They need to hotfix AI agression now

[pilot00]

Do early wars help or hurt the AI?

I feel like the discussion has devolved completely down to 'no wars therefore broken' rather than an analysis of the metaresult, which could very well prove that the AI is being hurt by it.

Using your post as a corner stone, I am not replying to you directly.

There has never been an analysis of anything. There have been 3 distinct sides in this (as in every topic regarding civ 5 in this forum)

One side is those who love the game to the death, the other is those who try to trash it for no reason and a small minority who tries to point out its flaws in the hope of finding answers and fixes for it. Unfortunately as it happens in every thread with similar subjects those who post about the problems and hope to find a solution are wrapped with the trashers because the lovers are the majority and project hostility, as if we are about to murder Sid himself. To the mentality of this forum you either love CiV or hate it, despite numerous attempts to prove otherwise. Be that as it may, you will never reach an end result like this, rose glasses and all.

Given the fact that I have been flamed with a glove twice thus far, this will be my last post in this thread.

Thats not a fact, thats an impression you got. And its not true, because I was attacked early on allready, even though I was defended.

You made this up. You are not honest about the situation.

What guarantees that you are the honest one though?

 

[Makavcio]

This has turned to a standard internet flamewar, nonetheless I'd like to add something.

I do not lack wars in early phases of my games. In my latest game (continents/large/epic/emperor) Poland together with Japan wiped off of the face of their continent Netherlands, Brazil and was almost done with Ethiopia before I met them. A moment later, Poland attacked Japan. At the same time Sweden was dueling with England on their smaller continent and the Aztecs cleansed their continent by eliminating Austria. I was stranded on my own landmass without any other civilizations.

There's one very important improvement in comparison to G&K: AI does not wage pointless wars, ie DoWs for no reason against civilizations located far away and impossible to reach. On the other hand, war was promised as an outcome of high tourism pressure on civilizations with other ideologies. I haven't seen a single war of this kind so far. Furthermore, my continent was connected with coastal tiles with Japan - a country of similar size, 5-6 times bigger army and slightly more advanced in military technology. I've even settled on a tiny island and our borders become tangent. There was hostility in their diplomatic actions, I made friends with their enemy, they bothered my city states, they kept harassing me with their spies (note: which is extremely rare in BNW). They could have rape me silly but did nothing.

The story above plus the rest of quite rich my experience so far compels me to say that:
- AI is relatively aggressive up to Renaissance era, however it loses its interest in wars from that point;
- attacks against human players are universally seldom and it's even rarer to see real wars, not skirmishes intended to end after several turns;
- AI becomes dormant in industrial era and one could pretty much disband any army at that point because it will never be of any use anymore (other than for fighting barbarians);
- even though it was advertised as one of very likely scenarios, AI never goes to war against civilizations that oppress them with tourism and cause great civil upheaval;
- AI does not react in any military way, or any way whatsoever, to rivals pursuing victory of any type.

In my personal opinion, stated above facts are issues that need to be fixed. They just do not have any strong logical justification and in many cases are even hard to explain. The pinnacle of it is my situation with Japan. Tokugawa, a ruthless warmonger, did not take any actions against me, even though my lands were by all means ripe for conquest.

Do you agree with my observations? Or maybe I'm under false impressions?

 

[Securion]

I did a small test this morning; 6 games to medieval without building a single unit. 3 on King and 3 on Emperor. The 3 games on King I wasn't attacked, even though I face-settled the AI in two of them. On Emperor I was attacked all three times.
It goes with my own experience as well; The AI seems very slow and friendly on King and below, and can be still very aggressive on Emperor and above, if they have a good reason...

 

[DemonMaster]

I did a small test this morning; 6 games to medieval without building a single unit. 3 on King and 3 on Emperor. The 3 games on King I wasn't attacked, even though I face-settled the AI in two of them. On Emperor I was attacked all three times.
It goes with my own experience as well; The AI seems very slow and friendly on King and below, and can be still very aggressive on Emperor and above, if they have a good reason...

