AI's Inexplicable War-Declarations, esp. in Mid-Game

[Shaka II]

Re: AI's Inexplicable War-Declarations, esp. in Mid-Game

Originally posted by SorvinoBackhand Or maybe I am just a terrible player. So if any of you have advice on avoiding these out-of-the-blue mid-game invasions, please let me know. I play on Prince and usually lose around mid-game to some huge, unanticipated attack. Its very frustrating - kind of a game-breaker.

It sounds like those crazy AI invasions must work somewhat, if they cause you to lose.

Count yourself lucky, on pangea, the AI can get you anytime, even close to 4000BC. Growing up next to Alex, you'd better have archery quickly or else copper.

But, if you really don't like those invasions, then work on diplomacy, or else develop your military to achieve parity. Check the F9 power graph. They'll tend to leave you alone if you're as strong as they are, unless you've done something really bad like have a heathen religion. If so, switch to Free Religion or adopt one that won't anger the wrong people.

[One_more_turn]

Amphibious assaults are hard to defend against. You need both a strong navy and mobile land force to drive back well planned invasions.

The AI will always attack militarily weak nations.

[Saurus]

In the real world, there is always a certain agenda why a nation declare war upon another and this agenda almost always has something to do with economic expansion or an atempt to defend the current economic position. This is the case also when neighbours are fighting each other and most certainly when fighting someone at the other side of the globe.

For instance, If the US needs to secure oil import, then invading Iraq is more appealing than invading Mexico. It is also more appealing to Invade Iraq than North Korea for the same reason even though North korea is much worse of a dictatorship than Saddam Husseins Iraq would ever have been - the "liberation" of the iraqi people used only as a pretext to grab the oil in this regard. Iraq had also just recently slipped from using dollars to using Euros for oil-trades prior to the invasion.
The invasion resulted in that the euro was quickly
replaced by the dollar again.
Should this invasion not have happened and Iraq would have continued doing bussiness in euros, the value of the dollar would have dropped with an economic inpact.

In any case...
What I am trying to point out here mainly is that the reasons behind wars are many, most of the reasons not really bragged about loudly and certainly they go much deeper than one might think.
The A.I of civ 4 certainly do not handle this kind of complexity.

The A.I certainly do not invade an Island because there is a strategicaly important resource there. It invade because it randomly decides to do so. The more I play the more I feel this is the case as I am yet to spot the logic in A.I wars most of the time.


I have had some games where the A.I has declared war at me the exact moment I have culturally absorbed a certain key resource (iron early on, for instance) but this is not enough to prove me that the A.I understands the mechanics of intelligent warfare.

So yes, SorvinoBackhand, I agree the A.I makes bizare choises when it comes to whom they attack and when.
However, invading a nation on the other side of the globe is neither irrational nor uncommon, nor should it be in CIV 4 ... just there is enough of a reason to do so.

[Tattila the Hun]

I'd like to see an option to "show friendly naval movements" in options... Showing every unit move is annoying, and usually useless, but actually seeing that armada sail towards you trough your picket line might help. Another thing, the AI sails trough in straight line, often declaring war and crossing my border with only one movement point left, stopping to be at the mercy of my navy, instead of stopping at the border, waiting for a turn, and then striking.

Another thing I'd like to see, somewhat contradictory to that last bit, is a penalty to naval movement in hostile waters. The lack of guides, good maps, and later, mines.

[eluciv]

Re: AI's Inexplicable War-Declarations, esp. in Mid-Game

Originally posted by SorvinoBackhand
Am I the only who gets really miffed about the AI making downright bizarre war-making choices?

Humans can declare war at their whim, why not AI? Like you've never declared war on someone who was "pleased" with you... I do - several times per game.

As for AI, I think it tends to coincide with the point in the game where there is no more empty land left to settle. If you are in the bottom half regarding military might, bet on getting invaded. Especially if Monte, Napolean or Isabella are around. Your best bet is to rush to Astronomy (via Liberalism) and get to them first - it's not even worth it to really start taking their cities at this point, but I raze a couple of the stronger civs' cities as soon as I can. Either that or make sure you have one of the strongest militaries. This should go hand in hand with a strong economy (top 2 or 3, not trailing by more than 10% when your commerce is maxed). If you have neither, try again - cause it's over at this point. Especially with troops at your beaches.

I also find it helps to give 10 gold every time I don't want to give in to the AI's demands/requests. Even if it just buys a little time, it might be the factor if you're not quite playing your "A" game.

[Arrian]

If the US needs to secure oil import, then invading Iraq is more appealing than invading Mexico.

I couldn't resist responding... you do know that Mexico produces a lot of oil, right? And it's directly adjacent to the USA, right?

As for the rest, it's been debated ad-nauseum in the off-topic forum.

-Arrian

[Chaos Theory]

I find it particularly annoying when a weaker civ attacks me with somewhat obsolete units, forcing me to go after them to preserve the improvements around my border cities. Making a military just to punish them diverts resources from infrastructure and tech, and causes war weariness, and the opposing civ doesn't even have anything appealing to take but territory. Meanwhile, a civ like Mansa Musa's pulls ahead of me because it doesn't have the distraction. In effect, a civ out of the running suicides to hurt me.

