Should there be more aggression, or not

[jtravers88]

When I played before BNW, I found that above Emperor level that the number of units created by the AI was nothing short of 'absurd'.

It wasn't fun. Not for me anyway. It was always a matter of gearing up for 1 or 2 onslaughts with horde after horde headed my way.

Now, although I've only played to 1500 AD with 4 different civs, I've not had to face any military opposition except for barbarians. In the last game, I expanded fast with the French and did face war with 2 nearby civs, but neither had any military units to throw at me.

Given a choice between GK and BNW AI, I'd take the new AI any day. I haven't played even to a mid game yet, and I've read that wars definitely take place in the late game, but there should probably be some sort of aggression during the medieval era.

Just PLEASE don't ever put it back the way it was before this last expansion! I'm excited to move up to immortal once I play thru a few of my emperor saves.

And this is without a doubt the best game ever created.

 

[Twahn]

Amen brother.

 

[y_3]

I feel that there should be room for both aggression and peace, though it should depend greatly upon the AIs' personalities. They should also not be easily dissuaded from DoWing you or other civs just because of trade routes. G&K's problem was that civs immediately became hyper-aggressive within a certain distance of your borders. There was no reason not to beeline construction for comp. bowmen because it quickly became obvious that the AI always resorted to amassing an army and DoWing. BNW has the opposite problem. While I agree that the more passive AI is preferable to the warmongers of G&K, civs that should be aggressive rarely are so long as you have a trade route with them, and the game can feel monotonous for different reasons.

 

[gunnergoz]

It is a fabulous game but for the life of me, I can't figure this AI out. It is absolutely unreadable to me insofar as it is usually passive but given to occasional erratic binges of aggression. It is definitely a different flavor of AI, that's for sure. And the constant hail-fellow-well-met, lets be buddies stuff coming from it just seems lame at times...especially to hear it coming from Huns or Mongols, who should be the farthest thing from peaceful neighbors. Seems like they've thrown a blanket over the whole lot of them and gave them tranquilizers!

I suspect this will require more than a couple of DLL number tweaks to alter, but I sure hope they can find a balance with an AI between unceasing angry and insipidly vapid.

 

[dadam88]

This is so funny, every game I play there are wars everywhere. I play on Continents plus. One game Atilla was out of control - he had about 25 cities at turn 150

 

[eldiablonoche]

This is so funny, every game I play there are wars everywhere. I play on Continents plus. One game Atilla was out of control - he had about 25 cities at turn 150

Ditto. I have yet to play a game where somebody wasn't utterly wiped out by the Renaissance. And only once was it my fault! Have had Germany run away twice and Attila once by way of early conquest. The odd thing is that Attila did his conquering across water as he started on his own little tundra continent.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Lots of aggression in my games. I have been dowed a couple times in classical. Usually by Shaka, Ghinghis and the such. Dunno, maybe you are just unlucky with the civ combos on your continent. I have seen the same rampage by Attila lol. Shaka showed up on my door step with about 10 Impi and a assortment of composite bows and siege weapons by turn 100. BTW Shaka is very hard to take down in a early fight. You can usually get by with ranged units to handle early aggression. Not with Shaka, it only pisses of the Impi an gives them extra promotions lol.

 

[gunnergoz]

I've seen darn little aggression directed at me, with one notable exception, when I was playing Venice on a TSL Giant Earth and Rome probably noticed how weak my defenses were and moved in after decades of peaceful friendly co-existence.

I think it is the erratic nature of the AI's hostility and aggressiveness that I find irritating - at least until I understand how and why it gets triggered. It galls me that historically bellicose leaders like Attila and Ghengis just sit around and grow cities peacefully instead of trying to take them by force of arms from their neighbors.

I do think that 2K missed the boat in this expansion by not coming up with some way to allow for truly nomadic civs like extended tribes, that can transport their settlements from place to place and (to some limited degree) grow them "on the hoof" so to speak. Imagine a small city that can move around and support an army of ravaging savages who are looking only to loot the neighbors. That would be cool and historic as well. At some point the "moving city" reaches a size (perhaps 3-4 pop) where it MUST find a conquered city and settle into it...the city absorbs the wanderers and there is basically an instant pacifying effect as the city now becomes one with the invaders. That's one way it could be done.

 

[Heinage]

Yeah sounds like it's going to take a few more play throughs to get a good feeling for it.
I've had a mixed bag so far, peace and warring from early to late game.
It's much more flavorful than G&K. Also more unpredictable.

 

[Arachnofiend]

So far my experience has been an absolute anemic AI that just doesn't want to use its military for the majority of the game.

