How do you get peace so easily?

[Megalou]

Having read some of the comments on the Babylomnian GOTM, I realize some of you are way ahead of me (as is the AI.) One thing I can't figure out is this:

Someone wrote in the "spoiler" thread that during your first few wars against one opponent you can usually take a city or two and then demand peace. I recall doing it before but now it doesn't work. The AI refuses to acknoledge... etc. It always tries to form an alliance to boot (me), and then there is serious trouble. There can be two different reasons for this, or a conglomerate of both reasons:
1. The AI knows that I'm behind and firmly calls my bluff (and kicks my behind).
2. The 1.29f version is tougher. As a matter of fact, I haven't won at deity a single time since installing that patch. It's obvious to me that the AI is much more close-fisted when it comes to trading, generally. Even when it's all but whiped out it usually gives no more than one tech, and sometimes a poor one. It's not interested in staying alive, maybe - it knows that the human player acts differently from a computer opponent. If its last town is on some remote island it knows I won't bother to come and take it (unless possibly if I go for dip.vic.)

I'm not hinting that some people play an older version, that would be vanity on my part. (Besides, no one "cheats", right?) What I'd like is some decent advise on how to be successful in your early wars. Please, no short answers like "Reason number 1 is the correct one", then you've missed my point.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well, some people may say "capture a city or two then get peace", but they don't really say how many turns it took to get peace. You will almost never have a 1 or 2 turn war and have them recognize your envoy. I don't remember exactly how long it took for them to recognize my envoy, but I'm guessing ~5 turns for the first couple wars, then it continually would get longer after each war. Some factors I think may play a role:
1. Their attitude towards you. If you've been at war with them several times, razed some of their cities, broken deals, etc. it seems to take longer, because they will be furious even after the war. If you had not broken treaties, etc. they may still be polite or cautious after the war, even though you've captured some of their cities. For razing, the first time you raze a city they will recognize your envoy quickly, but after you have had several wars and razed several cities, the effect of razing seems not to faze them as much.
2. How much damage you dealt them. Capturing cities is the biggest blow, but sometimes pillaging a resource will get them to sign peace. Having a large stack right next to one of their cities will sometimes do it. Experiment by trying to contact them at the beginning of a turn (before moving any units), then kill some of their units, pillage tiles, etc. and then check at the end of the turn.
3. If you have any undefended cities, they may be sending some units towards it, or thinks it has a chance of capturing it. Or if you have a weak military as it is, it may take longer, because it thinks it can still win the war.
4. Change in 'power' strength (from the histographic screen and I mean power ranking, not score). Often times after I've settled a new city (thus increasing my power), the AI is much more likely to sign peace. Power ranking is determined at the end of each turn (while the AI is doing it's turn), so it's the turn after I've settled a new city. Maybe power ranking is the most important factor? Because pillaging their resources, capturing cities, defeating lots of their units (and not losing many of yours), settling your own cities would all give you increased power over your enemy.

 

[cracker]

You can also put the worries that someone might be playing and older easier verion out of your mind, because the savegame files will not load and run in older versions. When we produce a game file to run in Civ3 v1.29f it will no longer load and run in v1.21 or v1.17 without crashing.

Generally in V1.29, the AI trading behavior and how they calculate the value of things makes them virtually incompatible with "neighborly play."

 

[DaveMcW]

Like Bamspeedy said, they make it sound easy by not mentioning how many turns it took. Anyone can steal a city from the AI by positioning a "stack of doom" and declaring war when ready, but that is only the beginning. You then need your entire border prepared for the counterattack, which requires some experience to do efficiently.

Taking cities makes the AI talk faster, but losing cities has the reverse effect. So a good defense is doubly important.

I disagree with Bamspeedy's point 3, the AI is not that smart. Half my core cities were undefended during the Persian wars because I needed every unit on the front. Yet they continued to throw immortals against the walls of Persepolis. And several times the AI would talk peace as their stack of doom approached a city they could take easily.

RE: cheating. I don't think it's possible to play 1.29f savegames with an earlier version. And preserve random seed is on, which makes reloading almost useless on defense.

