[R&F] How come victims ain't a member of their own emergency?

[PibbZ]

Long story short, Japan loses Kyoto to England, and an emergency is declared. Capture Kyoto within 30 turns. I think why not and join in, and to my surprise, I stand alone against the english when the war is being declared a turn later. Japan didn't join in on their own emergency god dammit. Is this an intended feature in any way?

Victims should automatically join emergencies like this. Just look at the terrain I have to juggle myself through to even get close to Kyoto. Japan is not even willing to trade open borders to me (which I expected to get from joining the emergency in the first place).

 

[isau]

Well in fairness if they are already losing and figure they won't be able to take the city back, it actually makes more sense to not join the emergency and not hand even more advantages to the person attacking them.

 

[MaryKB]

They don't have to join in! One possible reason they might not join, is that for every member who joins the target gets a larger reward if the emergency fails. If they think it won't be possible to accomplish, they may not want to risk making things worse in the long run but rather just accept that the city is lost. I'm not saying this is the AI programming, but just a logical reason someone might not want to join.

 

[PibbZ]

Well in fairness if they are already losing and figure they won't be able to take the city back, it actually makes more sense to not join the emergency and not hand even more advantages to the person attacking them.

I hear what you are saying, but why ask the world for help by launching an international emergency then? If they don't want their capital back? :O

 

[isau]

I hear what you are saying, but why ask the world for help by launching an international emergency then? If they don't want their capital back? :O

The targeted civ doesn't actually ask the world for help, although the text may be worded that way. The "emergency" is actually triggered by one civ gathering too much power, which is why it is based on a player having a leading score.

 

[PibbZ]

The targeted civ doesn't actually ask the world for help, although the text may be worded that way. The "emergency" is actually triggered by one civ gathering too much power, which is why it is based on a player having a leading score.

I noticed the wording when I completed the emergency, it said that Victoria's runaway success had to be stopped. However, I feel this entire emergency was a little on the weird side. The AI rarely join emergencies in the first place, one would believe they would be interested in helping themselves atleast

 

[historix69]

For a historic example of an emergency see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

On one side : North Korea (supported by Soviet Union and Red China)

On the other side : South Korea and the UN :
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Turkey
Australia
Philippines
New Zealand
Thailand
Ethiopia
Greece
France
Colombia
Belgium
South Africa
Netherlands
Luxembourg
(The armed forces were mostly South Korean and US plus some british / canadian troops.)

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Annoyingly I've seen the opposite, a Civ on the brink of annhilation is the only one to join an emergency when they have a single city left and the aggressor quickly succeeds by eliminating them from the game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Annoyingly I've seen the opposite, a Civ on the brink of annhilation is the only one to join an emergency when they have a single city left and the aggressor quickly succeeds by eliminating them from the game.

I've had this happen, too.

I think we need to keep in mind that Emergencies are a brand new system just introduced with R&F. There's bound to be some tweaking required to avoid issues like this.

Admittedly, I'm concerned that tweaking won't be enough and that the whole system requires a level of AI situational awareness that Civ 6 just isn't up to. But I'll give the developers a few patches to prove me wrong.

In the meantime, I'm just glad I don't play multi-player, because I can't even imagine what sort of a mess Emergencies are making of multi-player game balance.

 

[Peserwin]

I imagine Wilhelmina would be quite jealous about Japan's starting location. Look at those lakes! I... need.. to polder them

 

[historix69]

There are many factors to be considered :
- Distance to target (Travel Time) and Open Borders
- Terrain
- available (standing) army (number and type of units)
- neighbours

Depending on distance, type of roads and bridges (river crossings), terrain, Open Borders with neighbouring civs, the travel time to reach a target city can be long or the target even can be unreachable.

In Civ 6 you also always have to consider that while you deal with an emergency your own empire can become one, too, when neighbouring civs backstab you. In one game (with 30 civs) I got 4-6 DoWs while on an emergency. If your army is too small to defend your own cities and take the target city at the same time, you better not join the emergency.

Emergencies probably would work better when the game would automatically draft neighbouring civs together with the player into an alliance as active and passive participants (open borders), ensuring that there is no backstabbing among neighbours and the road is free.
In the medieval ages, the pope was kind of moderator to organize the crusades, in 20th century it was rather the British Empire and later the UN / US, etc.

Game mechanisms might be similar to world fair in Civ5.
The player should be able to initiate emergencies if an emergency is not triggered. (Maybe depending on political advances.)

