Weird Issue with AI pseudo-war on Deity:

[danaphanous]

So I recently played my first Deity game in Civ 5 as the Mayans. It was a lot of fun and gave my street-smarts a run for the money. Ridiculous. Koreans had 3 cities by the time I met them and they were my closest neighbors.

I'd actually played a pretty peaceful game. Just surviving, had kept myself up real well in science thanks to the early boost from the science-generating pyramids and was allied to about 5 nearby CS's so I was doing okay. Meanwhile Spain and the Aztecs had been hammering at their neighbors.

I had gotten tired of being slightly behind the Koreans in Science the whole game as the Mayans. He also had a load of wonders and was accumulating an impressive early tourism stat. Aiming for the science victory, I enlisted Spain who I knew hated him but was friends with me currently to attack him. Wasn't hard. As soon as I got gunpowder and cannons I DOWed. Here's a look at my original 4 right on the verge of war. Took an early hammering from turtle boats but never any serious damage in my territories.

Spoiler :

It was rough but I took his two best cities and sued for peace. He accepted.

Seoul Conquest:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spain finally came at the end of the war but most of the fight I never saw a sign of her units--a little surprising because she had a large military and I thought she'd be as jealous as I was of the sweet Korean capital with 6 wonders and high tourism. Just a few turns after taking the Korean capital though she backstabbed me on our friendship and DOWed with Poland while my troops were thin and overextended. You can see the notification in the last picture. It just happened. Ominous with all those troop on the border!

Brilliant move and something I had expected though not quite so soon. I'd heard the AI were vicious on Deity and resented human players owning a lot of wonders or having high score (mine jumped to #1 after the capitol seizure). 2 turns later Indonesia DOWed. Then the Aztecs about 8 turns later. I checked and I only had a minor warmonger penalty for my war. Most of the world still considered me pretty positively up till the Quadruple-DOW.

By all rights I should have been destroyed. Spain's tactic was perfect. I had higher tech weapons and had just gotten Great War Infantry, Gatling Guns, and Cavalry, but I had low numbers and was vulnerable. The Aztecs had it even easier as I'd only kept a few troops back on that flank. (stupid I know...Korea's Rocket things were terrible, suffered some heavier losses than I expected). I knew he was gonna do it though and had some gatling guns, cannons, and cavalry around waiting.

So then the brilliant DOW happens and I tighten my belt and...nothing. I sit all my troops and heal them up over the first few turns. Spain is obsessed with wiping out the last Korean City which is worthless ice for some reason. I hit her flanks as she has to move right past the Korean captol with her armies to do this. She ignores me and heads straight for the Korean city with a large army. So I keep attacking and killing the stragglers. Finally, I move some infantry and horse down and mop up her army and Korea and I finish it off together. Same turn she sends another army. Rinse, repeat. She still acts like I and my territory don't exist.

Spoiler :

Meanwhile the Aztecs have finally seized the moment and move a massed bunch of troops up from their colonies below me into my territory. But they just wander around. Seems like they are sorta heading to my captol but they split up and head in 3 different directions. Chasing some workers here, pillaging a copper there. ******ed. Meanwhile I finish rush-buying walls and turn all my good 4 cities to troops. Still he wanders around sometimes attacking my troops but only halfheartedly. After about 15 turns of guerilla tactics I have enough troops to flush him completely and destroy his armies. Now I can resist him. I send the surplus N-W to the Spain front where she is still obsessed with the worthless Korean city.

Spoiler :

15 turns later after rush-buys and some fighting. Note he only attacked a few units and avoided ever attacking any cities. Strange behavior. He also split his army. sorry I don't have a save of his army at their scariest, only one during the half-destroyed point.

Spoiler :

Another army Passes right by the Korean capitol. This happens again and this time she manages to capture the Korean city. I run in, pound it with some artillery and liberate it for a complete erasure of my small warmonger points. I have now achieved artillery and almost have flight. You get the picture.

Spoiler :

I survived and eventually won in 1898 with a Science victory because for some reason, despite the brilliance of the move, Spain and the Aztects only seemed halfhearted about destroying me. Both had huge armies. She kept trying the wipe out the last Korean city first which allowed me to stab at her flanks and liberate it. Permanent ally in world congress and warmonger points erasure for me!

This is the most ******ed war I have ever seen the AI fight. Worse than back on Prince and this was Deity! They both had massive military. Sure, my troops were better, but could that have been the reason they ignored them and went for weaker points like workers or Korea? I was winning. They were the ones that DOWed me, why the heck would they not take advantage of it? As it turned out Spain made peace about 30 turns in after sending one small army toward my cities finally. I crushed it because I now had artillery, infantry, and gatling guns waiting for this. Crushed it with ease, but I know she had way more. The border between her and the Aztecs was CRAWLING with 5 times the troops she sent to me. Aztecs sent more numbers into my territory but not once did they try to attack a city and he sent no good support. Saw no horse, and only 1 or 2 crossbowman. Mostly pikemen and riflemen. Forced Aztecs to sue for peace after capturing their 3 colonies below me with artillery.


I think the fact that the DOW happened right after the seizure of the Korean capital is important. It had about 6 or 7 wonders and a lot of works. My perceived "threat" level probably skyrocketed as soon as I took it. I have no idea why Spain and the Aztecs didn't take me. I had an okay defensive front but no way could I have resisted them both. They sent large armies through my territory several times but they didn't do anything but wander around. Could they have been intimidated by my superior tech? I and my CS allies were the only ones with gatling guns, Infantry, and Cavalry. I did notice they seemed obsessed with killing off my CS allies though. Destroyed 5-6 of them and made the rest of the world hate them.

