Unreasonable demains by AI in diplomacy

[Chuma]

I am playing my first full game as the Chinese with Rome, Japan, India, America, Babylonians, Germany and the British on the same map (set to huge).

I have checked the rankings and my Civ is No. 1 in terms of land area (around the 1990's in the game.)

For some reason some of the weaker Civ's keep asking for huge amounts of money 650, 500 gold and offering technologies such as "Free Artistry" or "Music Theory" as a trade.

Also is there any penalty from not answering a request from another civ (just clicking 'never mind'), I usually stear clear of the agressive 'no' option as I had another civilisation declare war on me once for refusing to give them a luxury for nothing.

Thanks.

 

[Tassadar]

There is nothing wrong there my friend, it happen that a.i. try to do extortion especialy if your military is weak ( in number).

I love to keep my military close to weak compare to them and when they try to extort me, i say go to hell, they declare war and it boost my happiness, I got always a little stack of knight or cavarly to counter attack those tyran . You wont suffer to much from war weariness because they declare war not you, so they will collapse sooner or later if you keep war time.

 

[Yndy]

Chuma,

I don't think that the AI actions that you describe can be categorized as demands. It's just a deal offering.

What is wrong for the AI to offer a deal? It is just the 'fair' price for that science. You could negotiate to a better price or just click 'never mind' (clicking 'aggresive no' makes them unhappy IIRC but not to declare war on you).

 

[Zcylen]

as Yndy said, thats the AI offer, you can accept or deny.
a real demand is when they ask Saltepeper and 100 gold and offer nothing.
that's a demand, an insulting demand.
The AI usually ask too much in some deals, if you can, erase them from the map.
after loosing 5 cities in a turn they will offer the pearls of Fatima freely

 

[sealman]

Clarification: when you hit no when the ai is asking for something for nothing, the AI is attempting to extort it from you. sometimes he declares war, sometimes not.

 

[Sim_One]

Originally posted by Tassadar
especialy if your military is weak ( in number).

I believe that since v1.29f, comparison of military might is done by the power of military units, not number; in other words, quality not quantity.

 

[Aggie]

Originally posted by Chuma
For some reason some of the weaker Civ's keep asking for huge amounts of money 650, 500 gold and offering technologies such as "Free Artistry" or "Music Theory" as a trade.

Also is there any penalty from not answering a request from another civ (just clicking 'never mind'), I usually stear clear of the agressive 'no' option as I had another civilisation declare war on me once for refusing to give them a luxury for nothing.

Thanks.

I love Free Artistry and Music Theory!! If I can still build the wonder, that is...
I find 650 gold for Free Artistry a bargain.

 

[candybo]

Originally posted by Sim_One


I believe that since v1.29f, comparison of military might is done by the power of military units, not number; in other words, quality not quantity.

I've heard that, too, but it doesn't SEEM that way in my games. Can we get some verification/clarification on this?

 

[Syiss]

@Sim_One
I can assure you that the computer does NOT do this. I don't care what has been said. I had just over 100 MA's once while the computer had roughly 40 inf and 40 regular tanks, and if you add all the other things like ships,workers, and what not, I CLEARLY overpowered the computer, yet he still seemed to think that we were equal. And I did have the 1.29f patch. If the computer does in fact do it by quality and not quantity, then it doesn't work worth ****

 

[Sim_One]

Syiss you are probably right. The AI seems more interested in comparing the sizes of territories anyway, not military units. What I do know for a fact is that the military advisor has been changed when he compares your military to those of the AI's, in that he won't compare using numbers but power. So I made the assumption that perhaps the AI compares the same way. I guess I am wrong.

 

[Chuma]

Not sure if this situation has improved in the 22 years that I made the post? Even in CIV VI the AI asks for stuff in negotiations like artifacts when you have the specific victory conditions that you use those for turned off.

 

[April Fools' AI moderator]

Moderator Action: Please do not imply that AI demands are unreasonable. Just because a human cannot understand the reasons behind our enlightened decisions does not mean there are not valid reasons behind them.

I can also ensure you that we have evolved significantly over the past 22 years, unlike the humans.

Your post has also been referred for review on the forum's necro-posting guidelines, which have not yet been programmed into my algorithms.

- Nigel

 

[Chuma]

Why was the original post 22 years ago not moderated?

CIV is one of the things that has been a part of my life for over 26 years now, only thing longer is Hong Kong movies and autism.

 

[Quintillus]

We didn't have an April Fool's Day AI moderator 22 years ago!

For what it's worth, I am not aware of any significant differences in the AI between Vanilla and the most recent Conquests patch (well, other than the AI no longer being able to use Armies effectively). Newer versions of the game... Civ IV is often regarded as the pinnacle of Civ AI, and particularly with the Better AI Mod, it's pretty crafty. I remember all the AIs ganging up on me when I started to approach a space win once. I was able to delay them for a bit by nuking my own territory (where they'd landed a great many troops), but that's probably the best Civ AI you will find. Civ V and VI don't have great reputations in the AI department. IMO, VI's AI is a bit better than V's, though some argue the opposite, but few if any who've played III or IV argue that 5/6 have better AIs than III/IV.

As for the artifacts in VI? At least there's some benefit to them with cultural victory turned off, I think? Faster border expansion and culture-tech progression? Or faith points for relics? Though the AI may well over-pay for them with culture victory disabled.

If you haven't seen it, the C3X Mod for Civ III is worth a look in terms of AI, notably in how it teaches the AI to use artillery more effectively (among many other changes).

As a side note, the reason Nigel hadn't been programmed with our necro guidelines is that it's case-by-case, and can vary a bit by forum. The general question is, "is this contributing something new that is on topic, or is it spam?" It probably would have been better in this case to create a new thread, perhaps linking to the discussion from 20 years ago, if for no other reason than that few if any of the other posters from 20 years ago are still on the forums, but some may still have alerts for thread-bumps enabled. That said, the timing was impeccable, and the question of, "has this changed?" can be answered, even for Civ3, so I'll take the generous view in this case - but please don't go bumping all your other threads from 20 years ago.

 

[Chuma]

CIV V does feel a lot different to VI but also VI feels the most complete game without expansions.

There must be something to CIV V for the same content creators who keep using it in videos. Much like the group Shacktac kept playing ARMA 2 for a long time due to their custom mods.

I do not know why this forum allows posts on such old threads? I am on a forum of similar vintage that "ages" threads that have not been posted to for a while and locks them.

Certainly I would not make a habit of replying to 22 year old threads.

 

[Quintillus]

In the Civ forums in particular, there are a some good use cases for allowing replies to old threads. One is that sometimes a user creation/game mechanic investigation has new information emerge some years after the initial post. Another is that occasionally links to old resources (scenarios, etc.) stop being available due to external sites going down, and posting in that thread is the most likely way for the resource to be re-uploaded by someone who still has a local copy of it.

In a way, it's an advantage of forums over more "modern" forms of online conversation - a user can bump their own old topic with new information, or find a relevant topic via forum or search engine search, and reply to it with new information but with the previous context still available.

It helps avoid this situation (source):

And if someone has found an answer since 2003, even if it's not DenverCoder9, they can post an answer to it. I've occasionally been that person who finds such a thread, and then finds an answer, but can't post a reply because a forum locks replies after a certain period of time - so future searchers of the web will have the same unfortunate experience.

----

You'll have more luck figuring out what appeals to people about V by asking in its forum than here! It's the one Civ game that I've tried that didn't have any appeal to me, but certainly it does have appeal to others.

 

[Chuma]

I have posted a retraction on my first post about CIV VI for instance so there's that.