[R&F] Emergencies issue: Judging whether to participate?

[Xmonger]

OK so I am absolutely in love with R&F because of the mid/late game dynamics.

With that out of the way here's a situation I got. I was going along as Korea working on a Science victory, but ended up dealing with a lot of military issues. Around Turn 131 I got my first emergency, Russia had invaded Perth and there was an offer for me, China and Australia (the invaded Civ) to participate. It wasn't my agenda but I thought to try it out at least. Turned out I was the only one participating!

I can understand fatty (China) stepping out, but where's Australia? It's his damn capital! To check I asked him if he would participate in a Joint War against an entirely different Civ and he said that was just fine! His agenda is "Perpetually on Guard" (likes Civ's who liberate cities), so does this mean he doesn't like himself? And of course he is at war with Russia already.

Seems like an AI failing, or am I missing something? Why wouldn't a Civ participate in their own emergency?

Anyhow thoughts on Emergencies in general, I doubt I can pull this off by myself, I was counting on at least Australia wanting to take back it's capital. How do we have an idea whether other civs will participate or not?

Edit: I'm going for it and rushing an unlikely victory. I have paltry forces but was able to defeat two of his units who invaded my territory, then plundered his trade en-route to the destination, at which point he offered peace with reparations. Now what? Searching hasn't found this situation, but I tried it to see what would happen which is it doesn't end the emergency, instead making it impossible to complete (since I don't have open borders with Peter one of my units was transported out of his territory).

Wups! Broadcasting to the team there should be some prevention or clarification of peace negotiations during an emergency, basically you don't want to do it! For example could happen is that you can accept the peace but it automatically ends the emergency as a stalemate.

Edit 2: I won! I only had chariots (and couldn't pull in a city-state for example) but spammed them, and after a number of sacrifices managed to take the city. It was the usual 'give back/raze/take' so I gave it back otherwise I'd have massive Loyalty issues (which made me wonder if liberating or razing had an effect on the Emergency, but all it said was "Liberate the city"). At any rate what was confusing was that the Emergency GUI didn't change until the next turn, so I was biting nails hoping there wasn't a problem, but then the Emergency was won and I got 3600 gold, yeahhhhhhhhhh!

So as it turned out I now have enough Gold to make up for much of the detour. I can buy campuses, etc, and get my Civ back on it's feet. So I'd say fantastic job to the Firaxis team! My long held complaint about Civ is that it always ends up as 'turn grinding' where you're hitting turn after turn to get to your Win. With this I took a completely unexpected detour to go on a war footing, which ended up well (but of course it could have failed, hence Rise and FALL). With Civ V I was more often starting than finishing games due to the turn grinding, but here for example now this game is totally invigorated and I'm looking forward to getting the Civ back up on it's feet after the war emergency. I think if they just streamline the process a bit (what about peace deals, an better end of emergency notification, etc) then it'll be even better.

 

[Nalain]

My big trouble with emergencies is i cant locate well on the map the city targeted by them. I think ergonomics miss something (or maybe i do, that is possible ). I understand they want all people to choose at the same time, but we need at least info to know where city is to know if we have a chance to help.

For example, last time the city taken was in middle of many civilization and i could not reach the city easily at all (yes, declare war is not what i call easy despite the AI powerless tactics). I accepted emergy before knowing city location, so i could just hope another civ take back the city, what hopefully happened.

 

[Xmonger]

Good point @Nalain! I wasn't sure where he was either, but since I only knew a small part of the map I figured it was OK. However, it could have been that I didn't have an easy route to him either. It pays to keep an idea or notes of where everything is, because once an emergency starts you can't hide the GUI away to look at the map again. Which adds some excitement.

Peter later on just started to invade me, I got so busy I neglected to get a source of Iron and so my units got stuck in the ancient era. He probably noticed this advantage and now I'm back on a war footing. I don't know, lots of people ***** about the AI but I'm not sure what they're saying, I keep seeing an AI that's way smarter than ever before, and keeps making good decisions and harassing me.

 

[Jarhead60]

My big trouble with emergencies is i cant locate well on the map the city targeted by them. I think ergonomics miss something (or maybe i do, that is possible ). I understand they want all people to choose at the same time, but we need at least info to know where city is to know if we have a chance to help.

For example, last time the city taken was in middle of many civilization and i could not reach the city easily at all (yes, declare war is not what i call easy despite the AI powerless tactics). I accepted emergy before knowing city location, so i could just hope another civ take back the city, what hopefully happened.

You can exit the emergency screen by clicking the X without accepting or rejecting. Then look around to find out where the target is as well as where the other possible participants are (sometimes they can't reach the target due to distance/geography so they likely won't participate. Then you just open the emergency screen again and accept or reject.

 

[Omega Alden]

From my experience with emergencies up to this point I'd say that you should always assume you're going to be the only person to join in on the emergency. The AI seems to be extremely timid with regards to joining in on an emergency against another AI. I don't think I've seen an emergency with more than one person participating on each side yet.

