My problem with Isabella

[NFIH]

A game this weekend reminded me about what I detested about Civ IV when I first started playing it a few years ago—and I think I might have even posted about it back then. Returning to the game after almost two years, my annoyance has been rekindled.

Really, what is the deal with Isabella?

I know she doesn't like anyone who has a religion different from hers, but I find her behaviour toward me indicative of something else entirely—maybe something at the level of the AI programming. Is she programmed to key in on the human player above all AI players?

In the game I'm discussing, there is one and possibly two AI civs between me and her. Yet—incredibly—she has selected me to war against and we're not quite out of the pre-classical era. She's coming through Byzantine territory to get to me—and the Byzantines don't share her religion either! Neither do the Celts nor Pericle's people. So why is she attacking me?

It's almost as if the other AIs are passively in on it because they never get attacked and get to develop in peace (and of course, despite my good relations and shared religion with some of my neighbours, they won't close their borders to Isabella). Meanwhile, I'm forced to war and my economy comes to an early halt and it's already game over. I will be so far behind the others if and when the war does end that those civs will themselves attack me anyway. Or if they don't I have no hope of closing the gap.

Why? Because I'm playing pangea, standard size and as a result we're all starting in each other's faces to begin with. I've got my four cities and there's no more room to take. This means the priority is that I must have no early war (unless I am myself going that route) so that I can max the efficiencies of each city. I was trying to go for something other than a domination win.

But time and again Isabella won't let me. The only way I can't be at war with her is if she's on another continent.

It makes no sense for her to attack me if loot or whatever is what she's looking for. Between war weariness, distance and my own defences I have already fought her to a standstill. But that's all that needed to be done to guarantee my loss.

If she wants to attack someone she should be going after a neighbour. But no, she comes across one, two other civs just to target me. It's silly and REALLY ANNOYING. Now I'll just have to quit the game and restart. Very annoying.

Are the AIs programmed to prioritize attacking the human player, irrespective of whatever actual diplomatic conditions exist with other AI civs?

[Virulent]

The AI has always been more likely to pick on a human player as opposed to another AI. Also the AI is more generous in trading tech and resource to each other as opposed to a human player. BtS has made things a little better but as you can see it's far from perfect.

I remember one time being really pissed off that the AI weren't voting for me as AP leader despite the fact that I knew they liked me better but they were still voting for my rival.

Then you have the fact that AI Isabella is absolutely insane. Her, Tokugawa and Monty are probably the three most looniest AIs in the game.

[Supr49er]

I you don't want to fight her you have to join her. Get her religion and she calms right down (for a while at least).

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Supr49er
I you don't want to fight her you have to join her. Get her religion and she calms right down (for a while at least).

See, that's the thing--two of three of my actual neighbours had my religion. So if I switched to hers, I would have been risking a war with them--again derailing right off the bat my hopes of a non-domination victory. Either way I was screwed on that particular map.

Basically, the game appears to kind of railroad you into having to go mostly military. It seems the only real way to avoid this is to play a map where there are separate continents so you have some sort of opportunity to pursue a balanced approach (because not everyone is right around you and itching for a fight all the time). But that kind of sucks since I prefer single land mass-type maps.

[Ming]

It's usually not much of a problem when somebody from across the map comes at you. Since you probably have a defensive army in place anyway... you just take out their stacks as they enter into your territory. The first wave is usually the worst, and after that, it's just smaller stacks or individual units. Since you are in your own territory, it's really a win win... no WW, and you get veteran troops to use later. After a while, you can usually make peace and maybe even get something out of them. It's a lot tougher when one of your neighbors who can get troops at you faster declares war.

If you didn't have an army to begin with, maybe that's why you were attacked in the first place

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Ming
It's usually not much of a problem when somebody from across the map comes at you. Since you probably have a defensive army in place anyway... you just take out their stacks as they enter into your territory. The first wave is usually the worst, and after that, it's just smaller stacks or individual units. Since you are in your own territory, it's really a win win... no WW, and you get veteran troops to use later. After a while, you can usually make peace and maybe even get something out of them. It's a lot tougher when one of your neighbors who can get troops at you faster declares war.

