The Wrath of Bismark

[Corkmaster]

My tactics tend to leave me militarily vulnerable early in the game sometimes and I resort to some serious grovelling.
One of my ploys (dont know if it actually works but usually seems to) is to offer unsolicited tribute to potential aggressors.
I usually offer maps and small gold per turn packages. I figure they may hold off for the twenty turns, while I prepare my invincible armies etc.
Anyway I did this in my current game and Bismark told me were to put it; he would not accept such an insulting proposition,,, etc and I was not even asking for a trade!
He just didnt want this stuff. Any one else had gifts turned down? Is this a bug, sure seems like irrational behaviour.
Perhaps the military AI have built in brain damage.

 

[Mr Spice]

Did the germans attack you soon thereafter? If so, perhaps the AI is programmed not to sign any deals with you if they are planning for war. After all, a deal would mean that they have to postpone the war for another 20 turns.

 

[MonkeyPaw]

I've had Civs agree like a trade ("seems acceptable"), but if I added something else- and it wasn't per turn gold- they no longer liked the trade, sometimes even be insulted by it!

It's like they were upset by my generousity.

 

[Richard III]

Mr. Spice, maybe you have explained a strange phenomenon for me. I have been finding on number of occasions that when I am trying to strike a deal with certain civs, I might add on a luxury they don't have that I have in spades as a perk - say, wines. And when I add the wines, the indicator goes from "we're getting close to a deal here" to "they would never accept this deal." Presumably because the 20 turns worth of a luxury would lock them in somehow, and they want to attack?

(come to think of it, most of those failed deals are followed by attacks shortly thereafter, although I can't be certain).

R.III

 

[Zouave]

You might be assuming the Diplomatic AI is TOO rational. I doubt that. Deals (or non-deals) have appeared that defy reason. It seems that occurs less so with 1.21, maybe.

Bismarck? At the highest Aggression level he's really psychotic. Move the slider down a bit in Editor. Same for Shaka.

 

[No.Dice]

I just recently had the AI refuse to accept a gold per-turn gift from me. (Apparently) I had violated a trade deal in this game.

It would be nice if a pop-up window would display and tell me something like "By doing this you are breaking treaty "x" with the [civ], are you sure you wish to proceed?"

Or even just a screen i could access that told me all of my current deals and the time remaining. Its very tedious to check the trade screen, then start diplomacy and contact each individual civ to view the deals that are in place.

Its a pain to have to pay in lump sum for the rest of the game all for violating a trade deal you didn't know existed. Same with ROPs, god forbid a scouting warrior happened to be in his territory when i declared war. (The game considers it breaking a ROP if you declare war while any of your units are in AI territory, regardless of you signing a formal ROP or not.)

 

[K-Man]

Mr Spice says
perhaps the AI is programmed not to sign any deals with you if they are planning for war

I'm not so sure this is true. I've had a situation where I signed a ROP and a MPP with a civ, I think it was Cleo. Since her army was slightly more advanced than mine was, I gave her some money to keep her happy. At the end of the diplomatic session, it said she was polite towards me. The very next turn, I get a message box saying that the Egyptians have declared war on us, and I see Egyptian units start attacking my cities. When my turn came around, I checked the diplomacy screen, and she had MPP's with like 4 other civs, so I was now practically at war with half of the world. I reloaded a saved game prior to the declaration of war, but just like clockwork she declared war on me every time at the same date, no matter what I did to try and persuade her otherwise.

Once they have their hearts set on picking a fight, I don't think they care what deals they have with you at the time. As long as they get to pick the fights they want to, when they want to, they seem to be satisfied with the hit to the reputation they will take.

 

[cracker]

Watch out for Per turn gold deals, because there are some definate flaws in the V1.21 code that can make these a liability.

First, it appear that the AIs look at these deals in terms of their total net value (ie. 1 gold per turn is about the same is 18 or 19 gold lump sum). When you give them a gold or two per turn it can bump them 1 happy level (i.e. from annoyed to cautious) but this rarely lasts more than a coupl of turns. Then you are back to having a demented AI neighbor headed to the warpath, but now you are still obligated to shell out cash to them for the next 18 or 17 turns.

It does not appear that the reputation code recognizes these transactions as peacemaking gifts. The payments are one sided, and the code seems to view them as a debt that you welched on even when the other civ is the war aggressor.

SO, in the case where you give Shaka 3 gold per turn to play nice. He will be nice for several turns and then go psycho and attack you anyway. Only, now you will be at war with Shaka nad be branded as a deal breaker by the other civs and that will devalue your per turn gold to next to nothing.

This is particularly pronounced in deals that get interrupted by MPP wars. You can be in an MPP with a nearby neighbor and paying peace money to one of the evil psychos and if the psycho attacks your neighbor then you end up as a trade outcast even though your peace money was a gift to try and avoid the war that the psycho starts.

Some severe logic problems are built in to the coding of these sections of CIV3 and you have to use some very protective logic to avoid being crippled by what would normally seem as a reasonable set of choices in paying for peace or "giving foreign aid."

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Spice is right in my experience, but there`s another thing:

Let`s say the AI is in a waar and the road to its Silks is cut. In a trade deal I offer silks - they are pissed.
Themselcves, they always come up and oferr to sell me the lux I just lost, but if I offer it to them - no deal.

 

[Corkmaster]

Originally posted by Mr Spice
Did the germans attack you soon thereafter? If so, perhaps the AI is programmed not to sign any deals with you if they are planning for war. After all, a deal would mean that they have to postpone the war for another 20 turns.

In fact no the Germans have never declared war on me and the game is much further on now. Does accepting a gift constitute a deal? I did not ask for anything in return. These posts would seem to indicate that gold per turn tribute is a waste of money however. Perhaps I will just save it for the upgrades or give them a lump sum to buy a couple of turns.

 

[Richard III]

Ahhh, Multiplayer. It beckons.