They won't leave us alone!

Barry Brenesal · November 7, 2001, 00:36

One of the complaints lodged regularly against the diplomacy AI in Civ: CTP was that it foreign units would stroll through your governing zone, and all the requests to get them removed went ignored. Oh, they'd be agreed to; just nothing would happen.

It appears that's the case with Civ3. I'm playing a game now where I've essentially walled off the Romans from a large portion of my small continent. What did they do? Simply walk on through endless cities with settlers, and plant them on the other side of my cities. Since then, they've continued sending across troops. Objections are agreed to, and ignored. Object often enough, and the mood of the Romans change from Polite to Cautious. Nothing else occurs.

Anyone else find this problem annoying as hell?

Achnor · November 7, 2001, 01:22

I have no problem with this at all. I've requested that the british remove their troops (3 x settler + some other units) and it works every time...

Achnor

Auslander · November 7, 2001, 02:09

I have no problem with this either. I would say it's not an AI problem. It's the fact you walled them off so they are going to use your land like it or not.

The only time I had AI using my land if there was no other way there. Early ships that hug the coast strolled through my sea borders. But once they got better ships they went around even though it took longer.

So the AI, if it respects you, will steer clear of your border.

Roulette · November 7, 2001, 02:20

The AI must expand. I know there MUST be a rule to that effect. If they have to go THROUGH you... they will. If they have to fight a war to do it... they will.

I had a similar problem with both the English and Germans. For the english, I took all of my old warriors and spearmen and build a wall of troops along the border. Problem solved.

For the germans, the border was too large for that, so I clicked on every uint and demanded it's removal. Throw a couple other insults in and then they start a war. Half an empire later, they don't have the resources to think about settling through me.

Another thing to consider, if you have a strong culture, and they build a city across your nation from the homeland... I annex them just about every time.

However, I did notice one thing. All of the space on all of the land was covered by one civ or another. The moment one civ lost a city and the reduced culture area freed up some land.... EVERY AI bolted for it with settlers. You gotta move in quickly.

Wow... sorry for the long post.

Monoriu · November 7, 2001, 02:27

Generally, the AI respects my borders. But yes, occasionally they ignore them, especially when it comes to grabbing land and building cities.

Grabbing land is one of the AI's highest priorities. It should be yours too. Make sure that there is no, and I mean absolutely no, tiles that are not covered by your boder within your "sphere of influence". Build settlers as fast as you can and grab the land before the AI grabs it. Make sure there is no open real estate available where you don't want the AI to build a city. That includes all tundra areas where we normally don't feel its worth it to build a city. The AI WILL build a city there if you don't grab it.

Another thing I do is, I build a real wall whenever possible. Just line up your border with a solid, continuous wall of warriors so that no one can get through. Its troublesome, but not really that expensive and it works.

dexters · November 7, 2001, 05:09

Barry Brenesal, there's actually 2 sides to this.

Note that when you intrude on enemy territory, you'll get a stern complaint. And you'll have to agree or disagree with the warning to remove your troops. Note that after the warning, you're units are still there. you have to move them yourself. If you don't move them or you simply don't do it in time, you'll get a second audience with the now angry leader of the rival civ. He will ask you again to remove your troops, but this time, you'll see that in the option where you agree to remove your troops, there is the quote "remove troops automatically" and if you click that option, it does that.

Playing my first game, I have the Aztecs piss me off with the ir spearman/settler expansion team looking for free land in my borders. They kept agreeing to my request to move their troops, but in many occasions they did not move them. But try this. right click on the offending unit and choose the contact unit. this will being up the same diplomacy menu, only this time, if the AI agrees to move his troops, they will be moved accross the border automatically.

I think this is not a bug, but done intentionally to create an element of intrigue. You can read a rival civ that way. If they move their units manually (ie: you see them turn back and walk aay) they probably respect you. If they move their units under forced automatic move, then they want to pick a fight. Needless to say, i massed my knights and blew them out of the water in the following turns.

GKI · November 7, 2001, 11:36

Yes, same thing happens to me all the time. I find it annoying as hell. A solution would be to change the rules so that you can't enter another civ's territory without declaring war. But maybe that would give the human player an advantage by being able to wall the computer in, I don't know. Something should be done though.

kmj · November 7, 2001, 11:56

Quote:

Originally posted by GKI
Yes, same thing happens to me all the time. I find it annoying as hell. A solution would be to change the rules so that you can't enter another civ's territory without declaring war. But maybe that would give the human player an advantage by being able to wall the computer in, I don't know. Something should be done though.

I disagree. I think this is another case of overreaction. Granted, I have no idea of your experience with the game, but it only came out a week ago. I've only had enough time for one full game. That's not nearly enough time to decide whether a rule like this should be changed. People seem to be reacting way to fast to alot of different issues with "the rules need to be changed!" before they even completely undertand the new game.

