The dreaded AI coup. How are they doing this?

[Sid Simelia]

So in my current game I am playing as Denmark and going for cultural victory. Babylon was spamming wonders on the other continent, and beat me to Chichen Itza and 5 or 6 others.
I sent an army across the ocean and captured Babylon, and took all but one city from him. I made peace, and now he keeps taking my cultural city-state allies from me via coup.
It seems like every time I make enough to bribe them back to my side, he stages another successful coup. I have spies parked in the two city-states he keeps taking, does this make a difference? He is the weakest civ on the map, I guess I don't see why that would matter though.
Are there different things I could be doing to prevent this (short of wiping him out) or am I just having bad luck? Has anyone else had a game like this? He has staged like 6 or 7 consecutive coups against me in a row, sometimes dropping me back to 0, and my success rate is only 1 for 2. I haven't even bothered to try it unless I have over 50% predicted success.
Also why has my success rate been consistently so low? I try to wait until 1 or 2 turns left, and that seems to help, but is it because his spies are better upgraded or because he planted them first? I usually plant my first spy in my capitol to protect my technology.

 

[Browd]

Unless your spies are at a higher level than his, he will keep winning the coup battles.

I'll make up some number of illustrate what's happening here. You are allied with Quebec City at 100 influence, and he is friends at 85. He coups, which results in the two of you switching places (he's now 100 and you're 85). A few turns further on, you have both decayed by 2 influence (to 98 and 83). You spend 250 gold to buy 25 influence, putting you at 108 and him at 98. He coups again, putting him at 108 and you at 98.

A few turns later, you have both decayed influence by 5 points, so he is at 103 and you are at 93. You drop another 250 gold, for 25 influence, putting you at 118 and him at 103. He coups, putting him at 118 and you at 103.

Get the picture? Your gold gifts aren't putting you far enough ahead of him to make his coups fail. You either need to drop a LOT more gold on that CS, or wait for a non-gold quest from that CS and drop gold on the same turn that quest is satisfied. You want to go from 98 (him)/83 (you) to 170+ (you)/98 (him). If he then tries a coup, he is far more likely to fail.

 

[Sid Simelia]

Oh, okay, I get it now. Instead of spending a thousand every 5 turns to pull back ahead, just wait 15 turns and drop three thousand to make his coup more difficult. Then if his spy gets killed in the attempt I will have more opportunity for influence with my own spy.
That is the one thing about the spy mechanic I never really understood, and I've never really seen it explained very well in-game.
Thanks for the quick response.

 

[oPunchDrunko]

Wait, what is a coup in Civ V? I've played 200+ hours and never even heard of a coup.

 

[Browd]

It is a city-state mechanic. If you (or the AI) have a spy in a CS and another civ is that CS's ally, the non-ally with a spy can attempt a coup. You do it from the espionage screen. When you click "Coup" it will tell you what your odds are. The odds cap out at 85%, and I would not recommend trying to coup at much less than that. A failed coup results in a dead spy. If your coup is successful, you switch influence levels with the former ally.

 

[joncnunn]

This is normal: Never throw money at a City state in which the AI just couped; his odds could be as high as 85% of success.
Instead either write off the city state the first time he coups or else send your highest promoted spy there yourself to engage in in coup war.

Also, this same mechanic works in your favor if you have a spies in your key allies.

 

[troublmaker]

Wait, what is a coup in Civ V? I've played 200+ hours and never even heard of a coup.

When another nation has full control over a city-state you can put a spy in place. The spy can initiate a "coup" with a percentage chance of achieving it. If the coup is successful you become the ally of that city-state.

 

[AiTenshi1]

This is normal: Never throw money at a City state in which the AI just couped; his odds could be as high as 85% of success.
Instead either write off the city state the first time he coups or else send your highest promoted spy there yourself to engage in in coup war.

Also, this same mechanic works in your favor if you have a spies in your key allies.

I'd say that this is a bit overstated as I frequently buy back CS allies after a coup with no trouble.

