How to defend your afriendly city state from AI attack, without diplo consequences

[Venereus]

I had a situation like this in my game.

I was at war with Bismarck, and I was allied with a city-state (I forget which, let's call it Bob). Eventually I got peace with Bismarck. Then I tried to get Bismarck to make peace with Bob, but when hovering over Bob in the "make peace with" menu in trade, it said Bob had declared permanent war on Bismarck, and so it was impossible.

My only option to save Bob seemed to be to wipe Bismarck off the map, however I had just made peace with him and so I could not declare on him until the treaty was over. By that time, I'm sure Bob would have been conquered (again). So, I put six units around Bob's city. Bismarck shelled Bob every turn with artillery and had a ring of units two deep around my units, around Bob's city. It was impossible for Bismarck to conquer Bob, and impossible for me to do anything other than sit there in his way.

The permanent war feature doesn't feel right to me. Maybe if I'm allied with Bob I should be able to get him to call off the permanent war.

Also, the AI needs to be smart enough to know that it has to kill you to get to Bob. This gameplay felt pretty degenerate to me.

Perma war is definitely broken. It triggers against warmonging civs, effectively suiciding city-states.

 

[EmperorFool]

I had a few units stationed on Hiawatha's border (open borders, sour relations), and he complained about so many units close to his borders. Said I should do something with them or leave. I don't know if all these "suggestions" from the AIs or my responses have any effect, but it clearly was programmed to detect it.

There's no reason the AI couldn't be programmed to detect when your units are hindering its advances on a third player and react accordingly.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, EF, proximity and blocking are not exactly the same thing

 

[effexop]

This has exploits too: what if Civ A and I form a pact to declare war on Civ B. Now, Civ A and I can share tiles during the war (we are at peace with each other), and have 2 units per tile vs the one unit of CivB?

Thats a horribly broken military advantage, and opens up the old stacking questions (which unit defends? when that tile is attacked).

There's really no way around some kind of exploit in a 1upt system. Its the price we pay for ending stacking.

There is a simple solution for that, just make the stacked unit that got there later a civilian unit until it de-stacks. If the tile get attacked, one unit defends, and if it loses, both units are gone.

 

[EmperorFool]

Well, EF, proximity and blocking are not exactly the same thing

I never said they were the same thing, but they are similar. My point is that since Firaxis programmed the AI to detect proximity they might be able to program it to detect blocking.

For example, they have a target city just like they have their own border. They just need to detect "too many" of your units in the proximity of the city. Plus with the path-finding algorithm it shouldn't be too hard to have it return the player that is blocking their access if there's no path to their target.

I also experienced the permanent war problem in my current game. Monty is in North America and I'm in South America, and my ally Monaco is surrounded by Monty on three sides. Early after allying with Monaco Monty attacked them. I gifted two Bowman and a Pikeman which Monaco used to fend off the attack, but of course then sent them with 2 HP into Monty's land to die. I asked Monty to stop the attack and he accepted without anything in return. Sweet.

Then some five hundred years later I noticed that Monty had a bunch of units sitting in Monaco's borders, but they weren't doing anything. All of a sudden Monaco started shelling the units, but again Monty wouldn't attack. Monaco had gotten impatient with the trespassing I guess and entered a permanent war. This continued for some time until finally Monty had had enough himself and started fighting back.

While Monty is way behind in tech (Archers and Spearmen to my Infantry), I only have three cities and four land units because I'm going for a cultural victory. I cannot DoW yet, so I built and gifted a single Infantry which Monaco used to kill every one of Monty's units and take one of his cities. He sent it on again with 1 HP this time to die. Why doesn't the AI understand how to heal their units?

Anyway, it's been rather amusing watching their little pillow fight . . . and then handing one of them a sledgehammer.

 

[MeteorPunch]

This needs to be fixed. Let the AI go through you, or have harsh penalties for blocking. "Peaceful" military units shouldn't be anywhere near a war zone anyway. If you move inside a war zone, you should be flagged as hostile and attackable without consequence (oops, collateral damage), or be given a warning to move...or else.

