How to make Ai like you?

[Stratos]

I keeps losing in the early-mid game to constant wars or 'coalitions' by the AI. This usually happens in the classical and medieval era where everyone declares war on me resulting in me only building military units and I fall behind. (Empire difficulty)

[Genitor]

you need to keep an eye on the diplomacy-screen.
check out the crisis tab to see what grievances you triggered. Also check the behaviour-meter (where it says "hesitant", "suspicious" and the like) and also dont forget about the "disposition" which can make diplomacy very difficult or easy depending on the difference in culture (what Civics you picked and what the AI picked) and religion. Also keep in mind that some AI will favour stances close to their own and some will favour stances very different from their own.

Also: When you dont know the game why play on empire? Just reduce the difficulty if the experience is frustrating for you. Then learn the mechanics and increase difficulty when you feel like it. There is no shame in playing lower difficulties. ;-)

[Dorok]

In my current play, on my start continent with an horizontal shape, I was in middle, at right a Warlike AI, at left a Warlike AI. For some reason, I just skipped build any military units, AI at left got the protecting attitude for me, a bit later AI at right got the Caring attitude, and soon both AI declared war to each other.

In that play it was certainly better for me that once more AI don't declare me any war, but it's boring they never declare war.

As I don't have plays with AI declaring wars to me, I Can't be sure of the cause.

If not right in that play, the simpler way is have a strong military force by anticipation. It won't make AI like you at first, more the reverse, but it will make them avoid make war against you.

I suppose the second aspect is territory expansion, avoid be greedy, think in term of letting some fair expansion possibilities to your neighbors. That doesn't mean you can't take the biggest part of the cake, but that you need be aware neighbors have expansion possibilities.

The third aspect is try use a territory expansion strategy respecting the AI good behavior rules:
1. Try avoid ever build an outpost at AI frontier. So try build outpost when their territories at frontier are still outposts.
2. If point 1 is a serious problem, then try have the conflicting territory at your frontier so attach what you need attach to have the targeted territory at your frontier, eventually detach after.
3. Consider let a free territory between your frontiers and AI frontiers, and let your neighbors break the rule, more good behavior points for you.
4. Probably avoid territories jump, but I suspect it's some AI code that's been changed. So not sure it matters anymore.

The fourth aspect is manage well when you are tested by AI:
- If the AI attack your scouts, ensure flee, and remind program next flee move to avoid combat. Ignore the grievance, don't bother get your vengeance, don't try do the same.
- Take care of AI attacking scouts not far from their frontiers, if repeated consider stop a time try explore here, retreat all your scouts back to some other areas. Some AI won't care but also once a non aggression treaty is done they should stop care of that.
- If the AI build an outpost at your frontier, consider if it worth it or not to reclaim it, you'll have one chance that the reclaim works, perhaps keep it for another case and improve relationship with neighbor.
- If the AI capture or assimilate an Independent, that's a tricky case, ignore and all AIs will consider fine to capture your Independents. React is an option and you'll probably get the town if it's your first demand on this topic, but the problem is you could not care at all to get the town, so it's not that simple. Still don't forgot you can get the town and liberate it later.

The fifth aspect is show your good will:
- Don't bother attack AI units.
- Ignore grievances you have.
- Offer trade treaties asap.
- Ignore treaties offer reject and try again later.
- Accept all treaties offering.
- Don't mass armies at their frontiers, keep them more in back, anyway it's strategically better.

But all of that is from quotes along many game versions, some points could have became obsolete or totally insignificant. But as AI never declare me wars, some are probably efficient.

[Genitor]

AI definitely does declare wars. I had games where i was declared war on more often than i declared war. But i must say that i am one hell of a bastard in diplomacy. A real snake. Taking advantage of everybody as soon as i feel i can get away with that and yes, also risking wars over things. So basically i break all the rules you set up here, which also confirms they work. ;-)

[Dorok]

There's one rule annoying to break, it's not be dominant with armies. And this rule is certainly enough to stop any AI declare any war. But civ5&6, same problem.

