War declaration

[fjordan]

Has the war declaration been changed in one of the latest patches? In my last three games I got declared at pleased while there where other candidates with far worse attitudes (furious and with shared borders), and bigger allignment difference. At first I thought, oh prolly refused a demand but it is getting really annoying. It seems the AI will declare on the human player before other AI's and I am sure that is not how it works in plain civ. Anyone else notice this or am I just paranoid (and really unlucky)? It would be a real letdown as it makes diplomacy close to worthless and non-islotated starts very hard.

 

[Breunor]

The AI will decide to declare war before it actually does, so the relationship at the time of the war decision, not the actual DoW, that matters.

I'm pretty sure that some Civ's/leaders won't declare on friendly/pleased, some won't.

I suspect the reason that you are being 'picked on' is strength. The AI will try to beat up the weak guy, not the strong guy. It determines how strong you are by your 'power' rating, which you can see on the graphs. If your power rating is low, expect to have demands and DoW's placed on you.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[DaveGold]

Build bigger armies. This seems to be more a reliable deterrent than some pleasant words. I've had Van Gossarm declare war on me at friendly +14, no red attitude penalties, at just about exactly the time he crept above me on the power chart.

 

[fjordan]

OK, size does matter...

But really, I have been following the threads on the strategy & tips forum and the good players all say it is not power but attitude that determines the chance of a DOW. My recent FFH games don't fit at all with that knowledge so I suspect there is an unknown factor. But if I am the only one I will happily try again

 

[Deon]

Also note that there're combos like Ljosalfar/Svartalfar which always go to war when AC hits 20-30, and with higher AC evil nations declare war as well. Which nations were they and you? There are some hardcoded DoW based on Armageddon Counter.

 

[Emptiness]

My recent FFH games don't fit at all with that knowledge so I suspect there is an unknown factor.

If you are weak enough, anyone will declare war on you - or at least that's how it seems to me. I tend to have very tiny armies, especially in the late early- and early mid-game, and I've learned not to trust anyone (especially whoever is at the top of the power graph).

 

[Onionsoilder]

It does seem that the AI has gotten pretty messed up lately. I've seen several leaders unable to decide on a religion(Switching from Order -> AV -> FoL -> Order every 10 turns) and Dain the Caswallen's favorite wonder is apparently the Pagan Temple, giving diplomacy bonuses for owning one to just about every civilization under the sun.

 

[Breunor]

OK, size does matter...

But really, I have been following the threads on the strategy & tips forum and the good players all say it is not power but attitude that determines the chance of a DOW. My recent FFH games don't fit at all with that knowledge so I suspect there is an unknown factor. But if I am the only one I will happily try again

That just isn't right. Attitude matters but power matters A LOT!!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[fjordan]

Well there has been extensive code digging published on the strategy and tips forum and contrary to popular believe Power does not matter when deciding whom to declare. The AI only looks at its own army build-up when deciding to change a WHEOOHRN into a real delaration. The only thing there is, is a treshold that differs per AI that will prevent a DOW when the power of the proposed target is about double his own, which you will not accomplish as a human player at higer levels. There are other facors that matter, such as shared border tiles or being a land target but most important is attitude.

You should really look at the work DanF did on this if you don't believe me. Offcourse this could all be changed in FFH, maybe allignment and pre-defined worst enemies may come into play.

For the record, I am playing as the Sheaim my last games and I was declared by the Illians twice and the Kurioates once. I did becom neutral because of RoK. The Kurioates Dow was really ridiculous as he was furious with his other neighbour. He did not have a stack ready either. The last game was no problem because Auric had to cross the lands of Rohanna and we had a defensive pact (but he declared on me, not Rohanna). Only one unit made it to my lands.

 

[Emptiness]

Did you really not understand how War Declarations function in FfH2, or is this a backhanded attempt to argue that they should function like they do in base Civ?

