Is there any logic to an AI DoW?

[Joshua368]

Think about it, how often do you have to attack a friendly AI? It votes for you, it lets build your spaceship in peace. If you've let a friend run away chances are you have been playing a poor game diplomatically, on top of having played a rather bad game. And this situation doesn't crop up that often anyway.

I'd say having a friendly civ nearby would get in the way of your domination/conquest victory.

In my recent game I had a friendly peter nearby (even after he went into free religion) and I completely sucked up to him with defensive pact and giving in to requests while I teched quickly to space. He vassalized either voluntarily or by war the rest of the freakin' world. (fortunately I had a lot of land from early expansion/new world colonization so he couldn't get domination)

He had a late game war the other superpower and dang it I have never seen so many nukes go off. His power level shot off to the stars. So I just patted his back as he completely destroyed our world as I get the heck off that planet. Yes, best friends forever!

But yeah in retrospect it probably would have been better to backstab him earlier, he could have probably won diplomatically if the U.N. was built.

 

[Dirk1302]

@rolo,Depends on the ai, some can still declare on you at pleased, some can't.if it's Monty, Shaka..... pleased won't do.If you go to war yourself you can easily get back stabbed by pleased ais who probably wouldn't declare on you otherwise. Friendly's much better in this case.

But sometimes i don't even try to be friendly with some civ but they just happen to like me. That's fine with me but doesn't mean they don't have to go if they're in the way.

 

[r_rolo1]

I do not try to be Friendly with Monty or Shaka just for the sake of not being Dowed : huge investement for little return ( it is far better to sink him in other wars and a low pleased normally is enough to bribe any of those stooges to attack someone else ). But if you're talking of using Monty or shaka as a hound dog and getting friendly in the process... That is a whole diferent deck of cards

 

[Dirk1302]

@aelf,

I always play immortal+, on immortal an axe rush can be a good option but apart from a personal dislike of early rushes the circumstances have to be right. On deity early rushing is just difficult so you rely on diplo with your neighbours a lot in order not to get rushed yourself. So yes, i usually get along fine with my neighbours on this level but i still need their land. You don't win a space race on deity with 6 cities.

 

[Dirk1302]

@rolo

Monty,Shaka just have to go if they're my direct neighbours, otherwise pleased is good enough as they'll run for you anyway. But especially Monty is easy to please and will easily think you're his friend.

 

[aelf]

I'd say having a friendly civ nearby would get in the way of your domination/conquest victory.

In my recent game I had a friendly peter nearby (even after he went into free religion) and I completely sucked up to him with defensive pact and giving in to requests while I teched quickly to space. He vassalized either voluntarily or by war the rest of the freakin' world. (fortunately I had a lot of land from early expansion/new world colonization so he couldn't get domination)

He had a late game war the other superpower and dang it I have never seen so many nukes go off. His power level shot off to the stars. So I just patted his back as he completely destroyed our world as I get the heck off that planet. Yes, best friends forever!

But yeah in retrospect it probably would have been better to backstab him earlier, he could have probably won diplomatically if the U.N. was built.

Well, I wouldn't call that a well-played game

If you think the AI does not play well and therefore has to resort to backstabbing to spoil your chances, up your difficulty.

@aelf,

I always play immortal+, on immortal an axe rush can be a good option but apart from a personal dislike of early rushes the circumstances have to be right. On deity early rushing is just difficult so you rely on diplo with your neighbours a lot in order not to get rushed yourself. So yes, i usually get along fine with my neighbours on this level but i still need their land. You don't win a space race on deity with 6 cities.

I haven't tried Deity, but on Immortal I don't necessarily have to rush either. I still don't think it's necessary or even efficient to get up to friendly with your immediate neighbours in most cases. Unless you are really pacifist.

And I still think you are not strictly talking about Friendly AIs.

 

[Joshua368]

Well, I wouldn't call that a well-played game

If you think the AI does not play well and therefore has to resort to backstabbing to spoil your chances, up your difficulty.

As far as completely shutting off military to get into space I'd say I played it pretty well, getting to future tech and alpha centurai in 1930. (monarch)

My earlier military conquests already secured my western shores and some nice eastern borders, the eastern side was now completely covered by big brother peter and his vassal, my only enemy that wasn't completely defeated by this point was on the opposite side of the continent and occupied with someone else. So I decided to shift focus of the game and take a particular route, teching fast as possible and settling the new world.

