AI Accuses You of Conquering Yourself

[clearbeard]

It's nice that the new patch (1.0.1.141) has seemingly abandoned the whole "diplomacy should be mysterious" tripe. The new spirit of openness has revealed yet another surprising bit of behavior though: civs being angry with you for conquering yourself!

The scenario: I capture a worker from Oslo, currently under Siam's protection. Return to peace immediately (I know it's an exploit... so sue me).

Next turn, Siam comes calling, saying they're upset I attacked their friend. No surprise there. I say I'm sorry and go on my merry way.

Turn after that, Siam comes back with a new gripe. To quote: "It seems your word is worth nothing, as your conquest of Harun al'Rashid shows. How despicable. The world will know of your crimes." The amusing (and buggy) bit, of course, is that I AM Harun al-Rashid. Guess I've mastered the ancient art of lying to myself?

 

[DaveGold]

I'm pretty sure that the AI confuses players and this would explain much of the schizophrenic AI diplomacy in the mid/late game. It's pretty hard to pin down though as very little explanation is provided for AI diplomacy anyway and I've no idea if it persists through a reload.

 

[EndoConvert]

Turn after that, Siam comes back with a new gripe. To quote: "It seems your word is worth nothing, as your conquest of Harun al'Rashid shows. How despicable. The world will know of your crimes." The amusing (and buggy) bit, of course, is that I AM Harun al-Rashid. Guess I've mastered the ancient art of lying to myself?

Confirmed, and with a savegame available, too. I accidentally started a new thread "AI Accuses You of Conquering Yourself", which has the savegame and screenshot attached, because I forgot about this one. Could the mods please merge these two threads and move it to the Confirmed Bugs forum?

 

[EndoConvert]

If you DoW a CS under another civ's protection and then make peace with that CS on the very same turn, then the next turn, you may get a warning from the protecting civ to withdraw. Choose the nice option. The turn after that, you will be accused by that AI of conquering...yourself! This is clearly impossible and nonsensical.

Alternatively, you can wait to make peace until right after you get the warning from the protecting civ. You will still get accused by the AI of conquering yourself the turn after that.

For example, see the attached save game (1.0.1.141, with all DLC civs and the popular Info Addict mod), in which the player is China. Have the warrior DoW Edinburgh by stealing Edinburgh's worker. Then either make peace with Edinburgh immediately (on this turn 53), or wait until after Alexander tells you to withdraw the next turn (turn 54) to make peace with Edinburgh. The turn after (turn 55), Alexander accuses you of breaking your word by conquering Wu Zetian:

Spoiler :

I am playing as Wu Zetian! How could I possibly conquer myself?

 

[EndoConvert]

After some Googling, I found that others had also experienced this exact same problem, as reported in a general discussion thread "Your Own 'What' Moments":

I got a good "What!?!" moment for you. It's got to be a bug too. No pics or anything, but it's happened twice so I know it can be reproduced. Here goes....

I am playing as Russia, and move my spearman to the borders of a city state to steal a worker. I didn't know it at the time but Persia had declared to protect the CS. So my turn comes, I declare war and steal the CS's worker. Same turn I ask and get peace, and my free worker. Persia pops up saying how he doesn't like my agression blah blah, and I choose the nice answer, saying I'm sorry and will stop(I'm already at peace mind you), he says ok and he will be watching the situation closely. Next turn I move both my worker and spearman towards my lands, then my next turn Persia pops up again. Here is the "What!?!" moment. He says something along the lines of,"Your word can not be trusted. This is obvious because of your conquest of Catherine. Watch your back". I'm Catherine!!! I can't be conquering myself now, can I!?! I've had this happen twice, in two seperate games. I think he pops up the second time because I get a tresspassing for being in the CS borders between turns, but still he's mad because I'm lying and conquered Catherine? What!?!

 

[EndoConvert]

Oh, wow, now I remember why this situation seemed so familiar: because someone else had reported this very same bug a couple weeks ago, without any savegame, and I had posted in that thread and then forgot about the bug. The thread is at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407756. Could the mods please merge these two threads and move it to the Confirmed Bugs forum?

Civ 5 has so many bugs I can't even keep them straight. I did search the bug list, but since this bug hasn't yet been listed as confirmed I didn't find it.

 

[The_J]

Oh, wow, now I remember why this situation seemed so familiar: because someone else had reported this very same bug a couple weeks ago, without any savegame, and I had posted in that thread and then forgot about the bug. The thread is at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407756. Could the mods please merge these two threads and move it to the Confirmed Bugs forum?

Moderator Action: Merged, moved and listed.
I think 2 independent reports are enough for a confirmation.

Civ 5 has so many bugs I can't even keep them straight.

You're still better than me. I wouldn't have remembered thread anymore, i've already lost the overview.

And yeah, the state of Civ5 makes me cry. It's so embarrassing.

 

[baldfalk]

Darius says:
It seems your word is worth nothing, as your conquest of Ramkhamhaeng shows. How despicable. The world will know of your crimes.

I'm... uh... playing Siam.

This was a game that was crashing prior to today (no idea if the patch for Korean support had undocumented codebase changes) and I have saves, FWIW.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

Do you maybe have a current savegame for the situation?

 

[baldfalk]

Whoops, guess I'm bad at searching for threads; didn't actually occur to me to search in confirmed bugs.

Here's the save; do exactly as #4 says - capture the settler, make peace on the same turn, pick the nice option vs Darius, and the bug should reproduce.

To be slightly more useful, at least it's another separate confirmation with save state of the bug. Also, I'm not too sure what I was doing differently yesterday, but the game was crashing instead of Darius freaking out.

This is on Patch 217, completely vanilla with no mods.
edit: oh, it's not 217 anymore with the Korean support patch, but yeah.

 

[dshirk]

Thanks for the saves, we're looking for this one now.