The problem I have with wars is they weaken too fast AI, but you can have a very aggressive territory expansion and respect all rules or minimize the rules break cases. Civ5&6 are much weaker in possibilities of territory expansion, you won't escape do wars but you can probably trigger "justified" wars more easily than in HK.

[Dorok]

Forgot highlight a point, I quoted that once you have the non aggression treaty, you can explore at AI frontier without any risk of degrading relationship.

But with Alliance, all rules disappear, for you and for AI. so once you have an Alliance, you can build an outpost at AI frontier, you can low down more their territory expansion possibilities, you can explore anywhere. But also the AI won't hesitate do the same. There's probably one exception, Independents. At least you can choose react and have in general AIs a lot more careful on capturing or assimilate your independents, or ignore and risk all AI consider fine capture and assimilate all your independents, alliance treaty doesn't seem change it much, not sure.

[Genitor]

grievances are still created with an ally, though. It is just expected they are getting ignored. And the AI seems to play by that rule. I dont. ^^

If you demand a grievance there is a good chance of the AI breaking the Alliance-treaty, though. In fact thats the only way i managed to get out of alliances without getting a traitour-batch. I am guessing that, if the AI would demand something that you could break the alliance-treaty aswell without getting the batch (if AI breaks it when you demand something they dont get a batch so you shouldnt either). Alliance-partners just never do that it seems. But i wouldnt know because i dont do alliances very often.

edit: you are definitly right about the defensive aspect of military. I dont build more than i need in early game, generally speaking and i had situations where that definitly caused an AI to declare war on me. Most notable is certainly a game where i had a corner of the map, just progressed to ancient era so very early game and i grabbed all the territory i wanted for now and the rest of the map was basically blocked by my neighbour. Wasnt an issue as i would have been satisfied just building up the corner i already claimed. I also had a non-aggression-pact with my only neighbour so i felt comfortable putting all my scouts to work in my cities except 2. My neighbour IMMEDIATLY turned round his army next turn, the turn afterwards broke our non-aggression-pact and the turn after that declared war and attacked me. Was the only time i lost a game thus far cause i couldnt react fast enough (didnt help he was Myceneans and had a stack of veteran-Primachoi, which are very hard to deal with if you cant combine armies, to begin with let alone if you lack time to build anything substantial). I put too much trust in the non-aggression-pact, basically. Never did that again. In fact i dont do non-aggression-pacts anymore as they are, apparently pretty worthless. Only if i get money out of it i would accept such a request. ^^

[Dorok]

Mmm, it's saying the importance of army power. But you don't quote any reason of the AI attitude change, just weak army, hardly.

Non aggression pact are small treaties, alliances are another matter, it will take AI a ton of turns to break treaties and finally declare any war. All in all, use outposts to clarify AI diplomatic evolution should often work well. But you need temper with the power you show and it requires not have the non aggression treaty.

Still non aggression treaty can be useful, it's a first step to Alliance, Alliance can add 5% science and 5% influence. But Alliance is also double edge. Very soon in play non aggression pact useful too to be able explore all the continent. Then if it's a Military culture as Myceneans, they won't give more than one turn latency before a war. But with other cultures types, that's another matter.

But my current play is totally weird, with 8 scouts and one warrior, Twice more territories than neighbors, 3 or 4 time more resources than neighbors, plenty territories between the two AIs (most are mine as outposts), and they declare war to each other.

That said it was perhaps a protective war to protect me lol, but for now I never quoted this, for sure it's rare they have the protecting attitude because I tend have massive armies and don't care of the maintenance cost.

Still it's a case saying weak army isn't enough to trigger wars.

[Cythal]

To dominate diplomacy, I think you need to focus on bringing the AI under your sphere of influence. Very difficult to achieve at higher difficulty. Once this is achieved the AI will lick your boots throughout the whole game if you can manage to remain more powerful to them.

But you will again be challenged to minimise wars between AIs and somehow prevent one from getting too large and eliminating weaker ones. Watch who is small, watch who is big and who has lieges and vassals. Think about affinity, If I trade strategic resources to this expansionist empire, are they able to build strong armies and cause trouble OR will that allow them to defend themselves and prevent take over from a big aggressive AI.