As for the AI having to backstab me to win, well... yeah, considering the guy was going for domination/conquest he would have to go through me because I had so much land. (unless he could win diplomatically with the UN, not sure) I relied solely on good diplomacy to win that space race... at any point I have no doubt Peter could have nuked me back to the stone age, even with SDI. Happy he wasn't Catherine.

 

[aelf]

As far as completely shutting off military to get into space I'd say I played it pretty well, getting to future tech and alpha centurai in 1930. (monarch)

My earlier military conquests already secured my western shores and some nice eastern borders, the eastern side was now completely covered by big brother peter and his vassal, my only enemy that wasn't completely defeated by this point was on the opposite side of the continent and occupied with someone else. So I decided to shift focus of the game and take a particular route, teching fast as possible and settling the new world.

As for the AI having to backstab me to win, well... yeah, considering the guy was going for domination/conquest he would have to go through me because I had so much land. (unless he could win diplomatically with the UN, not sure) I relied solely on good diplomacy to win that space race... at any point I have no doubt Peter could have nuked me back to the stone age, even with SDI. Happy he wasn't Catherine.

The thing is I feel that if you've bothered to put in some thought and sweat into diplomacy, which is part of the SP game, you deserve to enjoy it. Some people think dice rolls are the next best thing for a game since sliced bread, though.

And I don't think the fact that some people ignore diplomacy should affect anything. That argument is a very bad one and has been used to try and screw up the game (such as the argument that some people spam units and therefore the AI has to as well).

 

[Dirk1302]

@aelf
Indeed i wouldn't change to an unfavorable civic/religion to get a pleased but later to be attacked ai to friendly unless it's Monty/Shaka which is an unlikely neighbour at that point, either he is or i am dead long before friendly time.

You may have a point that i'm not strictly talking about friendly ais but also pleased ais.
The idea is to get them to pleased , then later attack them, but if they get friendly in the process, too bad.

 

[Joshua368]

The thing is I feel that if you've bothered to put in some thought and sweat into diplomacy, which is part of the SP game, you deserve to enjoy it. Some people think dice rolls are the next best thing for a game since sliced bread, though.

And I don't think the fact that some people ignore diplomacy should affect anything. That argument is a very bad one and has been used to try and screw up the game (such as the argument that some people spam units and therefore the AI has to as well).

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say (SP game?) but I'd say I played a very diplomatic game in that particular round, I was forced to after I decided to shut down military. Having my neighboring (close borders spark tensions) nuke-happy superpower standing nearby to my riflemen-guarded cities is unnerving to say the least, getting him to Friendly without sharing religion or favorite civic was no small feat.

I had other friends as well but they kind of became a nonissue after said nuclear war.

 

[aelf]

@aelf
Indeed i wouldn't change to an unfavorable civic/religion to get a pleased but later to be attacked ai to friendly unless it's Monty/Shaka which is an unlikely neighbour at that point, either he is or i am dead long before friendly time.

You may have a point that i'm not strictly talking about friendly ais but also pleased ais.
The idea is to get them to pleased , then later attack them, but if they get friendly in the process, too bad.

That is pretty difficult, though, unless you put in effort into it. You need big bonuses to get them to Friendly, and unless you're lucky/unlucky circumstances wouldn't permit that to happen easily. You also need a significant amount of time to get there, and by then it would probably have been decided who your enemies are. Maybe that isn't the case if you're an avid warmonger.

You probably have to be looking at a neighbour who shares the same religion as you and likes HR or a very close endgame against a friendly AI to arrive at a situation where you have to attack despite the friendly status. Personally, I can't remember one game where it served my interests to betray a friendly AI. I don't think it can be considered important enough a concern to think about it as an exploit.

 

[aelf]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say (SP game?) but I'd say I played a very diplomatic game in that particular game, I was forced to after I decided to shut down military. Having my neighboring (close borders spark tensions) nuke-happy superpower standing nearby to my riflemen-guarded cities is unnerving to say the least, getting him to Friendly without sharing religion or favorite civic was no small feat.

