After being backstabbed...

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I was playing on Chieftain, I was playing Kievan Rus on Accurate Europe. Catherine was my at the time only friend before the rest of Europe allied with me.

Catherine was my friend, then I see Atilla, AND Catherine, ganging up on me (needless to say I took two of their cities each, including Catherine's Holy Capital)

AND NO Warmonger Penalty that mattered (yaay!)

 

[beetle]

One of the reasons people bad mouth RAs is because it is not uncommon to have a RA cancelled due to an AI DoWing. Some of those happened during DoF!

If a DoW ends up being the end to my game, I will reload to the turn before to try and figure out how I missed the “tells.” If there is really not much that I could do differently, I will reload, sign all the defensive pacts I can, and start mobilizing my few units. I also sell everything I can for lump sum gold to the AI who is going to DoW me. That is not always an option, but it happened just this past week! Most times, even all that reloading is not enough to save the game...

I am 99% sure this is not the case (they should refuse to accept the friendly trades like 1 strategic for 2 gpt) -- you able to demonstrate otherwise? Tried checking some saved games to see if I could find a leader in deceptive status but don't seem to have one handy.

I am 100% sure it is the case: I remember the situations clearly. Of course I don't have a save exactly at the point where an AI that I KNOW is being Deceptive, shows Friendly and trades like Friendly... but I clearly remember the case. At least, it trades luxuries 1 to 1, as in Friendly state.

I have experienced it both ways. Sometimes an AI shows friendly, but only offers bad (3 gpt for a lux) or weak (209 for a lux instead of 240) deals. Sometimes an AI shows friendly, when the turn before they hated me, but for one or two turns I can get fair trades. That is very helpful when the deceptive AI has something I need for WLtKD.

I think it may correlated to how closely the AI is to DoWing, or maybe this is peculiar only to some AI, but I am really not certain about the pattern.

 

[Scooter47]

I've only seen the "Backstab is such an ugly word" from deceptive leaders like Attila who was "friendly" with me (but no DoF). You're 100% positive you had a DoF, he didn't denounce you, he just DoWed on you? I've just never seen it happen.

Yes I'm 100% positive on that. Casimir has backstabbed me various times ignoring the fact I have a DoF with him. Its happened on various difficulty levels Prince, King and even on Deity the one time I tried it just to see how tough it was.

In my games Casimir mainly acts one of two ways. Either he acts all friendly offering DoF and trades luxuries and will then backstab at the first opportunity or he is a complete maniac who covets your land from the moment you meet him and will start wars against most civs.

Now I admit that is strange considering the Ai Bias table. However Isabella by comparison has Deceptive (5) but in most of my games she is clearly as deceptive as Dido (7). Only last night did I actually have a peaceful game with Isabella as my neighbour, she signed DoF, traded fairly and for once didn't try to convert my cities. My diplomat reported her plotting against Korea for the whole game.

My other neighbour Haile Selassie on the other hand was loyal and friendly. He converted one city but when I told him to stop he actually did. (Surprised me since the ai never usually listen) However he was plotting against me when I went for Freedom and he went Order. So was he actually being deceptive when he has a low deception bias (4), perhaps the diplomat plot uncovered message isn't always accurate, not sure.

I am puzzled by this since the table doesn't seem totally accurate for many of my games so I assume the flavour bias can be heavily influenced by other things such as army size, amount of land, tech, land coveting, difficulty level etc. Either that or somehow the game is assigning random personalities when I don't have that option enabled.

 

[beetle]

The civdata numbers are right of the xml, so they are accurate, but there are some traits that AFAIK have not been defined, and I am also pretty sure there is no documentation on how the numbers translate into expressed game behavior. My impression from playing is that the AI have a very narrow range of roles (stances) which are on not on a ten point scale. So comparing your experience with Isabella (5) and Dido (7), maybe there is huge in-game difference between (3) and (4)? That would let Isabella not be treacherous one-in-five games, but not Dido. This is all speculation on my part.

 

[ThorHammerz]

Please note that the AI Leader flavours are also given a random offset, up to +/-2.

So Isabella might have anywhere from 3 to 7 on a flavour that is listed as 5 in the XML.

