Anyone had a big effect on an AIvAI war before??

[Worthingtons]

in my current game the Germans were at war with the Japs (who were at war with a lot of nations btw) ... The Japs were the better empire considerably but the Germans were winning. Anyway.. I called up the Japs and discovered they were lacking in Resources... So I decided to help them a little (well they were fighting the Germans!) and sell them some Saltpeter,Iron and Horses, about 20 Turns later a 20 city strong German Empire was no more

[Arrian]

Yeah, I've had a situation sorta like yours. I was playing the standard world map that came with CivIII, as the Egyptians. I started in Siberia and expanded eventually to cover Europe, Asia and the northern 1/2 of Africa.

England (most of N. America) got into a war with the Aztecs (west coast USA, Central America, northern 1/2 of Sourth America). Eventually the Americans (southern 1/2 of South America) joined in vs. the English. The English were #2 in the game to me, but had no saltpeter. And so slowly, but surely, they started to lose. Having fought a brief war with Montezuma a while back, I decided to sell SP to Elizabeth. The war ground down into a stalemate and eventually ended w/o many gains by either side. All of them went communist as I ran away with the tech lead.

In those instances when you have an extra strategic resource that an AI needs desperately, you can have a huge effect on a war you have no part of. The problem is that I usually don't want to give an AI a really good strategic resource (anything past saltpeter). The one time I gave an ally oil & rubber I came to regret it. He backstabbed me a bit later on, and I had to deal with his Tanks & Bombers.

-Arrian

[Dom Pedro II]

I find that most of the time, my AIs don't need my help for massive turn arounds. I had one game where I had convinced the Indians (a moderately powerful civilization) to declare war on the Chinese (a VERY powerful civilization). Well, I got what I needed from the Chinese and then got out of it, but the Indians held on. The Indians were overrun at first. The Chinese stormed at least 10 of their cities. After about 50 turns or so, the tide had begun to turn. India took back their cities and wiped out several Chinese cities. I reentered war with China and took two more cities. Then I left again, but India persisted. By 1950, China was gone and India had claimed everything making it one of the most powerful civilizations in the world next to me.

[Dinner]

I usually try to give resources to the underdog during AI vs AI wars. That way they keep fighting and no unified superpower has a chance to emerge... other then me that is. :-)

[Thrawn05]

The best way to test the AI is to let the AI battle itself. I've done with alot with Total Annihilation. I would'of like to see a game were you obeserve all the AI's moves in CIV3, with no player in the game. I think that will give us some better insight on how the AI works.

16 Civs...
1 Contenent...
0 Players...
Total AI Mahem!

Watch as the AI moves his units randomly without cause...

See, as the AI attacks another civ with only one or two Warriors...

Be amazed at the AI trading... Ask yourself is a world map worth three techs?

Watch as the Victor are the barbarians tribes themselves!

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I had the good fortune of being Egypt's iron supplier. This had gone on for a long time, then they went to war with some neighbors. Time to renegotiate that trade deal! I was getting about 8g/turn before the war. Once they were in, they coughed up 25g/turn. Not a big impact, but it sure helped my kingdom. The Egyptians fell from third place to fifth, despite not doing poorly in the war.

[Cookie Monster]

Playing one AI civ against another is the greatest fun you can have with this game! Other than wiping out AI civs yourself that is.

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, I had one game where I was playing as the Russians on a huge continent. My vast territory was essentially its own continent, but there was one tiny little isthmus that joined myself with the main continent. Japan was on the left side of the isthmus, and i was on the right. England was south of Japan and India was south of England. China was west of India, Germany and France were north of China but separated by water from England.

Anyway, the trouble was that the other pesky civilizations felt it was their duty to colonize MY territory. Well, it was only a few settlements placed sporadically amidst my vast and culturally well-bound network of cities, and in all likelyhood, they all would have been absorbed sooner or later. However, I'm not that patient.

There were just three offenders. England, with one town, Japan with three, and India with one. I signed an alliance with the English against Japan and wiped out the Japanese cities that offended me. Then, I signed an alliance against the English with the Indians, but I was unable to capture the city I wanted. I was, however, able to capture one of the English mainland cities (go figure). Of course, all of this is, all in all, unimportant to my story.