I have only played 6 BNW games so far, three on Prince and three on King and I have in all but one been attacked during the Ancient or Classic era. In the one that I wasn't attacked, I started on my own small continent. Those six games are the games that I finished. I have started several more, but quitted because of "Oh no, surrounded by warrior rush warmongers again", "Venice on a lake, what are the odds" or the gazillion times of I have never seen so much worthless land where I'm suppose to start".

 

[Nivrax]

2 more games I experienced:
-Deity Venice/large/cont. Assyria from the get go swallowed China and was warring on-and-off with Siam, killing them at one point. Took over half of bigger continent. Japan (neighbor with sea between us) friendly until he suddenly attack due to my small military. Ghandi friendly whole game, but during Industrial+ he got bored of Japan and launched attack on him going as far as through my lands. Other continent: Rome took Arabs and became superpower with 2/3 land being his. Germans nearly wiped Celts, then was in constant war with Ceasar, had less production on units but higher tech, so neither side could win. And myself I get attacked by Assyria late game with his ships going all around from northern tip to my southern asylum.

-Immortal Morocco/large/cont. My part of world shared with Rome and Greece. Ceasar DoFed from get-go, lying of course (spy confirmed) and was pushing me to go to war with Alex. God-son decided to go 40-50 tiles from his capital to settle next to me so I had to act, few turns later Ceasar joined the fun. After last of Greece city burned to ground, 5 turns later Rome, being only trading partner left, broke RA and backstabbed. Other continent, Sweden killed Portugal in Reinessance, and is attacking England now. Babylon is attacking Ghandi. Mongols randomly attacking city states while being era behind in techs.

It seems fine to me. Deceptive ais will attack you after taking their closest neighbors out. Insane civ are insane. The rest is more likely to stay friendly with you, which was kinda needed. How are you supposed to make use of trading routes if you had GnK ai of 'borders touching -> time to war'? Though I can image game being too peaceful IF you don't roll any insane/lying ais on map, those are usually who start wars until Congress and Ideologies can stir the pot.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Emperor, Continents, all settings standard.

I'm playing as Sweden, got a really nice tract of land that I quickly settle. I decide to not go warmongering this time, but instead try a cultural win.

Now, to the northeast I meet Assyria. That's fine, they're warmongers but I can handle as much.

To the northwest, I meet Shaka Zulu. Uh-oh.

To the north (between Zulu and Assyria) I meet Attila the Hun. Holy Carp! I get ready for some skirmishing and fortify my borders.

To the west, finally, I meet Austria, the only non-warmonger civ in our happy bunch. We're five civs, of which three are warmongers, crowded together on a smallish, snaky continent with lots of coastline and an inland sea.

NOTHING HAPPENS FOR FIVE THOUSAND YEARS.

Sure, the Warmonger civs build big armies, but all those armies do is sort of shuffle around each others borders, gazing longingly across to the other side.

Finally, around the middle ages (turn 140 I think it was) Shaka takes a neighbor city-state and then declares war on Austria. Makes sense, she's militarily the weakest and built some juicy wonders. I declare war on her as well, sensing her impending doom and hoping to curry favor with Shaka. I take her capital and sue for peace for another city. I get some minor warmonger penalties with Assyria and the Huns but as they "tolerate warmongers" they didn't care very much (though the penalty stayed for about 80 turns which I thought was a bit excessive).

IT TAKES SHAKA 100 TURNS TO WIPE OUT THE FINAL AUSTRIAN CITY.

Now, Maria of Austria is down to one city. It's not a very well-defended city either, and Shaka has tons of impis. But for some reason, he can't seem to... just... DO IT.

Now, turn 250 and onwards there are lots of war declaring and denouncements going on between the AI civs. The Zulus and Assyria agree to kick the Huns out of the game, but never manages to, even though he is weaker than both of them. Granted, Shaka manages to take a single border city from Attila, but with two warmongers flanking him like that, more should have happened.

On the other continent, I meet Siam, Babylon and Japan (another warmonger). I remain neutral, keeping friends with everyone and building up my tourism. There is some war declaring going on here and there, at some point Japan takes a city-state and a small Babylonian city but that's about it.

