AI giving up cities?

[Ronin228]

In previous versions of Civ it was nearly impossible to get the AI to give up cities during a peace negotiation. Now in my current game I was invaded by greece, he took two of my cities cuz my military sucked. I quickly built some swordsmen and horsemen, took my cities back and then razed one of his small border cities with me. After that he negotiated peace by offering two major cities with lux resources.

I would think he would fight to the death to keep me from taking his sovereign cities and oppressing his people, but apparanlty the AI doesn't care about cities anymore.

Anyone else experience this and think it's weird?

 

[Emperor Dano]

I've had something even odder happen to me.


I was fighting Darius I and had just captured and liberated a city state then took two of his cities. I waited about three or four turns to heal units and rebuild some of my losses when he sent me a peace negotiation. He was willing to go to peace with me and give me all but one of his cities (his capital) along with a large sum of his money. He had about 12 cities total...

 

[avakki]

It seems to vary a lot. I rarely get any cities offered in peace treaties, even when they have no chance of winning.

 

[Malachi256]

Prince difficulty game, I was pounding my neighbor the Iroquois... razed several cities. He offered me a peace treaty that included pretty much all his gold and I believe every one of his remaining cities (there were 3 or 4) except for his capital, obviously.

I refused, razed a few more cities, then accepted his next attempt and razed the one city that he gave me. It's worth noting that I was definitely in a position to wipe him out if he didn't somehow convince me to form a treaty, so being generous with the cities makes sense to me - they're mine either way.

 

[guczy]

Actually this isnt such a big problem with a human-AI war, cause you can just say NO, and take out the offered cities from the treaty. But when it happens with AI-AI, the winning civ will take the offer. This is one of the reasons why on a continents map one of the 2 continents is ruled by a single AI by midgame. TBH they already should have a hotfix for this as it is bordering "gamebreaking".

 

[MadRat]

I thought this "unconditional surrender" bug was fixed in an earlier patch?

Rat

 

[The Mad Russian]

I just finished a 4 Civ, Small/Prince/Standard playing time/everything else Random game as India(random Civ setting) and was stuck on the same continent next to a very unhappy Napoleon. I started in the Future Era(I wanted to get right into it with tanks and nukes).

I had about 8 cities with an average military(mostly MIs with a couple of Anti-tank guns) and Napoleon settled a city right next to mine even though he agreed not to(of course). So, naturally I massed my tanks and guns on the border, he did the same, and was mad at ME for me buying up tiles next to his cities since they were in his sphere of influence. The tension was thick. Next turn, the Diplo screen came out and he said something along the line of "Your lands will look nice added to my own." I told him to screw off, he DoWs me and starts attacking me all along the border with MIs and Destroyers bombarding my port cities. His first turn be breaks through the initial level and captures a couple of workers and destroys a road here and there. Next turn, I destroy almost everything he sent at me with bombers and a few cruise missiles as well as some Anti-tank guns in the rear. A few turns later I take his biggest border city and a screen pops up with a very sullen voiced Napoleon offering me a lot of gold(sum and per turn) and all of his cities minus his capital. My empire doubled as well as me liberating a city-state, which of course loved me after that.

I *never* remember any civ in Civ III to be that generous. Hopefully that will be one of the things fixed in the upcoming patches. 3 games played, 3 wins on Prince.

 

[Stoney the I]

have latest patches and all, and in my second game yesterday i was huge (25+ cities) and found that hiawata was huger (35+ cities) and he declared. was a stalemate war for a long time and then he came with a few decent units so decided to ask for peace

he gave me
- 55 gold
- open borders
- 12 cities

sure!

this cant be right

right?

 

[Thander]

I thought this "unconditional surrender" bug was fixed in an earlier patch?

Rat

It used to be that they would basically trade you every city they had with the peace treaty. Now they only trade about half their cities.

 

[shadowplay]

Yes, this is also happening to me. Arabia declares war, fights briefly and poorly, then offers to surrender 4 of 6 cities in exchange for peace. I certainly wasn't powerful enough to threaten him so much by force.

 

[rschissler]

I think the reason they offer all these cities, is because it hurts you to take them. You take a big hit in unhappiness, it takes forever to build courthouses so they are mostly worthless, and if you puppet them they drain your economy by only building stuff you don't want.

I always refuse their offer to take them. The AI offering the cities is just another flaw in the game. Instead, it should be an incentive to OK a peace deal, and benificial to both sides.

 

[SerialK]

Happens sometimes, i usually sell the most worthless cities, keep the good ones and burn the rest.

I have no issue with it. The only weird thing is that sometimes, a civ, with no remaining army and only one or two cities left, will do the opposite and refuse to give its gold or resources for a peace agreement.

 

[MadRat]

Happens sometimes, i usually sell the most worthless cities, keep the good ones and burn the rest.

