I just got axe rushed by the AI! ( & other oddities )

[tuckerthecat]

I was playing a monarch game the other day ( large map, continents ), I found myself on a smallish island with Stalin. The island was large enough for 10 or so cities. I had just founded my 2nd city & had just founded Judaism ( ie it was still very early in the game ) I was playing as the Incans so was still using quechuas as defence ( in fact it was so early I hadnt even researched BW yet! )

Well Stalin wanted the whole island for himself I guess cause he showed up with a stack of 7 axemen & DOW'd me . I opened the world builder & he only had 3 cities with plenty of room to expand, instead he marched acrosss the island & wiped me off the map. I've never seen the AI do this before but I've only played 20 or so BTS games, is this new in BTS?

I was playing another game ( marathon speed )when Hammurabi DOW'd me. He focused his attack on one of my cities closest to his borders. He attacked with swords, I killed off his fairly large stack & checked to see if he would accept peace, nope he would only accept my city for peace! Well he must of had a huge production advantage because even though I was holding the city I couldnt build enough troops to go on the offensive, it seemed every few turns a new stack of doom would show up ( the worst part being he was building TONS of seige & I had no horses to counter them ). This war started in the swordsman era & lasted all the way till he was eventually attacking with knights & trebs! I must of killed off at least 500 of his units, I even bribed several other AI's to war against him over the course of our standoff. I checked to see if he would accept peace every 20 turns or so during the course of this war & he would only accept the city, no techs no gold, just the city is what he wanted. When he started the war I was in 1st place in score & he was in 2nd, when the war finally ended I was in 4th place & he was in 5th.

 

[BurN]

Yea happened to me once aswell but in my case it was vanilla-alexander who ... archer rushed me. (? o_O) I didn't think the ai could/would declare war so early. Especially with enough land to expand peacefully.

I skip archery unless I can't find any bronze near and since my bronze wasn't hooked up yet.. warriors vs archers? Ugh, If I can be honest I resigned after he took one of my cities and started to pillage my capital with a swarm of archers.

As for demanding a certain city for peace? It's annoying as hell since usually that's going to be a long ass war. I've ended up giving a city up one time to get peace out of an annoying 2v1 war in modern era. Which proved to be a good decision in that case. I was fighting modern armor with marines . I was holding my cities but I just wanted to get my space project going.

I didn't really change my game plan based on that one-time early rush of the ai though. Out of all the games I played it only happened once, I take that small risk of early defeat. :x

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Mao has seemed like psycho on my games since BtS with very early and aggressive war declarations. I'm sure others have completely opposite experiences where they buddy with him all the way to Alpha Centauri

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, I'm quite pleased with the earlier attacks by the AI in BtS. I just wish all the aggressive AIs were more like Shaka and all the peaceful AIs were more like Mansa. That's not to say that I want them to all be the same, but many of the aggressive AIs just end up doing...well, nothing.

 

[oyzar]

I got archer rushed by Ragnar once. Right before i hooked up copper as well.

 

[Derek_Zoolander]

Mao has seemed like psycho on my games since BtS with very early and aggressive war declarations. I'm sure others have completely opposite experiences where they buddy with him all the way to Alpha Centauri

Anytime I have Mao, he's on the other continent, some other civ's vassal, and like 10-15 techs backwards. He's so easy to befriend, just give him 4 techs and he's your friend for the rest of the game.

 

[Gliese 581]

I sometimes wonder if the AI checks if you have resources hooked up. I played a game as Augustus and got axeman-rushed by Ragnar just as I was about to hook up iron. I had chariots but it didn't help, I lost iron city and the game.
I would love to see it more often though, it's more an exception to the rule of peaceful rexing in my experience, even for aggressive AIs.

 

[r_rolo1]

Yea happened to me once aswell but in my case it was vanilla-alexander who ... archer rushed me. (? o_O) I didn't think the ai could/would declare war so early. Especially with enough land to expand peacefully.

I skip archery unless I can't find any bronze near and since my bronze wasn't hooked up yet.. warriors vs archers? Ugh, If I can be honest I resigned after he took one of my cities and started to pillage my capital with a swarm of archers.

