AI Declares War!

[Tacit_Exit]

When?

I've been playing with max aggression settings for a few games now and have yet to get a war declaration. A couple of trade sanctions but my anti-pirate activities seem to have encouraged retractions.

I usually build a few automated Escorts at the start and have auto troop build on but I spend the early game concentrating largely on colonising every nook and cranny of the Galaxy, and frankly could be rather rudely paralysed by any AI with a mind to take some bites from my empire.

But they don't, or at least haven't in my games. Do they only declare war when their -attitude gets large enough? If this is so it seems a little too easy to control.

AI should declare war in their self interest, at least the 'bad' guys, and should sometimes take your juicy under-defended planets no matter how much you've sucked up to them.

Maybe they do and I just haven't seen it? Whats your experience?

[Fishman]

The AI does not appear to have a coherent plan. War declaration appears to be entirely controlled by relationship number, so an AI will declare war on you even when he lacks any coherent plan for actually fighting you. I have had an AI I met not too long ago, who has no idea where I even live because contact was made by long-range scouts, decide to declare war on me. For the next several months, absolutely nothing happened: The war was a complete phony (but people still got war weary over it despite the total absence of an actual enemy), and because the empire in question was not the most suited for endless warfare, the war weariness thing crippled them and left them unable to colonize anything because the new colonies would all revolt and defect.

[Erik Rutins]

Tacit_Exit,

What kind of races/governments do you have in your games, does your experience include the more warlike combos?

Regards,

- Erik

[Tacit_Exit]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

War declaration appears to be entirely controlled by relationship number

If this is entirely true, as it evidently is, it means the it is virtually the player's choice when to have a war, which is a huge advantage.

It also exacerbates the problems of runaway economy since you don't need to defend your territories until you decide you need to go to war, hence are free to avoid the massive upkeep that a reasonable defense force entails, whereas the AI players are probably stifling their economies with quite reasonable military expenditures since they have to be prepared for war at any time.

[Tacit_Exit]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

What kind of races/governments do you have in your games, does your experience include the more warlike combos?

Generally I play Dhayut/Democracy, and admittedly I've only played one longish game with Beta 4 and a handful with the previous Beta 1.04s.

BTW I definately don't play for war, generally focusing on peacefull expansion and then consolidate.

[Bartje]

Yeah me too, peace all the way usually

I'm Soft and civilized until the other Empires get really annoying.


[:D]

[Tacit_Exit]

Yeah gimme that righteous war everytime. You picked on me bub; bad choice

[jscott991]

I've never had the AI attack me in any game I've played.

I, however, take full responsibility for that. I only play Human monarchies. I always have the biggest fleet by far. I try to avoid disputed colonies (this is not always possible). And I never go to war myself (my only wars have been coming to the aid of a mutual defense partner).

I enjoy this actually. I find wars in this game are insanely tedious. It's bad enough to have to fight all the freaking giant keltors.

[Munchies]

They attack me all the time.
Even when I played human one time. My ally (had mutual defense pact), the Kiadians or however you spell it, also came to my help by declaring war on the insects that declared on me.

And if it gets tedious fighting all the dangerous Kaltors, just turn down the slider when you start the game to make monsters less numerous *sigh*

[JosEPhII]

The day will come when your fledgling empire of 4-10 colonies runs across that Uber AI that has 5 to 10 times the number of colonies you do. Lets see how long you Really have before they declare war and eat you alive!

It happens. And it Ain't pretty either.

Early Defense bases will generally withstand 2 assaults but are gone by the 3rd. And those wimpy early escorts, frigates, and destroyers you have from the AI designs won't even last 2 rds. Then your best colonies, heck All your colonies get invaded and it's Game Over. I did get left 1 small new colony once but what are you gonna do with that? Even the pirates Laugh at you! [:'(]

JosEPh

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Munchies

They attack me all the time.
Even when I played human one time. My ally (had mutual defense pact), the Kiadians or however you spell it, also came to my help by declaring war on the insects that declared on me.

And if it gets tedious fighting all the dangerous Kaltors, just turn down the slider when you start the game to make monsters less numerous *sigh*

I have that slider on the lowest setting, but no more than 30 seconds goes by without a stupid Kaltor attack. Then I have to queue my fleet, move it there, watch most of them defect to refuel, rinse, repeat.

The monsters are just insanely tedious. They aren't strong enough to do anything except annoy.

[Munchies]

yeah, monsters need improving some. but I just fought 2 Kraltors with a 55 strength each. They were almost bigger than a planet. 600-700 health. Don't remember size.

I will play a game with the monsters turned down to see how often I run into them. It may need adjusting if you are running into one every few minutes on low setting...

Anybody else play with monsters set on low?

[lostsm]

ORIGINAL: Munchies

yeah, monsters need improving some. but I just fought 2 Kraltors with a 55 strength each. They were almost bigger than a planet. 600-700 health. Don't remember size.

I will play a game with the monsters turned down to see how often I run into them. It may need adjusting if you are running into one every few minutes on low setting...

