When does the AI ask for peace(Soren?)

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dienstag
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

from William Shakespeare's Macbeth Act V, Scene 5

I don't think this applies to Encomium half as well as it does to the "retarded or suicidal" AI, especially the "And then is heard no more" part.

Well at least the AI has an excuse. The human brain is still light years ahead of what a computer is capable of. With one exception.
Thanks for the passage, I made sure to save it. There's a few people around here that it might come in handy with sometime. I'll just have to change the first word, and it will fit right in.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Willem
Can anyone tell me what play that passage from Shakespeare comes from? The part about "strutting on stage" and "signifying nothing". For some reason that always comes to mind after Encomium has his say around here. I believe it was Hamlet, but I'm not entirely sure. It's a little out of context, but it seems to fit.

Is there really somebody left who does not ignore this guy?

As for your posting about allies, yes, it seems true that the AI has a horror of a multipe front war. But on the other hand, making peace with the AI while in an alliance makes you break a treaty. May it be the AI offers peace to you not only to have one less enemy, but also to drag you in other diplomatic trouble?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Is there really somebody left who does not ignore this guy?

What gets me is that I can insult and belittle him and there's never any rebuttal. He just keeps coming back with the same drivel, over and over again, like a broken record. Some people are just suckers for punishment I guess.

As for your posting about allies, yes, it seems true that the AI has a horror of a multipe front war. But on the other hand, making peace with the AI while in an alliance makes you break a treaty. May it be the AI offers peace to you not only to have one less enemy, but also to drag you in other diplomatic trouble?

I've never had any repercussions by doing that though, at least none that I've noticed. It's something to keep in mind however, next time it happens. Not that it makes much difference, all the other civs are generally furious with all the time anyway.

[Harovan]

IIRC you get in trouble, if you try to make another alliance. They say then "You have already stabbed us in the back, we won't trust you again" or something like that.

[Ironwood]

Actually, good Sir Ralph, that happens because you stabbed them in the back in the past, not because you made an alliance.

As the KING of honorable play, I can honestly say I have only had trouble with this once: First, I declared war on Egypt. Then I brought the world into it. Then, after punishing Egypt not quite thouroughly enough, I allowed for peace, and made a "Mutual Proetection Pact" as a condition for peace. Then, my allies in war attacked Egypt, triggering a war in my own kingdom. Then Egypt attacked Germany, another group I had MPPd after a war, thus triggering another forced war. France was also a MPP of mine (they came and asked, and like an idiot I accepted, despite the fact that they were the #2 power, behind me). They got attacked by my longtime allies the Americans. Yet another MPP was broken by MPP requirement. The world slowly began to go mad, and I quit that game as the turns began to surpass the 10 minuite mark. I think I'll keep that savegame, so I can continue playing it once I have a more powerful computer.

In short: NEVER sign an MPP with a power that is still at war with other allies. It is a guarenteed black mark on your reputation. I'd say it would be nice if MPPs could include some sort of "Bloc" arrangement by which you can direct the foreign policy of another power, but due to the fact that historically, this has not really been the case (pre WWI Europe is a case in point, as Bismark really didn't have the authority to direct the foreign policy of both Austria and Russia, his MPPs). Of corse, one might make a case for such things as NATO and such, but I really consider such groups to be CIVs all their own.

[nato]

Heh, in Civ2 NATO was my custom civ to play as. The first city names were the member countries.

West unite!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ironwood
Actually, good Sir Ralph, that happens because you stabbed them in the back in the past, not because you made an alliance.

What do you mean by "stabbing in the back"? Attack them? No.

I had game, where the Americans were in a long war with the Iroquois, and losing it slowly. I (Germans) had to secure an Iroquois coal deposit (my only own had just expired), landed a bunch of Cavalry and supporters and took an Iroquois city with 2 coals. Of course, the Iroquois didn't want to see me for a while. Meanwhile, the Americans asked me to join an alliance against the evil Iroquois. I agreed (foolishly) and continued to bomb the Iroquois with my ships. After a time, the Iroquois sued for peace, and I agreed. I had forgotten, that I still have an alliance with the Americans. Now, many turns later, the Americans were about to be wiped off. They had only 1 city left. I wanted to save them (just wondered if I can complete a game with all civs surviving) and offered them a MPP. I had a landing fleet nearby, what would have, no doubt, saved them in the last minute.

Abe refused, because "I had stabbed him in the back". He was wiped out 2 turns later. I had not a single war with America for the whole game. It must have been the alliance.

[Ironikinit]

Quoting Willem:

Some people are just suckers for punishment I guess.

End quote.

Heh, I like you well, Willem, but not ignoring Ecomium puts you in the glutton for punishment category.

Ralph, I think what Ironwood is talking about with "stabbing in the back" is that making peace with the common enemy before your alliance (and, I suspect, an MPP) ends is a grave insult to your ally. The AI does it a lot, tho.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
Heh, I like you well, Willem, but not ignoring Ecomium puts you in the glutton for punishment category.

Well that situation has since been remedied. Besides, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I was hoping that he might actually say something meaningful eventually. I guess I was wrong.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
Ralph, I think what Ironwood is talking about with "stabbing in the back" is that making peace with the common enemy before your alliance (and, I suspect, an MPP) ends is a grave insult to your ally. The AI does it a lot, tho.

Well, that was exactly what I said a few posts before his. I can't understand why he complained. I didn't write that you get in trouble, because you make an alliance, but because you break it.

