Adventure 33 game report

[meatbalz]

Everything was going swimmingly, we were out to 8 cities by 425AD and teching rapidly; Shaka declared war shortly beforehand, but we were able to handle him with some ease. To avoid the early rush (would seem to be a no-brainer), we were playing with the Honorable variant. 5 turns from Feudalism, and with our entire southern flank undefended (we were Friendly with both Katherine and Mansa), the Russians declared war at +11 relations.

I'll play this one out to the end, but there was no way I could finish both this and the ongoing MOO game (in fact, even finishing that game will be a real struggle), so will have to report it as a retirement.

The screenshot is from the turn prior to the declaration.

[timmy827]

Most unfortunate. In a very frustrating part of game design, the AI can decide to go to war against the player before becoming Friendly, and transitioning to Friendly during the planning phase doesn't cancel the coming war declaration.

Cathy is a notorious opportunist; I was checking her for "enough on our hands" every few turns until she became Friendly in my game.

[ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF]

The thing with Cathy is, she can be bribed against you even if she is Friendly. My Guess would be that Shaka bribed her to DoW you.

[meatbalz]

thanks to both of you, very valuable info. i don't think she'd been preparing beforehand as i'd checked a few turns before and she was still willing to go to war vs shaka (and had been friendly for a while longer than that).

i guess in this instance she was bribed. are certain AIs hard-coded to accept bribes even when friendly or can any of them be bought for a price?

[ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF]

The AIs have maximum relation at which the can be bribed against you (or another AI). So, they don't get bribed against their friends (It's "redded out", with the message "We couldn't betray our close friends").

For most of them, this threshhold is Cautious or Annoyed (They will declare for you at Cautious, but not Pleased, for example.) A few will do it at Pleased, and I think only Catherine will at Friendly.