 

[ProPain]

I do agree with Bamspeedy on that point. I think the amount of troops in your territory and the chance of taking a city influences the willingness to talk peace. But there's a second effect that once the AI is prepared to receive your envoy and thus talk peace it will never (at least in my ecperience) refuse your envoy again during that war. Even when it's getting stronger than you every turn.

This means that when the AI was already prepared to make peace it may move in troops to capture a badly defended city but it will still acknowlegde your envoy. You will notice a change in it's demands/sacrifices it makes for peace. When the AI notices it's getting stronger than you it will demand more stuff and vice versa.

 

[Megalou]

Originally posted by cracker
the savegame files will not load and run in older versions.

Good! I'm virtually 100% impressed by some of your results. Hats off. Good advise too. For example, learning that opponents are more "forgiving" when their cities have been razed seems valuable.

The problem for me is usually that before I feel ready to attack, the opponents are so big I can take 1 capitol from the weekest ones at most. Then I pick up the crumbs from someone else who has grown huge and eventually wins on culture or Space race. I realize it must take pretty complex tactics to keep all other civs down.

It still puzzles me how you can get wars started so early. I'm thinking maybe more regular units, early forbidden palace at all costs, strategic defence at the borders, defendable areas with a few strong core cities. But on the other hand, if you don't have a big area, how do you retain iron? It will be interesting to read how you pros managed to make swordsmen and keep the area together in the latest GOTM, where the iron was so far from the starting location, or if you managed to carve a hole in Persia without swordsmen. By the time I had made a few swordsmen, the immortals poured in and I was eons away from pikemen.

Moderator Comment:
Welcome to the GOTM Megalou. Just a caution here for you and perhaps even DaveMcW. We are very close to the closing date for GOTM14-Babylon but we need to be very community sensitive with any potential spoiler comments that might leak information about games that are still open for play. This thread is not a spoiler thread so you need to be extra careful to restrict your examples to only those games that are already closed.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Megalou
Someone wrote in the "spoiler" thread that during your first few wars against one opponent you can usually take a city or two and then demand peace. I recall doing it before but now it doesn't work.

There is a big secret to that. The AIs think very little about their size-1 town, especially if it's far away from their capital. That's it! That's the big secret. Don't even think about demanding them to hand over one their core city, that would never happen. Although, it's possible to demand the Germans to hand over a size-4 city within 5 squares away from their capitals (only happen at Monarch or lower level). Btw, don't attack those size-1 town because you will destroy them if you win the battle. Since you usually would get those size-1 towns at peace talk anyway, don't destroy them unless you have no other choice. Just remember that they are easy target for good reason (the AIs don't care much about them).

Another key to victory is that to know when you need to be on offensive or defensive. For example, I usually fight a defensive war until they are willing to see my envoy. Once peace talk is possible, I would check to see if they are willing to accept peace for peace. This is very important! It has to be peace for peace or peace for peace + worldmap or something close to that. If they want peace in exchange for your head, don't do it! Now is a good time to be on offensive and launch everything you have at them. (Hint: only do it if you can liberate at least one of their major city; if you can't, it would be foolish to sacrifice your units). Now, sue for peace and you will be in for a supprise of what they are willing to give you.

 

[Yndy]

That is an interesting insight Moonsinger. I would normally declare and then blitz one of their cities. Then I would defend until my forces are healed and their main counterattack is over and then push forward.
In the past i have tried to do defense then offense but on high levels the counter-attacks would never stop as the AI bonuses allow them to mass build attack units as I destroy them.
I then start checking when they would accept peace for peace. The moment they accept that I throw everything and I mean everything in a last attack to get one or more towns and regardless of the outcome i make peace.
A bit off topic, I have noticed that during peace negotiations i could offer gpt for science when normally my rep was ruined. So a couple of times I took a large discount in techs during peace negotiations.

