Insane war declarations

[danielfc3]

Right so i've searched the threads, and cant find a similar one, nor am I even sure if this is the right section to post this in so i apologise if this needs moving, but here goes anyway.

400 turns in, give or take, year 19th Century. Large map, 6 players left including myself. I've kept close relations with Arabia as they are close to my border, as are the Iroquois, Persia have always been war mongerers, Russia call me 'friend' (which i took to be Firaxis's new way of telling me they are 'friendly' towards me, saying as for some reason they have decided to do away with the helpful attitude indicators ie cautious, angry etc.) and Ramesse is the only civ who has not shown any hostilities at some point throughout the whole game. I trade with all these countries, and even at times give into their demands for resources, just to keep them sweet.

Anyway, more to the point of my entire game and civilization being ruined. The Iroquois (who i have even been to war with against Persia on several occasions!) decide our borders have soiled our friendship (borders haven't changed for decades) and declare war (WTH right, what's a few Indians with sticks gonna do, i'm an era ahead anyway). But no...wait...Al Rashid decides to put his master plan in action too and declares war (fair enough, seen it coming at some point). But then Ramesse, my closest thing to ally, declares war too...(bare in mind this is all the same turn). Then Russia joins in as well. So i'm at war with everyone i thought i wouldn't be, and im not at peace with Persia of all people.

How the hell does any of that make sense?! I don't know what's going on but its ruined my entire game and is quite clearly a bug as this happened in my previous game too and ruined that. Has anyone else had this issue or know of it? I have the patch (through steam) so...any help please.

p.s a quick addition, in the time i've wrote this and waited for a reply, i found another bug in which, at war with the Iroquios, on a few occasions I wanted my unit (rifleman) to attack their pikeman, and instead of attacking...they moved onto and shared the same tile! Im very disappointed with this game now.

 

[Some1]

Same thing happened to me today.
Played OCC @ King difficulty with Gandhi.

I built myself an army to fight off AI settlers settling too close my borders/behind my territory. Even attacked some AI cities and successfully destroyed some of their cities.
Every time they got too close I released my wrath at them. I.e. it was me who kept declaring war all the time!

Until, one turn... It was all peaceful and all...
The worst AI declares war on me (he had his UUs going...) I thought: bring it on! (Having forts and units in position inside my borders + bonuses fighting in friendly territory)

Then 2nd AI declared war on me. Now I thought WTH are they up to? I was sure I could manage 1.5 war fronts at this point.

But then 3rd AI declares war on me as well... (this AI was the farthest away from me) Thought okay, challenges are cool. Bring it!

All the above in single turn.

Guess what happened?

Spoiler :

They all came in one wave, in one turn, I couldn't do a thing. I felt the Blitzkrieg!

Oh yeah!

 

[TPQ]

Yep, had the same thing happen the other day on Prince level, playing the Arabs. 3 Civs declared in one turn and then the following another one did. I'd previously had good relations with all, or so I thought. Even had some decent trades going.

The odd thing is that only one Civ (Rome) actually sent any units in any real quantity. England sent a whole 4 units that were an era behind my level in tech and quickly sued for peace when I squashed them.

The other two civs (the more advanced ones on another continent) didn't even send a single ship to blockade, let alone an invasion force. Yet, they still asked for half my empire and all my cash, resources and luxuries when offering peace...

Maybe the Civ AIs are just really opportunistic and knowing they can't take you out on their own, wait for a stronger Civ to attack and then jump on the bandwagon, hoping to grab some land in the fray?

It kinda' makes diplomacy a bit pointless though, as years of building good relationships with other Civs are swept away in a single turn if they smell blood...

 

[CladInShadows]

one civ is declaring war, and persuading the others to join it. they may have been friendly with you, but friendlier with the other civ. alternatively, they have been bribed with a lot of money. it's no bug.

