What makes the AI get mad?

[MyOlde]

I'm a peaceful kind of guy. At least in the games I'm playing so far. But there always seems to come a point when one or the other civs get "annoyed" with me for no good reason. Anyone figured out what triggers this? Right now I'm the Persians and the Babylonians suddenly declared war on me. My advisor has warned me that he's a liar and not to trust him but I didn't see it coming. We'd been trading nicely. Can I expect this always to happen?

[Harovan]

Re: What makes the AI get mad?

Originally posted by MyOlde
I'm a peaceful kind of guy. At least in the games I'm playing so far. But there always seems to come a point when one or the other civs get "annoyed" with me for no good reason. Anyone figured out what triggers this? Right now I'm the Persians and the Babylonians suddenly declared war on me. My advisor has warned me that he's a liar and not to trust him but I didn't see it coming. We'd been trading nicely. Can I expect this always to happen?

You can safely ignore your advisor, he's part of the AI and that means, he's dumb.

As far as I can see in 2 months practice: Other civs get mainly mad at you, when:

- you go too far ahead in science and do not share your knowledge. Try to drag them with you and don't go more than 4-5 techs ahead, that's sufficient to win.
- you are weak, especially military. Go to your military advisor and ask him to compare your forces with every other civ. Make sure, your guys are at least "average" to each other civ.
- you bully the civs, denying tribute if you are weak, breaking an agreement (e.g. to withdraw forces), cancel a trade or similar. Be a fair trader, and grant other civs a bonus now and then, like a free or cheap tech, or a free luxury for 20 turns.

If you drain too much money from a civ and they can't afford it any longer, they declare war without being annoyed or furious. Some people wonder "why they declared war, I always was nice to them". But in fact they robbed them out and the other civ had no other way to escape the trap of debts.

[MyOlde]

Many thanks, Sir Ralph. Makes sense.