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I have started a few games of BtS in the past two weeks, but I never get far beyond the middle ages because the way the AI plays kills all my fun by then, because I like to play mostly peaceful yet they know nothing but war, cheating and betrayal.
First, the silly diplomacy. They constantly demand tribute from me even though I am superior to their puny little nations in every way imagineable. And when I deny it, they get mad at me! To top it off, when I do the same to them, they ALSO get mad at me because I made an unreasonable demand! Where is the logic? And in many cases I cannot even demand, all I get for options is 'Will you share this for a good friend'...
So even though I really do nothing that should seriously upset them, everyone gets mad at me except for those few I can get to share my religion.
Then, the frequent wars. Now I can understand it if Boudica declares war on me because shes totally lunatic and aggressive. But when I seriously smack her down afterwards, she just keeps on trying. Eventually others get the same ideas. And always against me. Even if there are three foreign nations between someone elses territory and mine, and all the nations inbetween are weaker than me, they still go after me.
Then, the war does not seem to hurt the AI, yet it totally messes up me. I switch production to units and only units pretty much to stop the ridiculous AI stacks. There is no way to maintain infrastructure production. Yet the warring AI keeps on building wonders, overtakes me in research AND sends ever more units after me. How is that freaking possible without the AI completely and utterly cheating? It feels like for every shield I get, the AI gets two...
Also, the AI spams cities like there is no tomorrow, something I always hated about ALL civ games. Does it not get the same penalties for number of cities the player gets? I tend to like to place my cities as efficiently as possible with no shared plots, but this seems to be infinitely inferior to placing cities as closely as possible, usually with 4 or more plots shared by two cities...
And then what is usually the last straw for me, the few AIs that I have managed to keep friendly to also start going after me. I am not even leading the point race anymore (the first war against me usually puts the laughing third civ quite a way ahead while tossing me and the silly idiot who started the war down the drain), I have a very strong military, yet everyone always goes after me, not after much better targets. There is virtually no fighting among the AI civs unless it is a war inspired by me asking one of my allies to declare on a pissant attacker.
And all this only on Prince difficulty, Standard or large sized Terran map and marathon speed.
So am I missing something, or is the only way to play relatively peaceful to simply annihilate everone that attacks you or play on Archipelago maps?
The former solution would put me way too far ahead of the other civs I am afraid (I lose interest in games where I am too far ahead as well), and Archipelagos usually don't offer a 'New World' to explore and settle later in the game...
And yes I know about the 'Always peace' option, but I don't want no war, I just want less of it and for it to be slightly more logical.
First, the silly diplomacy. They constantly demand tribute from me even though I am superior to their puny little nations in every way imagineable. And when I deny it, they get mad at me! To top it off, when I do the same to them, they ALSO get mad at me because I made an unreasonable demand! Where is the logic? And in many cases I cannot even demand, all I get for options is 'Will you share this for a good friend'...
So even though I really do nothing that should seriously upset them, everyone gets mad at me except for those few I can get to share my religion.
Then, the frequent wars. Now I can understand it if Boudica declares war on me because shes totally lunatic and aggressive. But when I seriously smack her down afterwards, she just keeps on trying. Eventually others get the same ideas. And always against me. Even if there are three foreign nations between someone elses territory and mine, and all the nations inbetween are weaker than me, they still go after me.
Then, the war does not seem to hurt the AI, yet it totally messes up me. I switch production to units and only units pretty much to stop the ridiculous AI stacks. There is no way to maintain infrastructure production. Yet the warring AI keeps on building wonders, overtakes me in research AND sends ever more units after me. How is that freaking possible without the AI completely and utterly cheating? It feels like for every shield I get, the AI gets two...
Also, the AI spams cities like there is no tomorrow, something I always hated about ALL civ games. Does it not get the same penalties for number of cities the player gets? I tend to like to place my cities as efficiently as possible with no shared plots, but this seems to be infinitely inferior to placing cities as closely as possible, usually with 4 or more plots shared by two cities...
And then what is usually the last straw for me, the few AIs that I have managed to keep friendly to also start going after me. I am not even leading the point race anymore (the first war against me usually puts the laughing third civ quite a way ahead while tossing me and the silly idiot who started the war down the drain), I have a very strong military, yet everyone always goes after me, not after much better targets. There is virtually no fighting among the AI civs unless it is a war inspired by me asking one of my allies to declare on a pissant attacker.
And all this only on Prince difficulty, Standard or large sized Terran map and marathon speed.
So am I missing something, or is the only way to play relatively peaceful to simply annihilate everone that attacks you or play on Archipelago maps?
The former solution would put me way too far ahead of the other civs I am afraid (I lose interest in games where I am too far ahead as well), and Archipelagos usually don't offer a 'New World' to explore and settle later in the game...
And yes I know about the 'Always peace' option, but I don't want no war, I just want less of it and for it to be slightly more logical.
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