronger nations.

Is this a bug? In the past I've had games where I was DOWed by more than one civ while at war with someone else, but this was a bit much. Did the AI somehow glitch and think that I was a runaway civ? Can people confirm that the AI will try to stop a runaway? Did it glitch and give me that label? What is the verdict?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It sounds like you earned their ire by taking the city-states.

 

[Yzman]

There is nothing bug about this.

You conquered many cities. This causes the AI to hate you.

 

[Gabriel Pyyrhic]

Ok here is a possible bug in BNW, I'm debating weather this should go here or in the bug fourm. However since the Shuffle of Doom is here in the fourm, I figured this goes along the same lines.

In another thread one poster says that the AI was able to reconize he was running away in tech and wonders, so 4 AI Dowed him and put him back in his place.

I was playing a game with Japan, going for a cultural victory. Unfortunatly I lost GL to portugal which caused me to lose another wonder I was planning on using the free tech to get the plans for.

Later on I decide that portugal must die because they had too many wonder I wanted. Before I could DoW them they DoW me! While fighting them Siam backstabs me too! In the end there is alot of fighting. No Civs lose cities, however after the war, I attack and kill two city states that were in the way.

This got me the warmonger penalty. Later on Portugal DoWs me again. She had a large army but I'm efficiently killing her troops. However for some reason, the whole world turns evil. Everyone not involved with the war thinks I'm so dangerous that they all denouce me, embargo me and DOW me.

I don't understand why. What other civs were doing to each other is far worse than what I could do. Yet for some reason the AI seemed to mislabel me as a runaway and therefore everyone had to gang up on me.

World Congress is really good for hurting a big runaway civ. Embargo and standing army tax hurts! But it should be used on big civs, not ones already having issues with stronger nations.

Is this a bug? In the past I've had games where I was DOWed by more than one civ while at war with someone else, but this was a bit much. Did the AI somehow glitch and think that I was a runaway civ? Can people confirm that the AI will try to stop a runaway? Did it glitch and give me that label? What is the verdict?

If you are really interested in finding more info about the situation, do the following.

1. Make sure you have a few saves from the game.
2. Exit Civ and open the Civ config file.
3. Turn on Logging in the config file (ie set 0 to 1)
4. Have a look at the other logging options and turn on those that interest you (ie city logging, etc)
5. Restart Civ and load up an earlier sav game.
6. Open the logfile and have a look at what the Civs APPROACH's and OPINION are of you, as well as what your Warmonger Hate, Military Threat etc etc values you have accrued.
7. Now load up a later save.
8. CHeck the values now.
9. This will help sole the mystery. BTW its doubtful its a bug.

You may also find there is a mod that will accomplish much of the same thing, just easier. You could try infoaddict (not sure how fully featured that is).

FYI The AI does have a Victory Competitiveness rating that is used (used to be used from the start of the game, now is used later on IIRC), runaways end up as a strong VICTORY THREAT which bothers those civs that are strongly competitive with regard to victory. Game Threat is analogous to targeting a runaway in the code. Also runaways often end up with many wonders, many city states, or large armies, all (or any) of those will make different AI's hate (or at least the ones that care about the area of the game in which you are the dominant party). Again turn on the logging as most of these are logged each and every turn.

Hope this helps.

 

[The QC]

I thought this was going to be about something else. In my only BNW game so far (I'm slow), the AIs seemed to gang up on a target and have a hilarious competition for the target's cities. I think it could be because that civ's trade routes were pillaged, so nobody had something extra to lose when attacking. Prior to that point, there were quite a few warmongers shuffling about huge armies without knowing who to fight, so, once someone looked vulnerable, they all ganged up on him (poor Pedro).

It felt pretty lame. Cases where everyone gangs up on a strong civ are ok, even desirable as far as I'm concerned, but ganging up on the weakest one is cheap and pointless.

 

[Scott Jegg]

It sounds like you earned their ire by taking the city-states.

