The AI will attack each other, but not the player>

[roscoepfox]

I know I'm way late to the party, but I just finished my first full game. I'm not an expert at this game, and I generally don't start wars in any civ game, but I noticed the AIs will fight each other but generally leave me alone. Even when our relationship is in the dumpster. I was literally 10 turns from winning and all three of my neighbors were in "I hate you" mode for one reason or another, yet not one of them attacked me. Heck, Xerxes attacked Pac instead of me and he was just behind me in victory conditions.

Napoleon had a beef with me and he was bordering my weakest city, yet he did nothing. Is the AI a bit to docile?

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

There are a variety of circumstances in any particular game that determine whether an AI will attack you, so I don't know if any of us can speak to that particular game (if I had to guess maybe you were doing well with their leader agendas and hadn't picked an ideology? Ideologies tend to be the biggest factor for AI started wars in Modern in my experience). That said, I have had enough games where the entire continent has declared war on me by turn 70 of Antiquity to say that I would very much disagree and say the AI is in my opinion nowhere close to being too docile.

Regardless, congrats on the victory!

 

[Krikkit1]

I know I'm way late to the party, but I just finished my first full game. I'm not an expert at this game, and I generally don't start wars in any civ game, but I noticed the AIs will fight each other but generally leave me alone. Even when our relationship is in the dumpster. I was literally 10 turns from winning and all three of my neighbors were in "I hate you" mode for one reason or another, yet not one of them attacked me. Heck, Xerxes attacked Pac instead of me and he was just behind me in victory conditions.

Napoleon had a beef with me and he was bordering my weakest city, yet he did nothing. Is the AI a bit to docile?

You may hate someone but you won’t start a fight if they have a gun and you have fists. The AI doesn’t only look at your relationship, but overall military strength.

 

[Disgustipated]

It seems to be based on military strength. One reason you see them attack often in the beginning of exploration or modern age when things are "more equal". And depending on your difficulty level, you may be way ahead of AI in troop strength.

As for an undefended city, I don't believe they take that into account. I believe a past Civ game did this, I don't remember which one (I'm guessing it was Civ 4, that seems like the one).

 

[Cedbird77]

It seems to be based on military strength. One reason you see them attack often in the beginning of exploration or modern age when things are "more equal". And depending on your difficulty level, you may be way ahead of AI in troop strength.

As for an undefended city, I don't believe they take that into account. I believe a past Civ game did this, I don't remember which one (I'm guessing it was Civ 4, that seems like the one).

You are correct! That was a cool feature

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

Since the last patch or so the AI seems to have chilled on war.
Peaceful strategies became a lot more viable. Where previously I found the AI would attack despite good relations.

 

[GeneralZift]

I don't know how much personality is programmed into Civ7, whether it's like Civ6 or if it has personality values like Civ5, or what.
But anyway, I like dichotomy of AI personalities. Where some will attack despite good relations if they find the right circumstances (opportunistic) and some are more honourable or peaceful, and it just depends on who the leader is.

 

[Siptah]

Anecdotally, personalities exist in 7. Rizal and Charlemagne seem very easy to befriend and keep as lifelong allies in my games, while Ashoka WC, Xerxes KoK, or Tubman always seems to declare war sooner than later.

Whether this is also confirmed, and not just an anecdote, I don‘t know. I don‘t think I’ve seen stats on the leaders in this kind of way for civ 7 anywhere.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Both Civ3 and Civ4 found an undefended city to be tantalizing. Skilled players would entice the enemy by moving the defender(s) out of the city center, watch the AI start to redeploy, then move back in and uncover a different city. One could also draw enemy forces into a valley / kill zone by putting an undefended worker, settler, or town at the far end.

You are correct! That was a cool feature

 

[UWHabs]

I definitely see the AI sometimes send a solidary melee unit after a city of mine without walls, those random island cities. But I doubt they make wholesale decisions to go to war on that.