However, I don't just sit there and take it, either. It is far easier to simply put the AIs out of the game entirely for exactly the reason the OP mentions as well as many others. If you don't take them out (or get some other AI to do it then take that AI out) they will continue to harass your plans even if there is really no benefit to them. They do it deliberately in order to annoy you and delay your victory. In most cases, this is nothing but an annoyance and simply slows the game down to intolerable levels, so it is much better to simply eliminate AIs, especially when they have demonstrated that they are dedicated to this behavior (i.e., sometimes the variables allow AI personalities to not be so annoying, but that is more the exception than the rule in my experience).

Why would you want to allow him to live, anyway? There's no advantage in it, after all, and lots of advantages to removing him as a nuisance.

 

[rexman07]

Why would you want to allow him to live, anyway? There's no advantage in it, after all, and lots of advantages to removing him as a nuisance.

Well, there are diplomatic modifiers to consider. The warmonger penalty goes up for each city you capture, and the magnitude of the penalty increases if you are a large empire conquering a city of a small empire. So your opponent's last city is the one that will create the largest diplo penalty. (There might even be a bonus penalty for eliminating a player, or maybe that was superceded by Brave New World's new scaling warmonger penalties.)

 

[mclericp]

Well, there are diplomatic modifiers to consider. The warmonger penalty goes up for each city you capture, and the magnitude of the penalty increases if you are a large empire conquering a city of a small empire. So your opponent's last city is the one that will create the largest diplo penalty. (There might even be a bonus penalty for eliminating a player, or maybe that was superceded by Brave New World's new scaling warmonger penalties.)

does that mean that...
example, dido took over every BUT one city of Poland.
That ONE last city, i took over it.

Do i get the heavy warmonger penalty if i only took one city but eliminated poland?

 

[NASAROG]

The spy mechanics are terrible in this game. Most often, I turn off the espionage feature because it infuriates me. Problem fixed.

 

[kaspergm]

The spy mechanics are terrible in this game. Most often, I turn off the espionage feature because it infuriates me. Problem fixed.

I did so too, but after BnW, that's not an option, because turning off espionage also means no diplomats to sway votes in World Congress. Great job they did there.

 

[AiTenshi1]

Why would you want to allow him to live, anyway? There's no advantage in it, after all, and lots of advantages to removing him as a nuisance.

Well, there are diplomatic modifiers to consider. The warmonger penalty goes up for each city you capture, and the magnitude of the penalty increases if you are a large empire conquering a city of a small empire. So your opponent's last city is the one that will create the largest diplo penalty. (There might even be a bonus penalty for eliminating a player, or maybe that was superceded by Brave New World's new scaling warmonger penalties.)

I know how the warmonger penalty works. That has nothing to do with my point.

Unless you are trying for a diplo victory, there aren't any diplo modifiers to worry about because you are far better off ignoring diplomacy altogether. You don't need it and it's a bad idea to rely on a broken system in a strategy game. I am saying that you simply ignore diplomacy once you start conquering as it doesn't matter, anyway, and diplomacy is still a very ineffective element in Civ even with BNW. There are numerous posts here as to why diplo is so broken (e.g., cannot tell the AI to stop settling in your territory or spamming prophets and missionaries, cannot tell the AI to stop amassing troops at your borders even though the AI can do this to you, etc.). The goal is to win. There is no point in worrying about broken diplomacy and any associated modifiers from about midgame (Medieval/Renaissance) onwards. It's better to remove the variables so that you have reliable outcomes, and that means eliminating other civs entirely.

In fact, even if you are going for a diplo victory, it is much better to simply ignore diplomacy, conquer the annoying AI civs (i.e., most of them) and simply win diplo via the CS allies and your own votes. It's much more efficient to do this than to rely on broken diplomacy where the AI ignores proper diplomatic procedures and simply does whatever it wants in order to harass you and interfere with your plans even if the AI claims that it is Best Friends Forever.

The spy mechanics are terrible in this game. Most often, I turn off the espionage feature because it infuriates me. Problem fixed.