For a diplomat play through, I normally pick Aesthete Cultures early game, supported by intensive population growth, to generate influence and preserve my culture, and religion if possible. Exploration of the map is vital as well as securing the right resources. But this strategy can also heavily be map dependent, and i think the majority of most games in HK will be.

You may do well with a map with gold resources if you have many to trade. Production Luxuries can be helpful to grab some wonders and maintain stability at a high level to prevent reliance on buying luxuries from the AI and having their culture influence yours too heavily. Of course you still need to generate the required influence fast enough to buy one.

A map with food luxury resources plays well for this playstyle. If I can I will try to grab all lands with this resources on my continent first so that I trade less for the others and let the AI buy from me mostly to export my culture and begin favourable diplomacy.

Of course you can start with a Food culture but you will loose the benefit of having trust maxed out from the beginning to initiate diplomacy early on and make friends.

At higher difficulty, early on gold seems to be requested to sign those agreements so plan ahead and save for them. But do not be afraid to request gold as well. If they have the amount you are requesting and extra, they tend to agree. You can see amount of gold an AI have on the trade screen to make the gamble or an informed decision. I would like this information be hidden however for an Espionage DLC in the future.

Expansion needs to be intricately done to both preserve your culture and minimise grievances. In some cases it may be better to forward settle your second city if you can and there is a lot of gap before the AI is close to it. Think about the AI's expansion also, and as others have said try to get the upper hand to force the AI to trigger the grievance for settling close to you. If that region comes under your sphere of influence, you can demand it back when you are good friends and they see you more powerful and now depends on you.

The active ability of aesthete culture becomes particularly important to push your sphere of influence. Thus the diplomacy game is to make long lost cousins with the AI and bring them under your sphere of influence. Your culture needs to dominate your continent and keep the AI as your close cousins and this makes diplomacy so much easier. Good luck in achieving that in higher difficulties if you can overwhelm the influence bonus they get in addition to their population growth fortifying that influence bonus further.

Then again, you may go the aggressive route.

[想不想]

i think you are progressing too slowly. Make sure you have 4 cities before leave ancient era that promote cultural growth. 2 should contain 3-4 territories that ensure productivity. 2 should contain at least 2 territories. 3th, 4th city by annexing an independent nation or forcing AI to surrender
Give birth to your outpost in a territory with luxury resources, and use culture to build those resources in one second. If resources territory fall into AI, then they will grow faster than you. resources mean stability, food, capacity, technology and money.
For some time, I have basically declared war on AI on my own initiative. (humankind difficulty)

[Dorok]

There's most certainly different ways to make a no war play.

@Cythal: I never noticed the influence domination aspect to avoid wars, I'll check. But I agree wuth Imlirapro, what you described seems too slow in term of amount of towns. But I would argue it depends if you have Independents or not.

Aggressive territory expansion can be done without degrading diplomacy with AIs. And example from previous play, right before exit first era at turn 86 with Harappeans Red:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2804929874

The third town at right was a lucky Independent spawn, only one of the whole continent.

In the snapshot the two AIs are already in war, the Yellow AI occupying Knosos. None declared me war, later I declared war to perhaps avoid that the other AI get killed, but even later I stopped bother and it only became vassal, it's still one AI less for treaties.

It's a last difficulty play, last game version, no Independent spawning on start continent but one.

EDIT:
This requires a precision. You can wonder how I could have expand that much. A large part of the answer is it's based on one of the broken aspects of the gameplay, I discovered only recently that it was broken, It's curiosities. In this play, past Neolithic, I had an average of 3 curiosities per turn during turns 30-50, then about 2 per turn during turns 50-60, and again 3 curio per turn during turns 60-80, that's approximate averages. This won't change anything to diplomacy, nor stars as curio don't count directly for stars. But it counts for influence income hence more outpost done. And for money income so more something depending of spending choices.

