Does the A.I ever declare war for the sole purpose of breaking a deal?

trickey · June 12, 2003, 16:15

Right now, I am playing a game of civ 3 ptw, version 1.21. Monarch difficulty with the celts. Standard size archipelago map.

I had just discovered Refining, when to my dismay, I realized I had no oil whatsoever. Being the largest nation, and controlling an entire continent, this was a bit odd. Anyway, I was planning an invasion of the Cathagians, and figured I'd best get some transports to be able to move my troups over their fast.

So I traded 1500 gold to the Americans for 20 turns of oil. My first turn I upgraded all of my obsolete Caravels to Transports, and was happy. I was planning on paying for another 20 turns of oil when Motorized transportaion was discovered, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen now.

Not more than 3 turns after we traded, the Americans landed 2 infantry and 2 guerillas on my soil. This as quite odd, my army is much stronger than theirs, as I have close to 170 infantry packed on to my Continent. Abe was also "polite" towards me.

The only reason I can think of for them declaring war on me was to get out of paying me my oil for the next 17 or so turns.

Has this ever happened to any one else? A bit of a pain in the butt. Now I'm thinking about sending the army I had been gathering to attack the Carthagians over to grab one of Abe's oil cities. But with no destroyers to guide my transports, they will be vunerable. Should be interesting

alva · June 12, 2003, 21:56

If the AI goes bankrupt, he will declare war on you, yes.

Cort Haus · June 12, 2003, 23:07

If in the market for resources, I like to pay per-turn rather than up-front - for precisely the reason you have described.

If they've already banked the payment, there's little point in them keeping their side of the bargain. Same goes for alliances - they'll jump out of bed in no time if they've got all the cash. In per-turn deals, if they break it, they lose out.

Kaos XIII · June 12, 2003, 23:38

Hi!

This happens very often, when the AI cannot afford their GPT payments, they will declare war on you. Sometimes I will take less GPT from an AI, just so they won't get desperate.

cumi · June 13, 2003, 04:11

Hi,

once the AI jumped into my territory with about 5 cavalry. I knew, he wants to attack me, so I offerred him a deal: I gave a lux for gpt. Then i asked him to withdraw his units from my territory, but he declared war on me....

So, I think if the AI is planning to attack you, there is no way to let him change his mind...

trickey, I think in your case, the AI was planning for a longer time (before you made a deal with him) an "invasion" on you and the deal doesn't made any impact on his plan...

cumi

georges bonbon · June 13, 2003, 05:12

The Mongols did it last night. They gave me coal for tech and blew the deal up after sixteen turns.

Nakar Gabab · June 13, 2003, 11:12

Quote:

Originally posted by cumi
So, I think if the AI is planning to attack you, there is no way to let him change his mind...

trickey, I think in your case, the AI was planning for a longer time (before you made a deal with him) an "invasion" on you and the deal doesn't made any impact on his plan...

Short Answer: Right.

Long Answer: Wrong. Like so many things, this behavior is somewhat random, just like making demands (and declaring or not declaring war when they're rebuffed). The AI is HIGHLY LIKELY to declare war on you when they start making an obvious troop movement into your territory, but trading them a long-term resource or GPT deal may discourage them from doing so. HOWEVER, the odds of this seem pretty low, and in a standard game with Random Seed on, their decision is probably already set.

If, however, you turn Random Seed off and maneuver yourself into a position like this, you can save and reload and witness the AI doing various things. Sometimes it will take a bribe deal and wander off. Sometimes it will just wander off. Sometimes it will just keep marching through (often to suddenly declare war on someone else, which is yet another thing that seems slightly random

). Often it will pop up a demand next turn and declare war. Sometimes they'll just park where they are and you'll have to ask them to leave (leading almost inevitably to war). Sometimes it will outright declare war, which is probably the most common outcome.

This doesn't seem to be entirely based on bankruptcy. A bankrupt civ will generally make a ridiculous demand of you and then attack, or advance a huge stack into your territory. But a civ might do both of these things for no apparent reason, except apparently to kill your workers.

ghen · June 14, 2003, 15:36

if I see the AI coming to attack me I always make as many deals with them as possible just to make them untrustworthy towards other civ trades. I've never actually changed the AI's mind to not attack me (random seed is off) but I have crippled their trade with other AI's by doing this.

Greetings · June 14, 2003, 17:38

Greetings.
Long time user, first time poster.

From my experience, I've learned that the AI doesn't give a darn about breaking per turn deals. In one of my first games (on Chieftain level), the Americans sneak attacked one of my cities defended by a lone musketman. I reloaded my last save (don't worry, i don't do this anymore) and made some deals with them. I renewed our peace treaty, made a trade embargo against the Zulu, gave them a luxury for a few gold per turn, and signed an RoP. Sure enough, the Americans attacked the same city their next turn (and even signed a military alliance with the Zulu).

Since then, I make sure I keep a few military units within an ally's borders, just so they think twice before breaking any deals.

dexters · June 14, 2003, 20:24

Quote:

From my experience, I've learned that the AI doesn't give a darn about breaking per turn deals.

Actually that is another myth humans make up as far as I can tell. They are not penalized as heavily (if at all) for breaking per turn deals, but they do place a high value on ongoing trade. if they have trades going with other civs, trying to get them to break them by going to war or a trad embargo is costly and sometimes impossible. This also applies to human to AI trades. In my games, if you have strong trading relationships with your neighbours, your enemies almost always never succeed in trying to get them to side against you.

