Thanxs firaxis for ruing a great game

[paralistalon]

Even if they're friendly, you have to pay attention to the number of green/red modifiers. I don't believe a research agreement actually counts as a positive modifier, btw. You can also tell when something doesn't add up when you propose a trade with your "friend" and see they only want to pay 3 gpt for a resource. Also, the huge army of trebuchets being amassed at your borders is a giveaway, lol.

 

[anrke]

Dear OP,
Although they're generally bad at it, the AI want to try and win the game too.

Don't confuse your diplomatic situation with some sort of logical, real life scenario. At the end of the day, it sounds like you were quietly going about your business setting yourself up for an unobstructed victory, and Pacotello concluded he had a better chance of winning HIS game if he took your juicy, no doubt well developed potentially Wonder'ed, unprotected cities.

I would have likely done the same thing had I the military might to manage it. Especially if someone had declared war on me early on, forcing my gamestyle into one of military might over science/culture.

Perhaps somebody who doesn't like you bribed Pacotello and Isabella to wage the war against their weak neighbour, and the offer was too good to refuse. You, after all, applied a similar tactic. Were Aska and Pacotello getting along fine before you waved your gold around?

P.S. Opening post starting with "I am not ranting" are almost always going to be a rant.

 

[EK834]

I bribed aska to declare war on pacotello to get him bussy so pacotello my neighbour won't dow me .

The AI can do that too...

I've played quite a few games with Venice with Pocatello nearby or not far enough.

He's not too much the type to DoW you normally, but against a player who goes for a peaceful, Wonder spamming Venice it's almost a certainty Pocatello won't remain a friend forever.

Every time I've had him in my Venice games and he was too close, he proved to be a duplicitous and hypocrite backstabber (he's no Hiawatha you can manage to keep friendly and happy from the first meeting to the end of the game at times...). He turns against you if you're too far ahead of him, and he turns against you if he becomes a runaway. He's one of the AI who like to hide their true feelings from you. He usually just Denounce you, though (but I suspect he was the one bribing Monty to DoW me repeatedly in a game. Poor Monty DoWed me from a continent away and never sent units and never offered peace before 10 turns, so I'm pretty sure he was bribed). When Pocatello DoW you it's generally a one-time attempt when you've let him become too strong without reacting by a build up too. If you bloody him, he generally won't return for more later as the aggressive AI do.

In time he reveals his true feelings, and you suddenly see he's very covetous of your lands and very pissed off about Wonders. He also gets easily angry about competition over CS... but most often he hides all three modifiers from you. He's also easily sour if you have different Ideologies. If he picks Autocracy, he gets fairly aggressive (I've got a few games with Pocatello ranking first in military power)

When he's on a different continent than you, he's not problematic and a better friend.

The game's hardly "broken" because the AI make some efforts not to let you play a purely builder game in a sandbox.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

As someone who read your post because I'm always hesitant to download new patches and prefers to wait until they get all the kinks out, I found it disappointing.

Probably just that you hit one of my pet peeves: using adjectives and adverbs excessively and inappropriately. I cringe when I hear an 18 year old say, "I literally had to wait decades for..." Along those lines, your initial claim was that the game was "officially broken" and summarized by saying it was "completely broken," both of which imply that the magnitude of the problem was along the lines of the game not starting, the game crashing when loading, the game crashing your hard drive leading to a BSD (blue screen of death), etc.

But that wasn't your concern, rather you were upset that the AI isn't so behaviorally consistent and predictable that they remove themselves as obstacles to your victory... That's your job in this game.

Resolving your problem that "officially broke" the game: Somebody make this guy a mod that forces the AI to ask your permission before they declare war on you.

 

[Monthar]

I opened the save. The first thing I checked was demographics and sure enough, you're last in military while first in tech. This combo is enough to get the AI's to DoW you. You only have 1 composite bow, 2 archers, 1 scout, 2 triremes and 2 warriors at turn 147. To top that all off you haven't explored much. Those triremes should have been exploring until you got to astronomy, then upgraded to caravels.