[yutterh]

Originally posted by Genitor:

grievances are still created with an ally, though. It is just expected they are getting ignored. And the AI seems to play by that rule. I dont. ^^

If you demand a grievance there is a good chance of the AI breaking the Alliance-treaty, though. In fact thats the only way i managed to get out of alliances without getting a traitour-batch. I am guessing that, if the AI would demand something that you could break the alliance-treaty aswell without getting the batch (if AI breaks it when you demand something they dont get a batch so you shouldnt either). Alliance-partners just never do that it seems. But i wouldnt know because i dont do alliances very often.

edit: you are definitly right about the defensive aspect of military. I dont build more than i need in early game, generally speaking and i had situations where that definitly caused an AI to declare war on me. Most notable is certainly a game where i had a corner of the map, just progressed to ancient era so very early game and i grabbed all the territory i wanted for now and the rest of the map was basically blocked by my neighbour. Wasnt an issue as i would have been satisfied just building up the corner i already claimed. I also had a non-aggression-pact with my only neighbour so i felt comfortable putting all my scouts to work in my cities except 2. My neighbour IMMEDIATLY turned round his army next turn, the turn afterwards broke our non-aggression-pact and the turn after that declared war and attacked me. Was the only time i lost a game thus far cause i couldnt react fast enough (didnt help he was Myceneans and had a stack of veteran-Primachoi, which are very hard to deal with if you cant combine armies, to begin with let alone if you lack time to build anything substantial). I put too much trust in the non-aggression-pact, basically. Never did that again. In fact i dont do non-aggression-pacts anymore as they are, apparently pretty worthless. Only if i get money out of it i would accept such a request. ^^

Non-aggression packs I mainly use to keep them from ransacking my territories. But that sounds like awesome game either way. Did they completely wiped you out or did you stop playing? Cause I have become a vassal before and have came back from the brink of destruction.

[Genitor]

no they didnt wipe me. The AI demanded a territory from me so i figured i just hand it over. That was first war. But the bastard came right back at me just a couple turns later and conquered a city of mine (1/2; it was very early game) and then i called it quits. Was my 3rd game ever played or something. Had i known back then that you could become vassal and get back and even get achievements i would have continued the game, though.

[yutterh]

Originally posted by Genitor:

no they didnt wipe me. The AI demanded a territory from me so i figured i just hand it over. That was first war. But the bastard came right back at me just a couple turns later and conquered a city of mine (1/2; it was very early game) and then i called it quits. Was my 3rd game ever played or something. Had i known back then that you could become vassal and get back and even get achievements i would have continued the game, though.

Gotchas, yeah I get why you quit though lol I mean I really have no room to talk because I save scum lol sometimes I just let the ai have the win if it was strategic. Like one time I attacked the AI's army that retreat les a a turn before. It was up in the mountains and the way I approached I had no idea they had reinforcements.

[Dorok]

For me that's a huge weakness of reinforcement mechanic, it's unlimited, it's unpredictable in many context because of a spying not working or even some complex fog of war. And I don't mention very long travels or even sort of unlimited with airports.

Ok it's not incoherent, that's part of games with fog of war, but in context of SP it's not working that well.

[Genitor]

i am a bit divided on the reinforcement. I think it needs a bit of an overhaul. Maybe make it so you can, at first only call in 1 extra stack and then give a tech that adds 1, etc etc. That would also increase the value of unitslots, which are almost pointless atm.

I do like though that you can set traps the way the system is now. Attack with a single unit or have a single unit "out in the open" to be attacked and have a thick army behind next mountain or in the woods around to reinforce. Like how that works.

What i dont like, though is when you attack something or someone and suddenly there are armies all around moving and joining in from god knows where. What can i do about that? Am i supposed to scout out an entire empire, basically that is hostile towards me and that gets warsupport when my scouts flee or get killed?
That prevents "sneaky actions" like marching in an army through woods or some other route the enemy doesnt see it comming. Not good. Bit of a problem of the simultaneous turns, which i am not a fan of, to begin with. If it was restricted like i suggested above and what you also said, Dorok it wouldnt be that big of an issue, though.