Beware "Shall we go to war with..."

[Jelster]

How many time will Catherine try this trick ?

Shall we go to war with (whoever) ? Then during the 10 turns she never goes near the Civ we are meant to attack, and then she Backstabs you and comes for you, not the other Civ ? This is a strategy that she in particular tends to use.

Other than her obviously not moving towards the original Civ, in this case, Hiawatha, is there any other way of working out what she's up to ?

I got wise to this a few games ago. Now I either say no, or prepare myself in such a way that I can fend her mammoth army off. This time she lost a number of units and I lost none, plus she just gave me a large peace pay off....

But it shows the poor mentality of the AI, while she's busy focusing on me, Hiawatha is planting yet more cities....

 

[Sid Simelia]

I went to war with Catherine as an ally a while back and she was almost too good, she got a couple of the cities next to my capitol I was trying for at the same time, and naturally she denounced me as I got some of the cities she was after.

Then yesterday, I was playing as Babylon and had Korea as a close neighbor. She came to me and asked if I would help her settle her differences with Korea, and I said sure give me 10 turns to prepare..

I actually took about 20 turns to get lots of bowmen up before descending on my first Korean city, and Russia was still nowhere to be found. Then she denounces me out of the blue before I ever take a city.

I went on to take 4 out of 5 Korean cities and left them with the one furthest from me and closest to Russia, and she just stayed hostile to me and at war with Korea for the next hundred turns or so. She never actually attacked me, though, and she had the Great Wall and only founded two cities so I left her alone. After she finally got that last Korean city to fall she was friendly to me for the rest of the game.

So definitely Catherine is one to be suspicious of, and I think if you leave your units close to home a little longer before joining her in battle it could deter her from actually declaring war. At least on the normal and lower difficulties where a civ might denounce you instead of declaring war.

 

[dopingman]

Drop a spy in her capital to see if she is plotting against you (can only be applied if you have a spy, so at least one player has to be in the renaissance era). Use scouts with 2x +1 sight promotion on hills, you can buy them for mere 190g in cities with 2 military XP buildings to get the promos. AIs always move their armies to your borders first before declaring war. Spotting a large army heading towards you is a definite sign of an incoming DoW.

Cathy is a very deceptive AI with a high flavour for backstabbing whilst also having a high loayality value (this means she can also be your best friend, values fluctuate by +/-2). Not going to war with a target she wants to attack most likely means she will turn on somebody else with a weaker military (in most cases the player), because she can't get an immediate war ally.

 

[bdporter]

This is one of the most annoying things in the game right now in my opinion. That is the worst form of backstabbing. Getting within 10 turns of joining a coop war with you, and then deciding to declare war.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Welcome to video games, where there are no rules and your friendships don't matter.

Seriously, I have zero problem with this sort of behavior. It's a game and considering how impotent the AI can be I welcome every point where the AI plays to win and does so in a way that would make Machiavelli shed a tear of joy.

 

[JJOne]

What annoys me is the repeated "shall we go to war with" from more civs.
I prepare, go to war when the first one says that after 10 turns, I conquer the target, let them with one city and make peace, and afterwards comes the second civ "The time has come..." WHere the hell have you been in the last 200 hundred years friend???

 

[Dogmouth]

Always say "no" to this request. The only way to guarantee a cooperative war is to bribe the AI to DOW or to DOW after a war has already started. Also, bear in mind that the AI does not recognize any sort of casus belli. Even when an AI civs asks you to go to war, it may view your DOW as an act of warmongering, and it may therefore become hostile (yes, the AI can become hostile because you agree to help it).

For the same reason, the correct answer to the spying incident is always "I forgive you." Even if you want to go to war, the spying incident doesn't give you a casus belli, so there is no point in DOWing at some moment that isn't convenient to you. It's always unfortunate when a strategy game has one correct answer, but c'est la vie.

 

[JBossch]

This mechanic makes no sense. So regardless of your answer, neither you nor the Civ that asked are obligated to go to war in 10 turns? So what are the consequences of saying no to this request?

 

[guinsoo]

Makes sense to me. As a human player, when do you actually ask an AI to declare war because you want help? No, you ask because you want to distract either that AI, or the target.

