Why am I being attacked?

[tjarmusz]

O.k. I just started reading the info on these forums and have found it to be very helpful. This is my first post and I need sopme guidence. I'm currently playing as Catherine on Prince difficulty. It is a small pangea map with 7 people normal settings. I have followed the axemen rush/pop chop approach.
It worked well taking two of bizmarks cities. Then I joined alex to help war with eygpt, we both made peace with her, then he later killed her off. My question is this, Alex and I are neighbors. We have the same religion, he likes the civics I have "wisely" chosen, he is glad that I have supplied him with resources, he appreciates the fact that we shared a mutual struggle, our trade relations have been fair, and I gave him an early tribute. I've got like + 12 to him liking me and -1 because of our close yet open borders.
We're best pals and yet out of nowhere "we're so sick of your bullfeathers time to die". Is there anything I can do to prevent this other than more early waring? The early waring has caused me to be a little behind in tech, but not too bad, and my military, while not as great as his is by no means small or weak. Also soon after he attacks the arabs jump in, again for no good reason. I'm not a warmonger and don't want to go hardcore war for too many turns and would rather build than have 50 units per city. Any thoughts, suggestions?

 

[tjarmusz]

Or perhaps the questions should be,what should I do to prevent, or deal with it?

 

[mook85]

Alex backstabs, it's his thing.

 

[carl corey]

Sounds exactly like a situation in which you should NOT be attacked, as you have excellently reasoned yourself. One problem though: there are some civs that will attack at the first perceived sign of weakness, no matter how pleased they are with you. Montezuma is the best known for this, and human players usually either kill him first if nearby, or use him as their pet warrior, paying him to attack others. Alex is another psycho if I remember correctly. Huayna Capac, Isabella if you don't share her religion come to mind too. Tokugawa at least has the decency to get angry with you first.

Saladin has probably been payed to come into the war, or maybe he just saw the possibility of grabbing some land, not sure about this one.

"Perceived" weakness may mean many things: your power rating is lower than the AIs or your border cities aren't defended enough. The last one is especially common if you are already involved in a war in the opposite side of your empire. Advice: go after the crazy backstabbing AI first, make friends with the likes of Gandhi, Hatshepsut, Washington, and your life will be easier.

 

[Naismith]

In addition to others named, Caesar consistently backstabs me. Alex may be the worst. In the rare case or two where I have not wiped him off the map immediately, I ALWAYS station lots of units in my cities bordering him, even if we are Friendly.

 

[carl corey]

Thanks for naming Caesar in there. I've only had to face him once on my own continent and sure enough he attacked while I was at war with Monty. In that game I drew a wild lot of AIs: Monty, Caesar and Napoleon all wanted a piece of my continent. It wasn't big enough for the four of us though. (on the other hand, big enough for me to win domination )

 

[Firebot]

Alex's goal is world domination. He's the leader which I trust the least since now matter how friendly you are with him, he's really only looking for the best opportunity to attack you. You can usually tell when he's preparing for a war against you, when all the 'declare war' choices are red, and says "we have enough on our hands right now", yet is not at war with anybody. Expect a few stacks coming your way very very soon.

I never offer open borders to Alex unless necessary for other reasons.

 

[tjarmusz]

Thanks for the speedy replies guys. By percived weakness do you mean sheer units. I.E. if i have 30 warriors and he has 20 swordmen, will I appear stronger then him or does he account for type of unit and upgrades in addition to numbers? Also you guys didn't mention Catherine, she does this a lot too, but thats why I am player her lol.

 

[tjarmusz]

My so-called friends don't help me no matter how good relations are or how much I try to bribe them. Silly AI always being selfish...The reason I didn't kill alex first was because I had 8 axemen and he had like 6 archers and a phalanx and was a little ways from me. Germany was right next to me already had 3 cities and had a settler and axeman ready to make a fourth. I knew this would make him strong in future years so I killed the settler and captured both cities leaving hjim with his capital and essentialy crippling him. So given the situation what should I have done differently? If I go for alex germany gets too strong, if I go for germany, alex gets me later...

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Welcome to the forum.

In general, you can usually bribe Montezuma to declare war on someone else. Not sure about others.

Going for the closest one was probably best in that case. The difference is knowing that you are going to war with Alex eventually, so doing the backstabbing yourself at your first tech advantage after Bismarck is gone would have made the war easier to handle, probably. You need to have tons of units if they attack first, though.

The Power chart and the units that the AI can see at the border have the biggest effect on when the AI will attack you. If they see no units or see your border cities weakly defended compared to the stack that they have ready, they will attack a stronger opponent in the hopes of scoring some easy wins. If you dominate in power, they won't attack as often, but they will attack if the cost/benefit calculations tell them to.

If you are behind in the power chart, you might soon have a bunch of AI players gang up on you at once if one of them decides you deserve to go. They can bribe eachother the same way you bribe Monty and your weakness just gets worse once you start losing units in battle (dropping your power score pretty quickly), bringing in your other neighbors that were being happy and peaceful just a couple turns before.

 

[Caradoc]

One pattern I have noticed is that the unexpected backstabbing often seems to coincide with the AI's development of its UU. It's as if it is set to assume it has just gained the upper hand and is looking around for a target without taking the usual factors into consideration.

 

[tjarmusz]

Thanks for the suggestions guys...I'll see what I can do. My border cities are the best defended, kind of like a doughnut with all the sticky goodness on the outside and nothing in the middle. I guess maybe I'll reload, take germany and then try and take alex asap.

 

[Betafor]

Perceived weakness is based on 2 things - how many units the AI sees, how modern the units are, and your power rating (which is based on both)

For instance, if you cram your border cities with modern units, and you dont have open borders, he will think your cities are not worth it.

It's also based on your power. you can check your respective power on the power graph by looking at the info screen. Power is based (mainly) on how many "soldiers" you have (differant from units). The "soldiers" number is the sme number u get at the end of the game with the "manufactured goods". As you may or may not know, it's based on, but not entirely the same as, your units(soldiers)/production(goods).

You can increase your soldiers variable by adding new units, and upgrading old ones. For instance, if you build a warrior you get, say 100 soldiers. But more modern units are worth more soldiers - so if you build a marine, you could get 14000 soldiers, ect.

 

[Wodan]

Keep in mind sometimes you want the AI to declare war on you. To avoid suffering "you attacked my friend" penalties and accelerated war weariness from your peeps.

So, put just 1 weak unit (like a Warrior) in your border cities (as long as they're more than 2 from the border so a horse unit can't attack and take it in one turn. etc.

Wodan

 

[Zanmato]

On Prince-Pangea games, back-stabbing happens alot at the first sign of any weakness because it is easier for the AI to wage war since it doesn't need a navy to transport troops anywhere. I have also noticed that when the AI gets it's UU it will have a pop at you. I've had France and Rome declare war on me when they got their UU. Now, I'm just waiting for Russia to do the same.

As suggested however, the power graph and the amount of troops you have is a big consideration for the AIs. Try to keep somewhere near them in this respect.