the AI's hate me

[Willem]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Say, I allways just look at the troop number in the demographics. Does that take into account the quality of my troops? 10 tanks equals ten knights?

It also considers things like Walls and Castles. It's a better over all indicator than the demographics one, and I know the AI uses it as well. I've had a few running battles with civs that stopped as soon as my power graph was higher than theirs.

[gdijedi7]

Peace through superior firepower.

If you "are your own powerblock," you don't have much to worry about. My problem is that there are always three "powerblocks."

There is Me. I'm the strongest!!!

There is the One Weak Civ powerblock. (They're the weakest)

And then there is the Everybody Else powerblock.


I'd love to see alliances set up and get a situation like World War 2, but it never happens on MY computer. Must be that dern AI reading these here posts.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Solver
You can't really keep everybody happy. It usually takes very special circumstances to be able to do it. One of the most important decisions in a Civ4 game is picking your friends, choosing which bloc to join.

Points to consider:

- never, ever join with Isabella or Monty
- Alex, Caesar and the Khans can be reliable allies if you manage to keep them happy
- Pick peaceful ones over warmongers if at all possible
- Most importantly, when the opportunity arises drive others off your continent

[Ijuin]

As a minimum, you should keep two of the best defenders you can build in each city as a garrison, plus you should have enough forces remaining to fight a light war (about 8 bombardment units, as many city assault units, and enough ships to carry them in one trip).

[D4everman]

Yeah, I've kind of decided that I can't be a peaceful builder until I stomp a few of those nutcases. But I've learned enough to declare the Incas and the Chinese my mortal enemies whenever i see them in a game. Backstabbing rat bastards.

ADDENDUM: I got no sleep last night because i finally got the upper hand. I finally managed to build my military to a level where no one would mess with me, but my tech lagged. So I carefully built worked on improving my cities, made careful trades and science improvements while maintaining a decent fighting force. The incas were leading in tech (How does that gilligan looking leaderhead do it? Geez, were the incas timelords or something? He's always ahead in tech) and wouldn't trade with me. I started to narrow the gap when the incas decided to plop a city on my continent next to some oil. That was the only war I was in during this game when I took that from them. None of their invasions even made it to the mainland before they asked for peace.

By the time the modern age rolled around I had amassed a lot of gold so I upgraded all ofmy outdated units. I could have swept through my continent and took out the greeks, the germans and the malinese at that point, but it was after 1 am (just one more turn....just one more turn....) so I built the spaceship and went to bed.

Bottom line, you guys were right about the military thing. I'll have to make sure i pay more attention to it next game. Unfortunately I have to work today and i'm dead tired. I might have to call Civanon because man, I'm beat.

[Willem]

Originally posted by D4everman
(How does that gilligan looking leaderhead do it? Geez, were the incas timelords or something? He's always ahead in tech) and wouldn't trade with me.

He's a Financial civ, this gives him a good edge when it comes to tech.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Say, I allways just look at the troop number in the demographics. Does that take into account the quality of my troops? 10 tanks equals ten knights?

I think it measures troop strength (quality) in addition to numbers. I usually look at the graph, though one game, when I reached parity with an AI civ deep in the modern era, both the demographic screen and the power graph were exactly even. That's when I went to war. Presumably they are just two ways of representing the same info, but the power graph gives so much more info, e.g., historical power graph for all civs, making it easy to spot trends. Also, you can see sudden jumps in power. These are apparently massive upgrades, such as upgrading infantry to mech infantry. Probably they cashed in on a great merchant or had a big cash pile accumulated. So, this tells me indirectly that it isn't the numbers alone, but the combined strength, since the AI can't instantly build that many units.

Try it yourself, next time you get a great merchant, or a lot of accumulated cash, upgrade your army and see the effect on the power graph.

[Yosho]

Remember, the AI's go to war with you if your power drops too low. That means that if you have 10 elephents, 6 macemen, a few catapults and some archers, and then you lose 5 elephents and 3 macemen taking one of Isabella's cities, suddenly your power drops, and then someone else will probably attack you.

Also, the AI's seem to watch not just how much power you have, but WHERE you have it. If you have to move everything over to you eastern front, expect to get stabbed in the back in the west by someone else.

That's why wars are so frustrating in Civ IV...it's not enough to win, you have to win without losing too much millitary.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by D4everman
I could have swept through my continent and took out the greeks, the germans and the malinese at that point, but it was after 1 am (just one more turn....just one more turn....) so I built the spaceship and went to bed.

Hippy peacenik.