...

The AI seems cowardly in BNW, too cautious. No way should a game with four strong warmongers result in so little. Shaka should have run away with my continent, sharing the Hunnic lands with Assyria and then finally taken Assyria for himself. Japan, on his continent, should have invaded Babylon with much more gusto.

Something needs tweaking.

Other than that, great expansion! Lost countless of hours of sleep!

 

[Trystan CT]

Is there anyway so you can play with the same bonus's as the AI at higher levels

I'm purely a casual player and get destroyed on king and above, but playing on prince something doesn't feel right, the AI just doesn't really seem to do any wars until ideologies

Its the first time I've looked at these forums because after a few games something just doesn't feel right, like they have overcompensated and Nerfed warmongering too much, so i went to the net and seems there are other people feeling the same way

so yeah back to the original question , it seems like emperor and above there is early warfare and stuff happening is there a way i can set up the game so i get the same bonuses as the AI at these levels?

Many thanks

 

[Zet]

The story above plus the rest of quite rich my experience so far compels me to say that:
- AI is relatively aggressive up to Renaissance era, however it loses its interest in wars from that point;

There's no rule that says that the AI should become less aggressive in the Renaissance.

If you're seeing this, it's because the AI has started hating other civs more than yours or because negative diplomacy modifiers have expired (like denouncing, or coveting wonders/lands, etc).

Once ideologies come into play, civs will you hate you merely for having a different ideology. Civs with the same ideology will like you.

- attacks against human players are universally seldom and it's even rarer to see real wars, not skirmishes intended to end after several turns;

The AI makes peace easily if you do not have many or any negative diplomacy modifiers. If they hate you, they will not stop the war until they're starting to lose.

- AI becomes dormant in industrial era and one could pretty much disband any army at that point because it will never be of any use anymore (other than for fighting barbarians);

Industrial era means ideology comes into play which are a major reason for war.

- even though it was advertised as one of very likely scenarios, AI never goes to war against civilizations that oppress them with tourism and cause great civil upheaval;

Your statement is completely false. I have played many culture games, and the AI usually becomes hostile and often declares war when under severe ideology pressure, or when I'm getting close to influential with them. If you don't see anything like this, then maybe you should up your difficulty level.

I've just lost a game where all 3 civs whom I had previously managed to stay at leace with, become hostile because I was getting close to a culture victory. They declared war at the same time, never accepted peace, and took my capital before I managed to win.

In a previous game, my neighbors were the Ottomans who were under severe pressure from my tourism. They made a last desperate attack on me, which failed, and then shortly afterwards they revolted to my ideology and I also became influential around that time. I'm constantly seeing this behavior in my games. In my culture games, I actually start building a strong military in the Industrial era for this reason. Before that, I can get by with diplomacy, but once ideologies come ino play, wars are inevitable (and the AI actually tries to kill me, rather than giving up quickly).

- AI does not react in any military way, or any way whatsoever, to rivals pursuing victory of any type.

See above.

 

[DemonMaster]

<>
- AI is relatively aggressive up to Renaissance era, however it loses its interest in wars from that point;
- attacks against human players are universally seldom and it's even rarer to see real wars, not skirmishes intended to end after several turns;
- AI becomes dormant in industrial era and one could pretty much disband any army at that point because it will never be of any use anymore (other than for fighting barbarians);
- even though it was advertised as one of very likely scenarios, AI never goes to war against civilizations that oppress them with tourism and cause great civil upheaval;
- AI does not react in any military way, or any way whatsoever, to rivals pursuing victory of any type.
<>

In one of my BNW games I played Morocco and did quite well in my culture & tourism game. My neighbours (ShoSho and Aztecs) made several wars against me and I won all of them (took some Aztec cities). When we came in to the ideology play I selected (first) Freedom and both the Aztecs and ShoSho selected Autocracy (Netherlands was also on my continent and they also went Freedom). When the ShoSho went down to the revolutionary (whatever it is called, i.e. the -20 thing anyway) they attacked me (and their pact of steel partner, the Aztecs).
In my latest game. I manage to (with some fools play and trickery) have the congress to have Freedom as the ideology to be accepted in the world, even though only me and Poly had Freedom. In this game, Rome and five other AIs had selected Order (the 8 and final AI where Autocrat). Rome (and some friends) started a world war over this.

