Early wars suck, how to avoid?

[Shillen]

I don't find the AI declaring war on me any more than other AI's in my games. Maybe you guys are not keeping good relations with them? Most of the AI's try to keep good relations with each other all the time so war declarations are not too common. If you're refusing open borders or rejecting demands, or pushing your cultural boundaries into the AI's then they'll be much more likely to declare on you.

 

[PekkaM]

Do AI actually demand stuff from each other and give too? Well that makes me the only one not getting any...

To sum it up, here are the things I'd like to have concerning politics:

- Do not disturb-light. Block certain AI's from reaching you the same way they do to you
- Mark a tech or resource with red - Do not ask, I'm not giving
- To be able to ask for compensation when AI demands stuff, end of trade with somebody or war with somebody. The exact way that I have to bribe them for anything
- AI coming up offering something when he wants something
- Generally, don't bug me this much!

Oh yeah, the worst of all: When you are trying to build a wonder and lose the competition you are given a lump sum of gold. Next turn every AI thinks that you are rich and come in with demands. The worst one must have been 4 requests for sums varying from 200 to 300. I've turned to reloading

 

[Snackwell]

You have to look for the opportunity... the game I'm in now, I'm alone on a pretty big continent with Rome. I was starting to build up an army (axemen, mostly, waiting for borders to expand one more square to an iron resource for swords) when I noticed his first praetorian and got a little nervous. But then I realized his sole iron resource was 1 square from the border.

Went to war, grabbed and pillaged that mine first thing, and he couldn't make those dangerous praetorians any more. I lost a couple extra axemen to the few he had already made, but managed to just keep pouring out axemen and cleaned him off the map. Now I have the whole continent to myself w/tons of resources and can focus on teching up to get ready for the rest of the civs.

 

[Zombie69]

To the OP :

You call before 1 AD early wars that don't benefit anyone? By 1 AD, i've usually anihilated 3 civs already and taken all of their land. It's never too early to wage war if it can help you advance.

My first game (which i played on noble) was won by domination victory in 1000 BC after eliminating 3 civs, and before i had time to take out the last one for a conquest victory!

 

[madmaven]

"My first game (which i played on noble) was won by domination victory in 1000 BC after eliminating 3 civs, and before i had time to take out the last one for a conquest victory!"

A lot of this depends on the size of the map and number of civs.

 

[Zhahz]

Early wars with AIs only suck if you're not ready and are on the receiving end of the invasion. I like to take it to the AIs early when possible since you can gain some nice cities that way and jumpstart your civ.

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

Yup. Most AIs will attack if you're weak, especially if they "request" stuff and you don't give in, and/or if you have bad relations due to religion, lack of open borders, etc. You could even be attacked by friendly civs if you're really weak and they can easily gain (your lands). Over time aggressive AIs tend to fight more wars so you always have to be careful if they border you. And always remember that diplomacy is about more than simply your relation with the AIs - their relations amongst each other are important too. I'm sure most of us have asked/bribed one AI to attack another. Well, they can do the same to you - one can get another to attack you even if you're not hating each other.

Ideally you hookup copper or iron early and get an archer, axeman, and spearman in every border city asap so you have defenders for all types of attackers and a decent military presence in general (also a good idea to protect against barbarians on many map types). Then get some chariots or horse archers ready to help counter pillagers. AIs love to pillage so simply having adequate city defense isn't enough - you need to be ready to (counter)attack in some capacity or you're at risk of being crippled by pillaging while your defenders watch from the protection of your cities.

I'll often create one or more semi-centrally located "reaction teams" of mounted/whatever troops who can reach my border areas so that I don't have to overload every single city with defenders. Sometimes the AIs attack thinking I'm weak due to a lower number of units but they're well organized units ready to repel invaders (and not just sit in cities and watch).

Obviously as the game goes on AIs will bring it with bigger and bigger armies, so scale your defenses appropriately. AIs get cheaper unit upgrades so you have to be weary of your defenders getting obsolete too.

This whole concept is something that I think is much improved in Civ IV (over Civ3) as you have to diversify your defenses more, diplomacy and attack tendencies of the AIs are more reasonable, and there's more to balancing infrastructure and defending than simply pumping out a couple of spearmen at every city.

 

[Zombie69]

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.

Makes perfect sense. If you're non aggressive, you don't want war. If you're aggressive, you want it (otherwise your trait becomes useless). However, you don't want to wage war against another aggressive civ or you lose your advantage. So you declare war on a non aggressive civ. The non aggressive civ is not looking for war against the aggressive civ, but gets drawn into it.

This has nothing to do with liking each other or not.

 

[PekkaM]

To the OP :

You call before 1 AD early wars that don't benefit anyone? By 1 AD, i've usually anihilated 3 civs already and taken all of their land. It's never too early to wage war if it can help you advance.

There is certain difference between wars initiated by player and AI.

When I make quechua rush or praetorian attack I also have a plan and get things done and capture cities.

When AI stars one of his "you did not give us clams"-wars, he's just aimlessly sending archers to pillage and if you are not prepared, random pillaging is all you can do also (at least for a while). Might as well stay home and try to develop his own empire.

 

[Zombie69]

Then, the problem with the AI is not that he declares stupid wars, but rather that he doesn't know how to carry them through. That's a whole different matter. You can't blame the AI for attacking if he sees a weakness (and rest assured that the clams are just an excuse and not the reason). However, you could blame it for being too dumb to make any gains from that war.

 

[phoulishwan]

I usually start wars before 3500BC when given the opportunity, ie: rival worker improving a culture border tile. I might have a warrior or an archer in defense if I'm lucky and I popped Hunting/Archery from a hut...but that's all the AI has too, and I'm not interested in conquering his new capital, I just want his worker to save me the 8-15 turns of growth from having to build my own. I'll also merely pillage every improvement the AI has made including their roads, and make them waste turns on "army production" while my thief warrior accompanies my new worker back to my capital, if I went down the chop route, I'll have 2 workers by now and likely a settler coming soon from the chops. I got what I wanted stunted my nearest rivals growth/expansion and sped my own up, I'll look for peace now, which usually doesn't cost anything at this point. He hates me but it's doubtful he'll survive my Axemen onslaught seeing as he's waaay behind at this point in terms of research/production and population. It's a snowball effect and if I happen to have 2 nearby civs they both get this treatment. Of course this only works Monarch and below when I can exceed the bonuses AI are given after setting them back like this. Monarch is harder as they start with a worker and an Archer...but it's still doable as long as the target Civ is closeby and you find them early.

 

[MikeH]

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

Not really you just need to be selective about whom you annoy and when. If your next door neighbour is already annoyed with you and has a larger military, then giving into demands might be prudent. If some Cathy-come-lately on the other continent starts making demands before she's even got Astronomy then feel free to tell her where to go. Also if any 'friendly' or 'pleased' civs make demands, you're pretty safe saying no, as the negative hit will only move them down to cautious at worst. Of course all bets are off with Monty, he's going to attack you some time sooner or later anyway .

One thing I've noticed that can ameliorate refusals, is to immediately offer to trade the tech in question after refusing. If they make a reasonable offer, the positive for accepting their offer will go some way towards to compensating for the negative caused by refusing.