Is it just me or is the AI too eager to go war now

[wervdon]

Ive noticed since the patch the AI has gone from hardly ever declaring war to doing it almost randomly.

In my current game I was literally bribing every AI to like me with luxuries. They was all gracious towards me from it, and they should be since I was sending them wines, incense, furs, and dyes free of charge. My cities at the border (it was a long island with 2 cities forming a bottleneck were moderately well defended, 3-4 spearmen each (pre-gunpowder, though I should of upgraded to pikeman). The result, about 40 turns of peace from this, and then the babylonians and germans both declare war on me the same turn and promptly lose about 20 units but take my two cities of course.

Im not complaining really...but is it even possible to play a diplomatic game since the patch? Should I bother even trying anymore? Or are they just gonna flip a coin and declare war at the drop of a hat anyways?

Incidently, I had embassies with everyone and I got no message about an alliance against me, so I think they just both declared war independently (probally babylon decided to be an opportunist with the german war)

Minor details I forgot:
This was warlord difficulty.
If the AI remembers such a thing the germans may of still been ticked from when I razed Berlin for Iron in about 1500 bc I did it "honorably" though and declared war without a surpise attack (before I crossed the border even). The babylonians had no reason to be ticked at me at all. I was going for a diplo win cause ive never done it and figured why not.

 

[Brutal]

I have been taking some notes on this and it seems that alot of the decision is based on the size of military you have verrse them. What is really stupid is that you may have 5 Archers and they have 5 warriors and they feel you are equal. But if you have 10 Warrior and they have 5 Archers they fear you. So maintain a sizeable army and they should leave you alone. I was playing a regent level game yesterday and I had destroyed the Japanese, China, and France which left the English and the French. Well I did a stupid thing and made a mpp with both of them. I thought how am I gonna get out of this. Well I was ignoring my military for a while because I needed to catch up on improvements after nearly two thousand years of war. Well the french came along who was the second biggest civ. They landed troops in my territory. At this point you know they are going to attack no matter what. So I dumped my gold into upgrading all my units and heavily fortified all the towns around where the troops were. I also spoke to the french ( who were polite to me) and bought all the techs that I had not gotten yet. After that turn he proceeded to attack. He had twice the Army I had but most were outdated at first. He had twice the Navy and they were pretty effective. So dont ignore the military side I guess the moral of the story goes.

 

[narmox]

well in a recent game, the russians were weaker in military quantity that I was, but they still started a war. I think it had to do with the fact that they were stuck in a corner of the continent, and neither I nor the chinese would give them map or access to the big jungles and forest in the west. They tried to kill me. Now they have only 1 city, and they've been really quiet ever since....

 

[hamster]

lol narmox.

Anyway, about AI declaring war... In a previous game, I was just starting out and kept a bare minimal army. I had about 6 cities, with only 8 military units. The romans (polite status) kept wandering around in my territory, so i told them to get out. Mind you, this was my first and only warning, and all of a out of nowhere they declared war on me.

In my current game, I shared one continent with the romans (again) and the greeks. It wasn't a large continent, so we exhausted the territory fairly quickly (about 15-20 cities for each of us). The romans had nice land and resources, so I was already preplanning for war. While trying to trade maps with greece, I was curious and asked them if they wanted to ally against rome. Io my surprise, not only did they agree, they were willing to pay me in gold, luxuries and tech to go to war. Happily, I was bribed.

So yeah, if you have a weak military, they will be more inclined go to war. Similarly if the AI is strapped for space.

Dan

 

[RogueNine]

It would appear that the AI will go to war over the same things we would go to war for. (Land, Resources, techs...) Keep that in mind, and check out the status of the other civs around you.

 

[wervdon]

Im pretty sure Babylon didn't have a reason, least not Id of gone to war over

1) They was gracious to me
2) I was giving them every luxury I had (which was 4 types) free of charge, thus they was gracious to me
3) Our militaries were roughly equal.
4) We had roughly the same # of cities. The border was a bottlenck. So it wasn't like it'd be a easy win.
5) I only had 1 strategic resource, iron. They had some too. My iron was far enough back from the line that it wouldnt be easy to cripple me. And it was very, very well defended.
6) It was a bad strategic move for them. On their other border was france who they'd already been at war with 4 times. France had declared war all 5 times. Now that they've started something with me, its not like Im not gonna ally with france and us split their territory

My only point was that I was actually doing everything I could think of to try to play a diplomatic game for once, and well it obviously doesnt work Id of expected their attitudes to have more of an effect on it than that, at least for the non expansionist or militaristic civs which babylon certainly isn't

Not that Im complaining really, I mean my old strategy which was if they are on my continent they die, certainly does work I was just going for something different this time, and a bit disappointed cause it didn't work for something that felt a bit unrealistic to me.

