Sneak Attack Problem

[kobayashi]

I've hit a snag in my WW2Pac scenario.

I start as Japan in 1937 and invariably the Americans sneak attack me in late 38/early 39. The strange thing is that on my foreign ministers window, their attitude is 'receptive,peace'. I've already

given Japan the Eifle tower
made the US civilized, rational and perfectionist
kept a spotless reputation
stayed away from US cities

and even if I go back to the turn before the sneak attack and give money, they still attack the next turn.

 

[Mercator]

What is the US attitude towards the Japanese set to?

 

[Broken_Erika]

What is the US attitude towards the Japanese set to?

read it through better,

i've had sneak attack problems, like when i was giving lots of stuff to another civ, making their attitude towards my civ 100, and they still sneak attacked, i think it has to do with the perfectionist setting,

 

[kobayashi]

The only way I could stop the sneak attack was to destroy (under cheat mode) a stack of 6 cruisers and destroyers the U.S. had near one of my bases. I'm going to reduce the number of ships the U.S. has at the start and reduce their ability to produce new ships in the first few years and then sigh! start again for the 20th time. Hope this producese a better result but I am doubtful.

 

[Boco]

Any chance that using multiple Rules.txt files would work? You could immobilize and/or 0af most US units during the pre-war period.

Or...

Can you provide the US another target during this period?

Or...

What are the US cities building? If you divert their economy to building basic city improvements, are they as aggressive?

 

[kobayashi]

Any chance that using multiple Rules.txt files would work? You could immobilize and/or 0af most US units during the pre-war period.

This is a very UN-KOBI option. I am a proponent of simple single file set scenarios.

Can you provide the US another target during this period?

This is what I am working on right now, I've given the second japanese tribe one listening post each on the west coast and in Australia with super-defense stats. The cities will be wiped out via terrain change in 1939. Don't know if it works, I'm testing right now.

What are the US cities building? If you divert their economy to building basic city improvements, are they as aggressive?

yes, I've stripped them down drastically from the first iteration with no impact

 

[kobayashi]

This is what I am working on right now, I've given the second japanese tribe one listening post each on the west coast and in Australia with super-defense stats. The cities will be wiped out via terrain change in 1939. Don't know if it works, I'm testing right now.

Its Sept 39 and no body sneak attacked me. Looks like I can get back on track now instead of spending day and night trying to resolve the problem.

 

[yoshi]

For future reference, I think AI attitude has to do with tech when reputation and other factors are not an issue; some combination of techs that one player has that the AI doesn't. (Notice the AI will frequently ask you for tech just before attacking you; i.e. give tech=no attack, keep tech=attack.) So, when you have civ-specific techs, the AI may want those.

If the AI is at the same tech level as you it tends to hold off the sneak attacks...AFAIK. As a general rule, I think it's just a matter of what you have that the AI wants. The problem is that you frequently only find out what it wants when it's too late.

Oh, and then there's the map terrain layout that can also play a role (i.e. amont of terrain, what kind of terrain, distance apart, number of continents, cities and on and on and on).

It's really irritating when historic allies declare war on each other the next turn in some scens but that's mainly because some designers are so eager to get to the beta stage that they completely forget about pre-scen AI testing, but the fact that MP had to add a special flag just to get the original WW2 scen to work is an indication that working with Civ2's AI can be 90-degree uphill battle sometimes.

 

[Boco]

That makes a lot of sense. Besides the relative tech race standings, I'll bet the AI value of a specific tech has a lot to do with it under these circumstances.

While we're at it, a leader's attack/expand/civilize ratings are probably factors, too. That's harder to solve, though, since often designers want a civ to be very aggressive after a period of docility.

 

[kobayashi]

Yoshi may be on to something, the US has about 7 future techs before it gets to research the 'After War Started' techs. It has nothing better to do so it sneak attacks. I'm going to slip in a few useless techs like Animation Films, Transatlantic Flight to keep them occupied for a bit longer.

 

[yoshi]

I've never been that good at working with the AI through tech balancing--you need a LOT of patience. Nevertheless, I will have to do a crap-load o testing in this area before I even begin to work on my WW2-Europe scen (I've been doing mostly AI unit tests and events tests up to now). My biggest worry is the map though (I opened a thread about it some time ago and settled on editing someone else's map of Europe rather than starting one from scratch). I know that every so often, the structure of the map can cause the AI to crash (e.g. will not attack even when at war).

Anyway, the leader characteristics have an effect sometimes: I've changed leader settings and the AI will still sneak attack. Often, the AI will ask for tech that doesn't match it's characteristics (e.g. a militaristic civ wants non-military tech with as much aggression as if it were asking for a military tech).

I what I've said holds, the AI should remain docile as long as it has what you have. But, as I said, there are other factors that are harder to work out.

kobayashi , keep posting the results; I'm quite interested in SP scens so having the AI work right is essential for me. (Nice to see a thread about the creation process rather than just the creations themselves.)