AI, victory conditions, and "playing to win"

[pchem]

Please forgive me if I have a fact wrong here...

When you begin building the Tower of Mastery, every AI except vassals will DoW on you to prevent you from winning the game. Right? Or is there an exception for friendly civs? I think there is also an exception for civs already at war, and that exception should maybe be revoked. The all-out DoW makes sense.

However, when almost finished the the Altar of Lu., or nearing a domination / conquest / culture victory, the AI will not do the same thing. Humans would, of course. Should the AI be changed to be more aggressive in the endgame? I think so.

Similarly, it's sometimes quite easy to get a small SoD and go gain vassals one by one. Yet, even though it may be clear to nearby civs that they may be "next on your list", they do not issue a DoW on you while you are distracted in your current war. Should AIs more aggressively backstab when you have demonstrated that you're going for a warlike, not a builder, approach?

As an aside, I think the Tower of Mastery should not be gold/slave/great engineer rushable. Same with the Altar of Lu.

 

[Methuselah]

Please forgive me if I have a fact wrong here...

However, when almost finished the the Altar of Lu., or nearing a domination / conquest / culture victory, the AI will not do the same thing. Humans would, of course. Should the AI be changed to be more aggressive in the endgame? I think so.

Evil civs are meant to declare when you have the 5th level or higher of the altar.

 

[Sarisin]

Evil civs are meant to declare when you have the 5th level or higher of the altar.

I don't think it works that way, M. I just had an Altar Victory and no wars, even when I was building the Final Altar.

In that game I was playing as the Amurites with the summoned Basium as my ally. There were a number of wars, but towards the end the two remaining Evil civs (Doviello and Clan) were worn-down, not AV, and, for some reason Basium stopped declaring war on them while I build the Final Altar.

 

[Methuselah]

I don't think it works that way, M. I just had an Altar Victory and no wars, even when I was building the Final Altar.

In that game I was playing as the Amurites with the summoned Basium as my ally. There were a number of wars, but towards the end the two remaining Evil civs (Doviello and Clan) were worn-down, not AV, and, for some reason Basium stopped declaring war on them while I build the Final Altar.

I did say "meant to."

It's written in the manual and it's in the warscript, it just doesn't seem to work properly.

EDIT: Basium only wars AV civs, not evil civs in general.

 

[Sarisin]

I did say "meant to."

It's written in the manual and it's in the warscript, it just doesn't seem to work properly.

EDIT: Basium only wars AV civs, not evil civs in general.

You're right, and I suppose at one point what you said happened - I just don't remember how far back.

Even your EDIT would be how it is supposed to work, but in the game I mentioned, I can say that Basium constantly declared war on non-AV Evil civs. I would wait until I could get peace and declare it. But, damn, if Basium wouldn't declare war on any Evil civ again when he could. That's why it was a little strange he backed off during my building of the Final Altar. Maybe Basium is FINALLY getting some intelligence.

 

[Methuselah]

You're right, and I suppose at one point what you said happened - I just don't remember how far back.

Even your EDIT would be how it is supposed to work, but in the game I mentioned, I can say that Basium constantly declared war on non-AV Evil civs. I would wait until I could get peace and declare it. But, damn, if Basium wouldn't declare war on any Evil civ again when he could. That's why it was a little strange he backed off during my building of the Final Altar. Maybe Basium is FINALLY getting some intelligence.

He may have just hated those civs then.