The one thing I do need to check when I reload the game tonight is if maybe they had discovered gunpowder and I had the only source of saltpeter by dumb luck If so, then I was wrong, and the war certainly made sense

 

[Dark Sheer]

Actually I notice that usually the second biggest of the AI (If you are the biggest) is the one that is going to declare war on you. Thats logical of course as that is the only way to stop you from getting a domination victory

For my games I always disable Space Race and Diplomatic Victory. And the AI will always declare war on me sooner or later . Of course whoever done that become a piece of meat for all the other AI as this is the time I bribe the other AI to go into war with me using either tech and/or luxuries

This kind of war is more dangerous though and you need to be well prepared. Usually I get a few stacks of 40-50 units attacking me at the same time on a few different fronts. And these are not spearmans and warriors but infantries, artilleries and tanks!! Usually I do keep a few tactical nuke near the border and I put this to good use The trick is be well prepared!! I usually have about 250-400 units depands on the map size even during peace time. And after the patch Submarines are king! I usually surround the enemy coast with subs and make sure no ship leave the port.

 

[wervdon]

Also I was mostly pointing this out because it didn't seem to be so common before the patch. Before the patch I had a few games where I had a peaceful border with an ai the whole game, since then not once

 

[Furry Spatula]

I agree they are very eager to wage war. Again with the babylonians, They kept on getting annoyed with me even though they had lots of room to expand and i didn't do anything to them, mind you i broke my word often with the japanese in order to kick their royal asses so i could expand always fun. But they kept on asking me for stuff and finaly i got sick of it so i gave them what they wanted, ivory, then i pilaged the road connecting us, only one , and i had no problems. Mind you later on they declared war on me. The best unit they had came to attack me after i had over 40 units (6 cannons 34 cavalry) and 2 armies of cavalry to put up with any heavy defence they might have in their cities. That huge force made its way to the city next to their capital, then they sent in a knight . and only 2 attacked me all they had i guess but they tried to attack my forces with the UU bowmen and swordsmen, and some pikemen with warriors. I mean come on. If i have cavalry and they have warriors and bowmen and a couple knights, there is no way my army is considered avarage to theirs. I realy wish firaxis fixed that little descrepency and its pure ludicracy.

I think it's common sense to realize that a bowman is not equivalent to cavalry. The units should have been given a power rating which is used to determine a civs military strength.

But untill its patched it looks like they'll keep getting a

 

[Greadius]

I agree with the power ratings to determine the strength of a military. According to my military advisor, I have a weak army compared to the egyptians, yet my two dozen tanks and few dozen bombers ran over their cavalry and riflemen like butter over...uhm... North Africa.

I like the way the computer is more aggressive; its more realistic. Not until the Twentieth century were aggressive wars considered a bad thing, so it would make sense of have war mongering civilizations. War is only a bad thing if you loose.

 

[Furry Spatula]

what do you mean by loose? If you clobber the other civ and whipe em out totaly you can still loose, as your militrary could have been severely reduced and your cities will have fallen behind in creating useful buildings. I only like war if its a quick one act war that involves you simple runnig over the other civ with help from allies. other wise it will hurt you in the long run. It just sucks when you come out of a war, with a weakened military due to losses and then another civ thinks you are weak and declares war on you. Oh well i guess i have to live with it.

 

[hamster]

in my current game, Germany had been unable to expand because it was stuck on a small island. It had about 10 cities, and most were in bad shape because of the lack of resources and luxuries. The Persians had their own continent, and had a pretty good sized empire. (In fact, they were my next target to kick off the planet) Nonetheless, Germany, who were about 1/6 in size, declared war on them.

btw, is the AI good at naval warfare? some say the AI is too stupid to even land troops, so they dont have to worry about defense at home.

Dan

 

[wervdon]

The rest of what happened

First, Ill say I was wrong. Babylon did have a good reason to war with me. I hadn't noticed but the last french war had been bad for them, the city of Erdu, and its iron, had fallen to the evil french leaving babylon with no source of iron. Apparently, because the AI doesnt know how to really value armies, they decided that Berlin (my source of iron) was an easier target than Erdu, thus the war.

Unfortunately for them, they was wrong

Summation of the results:
I lost 1 border town to literally about 20 bowmen, my 3 spearman (and 1 rushed pikeman) killed most of that army though. They chose to raze the city instead of keep it.
They lost their biggest border town to a hoard of swordsman

To retalliate, I just burned it too, since it would of been swallowed up by my culture border anyways especially

Early in the war I made an alliance with the frecnh against the babylonians, who quickly took even more territory on their other border

I give them peace after burning 2 of our border cities, and taking a juicy island that was closer to me than them anyways away from them (it had a source of horses)

Net result: I lost 1 city, they lost 5. They didnt get my iron. They was reduced in power considerably. The war did cost me some research time though, and force me out of republic (big deal im religious), and force me to lose alot of production on universities to making pikeman though. Overall, id of rather not had to fight even with the net gain of 2 cities and horses. EDIT: I forgot I also gained the great leader Ramses from a defending pikeman, who changed into an army, and now I have a heroic epic coming Im still a bit disappointed that Ive been forced towards domination victory when I actually was trying for diplo though


Sorry about misleading with my initial post btw, I should of looked more carefully to be sure they actually still had iron

Whoever said the ai should learn to value troops based on something other than just raw numbers is right though. I would actually suggest adding up all the attack values on each side and comparing those as a quick and easy solution that has a bit more meaning than just counting units. Though thats flawed in that a well placed small army will ussually beat a spread out huge one, like in my case where I had 2 bottleneck cities with tons of troops in them.