Yuan Shao declared war on me for no reason.

[MOMO & YUNA]

I just started a new Lui Bei campaign with the update 1.1.0 beta. Around turn 14 right after the CaoCao's father event where I chose to follow the story (declaring war with CaoCao), then suddenly out of the blue Yuan Shao declared war on me for no apparent reason.

I checked the diplomatic status, the relationship between me and him was just -20 after declaring war, so it must be in the yellow before. And I was never at war with his friends, in fact we even shared a lot of enemies. He did not have any ally/vassal at that moment.

Both Yuan Shao and I were at war with Dong Min, Huang Shao, Han. He had no allies/vassals. And we did not share the border except the river. So I see no reason or the cause for him to declare war on me.

I think this is a bug.

https://ibb.co/59dYf9G

[Nero]

You're close to him. He didn't like you. You're already in plenty of wars. He saw you as prey and declared war. No reason to abandon this campaign this is doable. Make a second army to defend Dong and send Liu Bei and his brothers to Yuan Shao.

With which friend of him are you at war?

The AI does what the human should do. It thinks about power blocks, about future threats. Yuan Shao AI knows you're there and that you're powerful and that you already made friends. It sees you as a major threat and sides with Cao Cao.

Don't forget that Gongsun Zan is right behind Yuan Shao and will probably help you.

[Jin-]

AI is typical Total War. I was Cao Cao, had non aggression pact, trade agreement + 100 positive on Yuan Shu. He kept declaring war on me and i kept reloading the auto save long enough for him to not attack, just to test how stupid the AI can be. Took about 10 to 15 reloads and then he attacked Liu Biao instead

[MOMO & YUNA]

Originally posted by WitchingSnake:

You're close to him. He didn't like you. You're already in plenty of wars. He saw you as prey and declared war. No reason to abandon this campaign this is doable. Make a second army to defend Dong and send Liu Bei and his brothers to Yuan Shao.

With which friend of him are you at war?

The AI does what the human should do. It thinks about power blocks, about future threats. Yuan Shao AI knows you're there and that you're powerful and that you already made friends. It sees you as a major threat and sides with Cao Cao.

Don't forget that Gongsun Zan is right behind Yuan Shao and will probably help you.

Thank you. You are right. It's good to know that ai Yuan Shao grabbed this opportunity. 3K is all about manipulation & deception. I like it this way.

Now after around 6 turns he accepted my peace treaty and the next turn he asked for a trade agreement with me, after he saw that he could not possibly beat me because I placed a full stack at Dong.

He is smart indeed. Sometimes we humans think the ai is buggy, when actually it is just grabbing a good opportunity or back stabbing us.

When humans back stab the ai, we call it fair. But when the ai back stabs humans, we call it buggy ai.

This game really feels like 3K when you understand the concept behind it.

Never trust Yuan Shao ... or Cao Cao, they are serpents, even they are ai.

This thread can be closed now.

[Dayve]

Good relations have never mattered in Total War games. Even if you have max relations and the guy is your vassal and only has 1 province compared to your 100 provinces, it doesn't matter.

If you share a border with them they will declare war on you randomly.

[Gregorovitch]

Yuan Shao is programmed to do exactly this sort of thing. It's his character. All leaders get antsy about you growing in power but Yuan Shao is more likely than most to do something about it, specially if you're in his back yard.

One thing I've noticed is that there is a big difference between attitude rating and treaty status in this game. If they declare war on you when they apparently have a +ve attitude to you there are no consequences to them diplomatically, and let's face it most players (in game) are also two-faced duplicitous bastards when it comes to seizing the opportunities presented and do the same at the drop of a hat.

But breaking treaties is another matter - if you have a military access or non-aggression pact treaty, or a trade agreement, and you declare war you get a whacking great "Untrustworthy" rating. If you cancel the treaty you get a five turn cooling off period during which if you declare war you still get the penalty.