I have no issue with it. The only weird thing is that sometimes, a civ, with no remaining army and only one or two cities left, will do the opposite and refuse to give its gold or resources for a peace agreement.

I have seen this a LOT.

Ok Mrister/Miss AI, you are down to 1 city in the arctic, with 1 rifleman and I have fleet of battleships whopping your puny butt town, I don't want to have to drag infantry half way across the globe to get it, just to raze it. I will NOT give you 300 gold and incense to end the damn war.

Rat

 

[Bandit17]

Happens sometimes, i usually sell the most worthless cities, keep the good ones and burn the rest.

I have no issue with it. The only weird thing is that sometimes, a civ, with no remaining army and only one or two cities left, will do the opposite and refuse to give its gold or resources for a peace agreement.

As was said earlier, it is not so much a problem for human-ai interacttions as the human has the choice to accept or not. The game breaking issue here is ai-ai diplomacy. The problem creates and promotes domination zerg fests that can allow an ai to quickly control large sections of the map with very little real fighting. This issue seriously hurts any player who is not shooting for a domination victory.

Example: In my last game as India (King) I was shooting for a cultural victory with just a few super cities. My main competetor for a cultural victory was the Americans who were also doing the same thing. In order to pull off a cultural victory you need to keep any one country from gaining too much power as domination victories are the easiest and most common form of winning in Civ5. This I was able to do with small control wars and large amounts of support to cs's that kept my neighbors in check. In one small war I was offered 4 small cities from the Egyptians and I politly declined as I thought it wasn't fair and unearned. Later on the Egyptians took a small city from the Russians and won all but their capital in a peace settlement!! Now the game began to get out of hand. I tried to form Defensive Pacts but this is a broken feature that I have never seen work. I tried to get my neighbors to join in a war against this new super power but none of them were interested. Finally the Egyptians looking at all my yummy culture and wonders and stormed down from the north and with their riflemen and insta-heals were able to quickly bypass my 70+ defensed cities!! I was able to hold them off in one corner of the map and I even began to push them back as I was able to get some form of a real army assembled. I again tried to get my neighbors to help as the Egyptians now controlled 2/3rds of the map but no luck. The Romans than sent me a message stating that the Egyptians have become a problem and asked for a secret pact! I laughed pretty hard at this moment but signed it anyways. Two turns later they declared war on America... Than as I was fighting for my life my other neighbor, the Germans declared war on me. At this point it was all over. I was able to live long enough to see the Romans get whiped out by the Egyptians but as the small German army was combining with the Egyptian massive one I decided I could spend my time doing something a little more productive.

Civ5 is broken (except for domination style victories) and the incomplete and faulty diplomacy is one big reason for this.

 

[Fredric Drum]

Sometimes you're offered their kingdom, sometimes they refuse to pay 1 single gold coin to save their last city and their existence. And if a leader has decided that he's not going to pay a dime for peace, no power in the world can change his mind.

Maybe there should be something in between?

 

[JP1]

Even after the initial patch to fix the computer's valuation of cities in peace negotiation, it seems like the AI is still too willing to give up its cities for peace. I've had multiple games lately where I've attacked an AI who the military advisor said was as powerful as me, I took their capital and killed a handful of units defending it, and they're already ready to give me all but one city for peace.

 

[logintime]

It used to be that they would basically trade you every city they had with the peace treaty. Now they only trade about half their cities.

About half the time. The other half of the time, they still offer all of their non-capital cities.

Case in point- my game last night: I invade the English and destroy a bunch of their units. Elizabeth sues for peace and offers every city in the trade. I say no and destroy her civilization. I then sail over to the other continent and invade Montezuma. After (barely) taking his capital, he gives me a peace treaty which includes all of his cities except his new capital. I take it and promptly invade Persia. After taking his capital, he gives me a peace deal with only half his cities.

This is still way too common and way too exploitable. My entire warring strategy last night actually hedged on Monty giving me his cities.

 

[al-rashid]

yep this always happens, generally the ai demanding mine. the annoying thing is the peace treaty negotiation seems to be soley based on military power or numbers, rather than whos actually winning it. ive had a civ demand all but my capital which is about 10 cities and all my resources and cash, after i captured and razed 2 cities..

 

[Bandit17]

yep this always happens, generally the ai demanding mine. the annoying thing is the peace treaty negotiation seems to be soley based on military power or numbers, rather than whos actually winning it. ive had a civ demand all but my capital which is about 10 cities and all my resources and cash, after i captured and razed 2 cities..

Ha ha! That reminds me of a massive late game war I had with the Russians in which they were stronger in almost every form. They had made the blunder of sending most of their forces to take some far off allied cs of mine while I destroyed their small numbers along my border and continued to raze/capure over half their empire (along with their capital) but because my army was still either equal or smaller in #'s they would never accept any reasonable peace! So I just whiped out their last remainding cities and drank all their vodka! Silly ai...did the devs ever play test this game?!