Idea on how to fix runaway warmongers

[Yubnub]

Archery
"The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction."
--Aesop

Forgive me if this is a repost of an existing suggestion on this forum.

Currently AI warmongers benefit greatly from war and puppeting and in non-Pangaea often become runaways. They often pick on and conquer AIs that aren’t war-oriented with ease and as soon as they pick up a few cities their science output allows them to have the upper hand throughout the rest of the game. My idea to counter warmongering is to increase beaker output per turn on AIs and players when another AI or player declares war on them/you.

Beaker output will only increase per turn until the AI or player reaches an equivalent of the total number of beakers that the attacking AI has currently gained. This increase will affect any other civs currently allied with the AI/player that has been declared war on up until that equivalent of total number of beakers is reached or until a peace deal with the original civ who has been declared war on is reached. If a defense pact is signed then those civs too must sign a peace deal. There should be an immediate single boost to beakers should the AI/player who has been declared war on destroy an enemy unit, but not workers, work boats, great people, religious units, spaceship parts, or tile improvements. The attacker will receive no additional breaker output, but perhaps the honor/autocracy tree can incorporate a reduction in beaker yield per turn towards the finisher.

How this could play out practically:

Civ A is a warmonger. They are wide and have a couple of city states puppeted so their beaker output has allowed them to reach the next era before anyone else.

Civ B and C are culture oriented civs. They are small and have denounced Civ A for capturing friendly city states. They have signed a declaration of friendship. Their beaker output is not as high as Civ A’s and are lagging behind in science. They are on opposite sides of Civ A.

Civ A decides to declare war on Civ B. Now both Civ B and C have beaker output increase by a significant amount. Civ B and C soon reach up to Civ A in science. Perhaps you saw this unfold and decide to help Civ B with a gold gift helping them fend off the attack. Civ C, after a few turns, now has access to the same units as Civ A and has joined the war. Civ A now has no science advantage and must rely on unit promotion, unit numbers, and honor and autocracy trees for victory.

It is now beneficial to sign declaration of friendships with weaker civs among other boosts to diplomacy.

Let me know what you think.

 

[iamdanno]

SO, as soon as an AI declares war on someone, you sign a DOF with the attackee, and get a boost to your science. Don't attack anyone, only defend if they send anyone your way, and wait for the AI to tire of war, then agree to peace. Sounds like an easy way to move through the tech tree. I'm not sure that is a good idea, gameplay-wise.

To me, it seems better to have tech diffusion handle that situation.

 

[Yubnub]

Ah, sorry if i wasn't clear about the wording, but the tech boost would only work if you had signed a declaration of friendship beforehand. It would not work if you signed one during a war.

I realize that with any civ suggestion there is always a possibility that the player gain an unfair advantage or exploit the game. My proposal may seem like it greatly favors a strategy that may be exploitable but my goal is really to help the AI defend itself late into the game both against the AI and against the player. A domination victory is undoubtedly the easiest current victory due to the massive boost to science/gold from puppeted cities (and without incurring a social policy to boot) with only a negligible penalty to happiness. Once you reach artillery and destroyers, the game becomes sort of a drawn out joke especially if you are ahead in science against other civs. There is little incentive to pick honor or autocracy at all. Diplomacy in any victory condition is underutilized and you can go through a whole game without ever having to sign a declaration of friendship. The science boost bonus to declaration of friendships is meant to encourage the player to make long term friends with the AI, help culture oriented AIs team up, prevent AIs from being eliminated before you're able to meet them, or allowing them to hold their own after liberating them for which there is little incentive.

But mostly I'm sick and tired of seeing Hiawatha and Napoleon own half the world in every single one of my games. I can't think of the last time I saw all the AIs alive during the information era without me excessively intervening and for some reason AIs generally seek to utterly destroy one another even though they only need to capture the capital for a domination victory.

First time I'm learning of tech diffusion and while that covers the general idea that I was going for, I still wanted to tie it in to diplomacy.

