Why am I being attacked?

[ElConejo]

Aye to that. I was playing a game as the Aztecs and got pretty well stomped up and down by France and Barbs.. but I stuck it out and now I have a VERY interesting game on my hands. I am no where near strong enough to call myself the big dog, but I am not hopeless either... I am looking forward to seeing how far I can get with it.

[Velociryx]

Your question represents one of the paradoxes that make up a Civ game.

The answer (as has already been given) is: The only way to *ensure* that you are not attacked is to be so stupidly bigger than everybody else on the planet, that it would be a suicide run to attack you (and even then, "ensure" is probably too strong a word...if some of the 'psychos' are still around--Alexander, Monty--they might try it anyway. (as an example, I once had a game where my economy and production were some twenty times Monty's size, and he attacked me anyway...this, while I had the largest military on the planet...nearly equalling the rest of the world combined....so it CAN happen)....but of course, by the time you GET to that position, such attacks are easily dealt with, and the game is essentially over.

That being the case though, there are a number of things you can do to ensure that if/when you are attacked, you can end the matter quickly, cleanly, and decisively.

* Properly garrison your cities. A single unit is fine for cities far in the interior, two units is the norm for me, with three units on "forward" cities that share a border with some other civ.

* "Battle Companies" scattered throughout your realm. A 'Battle Company' is my term for a stack of units that is self supporting...it typically utilizes combined arms and mixes/matches promotions such that it can deal with most types of threats on its own. (for example, in the ancient era, a smallish battle company might consist of two Axeman with the City Raider promotion, a Spearman with Combat I, an Archer with Garrison (for holding cities once this unit takes one), and a pair of catapults. One of these units will be given the "medic" promotion if I can manage it (or a "medic" will be assigned to it from some other unit). This is the "core" of the unit, and depending on what its assignment ultimately IS, additional forces may be added to it (more catapults, if there's a particularly thorny defense we need to knock down, or if speed is of the essence, for example). At any rate, these are scattered across the Empire at key points, or likely points of attack. They're parked on strategic resources or key defensive terrain (roaded), and can be brought to bear very quickly, should an attack occur. They're typically posted close enough together that they can support each other should someone declare war (and I use signs so I know where to "park" them after the war is over...note that as the Empire grows, this changes!).

* Rapid response teams - in addition to the 'Battle Companies' I find it helpful to have a sprinkling of fast movers posted solo throughout the Realm. Cavalry, Horse Archers, Chariots...these guys are your anti-pillage crews, and can use their greater mobility (on your good road network....you DID build a good road network, yes?) to absolutely *demolish* the AI pillagers (again, enough of these so that they can move in support of each other).

* Pillage Zones - Once your cultural borders have extended beyond the "fat cross" of workable tiles, I find it of great value to road/terraform (usually with cottages) every tile that lies outside the workable radius and toward the enemy's territory--such that this will be the first territory they encounter when they invade me). Why do I do this? Because the AI loves to pillage, and he will split his stack up to gleefully tear down my cottages and roads here in the pillage zone, which is great for me....it gives me 2-3 turns to respond, and during that time, he's ripping up terraforming I'm not using and don't really care about.

There are more, but those should give you a solid start.



-=Vel=-

[One_more_turn]

Whenever possible, I always keep a strong mobile reserve near the neighbors I'm not attacking, regardless how friendly they are.

However, some AI civs are indeed trustworthy friends, they include: Roosevelt, Frederick, Cyrus, Ghandi, Mansa Musa, Saladin, and strangely Tokugawa. Caesar and Cathy are the 2 double-faced backstabbers.

Isabella won't attack you if you share the same religion as her.

Alex, Monty, and Napoleon are perma psychos.

[Brael]

I had a game once, me and cathy had a permanent alliance, alex and monty had one, and all 4 were on good terms, wouldn't let me take a defensive pact with them (no option for it), but no attack all game... was funny, I was surrounded by the 3 AI's most kill happy and not one sneak attack, it got to the point where I gave monty rocketry, aluminum, and uranium just to see what he would do... never got attacked.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Brael
... never got attacked.

What difficulty level?

