Every AI Declares War At Once - BTS

[Neags]

I tried to search for this, but it's a tough search query. I found nothing about it.

I've put about 44 hours into this one game, so I'm hoping there's something I can do here.

Playing BTS, marathon game on huge map. Nothing special happens, I hit 1875, I'm at war with Catherine, but I just move some guys around. No trading, no talking, whatever. I end my turn and all of a sudden all nine remaining AIs declare war on me at once. Without saying anything. And all refuse to talk about it.

This can't be a normal thing, right? That has to be some kind of weird bug. Doesn't it? I googled this and haven't seen anything about it there, either.

Anyone have any ideas?

[wodan11]

Apostolic Palace.

Too late now, but you can prevent this from happening in the first place by having at least one city with the AP religion.

[Theben]

Either you're very weak or you're very strong... or the AIs have vassalized all the other AIs.

My guess would be there are 2 strong AIs out there who vassalized the rest of the civs except Catherine, and Catherine bribed those 2 into declaring war on you. While unusual, it's not impossible.

EDIT: OR the AP.

[Neags]

Either you're very weak or you're very strong... or the AIs have vassalized all the other AIs.

My guess would be there are 2 strong AIs out there who vassalized the rest of the civs except Catherine, and Catherine bribed those 2 into declaring war on you. While unusual, it's not impossible.

EDIT: OR the AP.

That's the thing. I'm not really weak or strong. I'm pretty much right in the middle. Score wise I'm about 5th out of 11.

As for the AP, not everyone is the same religion. In fact, one of the civs has been friendly with me the entire game and is the same religion. He couldn't have declared war via the AP, right?

Obviously everyone ganging up on me at once is possible, I guess. All 9 of them. In the same turn. For no reason. I was kind of hoping it was a bug that I could eventually work around, though.

Either way, this totally kills my game. 44 hours and 893 turns in, and it ends like this? Being at war with every single civ isn't fun at all.

I guess I could see how long I survive. Yeah...

[#07]

It doesn't matter which religion they are, if they have one city the same as the AP then that's enough

[wodan11]

Go to F9 (or is it F8), look and see who owns the AP. Look at what religion they are. As long as you have NO cities with that religion then every AI with at least ONE city of that religion might declare war on you.

It's really not that bad... most AIs won't have a huge number of units ready to send to war, and some AIs don't really want to go to war with you anyway so they will be willing to declare peace at the soonest opportunity (10 turns from now). You can hold out 10 turns, right?

[Unimatrix11]

Is it 10 turns, regardless of game speed, btw?

Next time, if you are 100% determined to not have it happen again, you can disable the apostolic palace (AP) by starting a ´costum game´ and check the appropriate box.

In general, i think, that diplomacy is the one field, that still could use the most improvement for further insallments of the civ-franchise. While ´for no reason´ doesnt quite hit the point, it often *feels* just like that: Completely out of the blue. I guess one major point is the AI-demands, which come to often, and hardly ever have consequences, wether you refuse them (okay - a diplo-hit, but in a couple of hundred games i only had a handful of instant-wars upon refusal) or agree to them (who would give a away a strategic ressource, if that does not gurantee you not being attacked by that civ at all?). After a while, you hardly check them anymore and just hit ´wont happen´ most of the time. But that problem in inherant to any multi-sided strategy game: Diplomacy always is gamey, wether you constantly count the diplo-modifiers and check power-graphs in Civ, or your ´badboy´-points in a paradox game - diplomacy with AI never feels like diplomacy at all.

[Theben]

It's really not that bad... most AIs won't have a huge number of units ready to send to war, and some AIs don't really want to go to war with you anyway so they will be willing to declare peace at the soonest opportunity (10 turns from now). You can hold out 10 turns, right?

QFT. Instead of folding, spend several minutes analyzing the situation you're in. How many of those civs are actually in a position to hurt you? What's the tech level of your enemies compared to yours? Are they on your continent or overseas? iIf overseas, can they project their power (do they have a large galleon/transport fleet), if on your continent, where is the attack likely to come from? Do you have espionage info on them? Can you make peace with Catherine? Lastly, can you build a large enough army to hold off 2 SoDs from the AI?

[wodan11]

Is it 10 turns, regardless of game speed, btw?

Not sure on that... whatever the DOW expiration is for the different speeds.

Next time, if you are 100% determined to not have it happen again, you can disable the apostolic palace (AP) by starting a ´costum game´ and check the appropriate box.

But that also disables the other features of AP, such as the bonus to production.

In general, i think, that diplomacy is the one field, that still could use the most improvement for further insallments of the civ-franchise.

Agreed!

[Neags]

Well, so far I've survived about 7 turns. Will see how well I fare the next few on my train ride home this evening.

What really hurts is that Khan shares my northern border, and he's who I was friendly with the entire game. He's my biggest threat, as a couple of my cities are on our border. I fended off his biggest attack (he had about a stack of 12 against my stack of 9 in my city) for one turn, but I've only got 2 units left in the city, and he's got about 7 of his 12 left, though all with significant damage.

However, I'm sure no one cares about those details.

I'm curious, though, how I can ever become part of the AP. It looks like everyone is a member but me. It's founded via Judaism. Obviously none of my cities have this religion, and unless someone that does spreads it to me, I'm really kind of out of luck on joining the AP, right?

[Jaybe]

Is it 10 turns, regardless of game speed, btw?

It is 10 turns at marathon speed. That answer your question?

Instead of folding, spend several minutes analyzing the situation you're in.

Hah! When I get shocked like this, I'll often take a break from the game -- for 1-7 DAYS.

Unless someone that does spreads it to me, I'm really kind of out of luck on joining the AP, right?

Right. Sometimes, feces happens.

[wodan11]

I'm curious, though, how I can ever become part of the AP. It looks like everyone is a member but me. It's founded via Judaism. Obviously none of my cities have this religion, and unless someone that does spreads it to me, I'm really kind of out of luck on joining the AP, right?

What can happen is if you found an early religion, and aggressively expand that religion to all your cities. Which usually is a good idea. This AP war thing gives that otherwise-clearly-beneficial strategy somewhat of a down side.

Religions spread automatically only to new cities without them. So, if you want a foreign religion to expand to you, then you have to have several cities without religion for a while. Or, you could make a "nonsense" city up in otherwise terrible terrain, hoping it will spread up there. If it doesn't, you can probably gift the bad city to one of the AIs.

Another way is to ensure you have open borders with AIs of the AP religion. Some AIs will make missionaries and send them to you and spread the religion.

A third is to conquer a city of the AP religion. Even if you have to declare a war specifically to do this.

Another approach is to simply ensure you build the AP yourself.

[Blaupanzer]

1) Ten turns all speeds, for treaties and declarations.
2) To disable the AP, you must also disable the UN. Both are overpowered.
3) Keep building the most modern units. You will slide up the power graph, even if you lose a few cities.
4) The game wouldn't be interesting if everything just drifted along without threats and attacks. Yours has gotten a bit too interesting too fast, but you most likely will survive.

[Jaybe]

2) To disable the AP, you must also disable the UN. Both are overpowered.

They may be overpowered to those who've had multiple bad times with them, or who have exploited them a lot.
Personally, the UN is usually a non-issue (I don't focus on winning with either of them), and the AP occasionally adds some drama to the game. Drama is good.

[rah]

I usually play with diplo off so I haven't had experience with the AP in quite a while so I have one question.

What if you build the AP and you don't have a state religion. (for either have no religion or just haven't converted to a religion yet)