 

[Dimy]

A very strong unit later in the game is the Artillery... build a huge stack of these, like 50 at least but the more the better.... defend the stack with at least 3 infantry or an infantry army and move in 2 tiles from a big AI city. Depending on the size of your artillery stack you can shoot the AI city to a size 1 town (or at least under 6, so their defense bonus is gone) and reduce all AI defenders with 1 health left. Then you'll see it's easy to take the city with minimum losses. I usually need 1 turn of Artillery bombardment to take over a size 12 city. For bigger cities I need 2 or 3 turns of heavy artillery bombardment. From what I read I think you're building a huge army of Cavalery and/or Armor and mass attack them with all you have.... that's kinda suicidal, you'll have many losses.

Don't forget to keep about 10 or 15 Artilleries inside your territory as well as a few offensive units in case of a counter attack, when they come, use the artillery to bring them down to 1 health and then finish them off... you'll see that wars will be easy this way and you'll hardly loose units.

As for ancient wars.... In my last GOTM (without giving away spoilers) I had conquered my nearest neighbours both before 1 AD. Two of my core cities were only producing military units.... my other cities were building culture and workers and settlers every now and then. After a few turns I had a reasonable army of horseman and defending units to send along (impi's in this case cuz we played Zulu). Took me a few turns to take them down.

-Dimy

*EDIT* Oops... That was not the last GOTM...that was GOTM 12 . I just finished GOTM 12 this week as practise game for the current one

 

[ProPain]

Originally posted by Dimy
From what I read I think you're building a huge army of Cavalery and/or Armor and mass attack them with all you have.... that's kinda suicidal, you'll have many losses. :

Totally depends on the game. as long as you're not behind in tech there's no problem. I'm no arty builder and usually depend on fast attack wars, so I mass knight/cavalry. Send them in without defense often too. just hop from city to city and heal in newly captured cities. Works fine

Originally posted by Dimy
Don't forget to keep about 10 or 15 Artilleries inside your territory as well as a few offensive units in case of a counter attack, when they come, use the artillery to bring them down to 1 health and then finish them off... you'll see that wars will be easy this way and you'll hardly loose units.

Totally agree with this, IMO it's the most usefull purpose for captured artillery. Disbanding them for cheap temples being a close second

@moonsinger. The ai doesn't care for the 1 size cities as long as there are no resources in its borders. I also have the impression that this also applies for resources not visible yet, since the AI knows there will be there anyway.

 

[Dimy]

Totally depends on the game. as long as you're not behind in tech there's no problem. I'm no arty builder and usually depend on fast attack wars, so I mass knight/cavalry. Send them in without defense often too. just hop from city to city and heal in newly captured cities. Works fine

Well yes, but I meant in modern warfare... in ancient time mass attack with horsemen/knights etc is very effective indeed . Infantry and Mech. Inf's in >12 cities are extremely hard to kill...even with modern armor you'll suffer heavily losses.

-Dimy

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Yndy
I would normally declare and then blitz one of their cities. Then I would defend until my forces are healed and their main counterattack is over and then push forward.

Yes, I did that too. I usually take out their stragic resources during the first few turn of the war, then put my force on defensive against their counter-attacks. And the rest happenned just like my previous post. Note: At higher levels, it's important to take out their resources at the beginning of the war so that their re-enforcement won't be as good.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by ProPain
@moonsinger. The ai doesn't care for the 1 size cities as long as there are no resources in its borders. I also have the impression that this also applies for resources not visible yet, since the AI knows there will be there anyway.

I concur. I also notice that too. If they want to keep a size-1 town at all cost, there definitely is something important there. Here is another hint: when the AI sails half-way around the world just to attack or builld in the middle of no where, there must be a good reason for doing that. AI isn't that stupid if you know what I mean.

 

[ProPain]

Originally posted by Moonsinger


I concur. I also notice that too. If they want to keep a size-1 town at all cost, there definitely is something important there. Here is another hint: when the AI sails half-way around the world just to attack or builld in the middle of no where, there must be a good reason for doing that. AI isn't that stupid if you know what I mean.

Don't know if it's stupid but it does seem to have an extremely accurate crystal ball