How often does backstabbing happen?

[basta]

How often does backstabbing happen?

3 or 4 times a game. Immortal/pangea/std.

The more aggressive civs, sometimes twice, even after you take out their capitol.

I once had Rome (shared border) backstab me during an active DoF; that was a bit much.

With the latest patch, you never have to declare war anymore, the AI does it for you.

 

[JWAT44]

I am not only talking about the narrow meaning of back stab. For example , I often see the text "Although feigning friendship with you..." etc etc, when they declare war on me. Isn't that a backstabbing dialog?

In the latest patch notes, 2kGreg said the following, among other notes:
[DIPLOMACY]

Made backstab routine more transparent (the dialog will clearly state that they are backstabbing you).

Isn't this one of the dialog texts he was talking about? If so, I get that one really often. Especially from the Germans, the Aztecs, and the Greeks. So much that I know and predict that they will do it, no matter what I do in diplomacy, which is what "frustrates" me the most.

at least one ai has given me this message in each post-patch game (rome did it like three or four times in one game!) and im on prince.

 

[Rockit]

I recently played a game where Ghengis & I were at war for a long time after he declared on me, couldn't blame him though he was stuck along a narrow coast with mountains blocking every expansion route except the one through my territory!

While this war was raging on adinfinitum, I noticed Catherine move up in the score & rankings, dropping AI captiols along the way. Then she began to mass troops in the sea near my borders. Her disposition to me was friendly so I entered a DoF with her, gave open borders & asked for her to DoW on Ghengis - all of which she agreed to immediately in one transaction. She immediately DoW on Ghengis when the deal was struck.

The next turn Catherine issued a DoW on me and assaulted with her massive number of troops. It was hilarious & I felt absolutely suckered/betrayed. I had attempted to divert her obvious plans to DoW on me by giving her an easier target (Ghengis) and trying to play off of her apparent Friendly status with me for the whole game prior... obviously she had other plans and stuck to them!

 

[JamesCivFan]

A really similar situation happened to me to, but instead of the Russians, the Germans betrayed me. They had an army near my borders and near France's, my neighbors. I pay them to attack France, and then one turn later, they betray me.

Luckily, I only give Gold per turn when asking someone to go to war against someone else, so I didn't lose any gold. It was frustrating nevertheless.

So, this must mean that the AI acts based on numbers and once it makes a big decision, it cannot change its opinion and recalculate the situation based on other factors. Sad but true.

 

[Maktaka]

Well, the AI wouldn't change its plans if you didn't give it reason to. Without war weariness, there's often no reason to declare peace against a decidedly weaker and ignorable foe before starting a new conflict. The AI only declares peace if it decides it cannot afford distractions, so if Catherine/Otto felt that Ghengis/France were not a sufficient threat to their cities or army, they won't call off the attack.

 

[Garvs]

The worst are Russia greece and Japan. Especially Russia.

 

[JamesCivFan]

I believe that if Russia back stabs you first, then Montezuma hasn't done his job right.

 

[turtlefang]

Every game.

The worse, in order, are the Norse, the Germans, the Greeks, the Russian and then the others.

I can count on the first four backstapping (making friends and then attacking) EVERY game that they are in the game. Other civs will do it but not as often.

The only exception is if I have an army so large that it three to six times larger than anyone elses. Which happens sometimes when I play the Germans.

 

[crossmr]

I've been backstabbed in most games
in one game the ottomans got open borders with me, promptly sent half a dozen units down various roads into my territory and declared war so they could be closer to attack

the germans decided out of the blue to attack me after being friendly. They thought my army was too small, problem for them was that my city nearest them was on a hill across some water, and my small army was mainly artillery.
I took out about 1.5 units a turn, and the AI couldn't figure out how to attack across the water and up the hill, they'd take massive damage.

it didn't take my long to produce half a dozen longswordsmen and destroy him.

 

[jahsoldier]

As a side note, there's a couple of real gripes I have about diplomacy, and one's the "They covet lands you currently own!" hate-reason.