In your example with Australia's capital being taken, it seems like Australia should want to participate, but my guess is the AI knows that it's likely to fail if it already lost the capital. It seems like they should be weighted more heavily to join in, but if they're alone they're likely to fail it and make things worse for themselves.

What I'd like to see added is the ability to say you'll join in an emergency if more than one person enters. I think that that makes more sense than the system as is. I also think they could improve the user experience by moving the camera to the city the emergency is about, and also highlighting the city name in the emergency screen better. I think right now it's just in a sentence at the top and is difficult to find at a glance.

Congratulations on winning your emergency!

 

[bonafide11]

I have yet to see an interesting emergency yet in the game. It is the least exciting feature of the expansion pack.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

His agenda is "Perpetually on Guard" (likes Civ's who liberate cities), so does this mean he doesn't like himself?

Always expect AIs won't follow their own agenda except when the agenda is about crushing every neighbor (looking at you Chandragupta).
I won't say it's the most broken mechanism in Civ6 because the competition is tense but Firaxis definitely put them there without much though. Just consider Ghandi not liking you because you don't have nukes ... in the ancient era!

Regarding Emergencies, i still have to see an AI participate.

I also have questions regarding emergencies. When does an action result in an emergency and how does the game decide which civs are nominated for participation?
I've seen emergencies when CSs are captured, and yet plenty of times CSs are captured and nothing happens?
I've seen civs invade multiple cities and the world didn't care but when i took a single one from someone who attacked me it triggered an emergency. In another game it was i who declared a Retribution war on Ghandi who was converting my cities after promising not to do it and when he managed to take a single insignificant city i settled next to a lake with a pair of Galleys. It triggered an emergency! No AI bothered to participate of course so the next turn i was 4000 gold richer.

 

[Cedbird77]

My first 4 or 5 emergencies I failed at. Then got my last 2. I failed not because my Army was not the biggest and best. But logistics and proximity.

So you need to be ready to take advantage of the emergency .It is not supposed to be easy. Just like many other features of the game like Wonder building, Getting a Religion, and Space victory. Emergencies test your general skill in Empire building.

I believe it is a fun start. They will improve on this if course

 

[Victoria]

Emergencies are just naff, a Friday afternoon feature. The veneer is as thin as a politicians morals.

I keep seeing an AI that's way smarter than ever before

Agreed, the problem is it still makes mistakes, this means you can play a little safer and wait if need be. But yes I have see Cleo chariots behaving well 95% of the time... it’s just that 5%.

 

[Zdarg]

I don't think I've seen an emergency with more than one person participating on each side yet.

I've seen an emergency with three participant in current game.
Brazil was a very weak civ which somehow managed to take a city-state.
Poland. possibly have realized that emergency against Brazil was their only chance to make peace with me and to prevent me from freeing their Buenos Aires (they totally prevail, I never had time nor forces to go for Buenos Aires since then).
Don't remember who was third participant, probably all-reaching Rome.

 

[azmundai]

its just another form of AI .. which means .. who the %(^&#%)&(@ knows. I've had 5 ppl available to join, most in better position than me, and I am the only 1 to join. Whenever I get one on me, its like ... everyone coming to kill me. And when they do participate, they do very little to actually contribute. I see emergency vs unknown failed all the time, ive never seen the ai only, succeed in an emergency.

Not crazy about this xp in general. Lots of cool sounding features, but very little contribution of these changes to the game. Loyalty can be interesting, but overall its way more of a pain in the ass than anything else. Emergencies seem particularly terrible to me.

 

[Omega Alden]

I think the emergency system definitely needs to be tweaked. Emergencies declared against me because I'm warmongering are usually only joined by the person being taken out at the moment. Emergencies declared against an AI that I do not take part in do not even start. I have yet to see an AI join in on an emergency where I wasn't the target.

As a player, I either join them if I know I can fulfill them easily, or I ignore them because I don't want to take a loss. I wonder if they maybe need to look at punishing people for not joining in on emergencies in some manner.

When I first heard of emergencies, I was thinking of something that would unite a few civs together to deal with an evil empire, but what we have is more like a way to cheese out some extra gold if you're savvy. I think that ideally the system would fit in as a comeback mechanic to unite the smaller civs against the more powerful enemy. It looks like they kind of wanted it to behave that way, but in practice it doesn't seem to be doing that.

 

[slowcar]

In general i think they make sense as a kind of detour for a peaceful player (as the OP) that rewards the effort with gold that can be invested to make up for it.
If you play for domination you just get a lot of gold for actions you would have done anyway like liberating city states or holding on to your conquered land.
Even though i usually try to micromanage a lot i just did not use all the gold in my latest try and just finished with 5k gold in turn 130, felt too unfair.

 

[Chibisuke]

I have only ever seen a single AI civ join an emergency with me. Otherwise it's always by myself.