Are AI DoWs pre-ordained?

Phoenix1595

Lord of the Two Lands
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
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So, I had a situation and wondered if anyone else has come across it, or knows if the game is programmed this way.

Background: I have had a great game going as Egypt, currently circa mid-Classical, so not too early in the game, but certainly not too far in where diplomatic ties are too complex. I share a continent with Teddy, Gilgamesh, and Barbarossa, and have been friends with all, although recently Teddy stopped with the DoF for unknown reasons. Harald paid a visit on his sailing excursion across the map, and while we have neutral ties, I have no navy to speak of (so I know he isn't my biggest fan). There have been no wars or bad blood between any of us. I had no negative diplo modifiers with either Teddy or Harald.

Anyway, I receive a surprise DoW from Teddy and Harald, the latter I didn't worry about because he has no units anywhere near me, but Teddy, via open borders, had archers across the board ready to pounce on me. I really wasn't feeling it, so I restarted an autosave from ten turns earlier, to see if I could placate both parties prior to the DoW. Despite bending over backwards to get in their good graces, I got the DoW again on the same exact turn as last time.

Well, I wasn't going to let them get all that good diplo love AND still declare war on me, so I again returned to the same autosave, and assuming the DoW would still occur regardless, prepped for it in advance. Sure enough, the DoW happened on the same turn. This time, I saw the war through and actually fought them off handily and continued with my game.

My question really is: given that the war was more or less unprovoked (I had been on good terms, can't think of a hidden agenda I might have ignited, etc.), how come the surprise DoW kept happening on the same exact turn, three times in a row? A lot can happen in ten turns in this game, so theoretically, the war could have occured sooner or even never, especially if events were occuring differently each playthrough. Is the AI pre-programmed to declare war on specific turns well in-advance? I wouldn't normally think so, but this situation has me thinking that this war was completely unavoidable and pre-programmed to occur regardless, even with so many turns available and the fairly benign playing field. Has this happened to anyone else? Am I crazy? I can't think of a single action I did that would have triggered this war... I did things differently each playthrough. Are the developers trying to tell me that life is predetermined, and there is no free will?
 
I don't know the details of AI programming, but I do know that major operations (like "defend a city" or "attack a city") are coördinated as a whole. I could see "prepare for war" being one too; it would take a set amount of turns, and only at the end of it would the AI declare war. If it's more than 10 turns, that would explain it; it decided maybe 15 turns ago, and it was just getting everything ready before the turn he declared war. Refusing the DoF might be a part of it too, as you can't declare war while in a DoF.
 
I've had the same suspicions regarding this. It really doesn't make sense but has it ever? Diplomatic victory was impossible for me even on easy levels in Civ 5. Diplomacy makes no sense and now has even more variables given the leader traits (one permanent/one variable). Even if you know both, it doesn't really matter since even with the most synergistic of relationships with various leaders I still get the DoW's or denouncements galore. My favorite is still when the whole world declares war on you. I just figured that the AI knows when someone is getting too big for their britches. What I miss the most is the brown nosing that lesser civs would do in Civ 4. The diplomacy of Civ 4 with vassal states is still my favorite Civ diplomacy game function. Having the option of puppet cities on conquered cities was also nice in Civ 5.
 
I can actually confirm that they can call it off. Or at least, they could before the patches. I was playing Rome, I believe even before the Autumn patch, and didn't have my warriors close to my city when Brazil declared a surprise war on me, lost my city, so I loaded an autosave, moved my warriors back, and that time around he didn't declare war because (I assumed) my warriors were there.
 
No, they do not. They can be very likely to do it based on circumstances.
 
I expect to get dow'd on if I settle 2 or more cities within a couple of turns of each other. Rapid expansion pisses them off.

Yep, might have been able to ward off Teddy with a quick gift of gold, then spam DoF requests for a few turns. Once he's locked in, just keep working the diplo.
 
I have a different hypothesis, namely that the AI evaluates Joint Wars differently than other DoWs.

Basically, the AI sees a Joint War not so much as an actual war that it is declaring on you, but as just another bargaining chip in for its trade deals. Remember, unlike every other war, a Joint War is made from the Trade Screen with the potential ally, instead of the Diplomacy/Casus Belli screen with the potential target. This explains why you will get DoW'd by AI players with whom you have no grudge or who are normally very passive, and why the AI often seems so unprepared for and reluctant to prosecute these wars.

