Does the AI give other AI's a pass on warmongering or something?

[CivAddict2013]

This is something I've noticed time after time. An AI Civ will take out civilizations, take several cities and most of the AI's won't really seem to care. Sure, they'll denounce him maybe; but I don't see many Civ's making a real effort to take him out. They might even declare war; but they never make a serious effort to take him out.

But as the player; I've noticed if I take one city, everyone hates me and makes a huge effort to take me out. They might be far away and send units to my territory. They might be on the other continent and DoW me.

Maybe it's just me; but I've never seen the AI put so much effort into annihilating another AI. In the example game, Shaka took out many City States and even DoW'd me. The other AI's all denounced him and some even DoW'd him. But they never made a serious effort to take him out.

But it seems if the player does the same thing; the AI will make a serious effort to the player out.

Maybe I've just had bad games, I don't know.

So is it true the AI gives other AI's a pass on warmongering or am I just going about warmongering the wrong away?

 

[LoneRebel]

Funny, we were just talking about this.

 

[redwings1340]

The AI does not treat other AI players differently than it treats the player. That's part of the code, not just what I've experienced.

If an AI player declares war and takes cities, try to denounce that player and hope to follow the crowd. Focus on positive diplo modifiers (sharing the same religion for civs that didn't create their own religion, denouncing the same civ, trading with civs you like, even when the deal isn't the best the first time, helping out civs that ask for help after a DoF by giving them an extra luxury), and also be consistent with your diplomacy (declare war against civs you've hated the entire game, get bribe other civs to declare war on the civs you're declaring war on, and do not denounce or declare war on civs you have declared friends with).

If you're an isolationist warmonger, civs will have a large negative diplo with you, and no positive diplo. That will push them all in to negative, since they have no reason to like you. Focus on other aspects of diplomacy and warmongering becomes, not necessarily easy, but definitely viable.

 

[CivAddict2013]

The AI does not treat other AI players differently than it treats the player. That's part of the code, not just what I've experienced.

If an AI player declares war and takes cities, try to denounce that player and hope to follow the crowd. Focus on positive diplo modifiers (sharing the same religion for civs that didn't create their own religion, denouncing the same civ, trading with civs you like, even when the deal isn't the best the first time, helping out civs that ask for help after a DoF by giving them an extra luxury), and also be consistent with your diplomacy (declare war against civs you've hated the entire game, get bribe other civs to declare war on the civs you're declaring war on, and do not denounce or declare war on civs you have declared friends with).

If you're an isolationist warmonger, civs will have a large negative diplo with you, and no positive diplo. That will push them all in to negative, since they have no reason to like you. Focus on other aspects of diplomacy and warmongering becomes, not necessarily easy, but definitely viable.

But see in my experience; the AI seems to care more about taking out smaller Civs than taking out the warmonger. My last game Shaka took a bunch of City States. The other Civs denounced and declared war against. But despite having tons of units, nobody took Shaka's cities. Eventually, nobody DoW's Shaka.

But I had a game where I took one city from Songhai. The whole game was nothing but Random DoW's and denunciations. Civs I was friends with the whole game; started denouncing me for no reason. Brazil and Poland DoW. I've NEVER seen the AI get this kind of flack for taking one city.

Persia also wiped out Genghis Khan. But nobody really seemed to DoW him or care.

However, I had one game where I was Egypt and wiped out Genghis Khan. A couple turns later Germany and America who hate eachother both DoW me. What's funny is Germany wiped out China and America wiped out Rome. They get denounced, but nobody's aggressively DoWing them.

But I wipe out Genghis Khan? The whole world denounces me.

Maybe it's just me; but the AI never seems to get this type of hate for wiping someone out.

 

[forcedalt]

I think , they must be throwing hate penalty at each other , just the same as the player. People have double checked the code to verify this.
After all: AI's in a froth of seething hate will : offer deals : war pacts/treaties. I am guessing its just a massive hate fest all around at a point.

 

[Sagax]

In my last domination game I was Japan on the same continent with Maya and France. Took both of their capitals and reduced them to OCC. I also backstabbed France thus triggering the global penalty. Despite this, I was friends with Carthage, India, Iroques and Ottomans (wiped Brazil) till the very end, while successfully taking capitals of America and England that had 5 cities each at that time. Even more, I was the first to adopt Autocracy and push it through World Congress, and ALL my allies followed my example.

So from my experience the way the world treats you is indeed influenced by your actions. You don't introduce yourself by saying "Hey, I`m the new guy here and the first thing you will remember me for is taking half of another civ's territory".

