Why the AI declares war on you - a theory

[amicus curiae]

Originally posted by Bhruic
Er, could you explain the relevance of that point? We aren't talking about getting tech from the AI, we are talking about diplomatic features the AI (apparently) can't use.

Two posts earlier someone was in fact talking about this point.

[Datajack Franit]

Still, religion makes the difference: -4 to +6

[Bhruic]

Originally posted by amicus curiae
Two posts earlier someone was in fact talking about this point.

My mistake - the post came right after mine, so I thought it was in response to my post.

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Still, religion makes the difference: -4 to +6

Not necessarily. I've had -5 from "Refused to give us Tribute", and -4 from "Refused to help us". Where at that point, I was only getting -1 from having a different religion. Certainly the religion is a big factor, but my point is - the AI will get the same religion penalties. But if both I and an AI player have -3 from having different religions (compared to a different AI), but I have an extra -2 from "Refused to help us", which one is the AI going to dislike more?

Bh

[Adagio]

Why is it that the AI doesn't give you +# if you give some luxuries/resources for free? I have done this many times where I (without them asking for it) decided to give one Civ (the one who's the most friendly) a lot of luxuries without asking anything in return, but even after 20+ turns this has no effect at all

They only way to get + for giving them stuff for free is when they ask for it, but that only makes me more angry

[Aileron]

Originally posted by Bhruic
Not necessarily. I've had -5 from "Refused to give us Tribute", and -4 from "Refused to help us". Where at that point, I was only getting -1 from having a different religion. Certainly the religion is a big factor, but my point is - the AI will get the same religion penalties. But if both I and an AI player have -3 from having different religions (compared to a different AI), but I have an extra -2 from "Refused to help us", which one is the AI going to dislike more?
Bh

I've seen that religion bonus/penalties increase over time. Also, if an AI keeps asking for stuff and you keep refusing, they will almost certainly go to war with you at some point. That's happened in almost every game I've played.

Maybe the AIs make demands to other AIs, but they always agree? ... sorry, that makes no sense, then you would see bonuses between the AIs.

[greggbert]

Wow, my experience is that in the last 2 games I've played the AI seems to be afraid to attack me even though they've been "cautious" or "annoyed" the whole game, and I am in the lead. They aren't attaking each other, either!

In fact the only war in the whole game is the one I started where I was hindu and persians where hindu.

Everyone else is a different religion and I only share borders with persians, but it's weird some games are extremely peaceful and some are hell on wheels!

It's the Cannons age and we just found a "new world" so tensions are building up a little, but if I stop expanding now, it looks like I might be able to finish the game in first place with no wars declared on me.



(playing on the default difficulty level, whichever that is.)

[LzPrst]

China attacked me without reason twice in the same game. maybe the indians paid them to do it, but regardless, I smashed them and put them on the bottom of the score list. irony is, we had great relations both times.

also, he has -7 relations cause I razed 3 of his cities. but he razed one of mine first... I guess terrorism is only what "they" do against "us" in civ too...

[Datajack Franit]

If you refuse to stop trading with some other civ, your - score will increase every time. I guess you have to choose who will be your friend and who will be your enemy from the beginning of the middle ages

[playshogi]

I think whether the AI attacks you has something to do with their "personality". For example, the Aztec leader will eventually attack you, but Egypt has never attacked me as long as our relations are positive. I noticed in my last game, every AI hated the Aztecs who were eventually wiped out by Cyrus. Twice its happened to me that I agreed to open borders and the very next turn they declared war. What's up with that?

[Datajack Franit]

The Aztecs are very likely to go to war. It depends on Leader personality. In my last game, Peter of the Russians attacked me and REFUSED to stop the war, even while losing city after city. I guess you can make a list of the "crazy" leaders that will eventually cause you problems soon or very soon

Peter
Catherine (creative crazyness)
the Aztec leader (damn what was his name again?)
Saladin (steamed down as it's politically correct but he would be eventually top of the list in the real world)
Mao
Tokugawa

[Blake]

Ooooh Mao, that punk. I thought he was a good friend last game, I'd purged my continent of Japanase and Aztecs and converted Mao to my religion (which appears to be one that encourages genocide ).

Then after Mao got Liberalism (probably a gift from me) he immediately switched to Free Religion, I think the loss of the religion bonus was part of what happened next...

Anyway having ran out of people to kill on my continent I sailed over to the Indians, and as Dehli fell, Mao backstabbed me and immediately took two cities! (you can guess that since I thought he was a friend, our border was barely defended).

His attack was one of the weakest I've ever seen but his tech level was comparable to mine (minus flight). In any case I razed a third of his cities as punishment and that also created a nice wide buffer zone. The funny thing was during the war with Mao, silly little Tokugawa "dogpiled" Mao. Yet I was the one who razed half a dozen Japanese cities and forced them to live in an Artic Wasteland . (Altough Mao also razed some Japanese cities, in fact one reason I liked Mao was he razed the cities rather than keeping them and messing with my territory).

Certainly the AI has a snivelling little rat factor that encourages them to dogpile onto the weaker civ in a war.