AI strangely aggressive in 0.31d?

[Kilrathi]

In playing my second game on 0.31d, it seems like the AI's overly aggressive, or at least declares war at weird times -- I've played a fair amount of FFH and never seen weirdness like this, though maybe it was just the circumstances...?

The first case saw me found the Order (I was the Good Malakim) and then three civs convert to it in the space of the next few turns -- including Jonas, who went from Evil to Good after adopting it. The very next turn after going from evil to good, and with my diplomacy rating with him positive, he declared war. Not much happened in that war (since Faeryl Viconia declared war on me shortly thereafter and was closer, so I fought her instead), and I finally paid Jonas 53 gold and showed him my world map and we were at peace... and his dip rating right afterwards was +6 -- +5 for brothers of the faith, +2 for being good and -1 for bringing in a war ally. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but I don't think I've ever gone straight from war to peace with a positive dip rating before.

Maybe weirder still, just before I settled peaceable with Jonas, Beeri Brawl declared war on me out of the blue. He was also Good and a member of the Order and, even after declaring war had a dip rating towards me of +6 or +7 (all positives other than a negative for being at war!). I'd been feeding him techs on and off for awhile and thought he was clearly in my back pocket and then, wham, war. Weird.

Is that supposed to happen? I did have a bit of a lead -- 845 points to Faeryl's 650 and then the rest were around 500 or 400 -- but I wasn't so far out ahead that I'd expected to be jumped on by two good fellow religionists. Have you guys seen this before? Is this a "feature" of FFH2 (hadn't seen anything quite this unpredictably weird happen in many previous games) or something a bit screwy with the AI in this current iteration?

-Kilrathi

 

[Nonobots]

maybe someone paying them to go to war with you? Faeryl could be behind those attack?

 

[Sarisin]

Did you select the Aggressive AI option?

Theoretically, that SHOULD make the ai a bit more feisty.

However, I had to abandon my last .31 game (I used that option) and there were very few wars. Additionally, all the ai civs had multiple defensive pacts and any one civ (like me) would have been a dope to declare war and have to fight a number of civs.

 

[sylvain5477]

Maybe they were all part of undercouncil ?

 

[Ekolite]

No you can't be in the undercouncil if you're good and if you worship order your automatically good.

 

[slowcar]

if the AI decides to attack you there is kind of an attack plan executed, like gathering troops, moving them to your border etc.
even if you get good relations with the AI inbetween the attack plan is still running and there is nothing short of another AI declaring on your "enemy" that can stop it, no gifting, no trading, no religion.
I learned this in the discussion after some deity succession game where the japanese finally agreed to open borders etc pp but attacked nontheless a few rounds later.

 

[rusty217]

Well you founded the Order, maybe they wanted the holy city...

 

[Kilrathi]

I didn't have Aggressive AIs on, and this was pretty early in the game so there was no Undercouncil yet. I don't think Faeryl had enough money to get them to go to war with me and, in any case, Beeri Brawl had been my closest ally right up to the time he attacked me and never liked (and had negative dip ratings with) my enemies.

For Jonas attacking me, I suppose it could have been that the attack plan was already in action when he came to see the light of good and the Order, though I hadn't seen any troops massing or anything like that. Absolutely no idea what was up with Beeri Brawl since his dip rating was strongly positive even during/after his declaration of war. Would wanting the holy city be enough for him to overcome years of peace and trading and a positive dip rating?

I've never seen that happen before... seems like a bug to me but maybe it's just some nuance of FFH I haven't seen before? In any case, sorta makes it less fun if all your diplomatic efforts suddenly get ignored and you're in the middle of a war with your former best friend (I've played enough civ to have a sense of when I'm treading on thin ice with someone, and this was totally out of the blue).

-Kilrathi

 

[westamastaflash]

You just weren't pursuing your religion with enough zeal. ;-) After all, the crusaders sacked Byzantium...

 

[Nonobots]

The way you describe it is rather odd.

I've played a couple of 31d games and haven't found the AI to be more belligerent or to be declaring war in any sudden way like you describe.

There might be something specific to your game. If it's a bug it might be appearing only with certain options on... what's your setting exactly (difficulty and options)?

