Stop the AIs pointlessly declaring war

[Naismith]

I've had pangea games where I'm in on one end of a land mass and a civ way at the other friggin end will declare war, this is still bc now. There is no strategic value for the ai to march all the way across the continent to attack you. It's kinda annoying I think and a way to mask ai weakness.

Exactly. If the AI would simply favor fighting wars against neighbors, that would substantially improve its ability to compete with the human player. There would be fewer pointless wars, and the AI might become more of a threat to win domination victories. It would also be more realistic.

 

[Blckbrd]

you guys have trouble w/ AI attacks???? My biggest problem with the game is that the AI has attacked me like 4 times since I started playing the game in December.

 

[T.A JONES]

For example, I was west coast on a huge pangea recently with Louis and was just about to get grenadiers... I was Buddhist, had spent a great deal of the game at war with nearby civs and had a very nicely sized civ with a really quite respectable military. Then it came.

Monty declared war on me and *holy ****.* Must have been close to 60 technologically competitive units came spilling across my border, and waves actually followed behind those blowing past my border cities one by one, pillaging and destroying everything... I actually got wiped right out - by a CPU.

I notice your games never took place on a continent map. Most reasltic backdrop for a game of Civ is unfortunatly on this type of layout. THis sucks because 60 units can't be made to jump in boats, sail to your end of the ocean then land and deliver a decisive blow, causing you a setback consisting of more then a few fishing boats or the time + pennies consumed having to clean up after those little pillage picnics

I know for a fact that the AI has the power to put out some frightening, if not spectacularly planned, war efforts... Though, a vast majority of the wars they make are still piecemeal. I honestly would like to see more wars like Monty waged on me that game, but, I promise you, if you guys are on the right difficulty/right map type, you will see some pretty scary CPU attack forces coming your way. Not perfect, I know, since you should see things like this on all difficulties/map sizes... But it least it can happen.

Sadly you must limit yourself to Pangea maps, Sea invasions are not doable, Ive heard of a few examples disputing this, Im happy for them rare ecpierences. The most receant sounded awesome, but sadly the other Most promising, supposivly occuringon on vanilla Civ Continents , never answered the few questions that concerned me about his story

 

[Craterus22]

Exactly. If the AI would simply favor fighting wars against neighbors, that would substantially improve its ability to compete with the human player. There would be fewer pointless wars, and the AI might become more of a threat to win domination victories. It would also be more realistic.

Great post - perhaps border pressure relations stat could be jacked up?

 

[Sisiutil]

There is also the possiblity that the AI war is not completely pointless. Perhaps I'm giving the AI (or, more accurately, its programmers) too much credit, but consider that a human player will also get into a "phony" war, for several possible reasons:

• Distract the target, making him divert research and production to military
• Earn a diplomatic bonus with an ally
• Pillage for $$$ and to harm an opponent's economy (I've noticed that the game designers are VERY fond of pillaging, going so far as to include a tip about it in the "game loading" screen. And the AI certainly loves to pillage as a result.)

 

[romelus]

the DOW AI logic is very flawed. it seems to take only 2 things into account, how much they hate you, and the power ratings of the 2 sides. if i was playing, and there was a weak civ on the other side of the world that i didn't like, i wouldn't just declare war and hurt myself through WW, i'd bribe one of his neighbours to attack him, or do nothing. the AI just doesn't think like a real human when it comes to DOW.

when i play, i only expand my territory by engulfing my neighbours. but the AI would happily capture worthless cities on the other side of the world. there is a reason that in the real world, you don't see many countries composed of several pieces that don't border each other

 

[Craterus22]

There is also the possiblity that the AI war is not completely pointless. Perhaps I'm giving the AI (or, more accurately, its programmers) too much credit, but consider that a human player will also get into a "phony" war, for several possible reasons:

• Distract the target, making him divert research and production to military
• Earn a diplomatic bonus with an ally
• Pillage for $$$ and to harm an opponent's economy (I've noticed that the game designers are VERY fond of pillaging, going so far as to include a tip about it in the "game loading" screen. And the AI certainly loves to pillage as a result.)

