AIs almost never fight each other

[UnspokenRequest]

I got back to civIV Warlord after 6 months away from it. I just finished a game on prince, easily won. With this single game, I remembered why I got fed up with Civ4 six months ago:

Many of my games don't have much "events" in it unless I start wars. (on mid levels, at least)

Occasionaly a more agressive civ will try to attack me. However, AI's will almost never attack eachother. On mid levels, as soon as I win my first war, I usually can easily hold on to my lead and I win the game without any further events. The AIs should try to compete with me and gain power by attacking the least powerfull among them. They never to it!!! It's boring.

I'd like to be able to interfere diplomatically within AI's wars. I'd like to be forced to chose between two allies. I'd like to finance someone else's war without having to ask them to start it.

This seems to be much worse in Warlord than it was in Vanilla.

I am sure this has discussed before. But I want Firaxis to fix this for BtS. Am I the only one who thinks BtS should feature AIs who attack eachother just as much as they attack the players?

***I know that on higher levels, AIs tend to attack eachother a bit more, but it's still nothing compared to the AIs versus player bias. I don't care if there is still a slight bias. I just want AI to compete with eachother almost as much as they compete with me.

 

[Hold The Onion]

one of my friends always says this as well. He was convinced that they always attacked him. After playing hotseat games with him i realized it was because he never built enough military and they always chose him because of his low power ranking. Now almost all wars he's involved in are because he chooses to attack.

 

[Onagan]

I play a lot of games, were no wars between AI are fought.

 

[Sjaramei]

Make games with Montezuma, Alexander, Ragnar and Genghis in it. I promise you they will start a couple of wars on their own. Just make sure you don't end up being the fat goose waiting for plucking. (call to arms! make military power!)

But i think the AI is a lot less aggressive at low difficulties, so maybe move up a notch?

Oh and you can always download that Better AI mod, the AI is much better and more challenging there. (aiming for other victories than just space and stuff)

Link for Better AI forums.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=245

 

[Chemtech]

While I agree to some degree I think that the AI is better off "limited" in its discression to start wars. I think the AI basically only probably checks two things to determine the need for a war:

1) What CIV's are pissing me off
2) What CIV's are weaker or nominally similar on the powercurve

followed by a sub-check
1) Am I at war with anyone else

Any CIV that falls into both categories gets the beatdown stick - there are a host of decisions that can be made that would land a civ on either list - civiscs, trades, previous wars, religion etc etc

Anything else would make the CIV's too irrational to deal with on a regular basis. If they just decided (like a human would) that you are likely to win and attacked - despite being Friendly, long time trading partner and half-a-world away then people would be complaing that there isnt any point in diplomacy because the AI is just going to attack you anyway.

We do that because we are using our personal time to play a game, a game that we want to win - any AI that was as cutthroat as that wouldnt be much fun as a gaming partner.

 

[UnspokenRequest]

I'm not looking for counsels. I won on Emperor a few times, before I stopped playing. I know how the game works.
I'm not complaining that they attack me. I actually like it when the AI shows some initiative.

Even with the most aggressive leader in the game, I don't find them agressive enough toward eachother. Sometimes I've got an Empire that encompasses around 40%, with great lead in techs, military, etc. And the remaining AI are there doing nothing, waiting for me to decide what I'll do with them. They are not dynamic enough. When I am distant second in a game, I try to pick on the least powerful parties to enhance my power, before facing the real ennemy. They should do the same, even on noble or prince.

I usually played on Monarch. Decent challenge, but I can still relax. Emperor is when I want a real hard time and I've got to plan everything and always be on edge. Prince is for experimentations.
My current "comeback" prince game went as follows. I got the lead during an early axemen war with Napoleon and, from there, my lead constantly got bigger and bigger. After this early war. Nothing happened. No more wars. period. They should have tried to catch up with me, but nothing.
Since, I don't need any other war to win the game. The rest has just been a tedious management job until I achieve Space victory. A walk in the park. No diplomatic event whatsoever.

I've seen that too often.

 

[Sjaramei]

I'm not looking for counsels. I won on Emperor a few times, before I stopped playing. I know how the game works.
I'm not complaining that they attack me. I actually like it when the AI shows some initiative.

