The AI on King randomly got good. Wtf/why?

[Ikeaism]

So, I was playing on King, wanting a pretty relaxing and easy game, which I normally get on this difficulty. I was playing as Sweden, and was planning on a diplomatic victory.

Typically when I play on King I'm usually decently ahead in tech for most of the game and get some easy early-game wonders, but in this case I couldn't get a single wonder before some AI grabbed it instead. Almost as if they could build stuff quicker.

Then I was randomly denounced by Attila. Why? Who the hell knows. I wasn't even especially near him or anything. A few turns later, still in BC, Kamehameha declares war on me for NO reason. At this point I didn't have an army, and unless I'm going for domination I typically don't build one up. Normally nobody fights me.

Kamehameha's Maori warriors basically suicide into Helsinki and I buy an archer to finish the job, and make peace with Polynesia shortly after. A few turns later Kamehameha and Attila gang up on me and declare war together. Still for no reason. I've had people do that on Emperor and above, but that was after I'd accumulated some serious warmonger penalties with them. Not like this...

And a few turns later the Aztecs joined in. No negative diplo modifiers; nothing. And then I ragequit.

I guess my question at the end of this overly long monologue is... wtf? It's on King! It's meant to be easy! It normally is easy! Why did the AI get good?

 

[beetle]

Did you happen to loose your starting warrior to barbs? I swear that is hate magnet.

The other thing is that the personalities have quite a bit of RNG. If your neighbors all rolled high for boldness, you will have trouble!

 

[poxpower]

My guess is you tried some early wonder, missed, and then kept trying more wonders and missed them and just fell further and further behind on settlers and infrastructure.

Then my second guess is you forward-settled kamehameha, or he was stuck in a corner near you. This will make AI attack you always. Kamehameha is aggressive enough that if he's your only neighbor, he will definitely try to attack you eventually and since you were just sitting there trying to get great library on turn 80 or whatever is it you were doing instead of building your empire, he attacked and you had nothing
Of course this is King so his army was probably like 2 swordsmen but whatever.

 

[danaphanous]

sounds like a great, fun game to me! As you said, this is King. Go build an army and beat the crap out of those neighbors, you'll be able to recover and still win. Of course not everyone finds war fun, but I've always enjoyed getting attacked.

 

[Volcanon]

I recall losing at Prince when I first started because Alexander was buddies with every CS and I couldn't kill or buy the CS enough and he was far on the other side of the map.

The King and Emperor AI will gang up on the player but often can't kill a player who is adept at the art of turtling unless you're asleep at the wheel or just very unlucky.

 

[docbud]

I was playing King for a long time, and most of the games were pretty easy. But there were some games where I struggled, especially when Shaka and Atilla were involved.

King, though, is more relaxing than Emperor (which I currently play).

 

[poxpower]

I've grown to love attila as neighbor. His crappy battering rams are awesome, he spams a ton of them and puts them on the front lines.
The trick is just to make about 6-7 archers and maybe 2 warriors, then go near his city, DOW him and wait for him to put all his dumb battering rams in the way of his other units.

Then you're basically free to shoot at his warriors/ horsemen while his battering rams protect your archers.
You can keep doing this until all your archers get range/logistics usually, but at some point attila will have no more units and he will just be dead.

Shake is a lot more dangerous though, impis ( especially on deity ) are stupidly resistant to everything. They have like 6 promotions on them it's hella stupid and they one-shot almost everything.

Best not to war shaka until planes / good promotions and just bribe him to go kill himself on someone with great wall or in a jungle.

 

[Maxattack]

@Ikeaism

How many cities did you settle before all those DoWs ? How many troops did you have to protect them ?

 

[Ikeaism]

@Ikeaism

How many cities did you settle before all those DoWs ? How many troops did you have to protect them ?