Why did you have a superpower neighbour? And if you do have one make sure you can beat him without having to resort to desperate measures at the last minute, which might not work. It's no good unless you're in control

SP stands for single player.

 

[Joshua368]

Why did you have a superpower neighbour? And if you do have one make sure you can beat him without having to resort to desperate measures at the last minute, which might not work. It's no good unless you're in control

SP stands for single player.

Because he was friendly and I let him be by himself, I had more than enough great land to tech to space. At the point I made the decision I could have taken him on militarily if I had wanted to, but I didn't. Then as I was building my spaceship he started running away with power.

I suppose technically I was in control because my pure tech focus allowed me to easily win the space race (at the end only one other guy had the apollo program and that was it), had enough land to avoid enemy domination, and my only threat was friendly. Just is slightly unsettling when you hear five nukes have gone off each turn.

 

[aelf]

Because he was friendly and I let him be by himself, I had more than enough great land to tech to space. At the point I made the decision I could have taken him on militarily if I had wanted to, but I didn't. Then as I was building my spaceship he started running away with power.

I suppose technically I was in control because my pure tech focus allowed me to easily win the space race (at the end only one other guy had the apollo program and that was it), had enough land to avoid enemy domination, and my only threat was friendly. Just is slightly unsettling when you hear five nukes have gone off each turn.

I think I didn't understand your story very well because I thought you were arguing for backstabbing a friendly AI. Looks like you actually didn't do that and proved my point instead

 

[Joshua368]

I think I didn't understand your story very well because I thought you were arguing for backstabbing a friendly AI. Looks like you actually didn't do that and proved my point instead

Well it's not that I've never backstabbed before, if I'm going for a military win its kind of inevitable. But yeah, I was making a point that great diplomacy saved the game. I went and got some screens to make my situation clear... (I'm Frederick of Germany)

Spoiler :

The world falling apart. Ha ha, yeah, let's get the heck off this planet.

Power rating, mine is light gray and Peter's is obvious. I marked the point where I chose to shut off military... he wasn't so intimidating then.

And here's my good friend Peter. Best friends forever. Please don't attack me!

While on this topic, how exactly do permanent alliances work? Even after a prolonged defensive pact and us both having Fascism I never saw the option, do you have to specificially turn them on? Would have been kind of nice.

 

[r_rolo1]

PA requires that you tick that option before the game starts

 

[PaulusIII]

To get up a recent game of mine: 6 AI's, continental map. I (having drawn Genghis Khan as leader) was on a continent with Elizabeth and Tokugawa.

Toku eventually attacked after the first tech trading round between me and Elizabeth, which left him behind because he didn't want to trade... as usual. At that moment, I wanted Elizabeth at friendly because I needed a tech trading partner - if that was not the case, she would have held on to every tech on monopoly grounds. I succeeded in getting her to friendly and killed off Toku in 400 AD. Tech trading helped in keeping my tech pace a lot higher than if there was no trading, and also helped in the rebuild phase after killing Toku.

Eventually I met the other continent, where only one big war broke out, resulting in Asoka being dogpiled by Isabella and Justinian. Those two were the only I had to reckon with - Asoka and Sitting Bull were far behind and useless. Izzy and Justinian were about the same tech level, slightly behind but still contenders.

After teching Rifling, I mass-drafted rifles, dowed on Elizabeth and wiped her out. By then, Justinian and Isabella had caught up in tech terms so I did not lose out on being able to get tech trades. I kept up with them in tech terms, eventually attacking the other continent and winning by domination in 1770 AD, having vassalized everybody except Justinian.

Now the million-dollar question: Could I have won that game without having to backstab Elizabeth? Without Elizabeth's land, I was being out-teched by both Elizabeth herself, and would without having trades also have fallen behind Isabella and Justinian. I doubt I would be able to tech to space without falling hopelessly behind. Granted, if I did not plan on backstabbing Elizabeth I would have no qualms about trading her Gunpowder/RP/Rifling and if I would have traded them (instead of keeping the monopoly I kept in the game because I did not want to face redcoats) I would still have been ahead of Isabella and Justinian at that time. But eventually I would have been out of trades because she would be too far ahead to trade with. I think my way was easier, if not the only way.

