Brad - please review this thread if not already done so. https://forums.elementalgame.com/434917

Tuidjy has provided some good examples with saves, etc. in his posts/replies. Going forward, I'll pay more close attention and provide saves/shots/thoughts.

In short, I recommend revisiting the tweak you did a few builds back. It was the right move but the pendulum swung too far imho. If the player is the runt of the faction power litter, the AI does dogpile. In one of my last serious games before gold (and where I explained to Derek the metal upgrade vs. initial cost issue, fixed before gold), Altar was the only faction I was on good terms with because they were lower faction power. Yithril declared war on me and I was then spammed within several turns about how I declared war on their friend so all other factions except Altar said wth. Pariden never should have done that (I was Tarth). They weren't Yithril's friend, plus they were Kingdoms.

Now with that said, I've played FE for months with insane world difficulty and expert AI. I'm perfectly fine with the AI acting like this on harder difficulties, because I asked for it. But the concern is if the AI is acting crazy on the lower difficulty levels, your new player base could rage quit and never pick it up again.

Sooo, all this time i was thinking i'm doing something wrong (to get all the AIs on me). I watched the tutorial twice, tryed different races,
played a lot on Stormworld 1.5a and always the same

City spam... Hope it will be "fixed", it's "boring" (luv the game) but i never thought it would be the only solution to survive(looks weird to me).

Well, well, well... I was wrong, i was sure that it was me (diplomacy didn't come naturally to me, i often don't get it in games)

12x8 map & 17 mobs / normal difficulty
I my situation, i was middle score ~60 turns, was at was with 1 faction (i started the war at the begining of the game cauz this bicht
was rushing my positions with pioneers).

I had good relations with every one (almost).
Lots of trade and stuff, almost an ally with me.

But for no appearent reason one by one all the AIs started declaring war on me...... No territorial problems appearently,
no score problems either.

I fought like 4 hours against my spamming neigbours. When the situation started to go bad and
i understud i couldn't do it - i left. No way to get peace back (too high peace treaties' prices).

Good to see it will be changed somehow someday (mods/Stardock)

Do the AI bribe each other to go to war with factions they are going to war with? It's something that I can do, pay loads of gildar / influence to get the AI to attack another nation. Do the AI just have loads of money to spare and bribing each other to go to war?

expect that Relations change dramaticly at the drop of a hat.  I've seen relations go from close to hostile in one turn.  Not sure what caused that but unless you check your relations by turn you can easily miss a shift and impending war declaration.

They do indeed.

And here is curiosity: I am playing test game on ridiculous, my power rating is right now 140, with is of course the worst one, and one above me has got 740, with leading nation having 1400. It is season 150, and i play large map with only 4AI. Met two of AI but i keep distance, and i have not been attacked yet, though they war between themselves.

Yea, i said curiosity, because it is first time ever that it happens to me

Normally i would be forced to have a war looooong time ago.

I'm in the boat of raging against the AI. I can hold my own against 1 or 2 AI (I'm playing on normal, didn't play the beta so have gone in fresh on release) but when all the AI on the map declares war on me it's a bit ridiculous. Mostly ridiculous is when I have trade treaties and such with a faction and am on 'close' relations and then all of a sudden they're declaring war. bah!

I am enjoying the game but I just wish there was a bit more predictability in what the AI is going to-do (and it's also retards play-styles that you have to spam military to artificially pump up your score to try and stave off being attacked on all sides).

The AI ganging up on me has ruined many a game for me, it is far to war hungry for my liking.

I would very much like to see a game option, that PREVENTS the AI declaring war on the player, unless attacked or trespassed upon.  I would enjoy the game so much more then.

LMAO sooooo true Froggy. Love that ^ quote. I really am so sic n tired of complainers and whiners and boo hoo-ers complaining about the "difficulty" of the AI. L2P and it will be a better game. The AI in Civilization games CHEATS more than this AI and you don't see players whinning about that! Please do not change anything about how the AI plays unless it is to tweak the difficulty MORE. Those that whine can play on EASY and live with it I say.

wow...

That is my gripe with Frogboy's approach to AI design too. He tries to have the AI behave as if it were a human opponent in a multiplayer game, expanding as fast as possible and attacking you at the first sign of weakness. I'm sure a part of the playerbase really enjoys this kind of challenge, and adjust their playstyle to this. For example Tuidjy, who tries to build around 5 more cities in the first 50 turns of the game (not a personal attack, just an observation). Whenever Frogboy posted one of his threads about programming the AI to win the game as fast as possible, I was always asking myself why you would want to do that? Isn't the point of the game to enjoy it, to be immersed in it, rather than have it be over as fast as possible? It doesn't fit with the 'living and breathing RPG world' that this game is supposedly set in.

To me, this isn't fun. I would much rather have an AI that stays in character, that behaves like the ruler of a nation in a post apocalyptic world rather than just another player in a game. The lord Makin you describe above should have no reason to declare war, unless he was somehow getting something in return from another faction that he needs (better relations, gold, whatever). That doesn't mean that no AI faction expands very strongly, attacks at a sign of weakness, or behave opportunistically, but only when it fits that particular faction's character.