Here's some heavy fighting around CS's it was this way everywher and it was sad. My allies held on a good 20-25 turns but I couln't spare the troops to help them on so many fronts.

Spoiler :

It was rough too they had trouble with the good units I'd given my allies and I saw them lose dozens of troops in the effort. Could that have been their reason? They were jealous of my CS support? I went patronage and the loss really hurt me for a bit until I was able to buy out some more distant states and get back on track. I noticed my shoe-in for the diplo vote was missed by several votes because of those city states they erased. Could they have been smart enough to be pre-calculating this way back then? Perhaps, but why bother when they could crush ME, the source. They squandered their perfect ambush.

Has anyone else seen these "Pseudo-Wars"? On Deity? It was almost as if they were all hired by someone else and so didn't really care about taking me, but it seemed at the time like they all attacked because I was vulnerable.

I did notice later in the game that the Aztecs and Spain HATED each other. Toward the end of the game when the Aztecs got ahead of Spain in Science and got bombers and nukes he virtually crushed her. One city after another. Maybe they were so distracted by each other I was only seeing the dregs of their armies? What do you players more experienced with AI combat tactics in Deity think?

 

[Teproc]

This is a little strange I have to admit, especially the massive Aztec army wandering near your capital but never going in. But I will say this : the AI on Deity is no better at playing the game than on Prince, it just gets massive boosts everywhere. I feel your disappointment though, defensive wars against massive armies are thrilling, and they kind of robbed you of the fun with their incompetence.

 

[IIHAAETTEAAHII]

maybe because they dowed you because they hated you not because they wanted your land

 

[danaphanous]

I feel your disappointment though, defensive wars against massive armies are thrilling, and they kind of robbed you of the fun with their incompetence.

Yes, this. I was really looking forward to fighting the massive Deity AI armies I'd heard other ppl talk about. Even if I'd lost it would've been fun and I'd've given them a run for their money. The way I'd heard other players talk, I was expecting the AI to be biased against me...I had some enemies but it seemed like most of the rest of the world was content to insult me occasionally or actually liked me. They let me plow right through a science win without any attempts at war to stop me. Aztecs were nuking, tanking, and bombing my closest neighbors to death and ignoring me the whole game...it seemed odd. Almost like they were preferentially nice to me instead of vice versa.

As for them DOWing because they hated me, the Aztecs and Poland that might've been the case. Poland eventually marched an army all the way across the map and made a try at one of my new cities. I killed 10 units and he immediately sued for peace (this wasn't even half of his exploratory force). By that point he was fighting me alone though so that might've discouraged him. It really seemed like they just wanted an excuse to gobble up my CS allies. Everyone who DOWed was near one of my allies and immediately attacked them. Eventually they captured a few and then seemed content to make peace...never really caring about me.

 

[Teproc]

Since BNW, the AI is pretty passive, aside from a few exceptions, like the big warmongers (Shaka, Attila and so on), or specific situations (like if you're alone on a continent with an AI and don't develop your military, you'll eventually get DOWed), which makes science and diplo wins very easy. Domination and Culture are more challenging (just recently managed my first Domination win, haven't yet managed Culture).

 

[sendos]

Great story. Could you post a screenshot and save by any chance? What was the map type?

 

[danaphanous]

The map type was Pangaea--It appeared to be Standard size but I don't recall exactly. and everyone was pretty packed in so wars were very frequent. Everyone else was fighting someone else most of the game. I haven't seen the AI make very good use or plan around terrain in the future, but one thing that really helped me was the odd mountain range that divided me from the Aztecs. For some reason like 5 CS's all packed around there forming a firm buffer between him and me. It was one of the best defensible positions I've ever started in.

Here's a picture of my allies and their epic militaries. THe Aztec activity really caused them to stockpile troops. His threatening rarely worked on them. Check out the epic mountain range! So great, I had great defense against the Aztecs until flight, and even then, being half an age ahead it was too late for him.

Spoiler :

crap, well I uploaded the images like you wanted but my Retina screen has made them way too large. Any suggestions on reducing them?

 

[GoStu]

I see this a lot when water's involved - the AI has no idea how to cross an ocean, or even really assemble a navy. It doesn't have much to do with being on Deity as far as I know - it's thick as a brick in this regard on any difficulty.

I find they're really bad for doing the "unit dance" in front of cities and ranged units: re-positioning troops while taking a pounding from ranged attackers.

That said, it's probably for the best in some way. There'd be little chance of ever winning on high difficulties if the AI was actually good at killing the player.

 

[Callonia]

Try increasing the size of maps.

I tend to get bloody wars if powerful AIs get put in like Hiawatha.

Hell, The biggest war I ever had in Civ 5 happened on Gods n Kings with king difficulty set with huge map.

Hiawatha threw hundreds and hundreds of warships after me in modern era. Nukes flew at each other between iroquois and netherlands and my 100+ ships was forced to fight against hundreds and hundreds of ships from Iroquois just to stop Netherland from crumbling completely in order to deny the Iroquois an easy land invasion route into my lands.

Tiny maps kinda suck for warring. Not enough cities, not enough of everything etc.

Thats my opinion.

Edit: that massive naval battle was the fourth war in that single map fought between me and hiawatha, he tried to attack me three times earlier, I said three because Hiawatha tried to sneak in an massive airforce to bomb the only sea entrance into the german sea which led to that ex-greek iroquois city getting nuked hard by me.