As Beetle noted, they are NOT listed according to a 10 point scale. What's worse, is that Firaxis often uses arbitrary thresholds (i.e. is your flavor greater than 6? ok, do this. Is your flavor greater than 7? ok, do this).

 

[Scooter47]

The civdata numbers are right of the xml, so they are accurate, but there are some traits that AFAIK have not been defined, and I am also pretty sure there is no documentation on how the numbers translate into expressed game behavior. My impression from playing is that the AI have a very narrow range of roles (stances) which are on not on a ten point scale. So comparing your experience with Isabella (5) and Dido (7), maybe there is huge in-game difference between (3) and (4)? That would let Isabella not be treacherous one-in-five games, but not Dido. This is all speculation on my part.

Well it may be speculation as you say but it does seem to fit what has happened in my games recently. For some reason the game sometimes doesn't randomize Civs very well and really I've had enough of Isabella recently. One-in-five probably sounds about right to be honest but when she's turned up in a string of games and always been treacherous its hard to get used to her acting another way. The strange thing is Dido is always treacherous in my games but I've read comments where people have said she was loyal and friendly for the whole game. Maybe the game varies it up every now and then.

Please note that the AI Leader flavours are also given a random offset, up to +/-2.

So Isabella might have anywhere from 3 to 7 on a flavour that is listed as 5 in the XML.

As Beetle noted, they are NOT listed according to a 10 point scale. What's worse, is that Firaxis often uses arbitrary thresholds (i.e. is your flavor greater than 6? ok, do this. Is your flavor greater than 7? ok, do this).

So if I understand this correctly the AI behaviour can be varied according to certain conditions and if said condition occurs then they may change sufficiently from their default behaviour. That would explain a lot of what I've seen happening.

 

[ThorHammerz]

So if I understand this correctly the AI behaviour can be varied according to certain conditions and if said condition occurs then they may change sufficiently from their default behaviour. That would explain a lot of what I've seen happening.

Correct. Also, flavours (especially the "expansion" flavour) will change according to which "Grand Strategy" the AI is currently running. So at certain phases of the game the AI will also be more sensitive/insensitive to certain factors as well.

Case in point: in the very early game when the AI is trying to expand to it's initial target of 4-6 cities, it's expansion flavour is significantly increased. This partially explains why some AIs you meet will covet your lands immediately the moment you give them an embassy, but will revert to friendly (and lose the negative "We covet your lands!" modifier) later on in the game - i.e. they are not always just deceptive (although being deceptive does account for a large amount of that behaviour).

 

[beetle]

So if I understand this correctly the AI behaviour can be varied according to certain conditions and if said condition occurs then they may change sufficiently from their default behaviour. That would explain a lot of what I've seen happening.

Yes, absolutely. See the Diplomacy section in this Kickstarter post:

In Civ 5, you might have been lifelong allies with a leader, but once you enter the late-game he has no qualms backstabbing you in order to win... By no means should AI leaders be completely predictable. However, they do need a clear rhyme and reason behind their actions. The computer opponents in Civ 5 were completely enslaved to their gameplay situation, and as a result they appeared random and very little of their personalities shone through. They were all crazy, and in the exact same way... It doesn't matter what your intentions are or what's going on under the hood if the end result just isn't fun.

Maybe I have just gotten used to it, but the AIs seem less erratic in BNW than GnK. OTOH, Ideologies impose very strong “certain conditions”.

 

[Scooter47]

Correct. Also, flavours (especially the "expansion" flavour) will change according to which "Grand Strategy" the AI is currently running. So at certain phases of the game the AI will also be more sensitive/insensitive to certain factors as well.

Case in point: in the very early game when the AI is trying to expand to it's initial target of 4-6 cities, it's expansion flavour is significantly increased. This partially explains why some AIs you meet will covet your lands immediately the moment you give them an embassy, but will revert to friendly (and lose the negative "We covet your lands!" modifier) later on in the game - i.e. they are not always just deceptive (although being deceptive does account for a large amount of that behaviour).

