DoW from a Pleased AI

[Patricko]

Just had Alexander DoW on me. He has been "Pleased" for 50+ turns. It's not a big problem (ended up taking Athens ), but I thought AIs didn't DoW on Pleased or Friendly.

What's the deal on when AIs will DoW, or can anyone point me to a guide?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It depends on your military strength and the civ.
The crazy/aggressive leaders (Alexander, Ragnar, Monty) will sometimes attack even when pleased, especially if your military is weaker than theirs. The more peaceful leaders will leave you alone if you have good relations, but Alexander is a notorious warmonger in this game.
Friendly civs will almost never attack, except if you really neglect your military. I can only remember one case when I was atatcked by a friendly neighbor (Ragnar) and I really neglected my military. I was alone on a continent and the Vikings were on a continent south, very close and reachable by Galley. Since I had the Great Wall and very good relations with Ragnar I though I could get away with a military consisting of one token archer per city well into the renaissance.

 

[strijder20]

There is one AI which can declare at Friendly: Catherine. Watch out for her. The others won't declare at Friendly, unless you do as GoodSarmatian described. More militaristic leaders will attack at pleased (Alexander).

 

[joanne]

May I refer OP to this thread.

Quick summary: low power rating or shared land borders increases chance of AI DoW, while getting AI to pleased greatly reduces chance of AI DoW. Friendly AI guarantees immunity, with few exceptions e.g. cathy can be bribed even against targets she's "friendly" with, AP resolution forcing civs of AP religion against heathen civ, regardless of relations, or one of the more aggressive leaders going into warmode (WHEOOHRN = "We have enough on our hands right now") at pleased, going to friendly, and then DoWing

 

[Patricko]

Thanks for replies. That's useful to know. I had assumed they wouldn't delcare on pleased. I must admit that in this game I had let my military slip and I had settled cities aggressively close to Alex's borders. I was lucky that his attack was fairly feeble.

Thank's for that thread suggestion joanne - plenty of reading there!

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

Quick summary: low power rating or shared land borders increases chance of AI DoW,

My understanding is that power rating is just a switch: If you're over a threshold, usually 1.5x their forces or more, then they won't declare. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. So being at 0.2 of their power is the same as 0.8 (aside from your ability to survive the war, of course).

One other item: If they make a demand, and you refuse, they may declare, even if they like you (I think).

 

[lymond]

OP - A lot of AIs will declare at Pleased, especially the psychos like your friend Alex and the backstabber group. For those AIs that don't declare at Pleased or even Friendly, keep note that if they went into Fist mode prior to reaching Pleased status, and you are the target, you will still get DOW'd. So don't be surprised if that happens. Good example is Boudica. She's definitely a leader who does not DOW at Pleased or better. However, she's fairly aggressive and will often go into Fist mode prior to reaching Pleased status. I've been attacked by her on more than one occasion in that scenario.

 

[lymond]

M
One other item: If they make a demand, and you refuse, they may declare, even if they like you (I think).

Of course, that happens a lot, but I still think the AIs, in that case, have to have the threshold declare at Pleased. There are a lot a of AIs that will attack you at Pleased though.

 

[King Pluto]

It's worth pointing out that there's a difference between declaring at Pleased and plotting at Pleased.

As far as I know, every AI will declare at Friendly, as long as they chose you as a war target when they were below their own threshold. No leader will plot war at Friendly, many won't plot at Pleased, but once you're a war target, you're likely going to get declared on anyway. If you have Boudica at Cautious and she rolls a war check on you, even if you then bump her to Pleased, she already decided to plot war on you (WHEOOHRN started).

Someone correct me if I have this wrong, and I know there are ways for the AI to fall out of the war prep, but their attitude on the turn of declaration has nothing to do with the actual declaration, IIRC. That's decided well beforehand.

 

[Mylene]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9030955&postcount=11

Great list here (attitude_declerations), you can see that for example Augustus Caesar will never start plotting when pleased, while JC can ~~

Most important factor for AIs plotting war (besides obvious like worst enemy) is logistics.
If you are next to Alex, and his only other reasonable land target would be Shaka, you will be chosen very very likely

 

[lymond]

I

Someone correct me if I have this wrong, and I know there are ways for the AI to fall out of the war prep, but their attitude on the turn of declaration has nothing to do with the actual declaration, IIRC. That's decided well beforehand.

yep, it is pretty much the exact same point I made just above you.

 

[strijder20]

My understanding is that power rating is just a switch: If you're over a threshold, usually 1.5x their forces or more, then they won't declare. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. So being at 0.2 of their power is the same as 0.8 (aside from your ability to survive the war, of course).

One other item: If they make a demand, and you refuse, they may declare, even if they like you (I think).

They don't make demands when they like you, then it's called 'asking for help'. Does refusing to help also trigger DOWs?

 

[r_rolo1]

No. Refusing help has no side effects. Refusing a demand has: hit in diplo + possibility of the AI start plotting a limited war vs you regardless of them being already with hands full or not ( or even DOW on spot: rare , but it already happened to me atleast twice )

 

[Manco Capac]

^In recent deity Mansa from AZ, he got one DoW on the spot for refusing a demand.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Excluding occasions of instant DoW, I find it funny to reject demands and then proceed to sign a bunch of defensive pacts. That way Monty can save me my warbribes when he comes. But I'd only do this if I was gonna attack anyways...

The most funny being this game on Earth18:

Spoiler :

Unfortunately, it's from the event log 300 years after the incident, but what happened was that the AP religion spread to the entire old world and we passed the resolution for defense pacts...

 

[Turquoiside]

As everything else has been covered, I think I remember reading that Washington will always start preparing for war when you refuse one his demands. Seems a little random, but then again many of the leaders have some eccentricity in one area or another.

 

[Romegypt]

Alexander is the most aggressive player in the game. As I recall, he will never make an alliance with anyone.

 

[Mahi]

I think Shaka is the most annoying ai to deal with when going for a peace victory. It's almost certain (for me) that he will declare war on me at some point in a game. Mostly because he almost only focus on building up military which almost always leaves him on top of the power chart. He never considers the tech difference between you and him. It's just annoying that you always have to deal with him in every game.

 

[s.bernbaum]

If Shaka is in my game and I am pursuing peace, I make it a point to buddy up with him and get him to war against anyone else who is a threat. If he goes to war against someone, I declare right along with him and let him do the heavy lifting, while I just take out any units that invade my territory, which isn't often since Shaka tends to keep them quite busy. That way he spends most of his time Friendly with me. I've even managed to take over several of his cities with culture expansion, while this was going on, and still keep him Friendly. It probably wouldn't work on high levels but works fine at Noble.

 

[Seraiel]

Why shouldn't this work on higher diffulty lvls? I always do that on Deity, befriend the AGG AIs and send them to war with anybody being a threat, they're normally underdeveloped so it's very easy to bribe them.