Why are the AI Nations all ganging up on me?

[alcibaides]

I am new to Civ3, but I have played Civ2 a lot.

I have just recently entered the Industrial Age in my Civ3 game. I am playing on the "Regent" difficulty level and I am by no means a super power. There are at least 3 other nations that are stronger and more advanced than me. The French are really the only super power, they are already in the modern age and have considerably more cities than anyone else.

For some reason everyone wants to gang up on me. The French and some other nations keep declaring war on me, then they start entering into trade embargos with other nations against me, and then a few turns later they get those nations to declare war on me too.

I do not understand what I have done for all these nations to fear me and gang up on me, if anything it is the French they should be picking on seeing as they are the super power, not me.

Earlier on in the game I did declare war on some AI nations. But these nations are not the beligerents against me, in fact these nations are really weak now. The nations that are now declaring war on me I never acted aggressive against once.

In Civ2 there is a "reputation" system where if you declare war on someone then your reputation becomes tarnished and other nations are less likely to trust you. Does this exist in Civ3? I do not see it anywhere in the interface so I assumed it does not.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Yes, reputation is a big factor in Civ3. Your Diplomacy screen (F4 or F6?) upper right AI Avatar will cycle thru each civ and its attitude to you. Careful there is another reputation value for your trading and the only indicator is what the do with offers.

 

[vmxa]

Your rep is not the issue, it is attitude that is uses in relations. Rep is used for deals. The real problem is that they see you as weak and probably there is little land left to be gotten. At that point the AI is likely to start going to war.

Once one selected you, they will look to get alliance and embargoes, if they can afford it. Check the mil advisor an see, if he says you are weak compared to X.

 

[Spoonwood]

I don't think the problem lies in the AIs seeing you as a good target. Wait... let's backup...

For the first AI to declare on you, they probably do so, because they view you as weak. Or if some other AI declares on you "out of the blue", that probably happened because they viewed you as weak. However, say you're at war with France and peace with Germany. Then France signs a military alliance with Germany against you. This happens, not so much, I think, because Germany views you as weak, but rather because France can bribe them into such an alliance.

 

[vmxa]

I would suspect that being strong to Germany would make it quite hard and expensive for France to get an alliances. Not impossible, but would cost more. Your relative strength is going to be a consideration in getting alliances.

If you are already on poor terms with Germany, that will mitigate the cost. So your strength and their attitude towards you are factors. Again, it is often moot, once you get to late game as they will make desparate choices.

You see an OCC DOW you and you have nearly all the land on a conquest game. The branches for action eventually lead to it that dead end. I have seen it many times in my early years of C3C.

 

[rollo1066]

Most of the things which will cause AI nations to dislike/not trust you are about the same as in the real world.

If you attack lots of them you will have lots of enemys (like WWII Germany). If you agree to a right of passage treaty, station troops in another nation's territory and then attack not only your target but others won't trust you. If you break trade agreements this will hurt your reputation.

If your country has too much of a score or tech lead others won't like this (the USA has this problem today).

 

[Ataxerxes]

Another factor that influences relations is the favored, hated government types. I don't let diplomacy determine my government type but the +5/-5 can make a big difference. Cleopatra is always attacking me because I go for Republic.

 

[MysteryX]

The fact that nations are ganging up on you doesn't necessarily means that all of those nations dislike you. It means that one nation dislikes you, and had sufficient resources to bribe the other nations into ganging up on you.

Whenever another nation picks a fight with me, I always bribe as many other nations as I can to align with me before my enemy can.

When AI nations fight with each other- if they are actually able to fight some battles with each other- it can lead to them being furious with each other for the rest of the game. That means in the future, they will be more likely to pick fights with each other than with you. So it's useful to get them fighting with each other, even if you are not in a position to make a counter-attack against your new enemy and you are just playing defense until the war passes.

(Keep in mind though you can't sue for peace early once you enter into a military alliance- you have to wait for all your allies to make peace first, or stick it out for 20 turns. Otherwise, you take a reputation hit.)

 

[bigFRANK]

Key advice would be once someone declares war on you try to get all other nations on your side either in a military alliance against/an embargo against/or a trade deal with its unlikely they will want to fight you/sign an embargo against you if they have a 20 turn deal for example where your supplying them silk or iron in exchange for 3GPT.

 

[Agent327]

You´re playing Civ III, that´s why. (Civ III differs significantly from Civ 2 and 4 in this respect.)

 

[Optional]

I've usually seen an overall increase in warfare when the Industrial Age starts in Civ III.
Some of the reasons for it are simple:

* In the most productive cities almost all improvements are already built; cathedrals, libraries, universities, so what's left is building units. An AI with more units is more likely to declare.
* The time of peaceful expansion if probably well over; less empty map left.
* All civs now know each other since the whole world is known, so there are more parties to go to war with.
* The AI loves to research Nationalism, which gives Riflemen and Mutual Protection Pacts. With Mutual Protection Pacts civs are dragging each other into war (don't sign MPP's yourself by the way, unless you really know what you're doing).

It's best to start the Industrial Age prepared, an upturn in aggression is almost unavoidable.

 

[darski]

I always noticed that the AI was most likely to start a war just after I got Steam Power. I go for that one first in the IA. Your points could explain why I kept seeing that happen.

 

[rollo1066]

The fact that nations are ganging up on you doesn't necessarily means that all of those nations dislike you. It means that one nation dislikes you, and had sufficient resources to bribe the other nations into ganging up on you.

Whenever another nation picks a fight with me, I always bribe as many other nations as I can to align with me before my enemy can.

When AI nations fight with each other- if they are actually able to fight some battles with each other- it can lead to them being furious with each other for the rest of the game. That means in the future, they will be more likely to pick fights with each other than with you. So it's useful to get them fighting with each other, even if you are not in a position to make a counter-attack against your new enemy and you are just playing defense until the war passes.

(Keep in mind though you can't sue for peace early once you enter into a military alliance- you have to wait for all your allies to make peace first, or stick it out for 20 turns. Otherwise, you take a reputation hit.)

I guess I forgot about the coalition of the willing.

 

[Richie0]

whilst you were warring with these other civs, the civs not at war having been building up their economies, empires and infrastructure

at that point in the game, they have built everything avaliable and all the land has been snatched

so they have units pilling up doing nothing, on top of being stronger and more advanced than you, which leads to delcarations of war

simples