The first thing I'd do is stop building the opera house, take the caravan out of the queue and build a few great galleases. Then I'd upgrade everything you have. Next I'd change the techs you have queued up and start researching navigation to upgrade the galleases to frigates.

Since Venice is coastal you shouldn't be messing with caravans. Instead you should have been using cargo ships, even if you have to send trade routes to the various CS's if the AI's don't have enough coastal cities. All that extra gold income from the sea trade routes would have let you buy more units and buildings.

Instead of patronage, I would have put those two policies in Commerce on the right side. That would have let you buy some landsknechts. Plus if you'd gone to the 3rd policy in commerce instead of opening rationalism, you would have cut the cost of all purchases. As Venice, you need that purchase discount to make the most of your puppets.

Anyway, the biggest mistake here was definitely a very weak military. I'll bet if you'd upgraded all those units as soon as you were able to that might have been enough to prevent the first DoW.

The 2nd biggest mistake was not exploring enough. You need to meet CS's for the initial cash/faith they give as well as getting their quests started. You also need to meet as many AI civs as possible as soon as possible. Not only do you gain more trading partners, you also get a discount on any tech they've researched that you haven't.

 

[kb27787]

Well, that happens from time to time that kinda sucks if you put too much trust in one AI after all (only trust them if they are weak... and really, it's your job to keep them weak... if you see their troops near the border, beware!); but I'm sure that if you defend your cities and finally make peace, a denouncement on both Poca and Izzy (who should have red modifiers from backstabbing with the rest of AIs) will get you a new set of friends..., Askia probably included (hopefully those with a lot of WC votes you can use to screw your backstabbers)

 

[isau]

If you don't have InfoAddict use the Military Advisor. If you ever see the statement "could wipe us off the planet!" they will come after you. That's just common sense on their part. Even if they don't hate you, you leaving yourself wide open means any of their rivals could swoop in and devour you, making them stronger. If they are nearby and you are defenseless, taking that land away from you is in the interest of "national security."

 

[Monthar]

Another thing I noticed is you have very little production in Venice. I'm fairly certain the deer was in a forest that you chopped. That leaves me thinking you probably had other forests you chopped for those farms.

Ya know a single sea based food trade route from that one puppet you have would have given you 8 food, which is almost as much as 3 of those farms. If 3 of those tiles were forests with a lumber mill that 1 trade route while working 3 lumber mills would have given you 11 food and 6 production instead of the 9 food you got from just having the farms with no internal food trade route. Leaving the forest on the deer would have been 1 less food for 1 more production.

Yes, you get some instant hammers by chopping the forests, but in such a low production city that's not a very good idea.

Before you say the puppet didn't build a granary early enough you should keep in mind that as Venice you can buy the granary in your puppet. So what ya do is build the cargo ship in Venice and save up enough cash to buy the granary. When the cargo ship is finished you move it to the puppet and buy the granary. Then on the next turn you can send food back to Venice.

Also, food focus is not a good idea, because when the city grows a new citizen it will immediately go to the highest food tile which won't get added to the food stores until the next turn. Instead, set to production or gold focus then when that new citizen is born you get that extra production/gold immediately. When it's your turn to move again, just lock that new citizen to a food tile.

I'd suggest you go read the Strategy & Tips forum and go watch some of the Let's Play videos listed in the Stories & Let's Play forum.

 

[Barghaest]

The game's hardly "broken" because the AI make some efforts not to let you play a purely builder game in a sandbox.

Isn't that what Settler difficulty allows?

 

[tb3]

I recommend OP stops playing Civ 5 and starts reading the nearest available dictionary.

Moderator Action: This user received a warning for trolling. Please refrain from posting in this unconstructive manner.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[direblade99]

I heard there's a difficulty called settler where you can build your own empire and AI's can't attack you

 

[Jon the Bastard]

I don't understand why some players expect the AI to act rationally. I mean, yes, there's a reasonable expectation for a slim amount of predictability; but, a lot of what I hear on this forum these days is people getting pissed because the AI DOW-ed them and the player wasn't ready for the onslaught of armies heading their way.

