AI War policies

[Illyrien]

A Civilization that seems weak will be attacked by everybody who wants their share of the loot. Early when i played the game I had a weak military and then I would get declared on my 1 enemy civ and everybody would say "hey, he is weak, lets kill him" and I would end in wars with everybody!

On the other hand, if you are at war with somebody and manage to get others to join the war, then there is a good chance that all the other civs will say "hey, he is weak" and mass declare war on him.... I love when this happens

[Sovereign]

Interesting, Illyrien.

I also had games when I was the "Giant" and everybody wanted a piece of me, so they all declared war on me. Even the puny 5 city civ's that were supposed to be the "weakest" civ's.

Needless to say, David vs Goliath didn't come true. I mass produced tons of battleships and tanks and nukes. Nuff said.

[dexters]

I've been saying this for a while now, but I'd really like to see the AI pursue its aims more coherently.

Basically, the AI has been hardcoded to pursue a list of generic policies that the programmers think is to its best interest.

1) Basic threat assesment. [city proximity and border mesh is taken into account]
2) Pick on the weakest and or the Civ others are picking on
3) Expansion assesment. If it runs out of room to expand too soon, it will go to war to get it.

This is good and fine as a macro level strategy, but the AI has no micro level strategy. It should be able to keep a list of variables for each civ it has contact with that it can use.

An example of micro level strategy would be -appeasement or convesely passive agressive peace.

If it is appeasement, the AI will be more agreeable to trades, offer lower prices, and be more willing to provide assistance. A passive agressive foreign policy would basically see the human player as an enemy, but instead of going to war, the AI would go out of its way to not help the player.

This provides some variety and elemt of chance. Not everyone you call up for a military alliance will want to go with you, even if you offer them an arm and a leg, even if your reputation is squeaky clean. Some AI should quite rightly think this kind of deal is fishy and does not advance their interests.

But alas, I think we'll never see this happen.

[Sovereign]

You can hope for it to happen in Civ4. Then again, maybe not.

[Mr. President]

Y'know, until recently the AI was never very aggressive towards me. But in my current game, the Iroquois violated a right-of-passage agreement to attack me. Then the Persians allied with them, so I got the Babylonians to ally against the Iroquois . . . but then they also made an alliance with the Iroquois against me. Then the Zulu got dragged in. I think they were still mad at me for taking Zimbabwe a couple centuries ago.

Bottom line, I torched Ulundi twice and I have a new idea for a fan fiction story.

[Sovereign]

Heh. This makes me wonder...

What are the priorities of the AI in regards of MPP / ROP?

Say... AI "A" is allied to you and AI "B".

You are at war with AI "B".

Who will AI "A" declare war on and cancel MPP with?

Will AI "A" declare war and cancel MPP with you?

Or cancel it with AI "B"?

This has got me baffled for a long time.

[Boracks]

Well, a Mutual War Pact only triggers when you have units in the other guy's territory or they have units in yours. This will have a bearing on which way the AI declares. The actual turn order may have something to do with it as well.

Hmm, actually, I know attacking enemy units in your own territory doesn't trigger an MPP but I can't recall if attacking them in neutral territory counts or not.