In trying to improve my Diplo skills and understanding of each AI, I ran into a snag in a recent game. It was a fractal map, 2 continents (coast connected), the first being entirely mine save for a few vassaled malinesian cities feeding me techs. Our continent owned every religion except hindu, so of course they all had it. Wanting to build up and catch up in tech/pop after conquering the good land on my continent, I avoided OR/Theo/Pac to avoid the -heathen relations. AI's were Ragnar, Charlemagne, Pericles, and Pacal II. Of all the aggressive AI's, I find Ragnar to be the most random, so what happened at this point did not surprise me. I kept those four at friendly (occasionally dipped to pleased when I didn't give in to demands for tech). At this point I'm trying to figure out how I can steal a city to switch to Hindu, or incite a war between ragnar and another. Pericles was about an even power as me from medieval > industrial, and because of close borders and some other modifier I forget, was at cautious with ragnar the whole game. Ragnar was behind by 8-10 techs and only had 6 cities so I wasn't too concerned with him. I bribed Pericles to stop trade, and I gifted 3-4 techs to Ragnar to get him up to friendly. About 20 turns later, a few stacks of his galleons show up on my coast, DoW.. etc. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I took his land within 30 turns, but this was a failure to me because I really wanted to sic him on Pericles. The only logic I concluded was his decision to go after me came around or after me bribing pericles to stop trade with him, even through I gifted him up to friendly the same turn. I want to understand these aggressive AI behavior so I can use them to my advantage in future games. Here is my cursory understanding of them (correct me if I'm wrong). Monty will plan/DoW at pleased, but prefers to attack on his borders even if the AI is more advanced/stronger. Shaka is similar but goes after the weaker civ. Boudica won't DoW at pleased, in fact I hardly ever get problems from her hence I haven't figured out her logic, though she doesn't seem like much of an agg warmonger much like napoleon (who does DoW at pleased). Ragnar DoW at pleased and doesn't seem to prefer border civs over long distance ones (true to viking nature!). Ghengis I haven't really figured out because I rarely get him in my games. I'll be sure to put him in my next one. So am I right on this? I bookmarked this chart: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8762249&postcount=165 but I'd rather avoid getting into all that math when determining the likely war path. In the last game I figured the .5 cautious modifier would send ragnar after pericles for sure over the .9 pleased with me. Since they cancelled trade, doesn't that rule out a 10-turn-cannot-declare? I'm going to try an Epic Large emperor game with 16 civs and go for peace/culture win just to see some sparks fly.
Do you know when Ragnar went into "we have enough on our hands..." mode? Perhaps he had already decided to attack you a while ago before you got him up to friendly.
Actually no, I should have but didn't keep track of his red text excuses. When I bribed the trade cancel it was "Nothing to gain" though. You're probably right in that he decided before, but why would he choose me over a cautious, bordering civ at the same power?
Ragnar seems to prefer long-distance naval warfare. Not sure if there's actually code to support it, but it seems like that's what he always does in my games.
There is a complete PDF file with percentage chances of when civs will plan war on you. It's on the forums somewhere