Then they get to the Atomic Era and decide that its time to burn EVERYTHING. It's like everyone is freaking Ghandi now. This behavior has been trouble for me so far simply because I absolutely did not expect the late game rush in which the entire world declares war on me in one turn despite being friendly for the entire game, but if it continues and becomes a pattern then any sort of difficulty that comes out of it will vanish.

I'd rather see AI's match their flavors more. It's annoying to see Attila and Washington lounge around with zero military for most of the game, they should be looking to soak up their neighbors as soon as possible.

 

[Gabriel Pyyrhic]

When I played before BNW, I found that above Emperor level that the number of units created by the AI was nothing short of 'absurd'.

It wasn't fun. Not for me anyway. It was always a matter of gearing up for 1 or 2 onslaughts with horde after horde headed my way.

Now, although I've only played to 1500 AD with 4 different civs, I've not had to face any military opposition except for barbarians. In the last game, I expanded fast with the French and did face war with 2 nearby civs, but neither had any military units to throw at me.

Given a choice between GK and BNW AI, I'd take the new AI any day. I haven't played even to a mid game yet, and I've read that wars definitely take place in the late game, but there should probably be some sort of aggression during the medieval era.

Just PLEASE don't ever put it back the way it was before this last expansion! I'm excited to move up to immortal once I play thru a few of my emperor saves.

And this is without a doubt the best game ever created.

Happy you are happy with it, but I couldn't disagree more.

I am not a warmongering player, most of my games I play peacefully and only go to war when attacked. When I do so, I rarely take others cities, although occasionally nab a puppet of two.

For me having little threat in the early game has two troubling consequences :

1. It allows the player to neglect a military until ideological times, which is about a immersive destroying as you can get.

2. It severely handicaps ANY AI that had unique units from the Ancient, Classical or Medieval times that are designed for Warfare over defence. I would honestly, and without any condescension, like to know what you think about the usefulness of aggressive UU of the ANCIENT, CLASSICAL or MEDIEVAL times if they are being used by the AI under the current aggression model.

I do not see how almost removing a key mechanic in the early game is a good thing, unless you just want time where you are not threatened to prepare ? This attitude, again IMO, is essentially just like a giant I WIN button.

I also don't understand why increasing the difficulty due to the game AI being handicapped is a good thing ? Other then bragging rights, which are irrelevant as the only reason you are increasing difficulty is because the game is easier, what is the advantage ?

Now I am not saying a never ending AI carpet of DOOM is the answer, but a genuine military threat is always better then none at all IMO.

BTW My experience with BNW is limited. I cannot comment as to the level of aggression and am just going on what has been said on these forums. Anecdotally it would appear that aggression has gone down severely, early to mid game, which is something I cannot support. I will get some time next week to give it a good thrashing and see just how much the game has changed aggression wise.

FYI I am fairly confident the reduced aggression is a direct consequence of 3 factors :
1. Less early gold.
2. Less expansion, hence Civs being marked as further away from one another.
3. Increased barbarian threat, which has a significant affect on the AI (also improved AI code for dealing with barbarians).For example remove barbs from the game (I only do this for testing as I quite like Barbs), increase the AI civs and up the difficulty so the game has more gold and aggression will go up. Do the opposite and it will go down even further.

 

[VainoValkea]

There should be more warmongering among the leaders that aren't resident warmongers. It doesn't feel right that I can focus on my culture while safely ignoring my defenses because I'm neighbored by Gustav and Gandhi, not Alexander and Attila. Any leader should resort to military power when they're faced with a weakly armed rival who is about to win.

There should be less warmongering among the leaders that are resident warmongers. I don't want them to be peaceful puppies but to focus slightly more on development and diplomacy - and diplomatic aspects of warfare, like being readily available as guns-for-hire. Overall, they should remain dangerous and competitive for longer, and should be more than just a threat to be disposed of.

There should be less diplomatic penalty from warmongering, especially against non-protected non-allied City-States. It's ridiculous to conquer one of those and remain a bloodthirsty warmonger forever. The pledge of protection is there for discouraging CS takeovers, the warmonger diplomatic penalty is just too much.

 

[Dai]

There should be less warmongering among the leaders that are resident warmongers. I don't want them to be peaceful puppies but to focus slightly more on development and diplomacy - and diplomatic aspects of warfare, like being readily available as guns-for-hire. Overall, they should remain dangerous and competitive for longer, and should be more than just a threat to be disposed of.

That's actually a really cool idea. An AI action where they offer to go to war against someone who's giving you a hard time in exchange for money or goods would be really cool. You can certainly bribe the AI into declaring war, but it would be neat if sometimes the AI initiated that transaction.