[Yosho]

Re: Re: AI's Inexplicable War-Declarations, esp. in Mid-Game

Originally posted by eluciv
I also find it helps to give 10 gold every time I don't want to give in to the AI's demands/requests. Even if it just buys a little time, it might be the factor if you're not quite playing your "A" game.

Heh...one thing I like about being spiritual is you can give into AI demands to switch religion/civics whenever they ask, and then just wait 5 turns and switch back if you want. Very little cost, and the +1 for doing what you're asked to do stays around for a very long time even after you've switched back.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Re: Re: AI's Inexplicable War-Declarations, esp. in Mid-Game

Originally posted by eluciv I also find it helps to give 10 gold every time I don't want to give in to the AI's demands/requests. Even if it just buys a little time, it might be the factor if you're not quite playing your "A" game.

I do that too. I'm not sure if it really helps but I can pretend that I'm doing something useful. [To Montezuma: "Here's 10 gold kid, go play on the ball court. Better yet, go play in traffic!"]

Chaos Theory: Happy Mandelbrot to you too!

[uberfish]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I find it particularly annoying when a weaker civ attacks me with somewhat obsolete units, forcing me to go after them to preserve the improvements around my border cities. Making a military just to punish them diverts resources from infrastructure and tech, and causes war weariness, and the opposing civ doesn't even have anything appealing to take but territory. Meanwhile, a civ like Mansa Musa's pulls ahead of me because it doesn't have the distraction. In effect, a civ out of the running suicides to hurt me.

It works both ways though, if you have decent diplomatic relations you can bribe warlike leaders to attack Mansa too and ruin his chances of winning. I suspect quite a few of the more irrational seeming war declarations are in fact triggered by AI bribes.

[Ari]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
I'd like to see an option to "show friendly naval movements" in options... Showing every unit move is annoying, and usually useless, but actually seeing that armada sail towards you trough your picket line might help. Another thing, the AI sails trough in straight line, often declaring war and crossing my border with only one movement point left, stopping to be at the mercy of my navy, instead of stopping at the border, waiting for a turn, and then striking.

Another thing I'd like to see, somewhat contradictory to that last bit, is a penalty to naval movement in hostile waters. The lack of guides, good maps, and later, mines.

One of my minor gripes with how the game handles showing you AI unit moves comes in exactly this scenario (enemy declaring war and then landing troops at your door in the same turn). Regardless of the order things actually happen, inevitably, what you *see* is:
1 - civ declares war on you
2 - screen announcing same
3 - some ships moving, usually away from you

The actual "unloading" event seems to happen "before" the enemy has declared war, even an enemy that is declaring war by entering your waters. Has anyone actually seen these first troops land when "show enemy moves" was the only option selected?

For that matter, it seems highly unrealistic to me that the first sign I see of enemy aggression is troops making landfall next to my city. In real life, such a thing would never happen. Are there any examples of a country being completely caught with their pants down in the face of a massive naval invasion?

Real life "territorial waters" extend far beyond the length that a ship can travel in one "turn" no matter how you define a real life turn. A non-allied country's fleet 50 miles off of the coast of New York, say, would be challenged immediately, long before it could possibly get close to land. Perhaps your territory should expand twice as rapidly in water as in land. Or perhaps you should be prohibited from entering territorial waters on the same turn you declare war (or at the minimum, prohibited from landing troops).

[axisworks]

This whole issue boggles me as well. Last night I was playing a Prince game where I was #1 in scoring and #3 in military, and my next-door-neighbor (who's border I wasn't pushing back or challenging for cultural control of any resources) who I'd been Friendly with almost the entire game suddenly declared war on me. She was 2nd to last on military, and lost three cities the first turn after declaring war. Stupid...

[Yosho]

(shrug) There's always the possibility it's a "If I declare war now, there's an 80% chance I'll lose, but if I don't, there's a 99% chance I'll lose the game" situation, especally if you were starting to pull away from the AI technologically.

[One_more_turn]

Speaking of bribing AIs into attacking each other, I've been doing that lately quite often. In my latest game, I wanted to attack the Russians and gain Peter's great cities and resources, but I was concerned that my other neighbor, Kublai Khan, might stab me in the back. I was also concerned that if I divert lots of resources to war fighting, the #2 power Persians might pull too far ahead. So, I bribed Kublai with 2 expensives techs and he promptly declared war on the Persians, allowing me to fully concentrate on the Russians.

In another game as the Romans, I bribed both Aztecs and French into attacking Mansa Musa with the same technologies. Not only do you keep your back clean this way, you also mess up their economies by forcing them to build military units.

The key to bribe AIs imho is that you must stay ahead in tech race. If you are behind in tech and military, and someone lands an invasion force at your doorstep, better start a new game.

[Schtix]

I can relate to many of these posts. With 60 turns left in a noble game, Washington, after basically the entire game being "friendly" to me, and for the past thirty or so turns having a defense pact, just declared war on me. So far he's just sent stealth bombers from his continent to mine, and deployed some artiellery/send some ships over.

It really annoys me though, why he couldn't just attack the weaker AI, who also shared a "furious" status with him. A harder difficulty shouldn't mean more random warmongering.