[C3C] Love the AI

[vmxa]

31 civ world map is settled, so AI goes on the war path. Cleo demands a lux and I demure, so she DoW's. Noting strange, except she is already in 5 wars. IBT she gets into a 6th war not counting mine. We do not share any landmass.

These maps are a non stop of war decs and endings, when the land is all taken. Sometimes a civ will end a war and then declare during the same IBT. Civ A gets peace with civ B and when civ B's turn comes up, they declare on civ A again. Too funny.

edit typo not s/b non

 

[justanick]

This is how you beat Sid. There is little you need to do in terms of fighting if AIs are fighting themselves. Whenever a town is razed your settlers use the opportunity.

 

[Fergei]

It is a strange design choice to let the AIs often go truly demented like that. Especially when I think AI aggression was dealt with so well in Civ1 (Stalin & Shaka terrifying, but lots of level headed ones) and Civ2 (no real lunatics that spring to mind). Even a low to mid aggression AI in Civ3 can sometimes develop a pathological hatred of all humanity and behave like a petulant child with a a boardgame when they are bored and want to do something else.

Plus the really aggressive Civs in Civ3 are just drooling idiots who you know will shoot themselves in the foot whereas in Civ1 these guys knew how to steamroll to overall victory through aggression. I still have Stalin's theme music emblazoned in my mind because of the dread of each diplomatic engagement with him because I knew he threatened appropriately in line with his relative strength.

In Civ3 Germany has no iron or horses you say? No problem, Bismarck will still declare war against anyone with a shared border who has knights and pikemen. Are their military advisors purged or something? I know they are meant to calculate a rival's military strength.

I also dislike the switch that flicks in the Civ3 AI's mind when the last bit of territory is settled. Its like aggression goes up about 1000 overnight as they snap out of their one track mind about settlers.

Overall it is an area with clear room for improvement. With all my moaning I may increase the number of AIs with low aggression and combine that with my ongoing unsophisticated efforts to make the AI a bit less obsessive about settlers.

 

[Civinator]

in Civ1 these guys knew how to steamroll to overall victory through aggression. I still have Stalin's theme music emblazoned in my mind because of the dread of each diplomatic engagement with him

 

[Buttercup]

I'm someone who only really plays archipelago maps and primarily because I loathe the 'end of space' immediate invasions.

So I can reveal that when playing islands, and I'm invariably a Seafaring civ, that I usually find myself 'at war' with a good two or three civs before that other civ even has the capability to invade me. Which a great way to generate early game happiness at zero risk.

What's not so great is that you just delay the inevitable. You can set your watch by it that the absolute second an AI discovers Seafaring that you are going to have a 'baotload' of a spearman and an archer land next to your Capital in t-minus 10 seconds. The best way to counter this is to position a group of Galleys in such a way as their Galleys can't get round them without stopping on sea or ocean. It's only very rarely that a civ is so desperate it even attacks Galleys.

This does put a big onus and annoyance of having to be the one to build The Great Lighthouse, and suffer the early Golden Age at a usually wasteful moment, but it's such a nice way to send a big FU to the AI design.

Which all, of course, just delays the landing until one of them gets Navigation. Then the game just becomes a Let's Watch Frigates Move Slowly Past My Island simulator. Turning animations off helps this a bit, but unfortunately it turns off the enjoyable animations as well.

 

[Quintillus]

Ah, the lovely "Frigates bombarding the shore every turn while causing almost no damage". My favorite part of the AI's turn, the more Frigates the better. [/sarcasm]

The other design oddity that exacerbates the AI's questionable decision making about wars - and indeed, it becomes impossible to keep track of who's fighting who in the late game with a lot of civs - is how Mutual Protection Pacts work. Civ A is at war with Civ B and Civ C, and makes peace with Civ B, but then they attack Civ C because they're still at war with them, and Civ B re-enters the war. It makes the whole situation worse, and isn't realistic, either - the Soviets weren't going to re-enter the Great War after making peace with Germany just because Germany subsequently continued to make attacks against France in French territory. Mutual Protection Pacts would be more realistic and do less to spread war if they were only triggered in reaction to a declaration of war against the country with whom you have the pact.

