The AI and pacifism

[Outlandish]

I recently did a trade with Hammurabi and asked him to switch to the pacifism I was running in a golden age just because I had more value to use so I may as well make him waste a turn, another if he changes back, and he had a sizeable military and is my next target so I may as well hurt his gold with maintenance.

Then I remembered the AI doesn't pay quite as much in unit maintenance, and I don't know that they have to pay the increased cost for pacifism. Did I just give him a benefit with little drawback, or does he pay more maintenance? I can't recall ever seeing the AI use pacifism unless it was a tiny 4 city empire on the verge of extinction.

This is at Emperor level if it makes a difference.

 

[Pangaea]

Pacifism itself has very low maintenance, but can get quite expensive if you have a large army. The AI pays less in army maintenance, but not sure how that works with the unique maintenance of Pacifism. It's possible they pay the full amount, but am not sure about that. In any case, he wasted a turn going into it, and it will hurt him if was in OR and building lots of buildings, or spreading religions. Then another turn if he leaves it.

Slavery -> Caste would have been good too since he is your next target, but that may not have been possible here (depends what you ran).

 

[Outlandish]

Slavery -> Caste would have been good too since he is your next target, but that may not have been possible here (depends what you ran).

Darn, didn't think of that. I could have been in caste if I'd thought of it. Good idea for next time, thanks.

 

[Snowbird]

Does Civic change through trade/demands actually cause them into revolt?

 

[Outlandish]

As long as they're not Spiritual it does.

 

[6K Man]

or Cristo or Golden Age (in BtS).

I really think the lost production from 1 or more turns of anarchy is the really big value from induced civic switches. Unless the army is absolutely huge, and wholly out of proportion with the number of worked tiles Hammurabi has, the lost and should far outweigh the unit maintenance costs.

 

[Whisker]

And does the revolt work same way as for human player? I mean no production in any cities for 1 turn?
I could see some more (beside changing them out of slavery) military aplications for this:
1. Change their civic and declare imediately.
2. Next turn repeat for religion.
That is 2 turn gained with no new units produced by the AI. And if you are spiritual yourself, or running golden age this coud be repeated every 5 turns. Might make big difference for military push. Of course this probably only works on later eras when you have those jails and intelligence agencies pushing espionage points out of doors and windows.
3. Could also be used during wonder race, if you know/suspect someone is building same wonder as you.

 

[6K Man]

And does the revolt work same way as for human player? I mean no production in any cities for 1 turn?
I could see some more (beside changing them out of slavery) military aplications for this:
1. Change their civic and declare imediately.
2. Next turn repeat for religion.
That is 2 turn gained with no new units produced by the AI. And if you are spiritual yourself, or running golden age this coud be repeated every 5 turns. Might make big difference for military push. Of course this probably only works on later eras when you have those jails and intelligence agencies pushing espionage points out of doors and windows.
3. Could also be used during wonder race, if you know/suspect someone is building same wonder as you.

Yes, if you change civics/religions and you aren't Spiritual, in a Golden Age, or own Cristo Redentor, you will suffer one or more turns of anarchy. The more civics you change and the larger your nation, the longer the anarchy will be. And when under anarchy, none of your cities produce commerce, production, or GPP. Whipping or chopping doesn't take effect until you come out of anarchy. Workers still work under anarchy and you can collect money via trade, but that's it. In a game where every bit of production and commerce can count for a lot, multiple turns of anarchy are to be avoided. That's why you see people timing revolts to coincide with Golden Ages, or after the first Settler starts walking.

The AI can always refuse your request to change civics. Under what circumstances they accede and when they don't, I don't know. I think you can also change their civics via Espionage. But diplomacy doesn't work during a war, so (2) won't work. (1) and (3) might. If you have CR or are Spiritual, you can abuse AIs this way.

 

[Pangaea]

I don't know. I think you can also change their civics via Espionage.

You can do this, but I'm pretty sure they don't suffer anarchy then. It's kinda like the forced change via the UN I think. I did that several times to the AI (darn emancipation) in a recent BOTM, and they still teched normally. When they go into revolt (and you have tech view) you'll see stuff like "Chemistry (1728)" (meaning 1728 remains, and they are in anarchy, hence 1 beaker per turn, in theory).

 

[coanda]

AIs do not suffer anarchy when you swap their civics via espionage. It will, however put them on the 5-turn "can't change civics due to recent civic change" timer, so they're forced to stay with the new civic you gave them for at least 5 turns. Keep forcing another civic change every 4 turns, and the AI never gets control of its own civics again. They also will suffer ordinary anarchy when they choose to change back to their own previous civic choices, which they tend to do after ~5-25 turns if allowed.

