AI issues in team games

[Theon]

I decided I wanted to try a game with two power blocks in an all out war situation, so I set up an East vs. West game with two teams, me and 3 AI civs vs. the other four. I played on Emperor level because I wanted to see how two aggressive AI factions would compete.

Things went smoothly at first, only then I realized that the three AI's on my team, India, Japan and Siam were all acting like total douchebags in diplomacy. I don't blame them for settling aggressively near my borders, that's what I would do as well. But every time I went to talk to them they'd address me like I was their worst enemy. They'd be all "you're pathetic" and whatnot. They'd still trade with me at reasonable prices, but nothing compared to civ 4 AI's who would grant you access to spare bonus resources just to help you, their ally, along.

A little further in my game I had encountered a few city states, and started building relations with some of them. But of course my AI teammates eventually went ballistic on all the city states on our continent, and attacked them in force. And here is the best part, all the city states in the world promptly declared permanent war against me(china). After that, I was to be known as the "bloodthirsty one" amongst my teammates, while I never even sent a military unit remotely near a city state. Right.

On to the main course(and the main issue), after annihilating all city state resistance on our continent, I encountered the opposing team. They were amiable enough, and granted me access to their borders and even supplied more lucrative trade deals than my teammates. It's painful to watch Montezuma of the opposing team talk more highly of you than your own teammate Gandhi, who just throws insults in my face every time we meet.
Anyway, as was planned Germany of the opposing team eventually landed a surprise attack on my shores(his forces weren't removed from my territory after the DoW and cancellation of the open borders treaty, but that's not the main issue).
War had finally started. My allies finally proved their worth by aptly helping me defend my territory, and we soon brought the fight to the enemy by my seizing naval control of the channel separating our continents. But as soon as I was about to commence my invasion of Germany, we were suddenly at peace! It seems that my AI teammates decide when we are at peace or war with the opposing team. Every time the other team makes a hostile move and I move in to attack, we are suddenly at peace again before my invasion has reached sufficient momentum. I've been playing the past 200 turns in a constant flux of war and peace, in which I have absolutely no say whatsoever. I find this hugely frustrating, at least in civ 4 I was the guy to go to when other teams wanted to sign peace treaties or perform other diplomatic actions. This has actually ruined this particular game for me, and I don't see team games with AI teammates to be any fun if they make all the decisions for you.

Has anyone here had similar problems with team AI's?

 

[SureYouCan]

Yes I have had the same issues. To address a few points. 1. Your teammates hate you because they have access to all your information. Having an ally AI shows the truth about "diplomacy" I

t has nothing to do with anything except whether they are stronger than you. Gandhi the "peaceful" AI hates your guts because you're playing on emperor where the AI starts with more than you and therefore is immediately hostile. It then settles directly on your borders fighting you for luxuries/resources and the border proximity fuels the hate even more.

By the time you meet Montezuma you have advanced, he also doesn't have access to your military might. He can only "guess" and of course he probably hasnt settled a city on top of you. To him you could have GDRs in a corner somewhere he can't see just begging him to DOW you.


You've also confirmed my thoughts. I was about to load up a game with Gandhi to see if he would be as hostile as all other allies. Guess so.

Now for my question. Is there a way to get your ally to take his own tech path? I recently allied with Japan figuring I would let him run wild and kill everything. The only problem was I was teching to Chivalry for Mandekalu Cavalry and he was doing the same thing... which led to a warmongering Japan attacking Rome with warriors and chariot archers because he never bothered to beeline Samurai tech... in fact because he followed my path he didnt even have iron revealed.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

The AI is Civ 5 is just so utterly terrible. I don't even know it if is possible to fix it.

What is so horrible about the AI in this game is that its the way it is not because of bugs, but because this is simply how it was designed to be like. At the moment this is the biggest reason for why I just can't enjoy Civ 5 and why I doubt it will become properly playable even with patches. In order for the AI to become good, it will have to not only be patched but almost literally redesigned from scratch which is something I don't think is ever going to happen.

 

[Osetjka]

What is so horrible about the AI in this game is that its the way it is not because of bugs, but because this is simply how it was designed to be like.

This is very true for some of the other broken/questionable mechanics too. It seems that the AI just can't let go of their "playing to win" ego even on team games. In ciV, there really is an I in team. A far cry from the friendly team AIs in cIV..