Basically, this amounts to hating you for playing the damn game. If it was specific resources they were after, you could trade them those resources to keep them happy. If it's settling near their cities you can avoid that too. But as it is, the AI just has a catch-all reason to DoW you every single game.

The other is "They suspect you are trying to win the game in the same way they are!" Not only is this dumb, it breaks the immersiveness of the game even more than those silly "People with the pointiest sticks" pop-ups.

 

[ShahJahanII]

If you go into the game files and check out the leader traits, Monty is actually the one most likely to go to war.

 

[bitula]

If so (i dont play the game), I wonder why do many say, that diplomacy has been fixed in the patches. This whole backstabbing stuff sounds really disappointing and unrealistic.

 

[crossmr]

I started an epic prince game on a bigger earth map.. I've been back stabbed so many times, and it's only the classic age. I just bribed a guy to go to war with me, and before he even makes peace with the opponent, he's on me. These guys are so pathetic.
They think I'm weak. They attack me with a dozen units. I lose nothing, slaugther them all (they focus on the city, but can't attack it due to defense, so I just use my archers to pick them off, turn after turn until they run) , then they either try to get me to pay everything I have to get peace (makes sense. I just sent you running, I'm sure I'll give you every resource I have for that)
or they'll turn around after declaring war and give me everything. Monty just did that. I chased off his 6 units and then he turned around and offered me everything he had.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's determined by AI personality if they are willing to backstab. There's some randomness, but let's say half of the leaders like the backstabbing idea. Some of them will not have a chance to backstab you, so let's say it's 30% chance what one particular leader will backstab you in one particular game.

If you're playing with 6 opponents, that's 90% chance to be backstabbed in one particular game. Pure numbers.

 

[Waywocket]

Every game.

The worse, in order, are the Norse, ...

Huh. I have literally never been backstabbed by Harald. Of the civs that tend to be militaristic Denmarks's the only one that I've been able to rely on - once we're friends, we're friends forever, even while he's at war with most of the world.

I wonder why we've had such different experiences - or rather: which one of us has had the statistically uncommon experience.

 

[ShahJahanII]

I've been backstabbed in most games
in one game the ottomans got open borders with me, promptly sent half a dozen units down various roads into my territory and declared war so they could be closer to attack

This shouldn't happen. When you declare war the open borders agreement is cancelled.
So all the enemy's troops are expelled form your territory.

 

[crossmr]

Why would they respect your borders? They just declared war on you.

 

[shihuacao]

Why would they respect your borders? They just declared war on you.

This is a game mechanics.

 

[JamesCivFan]

It's determined by AI personality if they are willing to backstab. There's some randomness, but let's say half of the leaders like the backstabbing idea. Some of them will not have a chance to backstab you, so let's say it's 30% chance what one particular leader will backstab you in one particular game.

If you're playing with 6 opponents, that's 90% chance to be backstabbed in one particular game. Pure numbers.

And do you think this is normal or realistic in any way? Apart from that little personality number, the AI should factor your current situation,your unexpired deals , the consequences if they backstab you with the whole world etc etc more, before thinking into declaring a war like that.

 

[TPQ]

Simple question: How often have you been backstabbed by your immediate neighbor on higher difficulties?

It seems to happen to me in 9 out of every 10 games I play.

By "backstabbing" I mean either getting denounced or getting declared war on --especially early--.

I'd put the figure much closer to 100%. Maybe 98%. It seems to be a valid strategy for the AIs and they seem to use it frequently. Unfortunately, these back-stabs usually fail 98% of the time too.

A lot of the time I think they're either testing your defenses, trying to disrupt your progress towards the goal they think you're aiming for or they just took a bribe from another AI and declared a "phoney" war so they could get some extra cash.

The first main problem is, the AI doesn't seem particularly adept at threat assessment, so they often end up getting pummeled, or damaged enough that they give massively one-sided peace deals to stop you from crushing them.

The second main problem is that the tactical AI seems to have some problems acting out the plans the strategic AI dreams up.

If the devs just made the AIs a little less trigger happy and a little more wary they might not be so inclined to "back-stab" so often. Alternatively, if they improved the tactical AI, these back-stabs might actually work out once in a while, which would spice things up.