Wow - imagine what they could do if they tried making wars have a point.

 

[Naismith]

Great post - perhaps border pressure relations stat could be jacked up?

Interesting idea. As diplomacy is implemented now, with the human player picking up more negative diplo modifiers and such, this would make me feel like I had a bullseye painted on my forehead. Imagine playing a panagea game where you are situated near the middle of the map, with several AI's bordering you.

 

[Sisiutil]

when i play, i only expand my territory by engulfing my neighbours. but the AI would happily capture worthless cities on the other side of the world. there is a reason that in the real world, you don't see many countries composed of several pieces that don't border each other

Yeah, like the Spanish, Dutch, Portugese, British, and American empires. They were all geographically contiguous. NOT.

Have you noticed that even in a continents game, there are often resources on one of the land masses not present on the other one? This is exascerbated on other maps such as fractal or archipeligo. The AI is not very good at it, but sometimes it may make sense to have a far-flung empire in order to get the resources you need.

Of course, you could always trade for them fairly, but where's the fun in that?

 

[romelus]

Yeah, like the Spanish, Dutch, Portugese, British, and American empires. They were all geographically contiguous. NOT.

Have you noticed that even in a continents game, there are often resources on one of the land masses not present on the other one? This is exascerbated on other maps such as fractal or archipeligo. The AI is not very good at it, but sometimes it may make sense to have a far-flung empire in order to get the resources you need.

Of course, you could always trade for them fairly, but where's the fun in that?

i said not many, i did not say all.

besides those in your list have exceptions. spanish, dutch, potugese, british only have bits of leftovers from colonism. they don't have anything substantial scattered all over the place. at one time they controlled pretty large territories overseas, but they all fell apart (probably best represented in the game by maintenance cost). america simply bought alaska from the russians, something not modelled in civ4

i can understand trying to grab far away resources, but we all know the AI declares war across the continent just because it thinks it's stronger, and will take worthless cities without any thought.

 

[Naismith]

I would like to see the AI make it's war decisions more like I do. How do I decide? Who borders me (minimize maintenance costs), and who has shrines, wonders, religions, happiness and health resources that I would like to own.

How could this be implemented? I think the AI should be at least twice as likely to war against a neighbor. That should be relatively easy to do (I think). I think the AI could take note of announcements of shrines and wonders being completed, and religions being founded. It could also take note of happiness and health resources that are available in other Civ's. All of this could be added as factors in the AI decision to declare war. I wouldn't want any of it to be implemented as diplo modifiers. Diplo modifiers model who a Civ likes. These factors would model whose territory a Civ covets.

If a Civ founded an early religion, built a shrine, and then the pyramids it would become a big, juicy target to neighboring AI's, regardless of diplo modifiers - which is exactly as it should be.

AI's would be more likely to take territory that would actually improve their empire. That would be a big step in the right direction for the AI being able to compete with the human.

 

[KS_Perfection]

AI's don't declare war on eachother nearly enough, even when you set it as more aggressive. This makes it alot easier to win because AI just don't expand their empires as much as they could or you do. You conquer someone early and you'll get up their in power and stay their for rest of the game because their is little chance of someone else doing the same.

 

[Sisiutil]

i said not many, i did not say all.

besides those in your list have exceptions. spanish, dutch, potugese, british only have bits of leftovers from colonism. they don't have anything substantial scattered all over the place. at one time they controlled pretty large territories overseas, but they all fell apart (probably best represented in the game by maintenance cost). america simply bought alaska from the russians, something not modelled in civ4

i can understand trying to grab far away resources, but we all know the AI declares war across the continent just because it thinks it's stronger, and will take worthless cities without any thought.

True, all empires eventually crumble. (Though to think that the American Empire is limited to the 50 official states is either a little naive or disingenuous.)

Based on observation, I'd say the AI does factor in resources when attempting to obtain territory. Even without declaring war, it will found a junk city far from its homeland, and in my experience there's almost always at least one resource it can theoretically obtain from that city. Mind you, it usually fails to bring along a worker, or to realize how long it will take to build a workboat or worker to actually obtain the resource. I suppose it's the principle of the thing...