Dogpiling - a bit too much?

[Defiant47]

The new dogpiling feature of the improved AI gives a nice touch, but is it a bit much?

My shuffle turned out a pangea. I had a large chunk of land and everywhere was settled. My economy became good enough that I pulled ahead and decided to get more land. Unfortunately, the land I wanted was a nation vassal to another nation. However, my power graph was skyrocketing vertically, and with infantry churning out to face riflemen and unupgraded musketmen/longbows, I decided that I would just keep the master at bay with destroyers (the connection was a mountain, so no land combat) and wipe out the vassal.

I was powering through the vassal's cities and got it down to one left (getting in about two turns from now). All of a sudden, Qin Shin Huang declares war on him, along with him his vassal. Thing is, he has less than half my power, I'm still skyrocketing my churning out ~4 infantry per turn, and there's a nation buffer zone between me and him (even more for his vassal). It makes no sense!

I theorize it's because I declared war on Catherine, and therefore on Ragnar her master, it seemed like I was with multiple wars and a prime target for dogpiling, but still!

The ridiculous thing is that Montezuma, who is the buffer, isn't a vassal to anyone, so I'm going to declare war on him next and take his land regardless, because I'm so powerful (after which probably dig in and defend from Qin, receive the ever-so-abundant reinforcements, and push on). Why would Qin do this? Dogpiling should be strategic, not automatic.

 

[HiroHito]

who is "him" anyway" ? I'm a bit confused.

 

[UncleJJ]

He was probably bribed to attack you. Some leaders will attack other civs (or you) for just 1 tech, some need 2 or 3 techs. It is an easy way to get another civ and his vassal's on your side.

 

[Defiant47]

You're telling me that the AI is actually smart enough to bribe other AIs to attack you? That's awesome!

 

[meatwad4289]

yeah it is.. and stop playing on settler mode lol jp.

You should Attack in one or two possibly 3 orders. when you havea choice.

When you go to war, you Always want a one sided war. So if you have an enemy on two sides. Take the one that has no where to run.

When you are on the edge of your continent, then you must attack the strongest neighbor you have, and have support from the weaker ones. The AI of the strong neighbor will see it is much easier to attack them and in most cases they will(in my experience this is how it happens) This will limit the amount of troops marching in your territory, and perhaps if you have enough weak countries, their troops will weaken the strong country enough for you to snake your way in and Conquer with minimum causalities. At this point you hit your next nearest strongest neighbor with the same tactics. Just don't back track. Backtracking can ultimately screw you over. Lets say you skip over a country on your eastern coast, instead attack one on the southern border, then while your at war, the southern one could bribe the eastern one to attack you. This then forces you to assemble troops for the offense. Which if you have good production and railroads is not a problem, just a inconvience. However, if the countries are strong enough, you may be worried. Also every country at war with you has the potential of bringing in an Allie who can attack you immediately, and could take you a while to rebuttle. This is why I always arrange for either war or embargos on all nations at war.

the last tactic. Befriend everyone, Build up troops outside the border of the nation on the otherside of a continent. Attack them. Once their nation is yours you can successfully attack anyone between your two lands, as they will be forced to fight a two sided war, sending their troops away from eachother, while your troops are coming together.