I was essentially isolated from the rest of the world except for these brief conflicts. I watched India annihilate the English. Only once they had totally demolished them did I declare war and snatch that little settlement on MY territory. At some point, I declared war on India and took that one city, and they were eager to make peace after that. What scared me was what was happening on the OTHER side of the war. France and China teamed up and wiped out Germany by feudal times. China emerged as #1. India was catching up fast with their new English and eventually Japanese territories. I helped take out the other parts of Japan .

Then China and India went at it in the industrial age, and China was winning. Then France jumped in on India's side and China was left fighting a two-front war. 40 turns later, no more China... And then there were three! (Well, except for the Zulu on their own little island, who after surprise attacking and trouncing me in early naval conflict, had the Russian flag over every one of their cities within 60 turns give or take a few). Then France and India went to war! India started winning from the start. I, clearly seeing a winner in sight, alligned myself with India and jumped into the fray if only to keep the damn Indians from being TWICE my size! I plunged deep, deep into the heart of France, which was risky since my cultural center was about as far away as could be.

Anyway, I stayed out of most of the international business except for unifying my landmass and whatever territorial acquisitions I made near the end. So for a large portion of the game, I got to see how brutal the AI can be on itself. Whereas in Civ 2, an AI conquest of another AI was astonishing, its a non-event in Civ 3. In Civ 2, borders shifted very little unless it was the player who did the shifting. Not so in this game!

[DrFell]

Saw the germans completely annihilate greece once. Other than that I've seen fairly few wars, apart from ones I've set up. When it's 3 on 1 though, you often see one civ losing badly after awhile.

[eclarkso]

RoP

Something I've done a couple of times is if two Civ's are warring and they happen to be on opposite sides of your territory, negotiate a RoP with one or both of them. This is especially nice if you don't feel like going to war over asking one or both of them to get their units the hell out of your land...you know they're going to keep coming (they are at war, after all), so you may as well get something out of it. If you're already railroaded-up, then this has the double advantage of getting the AI units to combat instantaneously, which in turn means more battles, which means more deaths, which means less useful things that the AI can build to really compete with you .

Of course, this works much better if you are fairly powerful to begin with; the AI seems to value a RoP more in that case, since it's more afraid to cross your land without one.

[Windwalker]

Re: RoP

Originally posted by eclarkso
Something I've done a couple of times is if two Civ's are warring and they happen to be on opposite sides of your territory, negotiate a RoP with one or both of them. This is especially nice if you don't feel like going to war over asking one or both of them to get their units the hell out of your land...you know they're going to keep coming (they are at war, after all), so you may as well get something out of it. If you're already railroaded-up, then this has the double advantage of getting the AI units to combat instantaneously, which in turn means more battles, which means more deaths, which means less useful things that the AI can build to really compete with you .

Of course, this works much better if you are fairly powerful to begin with; the AI seems to value a RoP more in that case, since it's more afraid to cross your land without one.

Oh yeah, I love charging the AI for RoP when it gets into war with another country. In my current game, the Egyptions and Indians had at one point teamed up against me, but after I took cities from both of them, they made peace. Then they started tearing at each other's throats (didn't know those two were so aggressive!) and crossing my territory to do it. Well I didn't want them to declare war on me again, so I just made them pay for an RoP and I ended up getting 180 gold total in the late ancient age (which ain't bad for this point in the game!). Just be sure to make them pay right at the beginning of the war, because towards the end, the AI tends not to have any gold whatsoever...

- Windwalker

[Jaguar]

The way I affect AI wars is by attacking the larger civ from a different front. They have about one defender per city, and I take out the heart of their empire, while the other civ gets only the little frontier cities. I used tha tactic all the time in Civ2. I haven't had much opportunity to affect wars by giving resources, but I suppose thats because I'm only on my third game, on regent level.

[Zachriel]

I played a Monarch game as China where there were two continents. While I was gobbling up my continent, I made MPPs with Civs on the other continent with the intention of keeping the other Civs divided and at war. Being isolated, war in the east had little effect on my development. By the time I had conquered my side of the world, the other side was still at war and still deeply divided.

Then the Persians made a move to conquer their continent. That left me no choice but to invade.

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/BeachHead.htm

[Jaguar]

Good website.

[sachmo71]

Zach,

Great job on the site! Look forward to seeing more.