 

[MyOtherName]

Scrub theory emerges early in gaming .

1upt is a big factor of civ V, and creative applications of it have merit.

Maybe, but there is still room to improve the game. Would you prefer a game with a stupid AI who can't recognize when they're being blocked, or would you prefer a game with a less stupid AI who can recognize it and takes steps to deal with it? I would expect the latter to be a better game.

 

[Bibor]

In my last game I had a one-tile island city-state (friendly, not allied) surrounded by a dozen of French caravels/frigates. For turns and turns.

Then I gifted the city-state a submarine.

Then I planted a destroyer near its borders to watch the show every turn. Who says turns are boring?

 

[Sofar Sogood]

I think that a fix to this could be relatively easy (assuming the correct fix is to have the AI consider this a semi-hostile action).

The way I figure it, the AI could just check if it's got a high-end target (i.e. the City State) and if all available tiles that would allow the AI to reach that target are occupied. It would then ask you to move your units, with refusal equivalent to grave disrespect.

i.e. you (U) have some units parked on all six hexes outside the City State (C), and the City State's enemy (E) has melee units right outside.

UU E
UCU E
UU

There's no way in, so:

"Your forces are blocking the path to our enemies. We request that you move them quickly."
-"Sure."
-"Make like a tree and leaf."

 

[WuphonsReach]

This needs to be fixed. Let the AI go through you, or have harsh penalties for blocking. "Peaceful" military units shouldn't be anywhere near a war zone anyway. If you move inside a war zone, you should be flagged as hostile and attackable without consequence (oops, collateral damage), or be given a warning to move...or else.

The concept of a war zone has merit and might actually be possible to code I think. Modifiers for:

- in your own territory
- in civ X's territory (based on how civ Y feels about X)
- in neutral territory
- in city-state territory
- within 3 units of one of our unit, harsher for within 2 and within 1 unit if we're at war

Detecting blocking is much more difficult, unless the unit keeps track of where it wants to go and how long it's been stuck at X distance from its goal.

 

[EmperorFool]

I built and gifted a single Infantry which Monaco used to kill every one of Monty's units and take one of his cities. He sent it on again with 1 HP this time to die. Why doesn't the AI understand how to heal their units?

Watching this for many, many turns with various units, it appears that City State units cannot heal. Has anyone else noticed this? Monaco parked a tank with 1HP in its city, but it never healed at all. The only time its units healed is when it used the instant-heal promotion.

 

[crossclayton]

I think that a fix to this could be relatively easy (assuming the correct fix is to have the AI consider this a semi-hostile action).

The way I figure it, the AI could just check if it's got a high-end target (i.e. the City State) and if all available tiles that would allow the AI to reach that target are occupied. It would then ask you to move your units, with refusal equivalent to grave disrespect.

i.e. you (U) have some units parked on all six hexes outside the City State (C), and the City State's enemy (E) has melee units right outside.

UU E
UCU E
UU

There's no way in, so:

"Your forces are blocking the path to our enemies. We request that you move them quickly."
-"Sure."
-"Make like a tree and leaf."

ok, seems weird to me. Firstly: All the people who want time wasted on programming a fix for this, all seem to agree that it is some kind of exploit and that you should not be able to block. If this is the case, dont do it then, the AI doesn't do it, so you just need to fix yourself and not use the exploit.

Secondly: For the people who want some kind of diplo fix for this, such as the example given above, whats the point. Think about it, if they did a diplo fix, your going to be asked to move your troops and you are either A going to agree or B not going to agree which would then lead to you being declared war on. If you disagree and do not move your units then you are declared on, this kind of makes it pointless to block the city in the first place, you should just come to the aid of the CS to begin with cos you end up in war against the attacking civ anyway. And if you do agree to move your units, you are basically not using the exploit, so just dont do it in the first place.

There is your fix, dont need to waist time programming it in, if you dont like it, dont do it, if you wanna "cheat" then go right ahead.

 

[ignite]

It is an exploit, not because of the strategy, but because the AI isn't sophisticated enough to detect this as a deliberate attempt by the player to hinder them. As someone said earlier, if someone did it to you, you would declare war.