Also, I don't know how you manage your army, but always try to have a large one no matter the quality. AI puts more weight on the total number of units, so your army may be one era ahead, but AI will still think it can beat you and thus DoW you. In your story about Shaka I assume other civs simply lost to him in fights - if all AIs use the blunt swarming tactic, chances are they will all fall to a swarm of Impis buffed by Ikanda promotions and Zulu's UA. With their armies crushed, they had nothing to back up DoWs to Shaka in future.

 

[Avatan]

Maybe they send armies to take out the villains but since AI kind of suck at taking cities we just don't really notice?

 

[hai 1]

You prob just need to improve at playing the diplo game. To the ai... you are just yet another ai. They aren't coded to react to your inputs any differently than anyone else's. They actually don't even have all the tools at your disposal, because, as with other aspects of the game, they are inept lol. Remember things like bribing your target to go to war (this also helps make the war itself easier), looking to only conquer pariahs until you are ready to dominate (once you start wiping out civs as you hone in on a domination victory, it's highly unlikely no matter how savvy your diplo game is that you will have friends left), find city-states to liberate if possible to offset the warmonger penalty, etc.

 

[reddishrecue]

The ai will attempt to make sure that you won't dominate as much as you can. The ai will do what it can and could fail to get you to not dominate if you can somehow manage to get the ai to not keep you on check and keep you from that domination victory. The same goes for all other victory types.

 

[GoStu]

They do get the same warmonger penalties, but they generally aren't good enough at taking cities to actually earn a penalty.

 

[reddishrecue]

^^We already knew that.

 

[Dr. D]

No AI declares on the world power who is taking over civs because the world power undoubtedly has a massive army. You likely have a small army and are near the bottom in the military rankings, and the AI therefore will declare war on you. It's that simple.

 

[headcase]

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ5/difficulties

There is a property called "attitude change" which is -1 on Prince or higher. I'm not sure if it's been established whether this does anything or not, and what exactly it does.

 

[redwings1340]

However, I had one game where I was Egypt and wiped out Genghis Khan. A couple turns later Germany and America who hate eachother both DoW me.

When two civs declare war on you, one civ wanted to declare war on you, and asked another civ to join them in their struggle.

Fortunately, this is preventable.

The solution? Before they ask each other to declare war on you, you need to bribe one of them to declare war on the other. Then, they'll be too busy to notice you.

 

[Chum]

This is something I've noticed time after time. An AI Civ will take out civilizations, take several cities and most of the AI's won't really seem to care. Sure, they'll denounce him maybe; but I don't see many Civ's making a real effort to take him out. They might even declare war; but they never make a serious effort to take him out.

But as the player; I've noticed if I take one city, everyone hates me and makes a huge effort to take me out. They might be far away and send units to my territory. They might be on the other continent and DoW me.

Maybe it's just me; but I've never seen the AI put so much effort into annihilating another AI. In the example game, Shaka took out many City States and even DoW'd me. The other AI's all denounced him and some even DoW'd him. But they never made a serious effort to take him out.

But it seems if the player does the same thing; the AI will make a serious effort to the player out.

Maybe I've just had bad games, I don't know.

So is it true the AI gives other AI's a pass on warmongering or am I just going about warmongering the wrong away?

Really? I conquered the entirety of Russia and half of Polynesia last game and no one at any point, DoW'd me. All combat I engaged in that game was of my own volition.

You wanna know why? I have friends, you don't. And I have an army. You probably don't.

This is extremely easy to fix. Stop building nothing but wonders, and actually build a defensive military. You like to complain a lot, but you don't like the suggestions you're given to fix your play style, so you keep running into these problems that you see as random. It's very simple - if you have a strong military, no one will go to war against you, and you can be the biggest tyrant on the planet as long as you have friends going to war with you. What you see as "random" is actually the other civs seeing your weakness, repeatedly.

 

[CivAddict2013]

In my last domination game I was Japan on the same continent with Maya and France. Took both of their capitals and reduced them to OCC. I also backstabbed France thus triggering the global penalty. Despite this, I was friends with Carthage, India, Iroques and Ottomans (wiped Brazil) till the very end, while successfully taking capitals of America and England that had 5 cities each at that time. Even more, I was the first to adopt Autocracy and push it through World Congress, and ALL my allies followed my example.

So from my experience the way the world treats you is indeed influenced by your actions. You don't introduce yourself by saying "Hey, I`m the new guy here and the first thing you will remember me for is taking half of another civ's territory".

