French come marching one by one

[mimi]

Well, there I am playing my, well, 20th or so game and the French come marching through 12 squares of jungle... Ok back up a bit

Background: Standard map, 8 civs, continents. Germans, French and myself (Iroquois) on one continent, nobody else found yet... I'm on south part of continent, Germans and French on North, middle of continent is a belt of swamp 7 squares wide by 12 deep. No other way to other end of continent except thru swamp or by boat.

Germany declares war nice and early (50 turns in perhaps). Having just gotten writing I enlist French aid in this war but since there is a huge swamp separating me from the front line and I don't have map making I figure I'll just leave them to duke it out up there and I'll mop up whatever's left later.

So the war goes on and about 25 turns later I swap maps with the polite French and discover that Germany is down to 3 towns. I chuckle at the French defeating Germany all by themselves and continue building my infrastructure. Then 7 turns later I notice a little pink swordman popping out of the darkness by the swamp right next to the only town I have that has horses (and there's no iron at all in the (my) southern half ).

Weird. I chat with Joan and she is now gracious but has nothing to say. The next turn a spearman pops out and I'm very suspicious. I click on the spearman and the list of units there FILLS THE SCREEN. I click on the Swordman who arrived earlier and the list of units FILLS THE SCREEN!!!! French declared war next turn and, well... I guess you can figure out how my towns (all with city walls and 2 spearman) fared against 65+ swordmen. It was pathetic actually... and to top it all off they razed my towns when they were done.

I NEVER saw the AI do this mass attacking before (heck, I don't even bring that many units to a war). And definitely not the French who I thought were supposed to be, well, pink.

Lots of land left for them to settle. They had their own horses. Only luxuries I had were 1 ivory and 1 incense. Can't figure out why they dragged that HUGE military across 12 turns of swamp to kick my butt. And why do they turn gracious the turn before they pop out of the swamp to annihilate me?

Next time the French turn gracious, I'm hiding under the bed!

[Arrian]

Yeah, you gotta be careful you don't create a monster when you enlist a civ's aid in a war. Sometimes they do too well, and then they've got a big army that they just gotta use on somebody... by the way, thats a LOT of swordsmen. Yeesh.

Gotta hand it to the Germans to start a war 50 turns in. They do it all the time.

-Arrian

[Journier]

heh yea how many turns was it when when u died?

[Mr. Blaze]

heh.. thats rough... well.. thanks now i kno not to trust people to much..

[Brinoch]

No kidding on the Germans. I was playing an 8 Civ/Large/Pangaea game as the Egyptians for some fun. My neighbors were the English to the North and the French to the East. I was sitting on about 1/6 of the land mass in the Southwest corner. Meanwhile, the Germans, on the other side of the continent, declare war for no reason at all. They attacked a Galley of mine in neutral waters.

All holy hell breaks loose. The English join the Germans and attack me; I enlist the French to attack the English. The other civs, the Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, and Persians all get called in to the war. All but the Romans join me and declare war on the Germans.

So, as France and I merrily paste the English into a remnant, the others attack Germany. And lose. Badly. They all sue for peace and Germany is freed up. Bismark cuts a swath through France to get at me.

I've never seen the AI so persistent. That Galley must have stunk to high heaven or something.

In any event, I defeated the German army on French soil and eventually peace broke out. But, from the Galley attack on, the Germans were furious at me--the whole game. Bizarre. I swear sometimes Bismark wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

[Worthingtons]

'I've never seen the AI so persistent. That Galley must have stunk to high heaven or something. '

Aye, Alaxander would have been more polite and told you to 'give them a wash or something' though.

[LaRusso]

bismarck is sometimes way too agressive
and yeah...why do they always stay furious once they get furious?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I've had Germany declare war, tho we share no border - In fact, there is a buffer of two civs between us. Being the wealthy culture leader, I quickly enlist all of Germany's neighbors in the brawl. 20 turns later, I've yet to see a German unit. They sue for peace, and I get two towns out of the deal. Not a bad price for building more settlers and libraries!

I've seen the AI stack piles of bad guys like that. Not that many, happily. The Chinese sent a stack of 9 swordsmen to a worthless village of mine and sneak attacked. Later that game they sent a wave of about 15 riders - they all had about the same movement in my view, I presume they began together.

[mimi]

Not gonna admit how many turns my spearmen held out vs that stinky French attack...

But maybe it's a plot or something because after that game ended I started a new one as the Iroquois (yes, I'm going to keep playing them until they actually pull their bows out of their -- and WIN) and out of the blue the damn Indians declared war on me and enlisted the English to help. Didn't turn out as badly as the French fiasco, but I thought France and India were supposed to be sort of non-aggressive? Maybe they don't like the Iroquois.

And that's something else I've noticed too... 3 games in a row playing the Iroquois and NO IRON within a reasonable distance of my territory. (But, of course, the Babys had 5 iron in a circle around one of their towns... )

Now all I have to do is get my little mounted warriors over to the French and teach them a lesson...

[Saurus]

Originally posted by mimi

Lots of land left for them to settle. They had their own horses. Only luxuries I had were 1 ivory and 1 incense. Can't figure out why they dragged that HUGE military across 12 turns of swamp to kick my butt. And why do they turn gracious the turn before they pop out of the swamp to annihilate me?

Next time the French turn gracious, I'm hiding under the bed!

