MOOOOM! Ramsees is pickin' on me!

[theskald]

I've come to ask for help again! I decided to start up my second ever game on Warlord difficulty as the Khmer Empire on a large terra map. It turned out okay, I was far south but strangely ended up with many desert and tundra tiles right next to eachother, but careful city planning (the ropes of which certain guides have only recently acquainted me with) made the map worth tackling.

I actually was doing pretty well. I was the first with a decent navy and used it to great effect when I decided Asoka would be an easy target. He was, and I took one city while burning two others in a few turns. But here's where things get weird. To my east I had France, the Ottomans, and the Egyptians, with Celtia, Byzantium, and Zulu behind them. Early on I courted France and the Ottomans so I could use them as a sort of shield against the more aggressive folks to the far east, and it worked! They cancled any trade agreements, and I was safe. At least I thought I was.

Right as I was about to negotiate peace with India, Ramsees and Shaka simultaneously declare war on me! And apparently, the French had signed another open borders agreement with them as the Zulu were already at my borders. I was forced to keep warring and fend them off, and I was able to without significant losses. However, regardless of how many troops I slaughtered, they would not back off, and by the time I was able to get them off my back, I was too far behind in commerce and tech for victory to be viable for someone of my experience, not to mention all the workers that had decided they'd rather die than support the defense of the country against insane people. And then all my wonders-in-progress get finished by someone else.

The strangest part is that I checked the foreign advisor, and they don't even like eachother or have the same religion or anything! There were other people they hated more, in fact, and they targeted me! Is this kind of behavior normal for a Warlord game or did I just get very unlucky?

 

[hiddie]

Bad luck I guess. Ai's have reasons to attack you. Maybe they thought you would be an easy target because you were already in war with someone else. Or if the gap between you techwise and such was getting to big they can backstab you. Maybe they needed to go to war to expand and they had good reasons to not attack the other civs they hated more.

Don't think the AI easily attacks with no reason at all.

 

[dankok8]

Generally when you go to war (if it's not just a mop duty where you're only committing a small number of troops), try to keep other civs busy so they don't attack you or at least reinforce some of your border cities with 5-10 units each - it will make the AI think twice before attacking.

 

[theskald]

Well, I thought I was doing just that. I had several macemen, pikemen, and longbows in the cities closest to the borders, enough that the dots above the flag were all there, but they attacked me anyway. Might you direct me to some analysis of the AI relating to this? Does it only register me as defended under certain conditions or did I really not have enough of an army going. I was able to hold them off without any problems for a good 60 turns (no kidding) before my workers refused to tolerate any more.

Now that I think of it, maybe they hated the civilizations I was close to and I seemed more attackable. I'll practice warmongering on a duel sized map until I have a better handle on it, but it would still be nice to know what it takes for the AI to stay away.

 

[hiddie]

At the moment I'm in a multiplayer game where I had 3 bordering civs and had killed 3 civs before 890 AD. I wanted to attack asoka, the hindu leader, before my units (that i had built to much off) would go obsolete. I asked my Budhist friend (i had captured the holy budhist city earlier) to go to war with Saladin (hindu), so i could fully concentrate on asoka.

The odds that Saladin would declare war to me are low, he's to busy fighting my budhist friend (he's pleased with me). I have some bowman's in my bordering city's, so if they'll attack i can defend and i can even upgrade some to crossbow's

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've come to ask for help again! I decided to start up my second ever game on Warlord difficulty as the Khmer Empire on a large terra map. It turned out okay, I was far south but strangely ended up with many desert and tundra tiles right next to eachother, but careful city planning (the ropes of which certain guides have only recently acquainted me with) made the map worth tackling.

I actually was doing pretty well. I was the first with a decent navy and used it to great effect when I decided Asoka would be an easy target. He was, and I took one city while burning two others in a few turns. But here's where things get weird. To my east I had France, the Ottomans, and the Egyptians, with Celtia, Byzantium, and Zulu behind them. Early on I courted France and the Ottomans so I could use them as a sort of shield against the more aggressive folks to the far east, and it worked! They cancled any trade agreements, and I was safe. At least I thought I was.

Right as I was about to negotiate peace with India, Ramsees and Shaka simultaneously declare war on me! And apparently, the French had signed another open borders agreement with them as the Zulu were already at my borders. I was forced to keep warring and fend them off, and I was able to without significant losses. However, regardless of how many troops I slaughtered, they would not back off, and by the time I was able to get them off my back, I was too far behind in commerce and tech for victory to be viable for someone of my experience, not to mention all the workers that had decided they'd rather die than support the defense of the country against insane people. And then all my wonders-in-progress get finished by someone else.

The strangest part is that I checked the foreign advisor, and they don't even like eachother or have the same religion or anything! There were other people they hated more, in fact, and they targeted me! Is this kind of behavior normal for a Warlord game or did I just get very unlucky?

The AI will look at your power rating, and if it's too low they'll attack you even if they have fairly good relations. Conversely, you can piss them off all day long, and if you're stronger than them...they'll swallow their tears.

Finally, the AI likes to dogpile you. There's articles on things like triangle diplomacy or keeping as many friends as enemies (and vice versa). If you don't manipulate diplomacy carefully, you can expect to wind up in some sticky spots. Unless, of course, you're already so huge they're all afraid.

 

[theskald]

I have read about triangle diplomacy, but It seems impossible to get on anyone's good side unless you have their religion and never fight with anybody. I'll need to read up on diplomacy more, as I haven't ever tried getting them to fight eachother as a preventative measure as hiddie suggested. Or perhaps I should play smaller maps and make an early rush for a change.

 

[Killroyan]

Oh you can get dogpiled even when you are at pleased/friendly status with everybody. I was a buddhist as were all 3 AI's around me. I was at +10 or higher with them (open borders, civs, religion, trading, etc....) so I thought it was safe to attack Jao and take him out fast. Well that little diplo drop of something like -3 for attacking a friend (and he was the worst friend of all 3!!!) made them all dogpile on me Game over.

 

[theskald]

Oh man, I guess they liked him more! That sucks, It almost seems like the worst random event in the game. Actually, reading through MadScientist's Chivalrous Washington game, I noticed he ended up in a lot of simultaneous wars and managed them anyway, mostly by suing for peace and focusing on military. Does that mean that I am building too many buildings? Those are usually my focus in a peaceful game