AI too peaceful?

[Senethro]

Evidently, some people aren't playing with Japan, the Aztecs or the Mongols.

[Handel]

And even the AI starts a war, it isn't serious. It send 2-3 units which are inferior to mine and starts to pilage the improvements. Of course next turn it's units are RIP and the only profit of the warmonger was 10-20 golds and that was all. I remember in Civ III the enemy was pouring non-stop his best units again my cities and rarely someone tried to pilage something.

[dearmad]

Wow.
Noble level I've seen the Ai wipe out two other AI's and then turn on me: the mongols and greeks wer aggressive.

I've also seen some was stagnate for years...

So many different experiences.

[TorreyH]

I like it so far. The relentless aggression of the Civ3 AI got very tiresome - its much more fun to have different possibilities. What I wanted from this game more than anything else was for the civ leaders to have meaningful personalities (as in Alpha Centauri), and I'm thrilled that this seems to be the case. It *ought* to be different dealing with Gandhi than Genghis Khan!

[Konquest02]

I've seen plenty of AI-AI war and AI-player wars in my 2 games so far. I was once attacked by 2 AIs at the same time.

However, I have yet to see an AI wipe out an entire continent like it would happen sometimes in Civ3.

[TheWalrus]

I think it depends on terrain as well. The AI won't attack you over mountains for example or if you have well defended forts on the borders in front of your cities.

From what I have seen it also depends on what sort of map you are playing on. I played my first game on a Highland map, which means you get very few ideal city spots.

I got the best capital starting location I've ever had in any Civ game and my second city was also in a good location upriver of my capital.

However even at 1AD I had yet to share a common border with any AI and all the nearest nations were at least 10 to 20 turns away overland.

[muxec]

Noble difficulty. I had year 1951 with only 5 cities and no aluminium to build SS. I attacked nearby Japanese who held most of my continent. I had tanks (also I had tech for modern armor but no resources for it). My capital produced tank in 3 (later in 2 than back in 3) turns, other cities were slower and produced garrison infantries. I started the attack with I machinegun, 2 tanks, 2 artillery, 1 infantry and I destroyer (and minor garrisons in my cities, just 1 or 2 Inf.). I lost tank and artillery and captured first city, but as I said the first post resistance time is very long. than several more units joined the attack and I captured 2 more cities (most defended of them had machinegun and rifles). Than I moved to better defended enemy capital. There were several rifles in it and several longbows as well. I attacked with 3 tanks, 2 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 marines. First I bombed down enemy defences, than I attacked the town with tank and 2 artilleries, all with at least one level of colaterial. I lost tank and 1 artillery, second escaped. Than I attacked it with more experienced tanks as all units inside were damaged, than marines and infs. At the next turn after killing many units I entred the capital. Taking half of the wekest opponent (had aproximately my score in list) took almost 50 turns. I gained several sources of health and luxury resources to trade with my friend but no aluminium. By the time my cities were wery unhappy with the war. Captured cities had almost no buildings.

Conclution 1: little motivation to fight except for fight for resources. At least duration of resistance must be reduced.
Conclusion 2: Tank with 2*city raider and 2*colaterial is cool against capitals.

[nojnosredna]

I'm more of a lurker than a poster usually, but one theme that I've seen through most of these threads is people playing on Noble or Prince levels. Now I realize that a lot of people are just testing the waters and seeing what the AI does on an even field, but as a point of pride I have refused to play below Monarch level (not that I say play, not win).

So far I've learned a lot about the game while never getting very far into the mideval era. One of the things that I have learned is that at least on Monarch, if you value your skinny white, brown or whatever color butt is - you better build armies. If the AI smells easy pickings it's time to go back to 4000BC. AI will not just randomly declare war on you, and seems to do so only if it has a chance (yes, this is good) but it does attack if the opportunity is there. I would really like to hear responses from people who have played on the mid to higher levels so far on this. I've only logged about 25-30 hours so far and a lot of that fiddling around with different starting ideas. I could be off base here, but that's just what I see.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Hmmm. I could swear I posted in this before; must be a duplicate thread.

Short version: The AI isn't nearly as stupid about declaring war. (Note, that doesn't mean smart.)

It won't declare a war against someone who is clearly militarily superior.

It generally won't declare a war "just because."

It generally is not easy to "buy off" into joining a war.

It WILL start a war if it thinks you are a pathetic military pushover.

It WILL start a war if you are threatening to win the game.

It WILL start a war if your relations are very poor - heretic religion, trading with an enemy, refusing to assist them, etc.... or at least, it will attack a lot sooner than it would otherwise (militarily speaking, it will attack a lot closer to parity.)

It's not that the game is more peaceful, just more wise.

Show weakness or insult, and you'll find it plenty aggressive. C3C veterans will tend to build bigger armies out of remembrance of that game, though... and that means less hostile interest.

[dconner]

Are they a lot less likely to go to war for acquisition of a crucial resource than in Civ3? I've seen a lot of powers that don't have any, say, Oil, or Coal, or Iron... and seem OK with that. Whereas in Civ3, it seems like that circumstance would usually lead them into trying an attack on a small island that has the resource, or something along those lines.

[Andrew1999]

There's a field for AI aggressiveness in the Handicaps XML file (handicap in this case meaning difficulty level.) Try changing it from 100% to 1000% and see if anyone survives long enough to invent Agriculture.

[Dis]

I only finished my first game on chieftan. So perhaps it is more aggressive on higher levels. But I did not engage in one war the entire game, and never came close. I felt civ3's ai could be too agreesive at times (though conquests fixed this with the ai aggressiveness slider), but this is too far the other way. It feels more like a Sim game with nothing to oppose me.

edit: most of my civs were peaceful as well. Spanish, Russians, English, French, Incas, and Egytians.

[wiley15]

In the 4 games I've played, I've also noticed that the AI is much too peaceful (and I'm not exactly a warhawk). Even when one of the computer civilization is clearly winning (I've lost the space race 3 times and won it once), none of the other computer civilizations will do anything about it (seemingly a lack to will to win) unlike civ3 where starting the space race was an open invitation to be attacked.

[Martinus]

I have played 5 games on Noble in the last 3 days, all of them as heavy-builder Frederick of Germsn. In only one of them the AI staged a massive invasion of my country wiping me out... only that in 2 other of them the AI won, once by a space-ship victory and once by a UN victory.

As someone said, war is bad for business and the AI is not stupid. It plays the way we play - and beats us at our own game.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by dconner
Are they a lot less likely to go to war for acquisition of a crucial resource than in Civ3? I've seen a lot of powers that don't have any, say, Oil, or Coal, or Iron... and seem OK with that. Whereas in Civ3, it seems like that circumstance would usually lead them into trying an attack on a small island that has the resource, or something along those lines.

Well, there are many work-arounds in Civ4 allowing you to prosper without one resource or another. For example, you may have an army of horse archers and longbowmen without iron and still wipe out an army of pikemen and knights.

The AI also trades a lot.