You wouldn't even have to declare war. Make a unit, attack with that unit from safety of city. Assuming the other guy wants to block you and not destroy your city, what's the difference? I don't see this at all as an exploit.

If someone is surrounding a city with units to prevent that city from moving workers and settlers, the fact is that they've already won. The same is true if you're surrounding a city state to prevent the AI from attacking it. Could the AI declare war on you to get to the city state? Sure. Is it programmed to do that? I don't know, I guess not. But that's not my fault.

There's no difference between being at war with the AI and having them attack an allied city state and you defending that city state by surrounding the city with your units, versus the situation in the paragraph above, where the AI isn't at war with you, but is attacking the city state. Why is the first situation an exploit and the second one isn't? The only difference is that in the first scenario, the AI doesn't want to attack you.

 

[EmperorFool]

If a powerful AI were able to detect that you were blocking them and declare war, it might make you think twice about blocking them. Thus, you're exploiting a weakness in the AI code.

Is this morally wrong? Hardly. Is it cheating? There's no rule against it. Is it against the spirit of the game? That's very subjective.

Is it cheesy? You betcha! But no one goes to hell for being cheesy. So far I've managed to resist the temptation to go that route and instead gifted units to the city state, including a GDR at the end.

 

[Zhahz]

It's basically an exploit.

Yes, i'ts an exploit. The player is taking advantage of game mechanics (1upt) to hinder the AI, who would never do such a thing. There is nothing strategic about exploitation.

It's circumnavigating the intent of the game, which is that you fight to defend the city state or gift it those units so it can fight itself (often times city states ask for units and gifting doesn't hurt you diplo-wise).

The AI needs to be coded to declare on you for being a cheesebag or to back off because it can't handle you.

 

[HedgeLeether]

Another way to defend allied City-States is to "gift" military units. It takes three turns for the units to appear but it can definitely turn the tide! The attacking AI Civ doesn't appear to hold it against you.

I gifted three units to a City-State that was under attack. They had no military left and their city was about to fall. When the new units popped up, they immediately fought back and drove the attackers across the border or destroyed them completely.

 

[Ahriman]

There is a simple solution for that, just make the stacked unit that got there later a civilian unit until it de-stacks. If the tile get attacked, one unit defends, and if it loses, both units are gone.

How is that simple? How would the AI understand it?
And how is it logical? A rifleman moves onto the same tile as a cannon, the cannon is attacked and killed and the rifleman auto-dies?

 

[acm2033]

If you surround your neighbors first city with enough units, they can't get a settler out. You wouldn't see that as an exploit?

Can't the neighbor just declare war and have at you? I guess that's the real problem... the way the AI is deciding *not* to declare war.

I agree with someone above. The AI should send a stern "hey, move it or lose it" message, then if you don't move, declare war and blow your units away (if he can).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The related problem is the City-State 'perma-war'

Making it so the city state will never have positive relations with a particular player is good.

Making it so your city-state ally is locked in a war state when you Want them to be at peace is bad.

Basically, you should have the option of offering a "Protection Pact" to an allied city-state, even if they are at war.

That would stop the city state from declaring at war on anyone.
The city-state would be at peace with everyone.
It would mean anyone that attacking the city-state would have to declare war on You.

 

[EmperorFool]

Basically, you should have the option of offering a "Protection Pact" to an allied city-state, even if they are at war.

That would stop the city state from declaring at war on anyone.

Except the main reason a city state declares perma-war is because a player has started killing off other city states. It's a check on your ability to take out any city state you choose (that isn't being protected by another player).

In my current game, I took out one city state at request of another. Then two city states requested I take out a third. I couldn't resist this second possibility to gain two allies so easily, so I did it. Sure enough, two other uninvolved city states declared perma-war on me for my poor treatment of city states in general.

I like that it works against me there, forcing me to defend forever against a pitiful attacker. It's not so good when an ally city state of mine declares it against a powerful AI with whom I want to maintain good relations. But I don't know how much of a problem that is yet (too soon).