Ingratitude, thy name is AI

[SuperJay]

they look out for their best interest.

No, actually, they don't. Maybe that's a new hidden leader personality trait - "is bad and makes suicidal decisions" - but there are plenty of examples in various threads here of civ leaders making idiotic decisions that routinely violate their self-interest.

I don't mind if they seem somewhat irrational or random, or don't always treat me nice just because I'm nice to them. But when they have 2 cities to my 9, and their entire army consists of a handful of scouts and warriors (compared to my swordsmen, catapults, horsemen and crossbows) - and THEY declare war on ME - how is that looking out for their best interest? I can wipe their nation off the map in a matter of minutes. Another moment of "what could you possibly be thinking?"

Of course, for the rest of that game, *I* am the bloodthirsty tyrant, and nobody will trade with me for thousands of years.

 

[sandy_tait]

No, actually, they don't. Maybe that's a new hidden leader personality trait - "is bad and makes suicidal decisions" - but there are plenty of examples in various threads here of civ leaders making idiotic decisions that routinely violate their self-interest.

I don't mind if they seem somewhat irrational or random, or don't always treat me nice just because I'm nice to them. But when they have 2 cities to my 9, and their entire army consists of a handful of scouts and warriors (compared to my swordsmen, catapults, horsemen and crossbows) - and THEY declare war on ME - how is that looking out for their best interest? I can wipe their nation off the map in a matter of minutes. Another moment of "what could you possibly be thinking?"

Of course, for the rest of that game, *I* am the bloodthirsty tyrant, and nobody will trade with me for thousands of years.

Surely the inability of the AI to calculate the difference in military power is a staple of the entire Civ series (and SMAC)?

Ah, those bygone days of a Civ leader threatening me with his MIGHTY SPEARMEN when I'm sitting there with my Howitzers, thinking "WTH?" *Smiles happily at the nostalgia*.

Actually, IIRC, Alpha Centauri was by far the worst for that. You could bully Civs out of cities in Diplomacy but they'd still trashtalk even as you were descending on their last city with an armada of hi-tech death, when really they should have been begging for mercy; or threaten to destroy you despite each of your cities having more military might than their entire Civ. *Loving sigh* I dream of the day that SMAC gets re-made, like Colonization did. That would make me so ridiculously happy.

 

[Niedermayer]

Yeah but the problem is that Civ 5 is not real life. It's a war/empire game set over 6,000 years. Modelling its diplomacy system on modern-day diplomacy and political feelings is pretty fail given that "modern day diplomacy" has only really been around since WW2 and that time account for 5/600ths of the span of the game :3

Plus, in my game, Suleiman was already at war with Alex, and losing badly, when I offered to join in and he still refused.

"Modern diplomacy?" I don't think civilizations throughout human history has ever been rational in much the same way as "modern diplomacy"

Also, Civ is a game that spans thousands of years. It's mechanics have to be consistent throughout. I don't think it can be as deep as the mechanics in Europa Universalis and some of the other hardcorer strategy games (which have steeper learning curves) hence the simpler mechanics in Civ games.

No, actually, they don't. Maybe that's a new hidden leader personality trait - "is bad and makes suicidal decisions" - but there are plenty of examples in various threads here of civ leaders making idiotic decisions that routinely violate their self-interest.

I don't mind if they seem somewhat irrational or random, or don't always treat me nice just because I'm nice to them. But when they have 2 cities to my 9, and their entire army consists of a handful of scouts and warriors (compared to my swordsmen, catapults, horsemen and crossbows) - and THEY declare war on ME - how is that looking out for their best interest? I can wipe their nation off the map in a matter of minutes. Another moment of "what could you possibly be thinking?"

Of course, for the rest of that game, *I* am the bloodthirsty tyrant, and nobody will trade with me for thousands of years.

AI do still trade with me afterwards but I do get your point about the dying Civ who still tries to declare war on me. I've encountered that and It usually ends up with them destroyed or I just leave them alone, just one pathetic city throughout the entire game.

I guess I do role play a little and don't really nit pick too much when i play my games If they do something that stupid, I will react appropriately hehe

 

[d4everman]

Ah, those bygone days of a Civ leader threatening me with his MIGHTY SPEARMEN when I'm sitting there with my Howitzers, thinking "WTH?" *Smiles happily at the nostalgia*.

"Our words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"....Yeah, I miss that, too.

Actually, IIRC, Alpha Centauri was by far the worst for that. You could bully Civs out of cities in Diplomacy but they'd still trashtalk even as you were descending on their last city with an armada of hi-tech death, when really they should have been begging for mercy; or threaten to destroy you despite each of your cities having more military might than their entire Civ. *Loving sigh* I dream of the day that SMAC gets re-made, like Colonization did. That would make me so ridiculously happy.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but in SMAC, at least the AIs gave you a clue as to why they were hostile. Wu is pissed at me now and for what? Because I crushed Arabia, England and India? Perhaps...but it didn't stop her for asking for a research agreement. What it did do is make her ask for insane stuff when trying to trade for spices. If the AI had even a glimmer of self preservation she'd look at my 10 city civ and her 3 city civ and decide that its probably better to trade her spices for gems before I decide to just take it from her.