Anybody else play with monsters set on low?

i play on monsters low; i dont like monsters

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Munchies

And if it gets tedious fighting all the dangerous Kaltors, just turn down the slider when you start the game to make monsters less numerous *sigh*

Doesn't help, at all. Even "very rare" still has a galaxy infested with the damn things. The ship AI improvement to avoid repeatedly rushing into melee range with them DOES make them much more manageable, but they are still ubiquitous and often annoying under the best of circumstances...especially to the AI, who does not design ships to deal with them at all, whereas Kaltors of any size are easy prey for explorers packing missile launchers.

[Roghain]

Reading this, then looking at my game, I must be doing something wrong.

I play as human republic, on the lowest agression setting available. Low monsters, normal pirates.

I ran into the insect races (three empires of them) by the time I had 35 colonies. They had 9, 2 and 1 respectively. They all instinctively disliked me, so all started out at -9. They all are despotisms and dislike me for being a republican. So now we are already at anoyed and closing on angry. Now, from day one, I have armed my freighters to keep the pirates at bay (and quite succesfully I might add) so everyone I meet keeps telling me to move my warships (well, war merchants) out of their systems (attitude minus 15-20). Tradeoff, obviously. Because of this, I have a stupendously high firepower rating compared to them.
So, what do they do? They all declare war. Now, mind you, they don't stand a chance, with my freighters easily outgunning their DDs, and all my mining bases able to shoot down a capital ship, but they declare war ne'ertheless. Pointless war, they cannot beat me left or right, but they do.

Three months later, they ask ME for a peace settlement 9and reparations!!). Two months later, they declare war again. Their attitude towards me deteriorates faster and faster - past dealing have been atrocious (minus 80 or worse) while I only defended my Bhind - it wasn't me who started the war.

What's the point? Shouldn't the AI take their chances of winning into account? Why would a one colony empire with 10 DDs start a war with a 30+ colony empire with 1500 times their power rating?

Point is - I read about me as a human deciding when to have a war, but even at the lowest setting I am unable to keep the peace. So, what am I missing, then? I don't fancy moving to 'normal' agressiveness - then again, it can't get any worse.

I don't mind the AI being a little irrational, but I would exect it to at least pay atention as to who can hand them their rears in a jiffy and not declare war every other month.

[lostsm]

non humanoids hate humans, so it's going to be constant war/trade sanctions unless you pay them off or do something of the like to get the diplomacy number out of the red such as a lot of clicking to give diplomacy gifts

it would be awesome if we could set the diplomacy AI to auto send gifts to selected targets

[Rustyallan]

Playing as the Quameno (Way of the Ancients), I'm friendly with most everyone.  Except for the Mortalen (Way of Darkness), whom I've been at war with for quite a few game years.  I've no idea when the war started, it was just there.  (war and sanctions set to manual)  We haven't had a single clash yet and we have several systems within spitting distance of each other.  They're the only empire with a higher strategic value (11m vs 8m) than I have and have about 1/3 again the military strength  I have 3x the planets colonized.  I am playing on the least aggressive setting (1.0.4.4), but this seems just a bit silly.  10yrs with no attacks from them on my systems?

It's definitely better than every dinky little empire declaring war on me every 5 min like happened with previous versions though.

[Tacit_Exit]

I guess if you just do what you want to and let the AI attitudes fall where they may, wars will occur.

My point about the player controlling when wars happen is related to our ability to look at the relationship number and use gifts/alter what we do to avoid any possibilty of war (this is assuming wars only happen when relationship reaches a critical threshold).

I'm used to Civ4 where AI can be super happy with you relationship-wise, but still backstab you for potential territory gains (eg:undefended city near border etc).

As to AI declaring war when it has little chance of success, I personally don't mind this sort of behaviour if it serves the gameplay, no matter how apparently illogical it may seem from the pov of assumed self preservation instincts.

[Munchies]

Yeah, if I was the little empire backed into the corner by a MUCH bigger empire I would declare at the first opportunity I could. I sure would not sit there and wait for my turn.
They just shouldn't do it by themselves.
Maybe get a coalition of smaller empires to gang up on you and hit you from all sides if possible.

If they are going down anyway, why not take the initiative.

[Roghain]

I beg to differ.

In a more real world (say, our own?), smaller empires hardly ever declare war upon their much bigger neighbours unless they can get away wth it - small quick gain while the biguns were preoccupied with another war. Covert actions - sure. Open hostilities? Unlikely to be started by the minor.

I can see how the AI would form alliances of their own - that makes sence. I can also see the AI declaring war when the bigger empire already is at war with others, but to be the first to start blasting in a lopsided affair, that should be an exception.

I also do not agree that the smaller empires need to get fighting before the bigger ones eat them up - perhaps I am playing as a federation-like kinda empire: live long, proper, every species his own dignity and all that. Just the fact I am the bigger fish, don't mean I am about to gobble all up?
maybe the could be like an diplomatic victory to allow more peacful playing - say, a slider that can be set to a percenbage of the colonised worlds friendly/allied with me?