I recently played several games on Prince difficulty. In each of those games, the AI was an absolute pushover. Only once did an AI invade me, and it was easily broken-up (despite all the free units they get).
So I started trying the next difficulty level, King. In the first game I played on King difficulty, all but one of the AI civs were Friendly. Shortly into the Classical era, one of the Friendly civs attacked me! No denunciation, no hostility, no insults. Went directly from "I love you" to "DIE PIG!" Within the next 10 turns or so, every single other civ I'd met declared war on me as well. My score was second-highest and I was careful not to encroach on anyone's borders.
I was about to lose my first city, when one of the AI civs attacking the city declared war on the other AI civ attacking that city. As amusing as this was, it saved me in the short term, as the AI units suddenly focused on attacking each other and left my city alone completely.
Eventually, however, I ran out of units and the AI kept getting them out of thin air, so game over.
That brings us to the second game, also on King, that I just finished playing. In this case, I had only met 3 civs. One to my north, one to my south, and one on another continent. All 3 of them were friendly; in fact, 2 of them even asked me for declarations of friendship (which I accepted). The AI's were apparently also on good terms with each other as this didn't cause any backlash.
The civ to my south then contacted me and asked for a research agreement. I accepted. Two turns later, that civ (still Friendly) attacked me, cancelling the research agreement we had just signed and both paid for. I was holding my own, but then a few turns later, the civ to my north invaded, also while still showing as "Friendly."
Somehow, I managed to hold my own despite being massively out-numbered. With only 3 cities and a small handful of units, I was already dealing with unhappy citizens and a budget deficit (and yes, I took all the happiness resources available, built markets, etc). In contrast, the civ to my north had about twice as many cities, at least a dozen units at any one time, and no apparent problems. The civ to my south had about the same number of cities, but was producing units like crazy. I really wish the developers would eventually realize that creating a stupid AI that cheats like crazy isn't what players are looking for when they ask for more difficulty....
So anyway, like I said I managed to hold them at bay, though one of my cities changed hands a few times before I eventually got a firm grip on it. After awhile, both civs offered me a peace treaty within a few turns of one another, and immediately went back to "Friendly" status when I agreed.
4 turns later, the civ to my south attacked again. The very next turn, the civ to my north attacked. This time, they each had a slew of new, more modern units. The civ to the south surrounded my city with about half a dozen trebuchets (their only ranged unit in the previous war were archers) and other units. The civ to the north swarmed across my border and started attacking my capital with knights, crossbows, and samurai (Japan's special unit). In the previous war just a few turns ago, they relied on archers and several swordsmen (despite only having 2 iron).
That's when I got sick of it and quit the game. I probably could've forced a stalemate until they gave up and offered peace, but they'd only attack again in another few turns. Besides, it's impossible to spend time creating the happiness/money/science/culture buildings (let alone wonders) that are necessary in order for your civ to keep up and stay solvent, while simultaneously dedicating all your cities to unit construction just to fight off wave after wave of free units given to the overly aggressive AI.
Here's the thing: Why even have diplomacy? If the AI is going to attack regardless of your relative strength and regardless of how much they like you, why not just apply a mandatory "always war" flag on King difficulty and above? It's just not realistic. It would be like if Britain (in this century) suddenly launched a nuclear strike against the United States for no apparent reason. Up until now, Civilization games have actually been a fair teaching tool for high school teachers wanting their students to learn about international diplomacy (I was first introduced to civ when my sophomore World Studies teacher had us playing Civ 2 MPG hotseat for our spring final lol).
But now, it's just crap. There's zero realism in friendly civs constantly attacking you at random as if they were hostile. It's one thing if they're pretending to be friendly for a sneak attack, but this is just ridiculous! And it doesn't make the game more fun, either. In fact, it makes it so tedious and annoying that I can't play it anymore! That's it. I'm done. Unless you're looking for just another mindless, smash 'n bash bloodbath game, this is officially unplayable as-is.
In all the years of playing civ, I have never felt the need to install any unofficial mods or patches. Until now. I've read on some forums that there are a few mods/patches out there that fix this problem. If that's the case, can somebody tell me which ones I should get?