Thanks that makes complete sense to me because I've seen it happen. In a recent game Gandhi acted that way very early on and I saw the red "covet your lands". Its clear it happened that way because both myself and the Mongols blocked off his expansion very quickly so therefore screwing up his favoured strategy. He only had 2 cities and was backed up against the coast. In this particular case trading an embassy didn't change it but it did go away later when I liberated one of his cities. When dealing with someone like Caesar I usually spot the "Covet" notification and then it vanishes a few turns later because he goes into deceptive mode. If that guy is being friendly I can see the backstab/Dow coming. I feel better when he stays Neutral.

Yes, absolutely. See the Diplomacy section in this Kickstarter post:

Maybe I have just gotten used to it, but the AIs seem less erratic in BNW than GnK. OTOH, Ideologies impose very strong “certain conditions”.

That's a good article and I do remember when I first got CiV how completely psycho the Ai actually was back then. I took a long break from CiV and actually got BNW first and really enjoyed it which then prompted me to pay for the Gold upgrade to get GnK and the other civs.

Although he does mention in the article that while he tried to make them more predictable they are still somewhat psycho under the hood. I personally find some more crazy than others but I've gradually got used to their various ways. What always puzzled me was the way its behaviour would sometimes radically change for no apparent reason but what I didn't take into account was its scripting variation.

 

[ThorHammerz]

In this particular case trading an embassy didn't change it but it did go away later when I liberated one of his cities.

Trading your own embassy is the worst thing you can do for yourself against an AI.

The AI will not "covet your lands" if it cannot see where your city/land is, which the embassy provides. Much better to just cough up the 1GPT for only his embassy. The diplomatic boost is like +3 modifier (note: a DoF/Denounce is worth around -30/+30 respectively).

 

[Scooter47]

Trading your own embassy is the worst thing you can do for yourself against an AI.

The AI will not "covet your lands" if it cannot see where your city/land is, which the embassy provides. Much better to just cough up the 1GPT for only his embassy. The diplomatic boost is like +3 modifier (note: a DoF/Denounce is worth around -30/+30 respectively).

As a rule I usually don't ever give them an embassy. I guess in that particular game I just felt he was no longer a threat to me.

 

[A.J.K.]

I just had an interesting backstab happen with Harald. I settled my 4th city on a natural wonder kind of close to his capital. I then saved my game. Something like 10 turns later, he DOWs me and takes my city pretty easily with a Berzerker/Trireme/Trebuchet blitzkrieg. Then, somewhat luckily, my game crashed.

Re-load and I offer him free Truffles to hopefully get him off my back. He then offers a DoF and I think "whew! dodged a bullet there!" but I build walls around the city and a few more military units just in case. Something like 10 turns later - BOOM! DOW! Backstab! He was kind of bottlenecked into a choke point and kept sending his melee units into the water where they were easy pickings for my ranged units and city bombardment, but even so he was getting my city into the yellow and I was sure I was going to lose it again. Out of desperation, I offer a peace deal, no terms just peace on both sides. To my utter shock, he accepted! Then, as soon as the peace treaty was over, BOOM! Attacks me again! Same thing - he gets my city down to yellow, I get nervous, desperately offer peace, and he accepts! Strange, but I'll take it! The second time, I think it was partially because Spain was attacking him from the other side.

So then, I built a castle and a galleass in the contested city and I had been gifted not one, but TWO longbowmen from a militaristic city state (one came right near the end of the second war), and when the Aztecs asked me to attack Harald along with them, I happily obliged (after using a great general to fortify my bottleneck and steal some of his land) and now I am well on the way to taking his capital. At that point I will probably see if I can get someone else to take his last city, the jerk.

Update: it took longer than I expected, but I finally took Copenhagen. My Longbowmen were only doing about 10 damage per hit so I was only making incremental progress. Finally they both got logistics so that helped. I think I only lost one crossbowmen (finger spasm sent him into the water, oops), one trebuchet, and a spearman, all of which were gifted to me by Sidon anyway.

I ended up paying Monty to attack Harald from the other side because he kept churning out units and I needed something to keep him busy... Monty ended up taking his 2nd largest city right before I took Copenhagen, and he then took out the tiny city Harald churned out in the middle of our war. Buh-bye Harald. I kind of wish I wasn't so close to Monty now, but since I'm into cannons and riflemen now and not too far off from artillery I think I should be able to fight him off should he get any ideas.