 

[robincox]

One of the best things with BNW is the new AI. Before they were schizophrenic maniacs that couldn't be trusted no matter what, friendly one turn and the next turn hating you and attacking you.

Now the AI can be your ally and it can be beneficial to help your neighbor.

 

[Vohbo]

The problem is NOT early pacifism. The problem is that the early era's go by FAR too quickly and there is too much to build for the time you have, so even if you get dragged into a war, it is much more devastating to your development. Late game science is now as it should be with the penalty.

Possible solution: increase research costs early on, nerf Great Library (why this was buffed is beyond me).

 

[Mesix]

I feel that certain social policies and ideologies (perhaps one or two religion beliefs too?) should promote war more. Perhaps there could be a happiness bonus when at war if you are following the honor path. City state quests might require one civ to capture a city from another civ. A religious belief could be added which provides bonuses every time a city following a different religion is captured. These are just a few ideas.

In addition, civs which follow warlike policies and ideologies should have a diplomacy bonus with other warlike civs. Instead of having a blanket warmonger penalty, civs which follow Honor or Autocracy should have the opposite reaction (provided you also follow their policy/ideology choices. Something like "You really showed Alexander who the boss is!"

As it is right now, the game seems to be at odds with itself. On the one hand, it is a turn based war game and on the other the mechanics discourage war.

 

[Deggial]

My proposals:

1. Variable aggression levels for each leader depending on era
I would prefer this over a general increas in aggression. This could assure, that e.g. Assyria makes optimal use of it's siege tower while the Ottomans will use their Janissaries.
This variable aggression increase might very well have a wide range. For example, Atilla might have an extremely high aggression level early in the game but only a medium level later on while Suleiman might have only a slight increase in the Renaissance.


2. Warmonger penalty depending on era
In early eras, war (or better: taking cities) is a diplomatic suicide. All civs have only a few cities built and the new warmonger evaluation kicks in heavily under this circumstances. The same applies for taking CSs as the smalest thinkable civs.

In reality, war was an expected and acceped behaviour in ancient times. Succesfull warring leaders were feared, but respected! "Morals and stuff" are more or less a modern approach.
I think, Civ5 should reflect this. Early warmongering should be way less penalized than warmongering in later eras. If at all, early wormongers should cause 'fear' in other nations and make unbalanced deals more likely to appease the aggresor.


3. A higer palace gold yield
As early gold (or the lack of it) seams to be one major reason for early peacefulness (see the 'sanity check'), why not increase the gold output of the palace? As the game progresses, this relatively small lump-sum of gold will make no big difference.
But very early in the game, the gold will help to maintain a reasonable army-size and lower the effect of trade routes on the mentioned 'sanity check'. Declaring war will therefore be more likely.

 

[CornPlanter]

I still fail to see whats the fuzz about new AI. Early wars still happen in every game of mine, I still get the messages about someone losing it's capital in classical era, AI still DoWs me if I am weak and especially if I am weak and we have bad blood among us. AI is fine.

AI doesn't act like a schizophrenic sociopath on drugs, not anymore, and it's a positive change.

Not that it can't be improved further, you can always improve AI, but making every leader DoW left and right just because it can is not an improvement.

 

[Mesix]

3. A higer palace gold yield
As early gold (or the lack of it) seams to be one major reason for early peacefulness (see the 'sanity check'), why not increase the gold output of the palace? As the game progresses, this relatively small lump-sum of gold will make no big difference.
But very early in the game, the gold will help to maintain a reasonable army-size and lower the effect of trade routes on the mentioned 'sanity check'. Declaring war will therefore be more likely.

This last point is counter intuitive. Offering a passive bonus allows peaceful civs to support more defensive units. The current system requires aggressive civs which build up their military to take cities and get the from plundering. This game mechanic should be promoted more and the AI should aggressively try to plunder other cities to get military income in the early game.

 

[sanchopanda]

I feel that there should be room for both aggression and peace, though it should depend greatly upon the AIs' personalities.

That's exactly my point of view.

The AI behavior should be based on their personality with a bit of randomness. I don't like it when I exactly know who will attack or back stab me and when it will happen.

It's nice to have a game with more peace than normal and it's also fine to have games with more aggression and more early wars.

At the moment my games are way to predictable. I've played a dozen games, four without a DoW againt anybody, eight without a DoW against me - although I only had my initial warrior and maybe one bowmen. There were only four games with some DoWs (against the AI and me), but all except one at Renaissance or Industrial era.