Yeah, see, thing is, the AI isn't going to DP with you unless you are sufficiently strong because they would rather see you die than be dragged into a war with Genghis on your behalf.
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Reasonable decision to make, lol. Let me just say that I really love the challenge that the AI presents. I'm playing on Immortal difficulty with Poland, and planned to go Progress/Aesthetics/Imperialism/Order, following the nationalism strategy in the strategy section. I went to war with William pretty early on, and was very impressed with the AI's decision-making. I only planned to take 1 of the 2 cities on my immediate border, which at the time was undefended and without walls. William brought his troops down and while I did take the city I was after, it was harder than I anticipated. What really impressed me, though, was what happened when I went after the second city (he had a unit or 2 defending, but walls weren't up yet).
I sent my reserve "army" (4 or 5 units) to go attack his 2nd city, but William used a mix of attack/retreat/attack again with reinforcements and better positioning 4-6 turns later to repel my attack, and force me to retreat to my nearest city and defend. He then brought more reinforcements to start killing my units and made a serious attempt at taking my city (forcing me to train, rush-buy, and bring troops from the army I just used to take his city over to try and defend my own) while also bringing a decent sized force try and retake the city I took. I held him off in both places, but he would've eventually swarmed me (I was pretty much out of gold at this point), but Rome bribed me into accepting a peace deal, which I was all too happy to do. It was a weak bribe, and less than I would've gotten if William had been willing to make peace, but that wasn't an option lol.
That experience, mixed with the fact that I was surrounded by peaceful AI, made me switch my strategy to a science VC, leading me to go with Progress/Aesthetics/Rationalism/Freedom instead when the time came. I just hit the modern era, and thus far I've used all of my great scientists (except 2) for academies, and, with the help of 2 free techs from spies, just overtook the Celts and am now leading in tech by 1, which I expect will grow.
I've been there, and let's face it, by choice. Out of curiosity, was there a DP in your game? Or, to put it differently, were the other civs seeing the Mongols as a threat calling for this deterrent?
Yes and no. I'm not sure when the other civs found Genghis, but when I did, he had already concluded the war(s) he'd been in, so if there ever was severe warmongering penalties for him, they've probably faded by now. As for DPs, definitely. My continent has 6 civs on it, and 5 of us have been in bff mode (DoFs, many research agreements, gifts being given, etc) basically since the beginning of the game. Austra and I are the two weakest as it pertains to military power, so neither of us have a DP with anyone. Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands are the stronger civs and have DPs going. I don't think it was to protect themselves from Genghis specifically.
. AI is working like humans in that regard, I see. Austria did just finish a war against Rome without little to no damage taken however, so I think I'll give a DP with her a try when I get back on.
