How to get the AI to love me?

[Jeff Yu]

How am I supposed to get the AI to like me? I've seen players have an AI that was gracious to them, but that never happened to me. I was very nice to the AIs. I always let them set the terms of trade, I give them free gold, maps, and communications, and sometimes even free techs. Yet, they never seem to get past polite, and they even get more annoyed at me over time for absolutely no reason.

Also, even though the AI acts polite to me, they are backstabbers. The AI had a trade agreement with me, and was polite to me, but cancelled it and declared war with no warning because it saw a size 1 undefended city. When I beat him back and captured a city, and sued for peace, he's furious at me for a war HE started!

Another thing, I seem to take a reputation hit from declaring war, even though I did everything right. All my troops were in my own territory, I had no agreements with the civ, and I declared war by canceling the peace treaty in the trade screen. All this, and I still take a reputation hit, while the backstabbing AIs don't, and continue to get free techs from each other as soon as one civ researches it. At the higher difficulty levels, the game feels like me vs. the world.

 

[Hawkster]

You are on the right lines with the trading etc to get the AI in a better mood, frequency of trading helps - as does occasional gifts (once all the world has been mapped I often give away world map - the AI likes that). War - especially if you start it will drag your reputation down making it hard for other civs to become gracious- it is always better to get the civ you want to attack you then it takes the reputation hit.

Always keep a strong millitary - even if you are trying to play a peacful game - the stronger you are the less likely the AI will attack you unprovoked (esp if you have resources/luxaries the AI doesn't have).

PS: keep a regular check on the foreign advisor screen - if you see a leader getting annoyed (because you havent traded in a while etc) then do something quick otherwise you will get attacked.

 

[allhailIndia]

The stronger you are, the less likely you are going to get attacked. Also, a couple of freebies will keep them happy.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by allhailIndia
The stronger you are, the less likely you are going to get attacked. Also, a couple of freebies will keep them happy.

This question is really repeated a lot on this forum. I know you are trying to help but I think you are mistaken. The AI attacks me when I am orders of magnitude stronger, and an AI civ attacked me yesterday (patch 1.21f) after I had just given it gold "as a token of good will" 4 times in a row! The causes of AI going to war are really more complicated. They get "jealous" for example. It is good advice to keep a strong military but it's really likely you will get attacked whether you do or don't.

 

[Hawkster]

It is true to say the reason the AI attacks is more complex - but certain factors do lessen the chance. The strong millitary and frequent trades can lessen the chance of being attacked significantly - just giving gifts doesn't guarantee success - I find equal trading on a regular basis more effective (bear in mind that even when the AI leader is polite they may still attack).

I've tested the strong/weak millitary and the odds on being attacked if your millitary is weaker than the AI's is much much higher.

The AI will go to war to grab land / resources / access to unsettled land / to slow you down if you are ahead and for many other reasons - all you can do if you don't want to go to war is try and lessen the odds of being attacked or at the very least have enough millitary to keep from getting beaten up.

 

[Dell19]

A good way to make them like you, is to get an AI nation to declare war with you, against another nation. Throughout the period of the war, they will like you although afterwards they are likely to hate you again...

 

[Bamspeedy]

The only times I have seen an AI opponent Gracious to me was when I signed MPP's with them, or was an ally with them in a war, where I did most of the damage to the enemy.

 

[Moonsinger]

If I'm in a good mood, I will call them up every turn and give each of them exactly 1 gold. AI is so stupid! As long as you give them something free of charge, they will be happy to accept it. Of course, my civ can generate over 3000 golds each turn, it's no big deal for me to give 1 gold to each of them.

 

[planetfall]

Jeff,

You don't want the AI to love you, that means you are losing. The more you are winning the more hostile the AI's are. Polite is a bonus. Your true goal should be in keeping the AI's from gang tackling you, everything else is irrelevant because you are Borg and want to assimulate them all.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Hehe, I just got Liz gracious......

No surprise there, she's dead last, in a war with her German neighbour (I have all the rest but their little island ). she's holding on, but I just realized, how!!! She has
no iron
no horses
no saltpeter
no chivalry
Riflemen are 6 tech away.....

Germany has
iron
horses
saltpeter (just pillaged by me )
chivalry


so I gave her iron and horses for free.....

furious --> gracious in 1 sec

 

[wasabi]

to make them gracious:

when buying a world map give them like 1000 gold. or sign MPP's with them ROF and military alliences.

 

[No.Dice]

Back in (1.16 was it?) i was doing the majority of my tech brokering through china..IE buying techs from them and then selling them back to all of the other civs. Over time they became gracious, with no ROPs, alliances, or trade deals in place. It seems frequency of trading and buying from the AI does play some factor.