 

[Makavcio]

@Zet
You write a lot about AI being hostile and in my experience AI is hostile, though it's pro forma hostility. Nothing really comes out of their attitude. They just inform me how much they despise me and how puny my armies are, yet words is all I get. I find it really strange mostly because I'm dealing not only with traditionally brutish civilizations, but also in-game proven warmongers.
I'll try to play on immortal difficulty. In all of my king and emperor games the dawn of ideology was also the beginning of peace and love So far immortal was unsurmountable for me but heck, it was my standard g&k difficulty setting!

 

[Makavcio]

Is there anyway so you can play with the same bonus's as the AI at higher levels?

Afaik, there is not, though there is a way around it.

Civ4 used to be extremely boring on all settings below the hardest and the hardest but one, yet at the same time it was extremely difficult, especially in the beginning. I used to use world builder to cheat a little and even the odds this way. In Civ5 you can use mods to do exactly the same. Buff your initial location using some bonus resources or add a river to your neighborhood. It's simple, doesn't feel too much like cheating, is not gamebreaking in any way and you are able to experience AI's full performance.

 

[Razonatair]

AI seems pretty sane to me. Decided to play all-out warmonger as Rome a few hours ago, rushed with Legions to beat the Dutch into a blood, annexed pulp over the course of two wars, ticking off the Indonesians who fumed and hated me for a while until I annihilated them too over the course of two wars. At this point I'm still using Legions armies intermixed with some longswords and trebs, but I've basically pissed off Carthage, Hiawatha, and Venice. Hiawatha decided to DoW me and break the 6 trade routes I had with him, suiciding his economy into the dirt in the process, with Carthage DoWing me the next turn. All this technically before the Renaissance really gets into gear. I stopped playing though because victory was basically assured at that point.

 

[pittbully]

Hey everyone. I know my first and only post might not mean much, but i felt that perhaps it could help. I have been a longtime lurker since i found the fall from heaven mod for civ4 and i have grown to love the franchise. That being said, i was initially a supporter of a much more selective and cautious ai because thats what i want in my games. However from the three games I'm playing, I'm just not seeing that:

Continents
Huge- 14-15 civs, 20-24 cs
Epic
King-emperor
Standard resources
Multiplayer (2-3 close friends)
No time victory everything else good

Game 1 Siam and myself (arabs) on a continent alone with two cs. I'm ahead overall but siam is just under (within 10-15 pts). We both started opposite sides and with only barbarians to contend with, had plent of time and room to expand and grow. He begins wonder spamming 4 or 5 in a row and i gwt concerned, so i check my advisors, trade and information tabs to get a scope of the situation when i notice that my military advisor says that his war is laughably one-sided and hes not sure if Siam has an army at all. So, i figure well we are each others only trade interest and siam i dont think is an aggressive civ so it makes sense. I send a scout down there to check up on him and low and behold, he has not one military unit built. Not one. Perhaps he doesnt see me as a threat, possibly gauging me from my civs ai personality... Waiting for friends to continue this game.

