Some observed behaviours that are annoying or really strange.
1. proximity warning
While in general the rule that an army close to the cities of an AI provokes a warning and a loss of relations makes sense, it has some effects that are either really annoying and don't make much sense.
1a) armies defending nodes and towers should be ignored, at least if not strong enough to be a threat.
I've had 2 AIs offer a wizards pact that I accepted, just to see the relation drop because a node somewhere is close to one of their cities. The troops didn't even move. While this might be somewhat exploitable, it makes little sense for the game to expect you to abandon your nodes, this might even happen close to your capital... The cities are already ignored, hopefully it won't be too difficult to add nodes and towers?
1b) A city just created shouldn't be considered.
I've often had the case of an AI founding a city close to someone exploring and immediately feeling offended.
1c) Exploring is quite impossible if you want to keep a wizard pact, how about raising the distance from which a city is observed (but without report on the troops inside) to make it a bit less frustrating? It seems windows minefield when you go around with a trireme. The problem is that you don't even know that a place is some AI's territory, so you might stumble on their land and trigger the loss without even wanting. If I remember correctly it even happens as soon as the troop enters? Maybe the loss could happen on the following turn if you don't retreat? That would make it coherent with what the text says, something like "go away or we'll be unhappy".
2. AI diplomacy
In my current game, the 3 arcanus AIs were all at war. A few turns later they're best buddies, a wizard pacts and two alliances, and there's two good profiles and an evil one who is a lot weaker than the others. It makes little sense.
3. There doesn't seem to be much of a possibility to add to relations.
How about adding master of orion style commerce/research treaties?
How about improving relations when the cities get connected by roads?
1a. There is no space for this and "not enough to be a threat" is too vague
1b. Can't do anything about this, the AI first moves their units then does all diplomacy so the city will be made before the warning check. Don't stand next to a settler if it's a tile where they can build a city and you are safe. (The settler can't move and build in the same turn)
1c. This doesn't work that way. Units have a scouting range, which determines how far they can see - if you want to see the city from further away, you need units that have higher scouting. You always have the option to scout with engineers and settlers, those don't trigger warnings. It happens if you end the turn in that area, so you can carefully navigate the ship to not enter "unknown" tiles unless it has movement remaining to pull back.
2. There are many possible things that can cause this
-being Chaotic
-being peaceful and/or charismatic for a high bonus
-high difficulty modifier, although this should be less of a factor now then before
-Aura of Majesty raising the relation
In general, during peace treaty the AI can't restart the war, so they are subject to the other AI making a treaty with them.
3. I don't see why something that gives you free money (roads) should also improve your diplomacy. The trade treaty would make sense as it costs money first, but I can't do it. There is nowhere to store it, and more importantly, no free conversation slots. Unless you know how to expand an LBX file with a new entry, and teach me how, I can't add new diplomacy.
There's a strange behaviour from Merlin in this test game. He's attacking me with a curious single mindedness, sending many doom-stacks towards my continent despite being at war with other 2 much closer wizards that have only a single city around me, which doesn't even seem to be a high priority. We've never been at war, mind you. It might be that I'm the lowest army strength, I guess, but still, does that override the war needs with other AIs? Especially when they are closer? He seems to act as if he had jihad with me, as one warbear attacks the capital despite being alone. We've never been at war but Merlin has been at war with other 2 for a long time, so a jihad bug seems at least to make sense - he could be at jihad with someone else. I've defended successfully from 2 attacks in the last 2 turns.
On 1c I came up with an idea, how about adding a check on troop movement that kicks in the "are you sure" dialogue, if the unit moves in range to a town? As this is during the player's movement, it isn't a problem in terms of resources at least.
I'd want a way to turn that dialogue off. I do wizard pacts all the time, and then promptly move through their territory with half a dozen units - I don't actually care about the wizard pact, so having to say yes I'm sure dozens of times per turn would be annoying.
That wizard doesn't have the personality to have Jihad hostility.
The contents of the hostility array are correct.
Main Action Continent selection should register wizard 1 (Raven-Blue) as the primary enemy - as your hostility level is not at warlike. (could be though, it's random but there is a small chance to pick that without a war)
Blue has all of its cities on the same continent the wizard comes from - the home continent can't be selected as the main continent. Generally units wouldn't even try to board ships and would attack blue targets, but the path is entirely blocked in that direction by a tower, node and purple's own city.
The red player is not the primary enemy, so their cities have an equal value as yours or neutrals.
Your continent contains the most tiles and the most (nonprimary) cities, so it has the highest chance to be selected.
Everything seems to work correctly.
If the AI makes peace with blue, it'll have a good chance to move to red's home continent instead.
If you break one of the lairs blocking the way, he will stop loading units into ships eventually (but continent reevaluation can take up to 2-3 years to happen for that.), and send them at blue.
In short the AI can't tell the difference between a secondary or a tertiary enemy, so it's picking you because the primary enemy is unreachable.
There is no space for something that space consuming at unit movement, and it would be weird to see that happen when you don't even see the city yet. Don't enter such tiles if you don't have enough movement to step back.
I've sent you the savefiles because the single warbear attacked my capital though. Is that normal?
On continent selection, ok, so that means that AIs prefer to send doomstacks to a far off neutral city rather than a close by enemy one? Because the continent is larger?
... That seems completely ineffective. If an enemy is on a small continent it's likelier to die quickly, and to make the AI stronger in the process. What's the rationale behind this design? Is this meant to make life easier to players that start on small islands, and to give to the player the satisfaction of killing weaker AIs?
Is it also normal that purple's city would block his units' movement? That's rather bizzarre. Besides, the stacks we're talking about are all entirely flyers and wavewalkers, so ships aren't a consideration.
For context: 2 distinct hero doom-stacks landed on the continent, and Merlin's been at war with red and blue for ages.
Well, you have 2 spearmen and 2 swordsmen as defenders. A bear is probably stronger than that.
No, units will attack any valid targets they find first, and only if none exists, are sent to the main continent.
However, intercontinental attacks are limited to a distance of 10 - if no enemies are in that range, it'll be sent to the main continent again. Red cities are further away than that. Blue cities aren't, but the distance between your eastmost city and the AI's territory is about 10 tiles - so if the stack is on the west side of Merlin's empire, if might register your city as a target as well - especially if blue cities are too well defended to attack.
As sprites are weak, it's very likely the AI assumed the stack is not good enough to attack blue cities full of units - but your cities only have some spearmen so they are a good target.
Quote:Is it also normal that purple's city would block his units' movement? That's rather bizzarre.
Why? This is the same for the human player. The difference is the human player can usually send the garrison outside, move through and put them back, if the terrain allows doing so. No more than 9 units on a tile is a strict rule, as more than 9 units on a side in combat causes the game to crash. The AI can't break it either, but it isn't capable of doing a complex maneuver like the human player to solve the problem.
This shouldn't matter for intercontinental stacks like those at all, but I've explained above why your cities are the best targets. If you don't want this, use better garrisons.