 

[ense7en]

Makes sense to me. As a human player, when do you actually ask an AI to declare war because you want help? No, you ask because you want to distract either that AI, or the target.

Yup, it's rather clever.

In MP, if someone on one side of you is at war with you, better keep an eye on the other side as someone else might be waiting to swoop in and take you out from behind.

It is annoying in SP, but if you remember the AI is playing to win...perhaps you are the real threat (usually is the case).

 

[stickyfingers]

what's annoying to me is Civ 5 has basically done away with the concept of mutually beneficial friendship/alliance between civs. the only time it's possible is if the civs are far away from each other. then they can sign research agreements and are too far away to fight each other. backstabbing is not always in the AI's best interest. it can be better to have a genuine alliance where you fight a common enemy or at least have a border which you both know is safe from attack.

the way it is now, if you're close to an AI, they eventually will DOW you no matter what, even if you are friends. it does make the game harder, but it's kind of a cheat. it's only harder because EVERY civ will attack you and NONE of them can be trusted. if it was just a few crazies, it would be easy to fight them and be friends with the other civs. the individual AI's aren't playing to win really, it's more the collective wisdom of all the AI's are playing so that one of them beats the human.

 

[JBossch]

the way it is now, if you're close to an AI, they eventually will DOW you no matter what, even if you are friends.

Seriously? So the relations make essentially no difference and any AI can DoW even at friendly?

 

[Unresolved]

Nah, if you play your relations right, you can avoid wars with neighbors. But it's very common that you'll have at least one war in the early game.

 

[stickyfingers]

Nah, if you play your relations right, you can avoid wars with neighbors. But it's very common that you'll have at least one war in the early game.

if you play a pangea on emperor or above, i would argue that it's essentially impossible to go a whole game without an AI DOWing you, no matter how you play the relations. they will declare on you several times no matter what you do.

i supposed i was being a bit extreme, but i would say how close a neighbor is to you is a better indicator of if they will DOW compared to what the relationship status is.

 

[Unresolved]

if you play a pangea on emperor or above, i would argue that it's essentially impossible to go a whole game without an AI DOWing you, no matter how you play the relations. they will declare on you several times no matter what you do.

i supposed i was being a bit extreme, but i would say how close a neighbor is to you is a better indicator of if they will DOW compared to what the relationship status is.

I play almost exclusively on Immortal standard everything. Most of my peaceful games consist of one early war and no units upgraded past CBs or crossbows. Just need to make sure you're up-to-date on your spying network and using gold liberally to buy DoWs. I've even had games where there were zero wars.

 

[dpunk]

Whether you get DoW'd is largely dependent on location relative to the AI and relative military strength. If your military score is higher than all AIs it can happen that you won't receive any DoWs.

I always play starting the game, planning on going for domination victory, so advice might not be best for other win condition. But generally, if the civ asking "shall we go to war with..." you would like to be at war with the other civ, it might be a good idea to accept and start the war right away. The two civs in this case will be at war, and I've never had it been the case where the original deal maker feigned war and then DoW'd me later.

edit: but I have had them turn around and DoW me when I selected "give me 10 turns" before the 10 turns finished.

 

[Arachnofiend]

if you play a pangea on emperor or above, i would argue that it's essentially impossible to go a whole game without an AI DOWing you, no matter how you play the relations. they will declare on you several times no matter what you do.

Not necessarily. My first Emperor game had me as Ethiopia in a mountainous, highly defensible location. I was able to turtle up hard and grab Himeji Castle, with all the bonuses I was getting the AI never saw fit to DOW me because even they could see that getting to my cities would be basically impossible. This with Hiawatha and Alex as my neighbors.

I wish I had kept the turn 0 save, it was a godly map.

 

[apocalypse105]

This is one of the most annoying things in the game right now in my opinion. That is the worst form of backstabbing. Getting within 10 turns of joining a coop war with you, and then deciding to declare war.

The best part is when the human player does it you get a huge penalty for it but the Ai doesn't

Makes sense to me. As a human player, when do you actually ask an AI to declare war because you want help? No, you ask because you want to distract either that AI, or the target.

i'm not playing age of empires or command and conquer where I play a skirmish agains the AI but a civilizaiton game with diplomacy