Game 2 I begin as japan and have a rough start, plagued with barbarians, forests and jungles. Where i started is basically the shape of a rectangular shaped donut (enough for two cities side by side along most land surrounding a land-locked lake 8 tiles wide and 20 or so in height). in the south, a deep jungle passage opens up to a much, much larger continent inhabited by my friend and 3 other civs. I began on the left side of the donut and the celts started on the upper right side and from early on they were killing me in score, found the first religion and had two cs as allies while i was losing the meager warriors and archers to an endless horde of barbarians. I pick liberty with the idea that if i can drop three cities quickly, i can make up for the momentum i lost early on and i do so, settling one to cut off the south and one to split the north part of the donut in half. The third city, i got a little greedy and dropped just south of the celts with its borders hitting three fish in the lake and netting lake victoria a tile away from the lake. The celts did nothing at first and even managed to spread there religion to two of my cities well after i founded shinto. But then out of the blue they declared war (friendly before this) and immediately sacked both my trade routes (well timed and smart on the part of the ai). I knew that i was in trouble, i had three archers and a chariot horseman to my name and only one archer and the chariot can even come close to defend that greedy city i placed due to the 20 plus terrain move through the jungle. So i post one archer just in front of my northern city and purchase an archer in greedsville while positioning my other archer n chariot just ahead of that city to get a glimpse of what they're bringing. Well, it wasn't pretty- two archers, 4-5 of there uu spearmen, two catapults and a great general to boot- all move towards greedsville and i back up my two units. Next turn- nothing so i move my units back up one. Next turn- they begin rotationally moving around their city, which continues for some turns until, out of the blue, they send one catapult, by way of the lake, to my northern city which my one archer killed just as it reached land and that was it. I negotiated peace, and she of course declared war and sacked one trade route that I tentatively had in place. So this time i amassed troops and killed them all with arrow fire until i extinguished the celts. Waiting for other friends to continue this one...

Game 3- just started...

Obviously this isn't enough info to conclude anything but i firmly believe that the ai will sack military entirely for other opportunities to develop, and that the ai doesn't lack aggression, but rather something is happening that keeps them from enacting on that aggression. I'm basing this off of both my experiences as well as every post in this thread (work is slow atm hehe). Not that what i feel is original by any means but perhaps its beneficial to anyone who is looking to.make their own conclusions.

People have suggested that gpt hurts early aggression and i think that could be part of it in the early early game, but happiness factors and the ai lack of concern for developing early luxury resources post just as much of a problem as gold does i would think. So perhaps some civ trait tweeking for warmongering civs would help like taking an early city enables a slave trade route to your capital etc.. I also think that pehaps the honor tree needs some tweeking as well to help anyone who wants to war early on.

Aside from that, i really do think something unintentional is happening, something flawed in the algorithm that determimes ai combat, and that it is most certainly circumstantial.

 

[Kwami]

Eh, another game with no war until the Atomic Era.

I was Morocco (Immortal, Continents, Standard, Standard). My neighbors were China, Japan, and The Huns. On the other continent were America, Babylon, Rome, and The Inca. There were no major wars on the entire map until after the Atomic Era when The Huns finally attacked me with one pathetic wave of units and then promptly sued for peace when I killed those units. Later, China and Japan both declared war on me, but their militaries were pathetic and easily repelled. The Huns eventually ate both of them, but they still didn't war with me again. Even though my military is weaker my land is mostly flat and I've given them open borders and we have different ideologies and my pressure is starting to make his citizens unhappy... Bah.

On the other continent, Babylon was eventually wiped out by America and Rome in the Modern Era, but otherwise not much has changed.

I wanted to see how fun Petra and Kasbahs would be, so I left myself very vulnerable in the early game with only a Warrior and an Archer for defense until after I'd build Petra and expanded to five cities. My land was almost entirely flat, so it took a while to do this without much Production. I was expecting China to attack and ruin my fun at any moment, but she never did. DoFs for everyone!

That's three games of BNW and three games with no wars before the Industrial Era despite a weak military and warmongering-flavored neighbors. Buff the aggressiveness!

 

[OmniPotent42]

Played an immortal game where I was friends with everyone...only was DoWed twice from Attila because I had DoF's with everyone and constantly gifted them GPT and luxes when they wanted them. Yes I was ahead in tech, but I had the smallest military (like a few subs, 2 infantry and a lancer or two) so they could have put on pressure if they wanted, but my juicy trade routes probably kept them from doing so, as well as my uber-friendship.

TL;DR working as intended. The AI shouldn't DoW people just because they can, because trade routes and precious unit maintenance are important to manage.

 

[Teholb]

Played an immortal game where I was friends with everyone...only was DoWed twice from Attila because I had DoF's with everyone and constantly gifted them GPT and luxes when they wanted them. Yes I was ahead in tech, but I had the smallest military (like a few subs, 2 infantry and a lancer or two) so they could have put on pressure if they wanted, but my juicy trade routes probably kept them from doing so, as well as my uber-friendship.

