Why AI so loony?

[Callonia]

Lets see, how to explain this, Monty was bullying the city states under my protection, two of them in fact. Geneva and Hong Kong, both are hostile city state types.

When he bullied Geneva for like 2nd or 3rd time and said to me that "I'm sure that you can't do anything about it."

I was like, you'll pay for this insult.

And proceeded to ponder on how to deal with it, and went oh yeah, Navy got updated, and proceeded to move almost all of my navy which was only there in first place to deal with now extinct arrogant celts, "celts got ganged up for being too pushy with their religion."

Therefore, I handed Aztecs a declaration of war without even moving any of my navy in advance. The monty had like at least 10 turns of bed wetting nights before my Navy could reach aztec cities to say hi. And shortly after reaching a major city acting as a blockade before I could shell the rest of the aztec cities.

All I did was send my navy + few marines and aztecs just collapsed.

And then, I had a popup showing the pointiest sticks. And I was like O.o aren't the AI supposed to know how much soldiers I have?


Pointiest stick list in Spoiler 1.

Spoiler :

As you can see, my Military strength beats both Persia and Russia combined and it's not even at full strength yet, I still have 220gpt left to go yes, golden age, pay it no heed, cuz non-golden age is 220gpt.

Why isn't Monty licking my boots instead of bullying my city states? I intend to annihlate the aztecs for once and all just to have one front to worry about, the russian one, she hates my guts. While persians is like all chill and cool with me but I have my eye on him.


And then, I had an rather odd yet amusing thing, WW2 Infantry upgrading to mech Infantry for free. >_> I think Military honor upgrade + Pentagon + and something else had to do with it. --v

Spoiler :

Oh yeah, its also a current game in progress and on hiatus because i'm checking out skyrim and having fun lol and its on normal difficulty.


Sure I would understand monty acting all nicey nicey nice and then proceed to backstab me the next time russians declare war on me but instead, monty chose suicidal route of bullying my pets. =(

 

[nefloyd]

Basically the AI does what its gonna do and nothing you say or do is any deterrent

Protecting a CS? Too bad, they'll take tribute, whether you're weak or strong or friendly or hated enemies
Caught spying? Get as mad as you want but they'll keep doing it
Make a demand of them? You could have 20 artillery aimed at their capital and they won't give you some oranges

 

[Flying Mathias]

I think the reason for the AI's craziness is that they "play to win"

In Civ4 they roleplayed. in Civ5 they don't.

 

[Adjuvant]

Your pangea map almost looks like Tamriel.

 

[Babri]

Your pangea map almost looks like Tamriel.

Lol. Now its time for Ulfric Stormcloak (Callonia) to kick the butts of High King Montezuma.

I was myself wondering how to stop AI from bullying ur CS. Will stationing ur military near the CS ensure some sort of security to the CS so that they don't give tributes ? Also CS should consider their ally's military strength when deciding for giving tributes or not, after all they are allying to get some protection while giving u back benefits.

 

[Furycrab]

I think the reason for the AI's craziness is that they "play to win"

In Civ4 they roleplayed. in Civ5 they don't.

Oh good lord... not this discussion again. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease

Pretty damn please.

On subject of the OP. I don't see what you consider as looney.

I think they made the modifiers or intents on things like bullying CSs and spying a bit low. Like you said, you could be the highest military and if they want 200g from the nearby CS they will still take it even if you pledge.

If I pledge to protect something, if the AI is my friend or if the AI is somehow scared of me, they probably shouldn't be demanding tribute. However to be honest... I kinda think the opposite is a bit worst, I want the AI to hesitate on DOWs, I don't really want them to hesitate about taking possibly obvious advantages. For example: I wouldn't want Mongolia to start leaving all CSes alone just because I went around and Pledged to protect all his nearby CS.

Fine line I guess.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I think they purposely program the AI to be slightly suicidal so as to ensure the player has ample oppourunities to thrash them. I like it more than in other versions where they were just so ridiculously passive to me.

 

[nokmirt]

Indeed, I can't respond to this it just causes me grief. The AI is what it is, that's all I'll say.

 

[Miravlix]

Try gifting a few units to the CS, thats how I'm currently trying to beef up my citystates to resist tribute.

Warning: Gifting through the diplomacy interface sometimes result in units getting lost in transit, so gift max 3 units and wait for them to arrive.

The CS military strength is the only reason I can see for why one feels strong enough to resist tribute and others not. Pledge by the player doesn't matter thats for sure.

 

[dexters]

This thread should give you the logic behind some of AI's thinking.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468949

AI's do play gambits as described above. That means timing their invasion when you're distracted. Doesn't mean they will succeed.

