New player question: what's with the AI?

[bjsiders]

I got PTW and I'm the Koreans. I'm playing on Warlord (default settings, 8 random civs) so the challenge level of this game should be low to moderate for somebody who is new (I imagine). Anyway, I got a fast start, and quickly bumped into the Chinese and Indians. Luckily, they were just past a good choke point so I managed to isolate my civ my land early on and have a lot of open space to develop. As I explored, I found the Indians, Japanese, Mongols, and French. All is well so far.

Around 2000BC I've got quite a few cities but I'm still lagging behind the other Civs in population and land area. The Indians and Mongols go to war. The Indians are pissed at me anyway (I took Bombay early on to stunt their growth) and when the war ends, the Mongols are pissed at me too (they were Polite before).

Things proceded peacefully for another 1000 years and then COMPLETELY out of the blue, without making any demands, the Mongols declare war and attack one of my cities. I defend it handily. I got the Indians, Japanese, Chinese, and French to all counter attack the Mongols. Since the Indians and French border the Mongol civ (I didn't), they do all the fighting and I build up my neglected military.

This is the part that ticked me off: after *1* turn of war, the French and Mongols make peace and sign a military alliance against me. One turn. I can't even TALK to other civs until quite a few turns have gone by after a war starts; it annoys me to no end that the AI civs get to do that. In the end, the Japanense just decimated France and everybody begged for peace. Now my armies are built up and poised to rush through India and take over Mongolia.

Is this routine? Are there any other special rules the AI gets to play by that I should know about? If they can pull crap like this, I won't bother forming alliances against anybody. And this is just on Warlord level.

[alva]

Hey !, what do you expect from the French.. !! j/k

Are you sure they weren't allready at war before you signed the alliance?

[Bluefrog]

I've never had an alliance completely backfire like that, much less after one turn. The worst that has happened to me, in that respect, was that several turns after Civ A agreed to a military alliance with me against Civ B, A and B made peace. They didn't join forces against me, though.

Sounds like a fluke instance.

[Arrian]

I've had AI "allies" bail on me before, but I can't remember them switching from allies to enemies in 1 turn. I HAVE seen the AI do that to other AI's though: I've seen the English do it twice. Heh.

As for being attacked "out of the blue" get used to it - it happens, especially with a civ like the Mongols (with their "5" aggressiveness rating). People were probably annoyed with you based on a couple of things:

1) your early attack on India
2) lack of trades? I don't know, it's a guess: were you trading stuff with the AIs? That helps their attitude.
3)

Since the Indians and French border the Mongol civ (I didn't), they do all the fighting and I build up my neglected military.

- emphasis mine. If the AI perceives weakness, they WILL attack you.

-Arrian

[Thoth]

I've seen the AI pull some pretty sneaky diplomatic stunts, but none quite that bad. Soren seems to have done a great job of programming AI sneakiness when it comes to war and manipulating alliances. This sort of backstabbing is what I'd expect from a human.

[Robber Baron]

Did the Mongols have a lot to offer other AIs, in either tech or gold or resources -- first as tribute to the French to end the war, then as payment for an alliance?
In general terms, I agree: one turn is a highly unusual event. I've never seen so swift a betrayal.
As far as negotiating with the AIs, they never do it, under any circumstances, before (I think) 5 turns of warfare.

[joncnunn]

Actually, there are signs that an AI is planning to sneak attack you.

1. First the military advisor says that you have a WEAK ARMY compared to theres.

2. Then on the map, they start sending military units near your boarder.

3. Then all their workers leave the frontier even though there is still work to be done.

#1 is a sign to start building military units.

#2 is a sign to switch border cities without Baracks to Baracks and if there's no fresh water, build a wall.

#3 is a sign to switch all cities building improvements to military units.

[ZargonX]

The mongols, I have found, are definatly the most blatently aggressive AI towards the player. I had been playing a farily peaceful game, with only one war against the Babs, with which I had several allies. About fifteen turns after the babs were wiped out, and the world was in peace, about 40 mongol units came trampling down from the complete other side of the contintent to attack my newly conquered cities. On top of that, all of my previous allies had joined in against me within 2 turns. Ah well...

[Datajack Franit]

Just DON'T trust the AI

[Eli]

#2 is a sign to switch border cities without Baracks to Baracks and if there's no fresh water, build a wall.

(italics mine)

What fresh water has to do with this?

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by Eli
[q]

What fresh water has to do with this?

I guess he talks about the 25% defense bonus when defending across a river

[CerberusIV]

Welcome to PTW!

Actually I am finding that the AI civs will attack even when your military is stronger than theirs and with virtually no warning.

In my current regent game the Vikings attacked - no surprise there. I allied with the English and Spanish and the Vikings got wiped out. So far so good. Then the Spanish went from polite to war in one turn despite my having cavalry and them only knights and conqs. I destroy the Spanish with my English allies and then Elizabeth pulls the same stunt except this time I have tanks and bombers and they don't even have oil. Exit Elizabeth. I make peace with the Americans and Iroquois (Hiawatha tried to sneak attack me), only to have the Aztecs try to invade.

I admit I started the first major war by declaring then invading and destroying the Celts but I haven't broken any deals or done anything to damage my rep.

I'm not complaining mind, but PTW isn't for peaceful builder types.

Never let your military slide cos you might need it without much notice!

[joncnunn]

Simple: Towns with access to fresh water are likely to grow to size 7+ soon enough and effectively get free City Walls.

And since the only Catapults I've ever seen the AI have were kept inside their own towns, you don't have to worry in the early game about the AI bombarding your cities down to size 6.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Eli

#2 is a sign to switch border cities without Baracks to Baracks and if there's no fresh water, build a wall.

(italics mine)

What fresh water has to do with this?

If there's fresh water, the city will grow beyond size 6 and receive an automatic defense bonus, negating the need for a wall. Cities requiring aqueducts are better candidates for wall building. (EDIT: oops! Cross post...).

To keep the AI from pulling crap when it comes to alliances, I try (if possible) to package a second deal along with the alliance that includes a 20 turn expiration (gpt, luxuries, resource...). That way the AI has more incentive to remain comitted to the current alliance.

[bjsiders]

That's a good point, about keeping a strong military as a preventative measure. I noticed, at the beginning of the game when I had the most military units, that the Indians were desperate to appease me. I had done a TON of trading, especially with Mongolia. They got a massive tech lead early but I scaled back my science and invested heavily in expansion and military, and was able to wheel and deal my treasury up around 2000 gold by the end of the ancient era. The war with the Indians was REALLY brief. They founded an undefended city (I've never seen the AI do that before in Civ 1 or 2, and I played those games endlessly for YEARS) and so I declared war and destroyed it real quick. Nobody else was Annoyed at that point.

'Nuther question - my game is in the early stages of the medieval period. My options are Engineering and Theology for research. I'm tempted to go for Theology and then get Education so my scientific Koreans can start pumping out the Universities. On the other hand, Engineering is the path to my UU and I haven't had a GA yet. Decisions, decisions. Any advice? I have a MASSIVE culture lead over most of the other civs, my military is composed of fewer units, but overall stronger units, and my technology is about 2nd place.