So I started trying the next difficulty level, King. In the first game I played on King difficulty, all but one of the AI civs were Friendly. Shortly into the Classical era, one of the Friendly civs attacked me! No denunciation, no hostility, no insults. Went directly from "I love you" to "DIE PIG!" Within the next 10 turns or so, every single other civ I'd met declared war on me as well. My score was second-highest and I was careful not to encroach on anyone's borders.
I was about to lose my first city, when one of the AI civs attacking the city declared war on the other AI civ attacking that city. As amusing as this was, it saved me in the short term, as the AI units suddenly focused on attacking each other and left my city alone completely.
Eventually, however, I ran out of units and the AI kept getting them out of thin air, so game over.
That brings us to the second game, also on King, that I just finished playing. In this case, I had only met 3 civs. One to my north, one to my south, and one on another continent. All 3 of them were friendly; in fact, 2 of them even asked me for declarations of friendship (which I accepted). The AI's were apparently also on good terms with each other as this didn't cause any backlash.
The civ to my south then contacted me and asked for a research agreement. I accepted. Two turns later, that civ (still Friendly) attacked me, cancelling the research agreement we had just signed and both paid for. I was holding my own, but then a few turns later, the civ to my north invaded, also while still showing as "Friendly."
Somehow, I managed to hold my own despite being massively out-numbered. With only 3 cities and a small handful of units, I was already dealing with unhappy citizens and a budget deficit (and yes, I took all the happiness resources available, built markets, etc). In contrast, the civ to my north had about twice as many cities, at least a dozen units at any one time, and no apparent problems. The civ to my south had about the same number of cities, but was producing units like crazy. I really wish the developers would eventually realize that creating a stupid AI that cheats like crazy isn't what players are looking for when they ask for more difficulty....
So anyway, like I said I managed to hold them at bay, though one of my cities changed hands a few times before I eventually got a firm grip on it. After awhile, both civs offered me a peace treaty within a few turns of one another, and immediately went back to "Friendly" status when I agreed.
4 turns later, the civ to my south attacked again. The very next turn, the civ to my north attacked. This time, they each had a slew of new, more modern units. The civ to the south surrounded my city with about half a dozen trebuchets (their only ranged unit in the previous war were archers) and other units. The civ to the north swarmed across my border and started attacking my capital with knights, crossbows, and samurai (Japan's special unit). In the previous war just a few turns ago, they relied on archers and several swordsmen (despite only having 2 iron).
That's when I got sick of it and quit the game. I probably could've forced a stalemate until they gave up and offered peace, but they'd only attack again in another few turns. Besides, it's impossible to spend time creating the happiness/money/science/culture buildings (let alone wonders) that are necessary in order for your civ to keep up and stay solvent, while simultaneously dedicating all your cities to unit construction just to fight off wave after wave of free units given to the overly aggressive AI.
Here's the thing: Why even have diplomacy? If the AI is going to attack regardless of your relative strength and regardless of how much they like you, why not just apply a mandatory "always war" flag on King difficulty and above? It's just not realistic. It would be like if Britain (in this century) suddenly launched a nuclear strike against the United States for no apparent reason. Up until now, Civilization games have actually been a fair teaching tool for high school teachers wanting their students to learn about international diplomacy (I was first introduced to civ when my sophomore World Studies teacher had us playing Civ 2 MPG hotseat for our spring final lol).
But now, it's just crap. There's zero realism in friendly civs constantly attacking you at random as if they were hostile. It's one thing if they're pretending to be friendly for a sneak attack, but this is just ridiculous! And it doesn't make the game more fun, either. In fact, it makes it so tedious and annoying that I can't play it anymore! That's it. I'm done. Unless you're looking for just another mindless, smash 'n bash bloodbath game, this is officially unplayable as-is.
In all the years of playing civ, I have never felt the need to install any unofficial mods or patches. Until now. I've read on some forums that there are a few mods/patches out there that fix this problem. If that's the case, can somebody tell me which ones I should get?