With the loss of tech-brokering, theres no reason to contact the AI EVERY turn, and so its unlikely to see a gracious nation without an alliance/ROP in place. This is because theres less incentive to contact them, and in some cases trading can even be detrimental, since your techs will be traded away to every nation with a cent to its name.

Gifts of 50 gold will bring their mood up a notch (annoyed to cautious, to polite, never to gracioius) so long as you haven't broken any deals or been to war with them. However this seldom lasts more than a few turns. Never give per-turn gifts to the AI.
3-4 turns later the AI forgets that its recieving your gift, falls back down to annoyed, and if the AI attacks you, YOU are blamed for breaking a deal with it.

Its a real feat to play an entire game without breaking some sort of treaty with the AI, as everything is blamed on you, no matter if you broke the deal, the nation you were trading with, or a third party.

 

[saintides]

The ai are a bunch of backstabing, snot sucking, zit popping bazturds that have nothing better to do then smile from ear to ear right before they try to kill you.

I have done many things to make them happy. I give them gold, I end up with a knife in my head. Give them a world map, I get a sword stuck in my neck. I give them a tech, I end up with a tank stuck up my as ...

Sorry.. just lost a game, it was messed up. I'm rambling.

Later.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by sumthinelse


This question is really repeated a lot on this forum. I know you are trying to help but I think you are mistaken. The AI attacks me when I am orders of magnitude stronger, and an AI civ attacked me yesterday (patch 1.21f) after I had just given it gold "as a token of good will" 4 times in a row! The causes of AI going to war are really more complicated. They get "jealous" for example. It is good advice to keep a strong military but it's really likely you will get attacked whether you do or don't.

I have found that doing what you say doesn't work works for me.
Do you have any cities that are particularly weak? In other words not defended as strongly as your other cities. I have also noticed that the higher the difficulty level the harder it is to keep the A.I. friendly....What do you play on sumthin?

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Hawkster
The strong millitary and frequent trades can lessen the chance of being attacked significantly - just giving gifts doesn't guarantee success - I find equal trading on a regular basis more effective (bear in mind that even when the AI leader is polite they may still attack).

OK, in addition to the gifts I was trading with them very often. I don't think anything guarantees you won't get attacked. I have tried everything I have ever read in this and other threads except giving in to threats or giving away my hard-earned techs, and I still get attacked in every game. If the game was designed to allow peaceful play, there is a screwup in the implementation somewhere. (But I still like to play. I just have to make the adjustment to be a warmonger almost all the time.)

By "equal trading" you mean something other than gifts, I assume. Yes, I always do that because it's a natural part of the game. You may be right that I would get attacked more often if I didn't, but why play without trading for any reason? I have never tried playing without trading.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by sumthinelse
Yes, I always do that because it's a natural part of the game. You may be right that I would get attacked more often if I didn't, but why play without trading for any reason? I have never tried playing without trading.

One of the games that went best, where I never got attacked, was with 1.16, no capital trick. I built militry so quickly that I beat up three neighbours before they even had 5 cities.

then, everyone was so afraid that they even paid tribute (monarch level). But this was also without trade except for world map and tech, since everything else requires an embassy... so going withotu alliances, ROPs and so on....

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
I have found that doing what you say doesn't work works for me.
Do you have any cities that are particularly weak? In other words not defended as strongly as your other cities. I have also noticed that the higher the difficulty level the harder it is to keep the A.I. friendly....What do you play on sumthin?

I play on Regent. And I don't keep max defenders in every city. So maybe that is one thing I have not tried, but I don't think I will ever put 2 or more defenders in every city. If that means I will get attacked, so be it. I never lose cities; my defense is always airtight but the AI does not understand miltary "quality" except in tactical situations (sometimes it won't attack a square with strong defense). In fact, there is very little about military ops that the AI does well....

I was thinking about how "your mileage may vary" with the advice to trade often (I do) and have a strong military (I do but not necessarily in number of units, but even when I have more total units the AI still attacks sometimes). I am playing with 16 civs, so I suppose that should increase the chance that there will be one with a wild hair up his @ss at one time or another.

I guess I don't want to make the effort to make a stupid and irrational opponent happy or respectful (by making my military conform to the AI's idea of "Compared to these guys, we have a strong military" ). Some of the posters make it sound easy to play peacefully, but I just don't see how that is possible.

What diff. level do you play, and how many civs?

 

[Quentin]

An easy way to get the AI to love you is to give them lots of gold per turn but there is probably no need to give more than 50. If you have been good to them most of the game they will very likely become gracious.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

@ sunthinelse: I usually play Monarch or above, number of civs varying, and there's always one that will attack. Whatever I do. Especially Persia.