New Beta Version - November 8th

[saamohod]

Is this a bug or am I getting really unlucky?

My guess is you're unlucky plus the fact that their spies are more leveled than your counterspies.
I my latest pre-hotfix games I managed to kill quite a few of AI's spies, but I made sure I only placed skilled ones inside my cities.
The only problem with spies I currently have is their seemingly unbalanced gold stealing rate which can decimate your treasury easily and doesn't let you accumulate any reasonable amount of gold (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/suggestion-tune-down-spys-gold-stealing.651420/)

 

[Recursive]

To be honest, I'm hesitant to play with this version because I hate early war XD.

With my changes the early war rate should be more reasonable below Emperor difficulty.

The only appropriate response to that is GIT GUD.

(Epic, Immortal) Turn 249 update: Napoleon is useless, even in his war with Attila he didn't even move his army, and just peaced out doing nothing, and now he's too much of a pussy to do declare any wars. He had a ton of space and went 10 city wide from the start, now he's fallen behind me and Attila in score, and I can't even use him to make up for my gold deficit because he doesn't have any money either. For the past 30 turns or so, I've been pinned in a 2-front war against both Montezuma and Attila, but I'm used to that (German irl). As expected, my power spiked as soon as I got Dojos in all cities and started pumping out Samurai. I even got the Zealotry enhancer belief (and learned that units bought with faith get full xp!). On the northern front, my Samurai are cutting through Montezuma's classical army like a hot knife through butter. If I'm fast enough, I might even be able to vassalise him. The western front might become a problem though. Luckily I have 2 allied CS, one on either flank of Attila, dividing his attention and troops, but his horse archers are starting to break into my territory and I had to accept some tiles being pillaged. I have almost nothing to do defend there except city walls and spearmen I can't upgrade (-30 gpt ftw). Now he's even sending knights. My focus right now is certainly to finish Montezuma in one swift move, then I can finally focus on the bigger threat. Weirdly enough, Montezuma's units get an anti-warmonger bonus despite all my wars being defensive and me not having taken any cities yet. I wonder how that works. I also wonder why Attila hates me so much, the only thing I ever did to him was buy a tile at his borders, a hundred turns ago. He even has my religion. Still backstabbed me, denounced me and then declared war again. I could understand if he just wants to conquer me, nothing personal, but he legitimitely hates me. He's not even friends with Montezuma.

Spoiler :

The turn before this, Montezuma had a lot more units. My Samurai take very little damage and heal +25 on every kill. I only crossed into his territory 2 turns ago, after holding the line to get some more promotions and bombard his city.
View attachment 539211

Sounds like you're having fun in your war.

I have three questions:
1) Did Napoleon have anything that you could see preventing him from warring effectively? (GPT deficit or Attila having strong defenses for example)

2) Do you recall what era Napoleon was in when he peaced out?

3) Do you by any chance have Attila's opinion table? (The list of messages like "Territorial disputes strain your relationship", etc.)

 

[JamesNinelives]

With my changes the early war rate should be more reasonable below Emperor difficulty.

Perhaps I should be playing on a lower difficulty then . Don't worry though, I'm not going to avoid playing purely for that reason ^^.

 

[General_Drax]

Nothing much to add for my Sweden playthrough. I'll install the .dll hotfix as soon i'll finish (turn 639 so not so far, Apollo project finished, just need a tiny bit of alluminum).

I'm not the top score, Shoshone are, but still he is not declaring on me (maybe because the bug). My scouts show that he has a good army (maybe not my nuclear arsenal), partially embarked. Three of others declared and managed to sanction me, again.

I'm best in science and clearly the best candidate for victory (4 tech ahead) but still 2nd in score. I think the weight of AIs military should be toned down score wise. Maybe I'll have to put out some nuclear missiles if turn 750 approaches and I could not complete Spaceship before.