On a side note... I finally started exploring the sea and found an island to the east with a Natural Wonder on one side and 2 city states on the other... plenty of room for a city, so I now have 5 self-founded cities, 3 of which have natural wonders within their borders, and 1 puppeted capital. I've never had more than one natural wonder in a game before - pretty cool.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Wow, did you all piss in the AI's cereal or something? Or maybe this is something that mainly happens on lower difficulties? Just never seen it on Emperor or higher (mainly play Immortal/Deity). Hard to claim you're all lying in this case...just...weird.

At least, it trades luxuries 1 to 1, as in Friendly state.

That's not indicative of a friendly state. A friendly state is 7 gpt for a lux or 2 gpt for a strategic (if they care about the strategic at all -- a less friendly state is 3 gpt for 2 strategic or even less friendly is 1 gpt for 1 strategic). An AI will 1 for 1 lux trade

Best way to confirm Deceptive approach: a spy (yours or one of your Friend's) in suspicious AI city. The moment one of the spies reports "XXX is plotting against you", that is the confirmation you want. Plotting=Deceptive approach, nothing more and nothing less.

No, that's not the case either. For example, I caused a World Congress resolution to fail that a friend proposed. I knew I could suffer the hit since I had a ton of good diplomatic modifiers at that point. I was still informed that the AI was plotting against me and I had the negative modifier show up (aka, not Deceptive).

I have experienced it both ways. Sometimes an AI shows friendly, but only offers bad (3 gpt for a lux) or weak (209 for a lux instead of 240) deals. Sometimes an AI shows friendly, when the turn before they hated me, but for one or two turns I can get fair trades. That is very helpful when the deceptive AI has something I need for WLtKD.

Keep in mind there's a difference between disliking you and planning on go to war with you (especially if another Civ (who doesn't like you) asked that AI to go to war against you). A Civ might be fine with you and then decide that it make senses to take your stuff because they think you're weak. Not because you've actually done anything to bother them.

Trading your own embassy is the worst thing you can do for yourself against an AI.

On higher difficulties the other AIs will almost certainly have scouted your lands early on so it's a moot point. They'll covet your lands (or not) regardless of the embassy.

 

[Aristos]

That's not indicative of a friendly state. A friendly state is 7 gpt for a lux or 2 gpt for a strategic (if they care about the strategic at all -- a less friendly state is 3 gpt for 2 strategic or even less friendly is 1 gpt for 1 strategic). An AI will 1 for 1 lux trade
.

Nope. AI will only trade 1x1 lux if in Friendly or Neutral, or pretended Friendly.

No, that's not the case either. For example, I caused a World Congress resolution to fail that a friend proposed. I knew I could suffer the hit since I had a ton of good diplomatic modifiers at that point. I was still informed that the AI was plotting against me and I had the negative modifier show up (aka, not Deceptive).
.

Nope. AI does not hide ALL neg modifiers when in Deceptive, only some (usually, if not all the time, the "big red" ones, the heavier ones). Plotting = Deceptive, it's in the code in the dll.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Nope. AI will only trade 1x1 lux if in Friendly or Neutral, or pretended Friendly.

When did I say otherwise? My entire point was that a 1 for 1 lux trade was not a sign they loved you -- like you said, it is completely functional on neutral.

Nope. AI does not hide ALL neg modifiers when in Deceptive, only some (usually, if not all the time, the "big red" ones, the heavier ones). Plotting = Deceptive, it's in the code in the dll.

Interesting.

 

[ThorHammerz]

On higher difficulties the other AIs will almost certainly have scouted your lands early on so it's a moot point. They'll covet your lands (or not) regardless of the embassy.

Perhaps I should have implied a larger-than-standard-sized and/or a not-pangea-map (y'know, not the ones where you can literally map out the entire continent with just a few scouts in a couple dozen turns? )

 

[DarkestOnion]

After I have finally been back-stabbed, I move my units to wipe out the AI...and I look at my Warmonger Penalty and dare anyone else to get froggy