Why did Chuck DOW his friend

[konata_LS]

Hello fellow Civ players,

Something completely beyond my understanding just happened in my current game, so I would like to hear the opinions from this community, in which many members have a thorough knowledge of the game mechanics.

As we all know, in unmodded BTS, AI Charlemagne doesn't plot at Pleased.
Plus, no AI in vanilla BTS can plot at Friendly - an AI may start plotting when it's only pleased and DoW at Friendly, but even Montezuma cannot plot wars towards an AI when Monty is already Friendly with.

But in a Fractal game of vanilla BTS (= no mods, no "random personality", no "Aggressive AIs"), AI Charlemagne plots war at Friendly and DoW his brother of the faith Zara.

More info and screenshots in the spoiler:

Spoiler Charlie plots war at Friendly :

Settings. As you see, quite standard settings for a normal BTS game:

A brief description about the diplo situation of the classical era: Charlie founded Buddhism and spread it to his neighbour Zara. They quickly became Friendly due to shared religions and similar peaceweight. Ragnar founded Hinduism and converted Shaka and me. Gilgamesh started an early war against Charlie then bribed Shaka + Ragnar to join the war. When I met Charlie, he was already at wars with these three warmongers. They all made peace after some turns.

When Charlie started plotting around 600AD, I thought his target must be Giggle, because his peace treaty with Giggle expired and he was Furious with the Sumerians. Plus, Giggle, Ragnar, and Shaka's empires lay between HRE and my land, so Charlie's target couldn't be me - his units were unable to reach me before astronomy.

Much to my surprise, Charlie DoW Zara in 660AD.

I checked the diplo situation in 680AD again: even during war-time, Charlie remains Pleased towards Zara. Before the war started, Charlie had been Friendly with Zara since long time.

My question is: how can Charlemagne plot war at Friendly? normally AI Charlie can't even plot at Pleased. Zara has no vassals. Was it a holy war forced by the AP? But the AP was Buddhism; both Zara and Charlie were full members. Are there some hidden game mechanics about AI plotting that I haven't known yet?

Attached the auto-saves of 600AD (the save when Charlie was plotting) and 680AD (the turns Charlie attacked Zara), for those who want more details. The saves are under vanilla BTS.

Thanks

Moderator Action: Started new thread for you as this is a bit more than qq/qa. cheers -lymond

 

[AcaMetis]

Checked the saves - Zara rolled +6 towards Charly for First Impressions, Charly rolled +4 towards Zara. Given that I don't even have the beginnings of an explanation for this. There's no whirlwind of bizarre coincidences I can think of that could have lead to Charly plotting on Zara, even a cosmic ray flipping the bit storing Charly's attitude during an interturn might not make sense depending on exactly how turns are processed.

 

[need my speed]

Maybe Charlemagne was plotting against someone else but then ended up in a war against Zara (e.g. someone bribed him, or a random event caused it)?
Maybe Charlemagne began plotting against Zara before the currently good relations?

 

[lymond]

The only thing I can think of is that Charlie may have plotted years before. Zara did not convert until 600BC and they are close, so maybe some border tension early on. I've seen AIs take ages to actually declare war before.

I do not believe this could possibly be AP related.

 

[Lennier]

AP can only declare a holy war against a civ that does not have the AP religion. If the AP religion is not Buddhism, it might be a holy war, but then other civs would declare at the same time.

 

[AcaMetis]

For the record the AP is Buddhist in that save. Zara build the it, and Charly is the current resident.

 

[sampsa]

I think lymond is correct - must've been plotting for ages.

 

[drewisfat]

Looks like demand refusal to me: Zara has OB with Gilgamesh, Charlie's WE.

 

[sampsa]

Looks like demand refusal to me: Zara has OB with Gilgamesh, Charlie's WE.

Not sure if joking or not. Is there even such a thing as AI-AI demands? AI-human demand to stop trading never leads to a war plot.

 

[drewisfat]

eppur si muove

It's certainly not a millennia long plot that OP is misrepresenting as a 3 turn plot. I basically never OB with WEs, or if I do I cancel in 10 turns, so idk those rules.

 

[sampsa]

It's certainly not a millennia long plot that OP is misrepresenting as a 3 turn plot

I don't understand. Why is it not the only thing that it can logically be?

 

[drewisfat]

When Charlie started plotting around 600AD

I don't want to call him a liar.

And does a long plot make any sense on Emperor against a smaller neighbor?

 

[AcaMetis]

Was something in place that prevented Konata from talking to Charly? Given

When I met Charlie, he was already at wars with these three warmongers. They all made peace after some turns.