 

[Recursive]

Upcoming diplomacy tweaks (for the new version):

Fix some bugs

Diplo AI desire to conquer their opponents' cities increased (in particular, they will always want to if they're locked into war with you unless they're doing very badly)

If you're untrustworthy or either of you have denounced the other, AI will never have the FRIENDLY approach (real or fake);
all weight for FRIENDLY/DECEPTIVE will be put towards GUARDED/NEUTRAL instead, depending on opinion

Try to reduce general AI bloodthirst & backstabbing to a more reasonable level

AI hostility bonus from difficulty (if they don't like you) now lower, but increases with era

AI hostility bonus from having war bonuses will also increase with era

Warmonger AIs who have UUs active will be even more aggressive

AIs who have UUs active and who are also going for/close to Domination Victory will be more aggressive (doubly so if they're warmongers too; yes, all of this means Montezuma will be berserk in the Ancient Era)

Global Peace Accords/Casus Belli/Cold War and ideological differences more impactful on global diplomacy

AI should be better able to form strategic alliances (DoF/DP), and will try more to form coalitions of similar interests

Experimental: Warmongering penalties *during peacetime only* (both for approach & opinion) will scale based on global politics - this should result in AI forming better alliances,
being less resentful of friends and DPs' warmongering, etc. and will impact both current and previous warmongering

Experimental: Warmongering penalties and anti-warmonger fervor increased if you have opposing religions/ideologies, decreased if you have the same religion/ideology (by 25/40%, respectively)
e.g. Anti-warmonger fervor of +12% would be reduced to +9% with same religion, or raised to +15% with opposing religion

- Should result in more religious/ideological strife, and rewards intelligent religious spreading
- Anti-warmonger fervor cap still the same (also, I posted it on the wiki AI and Difficulty page)
- Pantheons do not count towards this
- Players with no religion/ideology = no bonus or penalty in either direction

AI better able to intelligently choose friends/enemies based on the victory condition it's aiming for (unless victory competition is disabled via CoreChanges.sql)

For the future:
- Backstabbing penalties rework
- Military deployment penalty rework
- Train AI to backstab more intelligently (for now I just added flat reluctance)
- Open to suggestions!

 

[Coffee Monopoly]

(Immortal Epic Japan, cont.)

Only 12 turns later, turn 261, Montezuma capitulates.

Spoiler :

One city I keep, the other I burn. Meanwhile, Attila accepted white peace, Napoleon declared on him again but again isn't attacking. Maybe he doesn't like the terrain, I really don't know. I'm going Artistry and spamming Great Generals. I've had 5 so far, despite -1 from missing out on the Great Wall, and -1 from the Heroic Epic change. Whoever made that change must've really hated Japan. Next one will come from the Leaning Tower. Attila on the other hand decided on Fealty (despite not having his own religion), so his cities will be a real pain to siege down once it comes to that.
While I rush to build up my cities and advance through the tech and policy tree, I reflect on my religious choices that I made a while ago at this point. In hindsight, it's a mixed bag. Defender of the Faith seemed like a good idea back when I was constantly besieged and only just gearing up for war, but now it's terrible. I really should've taken one of the instant yields for expending great people reformation beliefs. On the flipside, I'm falling more and more in love with Way of Transcendence as a founder belief every time I use it. Those giant instant everything yield bombs are a great allround boost when you're stretching yourself thin. First follower was Diligence, because I thought my desert flood plain cities would be big but lacking hammers, which kinda turned out true. As second follower belief I took mosques for the late game golden age culture (plus I had 2 golden ages lined up already, including one from the Notre Dame) over the gold farm cathedrals that would've helped me through my mid game money problems. The gamble was worth it since it looks like I'll survive financially. Oh, and I almost forgot, Goddess of Protection is absolutely amazing in combination with citadel pushes.

Only now do I actually send out my explorer to leave my continent and find out whoever else lives on this planet.

1) Did Napoleon have anything that you could see preventing him from warring effectively? (GPT deficit or Attila having strong defenses for example)
2) Do you recall what era Napoleon was in when he peaced out?

Yes, he had negative GPT most of the time, tho nowhere near as bad as me. Attila had barely any defenses on that side, but the terrain is pretty bad for an attack. Those were some of his younger cities, and he didn't have Fealty back then.
Fairly certain both were Classical. Napoleon also denounced Attila. Now he declared again but the problem seems to repeat itself. Here's a screenshot with reveal all, you can see his massive army that never moves, despite almost all of Attila's army being far south. I believe it was much worse last time, and back then he didn't even have the tech or numbers disadvantage.

Spoiler :

3) Do you by any chance have Attila's opinion table? (The list of messages like "Territorial disputes strain your relationship", etc.)

Spoiler :

The "threatening deployment" is only now that I'm moving my army (and actually have one), most of the time I had almost nothing anywhere near him.

 

[Recursive]

Will investigate, thank you for the feedback!

