Civs attacking even when they are polite...?!

[AeonOfTime]

In all my recent games (playing Conquests on regent or monarch - I'm too scared to try higher), I have been the main target of friends and foes alike - and as I am a builder, this has put a strain on my peaceful nature

Imagine a Civ that is on 'polite' terms with you, and which has several trade routes with you slowly amassing troops on your border, and that very politely attacks you without warning with all its might...

While Civs that are annoyed are quite predictable in their behavior if you don't do something to apease them, It is quite impossible to change the plans of a polite civ that plans to annihilate you. I've tried trading for more luxuries and stuff, but they don't care - even if it means all their cities will be in civil disorder the next turn by losing all those trade routes (even losing strategic resources like iron!).

It seems a bit illogical - if they hate me that much, why does their attitude stay on 'polite'? I actually had to change my style of play to accomodate for the excess fighting - expecially since they often won't even respond to any contact requests for a number of turns.

Lately I was able to find a first clue for this strange behavior - I mostly play on large random maps with max. number of players, and you quickly reach the maximum size of your territory as you reach your neighbors. Depending on the size of their civ, they will attack you even when on polite terms with you because they simply need more space to survive. I can understand that, and as it is predictable I am always prepared for this. But what about a civ that has plenty of space to develop? Is it greed? Is it because the extension's name is Conquests? :beatsme:

Any insights apreciated!

[Modo44]

The reasons are rather simple, and usually predictable. There is the "out of the blue" thing, but I only saw it from almost-dead 2-city civs, if I ever saw it at all.

Get very weak militarily, and they will eventually turn on you. The AI is programmed to grow, and it will inevitably try to. Check the F3 screen to see which civs think you are weak...

Get too much cash out of them (by selling things for heaps of gold), and they migh attack (to kill the deal that is bad for them). This bahaviour can be avoided by not taking all the cash an AI offers for a tech/resource/luxury. This behaviour can be promoted by squeezing every last penny out of every deal.

Some other AI that does not like you can simply give your neighbour a tech or two and show them the new target. To act against it, you be the one that sets up alliances.

Not trading suprulus resources and luxuries can make the AI more agressive.

Breaking many treaties and/or deals can make the AI more aggressive.

[AeonOfTime]

Thanks Modo44, that's actually really enlightening - I'm not much of a trader so I usually have quite a heap of resources to trade with. I'll keep that in mind...

I'll start a new game tonight and test a little. Thanks again!

[Qilue]

Also, the longer the AI is at peace, the more edgy it gets until one day, the game blows up.

[AeonOfTime]

LOL - I had a lot of that also, lately. Stuff like getting attacked by one of my neighbors, and on retaliation the entire world would go to war because of mutual protection pacts in all directions.

I had one game where my territory had five frontiers to different civs, and when hell got loose they all turned towards me. The only thing that saved me then was Steam Power a few turns later, until I could move my entire army from one front to the other in one turn. It was quite interesting, actually

[joncnunn]

AI's attitude towards you is actually fairly minor as far as war probability.

You having a weak military compared to them is perhaps the #1 way to ensure that you'll be attacked. AI does not discriminate in this manner between AI & Human. So this leads to the dogpile on the weakest civ in the game.

The real clues that you are about to be attacked (without a sub-bug / MA / MPP which all occur sudently)

The earlyist is the AI starts patroling your common border and leaving units there.

Next the AI withdraws its workers from that common border even though there is work to be done.

Then the AI further increases the patroling of your common boarder.

Finally, an AI stack appears, at Sid level, this stack is usally large enough to qualify as a SoD. It will march directly towards the first city of yours that the AI wants. They will usally not bother to declare war [unless you demand they get out], but instead prefer to sneak attack your city, so if you place units that keep them from getting adjecent to all your cities in a mobile wall faction, you can delay the war indefinately.

(If you are non adjecant to the AI, you will miss all steps except the AI stack appearing)

Sub bug: AI always attacks an invisible unit it bumps into.

Also note that if you have less than twenty value to the AI in a situation where they would normally demand it, they'll skip the demand and just immedately declare war.

The AI does not consider how much you are giving it in GPT in these calculations. In fact if you see a stack inside your territory, and they have a tech you want, you can lower science rate to 0, sign a deal to buy their tech in a pure GPT deal, then demand they leave. They then declare war and you have a free tech. and negative WW to boot.

[AeonOfTime]

Thanks, joncnunn - I had noticed the stacking of units, but I have not tried the mobile wall faction technique... it may come in handy in some cases It's also good to know that the AI attitude is not that much of a helper...