The A.I "mood" showup in the diplomacy menu is actually kindda useless as you will newer see the REAL mood of the A.I leaders.
A smiling face may betray you at any time.

When A.I units starts to popup inside your territory (with the exclusion of those escorting settlers through you terriory) the
A.I WILL declare war upon you regardless of any mood
or treaties bonding your people togheter.
The only thing I have noticed that may help in evading the invasion is to start a conversation with them and offer to pay tribute. Probably you will now see them withdraw from your territory. This is my experience anyway.

There also seems to bee two very typical cases where the A.I -"friend" suddenly will betray you.

1) You are setteled with an A.I opponent on a small island
and the A.I is unable to expand due to space limit.

or

2) The A.I has recently been in a war, beeing the winning part
and becouse of this has now many idle military units.
If the A.I has a lot of firepower, it WILL turn it in a direction as
not doing so soon causes the mighty military to become obsolote.
In your case I think the A.I made peace with the germans, then sent his troops to kill YOU as there was no one else to play with.

Oh...and btw...newer trust the Babylonians.

-Saurus

[Brutus66]

Playing as the English, I find myself neighbors with the Zulu frequently.
Nice and polite at first, oh sure...
Before you know it though, those buggers are all over me and Majors Chard and Bromhead are fighting for their lives again.
The only other civ that gives me real problems are the Japanese- they like the whole Pearl Harbor sneak-attack idea, only using the Queen's ships as targets.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Saurus

When A.I units starts to popup inside your territory (with the exclusion of those escorting settlers through you terriory) the
A.I WILL declare war upon you regardless of any mood
or treaties bonding your people togheter.

-Saurus

Agreed. Of course, depending on how unscrupulous you are you can always buy as many techs off of them on a per turn basis as you can afford. If they declare war they're freebies. I did this once to see if it worked and got 8 or so techs for free in the middle ages.

[Andrew Cory]

I, too, have seen these large stacks. *winces* never much fun. The good news is that they don't move faster than one square/turn. The bad news is that dealing with them is a tough job...

Heh, I remember once when the French attacked me unexpecedly (we were on "polite" terms), both of us were in the stage of _just_ building rails, and so were able to move a lot of units very quickly. Long story short, I lost one of my border towns, and had to take a lot of worthless territory. Since the southern territory (she bordered me on both the west and south) was all tundra, no one had built a lot of rail to it. I noticed 2 stacks of about 50-60 units apice moving strait onto me. I then moved a few of my cav. in as pilliagers to tear up the rail roads to buy my western forces time, and moved the rest of my cav. southward to attack the stacks. I have never wished for airpower more in my life! 2 turns latter, I handed the French a huge millitary setback, utterly anhalating both stacks, and winning the war right there-- it needing only formal things like actualy taking territory to end the war. But with the stacks gone, it was never in doubt...

[godinex]

Originally posted by mimi
Well, there I am playing my, well, 20th or so game and the French come marching through 12 squares of jungle... Ok back up a bit

Background: Standard map, 8 civs, continents. Germans, French and myself (Iroquois) on one continent, nobody else found yet... I'm on south part of continent, Germans and French on North, middle of continent is a belt of swamp 7 squares wide by 12 deep. No other way to other end of continent except thru swamp or by boat.

Germany declares war nice and early (50 turns in perhaps). Having just gotten writing I enlist French aid in this war but since there is a huge swamp separating me from the front line and I don't have map making I figure I'll just leave them to duke it out up there and I'll mop up whatever's left later.

So the war goes on and about 25 turns later I swap maps with the polite French and discover that Germany is down to 3 towns. I chuckle at the French defeating Germany all by themselves and continue building my infrastructure. Then 7 turns later I notice a little pink swordman popping out of the darkness by the swamp right next to the only town I have that has horses (and there's no iron at all in the (my) southern half ).

Weird. I chat with Joan and she is now gracious but has nothing to say. The next turn a spearman pops out and I'm very suspicious. I click on the spearman and the list of units there FILLS THE SCREEN. I click on the Swordman who arrived earlier and the list of units FILLS THE SCREEN!!!! French declared war next turn and, well... I guess you can figure out how my towns (all with city walls and 2 spearman) fared against 65+ swordmen. It was pathetic actually... and to top it all off they razed my towns when they were done.

I NEVER saw the AI do this mass attacking before (heck, I don't even bring that many units to a war). And definitely not the French who I thought were supposed to be, well, pink.

Lots of land left for them to settle. They had their own horses. Only luxuries I had were 1 ivory and 1 incense. Can't figure out why they dragged that HUGE military across 12 turns of swamp to kick my butt. And why do they turn gracious the turn before they pop out of the swamp to annihilate me?

Next time the French turn gracious, I'm hiding under the bed!

Joan make the same to me but 2 turns after they sign a military alliance against China... She dessapoint mE so much *sighs*

[lorddread]

I was playing the Americans (like I normally do). I started a war with the Persians. I took an island with 2 cities and then invaded their territory and took 3 cities. We made peace (though they were furious afterwards). 15 turns later, they attacked these 3 cities. I had 2 infantry in each. The first city got hit with 15 calvary. The second got hit with 14, and the third (I also had a tank in this one) got hit with 19 calvary, 11 warriors, and 5 archers. After they took all their cities back they stayed at war with me for the rest of the game even though no other action was initiated by either side. This played hell with my cities who kept complaining and setting fires to themselves. There has to be a fix for overactive nations. No one can be at war for hundreds of years. Makes no sence.