Also, I don't know how you manage your army, but always try to have a large one no matter the quality. AI puts more weight on the total number of units, so your army may be one era ahead, but AI will still think it can beat you and thus DoW you. In your story about Shaka I assume other civs simply lost to him in fights - if all AIs use the blunt swarming tactic, chances are they will all fall to a swarm of Impis buffed by Ikanda promotions and Zulu's UA. With their armies crushed, they had nothing to back up DoWs to Shaka in future.

So then, what am I doing wrong? What could I do better? Help me out here. In most games where I go wide, I'll eventually get DoW'd. That game where I took Songhai; Morroco was friends the whole game. Eventually, everybody denounced Songhai and I was friends with everybody. Then both Songhai and Japan attack me. But I'm ahead in tech so I fight them off.

Later, Brazil and Poland DoW me. Morroco also randomly denounces me. I didn't even take out Songhai; I took one city.

My main point is that the AI will take out civilizations and maybe get DoW'd once or twice. But I take one city and I get DoW'd tons of times.

But yeah; I do have a sizable army and I am able to fight them off. But I can't deal with everybody attacking me at once because I took one city early in the game. It's like; I can't build a massive army and keep up on tech at the same time.

I did have a game with Germany, where I took an Ottoman city and didn't get much flack for it.

So I assumed, if everybody else denounces the guy it's okay to take a city? Nope.

Played another game as Egypt. Everybody denounces China. I take one Chinese city. All of a sudden everybody hates me.

It seems sometimes you can get away with warmongering and sometimes you can't.

 

[Browd]

In your Egypt example, did you try to get any of the other civs that denounced China to join you in the war? Since you just took one Chinese city, did you consider just pounding that city to death's doorstep, killing every Chinese unit you could find, and then accepting that city in a peace treaty (where there is no warmonger penalty)?

 

[Sagax]

So then, what am I doing wrong? What could I do better? Help me out here. In most games where I go wide, I'll eventually get DoW'd.

In my games diplomacy matters, especially on bigger maps. Just keeping a DoF which was randomly thrown by AI in Ancient era is not enough. Accept embassies, (wisely) overlook their spying, and most importantly - share friends and help them when they request help (if possible; giving them half of your wealth is stupid, but a smaller sum or a spare lux when you are okay on happiness and gpt will never hurt). I also don't go for a full-scale war before World Congress: propose World Fair and AI will love you. If you can adopt the ideology first and propose it in WC, even better.

Now in terms of action: on Continents map, wipe out your neighbors (but don't backstab) before the rest of the world meets you. If successful, you will end up with healthy early warmongering without any diplomatic consequences. Then meet the world, make it love you via WC and steamroll with battleships and artillery. Check the Global Politics screen and find the black sheep and gang up on it with other AIs (but usually AI would rather ask you to gang up than accept your similar request). If AI has early concerns about your warmongering, consider taking a break and pushing another all-friendly proposal in WC.

Yes, this strategy means you may end up with a longer-than-expected domination game, but IMO it's a fair trade-off: either you play fast with a risk that the whole world will DoW you, or you dominate slowly but surely like a German tank. It probably won't work on Immortal-Deity because on these levels the first half of the game is you trying to catch up with AI.

 

[CivAddict2013]

Had yet another game, where yet again I've seen this. This time, I was playing as Poland. Early in the game, I attacked Elizabeth and she gave me a city. I was friends with neighbor Gandhi and the Iroquois were neighbors.

I had the same Ideology as Gandhi, bunch of green modifiers and I STILL get DoW'd by him. I was able to fight him off, but still this proves that no matter what you do; you'll get DoW'd if you go wide.

And once again, I noticed Genghis Khan bullied City States all day, yet he's friends with everybody. I even had a DEFENSIVE PACT with Genghis Khan and he declares war on Gandhi; only to be friends right after the pact.

Shaka takes out Washington and Gandhi is best friends with him. Worst of all; later in the game, psycho Gandhi has the nerve to ask me for a Declaration of Friendship after attacking me.

Something isn't right when I get DoW'd and friendly Civs act like nothing happened.

But when I DoW somebody; I'm a menace to the world.

Infact, it seems the AI is ganging up on the only Civ with some sense; Washington. Washington is denouncing Gandhi and Genghis Khan. The Iroquois and Shaka are wiping him out of existence. It's not until Gandhi takes a City State; that the other Civs seem to care.

In this game, the problem was mostly Gandhi.

IT does seem to get you less hated if you take a city as part of a peace treaty though.

I've also noticed that all the AI's tend to gang up on you, if your Ideology is not content.

 

[Evie94]

Oh look, its this thread again