 

[danielfc3]

Yeah cheers for that CladInShadows, but I know a bug when I see one (several times) . I quite often offer money in kind gesture to those civ's prior to them declaring war, to keep them sound. And we had very beneficial trades (more-so for them because Civ 5 seems to think that one of Al Rashid's 8 Incenses is worth 1 of my whales, 1 gold,1 wine,1 ivory and one cotton, seriously, that's one very happy civ, due in no small part to me, and solely me).

I give into their demands at times too, and had research agreements...so...there was no reason whatsoever to go to war with me. And the fact that half of the civs that declared war on me had previously been at war with EACH OTHER, so i'd like to know just how it is possible for them to have better relations with each other than with me.

If we go down the bribing route....well, i'm the richest civ on my planet, and I cannot for the life of my bribe any civ to go to war with me even with all my money and luxuries. Surely bribes should work for us as they do with the AI in that case, and if its not, then this is the problem that needs to be sorted.

 

[Stonemender]

No bug.

The thing is: This is a game. It is about WINNING. Even with diplomacy and stuff, you ARE competing for victory. So, simply put: If you get too powerful, the rest of the pack attempts to stop you.

Seriously. If i was in a game and one of my competitors was close to building the space ship or achieving a cultural victory, i would declare war and throw everything i have at him.

 

[danielfc3]

Every game i play, this happens, i think its a little unrealistic to not be a bug.

 

[Some1]

No bug.

The thing is: This is a game. It is about WINNING. Even with diplomacy and stuff, you ARE competing for victory. So, simply put: If you get too powerful, the rest of the pack attempts to stop you.

Seriously. If i was in a game and one of my competitors was close to building the space ship or achieving a cultural victory, i would declare war and throw everything i have at him.

I was the puny in that game!
Although I was quite aggressive towards anyone who got too near my OCC-City.

Seems that AIs are like CSs who gang against you once you've bullied them enough!

 

[RobAnybody]

The thing is: This is a game. It is about WINNING. Even with diplomacy and stuff, you ARE competing for victory. So, simply put: If you get too powerful, the rest of the pack attempts to stop you.

There's your bug right there, or maybe just a design flaw. The AI's shouldn't know they're just playing a game. They should think they are running a kingdom.

 

[mihaifx]

Every game i play, this happens, i think its a little unrealistic to not be a bug.

What you mean it's not realistic. It happened countless times in history for a nation to be gangbanged by a huge alliance.

It happened in my current game too, while my army was away trying to pull off an invasion of France, I was mercilessly backstabed by 5 other civs.

 

[danielfc3]

You're just proving my point there though, aren't you? I mean...yes, this could happen to a few people...but the fact that it is happening to EVERYONE is a tad of a coincidence.

I can see the scenario of you invading France, and then they team up against you whilst you're most vulnerable, that is believable. All 5 of them though? To put things in proportion to your example of real life history, there are 195 recognised countries in the world (arguable). In my game there are 7 civ's...surely an alliance of two civ's against me is enough, or maybe three, as three civ's would proportionally almost be half of the world, against me...

Other aspects of the argument are in a scenario like that (when all your 'friends' and countries you trade with most) go to war with you, i have never managed to create an ally nor have i heard of anybody else creating an ally to help fight this war, as would happen in real life, or just look at history and i'm sure you've seen that for yourself. I just think its a major issue that needs to be addressed all round. Most of the rest of the game is spot on, few tweaks here and there perhaps.

 

[Evalis]

I've never had the computer do this to me, in fact I've had the computer do this to other computers! This does not appear to be a bug, but rather a design of the ai to 'dogpile' on the weakest civ. Perhaps you should build a larger military ;p. On the note of the computer understanding they are part of a game, while I agree they need to get off the idea of playing to 'win' I don't think the standard play game should have this removed. Rather a setting could be added the makes civs non-competitive and play to their personalities instead. Out of curiostiy have you ever tried removing the victory conditions from a game and seen if they act the same way?

