Taking Advantage of Artificial Incompetence

[nbarclay]

One thing everyone who's played Civ much knows is that AIs aren't all that competent at fighting each other. Lately, I've started sometimes taking advantage of that by bringing AIs into my wars of aggression as allies. If I can force the civ I'm attacking into a two-front war, or maybe even a three-front war, fewer offensive units from the AI I'm attacking will come after me. Further, while the civs I enlist as partners might make some small territorial gains, they won't gain nearly as much as I will and will spend a rather large number of shields' worth of units doing it. That's especially true if the prospective allies aren't in an advantageous technological position compared with the target. (Advantageous positions can come either from being more advanced technologically or from being at a point in the game - cavalry vs. musketmen, for example - where attackers have a significant advantage with equal technology.)

That tactic is a bit risky in Republic (or especially Democracy), since making peace early can ruin your reputation and war weariness can be a serious problem if you can't completely conquer your victim in a timely manner. But under governments that don't have war weariness problems, the only problem is that you might not be able to make peace as quickly as you'd like to get rid of the "Stop the aggression against our mother country" unhappiness in conquered cities.

I'm sure this technique is old hat to quite a few players, but it seems worth mentioning for the benfit of whoever might not have picked up on it yet.

[Rellin]

I use this strategy 90% of the time. I generally get a few of the mid ranged civs to join in my wars for either techs, luxeries or resources. I go Monarchy 100% of the time so War Weariness is never an issue for me, but as you said, the only draw back is when you have accomplished your goal or want to attempt to extort techs for peace you must wait till the 20 turns are up, or your AI allies breaks their agreement with you, as they do quite often.

[Rhothaerill]

For the most part I will avoid this strategy as I usually make war in one of the representative governments. I often don't want my wars to last more than 20 turns. However when I know that the war will last more than 20 turns then I don't hesitate. Also i will sometimes enlist a neighbor of mine for the sole purpose of avoiding a two-front war on my part.

One more thing...and I haven't really tested it lately as I avoid doing it...if you do sign an alliance with other civs and you obliterate the nation that you are at war with then you take the reputation hit as if you broke the alliance. If anyone knows if that has changed please say so.

[Solomwi]

Rhothy... I used to use that to keep myself out of a two front war, too, but have found it much easier to simply renegotiate peace with that civ rather than drag them into the war, thereby either locking myself into war for 20 turns or taking a rep hit. This, of course, only applies really in rep governments when, as you say, the 20 turn issue needs to be considered.

Don't know on your question, but now I'm curious, too.

[alexman]

I don't think this was ever the case.

What does happen is that if your alliance involved giving something per turn to your ally, then you get a reputation hit.

[Edit: crosspost. My post was in response to Rhothaerill's question.]

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by alexman
I don't think this was ever the case.

What does happen is that if your alliance involved giving something per turn to your ally, then you get a reputation hit.

[Edit: crosspost. My post was in response to Rhothaerill's question.]

Ah that was probably it then. I only remember getting the reputation hit a few times and then trying to avoid it afterward. I'm quite sure I gave them something to ally with me.

Thanks alexman.

[Theseus]

Ah.... Gang Bangs.

Lots'o fun. There are some corollary benefits as well, including improved attitude and lessened likelihood (but not complete) of attack by your allies.

Rellin makes a good point too, btw... when careful when bringing in the big boy AI civs, you just might foster a KAI. (or maybe for a masochist like me!)

[vmxa1]

I find the AI is often not even of much use as an ally. They seemed to not send units all that much. I will get them involved to keep from a gang up on me. Well sometimes I like to do all against the world.

[TheArsenal]

I generally don’t like to ally with the AI. There are a couple of exceptions. One being if a notably strong AI attacks before I am ready, or if its attack will disrupt important war plans I am making elsewhere (a resource grab for example) and the AI I ally with is situated between me and the aggressor and I am in a government that can withstand 20 turns of being at war.

Depending on the map, many times in that situation the aggressor AI won’t be able to even get units into my territory except for the occasional half empty galley. The problem as noted already is, it can create a KAI right on/closer to my border to be dealt with later.

Otherwise, if all these conditions aren’t met, I’ll slug it out by myself for a few turns, do what damage I can then call for peace.

[Aeson]

You can take it a step further and declare war on AI you have no intention of fighting, then sign up neighbors who can't expect to fight them either (on a different landmass especially). This makes the AI focus on military and since you aren't actually fighting anyone war weariness isn't a problem.

Then the next step in progression is manufacturing situations where you can get those AI to declare war on you for negative war weariness, getting your allies to declare war on you to break alliances when you want to make peace with the enemy, ect.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
I don't think this was ever the case.

What does happen is that if your alliance involved giving something per turn to your ally, then you get a reputation hit.

Is your giving something per turn for the alliance sufficient to trigger the hit, or does there have to be something up front from the AI as part of the deal for that to happen? Or do you know? I don't remember ever getting a reputation hit that I noticed from destroying an enemy early, but I'm not sure what situations I've created where such a thing could happen.