Sleep? We don' need no steenken' sleep!!

Kill'em all.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by Solver
If your army is at least somewhat reasonable compared to the other AIs, they won't be declaring war that much.

I wish it were that simple. I just had a game like the one the OP described and it was impossibly frustrating. First I had to contend with wave after wave after wave of barbarian axemen, but I managed to build up a decent military and still grow slowly (well ahead on culture). Then Louis XIV declared war on me. Then Alexander joined in for no good reason. While I was beating off those two Mansa Musa joined in. I was in trouble against him when Bismark started demanding tribute and being generally disagreeable. Together the lot of them just ground me down.

I used to understand when in Civ 3 the Aztecs would go stupid declaring war on everybody in the early game and then the AIs eventually got sick of them enough to gang up and take them out, but I'd been as nice to my neighbours as I could and my military wasn't exactly weak. I'd had enough gold to upgrade to macemen and longbowmen, and frankly Louis' attack was doomed right from the start and any human would have known it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by potoroo
I wish it were that simple. I just had a game like the one the OP described and it was impossibly frustrating. First I had to contend with wave after wave after wave of barbarian axemen, but I managed to build up a decent military and still grow slowly (well ahead on culture). Then Louis XIV declared war on me. Then Alexander joined in for no good reason. While I was beating off those two Mansa Musa joined in. I was in trouble against him when Bismark started demanding tribute and being generally disagreeable. Together the lot of them just ground me down.

It sounds like your military wasn't strong enough. You have to keep checking the stats to make sure you aren't anywhere near the bottom.

Don't forget a computer player can bribe another one to attack you as well.

[unamablebuiler]

Even if you are near the bottom you can still make peace just don't expect to keep it

Generally i have found that ther are only 2 power blocs Me and Them, particularly if i have killed of someone and an digesting someone else and for some reason they like the under dog who is getting pasted. what gives? This seems more prevalent in continents mapsthan most others one civ dominates one continent and the rest attack him.

just show you the power graph of a game in progress i am at the bottom but the incans still made peace after a 250 year war it started with muskest and ended with infantry and destroyers just finished now i am contemplating the persians i am friendly with the romans and the persains are going down slowly here is the power graph.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by unamablebuiler
Even if you are near the bottom you can still make peace just don't expect to keep it

If you fight a long war without getting crushed, and especally if you start to wear out the AI player and hurt him economically, he'll be glad to make peace; power is less important at that point. It might still cost you an arm and a leg, especally if he hurt you worse then you hurt him (if he razed a city or two of yours, the AI will think he's winning the war, almost no matter what else happened) but it can be done.

The hard part then is getting the AI back up to "cautious" diplomatically. If he's annoyed or worse, it seems like he will attack you again eventually, no matter how much millitary force you have.If he's really ticked, it's probably best to just spend the few years of peace building a huge army and getting a few allies lined up for the next war...

[unamablebuiler]

it cost me a tech to stop it, facism ... even with all of my cities building units i won't be able to keep up in the war only 3 cities were exchanged and they were, one of mine razed it was a nanna colony, one of his and one the malinese had grabbed from persia. building the UN to force univsufferage Free speech and free religion to remove his war making advantages somewhat. i am running those already. my army is growing but not fast enough also replacing longbows with infantry now it would of cot 10k gold to upgrade thats gold i am using to buy wonders

The weird thing was i thought he landed tanks the same turn so i was very supprised he made an offer of peace as i don't have a rail network, no coal guess who has it and only a couple of infantry in each city the one that hates me most hayan capac. no one else is even a bit inclined to hurthim in any way its like the AI had some kind of love in

i have an idea for the next war sort of an indochina tactic build a big navy battleships/sub/s destroyers and several transports full of SEALS steam over declare war of have it declared on me bombard his coastal cities use SEALS to kill the city, raze it, steam out ... onto the next. then see whats left from there it should put a crimp in him after all he would have a huge army to support and fewer cities BTW hope he doesn't get mech inf hopefully the persians will be gone by then(prepping a fleet for them now)

in this particular game i made a few things easier prince difficulty 6 custom continents 1 per civ, tropical, the thing that slowed them down was the 1 civ per continent thing. The victory conditions are no space race and no time all the rest are on. started without copper now i have the ruddy stuff coming out my ears (from mine discoveries and 2 in remote places on my land).

[gdijedi7]

How can you buy wonders? It never lets me.....hrmmm.

Bring your airforce. Bombers if you can, but build carriers if you can't. Get his units weakend, and it will save you casualties.