War... War never changes...

[Jednooki_John]

I allowed myself to start a new thread, hope that is okay! Wanted to throw a couple of things for discussion regarding warring, curious to see what you guys think. It is based on few games played on may 17th ver.

1. Voluntary vassalage
It was discussed here before with some great feedback; I still think though it at times leads to some unreasonable outcomes. In general I believe it is a great tactical choice, I've seen it applied wonderfully by the AI - where f.e. China was getting rekt by Aztecs and put herself under the wing of the mightier Aztec neighbour - Japan. That was really clever "escape from jail" card! But sometimes still the voluntary vassalage does not make any sense.

In other game I am a strong buddy with Bizantium, we are together on one continent. Then suddenly she decides to give herself as vassal to the biggest power - our competitor who is hostile to me - from another continent. Mind you, that great power, had no chances actually assaulting us via sea, did nothing to us yet. And then boom few turns later the hostile baddie declares war on me and I am on war with my best neighbor suddenly with the enemy at the gates! Made very little sense to me!

Reg. that voluntary vassalage, can it be included into the calculation some sort of "loss"? Meaning, AI would seek to become a vassal only if there is a real, not only "percieved" threat to it? Lost units, lost cities taken into account? Probably it is being taken into consideration already, but maybe this may be pronounced more? Also, I am yet to see myself being offered to take a vassal; had at least two games where a nearby AI was getting decimated by the other AI and on the road to annihilation, with me being a supreme and nearest power, and nothing happened, although I bet if it was another AI, it would have got the voluntary vassal offer. But maybe thats just my feeling.


2. Defensive pacts/warring
In general, I still think quite often wars are meaningless and serve no purpose. It is especially seen with defensive pacts I think, in my observation 8 out of 10 of them are actually useless, in a sense that your body that was meant to support your sovereignty against other hostile agents, will just go to peace treaty as soon as it is by default possible and you will be stuck with the aggressor. It happens most of the times; in one game I had powerful Ottoman empire hostile and nearby, so I managed to get defensive pacts with all Ottoman neighbours, anticipating Ottoman aggression. And when it did happen, I took the bulk of Ottoman army, hoping to just hold on, but obviously all my "defensive pacts partners" peaced out with Ottoman after default (is it 10?) set of turns doing nothing at all. I of course could not peace out with Ottoman and got rekt.

I think it is connected to the issue I observe with "empty warring". What if AI could set up an objective and DO NOT let it go until the objective is achieved, unless of course, it does suffer a lot of damage itself (in terms of units lost, lost cities etc.). Right now it often feels as if AI just goes for the war only to "lose interest" in X amount of turns achieving nothing in the end. Value of defensive pacts suffer the most because of it I believe.

Thats just my few cents, what do you think guys and gals?

 

[Bryan317]

You do make some points that the AI sometimes doesn't actually understand the "real threat" to them. Sometimes this can work in your favor as you can request absurd amount of gold to go to war with someone from another civ.

The only thing I'd point out with your first example with the vassal invading you is... The AI is trying to win too lol that superior civ you were referring to is definitely targeting you and purposely took that vassal to start trouble with you. This is what they do, they want to win also.

If someone is hostile with you and you feel is actually a threat, it's time to start being nice to them...(However in this case, I understand you didn't see it coming) Send a diplomat, give them favorable trade deals, withdrawal your troops from the borders. And then lastly the size of your army greatly influences the way all the civs deal with you. If you had a superior army that other civ may have been interested in becoming YOUR vassal.

 

[andersw]

Phoney wars have always been an issue and until AI's tend to stall unless they capture a city and get the extra rewards which can keep them steamrolling if stars align.
I feel its hard to get non authority AI's to put in much effort and you cant ask AI to send units any specific direction so just have to hope AI can make some sort of difference.

Defensive pacts seems slightly better in May 24 but only on first game, same with volunteer vassalage (not 100% if I have it active but I think I wanted to test).
In my current game there is one DP between two AI on opposite side of the map and Im so gonna abuse that so I can declare on my friend.
They have no way to help eachother and only purpose would be to dogpile a weak AI that is sort of inbetween them but they definitely dont need a DP for that.

 

[Fluffball]

Only playing the current live version so can't comment on current beta changes and the voluntary vassalage 'issues'...although i quite like some of the stories people have told (complained about) as it seems to spice up warmongering a lot more.

I have turned off bribed wars which stopped most of the general phoney wars although i agree that DP's are a similar issue of the AI being uninterested generally in wars it doesn't declare or make an actual agreement to joint war.