They're actually pretty good once you understand them. Better than Civ IV certainly. The only real problem is the silly percentage/random based outcomes. For example, it's rather pointless to plant a spy, especially first spy, in your capital to prevent tech theft only to have the AI steal techs anyway the majority of the time. It wastes a lot of turns where the spy could be doing something that actually produces results which is the entire point of a strategy game. Random results are very silly for anything that is in very limited supply such as spies as it removes the strategy element.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

A high level spy can coup an influence delta of several hundred with 85% success rate. Just park a counter agent in the city state you think is most important and wait for that guy to get killed.

does that mean that...
example, dido took over every BUT one city of Poland.
That ONE last city, i took over it.

Do i get the heavy warmonger penalty if i only took one city but eliminated poland?

You get a heavy penalty because he has one city

 

[danaphanous]

yeah, I've actually never seen the AI fail a coup whereas it often happens to me. However, they don't even attempt coups when my influence is dominating so they probably hedge their bets to be about at that 85%.

Greece kept doing this to me. In fact, he didn't even wait a few turns just immediately flipped it back 3 or 4 times. I burned about 3000 gold--utterly wasted. even when I spent 1000 gold a time or two to put a large gap. This was severely annoying. At the same time like 2 or 3 civs wanted him dead and kept asking for alliances (everyone hated him) so I finally stopped protecting him and complied. He was toast in a few turns and I automatically became the new ally. End of story. Only seen this with Greece though. I think they have a coup benefit or something.

I honestly think there may be a glitch or something. I've read you are just supposed to switch influence with them directly, but this happened to me:

First time I had 90 influence. Greece coups and I drop to 50.

I burn 1000 gold and steal the lead again at 110. Greece coups and I drop "even lower" not to the 90 he supposedly switching with me but to like 35.

I try it again, burned 2000 gold so I think I have a great lead at 130 or so. No dice. He coups immediately and this time I have 15 influence. WTH? I'm not lying about this...I've seen it happen. It doesn't bother me that they can coup. It bothers me that I don't actually switch with what I know they have.

 

[Sid Simelia]

Maybe he can bully them or declare war on them before attempting the coup so when you switch you drop lower? I think because of Hellenic League, he recovers his influence faster and this must be it. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a"hidden" bonus to effect spies in city-states. I guess it's a possible glitch though.

As for leaving Babylon with one city, remember I'm only playing with the GnK add on at this point.
It was my understanding that if I eliminate another civ, I am more likely to be hated for warmongering. I want to keep friends so I can sign research agreements. This is especially important when going for cultural victory in GnK because I will usually pick Piety over Rationalism and I have to do everything else in my power to maintain competitive technology with the other leaders.

 

[joncnunn]

I honestly think there may be a glitch or something. I've read you are just supposed to switch influence with them directly, but this happened to me:

First time I had 90 influence. Greece coups and I drop to 50.

I burn 1000 gold and steal the lead again at 110. Greece coups and I drop "even lower" not to the 90 he supposedly switching with me but to like 35.

I try it again, burned 2000 gold so I think I have a great lead at 130 or so. No dice. He coups immediately and this time I have 15 influence. WTH? I'm not lying about this...I've seen it happen. It doesn't bother me that they can coup. It bothers me that I don't actually switch with what I know they have.

This is how it indeed works. First step on a successful coup is the influence flips. And second the old player gets lowered further.
A secret agent is 85% odds when you are within 60 points. A mere 1000 gold isn't going to cut it and just leads to the AI having even higher influence post coup than if you didn't send the gold at all.

(This same mechanic is why you should have spies protecting your key city state allies. The AI tends to choose the smallest amount of gold that would make them ally which results in your raw recruit having an 85% chance of flipping it back.)

 

[beetle]

A mere 1000 gold isn't going to cut it and just leads to the AI having even higher influence post coup than if you didn't send the gold at all.

Gold after coups is pretty much wasted. Send your best spy, and wait until a coup fails or you win an election before spending gold.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

How about bribing another AI to finish him off, if there is anyone else on the continent with the strength. Probably cheaper than trying to buy the CSs. You can help out in the war effort, just let the other AI cap the city.

Problem solved.