AI still too passive compared to CIVIII

[Snazzye]

Today I was bored and reinstalled CivIII complete. I put the game at Regent just to keep everyone on equal ground and man what a difference compared to CivIV. I mean why does the AI never seem to go to war with the other AI's anymore? I played civ III for one hour and there were ancient wars going on all over the place. In civ IV I have to start all the wars and it just gets stupid.

BTW, Im playing BTS at noble and yes the AI is smarter in the sense that it will hang with you technologically and spam a bunch of units but they still dont declare war amongst one another like they do in CivIII. Why did they drop the ball here??? Thoughts?

 

[JujuLautre]

Some people like to play without too much wars you know; actually, I like it

 

[witten]

Well I find the AIs wage wars in more sensible occasions - more in Civ4, even more so in BTS particularly IMHO. If you are still not satisfied, why don't you try with 'Agressive AI' option on?

 

[theKurgen]

One thing I liked about the older versions of civs is sometimes a civ would demand tribute from you at your first meeting. If you refused, sometimes he'd say okay, other times he'd get mad and IMMEDIATELY declare war. Likewise you could demand tribute and sometimes that could spark a war too.

In civ 4 it just never happens. The AIs will ALWAYS accept peace upon meeting you which makes the early game very predictable. Also there is very little way to sour relations with other civs until writing is discovered and they start demanding to 'cancel deals'.

 

[CoZe]

get a big map and have two religious blocks form. then you'll see AI toring each other to pieces. it's fun to observe and decide which sides gonna win. if you can't pick the winning side correctly, nasty things happen ...

in my current game hindus and jews are on a world war. I was buddist but hindus slew my buddies elizabeth and vassalize wang kon. I had to switch to jew before they attack me. now hindus and jewish are fighting all over and also there's an inner war within the jewish block going on. for me AI is more aggressive than necessary maybe (I play emperor).

 

[Bhruic]

I still think it's a case of having too few default AI players for the map sizes. If you're playing a standard map with 7 AIs, there is usually so much room for the AI to expand that there is no need to get into an early war. Make the map more crowded, and the AI will run into neighbours that much faster, and give them more incentive to expand by warring.

Bh

 

[Snazzye]

One thing I liked about the older versions of civs is sometimes a civ would demand tribute from you at your first meeting. If you refused, sometimes he'd say okay, other times he'd get mad and IMMEDIATELY declare war. Likewise you could demand tribute and sometimes that could spark a war too.

In civ 4 it just never happens. The AIs will ALWAYS accept peace upon meeting you which makes the early game very predictable. Also there is very little way to sour relations with other civs until writing is discovered and they start demanding to 'cancel deals'.

This is exactly what I liked about the older civs too and the first thing that stood out at me when I went back to play III.

 

[I tech faster]

I just find it too random. I mean: you may have games where everybody is booming peacefully and others where there's always funny wars going on. Firaxians should add more diplomatic options or enhance IA's behavior so there's often some fun events happening.

 

[Soneji]

A lot of the time they will not be warring just to try and keep up with the human tech wise.

 

[Snazzye]

A lot of the time they will not be warring just to try and keep up with the human tech wise.

I agree with this. However, I feel that should be different in that wars were a big part of the Ancient era and there should be more conflict going on.

 

[Soneji]

But they can't, because at that time they are prioritizing the same as you are:

Settlers
Workers
Anti Barbs
Wonders..

It is normally the human who initiates first war, either that or it is the human who is too weak and is on the end of the first war from the AI.

Once religion comes in, give it several hundred years, then the battles come. Only if you are not perceived as being powerful to the point of omniscient.

Unfortunately, due to the way this game works. Unless you want everyone to crash their economy and still be fighting with sticks in the medieval period you can't expect massive wars from the start.

 

[mynystry]

I just find it too random. I mean: you may have games where everybody is booming peacefully and others where there's always funny wars going on. Firaxians should add more diplomatic options or enhance IA's behavior so there's often some fun events happening.

yeah i think the diplomatic options at the moment are really crappy, for example when a AI ask you to join the war you can just say yes or no, no room for negotiations...

 

[Bandobras Took]

Personally, if I wanted a war game, I'd play Warcraft III. As far as I could tell, building a huge army and attacking everything was the ONLY strategy the AI followed in Civ III. When I first installed BtS, I lost a few games against Hatshepsut and Mansa because they did culture victories.

That's well worth having a few less wars, in my opinion.

 

[Bhruic]

yeah i think the diplomatic options at the moment are really crappy, for example when a AI ask you to join the war you can just say yes or no, no room for negotiations...

That's a good point. The AI will sometimes demand/request things from you. But sometimes they'll offer a trade. But I've never seen them offer a trade for declaring war on someone, just demands. I know they'll bribe other AIs into wars, it'd be nice if they tried it on my once in awhile.

Bh

 

[Flak]

Personally, if I wanted a war game, I'd play Warcraft III. As far as I could tell, building a huge army and attacking everything was the ONLY strategy the AI followed in Civ III. When I first installed BtS, I lost a few games against Hatshepsut and Mansa because they did culture victories.

That's well worth having a few less wars, in my opinion.

Agreed. There are plenty of war games out there. Civilization (the game) is not necessarily defined by wars, as much as the result of wars with the ensuing peace, and the cultivation of society.

 

[jessiecat]

Also agree.I never use war except to punish sneak attacks and vassilize in
early-mid game or in joint extermination of weaker civs to boost points in
end game. Diplomatic, cultural, spacerace or points victories are best in
that order. But that's just me. It's not a first person shootemup afterall.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I agree with the sentiment that extremely early wars should be rare in a game like Civ. It just doesn't make sense in most cases to start a war that early, when there's plenty of room to peacefully expand. I know from a historical standpoint, there should have been lots of fighting, but I think the barbarians satisfy this just fine.

 

[vra379971]

The BEST way to go about this is to use the Agressive AI option, and then add mabye 2-3 civs over default for the map...good times.

My current game has near double the players we started with.

 

[Craterus22]

Aggressive Ai seems to help... but eeven then I still see stacks of AI units just sitting there in enemy territory not attacking - ugh!

I am thinking of making a mod to increase the negative of borders, but increading the positive of trading.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I've called in the past for "peace weariness" in addition to war weariness. Basically, my thought is that being at peace with a civ you have a negative attitude modifier towards should anger your citizens. Peace with civs you have a positive attitude towards could also make your citizens happy to balance it out a bit (but the weariness should outweigh the happiness).