AI Alliances

[Seravy]

So, Hadriex's first encounter with the 5.x versions and revised difficulty ended in a game where all 4 AIs were allies.
Even though the difficulty modifiers reduce the chance of this a lot on lower, like Advanced difficulty, if other factors are powerful enough, it happens anyway. Aura of Majesty, a very early Wizard's Pact for similar realms and alignment, being peaceful, or being charismatic.

So I have been thinking that maybe we need some more drastic restrictions to prevent this from happening at least in the early game?

My current idea for it is : "Skip the roll for Alliance if Turn<130-10*Difficulty level".

[Nelphine]

I disagree. That's part of the game. It won't happen every game, and for every 4 way alliance, you get a game with all 4 AI at war with at least 1 other AI.

[Seravy]

I disagree. That's part of the game. It won't happen every game, and for every 4 way alliance, you get a game with all 4 AI at war with at least 1 other AI.

Well, yeah, but the game balance is clearly designed to work well with the latter, not the former.

Assuming everything is perfectly balanced, in a 4v1 situation you're fighting 4 times your power and can't win, while in the latter, assuming you declare war on one person at a time, everyone is fighting exactly 1x their own power except the unfortunate AI you attacked - but if they are getting too weak they will likely end their other war and keep fighting only you.

Now, if your example was "every other AI is in 2-3 wars while you're in one", then that's one thing but it won't happen. The AI is good at making peace, and failing that they will be eliminated, only making those who attacked them stronger. As you are aware, we designed the AI diplomacy system to support this because otherwise the influence of AI wars would have been excessive - the same way alliances are. So AIs either lose fast or stop fighting.

More importantly "it's part of the game" is not an argument. It's part of the game if we allow/make it happen. Otherwise it's not. I'd like to hear how an AI Alliance in the early game makes the game better to play, because we've seen why it's making it worse.

So we should think about how having or not having AI alliances in the early game makes the game better/worse.
AI wars and alliances have a larger influence on the game than starting positions, so if we discussed that, we should do the same here. Even if we end up doing nothing, like there.

[Nelphine]

Fair. I'm just getting my stance out at the beginning.

[Kaiku]

Don't have much input here. Strong AI alliances, especially early game, piss me off, but in a good way. It's part of the game's charm to overcome such stacked odds, and it keeps new games unpredictable and fun. Four AI's being allied is not something I've had to deal with before and it does sound excessive and unfair, but I think it'd be fun to experience it some time (at which point I'd probably rage about it here).

If it's as rare as I think it is, I'd probably want to leave it alone. Shit luck if it happens to you, but it might make for an interesting and unique game (unless it doesn't).

[Seravy]

btw all 3 Arcanus AI are allied in Hadriex's next game too. I also thought this is rare but..maybe it's not. And it's on Advanced.

[Nelphine]

I think I'd be more interested in trying to balance units better, so that strategic strength is closer, so they're more inclined to hate each other.

For instance my current lunatic game has 4 AI with life primary, and 3 with nature secondary. I'm not surprised there's a 4 way alliance based on books. 

Then, neither of those realms is good for AI strategic strength (unless they get focus magic cockatrices, which none of them did). So then its down to racial units. Dark elves are noticeably better than high elves; barbarians are practically infinitely better than anything else.

So all 3 life/nature wizards have wildly differing strategic strength. The life/death wizard has better, because werewolves have good strategic strength, but that still doesn't compare to barbarians. So he's distinctly third.

If none of the AI are remotely close on strategic strength, and there is any other reason to like each other (similar realms, aura of majesty, persinality) then it makes sense they'll end up allying.

If you're concerned, I would put in a penalty to allying if you are noticeably stronger than the other. That way, the default will probably end up as wizard pact unless 2 of the other conditions are met (personality, realm, aura of majesty).

[Seravy]

I think I'd be more interested in trying to balance units better, so that strategic strength is closer, so they're more inclined to hate each other.

That doesn't work like that. Certainly, if it's too close and the relation is low, that triggers a war, but if relation is low, it  wasn't a relevant case for an Alliance to form anyway. If the relation is high, even equal army size won't trigger the war. Equal army strength itself does nothing at all to relation, or to anything unless it triggered that war condition.
Which, btw, also includes the personality modifier so those who are likely to ally, are unlikely to go to war.

I suspect we have a new problem here actually. We recently raised the "now war" turn limit from 25 to 40. So the AI has 40 turns to roll for wizard's pacts, and even gain relation from them if successful, while during this time they can't roll for war even if they would otherwise go to war. Basically, wizards who have any chance to be friends will do so, as they are not allowed to attack each other yet.

Now, 40 turns is not that much and the AI only rolls for a treaty like once in a while (some 10-15 turns) and they even need to have contact for it, but having 1-2 additional rolls for the wizard's pact before a chance for war or hostility, on all 4 wizards, does add up. And it only needs to be successful on one half of the pair.

Which is the perfect argument to deny the AI the ability to make positive diplomacy rolls before turn 40, now that I realized. Although then the human has the advantage because they can still do it...but that's already the case on wars, too.

Alternatively, we can drop this back to 25 turns now that there are free settlers and the game starts on a more advanced state. Unfortunately, doing that will restrict player choices to summoning+unit production again which is what we want to avoid with the free settlers, as they'll need to be ready to defend themselves much earlier.
Even then the AI probably shouldn't be allowed to do the diplomacy rolls for the 25 turns.

[Seravy]

If you're concerned, I would put in a penalty to allying if you are noticeably stronger than the other. That way, the default will probably end up as wizard pact unless 2 of the other conditions are met (personality, realm, aura of majesty).

This is a good idea.