AI waging early war = scripted event

[Sascha77]

I'm sorry, but this is just too idiotic.

In all my games, the AI will always DOW on me early on - even when there is no friggin' reason to do so (either diplomatically or strategically). It usually happens when we're halfway into the Classical era.

Just now I'm on another Island Plates map as Japan and have only discovered two civs so far. I've not discovered either of their capitals (despite mutual trade missions and invitations to "share hospitality") - and I have plenty of land around me with just a few city states dotting the landscape. So I'm not even *close* to sharing borders with *anyone* and I haven't done anything to piss off the two players I've discovered (Vicky and Brazil).

Vicky was my declared friend, we're on the same continent, had good trade relations, etc. In fact: I just checked her relationship towards me and it is at +19 altogether. Her only complaint is that I'm "headed to bankruptcy" when I have 600 - 800 gold in the bank and am making 25 GPT.

But anyway: Out of nowhere she sends a few heavily damaged chariots and a warrior over and DOW on me.

And this isn't the first time I've encountered this behavior, either in my games or in let's plays I've watched on YT. In another game, Gorgo discovered me at the end of the classical era, went all friendly in the turn we met (sending/accepting delegations, etc) and the very next turn she declares - with no units other than her exploring galley near my territory.

EDIT: And here's how the war went.

I wasn't really prepared and only had an archer near my capital. Vicky positioned two warriors and two chariots to attack Kyoto and I didn't even have walls there yet. While I bought/built some more units and moved them towards my capital, she actually attacked the city itself after she healed her units by pillaging three of my tiles. She had the city down to about 50% health and *might* have had a chance of actually taking it (it was pretty close). But then she just stopped attacking the city for some reason, moved her units around needlessly and gave me time to bring reinforcements to the front. Needless to say that this gaffe was more than enough for me to recover, eliminate her entire invasion force (it didn't help her that I am Suzerain of a CS that's "guarding" the naval approach to my capital) and then she was instantly willing to peace out and shower me with gold.


S.

 

[bladex]

happens to everyone wait for a patch

 

[Sascha77]

happens to everyone wait for a patch

I didn't think I (or my Civ VI installation) were "special". Of course it happens to everyone. Doesn't mean I have to like it, does it?


Plus the stuff the ******ed AI does can be rather amusing (huh? I can't say re-tarded? Ok, fine.. the *brain-damaged* AI... better? ):


Brazil and England decided to go from declared friends to war back to friends for about 3 times in a row. The last two wars didn't involve any fighting and they always peaced out with very generous deals, granting me lots of GPT.

Then I started to discover more Civs. Congo was super-friendly on turn one. Then denounced me on the next turn for not bringing them my religion (the guy is ~12 missionary-movement-turns away from my nearest holy-site), then declared war on me.

And after that, some city state I hadn't even met yet kept declaring on me.

Plus all new Civs I met were automatically at war with me by default (without even a DOW) - the only good thing here was that I was able to peace out instantly with all of them.

Oh, and yes.. as usual, in about 50% of cases, I declared war on myself along with the Civ that was actually declaring on me.


On a more serious note: This feels like the AI "knows" me, even before we meet. There's other evidence that the game doesn't handle relationships (or absence of relationships) between Civs that haven't met yet correctly. Like the fact that I keep getting messages about interactions between two AI leaders complete with both names, when I have met only one of those two civs. Instead of "Montezuma has denounced an unmet player", I get "Montezuma has denounced Pedro" when I haven't met Pedro yet.

How else to explain the fact that I was already at war with civs I've just met? Or the fact that other civs instantly dislike me/denounce me or even declare war on me once I meet them?


S.

 

[stormtrooper412]

It happens to me. I found a way to deal with that by being the first to declare war myself and clear them out

 

[SupremacyKing2]

In all my games, the AI will always DOW on me early on - even when there is no friggin' reason to do so (either diplomatically or strategically). It usually happens when we're halfway into the Classical era.

