Mao declares on friendly

[gunsnroses]

I'm playing my first game with this mod on a standard size map, continents. I'm on one continent with Zara who is my vassal; on the other continent there is Mao, Kublai, Frederick, Pascal and Isabella. I have been friendly with Mao and Kublai since I met them and I messed around in some wars over at the continent helping them out.

At one point Mao declares war on Kublai - his former ally. Mao asks me to join in and I agree, capturing Kublai's capital and making him my vassal. Now, some 20 turns later the situation is as follows: Mao is master of Pascal, Frederick and Isabella. I'm master of Zara on my continent, Kublai on the other and I have one city there (former capital of Kublai, quite powerful city).

Mao has been friendly with me for forever. The + and - on the diplomacy is +15 and -3. But, right after Mao got Isabella to be his vassal he declares war on me initiating a big world war. Can't say I don't particularly like it, because I have 77 turns to go and am building my spaceship, but isn't it a tad odd that he would attack me with such good diplomatic standings and history?

My big question now is whether this is caused by the Better BTS AI mod? Since I'm building my spaceship and getting reasonably close to victory, could that be the reason why Mao attacked me? Or is Mao just a backstabbing bastard? I haven't really played many games with him yet... somehow the game always picks other leaders.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

You are close to a victory, I believe that's one of the cases where the AI can now ignore attitude and still start war plans and declare war. So yes, it's very likely that this is because of Better AI.

 

[gunsnroses]

Would this mean that if I were playing on a continent with a few independent AI nations and I would be getting close to victory that it becomes likely that I will be attacked by a few of them? Or is there a random element in this?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

War plans are always random to some degree. You should be prepared to be attacked though, the chances to win any victory other than time without being disturbed are not that good, afaik.

 

[dzdydx]

Although I haven't had friendly AIs go into war plan against me, I've definitely had multiple polite AIs go halfway across the world to invade me independently and ignoring their enemy neighbours because I maxed my culture slider. I knew their invasions weren't bribed because they declared the turn they dumped SoDs at my coastal cities. Granted these AIs were the usual backstabbing ones (Ragnar, Monty, and Toku)

Makes the game more fun imo

 

[jdog5000]

Sounds like Mao is going for conquest/domination from what you've described, and he can certainly tell that you're getting close to space. In this circumstance, the AI will sometimes ignore relationships and attempt to go for victory.

The AI gunning for a victory type, guessing opponents' victory plans, and adjusting its strategy if it thinks it won't win before you is something BBAI added to Civ4 which was not there before!

Interestingly, Firaxis did add this ability in to Civ5 from the beginning (I have no idea if they decided to do this after seeing this mod or on their own ... it was an obvious thing that needed to be added). You can get hints of what's going on behind the curtain by turning on logs in Civ5 ini files and seeing what the game spits out. It's quite interesting and appears pretty broad in scope, and being in there from day 1 will eventually yield excellent results (once the gameplay issues are ironed out and the AI can be tuned).