Stupid AI declares war....

[Arrian]

In my most recent game (Monarch/Standard/8civs, as usual), I got hit several times by AI civs, and each time the opponent had less chance of winning.

The first attack was by a civ that actually could have hurt me rather badly, had they massed their forces and upgraded propertly. Persia. With iron. Some solid cities.

I was the Greeks. So, to open the war, the Persians hit my border town (defended by a veteran hoplite) with a warrior. A single regular warrior. WHICH WON, suffering 1hp damage. I was, um, not amused. I destroyed them. It took a little while, but I wiped them out.

Later, I was sneak attacked by my former allies (against Persia), the Arabs. They were still pre-chivalry. I had Knights. They died, badly.

After that, I sent the majority of my forces overseas to pick on Carthage (relatively weak, had 2 luxury supplies controlable by coastal cities = target). That left America, the final civ on my continent, at my back.

Anyway, I beat the snot out of Carthage, and then settled down for a while. But then the Mongols wanted a piece of me. So, with what had to be over 30 ancient cavalry units, they came after me (they had no horses though, so no Keshiks). I slaughtered them with Cavalry, and ripped apart their empire with 3 4x Cavalry and 1 4x infantry armies.

And then, having toasted Mongolia, the Americans hit me. They had a very large number of knights, crusaders, guerrilas and infantry. I must admit, for several turns I couldn't actually repel them - I was just whittling away (except for that one border city I grabbed on turn 1 of the war). Had the attack come ~15 turns earlier, it would have been more problematic, because like I said, nearly my entire offensive army was overseas. But by the time the Amis hit me, I had just gotten Tanks. A few turns later, with 3 4x Tank armies leading the way, I had destroyed their invasion force, and started my counterinvasion.

That's as far as I've played.

The Persian attack: smart, but poorly executed. A proper Immortal rush might have wrecked me.
The Arab attack: suicidal. By this point I was numero uno, and they were the weakest civ in the game.
The Mongol attack: suicidal. Ancient cav versus Infantry and Cavalry, with armies.
The American attack: suicidal, but given the situation (I had the game won) understandable. Mistimed and poorly executed, though.

Fun, though.

-Arrian

[BulMaster]

Well I'd sharemy current game huge map 31 civs at emperor i would rattle about the fact that i and others a couple of turns before me entered industious age in 700AD, i play russia on a world map and the damn zulu are in SA, tell me why do they even bother declare war since there is no way for us to even encounter? I mean that's stupid and another thing that bothers me is the reluctance of the AI to go to war I mean China is the number one and strangely enough is under facism not communism strange to me but who knows they entered a war with india which ended and resumed later BUT when the did go to war the dragged the rest of the world to war I mean I'm the only country that is not at war (i paid the zulus) and every turn a get msgs about new alliances beeing formed starting even more wars I'd say this the first world war 1100 year before the original one but on that one there is no side the AI is just fighting around Europe, Asia and N.Africa and i'd say that this war won't end at all. And due to the extremly fast dev opf the game i still have spearmans defending my cities i mean in 700AD this would be completly normal thing so am now rebuilding my army and will enter the wars on some of the many sides cause it's a every man for himself thing. Still civ4 or the next patch or whatso ever should adress that issue cause well frankly you can;t have countries fighting between each other at least make them form groups or something the germans are allied with the chinese for one thing and with the indians for another and of course allied with many onther countries for other things. Weird! very weird. Well me going back to my endless turns and prepare my armies I wonder if i count the alliances how many are there now perhaps soon as someone said everyone will be at war with everyone else!

[BulMaster]

how come i was never sneaked atacked by the AI I play civ since it's release and the only time i was declared war is when i ask the remove their or troops are declare it and when they ask me a tribute so that i can live which i rearely give

[SlightlyMadman]

Has anyone else tried lowering the AI aggression level on the setup screen? I've been setting mine to "Less Aggressive" (IIRC, whatever the second lowest one is), and it helps with this quite a lot.

It seems to actually make the game more challenging, as I haven't seen a single instance of blatant AI suicide in the 3 epic games I've played with this setting. The AI has still attacked me plenty, but they only do it when they have enough of a force that they usually manage to take some cities.

In my current game, I'm playing Russia, and after eliminating the pathetic Zulus and stealing their land, I turned to America, who would be a tough fight, but I felt confident I'd come out ahead. Unfortunately, I forgot to bribe everyone into an alliance the turn I declared war, so America didn't forget, and my other neighbors, the Aztec, declared war.

They had the ToZ, but I had assumed they'd been using up their cav in their war with the Maya. I was soooooooooo wrong. The very next turn, while the majority of my forces were on the other side of the continent, they marched a combined force on ancient cavalry and knights, about 30 strong, and took 4 cities, including my capital, in 5 turns.

I'll be taking the back, of course, because they've now got nothing left to attack with, while I've got a couple dozen knights poised for a counter-attack, but it really screwed up my plans. Very smart move by the AI. I think that if I hadn't turned down the aggression, they'd have been sending those units out into various wars 1 by 1 as they get them, like tha AI loves to do, so they couldn't have pulled an attack like that off.

[justjake73]

How many times has war started by the AI refusing to move out of your borders? I'm the most powerful civ in the world and the Chinese move a MedInf one square over the line, then start the "hmpf just about to leave anyway" crap - say they'll leave and don't until you threaten war! I'm almost a full era ahead of them!!

[vmxa1]

BullMaster

With large number of civs (more than 16) the game seems to really break down on the war/alliance issue. It is not able to figure out what is going on and triggers any number of out breaks and alliance breaking/creation cycles.

Sneak attacks seem to be primarly aimed at stronger civs in close proximation. RoP rapes do not need those conditions. It is hard to sneak up on anyone from a long ways away.

Good relations and strong military are the main reason the AI will not violate your border.

At least as best as I can tell.