If you didn't have an army to begin with, maybe that's why you were attacked in the first place

Nope, I had an army--evidently not as strong as hers--but an army nonetheless. Just a defensive force to secure my cities. And, like I say, I stopped her. But she had swords and axes (and was just hanging around in my territory, preventing me from using my workers) while I had only axes and archers and I just knew she'd be sending more--which she did. There's just no let up with her. The only way I could do anything would be to send some of my own force--across other civs' territory--to destroy a few things.

But this would force me to a total war footing, which was exactly what I didn't want and which I knew would absolutely cost me the game if it wasn't lost already (and this isn't even accounting for the almost certain backstab by my neighbours once I'd sent a force out of my own borders to attack some distant state). Screwed. Totally screwed.

You'd think the other civs would take the opportunity to backstab her while she was so intently focused on me, but of course they did absolutely nothing. And somehow she was still at or near the top in score!

[Vampgelus]

In a multiplayer game, i just made a great buddy of Izzy who was my clothest neighbour despite of different religion and border conflicts...
Just kidding, she backstabbed me in a middle of a WW at the moment i thought about making a permanent alliance with her... yes, she is a naughty *****

PS : Just pay her neighbours for being a pain in her ass, and she'll be to busy to care about you, even if she hates you ^^

[Theben]

Originally posted by Virulent

Then you have the fact that AI Isabella is absolutely insane. Her, Tokugawa and Monty are probably the three most looniest AIs in the game.

Yep. Right now my best 'ally' is Monty on my western border and all my enemies are to my east. Most of my army is sitting in Babylon (I'm Sitting Bull) keeping Hammerhead from thinking about retaking his former capital. MY main concern? That my 'ally' is going to stab me in the back any moment. Which is why soon I'm going to anniliate him.

[jbp26]

isabella has to walk her troops through foreign territory to get to your cities. that should be ample time to create a reasonable defense force and chew her attackers up.

the obvious answer as to why shes attacking you is that you only have 4 cities in the classical era. you're probably much lower on the power graph, and thus a much more lucrative target. counteract this by conquering others early on. if you just want to play a game of passive expansion and building, pangaea isn't a great map choice.

[ben04]

Are you the weakest on the power graph? I've found that an acceptable position in that graph is the key to avoid being attacked and the not see the AI make ridicules demands.

To bump the graph build units. The quality does affect the graph but not much. To make the AI believe you have a big military potential 2 warriors are better than an axeman. So just build the cheapest unit you can build. (Archers are very good candidate.) Upgrading units brings a little bit but IMHO isn't worth the costs. Just build more units instead.

If you have money trouble and therefore can't maintain more units then try to solve these first. If this is not immediately possible then walls and castles can be be used to bump the graph.

The power graph plays a very important role when it comes to war decisions made by the AI. The AI doesn't consider your unit production rate. It doesn't matter if you can crank out 7 tanks a round or not.

As a rule of thumb 20 archers are enough to keep the AI quiet. 2 archers per city isn't.

Many humans are very weak when you only look at the power graph therefore it seems as if the AI prefers them.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by jbp26
isabella has to walk her troops through foreign territory to get to your cities. that should be ample time to create a reasonable defense force and chew her attackers up.

the obvious answer as to why shes attacking you is that you only have 4 cities in the classical era. you're probably much lower on the power graph, and thus a much more lucrative target. counteract this by conquering others early on. if you just want to play a game of passive expansion and building, pangaea isn't a great map choice.

While I haven't checked the graph, I don't think cities is the issue. Even the leader, Pericles, has just five cities--one of which is on tundra! I don't believe anyone has more than six cities.