I think the posts above said it best. If a civ is going through your territory without a right of passage, they either don't respect you or have no other option. If you tell them to leave and they don't, then war may be necessary. I'm not certain of the global diplomatic implications of this... but I don't think it would be that unfavorable. Certainly worth trying. Either make the civ respect you or force them to obey you. or get rid of them entirely.

Barry Brenesal · November 7, 2001, 12:32

Quote:

Originally posted by kmj
I think the posts above said it best. If a civ is going through your territory without a right of passage, they either don't respect you or have no other option. If you tell them to leave and they don't, then war may be necessary. I'm not certain of the global diplomatic implications of this... but I don't think it would be that unfavorable. Certainly worth trying. Either make the civ respect you or force them to obey you. or get rid of them entirely.

"Respect" doesn't appear to be a factor, since my diplomatic advisor informs me that 1) I have the superior military; 2) They're in awe of my culture; 3) They respect my technological advantages. It's also the Romans, who are not exceedingly warlike, and they're in Polite mode. Personally, I can't help wondering if it's buggy AI. I'm not certain, but I can't think of any other reason for this kind of AI behavior.

Gaius Marius · November 7, 2001, 12:43

Actually, the Romans are second only to the Zulus in aggressiveness (4/5 on the scale).

What I want to know is why the french get a 1/5? Joan of Arc is their leader. Heard of that Napoleon guy? Louis XIV? De Gaulle? Have the French ever had a great leader/golden age without war? AT LEAST a 3/5 would work - they may not be as warlike as the Zulus, Aztecs, or Romans, but right now they're on par with Gandhi. The Americans, English, and Iroquois are all more warlike.

GKI · November 7, 2001, 14:05

Maybe the problem is not that they don't respect my borders. It's just that when they decide they want to build a city on that one square of tundra behind my empire, they will send the settlers right through. It is annoying, and moreso when you later get the city by culture and end up with a useless city that just increases your corruption. It's not a game-breaker, just irritating to have cities in those places. Wish the AI would stop building them, there's just no way they will ever be of any use to him either as the corruption must be horrible.

lokifalling · November 7, 2001, 14:36

It's been annoying me too, at least in the game I'm playing right now.

I'm in the middle of a continent, so I'm the through point for everyone. The Zulus back off immediately, saying they don't want a war. The English were flagrant trespassers at first, but a couple of wars have made them more cautious. Not that they still don't trespass, but they seem to know I'll go to war over it. The Iroquiois are even more compliant now.

The Aztecs and Babylonians are another situation. I don't really care about the Aztecs, because all they have are Jaguars to my cavalry and muskets. They also seem to be doing it to settle the jungle area on the backside of my empire, which is fine with me because all those cities are slowly revolting over to my rule. By the time I've got the jungle cleared out for one, another one comes over to my side.

The Babylonians, though, seem to be sending their bowmen over for shore leave or something. No settlers. They just sort of file through in random single-file columns, never threatening me, but never exactly on their way to somewhere else. I haven't done anything about it because fighting that war would be a huge mess--lots of bowmen. Mostly, they just confuse me.

Any idea what the AI is doing with the Babylonians with this?

LandBuilder · November 7, 2001, 15:15

After the 3rd or 4th protest, the option changes to" remove your troops immediately or declare war" which usually works- but they will still try and sneak back- after a time, they may even declare war !!

Dominator_Jones · November 7, 2001, 16:21

So far I have found that the best method of stopping this is to do as was mentioned earlier. Find a choke point and physically block it with troops. I usually then build fortresses and eventually stock them with state of the art defensive units in case the neighboring civilization is warlike.

Madine · November 7, 2001, 22:19

The AI expands. I've noticed they have a tendancy to build cities on the borders of my empire, in isolated places between my border and the ocean. This is somewhat annoying. The best solution is to attack the city, then either keep it for yourself, or raze it and station a military unit there. The AI expands to the same squares, so if you raze a city they will try to build another one in the same spot if they can.

treedom · November 8, 2001, 01:17

I agree with kmj. From my experience I'd have to say that the AI reasonably respects your borders, and that the whole border system works beautifully because of (not despite) the occasional tresspassing.

Usually during the land-grab at the beginning it's a big mess. Chaos. Everyone's all over the place. Borders? What are those? We're all barley removed from lives as nomads, after all.

But, I notice that slowly, the AI starts to respect them more. It starts acting more...well...civilized. And, after a while, the only time it violates them is when it's itching for a war.

This is beautiful, IMO. It adds distinctiveness to the early ancient times. In my current game, I look over my territory now, at the dawn of the industrial age, and see my neighbours dilligently patroling troops on their side of their borders, never stepping over, and think back to a more violent age when there was less order in the world.