With bribed wars off, if the AI DoW's me it is usually serious and i have a good scrap with them which has been a vast improvement but i still find DP's a bit 'none scary' when i am being an agressor as most DP's tend to be between unconnected AI's (on seperate continents) so the other AI just peaces out after the mandatory DP timer.

When the DP is another neighbour though the AI can be quite good at joining in. In a recent game i was warmongering and DoW'd my next target who had a DP with India who was sort of my neighbour with one of my vassals between me and them and India ROFL stomped my vassal and then me which was game over. Well done India!

 

[Stalker0]

In the latest beta, your DP partners definately stay in it, in fact it’s probably gone too far the other way, it’s really hard to get the AI to peace out at all

 

[Jednooki_John]

The only thing I'd point out with your first example with the vassal invading you is... The AI is trying to win too lol that superior civ you were referring to is definitely targeting you and purposely took that vassal to start trouble with you. This is what they do, they want to win also.

If someone is hostile with you and you feel is actually a threat, it's time to start being nice to them...(However in this case, I understand you didn't see it coming) Send a diplomat, give them favorable trade deals, withdrawal your troops from the borders. And then lastly the size of your army greatly influences the way all the civs deal with you. If you had a superior army that other civ may have been interested in becoming YOUR vassal.

That is correct, I was obviously targeted by the AI, rightfully so! What I complained about however was not that, but rather a fact that my best buddy through centuries, with whom I exclusively shared a continent and had a wonderful history of friendship and alliance, decided to - without even any history of previous wars with said hostile AI - give itself fully to hostile superpower.

It was of course a shrewd move by the hostile superpower AI, but imo completely irrational and sensless by the voluntary vassaled best-buddy AI. Together on one continent we were a superpower the hostile AI couldn't crack. I'd maybe be able to understand if buddy AI had some bad history with the hostile AI? Some previous lost wars or something else that could "scare it" and decide its better not to poke the bear, but there was literally nothing, as the hostile AI was on another continent and there was little to no interaction between buddy AI and hostile AI.

Phoney wars have always been an issue and until AI's tend to stall unless they capture a city and get the extra rewards which can keep them steamrolling if stars align.
I feel its hard to get non authority AI's to put in much effort and you cant ask AI to send units any specific direction so just have to hope AI can make some sort of difference..

You are definitely right! I was always thinking that this could be somehow improved, maybe I even wrote about it before on forums here. You know when a spy can tell you that another civ prepares a sneak attack on a city X? I assume then that this "warring" information reg. AI tactical plans is stored somehow. What if this information could be accessed somehow in a friendly allied scenario?

We can get some tactical information reg. our enemies (by spying on them), but we are unable to get any info reg. tactical information when it comes to our allies and our joint wars, isn't that weird? What if let say, when a defensive pacts kicks in, our ally tells us about his tactical plans for the upcoming conflict, to add some visibility? And just how a spy can tell us about "surprise" city-target attack, maybe AI could plainly tell us when defensive pact is activated - hey, I am targeting city XYZ. And maybe we could have another "talking" option available, just like "what do you think of...", which would then tell us about AI's war-mood. Is it still trying to capture city XYZ? Maybe it switched its priorities to ZYX? Or maybe it is actually trying to peace out, which would give a player an early warning that player might be on his own soon?

I feel like this information is there stored in a backend, we'd just need some way to present it, to get a better visibility into AI's ally thought proccess. I always thought it could turn out meaningful.


On the other topic, I think we are still back to an old issue that was there some years ago (time flies), where an AI you met for a first time literally a dozen turns ago from another continent, suddenly overtakes you in cultural influence. But hey, thats for the different threat I guess )

 

[andersw]

@Jednooki_John Please please, edit in more line breaks, this is borderline unreadable for me.

 

[Jednooki_John]

@Jednooki_John Please please, edit in more line breaks, this is borderline unreadable for me.

done )

 

[tommytoxen]

sometimes i feel like civs will have a 'phoney war' with you to carry favour of another civ, probably a close neighbour/ally. they officially declare war but really aren't that committed/are too neutral to you to take it seriously. they just want to show the other civ that they're "on their side".

i think it'd be a mistake to stop it from happening, generally i think the AI should do things that i personally do/would do. i'll sometimes declare war on a civ for my ally but don't really commit to it. maybe send a few ships to protect my ally's coastal cities.

other times i feel like the only reason they're not attacking me is because they physically can't, they don't have the spare ships/troops to. but that does make me wonder why they declared war in the first place if they knew they couldn't wage it.