Also, I got the four cities while expanding at the fastest possible rate. My capital has been building units almost exclusively. But I do need to build workers, libraries and granaries in my other cities if I expect them to contribute anything, do I not?

The problem is Isabella has attacked me so early in the game that defence such as mine is almost certain to stop the invasion itself, but also mortally stunt my growth while everyone races ahead in peace--thereby guaranteeing my loss either way.

I don't mind if the AI attacks, but there should be more sense to it. (For example, if Isa's got early swords, as she does, she should be pummeling her immediate neighbour. Even if she did capture my cities, how would she pay for it this early on--and separated by a third state? The whole thing stinks of nothing more than a "gameplay" element designed to try and cripple the player.) I do think that if the AIs played more "realistically" pangea maps would be fine. But I fear that as is, I basically am consigned to automatic war on such maps.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by NFIH
Also, I got the four cities while expanding at the fastest possible rate. My capital has been building units almost exclusively. But I do need to build workers, libraries and granaries in my other cities if I expect them to contribute anything, do I not?

you need these things, but not right away. on a map like that, it is exponentially more valuable to steal cities from your enemies first, then worry about infrastructure. first, find your critical resource- bronze, horses, or iron, in that preference. then expand to 2 or 3 cities. then churn your rush unit. i recommend using your workers to chop them out, and use slavery to whip your cities for 2 population points whenever they're at size 4. this will give you a big army, fast, and you can easily rush a neighbor or two. you'll be a little behind for a while, due to the hit to your economy, but once you grow back and set up some infrastructure, you'll blow by them.

i do agree its kind of a ridiculous that the AI is willing to wade through someone elses territory to attack you, but i dont think its broken or a game endangering event.

[wodan11]

More likely, she asked for something only slightly unreasonable... such as that you adopt Theocracy, or that you give her gems for free.

You, of course, said no.

That started a snowball of her negative relations to you. All in her mind. But, the -1's keep accumulating.

You, of course, think everything's hunky-dory between the two of you. Until, of course, she attacks.

Wodan

[NFIH]

Originally posted by wodan11
More likely, she asked for something only slightly unreasonable... such as that you adopt Theocracy, or that you give her gems for free.

You, of course, said no.

That started a snowball of her negative relations to you. All in her mind. But, the -1's keep accumulating.

You, of course, think everything's hunky-dory between the two of you. Until, of course, she attacks.

Wodan

Want to know what's ironic about this particular match? She asked for nothing. She simply attacked. Doesn't know me from Adam, doesn't share a border, but we have different religions--and note: the other AIs didn't share her religion either--so she just up and attacks. I correctly predicted it, but still. Damn.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by jbp26


you need these things, but not right away. on a map like that, it is exponentially more valuable to steal cities from your enemies first, then worry about infrastructure. first, find your critical resource- bronze, horses, or iron, in that preference. then expand to 2 or 3 cities. then churn your rush unit. i recommend using your workers to chop them out, and use slavery to whip your cities for 2 population points whenever they're at size 4. this will give you a big army, fast, and you can easily rush a neighbor or two. you'll be a little behind for a while, due to the hit to your economy, but once you grow back and set up some infrastructure, you'll blow by them.

i do agree its kind of a ridiculous that the AI is willing to wade through someone elses territory to attack you, but i dont think its broken or a game endangering event.

I've tried the early assault strategy to mixed effect. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. And if it doesn't it's definitely game over. I've tried various combinations of an opening rush, but it all depends on who you're facing, what they've chosen to build, where the city is (on a hill or not, for example), etc. For example, open with five warriors and rush a city. But I think even one archer on a hill city will defeat that entire stack. So sometimes I try two warriors, research archery, switch to archery, build four archers and then attack with two warriors and four archers.

Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

Anyway, you're right about the map. Pangea simply isn't conducive to playing anything but domination (or something similarly military focused) unless you get lucky city placement, etc. But I won't surprise myself if I keep trying for something else anyway.