Note that if you have the cash and a good reputation, instead of offering something per turn for an alliance, you could offer cash for the alliance and then get the cash back by selling something per turn. Also note that making combined versus separate deals can matter if one of the AIs involved is currently paying the other gold per turn. If your intended ally is receiving gold per turn from your enemy, getting the gold per turn as part of the alliance deal can provide profit that would not be available in a separate deal after the alliance is signed (because your enemy stops paying when war is declared). Conversely, if your intended ally is paying gold per turn to your enemy, your ally will stop paying when it declares war and thus perhaps be able to pay you more gold per turn than if you sell whatever you want to sell as part of the alliance deal. Of course you don't actually know exactly what deals AIs have with each other, but sometimes you can make a very good educated guess. And if a civ is unwilling to pay gold per turn when you first open negotiations, there is no risk that the amount of gpt they can pay will go down after the alliance is signed.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I find the AI is often not even of much use as an ally. They seemed to not send units all that much. I will get them involved to keep from a gang up on me. Well sometimes I like to do all against the world.

If your ally is your enemy's immediate neighbor, they can provide some value in drawing off enemy offensive units whether they do much to attack your enemy or not. Indeed, drawing off enemy offensive units is one of the thigs I want most from my alliances. That can be especially useful if the enemy happens to have a powerful offensive UU available at the time you attack: what is it worth to have half the Persians' Immortals or China's Riders go after another civ instead of you? Alliances can also provide a way to manipulate an AI into burning its GA sooner rather than later if that seems desirable.

[nbarclay]

The reason I titled the thread "Taking Advantage of Artificial Incompetence" is that even when an AI is fairly strong, it is unlikely to gain as much from an alliance as a good human player who prosecutes a war aggressively will. The real danger of creating killer AIs comes from luring AIs into wars with each other where the human player doesn't plan to do much fighting, because under those circumstances, the AIs stand to gain quite a bit from the war if they can get the upper hand while the human player has no real prospect of gaining anything.

Nathan

[Plotinus]

Re the reputation hit - bear in mind that if you are in a military alliance with another power, their attitude to you will be automatically improved for as long as the alliance lasts. When it ends, for whatever reason, this "artificial" boost also ends. So an apparent reputation hit might in fact be simply the effect of no longer being in the military alliance, as your reputation with the former ally drops to what it would have been anyway.

[Mountain Sage]

Good strategies all. I use them a lot (yes, me!), especially on 3 occasions:

1. I am in a building mode.
An AI lands the usual 2 spears and refuses to ship them in again. I sign military alliances with at least 1 of its neighbours and happily go on building my city improvements. The drawback is of course that the war lasts 20 turns.

2. I plan a war.
I declare war, sign some military alliances especially with civs on the opposite (geographically speaking) of my targeted AI and wait for some turns. All the targeted AI's troops are sent on the other side. Then I land mine.

3. A KAI emerges (or better, is emerging).
I sign alliances, but do not draw in the weakest civs. After 20 turns, I sue for peace. Quite often, the KAI and other civs go on warring for a long time. If the balance shift in favour of the KAI, I support the weakest one(s) with gold and techs.

As for the gifts, I find that too often the price is very small: world map, RoP, some gold or luxury. If it's gold, I make sure it's a lump sum, which I get usually back the same round for trading a tech or luxury.

I really avoid taking rep hits, as you never know who your next 'ally' will be...

[ducki]

If your intended ally is receiving gold per turn from your enemy, getting the gold per turn as part of the alliance deal can provide profit that would not be available in a separate deal after the alliance is signed (because your enemy stops paying when war is declared).

Don't you then run the risk of your new ally immediately breaking the deal and declaring war on you because he now can't pay the bills because your enemy stops paying?

[eris]

Many times, I follow the general strategy as given at the start of the thread. I have no reason to suspect that I have any strategic skill to offer this forum, but I have not seen mention of this detail that can be added:

I decide well ahead of time who will be the next victim. Current example is Carthage. I am buiding up an military strike force and look for places to establish attack points. This is going to take a while since my last task force is spread all over ex-Celtica. I sign up MPP with a couple likely looking candidates well ahead of the invasion. In fact, my goal is sign it around 10 turns ahead of the invasion. The turns pass. I launch the invasion, making sure that there is some weak unit extended beyond my blitz charge, which is usually immediately attacked in the counterstrike and triggers full entry into the war from my allies. Now, I have ten turns of MPP left. At the end of the ten turns, if the war is dragging along more than I want (Hey, I got the luxuries I wanted. I'm done!) then I let the MPP lapse. Then I sign peace, extorting what I can. With any luck my former allies continue harassing my now ex-victim, further distracting all their economies while I begin a bit of post-war build-up. I have even seen my allies get themselves into a Military Alliance or two, which I avoid, and then they are all entangled in some muddy mess for quite a while. Sometimes civs I never recruited get brought into the mix.