 

[Elliander]

I'm having a different problem with team AI. (I hope I'm posting in the right place)

I tried it out on a huge map and set myself as the Roman Empire, and my ally the Japanese. I played as a complete pacifist. In fact, for the bulk of the game I only had one scout and one warrior. (I disabled city states and barbarians so I could play that way), but the Japanese fought as a Warmonger and so the other nations began to regard me as a warmonger. That made things very difficult later on because every time Japan wanted to attack someone I had the rest of the world attacking me sometimes 3 teams at a time, so I set up two settlers right against the enemy areas and started producing Artillery to fire from the lines. With one enemy I literally had them so close that in just one more turn I'd have captured them... and then Japan signed a peace treaty which forced me to stop fighting. So I turned my attention south and did the same, and sure enough Japan signed a peace treaty.

It looks like the actions of the AI partner reflect on me as the ally, which isn't too bad, but what really urks me is that whenever the enemy AI is close to loosing something they never ask me for peace, because I am the one attacking. Instead they ask the ally AI for peace who always provides it without fail. It's really frustrating to be pulled into a war I didn't ask for and then be pushed out of it whenever I respond accordingly.

Combine that with the problems mentioned above (which I didn't experience because I tried it on Prince first with even teams) it looks like teams are pretty much unplayable. Are there any Mods out there to fix the blasted AI?

 

[Mr_oconnell]

I am playing CIV 5 Team game compromising 12 civilisation 4 teams (3 in each team).
I grouped
Team 1:India (my Team) + Germany + Greece ,
Team 2 : England + Russia + Japan,
team 3 :America + Spain +France,
Team 4 : China + Saudi Arabia + Rome
Initially for like first 100 turns or so turn I enjoyed teams fighting against each other. The Map had 2 continents with me and Greece on same continent and Germany on other, And all of a sudden My team mate Germany started fighting against japan.so I was forced to attack England and Russia. As me india and Greece were on same continent we manged to hold England attack. But after few turns of peace suddenly we had a war with Team 3 , I manged to hold spain attack while My team mate was keeping America busy. But as we got in advantages postion and I was about destroy and crush spain , peace treaty was signed. and this went and on and on, while I didn’t make any wonders in my city , I just built improvements and militiray. And as the game progressed we( Greece and me)captured spain ,America and England. Finally in 400 or so turn I managed to go on other continent to save my other team Germany which was half captured by Saudi Arabia and japan. I never understood as why was Germany or Greece were Repeatedly going on war With Saudi Arabia and japan they never consulted me about the war , I never declared war for intial 300 or so turn , I was only asked for assistance twice which I agreed on terms to wait for 10 turns to prepare ,but war was declared after 3 or 5 turns ,
Saudi Arabia and Japan and rome were also well developed as they never attack each other and built wonders and improvements.
It was unexpected to see throughout the game only initially the other teams had gone on war with each other during first 100 turns or so . but from say 150 to almost 400 turns the other teams never fought each other and we were always in war with 1 team or the other after say peace for 10 or so turns in between. .
Finaly I discovered the trick of declaring war in between peace treaty by dropping a nuke as I had to go for conquest Victroy. I couldn’t wait for Peace treaty To over and than attack. Although I had never in the entire game offered or signed peace treaty. I don’t know which of my foolish team mate was signing the peace treaty when we were in advantages position.
And throught the game my teammates ( especially Germnay) never respected me, even though I won him back his capitol and freed his other cities and supported him with resources .I won the game finally in 498 turn capturing Beijing ( china) Conquest victory.


The things which I would suggest to be included in the next Civilkisation edition
1) WAR ROOM : were team mates can discuss strategy of advancing military units or position of military unit near borders, how to proceed the attack etc. etc like a war plan.
2) EMBASSIES BUILDING: in allied civilization: were Voting should be conducted between allies for declaring war or signing peace treaty. the more the team has developed the more % of votes it gets during the voting.
3) AI Cities can be used as base to Fighter airplanes/Bombers by Giving money per turn or so.
4) World body council –like alpha centauri for governer of the world. For varies aspects of game like trading embargos or Nuclear Weapons development allowment. Penalites or war against those For attacking city states.
5) Other Body council like Interpol / WHO / world Market
6) EPSIONAGE / SPY UNIT : Assasinations of other civilisations Advisors or bombing embassies, stock market/ Barracks and conducting riots .
7) Police station
8) ADVISORS: they are very very dull , they should be more informative and participative and should give better advice regarding improvements to be built, wonders , and advancing military units attacking other civilisations ( % of success for attack).
9) More diplomacy actions: like more negotitions options and tone of aggression can be choosed and AI should be less aggressive , and whats with the publicly denounced statements
10) Resources: if not available in your continents can be discoverable after some turns or ceratin year say 15th century .And resources can also be bought in world market.

