Does Sending Troops to a Common Border Make the AI Think Something is Up?

[RX2000]

On my last game, I was America, playing against 7 other civs on regent level. I had a fairly large border with France. We had never fought a war against each other. In about the 1700s, I decided that I would start a military build-up, since I could afford it and had basically run out of city improvements to build anyways. I stationed several infantry in each border city, then started building mass amounts of tanks. I had like 10+ tanks in each border city. I wasnt going to start a war with France, but I wanted to be sure I had enough force to take care of myself if Joan decided she wanted to rumble. Well, a few turns after I had built up to where I wanted, she sends a force of like 20 infantry and literally 70 or so ancient swordsmen into my territory, in 2 stacks. I asked her to move them, she of course declares war.

My question is this: Do you think my build-up would have made her think I was going to invade, so she decided to pre-empt me? Can the computer see what units you have in your cities before espionage? Maybe she investigated all my border cities and saw the build-up? Anyone else ever have something like this happen?

 

[Sullla]

No, although something like that would be nice, the AI certainly cannot make such a complex decision as trying to pre-empt you in declaring war. France was clearly going to attack you anyway regardless of what you did. The AI bases its decision to go to war almost entirely on the power bars in the histograph, but you still see some wacky results. In a game I'm playing now, a civ that had three cities in a worthless tundra region declared war on three other civs via alliances and MPPs. I don't know what kind of decision-making was going on there, but the little civ didn't last very long!

 

[RX2000]

Wow, looks like I picked the exact right time to build up my forces then.

 

[Zouave]

Do you remember in Civ 2 when that would happen the AI would say something such as "We have not failed to notice your buildup of troops, and we fear not any coming battle."? That was before any war broke out.

Seems like the Civ 3 AI can't manage what the Civ 2 AI could do in this regard. So, no, it seems to make no difference, not they I can detect.