Yes. The AI hates it when you take city states, even if they are allied with an enemy who declared war on you.

 

[Dtekkar]

This isn't new to BNW, pre-GNK I've seen AIs swarm a weak civ like a pack of vultures in a tug-of-war for their carcass. In fact, my first BNW try on deity looked like an easy win at turn 200 but ended in a loss from me being triple DoW'd in modern, and then triple DoW'd again. After two costly wars I fought back as hard as I could and eventually won half the continent after a few nukes scared some into peace, but the repeated gangpiling kept me distracted and in check while Austria built a spaceship.

It's just part of the game. People pile on because it is cheap & easy to kick someone when they're down, just like in real life. And just like in real life, if it is going to happen, you want to diplomatically engineer it to be someone besides you.

 

[Gabriel Pyyrhic]

I thought this was going to be about something else. In my only BNW game so far (I'm slow), the AIs seemed to gang up on a target and have a hilarious competition for the target's cities. I think it could be because that civ's trade routes were pillaged, so nobody had something extra to lose when attacking. Prior to that point, there were quite a few warmongers shuffling about huge armies without knowing who to fight, so, once someone looked vulnerable, they all ganged up on him (poor Pedro).

It felt pretty lame. Cases where everyone gangs up on a strong civ are ok, even desirable as far as I'm concerned, but ganging up on the weakest one is cheap and pointless.

History, Prisons, Schoolyards and pretty much every other area of human endeavour would disagree with you.

The strong get dogpiled and the weak get shared about.

 

[Aristos]

Can people confirm that the AI will try to stop a runaway? Did it glitch and give me that label? What is the verdict?

Well, I can "confirm" (based on MY experience) that the AI seems to recognize potential victors. When it was me, the text of the declaration of war clearly pointed to it (don't remember the wording, but it was funny... potential competitor something). More interestingly though, just last night I saw a very strong Freedom alliance that was fighting me (as the sole survivor of the Order Federation) turn into itself because their main force, Byzantium, was getting close to a cultural victory. Never saw that before (thus, it does not seem to be "human only").

A little aside, have you seen how much better a well prepared civ fights in the modern era? I was amazed by how well Byzantium defended its holdings in our nuclear war; even after many nuke leveling, they kept defending their main cities to the last man... and neglecting me from taking them. Amazing fight; ended up loosing that game to Theo by 20 turns or so; she was ready for the cultural victory, but when she saw me completing SS parts fast, she triggered her backup plan and ended up winning with Science 4 turns earlier than her originally planned cultural victory.

Amazing game, it was. Never so happy for losing.

 

[Glassmage]

lol so funny how there are "AI's too peaceful" threads and then "AI's too psycho warmonger" threads...

 

[GoodSarmatian]

lol so funny how there are "AI's too peaceful" threads and then "AI's too psycho warmonger" threads...

Some people take issue with the lack of stupid warrior rushes that severely hamper your economy but ultimately hurt the AI that tries this even more. I say good riddance (btw, in my first Portugal game I was on the receiving end of a rather well executed attack by Attila which cost me my second city before I could build up and regroup=.
It does look like the AI likes to gang up on enemies much more than it used to. I can't remember ever seeing an AI attack somebody after I declined to help them in their attack. Well, in the game I'm currently playing Gandhi asked me to go to war against Alex. I declined, and the very next turn India and Morocco DoWed Greece. He seemed to be determined to go to war with allies. Pre-BNW these requests seemed like just a trap to get me a warmonger reputation. Tactical blunders and ICS aside, the AI seems to be much better at the strategic game.

 

[Jaybe]

World Congress is really good for hurting a big runaway civ. Embargo and standing army tax hurts! But it should be used on big civs, not ones already having issues with stronger nations.

You got embargoed. Other civs had no trade routes with you and therefore were not going to lose any gold by declaring war. According to Polycast 178 the presence of several trade routes is a substantial inhibitor to war.