I'm late in the game in my umpteenth play-through of Civ V and, once again, everybody and their dog declared war on me for no apparent reason.
Unless I take an aggressive civ and try to stomp everyone's guts out in the ancient era, the game seems to play out exactly the same way, every god damned time.
I expand to fill the choice bits of my continent, go to war with neighbours until reasonable borders have been established, then I sit back, turtle and try to grind out science and wonders. Then the industrial era rolls around and all the other Civs go spastic. Any spot in my area that isn't covered by my borders starts sprouting other Civ's cities. Nobody is willing to make a trade deal that is even remotely reasonable. (What?! You want to trade luxury goods on an equitable 1:1 basis?! HOW DARE YOU SIR!?") Everyone starts denouncing me and Civs all declare war for no reason whatsoever. The end game becomes a grind as I use gamey tactics to crank out units and flatten enemy cities and it gets to the point where I don't even want to play past 1900 or so because the diplomacy seems busted and the game cheats and spams gold and happiness for AI Civs, even if I use the no cheat mod.
Anyone else in the same boat?
I've played 3 to completion... Won one each with spaceship, UN, and Utopia Project (actually, I might've won 2 with Utopia, not sure). But usually by the late game, I'm pretty militarily strong enough that people aren't picking fights with me. I find a whipping boy to point everyone else at and just make sure I'm friends with all of them. Last game, that was Rome (I was the Celts) and it worked fine :)
I like to get the giant robots and mech crush my enemies underfoot. So for me most have ended the same way. Giant robots and an occasional nuke for good measure. Yeah. I know. I should stop playing as Ghandi.
I was number one in military with Great War infantry when everyone else had muskets or rifles but they all still DOWed me. Had to adopt the Order track and become a pinko just to get the home defence bonus.
What difficulty are you guys playing at?
I just moved to King level for the first time and am getting my butt kicked in a similar fashion as SDR.
On Prince and below it was starting to get too easy. I guess now I need to rethink my strategy.
I'm playing on Prince right now. I'm not losing the war, it's just irritating to have to stop improving my cities and turn everything over to gold production to churn out troops. I get pissed off and just go genocidal and raze very city I take.
So higher difficulty also makes the AIs attack you later in the game, no matter what? I'm not terribly surprised but that kinda thing is annoying.
It's my biggest complaint about Hegemony: Gold - If a nearby state spots your units, it just swarms you over & over (all of them!), and diplomacy consists solely of bribing them which they keep asking for more & more until you can't afford it and it's war anyway. I hear they've filled this stuff out more in the upcoming Rome game, and I hope it's a big improvement. Kinda sours the sandbox experience for me in Hegemony.
I believe in total war. I don't do the border battle thing. If I start a war, I finish it because they will always be a pest in the future. I'm not sure if it can be proved but I think there are certain civs that are always agressive. The monguls for example. It's just a matter of time before they attack.
They're all aggressive late in the game. I think the only time I've ever had an ally stick with me was Spain when I played as Russia and kept sending units, cities, and money their way for the entire game.
In my current game, I'm playing as the Celts. I started on a mid-sized continent with the Austrians and the Carthaginians right on my borders and the Dutch on the other side of the Austrians. The Austrians and Carthaginians both declared war on me early on. I knocked out the Austrians and knocked the Carthaginians back to one city. Then the Polynesians showed up and started building cities on the other side of Carthage. Soon after the Incans showed up and started building as well. The Incans, Dutch and Carthaginians all declared war on me sometime in the Medieval era. I took out Carthage, drove the Incans off the continent and made an advantageous peace with the Dutch. I then met the Mayans, the Danish, the Byzantines, and the Americans once I started exploring beyond my coastline. The Byzantines knocked out the Mayans and the Americans. Things stabilized until the Industrial/Modern era. By then it was a 3 way race between me, the Byzantines, and the Danes but everyone declared war on me. I lost a few cities to a massive Dutch/ Danish push but captured them back, destroyed the Danish navy, and then burnt 8 Dutch cities to the ground. I was getting spread pretty thin when I discovered plastics and then everyone stopped and offered peace on terms very advantageous to me. That's where we stand now. In points, the Byzantines are out in front, having nabbed almost all of Polynesia and a fair chunk of the Danish holdings. I'm in second but with a big lead in science and the Danes are in a distant third, very close to the Dutch. The Incans and Polynesians are afterthoughts at this point. It's now 1964 and the war seriously cut into my research. I won't have enough for a cultural or scientific victory now, so it's a race to get nukes and blow Byzantium back into the stone age.
^I love the heartwarming details of a Civ game. Although, both Bison and SDR sound more aggressive than I ever am.
Wow. that's a fascinating story SDR.
Quote from: MetalDog on December 09, 2012, 11:55:26 PM
^I love the heartwarming details of a Civ game. Although, both Bison and SDR sound more aggressive than I ever am.
I never start a war. I like to turtle and build up peacefully. That's why the late game war vs. everyone gets on my nerves.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 10, 2012, 12:43:26 AM
Quote from: MetalDog on December 09, 2012, 11:55:26 PM
^I love the heartwarming details of a Civ game. Although, both Bison and SDR sound more aggressive than I ever am.
I never start a war. I like to turtle and build up peacefully. That's why the late game war vs. everyone gets on my nerves.
The only reason I start wars is to gain a strategic resource or some sort of strategic choke point to help better defend my empire. Other then that I like to turtle and build good interior lines to help move troops around in the event of war. However, when I am attacked I really enjoy counter attacking after the enemy breaks itself over my defenses.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 10, 2012, 12:43:26 AM
Quote from: MetalDog on December 09, 2012, 11:55:26 PM
^I love the heartwarming details of a Civ game. Although, both Bison and SDR sound more aggressive than I ever am.
I never start a war. I like to turtle and build up peacefully. That's why the late game war vs. everyone gets on my nerves.
ever try NOT ever being a turtle? Maybe the AI response is the same because you play the same?
Yup. A few times. When I do, I usually play an aggressive civ like Germany or Japan and I just steamroll the world by the late medieval era.
The few times I've tried to be reasonably aggro early on to secure a continent, everyone declares me to be a hostile warmonger and I get repeatedly denounced and everyone declares war. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the AI civs behave in an even remotely rational manner in the late stages. They all just turn hostile and flip out no matter what you do.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 10, 2012, 12:56:25 PM
Yup. A few times. When I do, I usually play an aggressive civ like Germany or Japan and I just steamroll the world by the late medieval era.
The few times I've tried to be reasonably aggro early on to secure a continent, everyone declares me to be a hostile warmonger and I get repeatedly denounced and everyone declares war. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the AI civs behave in an even remotely rational manner in the late stages. They all just turn hostile and flip out no matter what you do.
crabs in a bucket mentality eh?
I have won one game of Civ V by building the spaceship...can't remember the difficulty or even the civ I used, it was a while back.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 10, 2012, 12:43:26 AM
Quote from: MetalDog on December 09, 2012, 11:55:26 PM
^I love the heartwarming details of a Civ game. Although, both Bison and SDR sound more aggressive than I ever am.
I never start a war. I like to turtle and build up peacefully. That's why the late game war vs. everyone gets on my nerves.
Too bad there's no AI aggressiveness setting, in the options.
I often like to just build up econ-tech-wise in grand strategy games, too.