 

[Morlark]

Well, given the "Offcourse [sic] this could all be changed in FFH" line, I'd say it's pretty clear that he genuinely didn't understand how wardecs work in FFH. And there's no crime in that. Repeatedly contradicting people who are trying to put you right does seem a little silly though. Oh, and paranoidly claiming that the AI is biased against the human player is even sillier, because it's literally never true. It would seem relevant at this point to mention the other thread about Sid Meier's GDC talk. He has a lot to say about gamer rationality, or the lack thereof.

 

[Skyre Noktis]

Well there has been extensive code digging published on the strategy and tips forum and contrary to popular believe Power does not matter when deciding whom to declare. The AI only looks at its own army build-up when deciding to change a WHEOOHRN into a real delaration. The only thing there is, is a treshold that differs per AI that will prevent a DOW when the power of the proposed target is about double his own, which you will not accomplish as a human player at higer levels. There are other facors that matter, such as shared border tiles or being a land target but most important is attitude.

Actually, the threshold for war declaration comes from three XML values in the CIV4LeaderHeadInfos file: iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio, iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio and iLimitedWarPowerRatio. These vary a lot, but even the trigger happy leaders are reluctant to declare "max war" on nearby nearby neighbours unless they're very close in terms of power.

Attitude is definitely a lot more important, though. Most (all?) of the leaders will never start a war at Friendly and are very reluctant at Pleased.

Did you really not understand how War Declarations function in FfH2, or is this a backhanded attempt to argue that they should function like they do in base Civ?

Apart from the scripted events (like the Ljos/Svart thing), it is exactly the same as in BTS. As of patch m, the code hasn't been touched.

 

[DaveGold]

Oh, and paranoidly claiming that the AI is biased against the human player is even sillier, because it's literally never true

It is true on occasions. Trading is an example of where the AI nearly always profiteers at the expense of a human player. Two computer opponents can't both be profiteering at each others expense when they make a deal.

 

[Emptiness]

Apart from the scripted events (like the Ljos/Svart thing), it is exactly the same as in BTS. As of patch m, the code hasn't been touched.

Apart from the ways that it is different, it is exactly the same? I see...

I was not trying to claim that there were or claim that there were not differences. I was commenting on the fact that fjordan asked a question and then when it was answered proceeded to explain to those who had answered (in a manner contradictory to the evidence provided by the three games fjordan offered as examples) why our answers were wrong. Sorry if that was not clear.

 

[fjordan]

I did not mean to step on anyones toes, if I did so I am sorry. I am very gratefull for the answers I get on this forum. It is just that on a discussion in plain civ a lot of people just would not accept how a DoW works. And it does feel weird I must admit.

See: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7190899&postcount=84 . Very good stuff in that thread.

I quote: "The take home message (see also Niklas): Power doesn't mean anything to prevent a DoW unless you are over the relevant threshold! Attitude is much more important. If you are a Lonely Heart your are completely safe from Dogpiles and only have to fear LimitedWars from other Lonely Hearts. Have rather short borders. Don't be too close to yourself."

That last remark was about a self-closeness bug, that is fixed in 3.19 I think, getting the AI all paranoid because it thinks everyone is very close to him.

So my question was, is this any different in FFH, especially in recent patches, I thought I made that clear. Because it seemed to me the main differences are made by giving positive and negative diplo modifiers. But looking at the answers here I probably was unlucky, or maybe the Balseraphs had made such a big army they were over the treshold for the Kurioates so I became the next target, even at pleased. Or they were in WHEOOHRN in turn 1 and just waited 150 turns. Sometimes an unlucky stroke of events makes you see things that are not there. That's why it's nice there is a forum to check if it just me. No need to accuse me of any hidden agenda's.

 

[Breunor]

Clearly an interesting and important topic. I always THOUGHT that the strength difference was decisive for Dow's - if I was wrong, I:

1. Apologize for the mistake, and
2. I'm glad to learn the right answer!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[DaveGold]

It's certainly the case if you go back 4 turns and promote/build more units an enemy will sometimes hold off a DoW. My experience is that comparative power is very important.