How do you get the AI to attack more powerful Civs?

[icantdrawanime]

I've been lurking on these threads for a while and just now got an account so I can start participating in some of these discussions.

I've been playing a game yesterday and noticed that the AI simply isn't willing to attack a bigger and slightly more powerful empire. I was playing as China on monarch in the earth scenario with 18 civs. Russia's power was off the charts as she steadily vassalized all of Europe and Egypt was right behind them. Egypt was friendly with me for a while and I used this to stir up trouble in Africa. But after she vasalized Saladin she refused to declare war or even stop trading with people. At the time, Russia was running away with the power chart and she was on pretty bad terms (cautious-annoyed) with Hashepsut but no matter what i did, I couldn't get anyone to declare war on each other. I didn't even have the option on signing embargoes to ruin relationships. Eventually I had to take over Russia myself and then Egypt cause after Russia fell, Egypt climbed the power chart unopposed...

I guess my question is, what could have caused this? Is there some flag in the AI that says, ok, everyones got too much power, time to turtle and build troops... it couldn't have been the space race because I'm the only person to have built the Apollo program... Also, if this happens, how do I break it other than declaring war on everyone...?

The only thing that kept me from losing hope was that Montezuma was being a real . .. .. .. .. .. .. . on the other continent and was always at war with Roosevelt/Hauyan Capac.

BTW, really looking forward to BTS where some of this might be fixed... I miss the days of instant World Wars in Civ 3.

 

[carl corey]

If you look at the AI hint for attacking a stronger one, you might see "we fear their military might" or something of that kind. Really, whatever you do there you probably can't get them to fight. Anyway, if you don't plan on keeping the weaker AI as a friend, consider asking the tougher one to attack, then backstabbing him. Works like charm.

 

[obsolete]

My problem last game, is the Gandhi dilemma. He started on another continent. This almost always = re-start and try again. But I decided just maybe I could outrun him on Monarch. LOL.

Same old same old. Despite being passive, he was up the charts. I did get Alexander and his vassal to attack gandhi. Yet somehow.... Gandi ALWAYS wins in defensive battles. And I don't know why, because I will gift military techs to any AI against him, but he still manages to win despite only playing defensive.

So he beat me to the race, despite I had over 50% of the world dominated, and an entire continent to myself

I have never found a way to annex the Gandi problem unless he happens to be on your own continent ,and even then there are problems.

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, having 50% of the world on Monarch should net you a pretty easy space win if it happens early enough. I know Gandhi techs like mad, but there are ways to slow him down even without military. Use spies to disrupt his resources, then when he starts building space parts just sabotage one city that builds a part. Take out the food tiles, he'll quickly run out of population and most probably will still continue to build the space part there. And since he's also most probably not going to declare war for this you can do it forever...

Anyway, with that kind of land you should adopt State Property, build watermills/workshops in some production cities and cruise to the Space Race. It has always worked for me on Monarch. Consider heading for the Space Elevator first (Computers first for Labs, Rocketry & Satellites next, Robotics last) and build it to boost spaceship production. Head for the Space Engine next since it will take the longest to build, then all the other techs.

 

[obsolete]

It doesnt work that easy. You can only make a max of 4 spies. And if caught (happens 50% of time during sabotage, you have to remake him and get him alllll the way over there, and tha'ts assuming you even have open borders. Then u must try and do it over again, while he is producing like mad.
And sabotaging food sources tends to give me more than 50% failure rate for some reason. Meaning I have lost many turns of that spy for nothing.

Also his tech race so quite advanced before I could even get a spy created, and his space ship was already during progress.

One thing that would make it a LOT easier, is if I could drop a spy into a friendly neighbour's city. IIRC you could do this with Civ III, and you could also do this in a previous vanilla version, but it looks like they removed it from Warlords, except for when it is a vassal only. Anyhow, this only is for when that city had airports. Which makes more sense then having to go by boats!

 

[carl corey]

I know it's only 4 spies, but it works just fine for me... I managed to do this in a couple of games, sabotaging almost all the tiles around one city. The AIs usually sent 1 or 2 workers to rebuild, pretty pathetic. Also, they never defend normal farms & mines. If the AI relies on Engineers & Priests to build (as they do a lot of times), leaving the city without food means also leaving it without production.

I don't have a problem with AIs starting their spaceship before me. As I said, I won't build any space parts, usually not even the Apollo Program until I have the Space Elevator. It's just not useful, it's better to build the Laboratories & the Space Elevator to boost production, then start most parts at once in different cities. Also, think of saving GPs for late golden ages, I've even had two golden ages to boost my late game production. Anyway, this means that I often see the AIs finishing Thrusters by the time I'm starting to build parts and I still finish first.

By the way, to ship spies faster you can have a boat-train: put several boats on the way and just take the spy from one onto another.

 

[obsolete]

Ok I see the exploit your talking about. A double-movement where they swap ships in the middle of the ocean. That's ok, except for when you're at war with someone Grrrrr! Anyhow, I'll try to use that next time the opportunity arises.

 

[carl corey]

Ok I see the exploit your talking about. A double-movement where they swap ships in the middle of the ocean. That's ok, except for when you're at war with someone Grrrrr! Anyhow, I'll try to use that next time the opportunity arises.

Yeah, that's the one. I'm not too keen on using spies usually, since the AI has pretty much no idea how to counter them, but as you said, when you see Gandhi on another continent and no one attacks him, or manages to hurt him despite having superior military it's time for a little cold war.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Often you can get an AI to attack a higher power opponent if you attack first. I am not sure how, but maybe the AI looks at the total power of the allies already engaged in a war and decides it is happy to join in.

 

[KMadCandy]

It doesnt work that easy. You can only make a max of 4 spies. And if caught (happens 50% of time during sabotage, you have to remake him and get him alllll the way over there, and that's assuming you even have open borders.

i don't get a kick out of the fact that it's only 4 spies on every map size. on large (and huge but i hardly ever play huge), i could certainly use more than 4!!!

i'm not sure what the assuming you even have open borders means? if there's a water route you can get them over by subs, they can go in rival territory without OB.

from screenshots in BtS, apparently spies will have only 1 movement point, but the have the Commando promotion, so they can use enemy roads. the guess is that since they're non-combat units they start with that automatically, like they start with sentry now (she's level 1). it doesn't show the sentry promotion they start with now. "enemy" roads, as in, you're not limited to two tiles even when you're at war with the guy! which will be really nifty if they have railroads. one recent game washington didn't have coal, my spies got quite worn out having to walk everywhere on plain old roads. i didn't feel sorry enough for them to actually trade him coal, of course.

 

[jerVL/kg]

one recent game washington didn't have coal, my spies got quite worn out having to walk everywhere on plain old roads. i didn't feel sorry enough for them to actually trade him coal, of course.

Which is why sometimes I'll ship workers over to a rival nation and have them build railroads between the cities, just so my spies can move faster.

 

[Preacherman]

- Wasn't it nice of them to help us build a railroad to our gold mine?
- Yeah, too bad it just caved in, though.