 

[vmxa]

Playing on a world map with 31 civs, I really wish there was a mod to display the diplo for all the civs at once. Trying to figure out, if civ A is at war and with whom is a real pain.

 

[justanick]

That is why you need to exterminate some of them early, get the numbers of remaining nations down to 8.

 

[Spoonwood]

That is why you need to exterminate some of them early, get the numbers of remaining nations down to 8.

If you play Always War, that might not be feasible.

 

[Fergei]

Ah, the lovely "Frigates bombarding the shore every turn while causing almost no damage". My favorite part of the AI's turn, the more Frigates the better. [/sarcasm]

The other design oddity that exacerbates the AI's questionable decision making about wars - and indeed, it becomes impossible to keep track of who's fighting who in the late game with a lot of civs - is how Mutual Protection Pacts work. Civ A is at war with Civ B and Civ C, and makes peace with Civ B, but then they attack Civ C because they're still at war with them, and Civ B re-enters the war. It makes the whole situation worse, and isn't realistic, either - the Soviets weren't going to re-enter the Great War after making peace with Germany just because Germany subsequently continued to make attacks against France in French territory. Mutual Protection Pacts would be more realistic and do less to spread war if they were only triggered in reaction to a declaration of war against the country with whom you have the pact.

I have been testing deactivating MPP but the late game still has ludicrous levels of war. Many of them brainless. Now I am trying reducing unit support for Com/Fas/Mon to see if I can gently persuade the AI to revert to governments more quickly when there is a lull in war (and then think twice about instigating future wars).

 

[Fergei]

The AI habit I also don't really understand is the AI accepting an equal trade of RoP but if I try to gift them iron along with the RoP they are insulted and cannot possibly accept it. I am trying to help save them from extinction from a rival AI with a freebie and they are disgusted at me. So I must let survival of the fittest take its course.

 

[tjs282]

If simply adding per-turn goods/ gold-payments changes your offer from "acceptable" to "insulting", that usually indicates that you've got a busted trade-reputation.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from making those 2 offers (ROP, Iron gift) separately.

 

[Fergei]

If simply adding per-turn goods/ gold-payments changes your offer from "acceptable" to "insulting", that usually indicates that you've got a busted trade-reputation.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from making those 2 offers (ROP, Iron gift) separately.

If I remember right I think thats what I did. The AI accepted the gift separately but hated it if coupled with an acceptable RoP exchange even though the deal was fundamentally identical.

I had no idea why my reputation with Egypt was damaged at that stage as everyone else loved me, I had been pacifist and I'm pretty sure I had not traded with Egypt at all. I think Cleopatra just didn't like the look of my face. I quite like this unpredictability though.

 

[vmxa]

That is why you need to exterminate some of them early, get the numbers of remaining nations down to 8.

In the last game I played on LK's world map I started on an island, so not an option. By the time I got to Africa, Cleo had 95 cities. That was a long struggle.

 

[Fergei]

31 civ world map is settled, so AI goes on the war path. Cleo demands a lux and I demure, so she DoW's. Noting strange, except she is already in 5 wars. IBT she gets into a 6th war not counting mine. We do not share any landmass.

These maps are a non stop of war decs and endings, when the land is all taken. Sometimes a civ will end a war and then declare during the same IBT. Civ A gets peace with civ B and when civ B's turn comes up, they declare on civ A again. Too funny.

edit typo not s/b non

I am thinking about this again in conjunction with discussion about recalculations of Civ to Civ trade potentially increasing the length of end of turn (and slowing down the game).

When on the same landmass, declarations of war potentially break trade agreements/routes involving third parties and lower multiple reputations. This would be a feedback loop that increases potential for future declarations of war. So are eternal war loops more likely on Pangea? Or at least, do they happen earlier in the game on Pangea because reputations are destroyed earlier?

Extending the point to Archipelago (my preferred option), war declarations won't have the same global impact on third party trade routes as on a Pangea (especially once sea and ocean travel are available). However... trade embargoes might if they count as a sort of physical blockade along sea lanes (which admittedly, I don't think they do). In theory they could create a similar feedback loop of bad reputations and war. They would also potentially extend end of turn calculations around Civ to Civ trades (and slow down my game).

