What to do when the AI starts demanding?

[Melboz99]

Hey all,

Primarily because the game won't remember your last settings, I played a game on Noble last night.

I figured it would be OK because I creamed the AI on Chieftan.

Anyway, I had a huge tech lead. I had founded every religion that the game could offer, and I had more culture than all the other civ's combined. I had just upgraded all my pikemen to Riflemen and Machine Gunners.


There was only one thing that I lacked, military numbers.

Being the builder I am, I had spread out onto a nieghboring land mass. All those Cities had only 1 Machine Gunner, primarily because it was a lot of work to get them over there, and secondly because those cities didn't have much production.

My Core cities all had 2 Machine Gunners, but none had more than 2.



From about the Middle ages on up to the Industrial, the AI was making demands. They wanted this tech or that tech, or some crazy amount of gold. I always said "no" because I thought that my Score would be enough to prevent them from picking a fight. My score was almost 2x as much as any other Civ.


Then one day out of the blue the Mongolians killed a worker, and then declared War. (The worker was in his territory). It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that I saw the French kill one of his Elephants. Right after that Louis declared War on me as well.


So, I had two Civs attacking my cities that I had just started in a somewhat distant landmass. One was ranked #7/8 in score, and one was ranked #3/8.

Louis attaked with Knights, and the Mongolians attacked with Elephants.

After they razed two of my cities I gave up, what was the point?






My question is this, how do I keep them from attacking on higher difficulty levels?


Do I need more military numbers? Should I give in to thier demands?

What could I have done to keep them from making demands in the first place?


And, is it just me, or is the AI just extra greedy in CIV?

One last thing that may have been the spark that started the War. One of my cities had Uranium. It was the first city that they both attacked. Thing is, they shouldn't have known what Uranium was at that point. :?

Thanks,
Dan O.

[vmxa1]

It is never a good plan to be too weak. I also thing Machine Gunners are a waste.

Anyway the AI will make a request for tings if you are on good terms and if you turn them down, you take a hit on your relations.

If you are not on good relation then it is a demand, it really is the same from you perspective. You are give it or not and stay on good terms or not.

I don't know if it is greedy, but I am not fond of the the one way street aspect and will probably eventually take the up yours approach.

In later stages you may want to think about having a missionary or two roving around to see what troops are about (as long as you have Open Borders).

Then if they have enough to concern you, make some of your own. Later a spy could be used. I like a missionary as it is nice to have one to drop on a newly founded or capture town.

[Jcg316]

Machine gunners have 10 power rating while infantry has 16 power rating. Infantry certanly goes farther to preventing a war than gunners. Plus you can draft them from cities with Nationalism and the sufficient tech (assembly line I think).

[QuestGAV]

Machine gunners are 18 strength and infantry are 20, aren't they? Or is there a separate number the AI uses when considering power?

Anyway, like vmxa said, never plan to be weak. It sounds like you had excess capacity to produce a larger military. Having that deterrent force may seem annoying as a builder, but the alternative is having to switch to full military production to fight off attacks after the fact, which is much more difficult. If you can't protect it you shouldn't build it.

[Simplicity]

The AI does the same thing people do. Looks across the border and sees how many people are sitting in that tempting city across the border.

If it looks and sees only one or two archers. Well, heck. That city could be his for no money down!
You need to present a reasonable front to prevent the AI from taking advantage of you (either by raiding or demanding things from you and *then* raiding).

[quinalla]

Giving in to their demands will typically hold them back from war longer, but if your cities are that weak, they will probably attack eventually, especially if they are feeling crowded. Two of the best defenders is the bare minimum for me to feel relatively safe from attack, but more than that is a good idea if someone really doesn't like you and especially in border towns.

Your score will help your clout, but it isn't enough if your cities are poorly defended.

[inca911]

You built beautiful cities, and made them available for someone else to conquer.

If you are weak and the AI makes demands, you say "yes". If you don't want to give in to demands, you must be prepared to eventually fight. You can get away with saying no for a while, but eventually your refusal to help gets annoying to them. Better is to make gifts to them on your own terms, and especially to ally closely with a civ between you and another civ. That way your ally can fight for you. As the most powerful civ on the planet, some amount of third-world aid is expected and necessary.

[Dis]

so far, I've been giving them what they want if my relations aren't so good. If they are pleased or friendly, I don't give them what they want. it's worked out well so far. I've only been attacked by the Mongols so far.

[daktaklakpak]

If you say "No" to AI, you must have the might to back it up. The AI will challenge you if your culture boarder is eating their lands. I had French (rank #7) attacking me (rank #1) with +4 relationship because of that in a noble game. Although my troop cout was at #7, I made it up with huge tech leads. The French quickly tasted the bitterness of war when facing 5 of my caverlies (my whole mobile army) trashing their lands tiles. He asked for it. I don't want their cities, I just want their people to suffer.

[Cabbagemeister]

Offer the AI excess trade goods. In my last game, Tokugawa loathed me the whole game, but early on I sent him some silk for free (I had like 5 extra) and he never tried anything. He disliked me, but I think he disliked losing the silk even more. This was even though I was keeping lonely warriors in all my core cities up through the industrial age (when I decided to upgrade and come after HIM!).

I always use this tactic. When the AI demands something like tech (which would help him too much) or gold (which would hurt me too much), I decline and offer resources, which help him a little, and provide incentive not to attck.

[Simplicity]

The biggest thing you can do to make the AI your friend is be the same religion. Either convert to their religion or send missionaries to every city.

[lokiju]

But there should be an option to negotiate instead of a flat out "no". Instead of the only option being (besides saying yes) "I DON'T want to give you a free 2000 beaker tech", it should let you substitute something else to keep up relations. That would be nice. I'm not going to hand you Math, but here's Horseback Riding. At least to show good faith and take less of a diplomatic hit.

[mmm_ok]

Something I learned from my first game on Noble level is that once you fall behind, it's hard to catch up. I think the AI sometimes makes a decision to attack someone and goes into military overdrive.

I was playing against the Spanish. We had Open Borders. She had a lovely little look around with a few troops, saw my weakness.

Soon after that she cancelled the Open Borders. I thought: oh oh, that's gotta mean trouble and tried to convery my production to military units. But I could never catch up because my cities needed things like Aquaducts, Harbours etc. She attacked about 20 turns later and I was toast.

[Footie Mad]

I see some people saying that they want 2 quality defenders in each city and things like that. But why waste all that production when you can concentrate your forces along the border and have a strong defense ready and gathered?

Leave some token units in the inner cities so they are not unguarded and you can protect from pillaging. If the enemy is trying to get at one of those cities you will always have time to respond since you can use you own road network while he can't.

[vinhmac]

I'd be interested if anyone has done it the opposite way - ie warmonger demanding from tech-advanced AI - and whether they have pulled it off in the latter stages?