TL;DR working as intended. The AI shouldn't DoW people just because they can, because trade routes and precious unit maintenance are important to manage.

This is precisely my experience, on Emperor. I just cooperate with the AI, and the AI is generally much better at "being friends" than it ever was in G&K or Vanilla. In games that I don't have enough resources to afford such an expensive strat, the AI is decidedly more aggressive and less forgiving of my expansion.

 

[nokmirt]

In my first game as the Shosone on prince. I noticed the AI being somewhat aggressive. The Zulus expanded quite quickly but were put in check later by the Assyrians. Brazil my neighbor took two Assyrian cities which were located on the other continent.

I did end up getting dogpiled in the late game, because I had DoWed on Venice twice, the Zulus, then Indonesia. Finally Brazil DoWed me followed by what was left of Venice and Indonesia. Then Morocco then joined in soon after. Assyria remained guarded for awhile and later turned hostile. I was about ready to take out Assyria's capital for domination victory, when I won the vote as world leader, ending up with a diplo victory.

Assyria used three atomic bombs on me. Two were dropped on a rather insignificant coastal city. The other was dropped on a city behind my huge army. I wish they would program the AI to drop them on armies sometimes instead of just cities. If they do drop them on cities then I am just getting really lucky.

One thing I noticed is that my game was very long 496 turns by the time it ended. I still did not have Cold War atomic weapons. At the end I was producing 1134 science and still was not researching techs as fast as I thought I should have been. Maybe Rationalism is the order of the day from now on.

All in all the AI aggression could be picked up a notch. My next game I'll move up to King and a large map and see how that goes.

The game was still a lot of fun. Hats off to Firaxis for a job well done.

 

[dexters]

Using your post as a corner stone, I am not replying to you directly.

There has never been an analysis of anything. There have been 3 distinct sides in this (as in every topic regarding civ 5 in this forum)

One side is those who love the game to the death, the other is those who try to trash it for no reason and a small minority who tries to point out its flaws in the hope of finding answers and fixes for it. Unfortunately as it happens in every thread with similar subjects those who post about the problems and hope to find a solution are wrapped with the trashers because the lovers are the majority and project hostility, as if we are about to murder Sid himself. To the mentality of this forum you either love CiV or hate it, despite numerous attempts to prove otherwise. Be that as it may, you will never reach an end result like this, rose glasses and all.

Given the fact that I have been flamed with a glove twice thus far, this will be my last post in this thread.

I actually think this is a quarrel among people who like Civ5. I don't see a lot, if any, blatant trolling from the hater contingent, who has largely been silenced since G&K.

Going back to my original question, how does a reduction in early wars help/hurt AI.

 

[kkapalk]

My first game had no wars for a long time. I did feel the AI was far too passive, but I have since changed my mind. I have had two more games since, and in one got DOW'd by the Zulus a couple of times early in the game. Indeed I had built so little an army through misplaced confidence that I got swarmed badly. The next game Greece kept attacking me, pilaging and breaking trade routes, etc. Their army was also very substantial. So my opinion now is the aggressiveness seems to be ok for what I want out of the game. To be honest I need an amount of breathing space to get my head round all the changes, so if the AI does go to war slightly less frequently this is fine by me. It will give me the chance to fully comprehend the new culture/world congress concepts.

 

[Buccaneer]

Played an immortal game where I was friends with everyone...only was DoWed twice from Attila because I had DoF's with everyone and constantly gifted them GPT and luxes when they wanted them. Yes I was ahead in tech, but I had the smallest military (like a few subs, 2 infantry and a lancer or two) so they could have put on pressure if they wanted, but my juicy trade routes probably kept them from doing so, as well as my uber-friendship.

TL;DR working as intended. The AI shouldn't DoW people just because they can, because trade routes and precious unit maintenance are important to manage.

This is exactly my current game as well. I really hope this is not as intended where we can easily neutralize nearly everyone, not having to build up forces, while paving the way to winning because the AI does not know how to use the WC, tourism or tech race effectively.