As I am an Emperor player I may have underestimated the boon to science on higher difficulty levels. Of course this boost can be adjusted for difficulty or eliminated all together on the human player side, but the AI should still benefit from it. Players might even sign declaration of friendships in multiplayer.

Thanks for reading.

 

[iamdanno]

. . . the tech boost would only work if you had signed a declaration of friendship beforehand. It would not work if you signed one during a war.

That would be better.

. . . A domination victory is undoubtedly the easiest current victory due to the massive boost to science/gold from puppeted cities (and without incurring a social policy to boot) with only a negligible penalty to happiness.

I would either 1) make it so puppets contribute less to science & gold, or 2) add to policy costs. Probably the former, because policy costs would quickly be impossible with domination (unless you raze everything).


. . . Once you reach artillery and destroyers, the game becomes sort of a drawn out joke especially if you are ahead in science against other civs. There is little incentive to pick honor or autocracy at all.

I'm thinking that it's probably OK if war more drawn out, because it is a fairly easy way to win now.

. . . Diplomacy in any victory condition is underutilized and you can go through a whole game without ever having to sign a declaration of friendship.

I agree with this and frequently have, at most, 2 DOF in any given game. However, I think this a symptom of the less than stellar diplo system, not a science-related problem. If you fix diplomacy, this goes away.

. . . The science boost bonus to declaration of friendships is meant to encourage the player to make long term friends with the AI, help culture oriented AIs team up, prevent AIs from being eliminated before you're able to meet them, or allowing them to hold their own after liberating them for which there is little incentive.

I think that diplo would have to be modified, because the AI doesn't seem to value long-term friendships now, and there are benefits to it already. I don't know if more benefits would help, or adjusting flavors up. Maybe both.

I usually only play on prince, so I'm no expert, but from what I read on these forums, higher levels seem to magnify some of the problems.

 

[Yubnub]

If diplomacy is reworked and puppeted cities re-tweaked then I would be satisfied. Of course all of this might be moot once more details of One World are revealed.

Thanks for reading/replying.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

I would suggest civs with 6 cities or more lose 30% science and gold generated for every 2 cities they have. The bigger the civ, the slower they get. Sure they can build more science and commerce buildings, but it would be so only to cancel out the penalty. It's a harsh penalty, but it would be necessary.

 

[Matthew.]

I think non-domination AI just needs to be programmed better. I think if they were programmed to make great scientists a priority, they'd be OK. Human players have proven that it is more than possible to surpass a war-monger runaway through use of great scientists and focus on science. No reason the AI can't do the same if programmed to do so.

The same dom-AI war-mongers can't exploit it because they often beeline the bottom half of tech tree. Late universities/public schools would ensure that they lose the advantage of owning half the map. Napoleon may get musketeers early, but he won't have university slots being worked.

 

[steveg700]

I think non-domination AI just needs to be programmed better. I think if they were programmed to make great scientists a priority, they'd be OK. Human players have proven that it is more than possible to surpass a war-monger runaway through use of great scientists and focus on science. No reason the AI can't do the same if programmed to do so.

The same dom-AI war-mongers can't exploit it because they often beeline the bottom half of tech tree. Late universities/public schools would ensure that they lose the advantage of owning half the map. Napoleon may get musketeers early, but he won't have university slots being worked.

This.

The AI is the heart of the problem with runaway warmongers. It is programmed so that weak civ's do not trifle with stronger civ's. They do not offer Defense Pacts to form alliances with potential victims. They do not collude with other civ's (player or AI) to combine military resources.

Conversely, the AI is programmed so that a strong civ will strive to prey on a weaker civ. All other diplomatic considerations simply don't matter. Thus, when a warmonger runs away with the game, it's the warmongers victims who get ganged up on.

Note that by mid-game, most AI civ's and likely the player have accrued the "warmongering menace to the world" diplo modifier, so they don't hate the runaway more than they hate anyone else.

There's a lot that needs to happen to improve this. At least a percentage of civ's need to prioritize trades and DoF's more highly than they do. There also needs to be a mechanism for issuign ultimatums so that there's a distinction between a DoW that comes as the result of violating a warning, and DoW's that are just warmonger blitzkriegs.