Really, there are a variety of factors and code algorithms that go into determining behavior, some of them are made clear to the player, and some of them aren't. That's part of the reality of designing strategy games these days, particularly turn-based strategy games.

If anything, I commend the, at times, unpredictable nature of the AI. It makes it a lot harder to game the diplomatic systems like you could in Civilization IV and its expansions.

 

[orasis]

Actually that shows that the A.I has become a little bit more clever (which I think it has with this patch).

If you had lots of trades with him and city states and were not falling behind, that means you're growing, you might win.

You're a threat to his victory.

Good A.I is supposed to be a challenge, supposed to "understand" what is happening and react to it by military force, or setting you up and backstabbing you.

Just letting you win by making them happy with bribes is not "smart" for an A.I.

 

[orasis]

The A.I wants to win the game. It's programmed to obtain victory at any cost (which was absurdly ******ed in CiV vanilla... any cost should not mean hurling middle age units at a larger industrial era army lol) a game is not broken if it challenges you. That's the POINT of video games, to provide a challenge.

 

[kkapalk]

I don't want to get into the argument as to whether it is op's fault he got dow'd or not, I don't feel myself qualified enough to judge. I just would like to know whether the AI is indeed more aggressive now, post patch? I certainly found the AI far too passive pre-patch and admittedly this put me off for a while. I have now resumed playing, having opponents such as Monty and Shaka to ensure I have a decent amount of wars. This has worked, lol, as I spend virtually all the game defending! So do the more passive civs now have a little more chance of attacking?
Thanks

 

[Holyhesk]

Once your borders touch with a neighbour they tend to DoW you. It creates tension so to speak. In a recent game i had playing as Holland (Emporer) I had the Ottamans and the Shoshone to the west and east of me. As thier borders appraoched mine they both DoW'd me within a few turns. Didn't have a very big army at the time, but went all out unit production (change all your cities to Production focus) Held them both off without losing a single City. I also placed a Cidatel from a general on the edge of my empire after i had made peace with the Ottamans. The Cidatel was 2 tiles away from one of his Cities on the borders. This really pissed him off and he Dow'd me again lol.

Couple of Tips for the OP.

Go Liberty and get The Pyramids asap. The wonder has great Synergy with Liberty. This is the only wonder i build early on. Keep tabs on which Civ is building all the wonders, then Bludgeon his Capital and take them for yourself. In my most recent game i had 1 wonder (pyramids) and Austria had like 8. Took out her Capital and ended up with 9 wonders. While you arn't building wonders you can build other interesting stuff to improve your Science/Military/Faith/Culture.

Also get Composite Bowman asap. they are OP early on for defending or attacking. Off the bat go Pottery then Animal Husbandry, then choose Construction, discovering all the techs upto it.

 

[x2Madda]

I opened the save. The first thing I~

Can I just say that Monthar is dead on in his analysis & recommendations and If you take anything from this thread, it should be the points he made.

Checking your military standing is always important even if you just want a token army while playing peacefully.

 

[orasis]

I don't want to get into the argument as to whether it is op's fault he got dow'd or not, I don't feel myself qualified enough to judge. I just would like to know whether the AI is indeed more aggressive now, post patch? I certainly found the AI far too passive pre-patch and admittedly this put me off for a while. I have now resumed playing, having opponents such as Monty and Shaka to ensure I have a decent amount of wars. This has worked, lol, as I spend virtually all the game defending! So do the more passive civs now have a little more chance of attacking?
Thanks

The A.I isn't more "aggressive" per se, it's smarter. The A.I post patch seems to "think" ahead rather than only short term so just placating them with gold doesn't seem to be as effective if you're a threat to their victory and their military/science/culture relative to yours and it's REALISTIC to try to stop you.

I was even setup/back-stabbed in a recent game and it was a pretty smart play.

 

[pthieu1986]

i don't see a point in your complaint

 

[Mudrac]

You must keep a good military, too. If you are a civ that builds a lot of wonders, has very developed capital and have a very weak military compared to them, it is more that obvious that civs who pretend they are friendly with you would rather want that capital of yours under their control instead of just relaying on trade routes, DOFs and Research Agreements which don't mean much to them.