Edit: Should be some improvements for next version; if not, the issue is with the tactical AI.

 

[bigcat88]

Hm.. don't played for 2 month, first impressions from current game(standard size,epic,8 civs):
1. China AI didn't build any Chu-ko-nu.
2. Does after WLKD ends, new resource will required immediately as it was for years? In my game, WLKD ends and I didn't see a new one or a requirement.
3. Looks like algo that moves unit was changed. After OpenBorders ends, I see my troops in ocean with almost no free moves(even dont know what is better - appear near enemies fleet or inside enemy land)

P.S.: Aggression of AI is normal(playing on Immortal).

 

[Coffee Monopoly]

(Immortal Epic Japan, cont.)

First encounter: Poland. Screenshot got lost.
On par with me in technology, ahead in policy. Tall. 5 wonders. My fears of the other continent being peaceful and ahead return.

What's that?

Spoiler :

Should I really be surprised? Too bad the peace treaty lasts for another 9 turns.

Next encounter: Korea. Not that scary.

Spoiler :

Portugal. Not much culture, not a problem.

Spoiler :

What's worrying is that Portugal has defensive pacts with both Poland and Korea, and Poland and Korea at least have a DoF. All 3 of them are Tradition+Statecraft. What a circlejerk, quite the opposite of my warmonger continent.

2 turns left on my Gunpowder research when the peace treaty with Attila expires. I don't much care about upgrading my Samurai to Tercio, by I definitely want the cannons. I also wish Zealotry would allow you to upgrade units with faith, or to buy ships. Only pure buying of land units is rather lacklustre. My army in position, I declare war on turn 274. Attila has a ton of horse archers. Thank god he can't seem to afford to upgrade them, he only has a couple mixed medieval troops. I will definitely take some serious casualties this war, unlike the previous one.

While the early war meatgrinder is churning, I make contact with the last missing civ.

Spoiler :

Now, THIS is a problem. I know from experience that Russia has a really good early game, and that it's one of the civs that the AI is best at, alongside China. More worryingly, Russia also has that defensive pact with Portugal and DoF with everyone else on that continent. Seriously?

In other news, more instances of the bug that newly allied CS declare war on the defensive pacts of their ally's enemy.

 

[cerk]

Prince, Epic.

Love the diplo approaches through territorial disputes. Blocs seem to be a thing now and recurring DoFs without we hate your warmonger guts is so much fun. I started a game exclusively with warmongers (Aztecs, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Rome, Assyria, France) and have been friends with Sweden and Rome since ancient era who are quite far from me. Its always nice to have someone to get some quick gold from. Monty and Harald and 2 of their CS allies ganged up on me in ancient era and defending 3 cities was a nightmare. Vassalised them once I hit medieval though. Who needs Trebuchets when you have city assault samurai.

Rome also didn't seem to mind an overwhelming force next to their borders when fighting Greece in the west. Of course I broke my friendship with him and took 3 of his cities in 10 turns after he just exhausted himself against Greece.

Spoiler Friendship ended with Rome. France is now my new best friend :

First time I am going full domination and I seem to be in negative GPT all the time. Is this normal when not going authority?

 

[Stalker0]

First time I am going full domination and I seem to be in negative GPT all the time. Is this normal when not going authority?

Do you have banking yet (if your comment was based on the screenshot it looks like you don't yet have it) I do find that if I'm focusing on warfare techs and have slacked on the top of the tree that I can run a deficit, especially depending on how many luxuries I can trade and trade routes I have externally.

 

[ridjack]

@Recursive So, about those backstabbing fixes...

Spoiler :

He DoF'd me and then declared war 20 or 25 turns later. Never denounced me. I upset him by bullying a CS under his protection, settling near him and buying land near him while we were friends. I chose the 'friendlier' response each time.

 

[Recursive]

@Recursive So, about those backstabbing fixes...

Spoiler :

He DoF'd me and then declared war 20 or 25 turns later. Never denounced me. I upset him by bullying a CS under his protection, settling near him and buying land near him while we were friends. I chose the 'friendlier' response each time.

The fixes prevent backstabbing due to insults, demands, third party war or coop war, but the AI can still backstab via a normal DoW.

Toned down the AI's bloodthirst and backstabbing for the next version though; these changes were experimental.

Land disputes matter a lot more now to the AI in the early game, so if you settle aggressively prepare to defend your land.