The key assumption here is humans break per turn deals to take advantage of the AI and therefore needs to be handled heavily by the game for breaking them. The AI being the AI, they play by a slighly different set of rules in this regard and have been taught a few human tricks of the trade to even things out. It's actually quite balanced the way it is. You just have to be careful you don't accidentally break a deal in higher difficulty levels. That could end a trading game real quick.

-------------

With regard to your ally on polite and sometimes even gracious attacking you, there is always some random factor there. A small chance your closest friend will stab you in the back. This is nothing new, human players do it all the time. We make friends with a Civ with the intention of a nice trading relationship, we get greedy and decide to take a few of their cities for ourselves and we go to war. In this regard, the AI can bend over and offer you all the alliances, trades and diplomatic nonesense in the world and it probably still won't change your mind about going to war with them.

The RNG in this regard is meant to simulate this human random factor and it does a pretty good job at it. If you sitll haven't, Play a (Standard, Large or Huge) pangea game sometime, best war, trading and diplomacy games you'll ever play in Civ 3. The AI is in its element with these kind of maps.

Carver · June 17, 2003, 12:19

I have headed off AI declarations of war by reloading and signing deals with them. My last recollection is giving an AI a lux/resource for tech.

Trading with the AI does improve their attitude regarding you. The AI uses a point system spanning from Furious to Gracious; trading moves you in the direction of gracious. That said, one or two trades often won't tip the scale and deter an AI from attacking you.

BKWM · June 19, 2003, 01:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver
I have headed off AI declarations of war by reloading and signing deals with them. My last recollection is giving an AI a lux/resource for tech.

Trading with the AI does improve their attitude regarding you. The AI uses a point system spanning from Furious to Gracious; trading moves you in the direction of gracious. That said, one or two trades often won't tip the scale and deter an AI from attacking you.

Why not?

Rhothaerill · June 19, 2003, 01:22

A trade will not necessarily move you up the amount of points that it will take to deter them...especially not if the AI is dead set against attacking you (I've had a gracious civ declare war on me before

).

alva · June 19, 2003, 06:12

Quote:

(I've had a gracious civ declare war on me before ).

There is a small random chance the AI will declare war on you no matter what.
Even if your about to break 'modern' and he still is building warriors, it could happen.

Rhothaerill · June 19, 2003, 11:32

Quote:

Originally posted by alva

Quote:

(I've had a gracious civ declare war on me before ).

There is a small random chance the AI will declare war on you no matter what.
Even if your about to break 'modern' and he still is building warriors, it could happen.

I know. That's why I don't like letting the AI enter my territory ever. I'll occasionally sign ROP's if necessary to get an AI civ to do something, but once my lands are railed I rebuff them all. With rails I tend to leave my inner core unprotected for the most part. If they have a ROP then even a polite or gracious civ can walk right in to one of my unprotected cities.

Granted I would forcibly take my city back the next turn, but I don't want to have that come up in the first place.

Blaupanzer · June 20, 2003, 13:42

In response to the original question, the AI will declare war on a civilizatioin if it is no longer capable of fulfilling a per turn deal with it. This can be because the oil source or whatever went away. I'm not sure how the AI civ factors in its attitude toward you if you now have the output of its only resource and it wants that too, like oil. Suspect that situation slides you down the scale toward furious with that AI civ, but I don't know that for certain.

Separately, landing troops on your soil from a boat/ship is not an automatic declaration of war. You don't lose access to resources in the squares unless the landing force is at war, so you can check if you want to. Next time this happens, try negotiating an ROP agreement. If the AI is about to go to war, it won't give you that. Those troops could have been headed overland to somewhere else, although that seems a little far-fetched if you owned the whole continent.

bongo · June 24, 2003, 08:18

Even if it is really annoying when the AI performs his backstabbing act I'm also a bit impressed when he does. Makes him more human kind of

Also makes me angry, too bad there are not an option to demand compensation for broken deals. All that's left is to destroy him

I just sold the russians metallurgy for 70 gold + 17 gpt and two lux. A few turns later he landed troops on my territory...there is absolutely no way I will grant him peace until he gives me a serious offer(some cities, gpt and lux) or have taken it by force.

cumi · June 24, 2003, 08:45

Interesting: I played yesterday (just for fun, didn't even finished it). At the beginning (REX-ing phase) the AI entered into my territory with a worrior/settler combo. I told him to leave, but the AI declared war instead of it.

Normally I don't care, when the AI enters with one or two unit, althougth sometimes I have the feeling the AI is provocating me, especially with ships in the later game. It is entering and leaving in the same turn, but sometimes it forgets itself inside of my borders.

When a settler/mil. unit combo enters into my land, I tell them immedietly to leave - I don't want a city somewhere in "my" land, just because there is a place for it (my cities didn't expanden enough yet)...

bongo · June 24, 2003, 09:31

Sometimes I can predict where his settler/mil.unit are going. If he's going to build a city in an open spot surrounded by my borders I will let him do so if that city is going to CF to me later anyway(if I am or are going to be culturally stronger). The result, no war and a ready-built city

cumi · June 24, 2003, 11:15

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
Sometimes I can predict where his settler/mil.unit are going. If he's going to build a city in an open spot surrounded by my borders I will let him do so if that city is going to CF to me later anyway(if I am or are going to be culturally stronger). The result, no war and a ready-built city

That's a good strategy. But, sometimes I want that spot ASAP and the reason, that it's stil empty is, that other locations had higher priority for me... Or simply, I don't like to leave huge empty terrain in my empire. I am not jumping on luxuries or resources, I am expandig continously. Maybe that isn't a good approch...

I also don't really care about locations for example on the north (snow, coast, no whale, no fish) or south where I would never "waste" a settler... If the AI fills that territory, no problem. Later it will CF anyway. If not, also good.