You are vulnerable to one of your allies declaring war before you do and messing up your carefully connived schedule, but that risk can be evaluated or just reacted to when necessary. It's a good way to take a previously stable world and plunge it into world war, then back out of the chaos. Much as I love chaos, I love it even more when it is happening to the other civs.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ducki


Don't you then run the risk of your new ally immediately breaking the deal and declaring war on you because he now can't pay the bills because your enemy stops paying?

My presumption is that my ally can reduce its science slider setting if it has to in order to pay. So far, I haven't been proven wrong, but I haven't tried it a lot either.

[Arrian]

I used this last night, but for slightly different reasons.

I started a game as the Babs, my old favorites, on Monarch just to toy around with them. But I found that, despite some nice start terrain AND a free settler from a hut, the early game wasn't all that easy.

There were three primary reasons for this: 1) I had ZERO luxuries available via peaceful expansion (despite having quite a bit of room); 2) I was at the far end of a continent that had 4 AI civs who all met each other very quickly and traded like mad - leaving me with a large tech deficit; and 3) I had iron but no horses (not a big deal, I suppose).

The tech deficit was so bad, in fact, that when I tried to research Code of Laws and then Philo to get Republic as a free tech, something I've been able to do consisently on Monarch, I found I was not first to Philo. Oops.

Anyway, I was able to become powerful due to my nice land and the fact that my 2nd city was pump-capable (thought that took a little doing). I crushed my southern neighbors, the Germans (hey, they picked the fight, I just finished it) with swordsmen, and had very good RNG luck. I won just about every battle, and generated TWO MGLs (FP in Berlin, Army of 3x swords).

I still only had 1 luxury, however. The distribution on the continent was rather odd. The Spanish, for instance, were in the same boat I was w/regard to luxuries: their peaceful REX got them none at all (though they had 2 irons and 2 horse supplies within spittin' distance of Madrid, and frankly they SHOULD have gotten the dyes just to the west). The English had two luxuries, but no iron. The Russians also have 2 luxuries, IIRC. I can't see enough of their territory to be sure of resources.

The English went and built the Pyramids. So here we have a civ with 2 luxuries I don't have, lacks iron, and has the Pyramids.

So I invaded them, of course. At first, I figured I'd take them down alone. I had my 3x sword army, 6 or 7 med infs, 2 musketmen, and 4 trebuchets. I'd have had more, but I made the mistake of building a city on an iron supply, so I couldn't disconnect/reconnect for mass upgrading purposes. I had my initial mass upgrade forces, and any more had to be built the old fashioned way.

Anyway, I invade, take a city, and notice the English have med infs and even knights.

Ah, yes, those silly Spaniards and their extra iron. Hmm. Spain will ally with me and provide me with horses for Engineering. DONE.

With this, I cut the English iron supply, get myself horses so I can pump our horsemen (and press forward pell-mell towards Military Tradition), and get some help from the Spanish army.

I also called in the Russkies, figuring I'd already passed out Engineering, so let's get them in on it too. After all, England had 2 small cities waaaaay on the other side of Russian territory. These were likely to be their last refuge.

End result: I capture all of England proper, including the Pyramids, Great Wall (obselete), Artemis (obselete) and Mausollos. I also take control of 2 new luxuries, and my own horse supply. I even got a 3rd MGL, which rushed the Military Academy in my most productive city. In the peace treaty, I get Astonomy - though I had to cough up 16gpt for it. England was destroyed by Russia ~5 turns later.

Spanish gains: none. Russian gains: the two english cities to their far north (a long way from Moscow). Though they did take, and burn, one English core city rather close to their own core. They might have gotten something useful from it if they had kept it. I replaced that city with a new one of my own.

-Arrian

p.s. Thank goodness for the religious trait in this game. I took a belated shot at the Pyramids, failed, and switched to the Great Library. That was fine, and I'm glad I got it (I received Republic, Monarchy, Polytheism and Theology from it). But due to the fact that I had captured the Oracle in Berlin, the completion of the GL triggered my GA. Note that I got republic from the GL! So 1 turn of despot GA, one turn of anarchy, and then 18 blissful turns of republican GA. *phew*

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Plotinus
Re the reputation hit - bear in mind that if you are in a military alliance with another power, their attitude to you will be automatically improved for as long as the alliance lasts. When it ends, for whatever reason, this "artificial" boost also ends. So an apparent reputation hit might in fact be simply the effect of no longer being in the military alliance, as your reputation with the former ally drops to what it would have been anyway.

It happened to me a few times, but the one that sticks out in my mind is when a polite civ allies with me against another. Their attitude went to gracious, but then when I finished off the other civ, the gracious attitude went to annoyed (IIRC). Like I said I've avoided alliances when I have a genocidal war in mind for quite a while so I don't remember all the facts. It's nice to know the reason now.