In your case, one possible scenario is that Teddy is training a Builder, and on the 9th turn after your autosave he improves a duplicate copy of a luxury resource. Harald desires said resource and tries to trade for it on the 10th, but the only thing he has to bargain with is a Joint War. Teddy either accepts because he wants your land and has weighed that desire against not hating you (if the AI is programmed somewhat properly), or because he simply sees a Joint War the same way he sees a chunk of gold and therefore part of a worthy trade regardless of his relationship with the target of the DoW (if the AI is programmed poorly).

I tend to lean towards the latter in this case given some of the other inanities of the AI's trade behaviour, but that's just me.
 
I have a different hypothesis, namely that the AI evaluates Joint Wars differently than other DoWs.

Basically, the AI sees a Joint War not so much as an actual war that it is declaring on you, but as just another bargaining chip in for its trade deals. Remember, unlike every other war, a Joint War is made from the Trade Screen with the potential ally, instead of the Diplomacy/Casus Belli screen with the potential target. This explains why you will get DoW'd by AI players with whom you have no grudge or who are normally very passive, and why the AI often seems so unprepared for and reluctant to prosecute these wars.

In your case, one possible scenario is that Teddy is training a Builder, and on the 9th turn after your autosave he improves a duplicate copy of a luxury resource. Harald desires said resource and tries to trade for it on the 10th, but the only thing he has to bargain with is a Joint War. Teddy either accepts because he wants your land and has weighed that desire against not hating you (if the AI is programmed somewhat properly), or because he simply sees a Joint War the same way he sees a chunk of gold and therefore part of a worthy trade regardless of his relationship with the target of the DoW (if the AI is programmed poorly).

I tend to lean towards the latter in this case given some of the other inanities of the AI's trade behaviour, but that's just me.

I think you may be right. I find it unlikely that the game developers would pre-program event scripts into each game, given the variables involved prior a set turn. An AI interaction was more likely, and your idea makes the most sense. If I had done something to piss one or the other off, then they could have individually declared war on me at any time, allies or not. The fact that they both used joint war at the same turn each time suggests something on their end was in play, but nothing "pre-ordained." I am too early in the game for the usual 10-turn wait periods, as suggested above, so maybe it really was a simple trade deal for a 9-turn builder-then-improvement lxury, with a joint war thrown into sweeten the pot?

My only other thought is I hit on one of the notorious hidden agendas in which you are basically demonized for even existing, but that doesn't explain our very friendly relations previously.
 
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If it's a Joint War, then yes, basically it very much looks like it's just a part of a trade deal, sometimes it's quite possible that none of the two were even planning to go to war (that's the situation when two AIs declare war and neither shows up to fight). I mean, the war is not necessarily the main subject of that deal, as the two previous posts suggest, for the AI it's just additional +k value on its side of the deal.

You can probably tell when the Joint War was the central part of the deal - that's when they repeat with the same participant and that participant does in fact show up every time :D
 
I actually had the AI declare war on my earlier after reloading an auto save. Some wars do seem predetermined.

Not directly related to the OP, but sometimes I get the AI declare war on me right before a major tech that will upgrade my army, or right before civil engineering puts up civil defenses in all my cities. They really like to do that last one. It's like they know I'm researching civil engineering.
 
I actually had the AI declare war on my earlier after reloading an auto save. Some wars do seem predetermined.

Not directly related to the OP, but sometimes I get the AI declare war on me right before a major tech that will upgrade my army, or right before civil engineering puts up civil defenses in all my cities. They really like to do that last one. It's like they know I'm researching civil engineering.

I once got declared war upon 2 turns before researching iron working, and I had an iron mine plus some gold... Boy did the AI regret that.
 
I once got declared war upon 2 turns before researching iron working, and I had an iron mine plus some gold... Boy did the AI regret that.
Had something similar in my last game but my warriors were watching another AI and I did not finish building another warrior. I had one source of iron with a mine so I could not complete the warrior and could not build warriors or swordsmen so had to do with bows and spear (and later a heavy chariot). I got the city I wanted but was too annoyed to continue (especially because sneaky AI planted another city near me while my troops were busy).
 
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