(Which I would do now, except for the ridiculous "happiness" system. I'd rather have war weariness. I mean, how the hell does my entire civ go unhappy when I WIN a war?)

 

[sandy_tait]

Yeah, but in SMAC, at least the AIs gave you a clue as to why they were hostile. Wu is pissed at me now and for what? Because I crushed Arabia, England and India? Perhaps...but it didn't stop her for asking for a research agreement. What it did do is make her ask for insane stuff when trying to trade for spices. If the AI had even a glimmer of self preservation she'd look at my 10 city civ and her 3 city civ and decide that its probably better to trade her spices for gems before I decide to just take it from her.

(Which I would do now, except for the ridiculous "happiness" system. I'd rather have war weariness. I mean, how the hell does my entire civ go unhappy when I WIN a war?)

Very true, with SMAC. As I recall, they were often pretty precise about why you annoyed them, such as having the wrong policies, being friendly with the Civ that was their polar opposite, making unreasonable demands, or annihilating half their colonies. God I loved that game. In fact, I'm gonna reinstall it right now! ... after just one more turn of Civ 5 >.>

 

[d4everman]

Very true, with SMAC. As I recall, they were often pretty precise about why you annoyed them, such as having the wrong policies, being friendly with the Civ that was their polar opposite, making unreasonable demands, or annihilating half their colonies. God I loved that game. In fact, I'm gonna reinstall it right now! ... after just one more turn of Civ 5 >.>

Even in Civ 4 I could pretty much tell when another civ was going to be upset with me....even w/o the religion thing. In 5 I'm pretty much sure that other civs will hate me. I used to enjoy it when civ A would ask me to go to war with a rival civ B. Because depending on the variables (trade/religion/policies/location) I may cement an alliance. In Civ 5? Forget it. Even if I help civ A they'll call me bloodthirsty and become hostile. A few nights ago I jumped into Washington's ***, mostly for my own gain, and also because he was becoming too powerful for my tastes and he was hostile to me anyway. George was beating the snot of Arabia at this point. I gave Arabia their cities back....and THEY STILL DON'T LIKE ME!

Who came up with this? A brain damaged monkey?

 

[Cashie]

I'm playing as Darius, Wu Zetian has just started attacking my tame city state, so I speak to her about it and she gives addresses me as the "bloodthirsty one" - keeping in mind that I've only declared war once on my own, and turned down countless invites of hers to declare on whoever. Anyway, she makes peace without any fuss. The next turns she tells me that she's just attacked one of my pet states, I shoot her the bird and check who she means. She's not at war with Geneva, but Montezuma. I'm occupying most of his old lands, including his capital after she asked me to go to war with him. I let him go when he sued for piece, since he was effectively neutered anyway.
What the hell? Sanity would be nice in this backstabbing wench.

why in God's name they've given Alexander of MACEDONIA [totally different country, culture, language, etc., just FYI Firaxis] a modern Greek accent I do not know; but it's probably for the same reason that Julius Caesar, that famous Roman, has a modern day Italian accent - sloppiness

I couldn't help noticing that Wu Zetian (who lived in the 7th Century) speaks modern standard Mandarin. Not that Firaxis were going to use reconstructed Middle Chinese, which is theorised at best, and not standardised in pronunciation. Seriously: Mio Tzəkthen?

 

[eviltypeguy]

I couldn't help noticing that Wu Zetian (who lived in the 7th Century) speaks modern standard Mandarin. Not that Firaxis were going to use reconstructed Middle Chinese, which is theorised at best, and not standardised in pronunciation. Seriously: Mio Tzəkthen?

They screwed up with King Ramkhamhaeng too. Notably, I have a feeling whatever artist created his model was too lazy to research what he actually looked like and used a picture of the recently deposed Thaksin Shinawatra (which is insulting really).

He also doesn't speak the way that a member of the royal family would speak in my opinion.

 

[sandy_tait]

I couldn't help noticing that Wu Zetian (who lived in the 7th Century) speaks modern standard Mandarin. Not that Firaxis were going to use reconstructed Middle Chinese, which is theorised at best, and not standardised in pronunciation. Seriously: Mio Tzəkthen?

They screwed up with King Ramkhamhaeng too. Notably, I have a feeling whatever artist created his model was too lazy to research what he actually looked like and used a picture of the recently deposed Thaksin Shinawatra (which is insulting really).

He also doesn't speak the way that a member of the royal family would speak in my opinion.