Even with the most aggressive leader in the game, I don't find them agressive enough toward eachother. Sometimes I've got an Empire that encompasses around 40%, with great lead in techs, military, etc. And the remaining AI are there doing nothing, waiting for me to decide what I'll do with them. They are not dynamic enough. When I am distant second in a game, I try to pick on the least powerful parties to enhance my power, before facing the real ennemy. They should do the same, even on noble or prince.

I usually played on Monarch. Decent challenge, but I can still relax. Emperor is when I want a real hard time and I've got to plan everything and always be on edge. Prince is for experimentations.
My current "comeback" prince game went as follows. I got the lead during an early axemen war with Napoleon and, from there, my lead constantly got bigger and bigger. After this early war. Nothing happened. No more wars. period. They should have tried to catch up with me, but nothing.
Since, I don't need any other war to win the game. The rest has just been a tedious management job until I achieve Space victory. A walk in the park. No diplomatic event whatsoever.

I've seen that too often.

As i said earlier, the AI is made for Space victories by default. They aren't programmed to do domination/conquest victories, or do a major plan to take you out. If you don't want a mod to fix this select Aggressive AI or something option in custom settings. If you still aren't satisfied i don't know what you want.

And prince is a walk in the park if you have won at emperor. It's supposed to be that way. Do more emperor games, when you get comfortable there you'll find AI's are not as pushover as you thought. I often have to keep warring to keep up with another "superpower" in my games. (last game of mine Mehmed vassalized Mao and was score leader most of the game. I had to bribe other AI's into war with him to wear him down so i could finish him.)

Sounds to me you need more challenging games. As i said earlier move up a difficulty. I enjoy my games much more now at emperor and don't think i need very much more time before going immortal. (emperor wins are 10x more satisfying than Monarch ones ) Oh and do bigger maps. AI's with room to expand is a nightmare.

 

[Vizzini]

This seems to be much worse in Warlord than it was in Vanilla.

Those are your games. Rest assured this is not always the case. I just completed a game where the entire world went to war with everyone -but- me (except twice) through the entire game.

Remember that the AIs need to have a reason to go to war. It will never be "just because". They need to get mad enough to do it and they need an advantage. If your games have AIs that enjoy each others company then chalk it up to the RNG and move on.

But I want Firaxis to fix this for BtS.

It isn't broken.

I don't find them agressive enough toward eachother. Sometimes I've got an Empire that encompasses around 40%, with great lead in techs, military, etc. And the remaining AI are there doing nothing

If you out-tech them and out-military them then you'll need to really work hard to get them to declare on you. Despite what you might think, the AIs aren't stupid and won't commit suicide by attacking a vastly more powerful foe unless they're backed into a corner.

Oh and as Sjaramei pointed out - if you want wars be sure Ragnar and Monty are in the game.

 

[Bushface]

When AI civs do go to war with one another (a rare occurrence) they don't seem to know how to go about it with any vigour. In my current game, Toku declared war on Asoka in 780AD, and in 840 attacked Delhi with two Archers, who were rapidly killed by the three defending Longbowmen; at the same time, an Indian Chariot moved to a tile next to a Japanese Catapult. It is now 1090AD and there has been no further movement. I have a spare Scout watching things, but he must be bored to death.
But when I am at war, things are very different. The AI loves to nibble away at my strong units, and gobble up any weakened ones; a gap in my lines will instantly be penetrated by fast-moving marauders; any stack of mine immediately attracts a swarm of catapults and the like; individual units meet AI stacks; and so on.

 

[bonafide11]

When AI civs do go to war with one another (a rare occurrence) they don't seem to know how to go about it with any vigour. In my current game, Toku declared war on Asoka in 780AD, and in 840 attacked Delhi with two Archers, who were rapidly killed by the three defending Longbowmen; at the same time, an Indian Chariot moved to a tile next to a Japanese Catapult. It is now 1090AD and there has been no further movement. I have a spare Scout watching things, but he must be bored to death.
But when I am at war, things are very different. The AI loves to nibble away at my strong units, and gobble up any weakened ones; a gap in my lines will instantly be penetrated by fast-moving marauders; any stack of mine immediately attracts a swarm of catapults and the like; individual units meet AI stacks; and so on.