I think it is scripted because it happens in every game, around the classical era every time, regardless of diplo relationships. I've had AIs declare friendship and then 5 turns later declare a surprise war. My guess is that it is a result of the no warmonger penalty in the early game which is prompting the AI to calculate war as a good option, especially, if it measures your military strength as weak enough. And we know the devs wanted the early game to have more war so I think it is by design. The problem is that the human player expects it and can be ready for it. The AI will usually spend time building up some military units for the surprise attack, building an early district or grabbing Stonehenge instead of settling a second city. I make sure to have enough units to defend my capital and protect my second city. So when the AI does attack, I am able to defend myself and conquer the AI, gaining another city. So it just ends up helping me.

 

[Solaxe]

It's pissing me off. Every single game AI keeps declaring pointless wars. And they won't accept peace even if I'm slaughtering them so they're dragging these stupid conflicts and throwing away their troops for no reason. And of course they can move troops into my territory without open borders. Had to stop many games because of this BS. I'm going back to Civ 5 until they patch it.

 

[Trias]

I doubt that it literally is a scripted event, simply because the civ AI typically ( in previous versions) does not really know scripted events as such. It is more likely that under certain circumstances (current military strength, warmongering/weariness penalties, etc.) the AI decides that "now" is a good time to go to war, which triggers a search for the best target. Especially in the early game, the AI may probably not regard current relations with a very high weight, leading to friendly AIs DoWíng. Moreover, since it has already decided to go to war, the "best" target may not even make that much sense strategically. It is well possible, that the AI will almost invariably reach this point somewhere in the classical era.

It is highly likely that some (maybe all) AI decision steps leading to this behaviour are flawed in some minor (e.g. bad weights for decision factors) or major (e.g. not considering important factors, or including factors with the wrong sign, leading to anti-logical behaviour).

 

[smartcanuck1988]

Is it a difficulty thing? ... I'm playing on King as China and Scythia of all people met me almost at Turn 2 and they went on conquering all the city states around me, and kept spamming tons and tons of horses... yet never declared war on me. Mind you I spammed Crouching Tigers and built the great wall at our borders, perhaps that deterred them.

In fact early on I lucked out on a proselytizer apostle and went straight to their capital and killed off their religion. Tomyris denounced me right there. She continues to complain about my units being near her borders. So she has many reasons to hate me (and she does) but never really declared war.


ps. Eventually I amassed tons of wealth and instantly upgraded all my crossbows to field guns and declared war on her.. and now it's safe to say the early/mid game tensions have all but gone.

 

[Underseer]

This happens to me, but rarely. I don't mind when it happens since I usually get extra cities out of the deal right when I need them, but it would seriously about me if this happened every game.

 

[chazzycat]

I wasn't really prepared and only had an archer near my capital.

Sounds like she made a good decision to attack you, just botched the execution...

I agree there is an issue with the AI not being willing to commit to attacking cities.

But early war is not a "scripted event" just because you left your capital nearly undefended.

 

[Amrunril]

Is it a difficulty thing?

In a sense. I can't speak for lower levels, but on emperor plus, the AI often won't wait for the Classical era. It just rushes you with its extra starting warriors.

 

[Raider]

Heh, the more I read these forums, the happier I am that I trusted my first impression and requested a refund before my 2 hours of play were up.

 

[TonkaTruck]

I personally like how trigger happy civs are on the ancient and classical era, it keeps in line with the actual "lore" of humanity haha.
Many times they had no actual beef to war with eachother, they just wanted more lands, slaves or some resources.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I personally like how trigger happy civs are on the ancient and classical era, it keeps in line with the actual "lore" of humanity haha.
Many times they had no actual beef to war with eachother, they just wanted more lands, slaves or some resources.

I do believe that is what the devs were going for. I just wish the AI were a little bit better at war and diplomacy. I've had games where the AI declares a surprise war, doesn't really do much and then sues for peace and offers to give me 100 gold and 5 gold per turn. So basically the AI just decided to give me extra gold for no reason.

 

[TonkaTruck]

I do believe that is what the devs were going for. I just wish the AI were a little bit better at war and diplomacy. I've had games where the AI declares a surprise war, doesn't really do much and then sues for peace and offers to give me 100 gold and 5 gold per turn. So basically the AI just decided to give me extra gold for no reason.