Unless.. was Beeri Bawl stuck in a corner without any possibility for expansion? I've seen sudden war declaration in those cases. The AI wants to expand and it's the only option. Heck I'm the same.

 

[Kilrathi]

It was a custom game, on Noble difficulty, with hemispheres, random-sized islands and all the other settings as the default.

I guess maybe he was feeling a bit hemmed in but he did still have room to expand, and Faeryl was on his other border, so it'd have made much more sense for him to expand in that direction. Weird...

Gives me hope, at least, that this doesn't seem to be a common problem across the new version, which is nice since it's taken the fun out of this particular game and wouldn't be enjoyable if it happened all the time!

-Kilrathi

 

[rusty217]

Well if it is the expansion then he may have attacked you because you were already at war, so he thought you were the easier target?

Or maybe Jonas bribed him.....

 

[frenzyslave]

Maybe they attacked you because you military might was lacking? If your military is weaker than someone else (or near last of all the civs) that is enough reason to go to war. Check out the demographics screen.

 

[Niveras]

I've never seen that happen before... seems like a bug to me but maybe it's just some nuance of FFH I haven't seen before? In any case, sorta makes it less fun if all your diplomatic efforts suddenly get ignored and you're in the middle of a war with your former best friend (I've played enough civ to have a sense of when I'm treading on thin ice with someone, and this was totally out of the blue).

-Kilrathi

I play noble most often myself, and I have trouble with AI hardly ever declaring war on me (even with aggressive AI), even when I ignore diplomacy and basically tell them to bugger off if they come knocking. I've certainly never experienced a civ making a grab for a holy city I own, whether we share that religion or not, although that might be more common on harder difficulties.

As someone mentioned previously, a weak military presence might make them think you are easy pickings. That is the primary reason I've ever had a civ declare war on me, although exactly what they consider 'easy pickings' is probably varies based on difficulty level.

 

[Zeviz]

... and I finally paid Jonas 53 gold and showed him my world map and we were at peace... and his dip rating right afterwards was +6 -- +5 for brothers of the faith, +2 for being good and -1 for bringing in a war ally. ...

This is the key piece of information here. If you had to pay for peace, Jonas thought he was stronger than you. So you probably had weakest military in the game. And unless you are at "Friendly" relations, you will be constantly attacked while your military is considered too weak.

To be more precise, different AIs have different thresholds for declaring war. Many will happily attack from Pleased. Others will attack from Cautious. Only a few pacifists will not attack unless they are at Annoyed. They AIs you've listed (Beer Barawl, Viscona, and Johnas) are among the most aggressive in the game. And Svaltafar tend to have largest military. So not only are they likely to attack you, but their aggressive neighbors are likely to look for easier targets.

PS If you always play on low difficulty levels, you probably tend to be stronger than AIs, which makes them unwilling to attack you regardless of relations. BtS AI usually tries to aviod fights it knows are hopeless.

 

[Stormphoenix]

I dunno, in two games running ive had over 6-10 civs declare war on me in the same turn with no rhyme or reason as to why (same relgiions, alignments, I'm not far ahead in score or tech)

 

[Ecofarm]

On small pangea deity play-now, Perp won a domination victory on me

I didn't think he could kill everyone and keep everything before my attack put a dent in him.

I think Alex is good too.

BtS AI usually tries to aviod fights it knows are hopeless.

Except Alex of Greece. He is probably the cause of this, having declared with his army of spears:

 

[BeefontheBone]

I dunno, in two games running ive had over 6-10 civs declare war on me in the same turn with no rhyme or reason as to why (same relgiions, alignments, I'm not far ahead in score or tech)

The AI is easier for other AIs to bribe to join wars than for human players, so a bit of dogpiling will sometimes happen, especially if your power rating is low.
Obviously vassals and allies are pulled in with the declarer too. In FfH, there's a certain amount of hardocoding for the AI to dogpile anyone who starts the Tower of Mastery or the final Altar, too. And Basium's AV-hatred, too of course - though that can't happen with him the same religion as you (since he can't ever adopt AV), but it could if the player he's allied to switched to AV after building the gate I guess.