 

[Recursive]

(Immortal Epic Japan, cont.)

First encounter: Poland. Screenshot got lost.
On par with me in technology, ahead in policy. Tall. 5 wonders. My fears of the other continent being peaceful and ahead return.

What's that?

Spoiler :

View attachment 539293

Should I really be surprised? Too bad the peace treaty lasts for another 9 turns.

Next encounter: Korea. Not that scary.

Spoiler :

View attachment 539294

Portugal. Not much culture, not a problem.

Spoiler :

View attachment 539295

What's worrying is that Portugal has defensive pacts with both Poland and Korea, and Poland and Korea at least have a DoF. All 3 of them are Tradition+Statecraft. What a circlejerk, quite the opposite of my warmonger continent.

2 turns left on my Gunpowder research when the peace treaty with Attila expires. I don't much care about upgrading my Samurai to Tercio, by I definitely want the cannons. I also wish Zealotry would allow you to upgrade units with faith, or to buy ships. Only pure buying of land units is rather lacklustre. My army in position, I declare war on turn 274. Attila has a ton of horse archers. Thank god he can't seem to afford to upgrade them, he only has a couple mixed medieval troops. I will definitely take some serious casualties this war, unlike the previous one.

While the early war meatgrinder is churning, I make contact with the last missing civ.

Spoiler :

View attachment 539303

Now, THIS is a problem. I know from experience that Russia has a really good early game, and that it's one of the civs that the AI is best at, alongside China. More worryingly, Russia also has that defensive pact with Portugal and DoF with everyone else on that continent. Seriously?

In other news, more instances of the bug that newly allied CS declare war on the defensive pacts of their ally's enemy.

Blocs are more of a thing now.

Will tweak this more for the next version.

Also, if they're plotting against you it means their approach is DECEPTIVE, not WAR (I think).

Something to note about intrigue is that as of this version, if you report an AI's plotting/war plans, it will cause the target AI to change their approach weights, DoF willingness, etc.

 

[Coffee Monopoly]

One final note from that game: Maria was also happy to backstab Sejong just a few turns after I noticed her having a DP with everyone on her continent.

Anyway, at this point I abandon my game, my choice of reformation belief was a game-destroying screw-up. I really enjoyed the Japanese playstyle though, Japan joins the ranks of my favourite civs.

 

[ridjack]

Another backstab DoW.

Spoiler :

This is only hurting these AIs. They used to do nonsensical backstabs with Denouncements; now they're doing it with straight-up DoWs.

Backstabbing should be HEAVILY weighted against. It kills any chance of diplomacy these AIs have; and just as importantly, I should be able to have SOME trust in a DoF. If I have to leave my borders just as heavily guarded on the side with friends as I do with enemies, I have very little reason to ever consider a DoF.

EDIT: Also, is there a cooldown on ending a DoF? I wanted to end my DoF with Greece so I could attack, but the option isn't there.

 

[Recursive]

Another backstab DoW.

Spoiler :

This is only hurting these AIs. They used to do nonsensical backstabs with Denouncements; now they're doing it with straight-up DoWs.

Backstabbing should be HEAVILY weighted against. It kills any chance of diplomacy these AIs have; and just as importantly, I should be able to have SOME trust in a DoF. If I have to leave my borders just as heavily guarded on the side with friends as I do with enemies, I have very little reason to ever consider a DoF.

EDIT: Also, is there a cooldown on ending a DoF? I wanted to end my DoF with Greece so I could attack, but the option isn't there.

As I said, changes are experimental.

Too much hostility weight was added to counterbalance them being too passive, but at least now they're proving more capable of offense, especially with the bug fixed.

It'll be dialed down next version to a happier medium. I think the best solution may be to have the AI evaluate whether backstabbing is an acceptable choice, and if it isn't, zero out the aggression weight entirely - but overall things are improving, IMO.

 

[Gazebo]

The king has returned to his demesne. The dukes that were loyal to my cause will be rewarded with laurels and land.

(I'm back in town, hoping to look at these changes today and tomorrow).

G

 

[Stalker0]

The king has returned to his demesne. The dukes that were loyal to my cause will be rewarded with laurels and land.

(I'm back in town, hoping to look at these changes today and tomorrow).

G

can I get a pony!!!???

 

[Recursive]

Sent another pull request after the feedback from this; next version should fix the AI's backstabbing issue and dial down aggression to normal (but still intelligent) amounts.