I applaud that Firaxis have the various Civ leaders speaking (roughly) the correct language. I think it's a very nice little touch, even if it is only one or two phrases per leader. It's just a shame that they gave all the Ancient and Classical leaders modern-day accents and of the countries they represent in the game, rather than the nations they were from. Napoleon was Corsican, not French. Alexander was Macedonian, not Greek. Caesar was Roman, not Italian. Darius was Persian, not Arabic. Granted, with most of them it would be difficult to work out what their accent sounded like and even more difficult to track down a voice actor who could speak it but I do feel a little more effort could have been made on some of them; especially Napoleon, who was famously Corsican rather than Parisian, and whose accent would be relatively simple to approximate (in that the modern Corsican dialect and accent probably isn't all that much different to how it was 200 years ago). All that said, I find the accents amusing rather than annoying. Especially Alexander and Caesar

On that note, is it just me or when you defeat Alexander does it sound very much like he's calling you a word that sort-of rhymes with "mussy" (and gets picked up by the forum's censor tools, because it's the same spelling as a swear word)? >.> (in case I've lost anyone there, it's also a diminutive name for a cat and the first name of a Bond girl :3)

 

[Venger]

Enjoy your post Sandy, fellow Civ1 on the Amiga fan here (the golden era of gaming - I sometimes long for that couple minutes of world building it took to get a game going in Civ1).

And to the point - diplomacy is, effectively, broken (like alot in the game right now). There seems to be no ability for a Civ to analyze it's best interest, there is little information available to the player to evaluate diplomacy, city-states are simply resource farms you throw money at instead of intriguing actors, diplomacy seems to exist for a) research agreements and b) DoW. As it stands now, it's a joke. It makes as much sense as MoO3 diplomacy, which made little sense either and was just about as useless...

 

[eviltypeguy]

All that said, I find the accents amusing rather than annoying. Especially Alexander and Caesar

Agreed; especially with Caesar.

On that note, is it just me or when you defeat Alexander does it sound very much like he's calling you a word that sort-of rhymes with "mussy" (and gets picked up by the forum's censor tools, because it's the same spelling as a swear word)? >.> (in case I've lost anyone there, it's also a diminutive name for a cat and the first name of a Bond girl :3)

It's not just you. He's so cherry and happy it's disgusting when you first meet him early game, and then he's just subtly insulting after that.

 

[teks]

ceasar speaks...italian!?!?
If they were lazy they could have made him speak greek, but...italian? really??

*permanently removes ceasar from the game*

 

[spoooq]

Does he really? Italian is a strange choice. Not all the leaders have languages that we know how to pronounce, but Latin is quite widely spoken!

 

[sandy_tait]

ceasar speaks...italian!?!?
If they were lazy they could have made him speak greek, but...italian? really??

*permanently removes ceasar from the game*

Is it actually Italian? I thought it was just Latin with an Italian accent. I confess, I don't know the languages well enough to be able to tell the difference when they're being spoken.

 

[Osetjka]

Nah, Civ4 AIs had pretty unreasonable behavior. They would ally or war with you based on whether religions matched up, even though they got no game benefit or penalty from religions matching or not. They'd also come along and demand that you give them stuff, then get pissed off for the next 4000 years if you didn't comply with their demands, but would never make a demand on another AI that would be refused.

Say what you want about religious wars in cIV but you have to admit, they did happen a lot throughout human history. Surely this isn't more absurd than having an ungrateful and downright hostile civ that you've just liberated and brought back from the dead. One of these days I might even see one declare war on me right away.

 

[Knocky]

Ok....America asks me to war with him on China.

I am trying to be friends with America and China is in my way so what the heck.

Click on war in 10 turns.

I move my troops into position and China is WTH are all those troops on my border?

So instead of lying I click on the you are dead button.

Now America calls me a war monger and cancels our pact of cooperation.

2 turns from the time we are supposed to attack China.




McAI.....I'm lovin' it!

 

[Osetjka]

Yep, those "wait 10 turns" option never worked on my games either. I've waited for 15+ turns to see nothing happen. Of course, naturally fulfilling my promise brands me as a warmonger. It's as if the AI forgets or simply moves on to other things.

Commitment issues or short attention span (or both)?

 

[spoooq]

From another point of view, this could be seen as very GOOD AI!

 

[BlizzardGR]

ceasar speaks...italian!?!?
If they were lazy they could have made him speak greek, but...italian? really??

*permanently removes ceasar from the game*

You should be thankful he doesn't speak greek! Civ5 has the worst greek accent i have ever heard! Actually, I don't think it even qualifies as greek. It sounds like the very first attempt of someone, who has never heard a single word in greek, reading a google translated text...

I can't stand having Alexander in my games unless i'm the one playing the greeks...

edit: Also on the topic: I agree that the diplomacy needs a lot of work. Right now it just doesn't make any sense...

 

[sandy_tait]

You should be thankful he doesn't speak greek! Civ5 has the worst greek accent i have ever heard! Actually, I don't think it even qualifies as greek. It sounds like the very first attempt of someone, who has never heard a single word in greek, reading a google translated text...

I can't stand having Alexander in my games unless i'm the one playing the greeks...

edit: Also on the topic: I agree that the diplomacy needs a lot of work. Right now it just doesn't make any sense...

He sounds an awful lot like the Turkish-Cypriot guy that used to run one of the kebab shops in Canterbury back when I was at uni there. Not the language, obviously, just the bizarre accent.