This would partly explain why I experience disproportionately high numbers of stupid wars later on in the game and the AI becomes increasingly willing to join meaningless wars later in the game. I previously always attributed this to Fascism & Communism, or the AI running out of buildings to make, but I'm thinking I need to experiment with disabling trade embargoes and see if it has any impact on aggression levels.

From reading old threads it is hard to see anyone with anything positive to say about the implementation of trade embargoes in Civ3. So it shouldn't be a great loss.

If this wild (and almost certainly wrong) theory has any basis then it would be interesting to see if MPPs work better when there isn't the damaged reputations caused by trade embargoes.

Do people find a much higher rate of the AI agreeing to military alliances later in the game and on Pangea?

If so, what do they attribute this to?

Maybe I need to look at making Military Alliances unavailable? Although that seems a bit drastic.

 

[justanick]

or the AI running out of buildings to make,

Wealth can always be built. Does it matter if AI is set to build wealth often?

Per default India, Persia, England, Korea, Portugal and the Inca set set to build wealth often.

 

[tjs282]

When on the same landmass, declarations of war potentially break trade agreements/routes involving third parties and lower multiple reputations.

Your trade-rep is a binary setting. It's either intact, or it's broken.

It's also essentially universal, which means that even if you break it only once with one Civ, they will tell all their friends (that is, all the Civs which they know, but are not currently at war with) that you cannot be trusted to stick to your 20-turn deals.

But AFAIK, it doesn't affect AI-attitude (Furious to Gracious) either way.

 

[Fergei]

Your trade-rep is a binary setting. It's either intact, or it's broken.

It's also essentially universal, which means that even if you break it only once with one Civ, they will tell all their friends (that is, all the Civs which they know, but are not currently at war with) that you cannot be trusted to stick to your 20-turn deals.

But AFAIK, it doesn't affect AI-attitude (Furious to Gracious) either way.

If it is completely seperate it would make sense. I will see if removing Trade Embargoes makes any difference to late game madness, but it seems not. The best bet seems to be to reduce unit support for Mon/Com/Fas to encourage AIs to return to a government type with war weariness (and more importantly low unit support) thereby reducing the frequency of the AI amassing enormous armies that it then feels compelled to use.

Its a bit frustrating as I think the game handles early to mid game wars/aggression very nicely. In the first couple of eras there can be widespread peace, total bloodbaths and everything inbetween.

 

[vmxa]

@Fergei in some of my games, I did not ever trade with the AI, other than one time deals. IOW I had no on going trades other than peace. It does not seem to matter as wars seem to flair up in a hap hazard way from my point of view. The number of civs in the game, does seem to have an impact, but I never tracked it. Civs can be OCC on a tiny island and will start or join a war, regardless of the size of the opponent. Just bit of extra code could have at least reduced the occurrences.
Just so it is very rare to join an ongoing war, that you cannot win. The AI will make peace and break with no regards to anything and hence reps are trashed. This happens on continents as well, can't recall on pelo maps, rarely play them any more.

I shake my head, when I see that a civ signed an MPP with someone that was in a war or several wars, especially when one of the wars was with a very large civ. A human may do that, I guess, knowing they won't fight and could deal with any landings.

 

[Fergei]

I am having too much fun playing to test things properly just now. However, removing trade embargoes appears to do nothing and encouraging use of governments with War Weariness did nothing. I just lost a game when a couple of super powerful, average aggression Civs that were democracies just independently declared war on a couple of different Civs each early in the industrial era. Pretty much on the same turn. It was like a switch was flicked and other weaker Civs suddenly became much more amenable to join the new wars too.

If I was a betting man my best guesses would be that somehow the game's aggression level is coded to increase when:

i) someone discovers Fascism
OR
ii) 25% of Civs discover Nationalism

Either of those would make a certain sense. I guess there is something in the code that is an attempt at rubber banding by the developers to prevent runaway AI just cruising to a space victory during the last two eras.