Friendly AIs vs your vassals?

[duckstab]

Do AIs ever DoW your vassal even if they're friendly with you? It looks to me like one of my neighbors is readying for war. He's friendly with me and my power rating is way above his, the only two targets left for him are my vassal or another civ that's nearby.

 

[LegionSteve]

The AI's true attitude towards you is the average of you and your vassals, so if he hates the vassal then he isn't really friendly and might declare war. On the other hand if your power rating is that far above him that should be enough to stop him declaring war unless it's mad Monty or something.

 

[miked1991]

Isn't that a bad way for the game to be programmed?

Once a Civ is a vassal, I tend to take little more notice of them in the game. I certainly don't worry about pleasing them unless they can still maintain a good tech rate. The threat is the bigger civ not its vassal, so surely they should be accepting to their friends taking on a vassal. Certainly not DOW their best friend just because of the guy they hate that their friends just conquered.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Isn't that a bad way for the game to be programmed?

Once a Civ is a vassal, I tend to take little more notice of them in the game. I certainly don't worry about pleasing them unless they can still maintain a good tech rate. The threat is the bigger civ not its vassal, so surely they should be accepting to their friends taking on a vassal. Certainly not DOW their best friend just because of the guy they hate that their friends just conquered.

Yes, it's bad programming. It's even worse programming that you get no visible cue (nor is any provided to the player for easy reference) that this is occurring, even while the game leads you to believe the vassal penalty of -1 that you can see is the only one.

Or, to put it simply, the interface lies to the player here, and for some reason fireaxis and a substantial portion of the community here is fine with that.

 

[Willem]

Do AIs ever DoW your vassal even if they're friendly with you?

Other civs cannot declare war on your vassals, only on you. As a master, you have ultimate control over you vassal's "foreign policy", so to speak, so other civs have to deal with you directly in those matters. The most that can happen is you take a diplomatic hit because "Their rival is one of your vassals.", or some such line.

 

[Antilogic]

That is odd because in my previous game, I had a large rival declare war on myself and my vassal, and I know I was at "Pleased" and he hated my vassal...

But that isn't what I am posting about. When the war declaration announcements came across the screen, it showed my rival declaring war on my vassal first, then declaring war on me.

I'm wondering how the reports are figured from the AI's actions.

 

[duckstab]

The AI's true attitude towards you is the average of you and your vassals, so if he hates the vassal then he isn't really friendly and might declare war. On the other hand if your power rating is that far above him that should be enough to stop him declaring war unless it's mad Monty or something.

OK, that's good to know. I assume a friendly AI's decision to attack someone you're in a defensive pact with might follow similar logic? I once had my buddy Alex DoW my other pal Cyrus even though I had defensive pacts with both of them. Guess I was trying to be too clever...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OK, that's good to know. I assume a friendly AI's decision to attack someone you're in a defensive pact with might follow similar logic? I once had my buddy Alex DoW my other pal Cyrus even though I had defensive pacts with both of them. Guess I was trying to be too clever...

That functions a little differently, since in a DP situation it is YOU making the declaration as part of honoring the pact. I'm pretty certain there's no averaging there, just the -hit for DP with rivals.

 

[LegionSteve]

Isn't that a bad way for the game to be programmed?

Once a Civ is a vassal, I tend to take little more notice of them in the game. I certainly don't worry about pleasing them unless they can still maintain a good tech rate. The threat is the bigger civ not its vassal, so surely they should be accepting to their friends taking on a vassal. Certainly not DOW their best friend just because of the guy they hate that their friends just conquered.

Yes it's a strange way of doing it, and not very logical for capitulated vassals where it means your war ally suddenly doesn't really like you any more. Perhaps makes a bit more sense for voluntary vassals, if you offer protection to someone who your former friend hates and would otherwise probably have declared war on then they would have reason not to like you any more.

The fact that the true attitude isn't displayed anywhere is bad design in my opinion.

That functions a little differently, since in a DP situation it is YOU making the declaration as part of honoring the pact. I'm pretty certain there's no averaging there, just the -hit for DP with rivals.

That's how I thought it worked too. The AI doesn't consider it's relations with people who have DPs with the target, only their power rating.