Early wars suck, how to avoid?

[PekkaM]

I mainly like to play very small maps as I don't like the expansion phase (AI seems to expand pretty much at random and it makes getting a continuous area very frustrating). I just recently tried a regular continents map with six civs and was caught in early war with the Inca.

The point is that such wars are totally useless and harmfull to both parties. Both get their hard worked fo improvements pillaged, AI for sure is not getting any cities captured but may lose some etc.

AI seriuosly needs some "smartening" patched into it. It generally seems to work in accordance to some weird set of rules "you didn't give us clams so now we must hate you". It seems that AI nations are in a team that is secretly allied against human. One AI player will gladly sacrifice his nation for slowing you down for not giving him some stupid clams, after all AI will still have 5 more to prevent you from winning.

I think AI should seriously try to do the best to win with each of his nations, not just try to make human player lose. The AI players do so many incredibly dumb moves just to "make the game more realistic" or something...

 

[Gufnork]

This is an interesting read after having played a game where I had four nations trying to convince me that Mansu Masa was evil and did everything to prevent him from winning, giving me the victory instead. The AI's do not work against you because you're the human player, they have other reasons.

But the AI sucks at knowing when to go to war. Atleast most of the leaders do, the more peaceful civs tend to be smarter (since they have tighter criteria).

The best way to avoid early wars is to have a powerful military.

 

[madmaven]

It's been my exerpience that the AI goes to war with me much more often than AI v AI. I really noticed this when I played the 1000 AD scenario. The Aztecs and Incas were in last and when the european powers who totally outmatched them found them did they go to war like they did in history? No. The Aztecs claimed North America and the Incas claimed South America. When I play as the Aztecs or Incas I have a war on my hand almost from the start because I'm weak and behind the tech curve. I have nothing to offer them. But when I play China or Mongolia, the Europeans leave the Aztecs and Incas alone.

I've also found that if I enlist an AI to help me vs another AI they never seem to do anything noticeable.

 

[petey]

I've found that the best early war is a pillaging one. Send units over to a neighbour and start taking out his resources and capturing his workers. This will limit his ability to expand and then when you've built up a few cities of your own and have a decent military, then go and take the cities away from him.

That way, you make his cities easy to take and you don't have to handle the maintenance on them until you're able to afford them.

 

[PekkaM]

I've also found that if I enlist an AI to help me vs another AI they never seem to do anything noticeable.

You are right. They seem to send unit or two and then call it off. Another strange thing is that you have to keep them happy to have any hopes of getting them to war with you and then you still have to have something new to give to them for them to join you in the war.

Has AI ever actually offered anyone of you anything for joining their war or stopping trading with their enemy? Is it even possible?

 

[Artanis]

I've also found that if I enlist an AI to help me vs another AI they never seem to do anything noticeable.

That's probably because while the AI is pretty good for an AI, that doesn't keep it from sucking at fighting. Many AI-AI wars are hard-fought, but they just go reeeeeaaaaally slowly, especially compared to the sort of blitzkreig a human can wage.

One thing I have noticed when getting AIs to help me in a war is actually the absence of something: SoDs coming across my border at the start of the fighting. When a war starts, an AI will usually have a couple "attack stacks" that it launches at you, and which you then have to destroy, which can be a pain. If you have another AI attack your target a few turns before you actually go to war yourself, those SoDs will be wandering around you "ally's" territory instead of yours

 

[Vindicator7]

I noticed in Civ III that if you were leading all of the civs in score they would go after you. I haven't noticed this as much in Civ IV. Mostly because I am in the middle of the pack until I launch some military campaigns in the mid to late game.

 

[Zavior]

There is no bad early war, if you are roman that is :]

 

[madmaven]

Yeah, I've never been offered anything by an AI to help it in a war. Conversely, the AI has never accepted my offer unless I throw the kitchen sink.

 

[Dairuka]

The AI tends to go after the scoreboard leader, and the one with the weak military.

If you're somewhere in between that which was mentioned; you should be ignored throughout the game.

 

[MacAllen]

The AI doesn't show a great deal of common sense, either. I did a continents map (on Noble) and was on my own (no ships visiting my island, me alone on the island) until I had railroads. I'd circled the globe, met them all, and was trading but did not exchange maps.

I've mech infantry and modern armor in every town, battleships circling the island, fighter jets patrolling every coastal city, SDI wonder up, etc. The French pull up in a group of frigates and galleys, loaded with knights and musketmen. I frown at them but let them pass, because I didn't want to initiate, and they declared war on me. The battleships sunk the fleet and 6 tanks with lvl 2 barrage annihilated the army. Twice more, fleets would show up, but these I sank at sea, and eventually I surrounded his island with battleships and killed everything I could find.