 

[Sherlock]

I think the reason for the AI's craziness is that they "play to win"

In Civ4 they roleplayed. in Civ5 they don't.

I wish they'd go back to roleplaying. Makes for a more immersive history experience.

 

[PreLynMax]

Yeah... I'd say Montezuma and the Aztecs has outlived their usefulness and needs to be exterminated. That's just me being generous.

 

[dexters]

I wish they'd go back to roleplaying. Makes for a more immersive history experience.

Pretty sure historical leaders didn't roleplay in their time.

But generally, unless I'm writing a story, I don't mind the change. If anything the strong AI flavours makes for far more interesting early game

It's a little more nuanced now than it was before.

 

[binhthuy71]

Of course an AI will bully a CS no matter what. Bullying is not a legitimate cassus belli; you'll incur the same diplo penalties for attacking a bully as you would for just attacking it out of the blue. Because of that the AI is simply extorting some cash from your protected CS because it may face no repercussions.

My impression is that the farther a protected CS is from your lands the more likely it is to be bullied.

 

[grandad1982]

Of course an AI will bully a CS no matter what. Bullying is not a legitimate cassus belli; you'll incur the same diplo penalties for attacking a bully as you would for just attacking it out of the blue. Because of that the AI is simply extorting some cash from your protected CS because it may face no repercussions.

My impression is that the farther a protected CS is from your lands the more likely it is to be bullied.

My bold.

After playing a lot more EU3 etc recently I would love to see something similar in civ. Not necessarily the introduction of CBs but if a civ did bully a protected city state then there could be some temporary diplo modifiers that would support intervention.

For example, if you DoW a civ that bullied a city state under your protection, with in say 5 turns, then civs friendly towards you or protecting the CS would get a diplo + towards you, civs neutral towards the bully wouldn't care so much and friends of the bully care the same as they do now. Or something.

 

[Harv72b]

Monty's gonna do what Monty's gonna do.

Recent game, I'm playing Ethiopia and got a mad start thanks to plentiful flood plains and salt tiles + outracing everyone to Petra; Monty's one of my neighbors, the Celts & Iroquois are the others. Up through the Industrial age we have a nice little relationship going, with me, Monty & Hiawatha all BFFs & everyone hating the Celts.

Then out of the blue, when I'm out-teching him by a full era and have a bigger, better military, Monty decides to start bullying my ally/protectorate Brussels. I tell him he'll pay for it, he says he still thinks it was in the best interests of his empire, and he stays all chummy. Until 20 turns later, he bullies them again. Same shuffle, same result...and 20 turns later, guess what happens? So at that point I get together with Hiawatha & he agrees to go to war with the Aztecs in 10 turns, which in the AI lexicon means he DoWs on the very next turn while I'm still moving my cannon into position, and Monty goes bye-bye in very short order.

And that is exactly what bugs me so much about that trait. It is not difficult to defeat the AI in a war, except maybe the massive ancient-era rush...it's just really annoying to not be able to play a peaceful game because at some point you know one of the AIs is going to do something (repeatedly) to provoke a war, at which point all the other AIs who loved you & came over for cupcakes for lo those thousands of years will suddenly hate you for being a warmongering, villainous cad, and then they'll all be provoking wars which they'll also lose in turn and next thing you know, your attempt at a science victory has turned into a domination win (or a quit game after you puppet the fourth AI capital).

The truly mind-boggling thing about it is that the AI is so terrible at war-fighting, you would think they'd want to program it to avoid fighting the human player whenever the odds aren't overwhelmingly in their favor.

 

[smallfish]

The truly mind-boggling thing about it is that the AI is so terrible at war-fighting, you would think they'd want to program it to avoid fighting the human player whenever the odds aren't overwhelmingly in their favor.

I really wish I could say that with certainty; maybe for lower levels, but I've seen too much well played moments to think the AI is overbearingly ********.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think the reason for the AI's craziness is that they "play to win"

That doesn't make any sense in context. Playing to win would involve not picking a fight with the largest military power. However, role playing would explain this behavior because it's Montezuma, who loves war.

 

[Harv72b]

I really wish I could say that with certainty; maybe for lower levels, but I've seen too much well played moments to think the AI is overbearingly ********.

Not really overbearingly ********, but pathetically predictable with several easily exploited flaws. That should be true on every level--the AI doesn't change with the difficulty, its civs just get more starting bonuses.

 

[iconocast]

its monty hes a lunatic, that seem like RP to me

its like i can never get Napoleon to surrender hes just a stubborn little shiz.