 

[roscoepfox]

Well, I can understand it when people say the AI is terrible at war. In my last game Ben Franklin declared war on me but he had to cross a river to get to me. So he put his units on the other side just within arrow range. After I destroyed his forces he sent one loan army commander up to the line who died really fast from another volley. This was in antiquity. I had one town that was lightly defended that he would have had an easier time with.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

In Civs V and VI, the in-game military problem was that the AI had no idea how to move units in the 1UPT environment.

In Civ VII, it seems to be that the AI has no idea what to do with Leaders. I have almost never seen an AI Leader with units packed moving into combat. Instead, the Leader wanders in alone and gets wiped, and the units come in separately and also get wiped.

The AI does pay close attention to what units are apparently best: they build almost entirely mounted units after Exploration starts, because they are generally stronger than infantry. They build their Unique Units at a much greater rate than any other type of unit in the Age.

The problem is, of course, that mounted units in rough terrain can be slaughtered by a good mix of ranged units covered by infantry or mounted, and Unique units are not always the best choice for combat in all terrain types and situations.

Basically, if I had to characterize the AI in military history terms, the AI in Civ games still does not understand Combined Arms: it does not make good use of mixed forces of infantry, cavalry, ranged and seige units to get the most out of each of them. They can be intimidating when they send a wave of Unique or mounted units at you, but the wave breaks down fast against a force of mixed ranged and melee units making good use of terrain.

I would suggest, in fact, that far more cities/settlements change hands among the AIs as a result of Peace Deals than combat: in my latest game (mid-Exploration Age so far) about 9 - 10 settlements have changed hands in the first half of the game, and aside from myself, only one of those was certainly the result of direct attack. In fact, I have seen far more settlements attacked and destroyed by hostile IPs than by hostile AI Civs in all the games I've played.

 

[Berrern]

The AI is definitely monitoring your empire, looking for undefended settlements, especially near their borders.

I had an interesting situation in my previous game during the later stages of the Exploration Age. I had a border city between me and Trung Trac, with only two separate 1-tile entries towards her empire, the rest was blocked off by mountains. Despite the tense borders, our relationship was neutral.

During the crisis, this city was hit by the plague, so I moved my forces out of there. 2 turns later she declares, and starts moving her troops towards me.
Initially I panicked, as I had no military protecting it, nor could I move any troops in or they'd be killed by the plague. However I had 5 districts with walls, and she managed to break down the first set of walls, but as she moved troops in to try and break down the rest of the fortified districts, the plague quickly wiped them out, one by one. A self-defending city, if you will!

 

[roscoepfox]

The AI is definitely monitoring your empire, looking for undefended settlements, especially near their borders.

I had an interesting situation in my previous game during the later stages of the Exploration Age. I had a border city between me and Trung Trac, with only two separate 1-tile entries towards her empire, the rest was blocked off by mountains. Despite the tense borders, our relationship was neutral.

During the crisis, this city was hit by the plague, so I moved my forces out of there. 2 turns later she declares, and starts moving her troops towards me.
Initially I panicked, as I had no military protecting it, nor could I move any troops in or they'd be killed by the plague. However I had 5 districts with walls, and she managed to break down the first set of walls, but as she moved troops in to try and break down the rest of the fortified districts, the plague quickly wiped them out, one by one. A self-defending city, if you will!

Thats hilarious! It'd be like after the palgue ends and your troops move back into the city they're like "Who the hell are these dead guys?"

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Both Civ3 and Civ4 found an undefended city to be tantalizing. Skilled players would entice the enemy by moving the defender(s) out of the city center, watch the AI start to redeploy, then move back in and uncover a different city. One could also draw enemy forces into a valley / kill zone by putting an undefended worker, settler, or town at the far end.

Ai did continuously probe every city untill it has enough punch to take one, or die trying...
And when there's two or three Ai's probing your defences at all times you'll never know where they will attack.
Removing movement over mountains was really bad in 4 onwards... the best defence tactics always involved line of defence along
a Mountain range... a with the Mod to found cities on Mountains, and goats and Lamas... 100% defence bonus
make every city conquered a massive effort... Greece and Rome if they have access to Mountains cities is basically impossible to conquers...

I had a 20 Gallic Warriors units and three-four Legionaires completely wiped them all out... And Beyond them was India with War Elephants...
Ai with mountains cities acts very differently...