I had four cities. Three of them were basically surrounded by city-states, and then Helsinki was near Polynesia. Kamehameha didn't say anything about settling too close to him, but I guess he wanted to expand more.
I had a warrior in my capital when they DoW'ed, and then bought an archer in Helsinki when they attacked. I never usually build an army until I've sorted all my granary/library/water mill stuff, but I guess I've learnt my lesson about doing that

 

[Maxattack]

I had four cities. Three of them were basically surrounded by city-states, and then Helsinki was near Polynesia. Kamehameha didn't say anything about settling too close to him, but I guess he wanted to expand more.
I had a warrior in my capital when they DoW'ed, and then bought an archer in Helsinki when they attacked. I never usually build an army until I've sorted all my granary/library/water mill stuff, but I guess I've learnt my lesson about doing that

I think the "Agressive Expansion" diplo modifier triggers at 4 cities and if you have more than 50% more cities than the average in the game. That means that if they had less than 2.7 cities per civ (which is likely on King) you made them mad early on. Coupled to the fact your military score must have been ridiculous with your lone warrior and that you forward settled Captain Underpants who usually seeks to plant a bunch of cities everywhere probably explains the DoWs

Concerning the fact you couldn't see any negative diplo modifiers : the AI has the possibility to be "Deceptive" which means they can hide all the negative modifiers at will. You can still find out if they like you through the trade deals they offer and the tone of their voice in the diplo screen Montezuma and Attila are very likely to do that.

 

[beetle]

I think the "Agressive Expansion" diplo modifier triggers at 4 cities...

The aggressive expander hate is pretty severe, but it only triggers with five or more cities. At least on Standard, I am not clear if it changes for map size.

One warrior and two scouts is enough for me most early games (even at Deity) while I sort out granary/watermills/libraries. But there are exceptions of course, and Kamehameha is as nasty as any of the rest. I would have tried bribing him elsewhere, or bribing someone to attack him.

A single archer in Helsinki, or a timely denouncement, might have prevented (or at least postponed) the DOW as well.

I would encourage OP to reload as an experience to learn exactly the minimal effort needed to save an early game.

Concerning the fact you couldn't see any negative diplo modifiers : the AI has the possibility to be "Deceptive" which means they can hide all the negative modifiers at will. You can still find out if they like you through the trade deals they offer and the tone of their voice in the diplo screen

With an early DOW like this, the AI might not even been in deceptive stance.

 

[Maxattack]

The aggressive expander hate is pretty severe, but it only triggers with five or more cities. At least on Standard, I am not clear if it changes for map size.

Wait does that mean that a Tradition game will never trigger that even if you get 3 settlers around T30 thanks El Dorado, peace treaty, trade route plunder gold and one self made ?

One warrior and two scouts is enough for me most early games (even at Deity) while I sort out granary/watermills/libraries. But there are exceptions of course, and Kamehameha is as nasty as any of the rest. I would have tried bribing him elsewhere, or bribing someone to attack him.

A single archer in Helsinki, or a timely denouncement, might have prevented (or at least postponed) the DOW as well.

What's the rule of thumb to know if you're in danger or not in this regard ? Because I've seen AI DoW while still being vastly inferior on the military score...

I would encourage OP to reload as an experience to learn exactly the minimal effort needed to save an early game.

Definitely

With an early DOW like this, the AI might not even been in deceptive stance.

I have absolutely no clue how the deceptiveness of the AI is triggered, I only know it exists...

 

[beetle]

Wait does that mean that a Tradition game will never trigger that even if you get 3 settlers around T30?

Correct. So you can be very early with those first four cities, Tradition or Liberty. It is only with the fifth early one that relations get dicey.

What's the rule of thumb to know if you're in danger or not in this regard?

I do not think there is one. I agree that military score is not indicative. It is more about AI personalities, and watching their troop movements. If the AI has troops on your borders, the AI is planning to DOW. But just denouncing them can buy you several turns. No reason why that should be the case, but it works more often than not! The DOW bribe always buys you turns as well.

I have absolutely no clue how the deceptiveness of the AI is triggered, I only know it exists...

I do not think there is a hard trigger.

 

[danaphanous]

I've noticed some AI are more likely to be deceptive then others. I haven't paid enough attention to see if there is a trigger to the status but I think from past games it's more likely to start early and when they want to eventually invade you. If you've been the enemy of someone for a while they are usually open in their hostility. They only do it when there is a chance they can "trick" you but regular trading rounds will warn you and tell you how they really feel.