 

[Whisker]

Yes I meant espionage, too bad it does not work. Well, maybe good, might have been too powerfull.

 

[civac]

This feature is obscenely overpowered and banned in every MP game since almost the dawn of time.

In SP you could turn off their corporations or perhaps makes them unhappy by switching them out of HR/Rep but yeah doesn't sound too hot.

 

[dankok8]

Using spies to make an AI switch out of Slavery before an attack sounds so evil that I love it! To be honest, I largely neglect espionage in my games which is a big mistake. I will definitely work on incorporating it into my games.

 

[Pangaea]

Using spies to make an AI switch out of Slavery before an attack sounds so evil that I love it! To be honest, I largely neglect espionage in my games which is a big mistake. I will definitely work on incorporating it into my games.

Tricky to get much usage out of it early in the game, though. You only have the +4 passive, and will usually spend that on the best techer, who you may not want to DOW early.

Later in the game it's easier, especially with a big empire with a bunch of courthouses, maybe even running some spy specialists (the game sure loves to hire those suckers!). This was going off memory from what happened in the game, but got quite some use out of espionage in the BOTM #197 game that ran recently:

Spoiler :

• Feudalism (Darius)

• Guilds (Darius)

• Literature or Music (think it was one of these, possibly from Darius)

• Theology (very late, from Hannibal)

• Banking (don't recall from who, but it was with the last spy in the last turn of a GA, after several failed attempts, so it was crucial to get for the civic switch. Would have sucked to lose out on that, with practically no trade routes anyway)

• Philosophy (Hannibal)* (actually, I may have self-teched this since it was so cheap and I was concerned about not having enough spies for the more important steals)

• Nationalism (Hannibal)*

• Constitution (Hannibal)

• Democracy (Hannibal)

• Printing Press?? (May have done this myself)

• Military Tradition (Hannibal - very late, I never built any Cuirs, and only some Cavs in the very late game)

• Corporation (Hannibal - very late, but he was doing Assembly Line when I invaded, and I intended to upgrade some rifles to infantry, but never did)

• Liberalism (Hannibal)

• Communism (Hannibal)

• [Physics was self-teched in one turn, think the report above was incorrect and I got another GS that bulbed this for around 3000 ]

• Electricity (Hannibal)

• Radio (Hannibal)

• Mass Media (Hannibal)

Also keep in mind that with spy civic switches, it works similarly to when you bribe AIs: You can only spy switch them into a civic you run yourself, so to get them from slavery to caste, you need to run caste yourself. Probably not the case early game. However, it's a great way to get AIs out of emancipation and into caste/slavery.

 

[6K Man]

Interesting. I had never tried that with espionage, but without the anarchy that goes with a diplomacy-induced civic swap, it seems less fun.

Can the AI force a civic swap on the player via Espionage? It's never happened to me, fwtw, but that seems really nasty.

 

[Pangaea]

Interesting. I had never tried that with espionage, but without the anarchy that goes with a diplomacy-induced civic swap, it seems less fun.

Can the AI force a civic swap on the player via Espionage? It's never happened to me, fwtw, but that seems really nasty.

Probably not, or at least I've never had that happen.

The spy civic switching can still be quite useful, as it's not always cheap, or even possible, to do it via "trades". Particularly if you want to get them out of well-spread emancipation or their favourite civic.

Handling all those spies and crossing your fingers they don't get caught can be frustrating though. In diplo screen they may then say something like "That goes against everything we stand for" and "We don't want to deal with the unhappiness."

 

[Tobiyogi]

Darn, didn't think of that. I could have been in caste if I'd thought of it. Good idea for next time, thanks.

In my experience, it is wise to almost always run combined Pacifism + Caste during a Golden Age. First argument, you don't want to whip during a GA (every tile and specialist is worth more), second argument: Caste helps you direct your next Great Persons much more specifically. For exemple, two or three different guys you need for the next GA. If you knew that already, forget my words

 

[pi-r8]

In my experience, it is wise to almost always run combined Pacifism + Caste during a Golden Age. First argument, you don't want to whip during a GA (every tile and specialist is worth more), second argument: Caste helps you direct your next Great Persons much more specifically. For exemple, two or three different guys you need for the next GA. If you knew that already, forget my words

Agreed. Pacifism + Caste is such a massive return, you can easily get *multiple* great people from your first golden age, sometimes even two from the same city! Makes me think the balance was better in original civ4, when you still had anarchy from switching civics in a golden age.