Yuan Shao doesn't want the "Untrustworthy" tag, which although I haven't tried it is probably the kiss of death in this game, besides which he may be an aggressive bastard but he'e also an honourable one, so if you sign a treaty with him he is much less likely to declare war on you unexpectedly. Of course if you do you have exactly the same problem should you (or your coalition partners) want to declare on him, so it cuts both ways.

[MOMO & YUNA]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Yuan Shao is programmed to do exactly this sort of thing. It's his character. All leaders get antsy about you growing in power but Yuan Shao is more likely than most to do something about it, specially if you're in his back yard.

One thing I've noticed is that there is a big difference between attitude rating and treaty status in this game. If they declare war on you when they apparently have a +ve attitude to you there are no consequences to them diplomatically, and let's face it most players (in game) are also two-faced duplicitous bastards when it comes to seizing the opportunities presented and do the same at the drop of a hat.

But breaking treaties is another matter - if you have a military access or non-aggression pact treaty, or a trade agreement, and you declare war you get a whacking great "Untrustworthy" rating. If you cancel the treaty you get a five turn cooling off period during which if you declare war you still get the penalty.

Yuan Shao doesn't want the "Untrustworthy" tag, which although I haven't tried it is probably the kiss of death in this game, besides which he may be an aggressive bastard but he'e also an honourable one, so if you sign a treaty with him he is much less likely to declare war on you unexpectedly. Of course if you do you have exactly the same problem should you (or your coalition partners) want to declare on him, so it cuts both ways.

Yes I also agree that Yuan Shao seems to be programmed to be sly or cunning. You made a good point that the relationship score does not matter when it comes to this guy. But the AI factions in this game honor treaties/agreements quite well most of the time as long as we don't do anything bad to them or their friends.

[BastardSword]

The AI will attack you if you leave your frontiers undefended, no matter what. If you have all your armies at one end of your territory, whoever is on the other side will probably invade you from that side because you left it undefended. If you don't want anyone to bother you, have enough armies spaced out so they can cover your whole little kingdom within a couple of turns of forced march. TW games have been like this for a long time, and the 3K AI is tougher, more erratic and less trustworthy than in most other TW games.

Other than making a show of power with your armies, the best way to avoid getting attacked is to make a coalition with factions you don't want to attack you. They will like you for a pretty long time. As in other TW games, the most challenging and aggressive hostile factions will be the other factions that the player can select to play as. They will be the biggest foes but they will also make the best allies. I would say that Yuan Shao and Cao Cao are always the biggest threats in the game and should be destroyed early on especially if your homeland is near them. Cao Cao likes to start proxy wars between you and other clans even when he seems to like you. Yuan Shao just expands a lot and can either form a coalition with you or against you. Liu Bei, Kong Rong and Sun Jian always expand a lot but they always seem a lot calmer and more likely to work with me and less likely to declare war on me than Yuan Shao and Cao Cao.

You can also try to make a faction your vassal if you want them to leave you alone. Usually it's impossible but sometimes even major factions will let you vassalize them.

In general I would say that the player has a really hard time doing anything diplomatically, while the AI seems to be able to do whatever it wants. Also it rarely seems to act rationally. The most consistently useful thing you can do diplomatically is to make a coalition, but even then the other factions in it will randomly vote you out for no reason other than because the AI is programmed to fear and oppress a human opponent.

[Donair]

lol Yuan declared war on me on turn 4 and im also Lui bei...guess he's secretly pissed we left the alliance and embaresed his troops when we left the gates

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by MOMO & YUNA:

Originally posted by WitchingSnake:

You're close to him. He didn't like you. You're already in plenty of wars. He saw you as prey and declared war. No reason to abandon this campaign this is doable. Make a second army to defend Dong and send Liu Bei and his brothers to Yuan Shao.

With which friend of him are you at war?

The AI does what the human should do. It thinks about power blocks, about future threats. Yuan Shao AI knows you're there and that you're powerful and that you already made friends. It sees you as a major threat and sides with Cao Cao.

Don't forget that Gongsun Zan is right behind Yuan Shao and will probably help you.

Thank you. You are right. It's good to know that ai Yuan Shao grabbed this opportunity. 3K is all about manipulation & deception. I like it this way.