Friendly / neutral relations and open borders would have to be ensured for a certain time after achieving the target, too, to ensure safe return of the troops.
Diplomatic relations between participants might improve by a successful emergency.

There should be rules for taking (neutral and target) cities during an emergency and a possible (auto-)release of cities at the end of the emergency or consequences for not releasing cities.

Examples :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople_(1204)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War


If a player is going for domination victory (or the game thinks so, e.g. when controlling 50% of capitals or occupying large number of cities/population), this might lead to an emergency alliance of (all) other players against the leading player. (World War)

This would probably be a feature not liked by everybody, so there should be an option to deactivate emergencies.

 

[Human Crouton]

A lot of people making excuses for really bad AI in here.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Sometimes joining an emergency would only benefit the agrressor, such as a religous victory if you have a throwaway religion. If you fail at that, you're just helping them snowball.



Peter joining just gives me free gold when he dies.

Though IMO, it's a symptom of a bigger problem and that is the AI is incapable of being prepared for emergency planning and wouldn't even be able to help in most cases.

 

[PeterChu]

In one of my recent games, a quite different story happened, making me curious about the programming of Emergency events.

Long story short, I had an alliance built with China. The relation turned sour since both civs were seeking Culture VC. China rejected to declare friendship with me when the alliance needs to be renewed. A few turns later, China together with another civs in its landmass (Rome, actually) declared formal wars on me.

That didn't surprise me at all. What surprised me is this triggered a Betrayal Emergency in the next turn. An expired alliance relation could still trigger a Betrayal Emergency. Really? If so, how long this would affect the game system for determining a Betrayal Emergency?

Another interesting thing in this story is Rome joined this Betrayal Emergency targeted at China immediately after the announcement of this Betrayal Emergency. In the game, it showed Rome ended the war on me, and indeed started to move its military units toward Chinese cities. An interesting twist for me. Not a bad story, I shall say.

However, the game said Rome declared a 'formal war' on me, so it is not a 'joint war' together with China. Is this the reason why Rome can make an U-turn and join this Betrayal Emergency? But why not other civs that still maintained alliances with me? Why did they not qualify as the Members of this Emergency? Rome even did not want to declare friendship with me at that moment. Hmmm, strange.

Last thing needed to mention is this Betrayal Emergency required the Members to take the Chinese capital. I just did that. in addition, I took three other Chinese cities on my way to the Chinese capital. And as expected, I got warmongering penalty after the end of this Betrayal Emergency from those civs I had alliance relations for long time. So in the end I could not sustain my alliance network. One by one they rejected to renew the alliance relation. Rome later built up an alliance with me, since it is the only civ that did not show any warmongering penalty on me in the diplomacy screen. This is not a convenient situation for Culture VC. In one sense, China indeed got something form its destined-to-fail war on me.

 

[PibbZ]

Exact same thing just happened to me PeterChu. This emergency stuff just became weirder than ever.

I've had a long term alliances with both Egypt and Nubia, but they were enemies of my best mate Gilgamesh, which I was trying to get a level 3 alliance with for the achievement. I then decided not to renew my alliance with them for a while, to avoid building any negative diplo modifiers with Gilgamesh.

Suddenly, Egypt and Nubia declare a joint surprise war on me. Then 2x Betrayal emergency pops, one for Egypt vs me, and one for Nubia vs me. I miss an achievement for joining a Betrayal Emergency, so I join in both.
Then, the weirdest twist of events happens. Nubia joins me in the emergency against egypt, forcing peace between me and Nubia, and at the same time destroying the alliance between Nubia and Egypt.

Wow.

Savegame attached for those who wants to dig around. The Bromance achievement is just 2 turns away tho, so use it at your own discretion.

 

[PeterChu]

Suddenly, Egypt and Nubia declare a joint surprise war on me. Then 2x Betrayal emergency pops, one for Egypt vs me, and one for Nubia vs me. I miss an achievement for joining a Betrayal Emergency, so I join in both.
Then, the weirdest twist of events happens. Nubia joins me in the emergency against egypt, forcing peace between me and Nubia, and at the same time destroying the alliance between Nubia and Egypt.

Wow.

So it is a 'joint war'? That is weirder than my story. I am sure mine is about the two 'formal wars' declared by China and Rome in the same turn. Technically, it is not a 'joint war'?

