When does AI declare war?

[Nergal]

Yes, and oppositely, I found that sometimes AI, even with high Agression level like Germany, didnt declare war when i refused their ask for tribute. Suprisely, when i checked my military advisor, he said that we have a weak military. So i think military factor isnt everything for AI at deciding weather they will go for a war or not.And.. it just would be nice to know what the other factors are and HOW those factors composite each other so that we can see a threat or an empty threat from other civ (neighbour,especially). But it seem that.. there's no formula. May be it just was made randomly. Its fair enough since in the real a nation dont fully control a war that will happen on them.



I know that Building GW consume time and a lot of shields. It can be substitute with others like unit, cheap improvement that has short term effect. But I aslo know that Almost ot famous civilizations have GW as a sign of their supremacy. I prefer to choice that building GW base on a wise consideration is allowed. The wrong move is trying to build every GW that can be build without any good reason.

Recently, I played as netherland. Since the nation is seafaring, I targeted to build Great Lighthouse from the begining. I got it and as you know.. with GLh i can do trading with many civ that can't be done without Glh. Many lux means many population, so that the cities grow. I able to set research at 100 %, lux 0%. now, i'm leading tech that i never got it in game that Glh is not built.

I was using GW for the Great Wall, not Great Wonders in general ..
There are a couple of threads on Wonders ..

 

[bustedsynapses]

Here are some things I've noticed. If an AI is at war with several other nations, and shares a border with you, it will often be gracious towards you, because it appreciates you not attacking it. If it's much stronger than you, but is at war, it may demand tribute, but generally won't declare war. India is always a pain in the keister, because they are very haughty. If they are doing well, they will ask for tribute, and will declare war if they don't get it. The militaristic cultures, as has been mentioned, will readily declare war. If a nation is really losing, and you're doing well, it will play spoiler, and attack you. It will try to bring others in to play. If a nation is winning, and you are next in successfulness, then they will often declare war, even when their troops are not in position. If you can't handle your barbarian problems, they will often declare war. If you let them through your territory to allow them to get to their objectives, like barbarian camps, settlement sites, they'll leave you alone. I find that the AI actually does much of what a player would do in their situation, and are actually less aggressive than a human player. The one thing they won't do, is jump on a weakened opponent, unless invited to by another nation. I've many times been at war with 3 or 4 other civs, but the one that completely outpowers me on my other border, sits it out. A human player would take advantage. Embassies help a lot. If you don't have many embassies, and everyone else does, then you are considered meat on the table. If you are winning, then the next more successful will try to take you down a peg. Population pressures also come into play. If they're maxed out, and have several settlers built and waiting, they will go to war.

If you can't afford to go to war, and have some worthless town, abandon it, and the AI will switch gears and go into settlement mode. They'll march through your territory, but if you ignore them, they'll not attack. To the AI, settlement is the primary motivator. If it's leading with settlers, it generally won't attack you. You can buy many turns of peace this way. Also, many civs will have settlers in your territory when you finally are ready to go to war. I call these slave caravans.

 

[Brucha]

In my current game, I am playing the Dutch on regent level. I started out on a rather large island/continent completely alone, with another island/continent just to the north (which is seperated by only three tiles of sea and ocean). I founded cities (ten in all) on my island, build up my military, and then decided to invade the island to the north (which was occupied by the Mayas and Scandinavians. I initially captured only two cities (one from each civilization), and began building the cities up for a complete conquest. At this point, I had cavalry as the best unit, and my opponents were still using mainly swordsmen and spearmen. Before I could launch my conquest of the rest of the island, Scandinavia declared war on me.

The funny thing was, I had moved all my troops to the border in preparation to invade, so the Scandinavians had to attack through large stacks of cavalry I had set up to invade with. Suffice to say, the attack never went anywhere, and the Scandinavian losses in the attack made is even more easy for me to invade and conquer the next turn.

I just could not believe that the AI would attack me when it was so outnumbered and outgunned (the best the AI could muster was about 2 medieval infantry, the rest being spearmen, swordsmen and such, against my hordes of cavalry). It was pure suicide on the AI's part. It was so easy that I didn't even have to use cannons to finish off either civilization.