I think that amongst the issues you mentioned, my biggest problem is the weak military. Being a builder, I prefer to spend my production beakers on buildings, producing offensive units only when I'm attacked. As the other civs all produce quite a lot of untis, it actually gives me quite an edge both production-wise and tech-wise. I think I'll have to rethink that strategy slightly, however, as going to war with a neighboring civ draws more on my resources than keeping a healthy stack of offensive units to impress everyone around...

Which in turn makes me realize that quite a lot has actually changed in Conquests, as I did not have these issues in the original Civ3, or Civ:PTW (which I have played the most). I'm not complaining, mind you - the game has been far more challenging, it's just that sometimes I'd like to be left alone for a while

Thumbs up for the free tech trick, I'll try that next time!

[joncnunn]

Based on my current game, I need to add one more case where the AI loves to sneak attack. Primarly applies to Meso American & Age of Discovery Conquests, but would also apply in the Epic game when Maya is played by the AI.

The AI loves to sneak attack a damaged offensive unit with a unit that has enslavement ability when it has a decent chance of winning. This was in MesoAmerican conquest, my 2/4 Javalan Thrower aqainst a 3/3 Incan C. Scout just out of visibility range when my turn ended. (That JT was part of a moble wall against the Moches founding a city too close to an intended city site of mine.)

[Fake Boris]

Isn't Bush a polite man?

[AeonOfTime]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Isn't Bush a polite man?

[khoma]

Are there any other reasons besides the ones listed above that would make the AI go crazy? The other night I had just finished one war, leaving me with what was probably the largest army in the game. I also had the largest empire overall. And out of the blue an AI (one of the weaker AI's) lands a tiny, pathetic attack force of semi-obsolete units and throws it on one of my cities. Didn't do any damage of course, but it really sucks having to spend time taking out one or two of their cities to avoid war weariness, especially when they're on another continent.

The AI in question did have a MPT with another tiny civ, but both of them combined didn't have my military force or empire size.

This was on Emp difficulty.

Edit: Bah, happened again, in another game. I wish tiny annoying civs would have enough common sense not to try to attack their much bigger neighbors.

[joncnunn]

Khoma, if the AI is the one declaring war on you, YOU get the negative WW happiness bonus.

If all your attacks against that AI are inside your territory, you'll still have negative WW happiness bonsus for the duration of the war.

For some reason, the AI thought that your coastal city was underdefended. This is in part because the AI does not consider that troops can move.
Oh, and I wouldn't be surprized if the city in question had a luxary or stregtic resource; including a future undiscovered one.

[AeonOfTime]

I noticed that behavior too - lately a tiny backward civ also decided to declare war - they had spearmen, I had infantry...

I loaded that savegame again just to check, and that city actually had a luxury (dyes) and a strategic resource (iron). I guess that was reason enough...

[khoma]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Khoma, if the AI is the one declaring war on you, YOU get the negative WW happiness bonus.

If all your attacks against that AI are inside your territory, you'll still have negative WW happiness bonsus for the duration of the war.

For some reason, the AI thought that your coastal city was underdefended. This is in part because the AI does not consider that troops can move.
Oh, and I wouldn't be surprized if the city in question had a luxary or stregtic resource; including a future undiscovered one.

Not sure I understand this correctly.. as long as I don't bother trying to go after them, I won't have to worry about war weariness?

[joncnunn]

Killing enemy units inside your cultural boundary never increases war wearniess.

For that matter, a properly executed attack will greatly slow down WW. Nothing increases WW more than a war of attrition outside your cultural boundary. Standard anti-WW tactics are:

1. Kill large offensive AI stacks inside your cultural boundary.
2. On offense, go directly for the cities so your cultural boundary expands.
3. Minimize your own losses.

Ending the war by any means will cancel the affects of WW. (Athough it will be remembered at a decreasing rate for the next 20 turns.) It is caculated on a per civ basis.

And don't confuse "Give Peace a Chance" [WW] with "Stop attacking our mother country" [citizens of a civ your at war with] , "We will never forget your oppression" [pop rush], and "Hell No, We Won't Go" [draft]

There is often massive unrest in a captured city that has nothing to do with WW, because the AI was drafting and pop rushing. Starving such cities down to size 1 is the solution. And also if you don't want a city when the AI had the ability to pop rush / draft, it should be raized to the ground because abandoing would transfer the unhappiness.

Originally posted by khoma

Not sure I understand this correctly.. as long as I don't bother trying to go after them, I won't have to worry about war weariness?