As for the reckless expander modifier, I get that every game lol, and someone always DOWs me like clockwork. Bribes can keep it down to one aggressor though. Shoshone Empires I had more cities then every Deity AI for a large portion of the early game I was expanding so fast. It was great. Reckless early expansion was the goal for that game though, so I'm not claiming it as a good strategy, it was just the challenge for that series. One thing you can do when you expect to be attacked is simply build defensive border cities. I had a nice mountain range and hills so I built a river/mountain/hill city near a mountain range to the east. All the early aggressors suicided their massive armies against it for the first half of the game, never going for the farther away, but weaker other cities. I could defend it with like 4 ranged units and 2 melee no matter the size army they sent all the way till artillery. Renamed it to Helm's Deep that city was so awesome. Terrain choices for your big empires make a world of difference in defensibility.

I couple viewers mentioned how "lucky" was to have that terrain, and it's true, I was glad it was there. But it still takes active early choices to predict where you will be attacked and choose to settle in a way that your city is impervious. There is strategy there not just luck. It really tickles me that the AI will ignore the rest of my 11 juicy cities and continue to suicide on the strongest one just because of silly things like proximity, but if you play long enough you can predict this behavior and use target cities like this to keep a huge empire safe.

 

[apocalypse105]

Just depends on the map some Ai are better if they have more space..

 

[fau78]

On King level, the AI has already got a bonus, and your own development speed is the same as deity. So they could go faster than you theoretically.

It looks like if you do not have a "visible" strong army to AI they will attack you for no reason. (Not quite confirmed, but indeed once I had a strong army at home; but no one at border town. The AI (Inca) DOWed me; I S/Led and just moved my army to the front, I saw they come; but they didn't DOW. If someone could confirm it?)

I like play King level, too. I cannot help but clicking on building wonders. For a thousand times I tell myself to build the army not the wonders, but I just cannot stop myself. (Yep, so I suck at higher difficulty level). One time I got almost all ancient and classic wonders as Babylon with one city. The Khan came with massive army and a Khan, I got a warrior...

 

[fau78]

Just depends on the map some Ai are better if they have more space..

Yes, some AIs' routing is selecting liberty policies. At one point, they will start spamming city if they have room. (Shaka and Napoleon is quite impressive on this. Shaka once settled a city between my two 7-tile-far cities on a large map). If they are not stopped one time, they will not be stopped. (Of course on King's level you could still get an army to beat them; however, if you don't want to go violent, they will have more culture, have more advanced technology so that you cannot catch them).

 

[poxpower]

On King level, the AI has already got a bonus, and your own development speed is the same as deity. So they could go faster than you theoretically.

It looks like if you do not have a "visible" strong army to AI they will attack you for no reason. (Not quite confirmed, but indeed once I had a strong army at home; but no one at border town. The AI (Inca) DOWed me; I S/Led and just moved my army to the front, I saw they come; but they didn't DOW. If someone could confirm it?)

Yes the AI is more aggressive towards you if your military is weaker, and more afraid / friendly if it's larger.

This is especially true as soon as you build nukes and they have none. Then you can watch all the declarations of friendship roll in as every AI cowers before your might and wants nothing but to be your friend so you don't nuke them.

In general though I don't find it makes them DOW you so much. What really pisses them off is other things like you forward-settling them or expanding too fast. Make 6 cities with liberty while they only have 3 and almost any AI will team you no matter what your army is.

 

[beetle]

Make 6 cities with liberty while they only have 3 and almost any AI will team you no matter what your army is.

This is very true, but OP says he only had 4 cities at the time. Absent more information, I concur that it seems the AI on King randomly got good (aggressive). But, again, I think the RNG associated with personality bias leaves room for this sort of thing to happen every now and again.

 

[poxpower]

Well in his case, he was against aztecs, huns and polynesia, three big warmongers.

He says "attila declared war on me in BC for no reason!"

Lol that's what Attila does. That THE ONLY THING he does, declare war as soon as possible. He's the AI who declares war the soonest, even sooner than shaka or aztecs, because he gets all those battering rams and that emboldens him.

My guess is OP is used to playing with more peaceful civs or where the warmongers are further away from him.