Is there a way to prevent early wars?

[iconocast]

having a large army will make the ai think twice

 

[apocalypse105]

Lots of misconceptions and bad ideas here. To refute a few of them:

Other civs will not always DoW you. I've played lots of games on Immortal on Continents and Fractal maps where I never went to war. On Pangaea, war is very likely, but not certain. On Deity, war is much more likely, but still not certain. The AI leaders are not all the same, they're not unpredictable, and they're not all out to get you. Some of them are: if you start near Attila or Genghis Khan (or Montezuma, or Catherine, or&#8230, expect war. If you so much as meet Napoleon or Alexander, no matter how far away they are, expect war. Most leaders can be negotiated with, however.

On that note, Declarations of Friendship are a very good idea. They will cause consequences in later eras (the civs tend to split up into small blocs of mutual friendship, usually two or three groups on a standard-size map) but it's better to have some known friends and some known enemies than to just wonder where the next attack is coming from. If you have a relatively peaceful neighbor (or even just a trustworthy one—Bismarck, for instance, though he's aggressive, is not a backstabber), sign a Declaration of Friendship and don't worry too much about that front. If you have a bad-news neighbor (e.g. Alexander), find his other neighbors and make friends with them.

Finally, defensive structures and a big army are important deterrents, but geography is, especially in the early game, by far the most important factor in going to war (or avoiding it). The AI will decide when to invade you based on how many units you've got, and he'll decide where to attack based on whether he thinks he can take one city or another, but he'll decide whether to attack in the first place based on how much he "covets your land." With that in mind: do not settle near a neighbor you're not willing to fight. Do not extend beyond your natural borders (mountain ranges, deserts, city-states, and water are all excellent buffers between you and the AI). Do not settle into a position where you might have to fight on two fronts (unless you can't avoid it). Try to block off naturally defensible positions (peninsulas, mountain valleys) first and then fill them in later.

1 The covet you're land is to sensetive which means Every single AI will declare war on you if he is next to you... there are no exception this is a fact

2 DOF are useless early on because ther aren't many early modifiers and a DOF doens't prevent the Ai for backstabing and dowing you early it is you're military and only the Ai who aren't close to you but far away want to be friends.

3 The biggest problem in civ 5 that the AI only calculates you're military when he is dowing you which result like I said that at higher diffuclties emperor immortal and deity the Ai allways dows you !!!!(their military is allways higher because they spam useless units warriors )



this was the main issue at vanilla civ 5 and it still isn't fixed.

Sorry but I f you can't see my point that brave new world is going to be unfun if the AI is to agressive as today then I don't get it. A game where you have to trade to get money but the Ai doens't want to or where they put a hole new builder options for peacefull victories but the AI is to agressive

You are right the Ai calculates war based on military strenght and their you have you're problem.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I object to the notion that the new culture victory is peaceful. It may not involve you sending your own armies to foreign lands but it does require you to cause chaos in enemy cities in a huge way, which will inevitably make them quite peeved at you.

 

[wigwam]

Every single AI will declare war on you if he is next to you... there are no exception this is a fact

DOF are useless early on

a DOF doens't prevent the Ai for backstabing and dowing you early

at higher diffuclties emperor immortal and deity the Ai allways dows you !!!!

That's funny, it almost seems like you didn't read my post at all.

 

[LoneRebel]

Try getting the AI to fight against each other? A few clever bribes and denunciations can pit two AI's against each other for thousands of years. If you don't want to fight you're going to have to find others to do it for you.

In my current game, China is on the other side of the Pangaea from me (with enormous 30-city Japan between us) so they were friendly to me almost the whole game. Almost. One turn, I suddenly saw a large Chinese force advancing through Japanese territory to get to me. So I paid China to attack Japan. (Japan was at war with me too.) It worked, but she still declared war on me the turn after that.

Ah well. I destroyed her attacking force, she asked for peace, and then Japan asked for peace the same turn. China and Japan are still going at each other to this day.

I would like to note that I have personally seen AI's commit suicide. What I mean is that occasionally an AI will calculate that it *needs* some city or some resource and even though it calculates it will probably not be able to defeat my army, it has to take the risk. On those occassions, the AI declaration of war speech will even take note of their poor chances. If you then beat them and take a city or two and then negotiate peace, it is not uncommon for that AI to NOT hold a grudge over the war they started and lost.

I say all this to underscore the point that a big army doesn't always guarantee peace but it is still the best for it.

In my current game, Germany was slow to expand and pretty much just had one city the whole game. This meant that our other neighbors Japan, Greece, and Russia were picking on them the whole game (it was a wonder they lasted so long). I tried to keep them alive because small as they were, Germany was still a partial buffer between me and enormous 30-city Japan.

Finally, Japan sent a huge army. I was worried that Berlin would really fall this time, so I culture bombed Germany to get an oil patch near the border, so that it wouldn't fall into Japanese hands. As it turned out, Germany and I were able to push Japan back; I used lots of fighters and bombers to reach into German territory and destroy the attackers.

But then, soon after we defeated Japan, Germany (who'd been friendly to the whole game) declared war on me. The text subtitles were something like, "Though my chances are not good, I have no choice but to reveal my deception. I only pray that I will succeed."

