Alright, this is driving me crazy. So I send my survey through a wormhole, and he meets the Drengin on the other side of the map. It's gigantic size, so they're pretty far away, but that's something I'll have to deal with later. Okay. Also meet the Thalan on the way back. About 30 turns later the Drengin declare war on me. I'm middle of the pack militarily of the people I can see, and the Thalan are lagging behind. Why would the Drengin declare on me, whom they can't get to and probably won't be able to get to for a while, instead of declaring on the Thalan, whom they've not been at war with? This is about turn 150 on Normal difficulty.
If this was just once, okay, but I've had a fair number of games where I've been war-decced on from races that can't possibly get to me. Is there a reason this happens? The Krynn have done it to me once or twice as well. It seems they should wait until they can reach me before they declare? Any thoughts/reasons?
They don't care how far away you are right now. A warlike race sees you as a weak opponent and decides to steal your stuff. That very common scenario takes nothing else into account.
The AI isn't really trying to win, but rather to simulate a civilization. Chances are, they liked the Thalans better than you. It's also possible someone else bribed them to declare on you, and in that case, they wouldn't really care that they couldn't reach you. All that said, yeah, distance to the target should be a factor when conquest is the goal. This seems like another case where it shows that game really wasn't designed to be played on the largest maps.
Also, if you stepped into their ZOC from the wormhole they probably regarded it as an insult. The message I received was:
Είμαστε η Drenjn. Μειώστε σας ασπίδες και παραδώσει σας πλοία. Θα προσθέσουμε σας βιολογικών και τεχνολογικών διακριτικού χαρακτήρα με τη δική μας. Πολιτισμός σας θα προσαρμοστεί για την εξυπηρέτηση μας. Αντίσταση είναι μάταιη.
Yeah, it was all greek to me too...by the time I got universal translator, half my fleet was wiped out.
At least they now try to attack you if you're in range of their fleets. Previously, the AI not only ignored distance when declaring war but also thought any distance over about 16 tiles was too far to send ships.
They really need to work on this logic. The AI is all to quick to declare war. There are usually other civs just as close and often weaker, but they all decide to declare war on only me! And no matter how large my map, I always seem to be set close to those darn ugly Krynn. They and the Terrans always want to quickly declare war on me. Even when I trade with them to keep them pacified. And I'm constantly building warships but my military standing keeps just getting weaker and weaker. i'm playing on Normal, not Crazy or Beat You Down level. It even happened on Easy, but I used that to get an idea of the tech tree so I could get the necessary tech to compete.
Instead of being fun like GC2, it more frustrating and annoying. The AIs just build up fleets and declare war like out of this world. (oh, it is a space combat game. ha!)
And they took all of the funny little fun things out. Like the cute explanations of technology and the diplomatic dialogs by the AI.
And what happened to the miliatary starbase? they nerfed it. I cant get it to support my weak fleets. And you just cant keep up with the AI early with fleets and tech.
They original Galciv was promoted as the AI didnt cheat, it just made better decisions. They seem to have thrown that idea out the window and set it on fire. This AI seems to cheat more than a rich person getting a tax refund.
Is it just me or do others feel the same way? Am I playing in a really stupid fashion?
Stevezar, you get a +1 for that one !
Argh, the Drengin are not Borg!!
^^^ So much this.
I know its my thing and I know how hard Frogboy is working and has many many things on his plate. However I would happily pay for a 'Margarita Night DLC' which is only new and snarky dialogues (for Diplomacy and technologies) from the original three folks who worked on that GCII dialogue (Paul, His owner and Brad).
This last post was in no way ment to annoy anyone at Stardock. I think all of you are doing a great job. Oh and I miss Paul's Streams...<hint>
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a game-breaker for me (ha). I just wasn't sure if there was a reason for it or not. I don't mind the + diplo with other races for "at war with an opposing ideology," especially when they can't get to me. It just struck me as odd and was kind of frustrating.
The AI seems more stubborn at refusing to value peace even as they're getting steamrolled. One AI declared war on me, then another and another. I started steamrolling one of them, took half their planets, their fleets were unable to scratch mine at all yet they wouldn't consider a peace treaty unless I gave them a lot of stuff. Umm, if you're losing a war, you shouldn't be demanding things of the rival civilization that is crushing you ...
The AIs probably do declare war on each other as often as you, but you don't notice because you don't care as much. As for why they'd pick you over a weaker target, they probably like the other guy better. If you can't hold your own militarily, you need to do better at diplomacy. Get the actual diplomacy tech, so the AI will like you better, and form non-aggression pacts where possible. If you need it, take the neutral ideology pick which guarantees 50 turns of peace.
There wouldn't be much challenge to the game is the AI just sat their waiting for you to kill them, would there?
I thought a lot of the tech explanations in this game were pretty funny, actually. There are some good ones in the Drengin tree. The first-contact interactions can be pretty entertaining, as well.
I don't remember GC2 military starbases very well, but you can definitely keep up with the normal AI in tech and production capacity if you manage things properly.
The AI doesn't cheat at all on normal or below, except that they get a break on stationed ship maintenance. It always amazes me how quick people are to jump to this conclusion.
Well, the game is consistently winnable on godlike, even without broken alliance victories, so you've definitely got room to improve. If you wanted to upload a save, I'm sure there are several people around here (including me) who could give you some advice.
this is the biggest issue facing ai and war on this game. they go out of their way to attack the player who is a much harder target than the next door neighbours who are weak and ripe for conquest. instead of it being every civilisation for themselves, it feels like you vs everyone else and any allies you make become completely useless and don't even try to expand.
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