Well, the AI sucks at war all around. I don't think they're any better at war against a human than against the AI, but I'm sure you notice it more though. But I don't know what you're complaining about, the AI isn't that smart at attacking anyone...

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

The AI's being programmed for space victory provides the greatest challange to the human player, and I guess that's the path Firexis took. However, and surely, they could've taken another path.

As to AI's not declaring war on each other... not really. I've seen AI civilizations being DESTROYED before, especially after the 2.08 warlords patch. Of course I don't *see* the civilization being destroyed until I explore the world and there are less than the specified number of civs.

If Alexander becomes large and powerful, expect it to steamroll like he's Mansa Musa.

 

[DutchJob]

UnspokenRequest is right that in many games dynamic worldsystems are absent. Rarely empires get destroyed. Most of the times most empires just wait and see what you do. And then build the spaceship.
Why aren't you atacked by coalitions 'of the willing' when you are 'walking away?'

If you just build enough guns nobody will attack you. Civ needs more 'Operation Barbarossa's' to juice it up. WW are so rare that I remember them. It should be the other way around me thinks.

 

[Naismith]

In my games even the aggressive AI's like Monty are usually fairly passive. It seems like ever since I installed Warlords, it's gotten worse. Seriously, in all the Civ4 games I've played, I've only seen two AI vs. AI wars that went beyond some pillaging, or a city or two changing hands. Is that the common experience? If it is, I think "broken" is an apt description.

 

[Onagan]

Last game i played, I trapped the Romans and Zulu in a small peninsula of "my" continent. They had both only 4 cities, both had a other state religion.

I was far more advanced, had 6 or 7 healthy cities, only a small army (which i just start building to finish off the Americans. I did wonder why those 2 didn't try to conquer the other.

Instead of that Rome attacked me, I was only 1 or 2 turns away from declaring war against the American on the other end of the continent. I had to move my army back south.

 

[JimT]

As to AI's not declaring war on each other... not really. I've seen AI civilizations being DESTROYED before, especially after the 2.08 warlords patch. Of course I don't *see* the civilization being destroyed until I explore the world and there are less than the specified number of civs.

I've seen this a few times and always assumed I was waiting to find a civ for the first half a game. This is happening on monarch, let alone higher levels.

I do wonder if AI reduce their desire to war when they know of strong neighbours or rivals. Thinking twice about attacking a neighbour to the South when you have a massed army to their North.

 

[azaris]

Make games with Montezuma, Alexander, Ragnar and Genghis in it. I promise you they will start a couple of wars on their own.

Yeah, I've noticed. The only problem is, they never DoW anyone except the human player. I am convinced there is some piece of code that turns the AIs against the human player and makes them all adopt the same religion and trade like crazy with each other. In Civ3 the AIs would often ally to take out a more powerful AI, I've never ever seen it happen in Warlords.

I've had Ragnar in four games and three times he's declared against me. It's not as if he was more powerful either, I usually quickly dispatch his "attack force" of horse archers or some such rubbish then proceed to surround all his cities. After all his improvements are gone he just sits in his cities, massing up archers but never daring to sally forth. He refuses to talk or demands I give him a holy city because he thinks his army of archers can withstand the jumbo-catapult army I'm slowly amassing. Eventually he dies or capitulates, but I've wasted 200-500 years taking care of this bonehead and MM and others are of course in the space race by then.

BetterAI - yes please.

 

[Alsark]

Yeah, the AI doesn't always seem that great to me, either. I also noticed that the AIs like to become vassals of other AIs for really no apparent reason. For example, I had a long war with Loius XIV one game, and took all but about two of his cities, and he refused to capitulate. He said, "We're doing just fine on our own!" Yet, in the same breath, two turns later, he readily agreed to becoming Kublai Khan's peace-time vassal for no apparent reason. Mansa Musa is especially famous for this, and even though Mansa Musa always tells me "We're doing just fine on our own," he will always become a vassal for another AI. Does this happen for anybody else?

