Making friends with aggressive civs.

[sorinache]

Yeah, when you can see a settler of their's resting in a border city you can usually start counting down the turns.
But on some occasions, when you have open borders, they'll move their stack through and attack someone else.
There have been a few occasions where you see the SOD forming on your border and you move troops to respond only to see the stack cross your land.

I must be particularly likeable (as my imperial avatar in BtS at least) as I do not corroborate your experience. Most of my games I live peacefully alongside my expansion-constrained neighbors. Well, it depends on the neighbors, of course. The Celts will certainly declare, but it's 1800 in my current Epic game as Frederick of the Germans and Qin Shi Whatever of the Chinese (expansive, industrious) has already been constrained for a couple of millenia. True, I get the -3 from "our close borders are sparking tensions". But his overall attitude towards me is "friendly" - we are brothers of the faith (I made sure he gets Christianism, my state religion, and allowed him to build the AP), I was magnanimous with my techs, we traded resources since the dawn of time and at some point he came to offer me a defensive pact (although he's about 1000 times stronger militarily). Unfortunately a few turns latter Shaka dowed on me (foolish me, I slipped at the last place in military strength) so Qin Shi and his Suryavarman vassal duly Dow-ed on Shaka, but that terminated our defensive pact ... If they keep fighting for another 4 turns (I paid Shaka some money to make peace in the meanwhile) I'll get to robotics, upgrade everything to Mech Infs and rest easy ...

[rah]

are you playing agressive AI?

[sorinache]

are you playing agressive AI?

Well, no, I'm not suicidal. As I said, I shun war (as in : try to avoid it). Checking the "agressive AI" box somehow doesn't seem to fit this idea. But I do not check "always peace" box either.

[rah]

Well that answers why you can live peacefully. You wouldn't be so likeably otherwise.

[Dis]

Had it happen my last game. As far as I can recall, it was my first time.

Due to past failings at the Ap. Palace losing to diplo victory. I make a point to spread my religion around a little better. So I spread it to the Mongols. Amazingly I was able to get an open borders. But it was early, and you can usually get an open borders with them early on (just no Japan). They shared my religion, and we were separated by another civ thankfully.

They never attacked until I attacked them and took 3 of their cities.

[wodan11]

Depending on what version you're playing, Aggressive AI can actually make the AI less competitive. They focus too much on military and don't build infrastructure at all.

[Blaupanzer]

But on some occasions, when you have open borders, they'll move their stack through and attack someone else.
There have been a few occasions where you see the SOD forming on your border and you move troops to respond only to see the stack cross your land.

In a recent game I had two HUGE French SODs march all the way across my land and then thru Japanese land as well. When a third set up at my border, he had yet to declare on anyone else. I figured "Uh-oh," at that third one and adjusted appropriately. (Must be going after two at once.) Turn later he and Japan DOW me, and the Japanese (who I have pwned powerwise) are accompanied by those two SODs. I went down fast. I just knew he was going for someone else, but Nappy had me in mind all along.

[Dis]

my current game I liked to have some fun. Aztecs were on the other end of a flat map (highlands map), They actually did attack me once in the rennaissance age or somewhere around there. But it was a piddly attack with one warrior. I stayed on good terms with them to my current state (currently in 19th century).

I'm actually having fun with them. They seem to struggle every game. Their research is pathetic. I can only guess unit support is crippling their economy. How can their economy be so bad? They were getting hammered by 3 civs, so for fun I gave them the techs for riflemen, grenadiers, and cavalry. I'm hoping to unleash a monster . I get bored in games like this, and like to gift techs to help civs along. Sometimes I do it just for more challenge in the end game.

I'll finish playing this game tonight, so we'll see how many cities the aztecs are able to conquer.

[rah]

Depending on what version you're playing, Aggressive AI can actually make the AI less competitive. They focus too much on military and don't build infrastructure at all.

But if they take you out early, I guess that wouldn't matter.

And in my experience, even if there are a handfull of civs doing that, a couple are teching, or one of the aggressive civs conquers a couple of civs and eventually becomes a power house just because of size. When that stack of 200 units shows up on your doorstep, even if they're tribs and macement, your dozen rifleman will lose.

[Theben]

I don't think I've ever seen a SoD over 70.

[rah]

The one I saw yesterday had 86 rifles 105 or so cav and a number of assorted other units and seige engines.
I had a huge stack of cannons and couldn't nick all of them, but at least I had enough infantry and calv to hold them off, but it was close. I did one stack attack and got two GGs out of it. It was plain silly.

[Dis]

holy crap! What size map and other settings? I take it you are playing large or above.

The Byzantines had a large army today. Larger than I'm used too. But not all in one stack. I think I wasted 15 or so cavs, it seemed like I was through their offensive force, then I see a stack of 15 more cavs with rifleman, and artillery heading towards a weakly defended recently conquered city. My bombers wounded them enough to force them to retreat into a city.

Problem is ai's tend to get too defensive in this poisition. Their offensive units don't get any bonus' inside a city, so why not use them? Actually Justinian did a suicide run on me at the start of the war with those first 15 cavs. Weakened my stack of modern tanks, but otherwise not a whole lot of damage.

I don't think I ever seen a stack over 30 units. Again standard is the highest size map I can play on my comp.

[rah]

Standard map. Normal number of civs. Monarch, agressive AI. It was Hannibal. Always builds a huge army in my games it seems. He had been on a war footing for many many turns against civs where he had a tech lead so he wasn't losing many troops. I had one super large army, or so I thought until his sod showed. It was funny because normally you take the sod out and his empire is yours for the taking, but since he had conquered two civs (no vassels allowed) he had a lot of cities and was able to send a decent second stack not that much later.

[wodan11]

Remember that one version of early BtS I think it was... maybe Warlords. Anyway the AI did SODs like that in the early ADs. I remember seeing ungodly stacks of War Chariots from Hatty and such wackiness.

[Blaupanzer]

The French SODs I mentioned above had over 60 units each in the cannon/cavalry/rifleman period. Were a few units from a generation back. My quickly assembled stack of about 70 units could only stop one of these. This was standard size, low seas, +1 civ, fractal map.