When Charlie started plotting around 600AD

Maybe what happened is that Charly was already at war when he was first met, leading to the assumption he hadn't been plotting for X millennia and was out of war mode the moment that war ended, so when contact opened up again at 600AD it was assumed that Charly had started plotting that turn?

 

[sampsa]

I don't want to call him a liar.

And does a long plot make any sense on Emperor against a smaller neighbor?

I am not calling him a liar if I consider the possibility that he is mistaken, especially if that is the only thing the solution can possibly be.

Now what we do know is the rules of the game, so we do know that he can't start plotting at pleased/friendly and that he can't start plotting because of a demand to stop trading (if such a demand can even exist). Cross out the impossible things and only possible things remain.

 

[drewisfat]

And I was more open to being fuzzy on AI demand rules than plot at pleased rules, because it sure looks like they would have been pleased early. Only showing -1 culture tension in 600AD. Maybe that had blinked to -2 from a small border change?

 

[sampsa]

Only showing -1 culture tension in 600AD. Maybe that had blinked to -2 from a small border change?

I mean it makes sense, Zara is CRE and possibly at some point stole more of Charlie's tiles.

 

[konata_LS]

Maybe Charlemagne began plotting against Zara before the currently good relations?

The only thing I can think of is that Charlie may have plotted years before. Zara did not convert until 600BC and they are close, so maybe some border tension early on. I've seen AIs take ages to actually declare war before.

Ah, that's the most probable explanation of what happened between Charlie and Zara. It's possible that Charlie started plotting war against Zara before their relationship reached pleased; but that happened before I met Charlie, so it was impossible for me to know. Charlie didn't give up his war plan against Zara, despite becoming pleased with Zara through the years. I thought an AI would automatically stop plotting if he got attacked by someone else, but this event proved me wrong : the three-fronts war with Giggle + Shaka + Ragnar didn't cancel Charlie's plotting prior to the war.

So, when AI X is plotting against the target Y but gets attacked by Z, X often but not always drops his initial war plan against Y. There is a slight possibility that X keeps plotting on Y regardless of the war with Z . Glad that I learnt something new today

Thanks everyone for your attention and input

 

[konata_LS]

It's certainly not a millennia long plot that OP is misrepresenting as a 3 turn plot.

I am not calling him a liar if I consider the possibility that he is mistaken, especially if that is the only thing the solution can possibly be.

It's possible that I didn't understand correctly the information in the trade table . When I saw Charlie in WHEOOHRN mode, I just assumed he was in the war with the low peaceweight AIs. I didn't consider the possibility that Charlie kept plotting during the war. Admittedly I was not careful enough of Charlie's diplo, as I was more scared by Shaka .

Maybe what happened is that Charly was already at war when he was first met, leading to the assumption he hadn't been plotting for X millennia and was out of war mode the moment that war ended

Yes, Charlie was the last AI I met. Given that the map was set to "Fractal", before 1AD I instinctively thought it must be a continents-type map and I shared a landmass with WK, Shaka, Zara, and Ragnar. When I saw Shaka and Ragnar say "WHEOOHRN", I sent chariot and scout to locate their stacks because their target might be me. In Shaka's land I met Giggle who was WHEOOHRN on the same turn of contact. All these "plotting" looked indeed confusing until I spotted Charlie's units in Sumerian territory - so the map turned out to be a weird shaped pangaea, not continents . That was how I contacted Charlie, who was stuck in the war with Giggle, and Giggle bribed Shaka and Ragnar. I didn't realize that Charlie insisted on his initial war plan prior to getting attacked by Giggle.

Spoiler :

TBH I paid more attention to Shaka than to Charlie, as Shaka started plotting only 2 or 3 turns after he made peace with Charlie. I was afraid of a potential Zulu stack marching towards my borders, meanwhile Charlie couldn't even reach me through land. Shaka DoW WK in 540AD or 520AD. As a result, when I took a look on Charlie and saw him under WHEOOHRN, I naturally thought "ah, Charlie probably chose an Annoyed target after the first war, like Shaka did". During these turns I kept wondering whether I should bribe Shaka out of war to avoid WK's capitulation, until Charlie's shocking DoW of Zara brought my attention back to HRE.

Maybe I should bribe Shaka off the war if WK keeps losing cities to Shaka . A competent techer like WK capitulating to Shaka would lead to some problems.

 

[AcaMetis]

It's very rare to see, but AIs can continue plotting while drawn into another war, and even execute that plan before the other war is over. With players specifically it's even possible for an AI to start plotting while at war over a refused demand, and executing that DoW after or even still during the other war. I've seen Monty do the latter, and that would have cost me the game if I didn't build Archers after bribing Monty on someone else, because I knew the risks when I then refused his a demand from him.