Now after around 6 turns he accepted my peace treaty and the next turn he asked for a trade agreement with me, after he saw that he could not possibly beat me because I placed a full stack at Dong.

He is smart indeed. Sometimes we humans think the ai is buggy, when actually it is just grabbing a good opportunity or back stabbing us.

When humans back stab the ai, we call it fair. But when the ai back stabs humans, we call it buggy ai.

This game really feels like 3K when you understand the concept behind it.

Never trust Yuan Shao ... or Cao Cao, they are serpents, even they are ai.

This thread can be closed now.

To be fair, the same thing is true with humans. When human players backstab us, we call them cheesing noob bad players who only got lucky. Probably actually say worse things about them than we do about the ai.

Also yeah, those ai factions in particular aren't trustworthy. Even if you go look at what actually happened, mr unity Liu Bei probably betrayed more than anyone other than Lu Bu (for example he betrayed both CaoCao and Sun Quan on separate occasions). As the player faction you'll probably emulate that though.

[ACS36]

Originally posted by WitchingSnake:

You're close to him. He didn't like you. You're already in plenty of wars. He saw you as prey and declared war. No reason to abandon this campaign this is doable. Make a second army to defend Dong and send Liu Bei and his brothers to Yuan Shao.

With which friend of him are you at war?

The AI does what the human should do. It thinks about power blocks, about future threats. Yuan Shao AI knows you're there and that you're powerful and that you already made friends. It sees you as a major threat and sides with Cao Cao.

Don't forget that Gongsun Zan is right behind Yuan Shao and will probably help you.

The AI doesn't do what humans should do. It makes simple checks against the player then does the same thing every game if the conditions are met. It doesn't mean that's what a human would do.

[Nero]

Originally posted by ACS36:

This game is like every other TW game. You're just better of killing everyone asap and removing threats from the map so you don't end up in a big grind fest later on. Your only reliable trade partners are vassals but then you'll be dragged into wars by other factions declaring war on them. In all honesty this game is very one dimensional when it comes to optimal strategy.

Honestly at turn 230 you should be close to finishing up. Maybe 20 more turns at most. If you're not, you probably did something really wrong.

Originally posted by ACS36:

The AI doesn't do what humans should do.

You don't even do what humans should do.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by WitchingSnake:

Originally posted by ACS36:

This game is like every other TW game. You're just better of killing everyone asap and removing threats from the map so you don't end up in a big grind fest later on. Your only reliable trade partners are vassals but then you'll be dragged into wars by other factions declaring war on them. In all honesty this game is very one dimensional when it comes to optimal strategy.

Honestly at turn 230 you should be close to finishing up. Maybe 20 more turns at most. If you're not, you probably did something really wrong.

Originally posted by ACS36:

The AI doesn't do what humans should do.

You don't even do what humans should do.

It doesn't even matter if he knows what humans should do. Because humans don't do what humans should do.

[MOMO & YUNA]

Guys, before this "what humans should do" thing get escalates to a civil war in here, I propose that we drop the topic. I got the point. Thank you for every reply, i enjoyed this thread.

[Firsty]

Originally posted by Jin-:

AI is typical Total War. I was Cao Cao, had non aggression pact, trade agreement + 100 positive on Yuan Shu. He kept declaring war on me and i kept reloading the auto save long enough for him to not attack, just to test how stupid the AI can be. Took about 10 to 15 reloads and then he attacked Liu Biao instead

working as intended read yuan shu's personality stop making treaties with dishonorable scumbags

[JimmyTheSnake]

In the show and I'm assuming the book as well, the characters constantly refer to achieving "hegemony". Even though you are the human player in the game, you should assume the AI has the same long term goals as you. No faction wants to share space with you. They either fear you, fear being destroyed by someone other than you, or want to destroy you.

If you are weak, they want to wipe you off the map. If you are a threat, they want to wipe you off the map. Even if you are powerful, they want to wait for the right opportunity to wipe you off the map. Alliances are temporary. Friends are temporary. Take the world and achieve hegemony!