Regarding the AI's warlike tendencies...

[MoNoLitH]

Every time I play a game, I end up at war with everyone. Wtf. I never use intense rivalry, I share tech and money freely, and I make every effort to not anger anybody. And yet I still constantly get backstabbed, attacked, and have my borders disrespected despite my efforts.

Can you all please share with me some of your favorite (and most effective) tactics for keeping the AI friendly?

[Maniac]

Make them submissive asap.

[Chaos Theory]

Be strong, militarily. If you have lots of infrastructure but no army, the AI will hate you. If you have less infrastructure but lots of military units (even garrisons), the AI will be cowed.

[Flubber]

If you are clearly in first place in the power charst, the AI will likely hate you. Early though, I find that all the AI want to be friends-- I think its mainly because I lag the AI in the power charts for the first half-century and I am not running any offensive societal choices. The only problem early is that am AI will not trade you techs that have SPs with them and if they have 3 techs , they assume you only want the SP one and don't seem to offer the others.


I still think you should meet people early. If you find someone 30 tiles away and they declare war . .. so what??

In most games, I find that I can keep about half the AI happy with me into the middle game but if I start to become dominant, more and more of them will hate me ( The exception would be a pactmate that likes my choices and is willing to go all the way together to win the game)--

There are only two types of AI, friends and victims

[Chaos Theory]

I've found that the AI will sometimes trade me only some, but still some, of its techs, keeping the ones tied to SPs it wants.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I've found that the AI will sometimes trade me only some, but still some, of its techs, keeping the ones tied to SPs it wants.

I seem to remember that occasionally and I think it was always when they called me up to make the offer.. I think, but am not certain, that each time I initially offered them a tech and asked for a tech in return, they balked with the wording about not wanting to see some SP fall into my hands.

[livid imp]

Re: Regarding the AI's warlike tendencies...

Originally posted by MoNoLitH
Can you all please share with me some of your favorite (and most effective) tactics for keeping the AI friendly?

Yup. Force it. Use the faction editor to make peaceful copies of all the different factions. I like to set the aggressiveness of hybrids (Uni, Gaians, etc.) to peaceful and set war-hawks (Believers, Spartans) to hybrid cause they need a little war to be competitive. You'll still go to war a lot, but at least the AI doesn't do stupid sh!t like refuse to truce when you have them outnumbered 30 to 1 in cities. They are a lot less likely to backstab or declare war cause you wouldn't hand over tech.

[SynthetGod8]

I've been lucky before and convinced the AI to trade an SP tech to me instead of the one it was offering me. It doesn't happen often, that faction really has to like you.

[Santiago_Claus]

"We are their masters, Babe. Let them doubt it for a second and they'll walk all over you. ... [B]ite them! Be ruthless, whatever it takes. Bend them to your will!"

- Fly the sheepdog


Upshot of that advice: once war is declared, never accept anything less than unconditional surrender. Don't be wooed by pleas, credits, or tech. Your goal, your only goal, is to say these words: "... you must swear a pact to serve me!"

They are the grist, you are the mill. Grind them, bake them, and when they're done, when they've been transformed from raw, unrefined chaff into soft flour, leaven them with a few bases and let them rise again. Accepting anything less is ... settling for half a loaf.

[Zeiter]

Most often, the reason the AI is agressive towards you is that they are afraid/envious of your dominance.

Just curious: have you ever been seriously losing in a game before? I was trying the automation challenge as Zakharov, and things were going a little shaky (it was 2180, and I didn't have IA yet. That's what makes blind research so fun.) Well, Miriam, my neighbor, comes to say hello with elite 4-3-1's and 4-2-2's. Much to my disbelief, I watch half of my helpless, governor-controlled bases get overrun with her first wave. I finally manage to truce with her, after giving up 3 techs, hoping to somehow regroup and counterattack. All of the sudden, all of the other factions start calling me, offering me tech, energy, and pacts to join them in fighting Miriam (who was evidently at war with the entire world at this point.) Even Yang was perfectly willing to pact and give tech, even though I was running demo. Well, believe it or not, I ended up getting completely PWNed by Miriam, and actually lost the game! But the point is that the AI hates a superpower, whether it is another AI faction or a human faction, and often they will be willing to do anything to stop a superpower.

So, how does one manage being a superpower?
1. Conquer some AI factions early and make them submissives.
2. On some rare occasions, you'll get an ally that is willing to stay with you to the end, but this is RARE. (I've only had this happen twice in all of my years of playing.)
3. Just make yourself so powerful that all of the other factions combined against you still don't match your dominance.

[Chaos Theory]

I choose 3.

[Frankychan]

You can't help but being hated by the AI. Sometimes all of the AI factions will hate you, other times the majority will like you. As stated above, just build your military up so that if any faction gets stupid, you can put them in their place.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
-Niccolo Machievelli

[Googlie]

Set the preferences in the set-up game conditions to Intense Rivalry

That way the AI will fight among themselves, and if (when) your neighbor gets annoyed at you either for not joining his war on his side, or 'cos he sees you as a threat, he'll be weakened by his ongoing wars with the other AI's

[CEO Aaron]

You're there to win, not to make friends. Submissives and SE-compatible pact-mates are you ONLY recourse for long-term trading partners, and you need to feed everyone else your mailed fist until they fall into one of those two categories.

In the meantime, your diplomatic goals will be to preserve the allies you intend to keep, subjugate the rivals you don't, and keep enough of the AI off your back long enough to secure your footing.

Tech and money bribes are only as useful as the time they buy you, don't get fooled into believing they'll make you friends forever.

[Mr. President]

The best relations I ever had with foreigners was when the Gaians hit me with a chop-and-drop blitzkrieg and took all my cities except University Base. I played until mandatory retirement time, and even though I never recovered, everybody loved me.