One question remians: if Nubia breaks its alliance relation with Egypt by joining the emergency against Egypt, how come this didn't trigger another Betrayal Emergency targeted at Nubia? I had the same question on the fate of Rome in my game. Before Rome joined the Betrayal Emergency targeted at China, Rome did have an alliance with China.

 

[Za01phod]

.....
(The armed forces were mostly South Korean and US plus some british / canadian troops.)

4748 Dutch soldiers fought in Korea; 122 got killed.
3171 Belgian soldiers fought in Korea; 101 got killed.
etc.

Your post is incorrect.

 

[Victoria]

A lot of people making excuses for really bad AI in here.

Its generally agreed the AI is bad.
However good discussion is very important on any point and also there are examples in the game where people have said the design or AI is bad in an area, Firaxis has changed it around and its worse so one has to be careful.
I had a long think through emergencies and how they could be fixed, considering how complex the game is and how poor the AI is at combat the whole idea of Emergencies is just that, a bad idea that should just be surgically removed and replaced with the UN again or a similar thing.

 

[historix69]

4748 Dutch soldiers fought in Korea; 122 got killed.
3171 Belgian soldiers fought in Korea; 101 got killed.
etc.

Your post is incorrect.

I used the wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
They list 603 k South Korean Forces and 327 k US Forces, so relative to these numbers the contribution of other participants seemed neglectible ...

Spoiler :

Casualties and losses (SK + UN)

Total: 178,405 dead and 32,925 missing
Total wounded: 566,434

Details

• South Korea:[17]
  137,899 dead
  450,742 wounded
  24,495 MIA
  8,343 POW
• United States:
  36,574 dead[23]
  103,284 wounded[23]
  7,926 MIA[24]
  4,714 POW[25]
• United Kingdom:
  1,109 dead[26]
  2,674 wounded[26]
  179 MIA[17]
  977 POW[17]
• Turkey:[17]
  741 dead
  2,068 wounded
  163 MIA
  244 POW
• Canada:
  516 dead[27]
  1,042 wounded[28]
  1 MIA[17]
  33 POW[29]
• Australia:[30]
  339 dead
  1,216 wounded
  43 MIA
  26 POW
• France:[17]
  262 dead
  1,008 wounded
  7 MIA
  12 POW
• Kingdom of Greece[17]
  192 dead
  543 wounded
  3 POW
• Colombia:[17]
  163 dead
  448 wounded
  28 POW
• Thailand:[17]
  129 dead
  1,139 wounded
  5 MIA
• Ethiopian Empire[17]
  121 dead
  536 wounded
• Netherlands:[17]
  122 dead
  645 wounded
  3 MIA
• Belgium:[17]
  101 dead
  478 Wounded
  5 MIA
  1 POW
• Philippines:[31]
  92 dead
  299 wounded
  97 MIA/POW
• South Africa[17]
  34 dead
  9 POW
• New Zealand:[31]
  34 dead
  299 wounded
  1 MIA/POW
• Norway:[17]
  3 dead
• Luxembourg:[17]
  2 dead
  13 wounded
• India:[32]
  1 dead

 

[PeterChu]

Its generally agreed the AI is bad.
However good discussion is very important on any point and also there are examples in the game where people have said the design or AI is bad in an area, Firaxis has changed it around and its worse so one has to be careful.
I had a long think through emergencies and how they could be fixed, considering how complex the game is and how poor the AI is at combat the whole idea of Emergencies is just that, a bad idea that should just be surgically removed and replaced with the UN again or a similar thing.

Despite all those problems around the Emergency system, I still like it. It has something lacking in the UN system, not to mention that the UN system can only emerge and operate in the late game. Compared with the warmongering penalty mechanic, t works in a different and ‘smart’ way (at least IMHO) to counter various forms of 'over-expansion'. And the combat bonus granted to the Members of an Emergency could be regarded as the effort to diminish the negative impacts of the limited or impotent Combat AI.

Still, how should the Emergency system be related to the warmongering penalty mechanic in particular and the CB system in general? Or even the whole diplomacy system? This seems for me to be a BIG ISSUE inherent in every theory of 'Just War'. I won't expect a simple and widely agreed technical solution in this regard. Even the UN system can not serve as an easy exit out of those 'moral dilemmas' that are created in one sense by the question of how to respond to those emergency situations in human civilization development. Thinking about this kind of questions and testing different ways to deal with these situations through a game is part of my pleasure in playing the Civ 6 games, at least for now.