It's 2000 BC, Everybody Hates Me

[robvollman]

Here's a great Strategy and Tip on how to get the entire freaking planet to attack you for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I was playing on Earth as China, and built a ring of cities around the Baltic Sea. Then the Mongols, who were based in central Europe and could have settled in ANY direction, suddenly show up with a settler and a warrior in between two of my cities.

Naturally, I welcome my brothers and we lived in peace ... NOT!

My Spearman and Archer descended on the warrior and settler and made quick work of them, aided by nearby city bombardment.

I then marched on their capital, aided by a Great General and another Spearman that Dublin gave me (they were so impressed by my Great General).

I wasn't planning on taking Karakorum - too many cities early in the game, but it was so poorly defended, because they were building settlers and scouts.

Once I made their capital a puppet (renamed Kermitkorum) they offered me a peace that included everything they had, plus 2 of their remaining 3 cities. Holy cow! I razed one and made a puppet of the other.

When the 10 turns of peace ran out, I descended upon their final city and polished them off.

Almost immediately the Siamese and the Indians (wherever the heck on the planet they were) declared war on me. One of them was allied with Geneva, which was a city state right next to my capital!

Fortunately my capital held out long enough for my army to make it back, and I took out Geneva. Then I sent my army, and my newly-built Horsemen, and razed the only Siamese or Indian city I could find - a crummy one on the Arctic ocean.

Siam and India made peace with me then (I didn't ask for anything in return), but then about six other countries declared war on me, and all their city states. Even though I have no idea where any of them are. I'm fighting that war right now.

Anyway, I *think* the key is that Mongol and I had a Pact of Cooperation (I think). Otherwise, why would the whole world attack me for no reason?

 

[factorial]

Yea, an unprovoked attack on a civ that you have a Pact of Cooperation with will cause every other civ that knows them to hate you. The Siamese are particularly aggressive and will pretty much DoW anyone they don't like. I'd guess in your situation that Siam was friends with India and asked India to DoW with them, since ordinarily in that situation India would just complain a lot but not do anything about it. It would also depend a bit on difficulty. If this was King or higher, then the other civs probably still have a higher score than you in 2000 BC, which makes them more likely to DoW if they don't like you, since they think they can take you.

 

[robvollman]

How do I get them to stop? I'm fighting these wars, but they just keep coming, and refuse peace.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You take a serious diplomatic hit for an unprovoked DoW. AIs also don't like it when you raze cities.

If you take the early warmonger path, you can expect to be at war with at least one AI for the remainder of the game. Two DoWs and some city razing will cause everyone that knows you to dislike you.

The best plan is to get and hold a tech lead. Then you can just play defense with minimal units and not suffer economically. Distant civs aren't really a threat; they won't send armies all the way across the continent. It's the AIs that are contiguous or very nearby that are a problem.

 

[robvollman]

When the AI has several expansion routes, and chooses to wander all the way in the middle of your empire to settle, isn't that normally a prelude to invasion?

I thought striking first was the best move, but if I had known it would have started a never-ending conflict with the entire planet, I would have waited for him to build up and attack me first.

I should have checked if I had a Pact of Cooperation and canceled that first, I'm sure that helps explain why everyone got so darn gosh angry with me.

What am I supposed to do with the cities I capture?
- Annex them: Yeah right!
- Puppet them: Can't afford the hit to happiness for the weaker cities
- Raze them: Keeps the war going.

What should I do, take it, and then offer it back in a peace settlement? Will that get them off my case permanently, or just for a little while?

 

[factorial]

If you're sole goal right now is peace, don't go after his cities. Kill a bunch of units and eventually he'll beg for peace. Repairing all those relations is another story, and ultimately some relations will never repair. Trade with everyone. They'll want a lot more than they'll be willing to give, but do it anyway. For future reference, someone settling on top of you is not necessarily a prelude to war, the AI will settle wherever it sees the best plot of land, it seems won't consider who's nearby until after it's already settled. Since the last patch, I've seen the AIs much less likely to get angry at you because they settled in your lands, and have had some peaceful, friendly neighbors on more than one occasion. Another tip, if you need to DoW on someone but don't want to take the relations hit, if you can convince another civ to go to war with you, you'll take much less of a hit, and you'll improve relations with the civ you declare with.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I consider an early three tile settle by an AI to be an act of war and respond accordingly.

There are several things you can do to minimize the reputational hit:

- Don't make peace, then DoW the same target. If you're winning, either make peace for good, make peace and farm them for cities 50-100 turns down the road, or take them all the way out now.
- Don't take the capital. Eliminating civs seems to produce an ugly Diplo penalty.
- Don't raze.
- Don't violate a Pact of Cooperation.

If taking cities is resulting in Happiness problems, you should not be taking cities. Instead, just kill units until the AI folds and pays you off in order to get peace.

 

[eric_]

How do I get them to stop? I'm fighting these wars, but they just keep coming, and refuse peace.

You avoid it in the first place by demanding that Mongolia not settle close to your lands when they show up on your doorstep with a settler. The AI seems to respect this demand pretty generally.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You avoid it in the first place by demanding that Mongolia not settle close to your lands when they show up on your doorstep with a settler. The AI seems to respect this demand pretty generally.