Arguably, my games are never well-played though. If I played well I wouldn't still be stuck at Emperor.

 

[Gooblah]

I would say there is. They make a decision, build a huge army, then kill you. Or almost kill you if you;re lucky. Case in point:

I was playing as Elizabeth. Had an awesome start (got Truffles event in my capital), spammed cities, built the GL, etc, etc. Trouble was, my military was kind of low. Thankfully, I had a strong production city on the coast, with seafood to work the mined hills. My border with Napoleon was fraught with tension after I messed up a Chariot Rush, snagging only one city and losing my army in the process. Needless to say, he wanted me dead. I finally noticed something was amiss when a massive group of Swordsmen, Chariots, Horse Archers, Spearmen, and Axemen (roughly...50 units) was swarming around on the southern border, marked by a river. I panicked, threw down any buildings being constructed and forced every city into whipping/chopping units. Within 10 turns I had an army of City Raider I Swordsmen and Axemen, and a few Catapults. Finally, he declared. The battle was pitched near a strategic city (the Great Library) and he had overwhelming units. Thankfully, he attacked across the river, suicided his melee units against a few Shock Axemen, and retreated.

I built some Trebuchets and Crossbowmen and marched after him, captured Paris, but he whipped and chopped units and counter-attacked. I took over all of his cities through a century of warfare (England vs France, Hundred-Years-War, anyone?).

Needless to say, it was awesome. The point of this anecdote? I intended it to be a story of the capacity of the AI to plan an attack, but that kind of died after the river battle.

 

[Dirk1302]

I had reason to look into this recently. If you're not a player in SGOTM07, you can click here to read about it. Once that game is officially over I may just turn it into a strategy article.

EDIT: Caveat - this is all based on Vanilla, and may well have changed for BtS.

Well this deserves quoting i think, there's a wealth of info about other things in this SGOTM 07 thread too.

@Niklas,

One thing puzzles me, one of the conclusions is (quote from the article):
"There are a few very interesting implications of this decision process, not surprising. To me what stands out as most important right here and now is that there are two ways to avoid war. One is to be liked well enough, the other is to be strong enough to be a deterrent. But note in particular with the latter that it is a threshold value. What this means is, unless we can reach up to the threshold value of a particular AI, we might as well have 0 power rating, it's going to be just as (not) deterring."

If this were the case i'd expect as many declarations on immortal and probably also emperor as on deity and this isn't the case as far as i've seen.

 

[CivCorpse]

using tension is a minus 100@ Aelf. I like to play my games with a sort of realistic theme. Backstabbing "Friendly" AI's is very rare for me. There are only a few times i will do it.
1. Oil. There is the rare game when all the oil on my continent is controlled by my BFF ai neighbor and i want to attack overseas. Frigates and galleons just aren't getting it done.
2. My "Friendly" status is based on religious or civics. And for some reason I am going to change that. Most commonly when it is a neighbow with both a shared religion AND a religious favorite civic. Dropping into free religion eliminates both. Might as well get some licks in while I can.
3. friendly AI is going for a cultural victory and his culture is putting too much pressure on my cities. Unless i am willing to jack up my slider and spend a bunch of hammers on cultural buildings i am going to lose my BFC's to his culture.
4. And this is the most common. Revenge. The Ai declared on me early in the game. Most likely at the request of my neighbor AI who then proceeds to stop existing and now I am right next to the evil dogpiler. Who has also been trading with my worst enemy. I remember his aggression. And it will be paid for in blood.

Or if your name is "TheMeInTeam" the close borders cause -100 diplomatic points. TheMeInTeam defines "close borders" as "I know where your borders are located"

Also an AI's diplomatic status with a human player is only representative of how you have acted towards that ai and possibly his ai buddies. It does not reflect how the AI has acted towards the human player. The +1 you got for giving them tribute earns them a -1 for making an arrogant demand. I knowq darn well it was their spy caught causing trouble...there is a minus1 for ya. We're both in the AI's favorite civic Bureaucracy, well buddy my favorite civic is Free speech but I haven't matured enough cottages to make the switch yet or don't have the tech for my favorite civic whatever that may be if I am not in a CE. Basically just because the AI thinks I'm spiffy doesn't mean I think the same about him. So friendly status should not be a protection for them.