It just wasn't a good idea, but it didn't seem to stop him

 

[Dairuka]

MacAllen. It sounds like you should be playing a harder difficulty. Noble sounds waaaaaaay too easy for you if you got Mech Infantry, when they still have Knights and Musketeers. =P

 

[civ-wrecked]

How early are the early wars ? With Warriors, Archers, Chariots, Axemen, Horse Achers, Swordmen, Elephants, or Macemen ?

I always play at the Noble-Monarch levels and in almost all of my games, I barely have any defenders at all for a good part of the early expansion but I never get attacked by the AIs (the barbarian axemen are a much bigger threat due to my very poor defence). Alexander is the earliest attacker I've run into and it's not really early. I think I already had macemen when he attacked.

If "early" means the Middle Age or so, then I think one way to avoid the bad blood that leads to war is not to adopt any state religion. That will keep some of the biggest nuts in the game such as Monte, Isabella, Tokinawa (sp ?) from attacking you.

I had a few games when I had Quechuas/Axemen wars but all those wars were started by myself .

 

[MacAllen]

MacAllen. It sounds like you should be playing a harder difficulty. Noble sounds waaaaaaay too easy for you if you got Mech Infantry, when they still have Knights and Musketeers. =P

I'm moving on up slowly. This was a truly amazing game, luckiest I've ever played. Normally on noble I'm racing to catch up on tech and only 1-2 years ahead of the other civs on the space race. I had 5 huts on my island, 3 of them were techs, I had ocean all the way around (not just coast), so no one could get to me until Optics, so I didn't need to rush and, as is my normal situation, have too many cities too fast and drop down to 10% tech just to stay alive, then catch up.

I never got below 70% tech and was only missing 3 resources. It was, at least for me, a "perfect" game. I just found it amusing that the French decided to invade what was obviously a superior foe. When you sail past battleships in your galleon, perhaps you should just turn around?

 

[BobCobb]

I love early wars. If you get a good iron resource, and iron working quickly, swordsman can help conquer a nice chunk of land for you. I try to wipe out my nearest oppenent by the time I get catapults. Generally the only thing you have to worry about in early wars is too much expansion, or not be properly defended against one.

 

[PekkaM]

Yeah, I've never been offered anything by an AI to help it in a war. Conversely, the AI has never accepted my offer unless I throw the kitchen sink.

That really bugs me. The irritating part is that human player is kind of supposed to give in to most of their demands:

-You write on this forum complaining how everybody hates you in the game: Somebody asks, have you given in to their requests.

There should be a way to even try to negotiate and get maybe litlle less penalty on relations. Civ3 had this option for asking gold in exchange for the tech and then "sorry, no check, no tech". Bring it back!

I've found out that diplomacy is the reason for me playing tiny and duel maps with many civs. That way expansion period is over very quickly and I can build up my defences and send everybody else to hell with their dumb requests.

 

[PekkaM]

How early are the early wars ? With Warriors, Archers, Chariots, Axemen, Horse Achers, Swordmen, Elephants, or Macemen ?

Pre 1AD mostly. The time when everybody should be doing their best in the land grab and not pillaging each other back to the stone age. Sending single archers and warriors back and forth is simply not gonna do it so why bother at all? Clams?!? Give me a break!

Another mental note to self: Don't connect resources you don't need yet. Somebodys just gonna come and make a demand. There probably is no reason for not sharing for 10 turns or so if it ever worked two ways. But no. Human player must build relation for a millenia to get clams for free...

 

[anton_z1]

You should notice that some AI Love/Hate each Other.
Aggressive loves Aggressive and rarely go in war between them.
Non-Agressive Like non Agressive and rarely go in war between them.
Agressive and NON-Agressive hate each other. They will get into war as quickly as they can.

Read the Personnalities thread for more info about different AI.

The AI is so dumb, that if he would go in really tough wars, they would be either too ******ed(pillage each othr for nothing), or way too powerful (The biggest grab all the land). Thus the fact that they go in war with you is a good thing.

Also if they declare war, they dont screw your relationships with other AI .

Finally, the AI rarely declare wars on somebody very powerful. If you are crawling from military, they will not attack you even if they are furious against you.

Thus as a final advice.
Give the AI ressources, then build Army and smash him up.

 

[Astax]

I disagree about early war wholeheartedly. War is the best thing there is. War never hurts me. War makes the game fun From ancient to classical Im usually always at war. I fight 3 wars at ocne sometime. Good idea of early war is to take one city from the AI then just kill his units till he thinks its a good idea to have peace. By takign one city from each surrounding AI you can easily expand at their expense.

 

[Salarakas]

Back in the Civ3 days I used to hate early wars. I never started them until I had knights or cavalry.

Now, it's a totally different thing. In almost all the games I've played I've took out one opponent early before they could get their hands on some powerful UU that could get me in big trouble later on (Cossacks anyone?). Usually there's some great rare resource to be gained too like stone or marble which will greatly help you in the long run. Yes, you fall a bit behind when you're not building the much needed infrastructure but with the extra cities you'll catch up eventually.