I really enjoyed playing the team game and also plan to playing again soon , but it would be much more fun if we could alter some aspects of game,
Please do reply regarding my suggestions
BYE

 

[Halcyan2]

Now for my question. Is there a way to get your ally to take his own tech path? I recently allied with Japan figuring I would let him run wild and kill everything. The only problem was I was teching to Chivalry for Mandekalu Cavalry and he was doing the same thing... which led to a warmongering Japan attacking Rome with warriors and chariot archers because he never bothered to beeline Samurai tech... in fact because he followed my path he didnt even have iron revealed.

I liked how you could do this in Civ IV after a Permanent Alliance (select "Why don't you research...."). You and your ally could be researching different things.

It looks like the actions of the AI partner reflect on me as the ally, which isn't too bad, but what really urks me is that whenever the enemy AI is close to loosing something they never ask me for peace, because I am the one attacking. Instead they ask the ally AI for peace who always provides it without fail. It's really frustrating to be pulled into a war I didn't ask for and then be pushed out of it whenever I respond accordingly.

In Civ IV, the diplomatic modifiers carried on after a Permanent Alliance. Civs that liked me before might dislike me because they hated my new alliance partner.

Since the Civ V AI has issues with declaring peace at inconvenient times, it leads me to think that if you are going to do Team games with AI's on your team, the best option is to enable "Always War" so that you aren't able to have peace with the other teams at all....

Other stuff that Civ IV had that was useful in diplomacy: You could ask ("what do you think about...") as well as seeing the web of relationships (and ongoing trades) between various civs.

More importantly, you could suggest "Why don't you attack <SELECT CITY>" which could be done if you were Permanent Allies or just if you happened to share a common foe during war. The AI would actually be pretty good about attacking that target, allowing for better coordinated wars.

 

[headcase]

All the stuff suggested above would be great, but for now, they only have to do one simple thing: Subtract 1000 diplo points for team mates (less points = better relationship). That way, they are always Friendly, like any human team-mate would be.

Team-mates should also have locked DoFs with each other. It seems all teams do is lock team-mates into Defensive Pact.

 

[whyidie]

Pretty discouraging reports. Haven't gotten to this section of the game yet but its one of my favorites. Sounds like its pretty well broke in a number of ares. Like your suggestions Mr_oconnell that focus on more diplomatic options with AI, especially embargo's, etc.

 

[Putmalk]

It is a rather simple fix to grant a +100 diplomatic boost if an AI player is your teammate. So they don't hate you.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've been meaning to play a team game with the AI b/c it was fun in CIV. I'm very happy I read this thread and thereby saved myself the grief. Everything you guys have described is exactly the opposite of what I think a team game should be like. too bad

 

[whyidie]

It is a rather simple fix to grant a +100 diplomatic boost if an AI player is your teammate. So they don't hate you.

Not bad, sure you can bump the number up to whatever number would override the normal negative modifiers.

The other concern is the AI brokering peace at inconvenient times. That sounds like a pain. Don't suppose anyone out there has had better luck with this one ?

 

[smallfish]

Gonna quote myself because last time I tried it was a blast:

Map Type: Hemispheres
Terrain Settings: Low Sea Level, Various Tiny Islands, Arid Cool 5 Million Years
Size: Standard
No. of CS: 14
No. of Civs: 8

Civ Setup

Team 1: You (Augustus Caesar)

Team 2: Washington, Napoleon, Oda Nobunaga, Nebuchadnezzar (or Sejong)... if no DLC, the last leader go for Gustavus Adolphus or Darius

Team 3: Wu Zetian (or Dido)

Team 4: Ramkhamhaeng (or Attila)

Team 5: Montezuma (or Kamehameha)


Preferred Difficulty Settings: Emperor+

Extra Settings (Optional): Random Personalities, Disable Start Bias, Random Seed, No Cultural Victory

 

[smallfish]

Has anyone here had similar problems with team AI's?

What you should have done was to settle cities on the other side, gift them to one or two of your allies... and time your assaults so that you can capture 1-2 cities in a minimum of 5 turns after each peace.

Make sure you protect your team-mates' cities during each war (whether you DOW or they DOW).


There will come a point in time when even your team-mate will not want to make peace with the opposition, just be in constant war till their last cities are theirs.

 

[Mr_oconnell]

I've been meaning to play a team game with the AI b/c it was fun in CIV. I'm very happy I read this thread and thereby saved myself the grief. Everything you guys have described is exactly the opposite of what I think a team game should be like. too bad

Its not that bad , i enjoyed it though, but it is very very unpredicitble. u should atleast try it once for experience,{12 civ-3 teams each}.
so that u can share ur views on the team game.
BYE