Depending on LoS from your capital, you may not know until it plants. And the Deity AIs that already have your score doubled up early on tend not to respect these requests.

 

[aimlessgun]

Another option is to figure out where they want to put the city, and park a unit there. The AI will just stupidly sit there staring at your unit for a few turns waiting for it to move. Then when it doesn't move, the settler will go elsewhere.

Figuring out the tile they want to settle is a bit of a crapshoot, but you can usually make a good guess (often where you were planning on settling!). Also they never settle on resources.

 

[eric_]

Depending on LoS from your capital, you may not know until it plants.

Well, at that point, yeah, the request is moot...but so is attacking the settler before it settles .

And the Deity AIs that already have your score doubled up early on tend not to respect these requests.

Heh...I've only played up through King so far, and have never had any civs with a higher score than me (totally new experience for me in the Civ series, where Prince has typically been a good challenge for me).

 

[The Great Apple]

Never kill the last city of a Civ. As soon as you do this, everybody gets annoyed and will call you a warmonger and other such rude words in diplomacy. I think this makes it much more likely they'll attack you. I tend to take a civ down to a single city, then get a peace treaty.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Figuring out the tile they want to settle is a bit of a crapshoot, but you can usually make a good guess (often where you were planning on settling!). Also they never settle on resources.

By default, the game will recommend city sites to you. As far as I can tell, the AI will only settle those recommended sites. All you have to do is build a Settler, memorize where the danger spots are, and be aware that you aren't seeing the recommended sites three tiles away from one of your cities.

 

[risikawi]

Never kill the last city of a Civ. As soon as you do this, everybody gets annoyed and will call you a warmonger and other such rude words in diplomacy. I think this makes it much more likely they'll attack you. I tend to take a civ down to a single city, then get a peace treaty.

Agreed, that doesn't seem to sit with them well. They may not even notice there is war going on out there, but when they notice that one of them isn't there anymore all hell breaks lose. Seems that's exactly what happened here.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Never kill the last city of a Civ.

That's a good rule for diplomacy, but optimal Deity play pretty much forces you to take your nearest neighbor all the way out. You need that capital for production early on.

 

[robvollman]

Ok in hindsight I should have cancelled the Cooperation Pact before attacking, and I should have beat him up and taken all his money without taking any cities (unless they were non-capital cities that I actually wanted).

In any event, I've made matters worse ...

I'm on the second war now (the first war, as described, was against Siam and India, and though they've been grouchy, they've been at peace ever since I slapped them around a little).

Germany was the only one close enough so I took Berlin and another of their cities, and razed the other four, eliminating them. In my defense I tried repeatedly to offer peace, but they'd never take it.

I also took out their ally Stockholm, which actually fulfilled a mission and got me an ally.

I couldn't find any other enemy Civs, I mean nobody was even close to me other than the Germans. I noticed Hiawatha occasionally showing up in the Arctic, so I took a reasonable army (General, Spearman, Archer and both Horsemen) and match along the Arctic until I finally found them, about 20+ hexes from my nearest city. I left my other units (Archer, Spearman, Great General) back home. Kind of weak, but no one is even close.

They look pretty powerful, they have slightly more advanced units. This is weird because I'm #1 in literacy, so I guess they're doing it with Research Agreements. I guess I should start doing those?

I've tried to make peace with my remaining enemies, but only one of them agreed (Askia, who I've never even seen). Egypt, Russia, America and Iroquois remain at war with me.

That's where I am now.

It's just past 500 AD.

 

[gaiko]

Martin Alvito has got it pretty much right. In addition I too treat the AI plopping a city in my midst an immediate act of war. Puppet any such cities, beat them up in the field, and get them to sue for peace. Razing, capital capturing and wipeout *early in the game* will put you in the doghouse like your ex-girlfriend.

*later* in the game when you are playing to win it is a different matter.

 

[stormerne]

Otherwise, why would the whole world attack me for no reason?

• Because they can
• Because this is Civ5, not a predecessor
• Because you let the game go on too long and you didn't wipe them out first
• And perhaps because you had unrealistic expectations of peace and cooperation?

I'm afraid that being brutish, dishonest and having a thick skin seem to be encouraged traits for Civ5 players, at least if they want to win reliably.

Notwithstanding that pessimistic pragmatism, there's some good advice coming your way in this thread.

 

[TheFourthDoctor]

I'm afraid that being brutish, dishonest and having a thick skin seem to be encouraged traits for Civ5 players, at least if they want to win reliably.

Notwithstanding that pessimistic pragmatism, there's some good advice coming your way in this thread.

Oh. I don't know about that. I just had a great game where every other Civ on the planet was friendly with me and happy to trade with me.

I did get involved in a war. Persia (an immediate neighbour) attacked me and in response I completely wiped her out. After that I was the most powerful Civ on the planet; about 3 times the score of the next rival. I have no doubt my strength contributed to the other Civs being friendly. But I was not a massive empire either. I had about 11 cities.

This was also an interesting game insofar as there was not one other continent where another civ had become completely dominant. For the most part of the game, all the other Civs survived.

 

[The Great Apple]

That's a good rule for diplomacy, but optimal Deity play pretty much forces you to take your nearest neighbor all the way out. You need that capital for production early on.

You can take the capital without taking all the cities. Also depends a lot on map configuration and how they expand. as to what is optimal.