Yeah i feel genuinely bad for the AI sometimes, on Deity.
They decide to completely ignore my undefended capital, and instead go out of their way to chase what little units i have so that i have enough time to make an encampment and walls and force them to give me everything they have 30 turns later because i poked some of their units with my archers.
=(

 

[Alesson]

Heh, the more I read these forums, the happier I am that I trusted my first impression and requested a refund before my 2 hours of play were up.

I didn't even try Civ 6, when I saw that Montezuma looked like the white cousin of the Sleeping Beauty and came out straight from a Disney movie, just like all the other leaders, I realized something was wrong, and was a bit sad that leaders don't look dignified, respecful and as realistic to how they looked like when they were alive as they do in Civ 5. I had high hopes they would keep that amazing improvement to the game as high as they kept it in Civ 5, just when we finally got rid of those caricatures....

 

[smartcanuck1988]

In a sense. I can't speak for lower levels, but on emperor plus, the AI often won't wait for the Classical era. It just rushes you with its extra starting warriors.

Good to know, I will give higher difficulties a try. I dislike it when the AI gets unreasonable boosts just to make up for its lack of smarts, but after spending so many hours with king AI I'm starting to feel sorry for it

I personally like how trigger happy civs are on the ancient and classical era, it keeps in line with the actual "lore" of humanity haha.
Many times they had no actual beef to war with eachother, they just wanted more lands, slaves or some resources.

I agree. I personally have no issue with the early game being very aggressive. In the mid/late game wars will significantly go down. I only wish that "feelings" change over time faster, so sure back in 200 BC I had a war with England and they got beat. But it's now 1400 AD, could you please forget it? .. Just look at England and [insert any country] in real life! In Civ 6 it feels very very hard to keep an AI happy and once they hated you then that's it it's all downhill from there.

 

[idjit]

Yes, it's scripted. I've started about a dozen games including king, emperor and immortal difficulties. Every game starts the same regardless of difficulty or civ: nearest neighbor will DOW. So every start for me is scripted as well. Build order -> scout, slinger x5. Beeline archery, upgrade those 5 slingers to archers. Turn 25ish seems to be the time the AI will declare, well at least in Immortal.

As I said in another discussion it feels like your neighbors are always Attila no matter who they are.

 

[Sascha77]

Sounds like she made a good decision to attack you, just botched the execution...

LOL.. nope.

I'm now a bit further into this game (I play on a regular sized Island-map, King and Epic) and now I know that London is half a world away from my capital. Due to her having to send all her troops to me through coast-tiles, it took her at least 20 turns to send all that stuff up to me, so she must've made the decision to go to war much earlier than her actual DOW.

Plus: When I said I wasn't prepared, I didn't mean that I didn't have an army. I actually was fairly "well armed" when she did the DOW, plus I had enough funds to quickly buy two more units. Problem is that Classical roads suck and it took me three or four turns to move some units towards the capital/the front.

And like I said: I don't think it's a decision the AI makes. I've seen them declare when they are outnumbered or facing an army of equal size. And, (again) like I said: They declare on you even if you're on the other side of the world, so there's no strategic reason to declare. And let's not forget that Vicky isn't a warmonger, her secondary trait is "money-grabber" this game and I was at +19 relationship with her when she attacked me.

Now, I will admit that her troops did pillage one of my districts, which slowed my capital down for a few turns (loss of yield plus repair-time). But that was the first time I saw the AI plunder districts, so I don't think this is some sort of clever tactic to temporarily cripple another civ's capital by war/pillaging.

The AI religiously declares on the player very early on, hence my conviction that this more or less scripted behavior. Civ V's AI seems almost human-like in comparison. Yes, they had no problem declaring an early war, but they needed to have their reasons. If you were too close to another civ, if that civ was someone like Attila or Shaka or if you had a laughably small army, they would roll in with large armies and try to take your territory. But it wasn't an "automatic" thing in Civ V. Far from it, actually: If you weren't stuck in close proximity with an aggressive leader and if you built a few military units and didn't try to piss off your neighbors (via settling too close or going ICS), it was perfectly possible to play an entire game without getting attacked once.


S.

 

[nitedemon]

Instead of the "Montezuma has denounced an unmet player", I get "Montezuma has denounced Pedro" when I haven't met Pedro yet.

I know right, that bothers me. It's like spoilers alert ...