 

[clearbeard]

I was the puny in that game!
Although I was quite aggressive towards anyone who got too near my OCC-City.

Seems that AIs are like CSs who gang against you once you've bullied them enough!

There are your issues, right there.
1. You were puny, so all the other civs had high power ratios with you (makes them more likely to declare, wanting your territory).
2. You were aggressive towards anyone who came near (AI has a long memory for you attacking them "unprovoked", meaning without cause in their definition.
3. There are routines in the AI that prompt them to attack civs that are already getting kicked by others, to try and grab bits of a disappearing pie.

I see the last behavior most often. After I've done all the work slaughtering a large civ's army, all his previously weaker neighbors declare war on him and start snatching cities, before I grab them all.

General tips:
1. Be stronger, and expect to get piled in one city challenges. It's not called a challenge for nothing.
2. Don't declare war on people you aren't willing to crush utterly. Again, much harder in OCC, as you can't actually capture any of their cities to teach them the error of their ways.
3. Join in other people's wars, before they join against you.

All in all, not a bug, but (somewhat) reasoned AI behaving as programmed. As with all games, learn what the AI does and why, and you can counter it easy.

 

[KahunaGod]

No, something is wrong in the decision making. Play to the same point in a huge game with all civs. All of them will declare on you, every time, no matter what is going on in the game. When you get, out of nowhere, 17 messages of an AI declaring war on you, the game is warped in some way. Was I warmongering? - yes a lttle bit, so was everyone else. Was I the most powerful (highest score) civ? - no, I was third. Was I currently at war with someone?-no, it was peaceful. Had I just discovered a tech or built a wonder to give me an edge? - no. Had I just settled a city to close to someone or vice-versa? - no. It was literally in the middle of a "next turn" click fest. I had the most gold, no one else even had enough for a research agreement, so there was no "buying" allegiances. It was simply poor mechanics.

It began after the last patch. I am sure the designers sawa too many "this games too easy" posts and decided to hardcode some roadblocks into the game, that have nothing to do with civs, AI's, diplomacy or past problems. Considering that in the examply above, I havent even met 8 of the civs yet, something is very very very wrong!

 

[Sir]

This may not be a bug, but it's the reason why I decided to quit the game. I've simply lost the will to play. Okay, some people like the new feature - why not let me decide whether I want the opportunity to get annihilated of not!?

 

[clearbeard]

...

It began after the last patch. I am sure the designers sawa too many "this games too easy" posts and decided to hardcode some roadblocks into the game, that have nothing to do with civs, AI's, diplomacy or past problems. Considering that in the examply above, I havent even met 8 of the civs yet, something is very very very wrong!

Okay, yes, something is wrong there, if you haven't even met some of them. Never seen this happen myself, though.

 

[Kaygee]

Yeah,

After the patch, I had an alliance and trade agreements with Rome.
Two turns later, after accepting a defensive pact for nothing more from my end but a defensive pact, they tell me that "I better watch my back" because my army is small.

Umm, WTH?

I check the diplomatic screen, and Rome is now Hostile towards me.

It is nearly impossible in this game to carry good relations with another civ. The AI is too dumb and too interested in going to war with everyone.

 

[DaveGold]

Two turns later, after accepting a defensive pact for nothing more from my end but a defensive pact, they tell me that "I better watch my back" because my army is small.

Umm, WTH?

Your army IS too small. Build it bigger. He's actually telling you what's making him hostile, giving you a chance to fix it, and you're ignoring it.

 

[Kaygee]

Your army IS too small. Build it bigger. He's actually telling you what's making him hostile, giving you a chance to fix it, and you're ignoring it.

Yeah, cause that's what allies do......

 

[clearbeard]

Yeah, cause that's what allies do......

Think of it as "I like you and all, but my people tell me you're too weak for your own good, and they want me to gobble up your puny little civ. Build some more units to scare the plebs, and I won't have to."