I'd also like to note that the AI has an increased chance of declaring war on you because the AI does not demand tribute, ask for gifts, or ask for trading ceases with other AI. So, basically, every time you refuse to give an AI tribute or say no to one of their ridiculous commands, there is a chance that their script will tell them to generate military units, march to your territory, and then declare war. It would seem that once this script is triggered, very little can change the AI's mind (even if you form some twelve defensive pacts within that time). Other times they'll declare war as soon as you refuse. I could be mistaken, but I think that the AI also has an invisible negative modifier with you as you increase the difficulty of your game - just because you're a human player.

Although the AI generally doesn't war amongst themselves often - I have seen some exceptions. For example, in a game I played awhile back, on Warlord difficulty, Mehmed II actually went around declaring war on practically everybody. By the end of the game he had declared war on all of the AI except for one (and he also declared war on me at one point). Napoleon also declared war on Gandhi at one point, and declared war on me twice (partially, however, because I made Gandhi my vassal through warfare and he didn't like that). Loius XIV, on the other side of the map, was in warefare with Asoka, who eventually became the vassal of Loius XIV. After Washington capitulated under Mehmed II and after a war against me, which eventually ended in peace (and in a draw), Mehmed II went on to declare war against Loius XIV (as well as his vassal, Asoka). Mehmed II actually destroyed the Indian Civilization himself (Washington didn't really seem to be helping much), and then went on to make Loius XIV his vassal, as well. In the end, Mehmed II, counting his vassals, controlled somewhere around 50 - 60% of the world. His military might and technology was astounding, and even on Warlord difficulty, I couldn't do any better than come to a draw in a war against him (even with the bad wartime AI). Here is a graph to provide a bit of a picture of how his military might compared to everybody else's (I'm Cyrus, and yes, I realize that I performed terribly): http://72.36.239.244/civ4/graph_histogram.php?width=640&height=480&show=Power&entryID=6955. By the way, I eventually won the game through a space race victory, but by a fairly narrow margin (I think Mehmed II only had like two parts left). Of course, with the military might shown on the graph he shouldn't have been going for space race at all, which again points out the relatively terrible AI when it comes to victory condition decision-making (which is non-existant except for the space race).

So, really, although a lot of games seem to be rather dull, there comes an occasional game where there is all-out warfare. The example that I provided was on Warlord difficulty, and I did not have aggressive AI turned on. Given that, I am sure that a game with an increased difficulty and with the aggressive AI turned on would generate quite a bit of warfare. Every so often you come across a game that really shines - and although other matches might be a bore, there is always those few that, in the end, really do a nice job of standing out.



At any rate, I've heard wonders about the improved AI modification, so you might want to give that a go, as well as the aggressive AI option. I've never tried either of them, but it is worth a shot. If you can do the aggressive AI option while on the improved AI modification, then that's a double-bonus! I've heard the game is somewhere around a whole difficulty setting higher with the improved AI modification, and some people said that they thought they were playing the game online with real people. Whether it's really that good, I do not know, but it is certainly worth a shot if you're bored of the unmodded gameplay.

 

[Dominico]

They fight all the time on mine. Often they will fight and i dont know about it till later (when you run through the game at the end). Many times they will fight till the enemy is vasselised (is that a word...)

My only complaint is that they seem to fight for short lengths of time mostly but thats good ai since prolonged wars mess up their economy and research.

I think if they were warring all the time you would find the game a lot easier too.

Sometimes the wrong combination of leaders makes a peacefull map, in which case you have to spice it up if you want war by manipulating them. Other times you can get maps which cause wholesale slaughter on all parts.

Its pretty much like real life, its down to how much they hate each other, how close they are, if they have something the others need and religion!!!

 

[magicalsushi]

I've seen AI civilizations being DESTROYED before, especially after the 2.08 warlords patch. Of course I don't *see* the civilization being destroyed until I explore the world and there are less than the specified number of civs.

I've seen messages saying that Hatshepsut or Gandhi (or it might just have said Egypt/India) have been destroyed, before I met them. This was in Vanilla; it may well have been changed in 2.08. I'd prefer to be told, but I can understand if some people would prefer not to be.

 

[largedarryl]

Lots of time if a civ has been destroyed, especially early in the game, it because of barbarian attacks.

I'm not saying your misleading as I've seen this happen as well, but only very rarely in warlords because the ai will capitulate before dying.