[Ironwood]

I just re-read your post, Ralph, and finally saw the word "another" in "another alliance." Sorry for the misunderstanding.

What I want to know, now, is what posesses the AI to declare a war, particularly when I just finished demonstrating my absolute military hegemony, and honorably so. In my current game, I am the Babylonians, on a small world, against the French, the Iroqois, the Japanese, the Americans, and the Persians. The way it started, the Americans and I were second and first, and then the Americans declared war on France. France asked for my aid, I agreed, and then enlisted the help of the other three. The Americans were wiped out, and the Japanese were the new #2.

Then the Japs declared war after I demanded they stop trespassing. I enlisted the help of the rest of the world, and France, Persia, and I eliminated the Japanese. I took a good amount of territory, and was even further ahead.

I can understand why the French declared the next war. They sneak-attacked us, and war was joined, once again. I suppose they thought that, with their communist government, they could cavalry-rush my democracy. Unfortunately for them, I'd just built a very large number of tanks (they hadn't been used in war, just yet). So I steamrolled the French out of the way (used a wartime footing to get a real momentum effect going) and after taking a good 3/4 of their empire, they finally begged for peace. They gave me two minor villages for it, too (they have only two left).

Now, here's what I don't get. Throughout the game, I had the Iroqois, the lowest man on the totem pole, in a MPP with me. I never had to come to their defense, though, because I was generally already at war with their nearest threat. But, a few turns before I signed a treaty with the French, they asked to terminate the agreement. I let them, since I pretty well had the game in hand, anyway. Two turns after I sign a treaty with the French (I still have a *massive* force of tanks and Mech Inf), the Iroqois sneak-attack me.

Admittedly, I did leave some rather juicy targets. The two coastal bases the French ceded to me for peace were poorly defended (only one Mech Inf in each, one of which was overrun by Iroqois cavalry), and there was another great city that, in the chaos, I'd accidentally leff undefended (a good size 12 or 13, which would've been larger if not for the nearby jungle). That was burned to the ground in that initial assault.

The stupidity of that assault is glaring, but I suppose it's understandable, given the temptation I left them. Fortunately, the fact that they sneak attacked me ensures I don't have to switch governments (fought the whole French war as a Democracy, though by the end I'd doubled my unhappiness through war-wearyness).

[Soren Johnson]

Re: When does the AI ask for peace(Soren?)

Originally posted by MarkG
your experiences on how the AI "values" war and peace?

The AI's willingness to discuss peace terms depends on
a) how long the war has lasted
and
b) how much it is winning or losing the war.

In other words, the longer the war has lasted and the more battles/cities/whatever the AI has lost relative to you, the more willing it will be to go to the negotiating table.

As postulated somewhere in this thread, the length of time factor is there to prevent people from war-jacking the AI by continually declaring war and then agreeing to lop-sided peace agreements.

[dac]

I agree that the AI pre-patch could easily be tricked into handing over way too much in order to achieve peace. However, currently, the behavior just becomes suicidal. I like to play as a Democracy, hence, I usually only want to fight a limited war for specific objectives. Having achieved those, I then start trying to talk to the AI. However, it rebuffs me. Now I'm stuck. I need to get out of this war, because war weariness, regardless of how happy I keep my people, will eventually collapse my Democracy. Before it does that, it plays havoc with my cities, due to my having to bend more and more of my effort into keeping people happy. So, rather than face a long war waiting for the AI to decide that enough time has gone by to declare peace, I go on a rampage, aiming to eliminate the AI as quickly as possible, which ends up making for a boring end game. In my current game, only me (the Persians) and the Germans are left. I've had to kill 3 civilizations because they wouldn't talk to me, and I couldn't handle the war weariness. Usually, I just want to grab a key city, or a luxury, or a resource. Not take out an entire civ.

Maybe they could just use the time factor to limit how much to offer for peace? If the war has been short, just offer peace, not the kitchen sink. Only offer the kitchen sink after you've really gotten your nose bloodied. If the human has only taken 1 out of 20 cities, offer him peace and 5 gold and leave it at that. If he's taken 12 out of 20 cities, maybe you need to be a bit more generous. If he took those 12 in one turn, well, you're kind of stuck there.

[Harovan]

While understanding the need of the time factor, I agree with dac, the current state makes limited wars (as most of modern wars are!) impossible and decreases the "fun factor" of the game.

A possible solution would be, let the AI talk sooner but not give in to extortions by the human player. Let it rather demand a compensation for the lost cities/units etc. and decrease this demand slowly till the former time limit is reached. Most human players (especially in Democracies) won't mind to pay a compensation and games would certainly become more fun.

[Ironwood]

That, good Sir Knight, sounds like a good idea. It would remove the exploit, but would also allow the idea of the limited war.

I am, however concerned about the realism factor. How often have nations been willing to give up territory lost in war for monetary compensation? Perhaps at times, through gritted teeth, but it almost guarentees renewed war in the future, so long as the defeated power acquires the ability to do so (and will do so, if permitted).

I think it should be tied to relative culture. If the player has high culture, the opponent low, the AI should be willing to accept compensaion for a factus accompli (grudgingly). If, however, the culture gap is considerably closer, if not higher on the computer's side, there's no way in hell they should accept such an agreement. After all, their people in the defeated territory are fighting too; why should they give up? Why should they bow to these barbarians?