I had the same experience once.... but i wasn't really archer rushed. Alex Dowed me and invaded me with a settler team when he realised that I had beaten him to the only cooper site in miles. Unfortunately I didn't had time to hook the cooper and had the city defended by 1 lousy warrior

I sometimes wonder if the AI checks if you have resources hooked up. I played a game as Augustus and got axeman-rushed by Ragnar just as I was about to hook up iron. I had chariots but it didn't help, I lost iron city and the game.
I would love to see it more often though, it's more an exception to the rule of peaceful rexing in my experience, even for aggressive AIs.

AI in BtS definitely scout your territory in search of lambs for the slaughter ( never noticed that? In BtS they do exacly like humans do: beg for OB, try to get the best map possible.... )... and if he finds it ( and it is a very agressive leader ,like Ragnar, Alex or loony Monty ), it can enter in kill mode and plan a rush ( a good job from blake BTW ). I really think that they check if you have hooked military resources.... but that is athing that can only be awnsered looking @ the python...

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I don't think any AI has declared war on me in the BCs. I kind of wish it would happen every so often, just to keep things interesting.

 

[tuckerthecat]

Well I guess its kinda nice to see the AI doing what a human would do. When I saw that it was Stalin & I alone on the island I thought well I guess I'm going to be alone till optics, I guess Stalin thought the same thing!

I couldnt resist going into world builder & gifting myself a dozen ICBM's though, so I nuked him into the ground before I retired that game

 

[fuzzynutz]

Since I learned how important the power rating was I usually have a large army waiting for anyone trying to attack me, so I assume they aren't stupid enough to try that early.

 

[Bleys]

I get axe-rushed by the barbs more than other civs. I think I choose the wrong kinds of maps for higher levels, too much "unusable grey" on the fringes for barb-spawning.

 

[control740]

I got archer rushed by Ragnar once. Right before i hooked up copper as well.

Oh god damn that ragnar. Just today he sword/axe rushed me as I was bringing my 3rd city online. I started on a peninsula with no copper/iron nearby but I had some ivory in my 3rd city. Was in the process of hooking it up and almost had construction when he declares. That was pretty much the end of that game.

 

[Civ4Dominator]

The strangest thing that happened to me was when I had every single AI civ to declare war on me (all 6). It started with a random war and a stack of doom from a civ to the south of me (Zulus I think) and then Rome decided to join in and finally all the civs declared war on me all at once in about two more turns.

My only explanation is that someone built the apostolic palace and I didn't fit their religion so they all banded up to kill me. Pretty smart imo.

 

[Gliese 581]

The strangest thing that happened to me was when I had every single AI civ to declare war on me (all 6). It started with a random war and a stack of doom from a civ to the south of me (Zulus I think) and then Rome decided to join in and finally all the civs declared war on me all at once in about two more turns.

My only explanation is that someone built the apostolic palace and I didn't fit their religion so they all banded up to kill me. Pretty smart imo.

This sounds like something from the old civ games..ah memories.. Of course, they were equally forgiving too at least in civ1 and 2.. just sign a peace treaty, refit the army, and then fight again..don't worry, they'll trust you each time.

 

[Dan Quale]

Its a shame huyana doesnt quecha rush instead of build all the wonders and eventually force me to nuke him off the face of the earth.
I was once on the receiving end of a praetorian rush from an immortal level augustus. It was over before it began.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Its a shame huyana doesnt quecha rush instead of build all the wonders and eventually force me to nuke him off the face of the earth.
I was once on the receiving end of a praetorian rush from an immortal level augustus. It was over before it began.

If you don't resist you get full Roman citizenship. It's best just to take it.

 

[tycoonist]

I was once on the receiving end of a praetorian rush from an immortal level augustus. It was over before it began.

god, i've had that one more times than i can remember from the romans. impossible to beat even with axes. you really need maces or elephants or xbowmen or longbowmen.

 

[pawelo]

It happened to me three times already.

Two reasons for it:
- you have managed to lock the AI in her space - even if it has room for 5+ cities there is a big possibility it goes for a axe/sword/vulture (happened to me ) rush
- you are too weak and have neglected your defenses - warriors defending your cities or cities empty - and the AI has already hooked Copper - this probability is even bigger with psychos like Shaka

Both of the above seem to have appeared in the BtS, especially since the 3.13 patch is online. Never happened to me before - the AI always used to expand until it had room before worrying about the space.