AI keep refusing to negotiate peace?

[feldmarshall]

I was attacked by my neighbor Denmark early in the game. Successfully defended waves after waves of their invasions (I'm playing Ethiopia with fewer cities), but the war got more and more tiresome. Especially since it forces my cities to keep building units and military stuff while I want to go play a largely peaceful game this time This is in Deity so it's hard to build an army that can cripple/overpower them, especially since my cities have to focus on military stuff before they develop well, at best I can just keep defending.

It's now mid game (we have Musketman) and stuff but Denmark still refuses even to negotiate (The diplomacy dialog always says, "we still have business to settle", "it's not the time for negotiation", etc).

What factors determine the AI's decision to negotiate? What can I do to make the AI want to negotiate peace?

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Have you tried to attack him at all or do you just defend? Some times just moving close to one of his cities and fire some shots can get them to the table.

 

[Phukit]

the ai can be very unreasonable at times,i have had games where they DoW me early,i take one of their cities,kill dozens of their units and lose none of my own yet they will only agree to piece if i give them a few of my cities and all my resources despite the fact that they have been on the losing end of the war

 

[joncnunn]

There are hardcoded minimum time before AI is allowed to consider peace.

The minimum one is a simple DOW where either side did it but no one called in allies.

But either side making a deal to get another player to intervene greatly increases the number. This is the "no fair getting another player to DOW against your opponent and immediately sign peace rule."

There is nothing you can do when this occurs until enough turns have elapsed. This is distinct from when the AI will consider peace but wants you to hand over cash for peace.

For the second case (them wanting cities or gold), AI effectively does not care what its unit loses are. It caps out at a very low value where it will get overwhelmed with what your overall military strength ratios are (as measured by the flawed calculation the military adviser uses.) Killing their units all day long won't help, you'll instead need to inflict them with more economic loses (take more of their cities.) Simply killing the AIs units won't significantly improve your ratio as they keep building new cities; you also need to increase your military score. Cheapest way is just build Walls everywhere along with building a couple of units intended to garrison future conquests early. Upgrading obsolete units will also improve your military score.

 

[feldmarshall]

There are hardcoded minimum time before AI is allowed to consider peace.

I do notice there is some kind of minimum time, but I don't think this is the case here.. For example, after the Danish DOW, Spain also DoWed me (each did this individually without any concurrent DoW from another player) and I have since made peace with Spain. Also, I'm pretty sure it has been about >50 turns since the Danish DoW

It's not that I don't offer him enough 'bribe', I can't even offer him anything because he won't go to the negotiating screen.

 

[reddishrecue]

At that point it seems that youre not making much progress and it would be a waste of time for you to continue in your attempts to dominating. Your units should be killing 2-3+ units/ turnif possible for you to make progress and make AI ask for peace particularly in deity where AI makes many units.

 

[feldmarshall]

At that point it seems that youre not making much progress and it would be a waste of time for you to continue in your attempts to dominating. Your units should be killing 2-3+ units/ turnif possible for you to make progress and make AI ask for peace particularly in deity where AI makes many units.

Yeah I think I'm gonna abandon this game. It started rather well, got a nice starting location, a religion with good beliefs and a couple of nice wonders (which is rare in Deity). But since the Danish invasion all my empire's resources are wasted towards building units, which are barely enough to defend my cities.

 

[phillipwyllie]

You say you need to keep building units which would mean you are losing units. To me that's not a successful defense. You start being successful when you kill a lot more than you loose.
To get the AI to consider peace you need to kill the majority of it's army.

 

[reddishrecue]

Yeah I think I'm gonna abandon this game. It started rather well, got a nice starting location, a religion with good beliefs and a couple of nice wonders (which is rare in Deity). But since the Danish invasion all my empire's resources are wasted towards building units, which are barely enough to defend my cities.

You can abandon so many games before you finally succeed at 1 or 2 of them.

 

[tide15]

I like to start my game by sending out scouts to find the AI cities and then leaving them in over watch positions in areas I figure the armies will be passing through. Then concentrate on getting two more cities started because that's what the AI does. Usually that gives me time to get a couple of archers and spear men built and positioned for the first attack.
When it does come I try to cause as much damage if not outright kill as many of the enemy as possible. When they start to fall back I go on the attack and try to wipe out all the remaining units including the General.
The game I have going now has been a real meat grinder for the AI as well as myself. Six AI Opponents DOW'd me within two turns. Luckily four where on two large islands so I could concentrate on the two on my island while just using naval units to cause the others damage.
To make a long story short that war lasted over 50+ turns and didn't end until I had conquered one opponent and landed troops on one of the other islands to cause them some misery