It was pretty sad since I'd been trying to keep them alive. But then I thought that, if they were going to fall to one of the other civs eventually anyway, better that I defeat them instead. I still didn't want Japan capturing Berlin. So with a heavy heart, I destroyed them.

Did he declare war just because of the culture bomb?

I object to the notion that the new culture victory is peaceful. It may not involve you sending your own armies to foreign lands but it does require you to cause chaos in enemy cities in a huge way, which will inevitably make them quite peeved at you.

Seems like aiming for a cultural victory in BNW will have an even higher chance of war than before, then?

 

[Light Cleric]

One of the issues is that the AI is atrocious at evaluating situations because it just looks at numbers. Here's a recent example that was particularly frustrating:

I was screwing around with something on Deity as Songhai. Arabia had walked a Settler way around a mountain and settled an 8 defense city on a flat land desert 3 tiles from Barcelona where he has almost no hope of defending. My capital is sitting at 19 defense on a hill across a river with 5 Composite Bowmen defending it. I have a Warrior near Arabia's city and see it's totally undefended. Around turn 55 Isabella walks an army of Warriors/Archers/Chariots etc., the usual AI "grab bag army" in our general direction. She has a choice between my capital and Harun's satellite city. Naturally, she attacks me instead of him, because she sees me as "weaker" when I am clearly not, but because Harun has a ton of garbage spam units that add to a lot of numbers, she thinks I am. That kind of thing just gets stale and tedious.

There's times where the AI correctly declares war, but more often than not, it's just a stupid war that does nothing but slow down both the player and stubborn aggressive AI that doesn't know when to give up.

 

[LoneRebel]

One of the issues is that the AI is atrocious at evaluating situations because it just looks at numbers. Here's a recent example that was particularly frustrating:

I was screwing around with something on Deity as Songhai. Arabia had walked a Settler way around a mountain and settled an 8 defense city on a flat land desert 3 tiles from Barcelona where he has almost no hope of defending. My capital is sitting at 19 defense on a hill across a river with 5 Composite Bowmen defending it. I have a Warrior near Arabia's city and see it's totally undefended. Around turn 55 Isabella walks an army of Warriors/Archers/Chariots etc., the usual AI "grab bag army" in our general direction. She has a choice between my capital and Harun's satellite city. Naturally, she attacks me instead of him, because she sees me as "weaker" when I am clearly not, but because Harun has a ton of garbage spam units that add to a lot of numbers, she thinks I am. That kind of thing just gets stale and tedious.

There's times where the AI correctly declares war, but more often than not, it's just a stupid war that does nothing but slow down both the player and stubborn aggressive AI that doesn't know when to give up.

In this situation, does the AI decide who the target will be before sending out the attack force, or do they just decide when they get there?

 

[ImperialChaos]

Build up your army (even just defensive units like archers), don't settle near borders, and trade all you can. Especially to the warmongers like Attila, Genghis, or Monty.

 

[apocalypse105]

That's funny, it almost seems like you didn't read my post at all.

I did but i don't agree with you're point because that is not how the AI behaves.

Build up your army (even just defensive units like archers), don't settle near borders, and trade all you can. Especially to the warmongers like Attila, Genghis, or Monty.

That doesn't prevent the from dowing. Which is my hole point

I object to the notion that the new culture victory is peaceful. It may not involve you sending your own armies to foreign lands but it does require you to cause chaos in enemy cities in a huge way, which will inevitably make them quite peeved at you.

True but i am talking about the early trade option you will have which become useless because you can't stay peacefull

 

[Wodan]

Honestly, I think "is there a way to prevent early wars" is the wrong question. It's a question of vulnerability... if, for example, you want to ignore military techs so that you can beeline some wonder or non-military tech, or simply to build your empire in relative safety. The question to ask is not how to prevent wars but how to minimize your vulnerability. Even a couple of goraks (warriors) fortified in hills or forests next to your city will prevent any number of AI warriors from taking it. And, by the time he gets to cats or multiple archers, you should have other options (and you're safely past the early game).

So, to that end, I think wigwam's suggestions are more on target. Take advantage of bottlenecks due to mountains and water tiles. A city with only 1 or 2 adjacent tiles can probably even hold by itself without any units at all!

And, bottom line, you're smarter than the AI. Smart use of weak units can beat the AI if done right. Keep them in a mutually supporting line. Wounded units can fortify in place to heal or retreat with other units to fill the gap. You can even have all your units retreat behind the city and heal while the city takes some hits, then your healed units can counterattack his wounded units. And, never send your units to a position where 3 or 4 AI units can attack, because the AI will always swarm a vulnerable unit and kill it.

 

[cutelilduck]

hopping in to say "yallniggaspostinginatrollthread.jpg"

 

[Polisurgist]

hopping in to say "yallniggaspostinginatrollthread.jpg"

I wish.

 

[PrimoXanthous]

try to play settler difficulty!

 

[stii]

I wonder if people saying the AI always attacks are just building cities too aggressively? I've had games on deity where I had zero wars all game is it is hardly impossible to prevent the AI attacking you.

 

[Sabrina]

Keep an eye on de demographics screen and be sure you are better ranked in soldiers than your neighbors. Avoid DoFs with your strongest neighbors enemies and avoid contested borders.