[Brael]

Prince

[Footie Mad]

It seriously helps to have played many games and gotten to know the different leaders. I'm thinking about using random leader personalities soon, that should really screw up your planning and preparations. Ghandi the warmongerer feasting on wine out of the hollowed skulls of his enemies.

[Arrian]

Alexander is just an ornery bastard. He attacked me in my most recent game, despite me being stronger. He was also "pleased" with me because we were brothers of the faith and had several trade deals. No matter. "Alexander has declared war on you!"

It just so happened that I had just built up my army in preparation for an invasion of Persia, so all I had to do was shift my strike force over toward Greece and I was all set.

Monty and Alex are civs that will hit you even if you're "friends" and even if you're stronger. They're just nutty that way. There are other civs to watch out for, but most of them are vaguely rational and will leave you alone if you can stomp them.

Cyrus, for example... same game described above, earlier, Cyrus took a shot at me. I was ahead in tech, building wonders left and right... but my military was so-so. This was a rational move by the AI, I feel. I was able to hold him off and then take a city with a counterattack, but only because I made sure I had 2 spearmen in the city that bordered persia. 2 spears, 2 axes, 1-2 chariots... nothing he could hit with had good odds. But in terms of power disparity, it wasn't a crazy war. Plus, he was a different religion, so he hated me.

-Arrian

[Prussia]

The AI is smart enough to know when a war is going nowhere. The way to win a losing war, or to stop it at least, is to make it too expensive for the other person to continue it.

[tjarmusz]

Very good information guys...Vel, I read your strategy guide and it has been invaluable thanxs for all the effort. One question I have being relatively new is that when an enemy is looking to attack, are troops in the border cities a better deterent or troops on the actual border itself?

For what's its worth I reloaded, took Bizmark's two cities and settler leaving him confined to his capital and very weak. I then continued to pop/chop axemen and went striaght for Alex taking his capital and one other city. After that I sided religions with the arabs and attacked eygpt when he asked. She went down and I took both her cities easily by waiting for the arabs to weaken the defenses and then I went in for the steal for a few weak units (does this piss them off?). After that I sacked china, which was easy. Then me and the arabs signed a defensive pact and when inca attacked me we took him out. After that, I regrouped and attacked my old friend Saladin securing my first domination victory.

It was quite tough especially in the beggining. I was pretty much broke and way behind in tech the whole game (tt was off) but it was very satisfying to pull this off on prince level.

One question I have for Vel or anyone else who follows a similar strategy, is that, I was told to leave the AI weakened to exploit for techs and gold. However, on my next game (which went much better) with tt on, they never would give in to my demands for tech (I don't think it was even an option - redded out) and the gold I exploited was only like 20 every 30 turns or something. Given this, shouldn't I just take them out completely? It is fun harassing them though, very fun indeed.

[Quillan]

The AI does SEEM to use only the visible information in its decision making, but I can't be 100% certain about that. In my most recent game, I was bordered with Huayna, it was Renaissance period, and I saw him switch to the Vassalage/Theocracy combination that means "I'm getting ready to go to war". A quick check of relations showed that I was the most disliked person on our continent, so I assumed I was the target. I had a number of troops (riflemen, grenadiers and cannons) sitting up on the coast some distance away, prepping for a naval invasion of Louis, so I just brought them all down and parked them on our border, spread out one unit per square. Then I kept bringing in a unit or two more every turn. About 5 turns later, he switched back to Nationhood/Free religion, and I'm pretty sure it's because he saw a dozen cannons and 20 or so combat troops within striking distance of the three border cities that are next to me.

[jbp26]

power is computed by the number of units you have, and their relative technology level. for a simple example, take a big stack of obsolete units and upgrade them- you'll see a jump in your power graph. if your power is sufficiently great, not only will you never be attacked, but you can demand tribute with impudence essentially with no fear of retribution. i think defensive pacts give you some leverage here as well.

[Brael]

Force civs to capitulate (or don't if you don't want the diplomacy hit) then keep selling the resources you took from them back to them for a large amount of gold per turn. Thats the best way I've found to harass civs I've been at war with. A nice side effect of selling those resources back to them is it will make their science rate plummet which pretty much ensures that they'll lose any ability at all to even think of threatening you (alone or with allies) after enough turns go by for you to get new military units.