MOM1 AI

[Artorius]

I'm new to MOO1. Discovered it along with MOM and MOO2 a few months ago. I'm deep into my first full MOO1 game now. Humans. Easiest setting. Medium galaxy.

I first met the Alkari and Bulrathi. I setup trade routes and exchanged tech. Then I met the Sakkra. They only had one world, so I decided to test my new battleships on them. I knocked out their ships and was immediately contacted by the Psilons. I setup trade routes with Psilons, exchanged some tech, and then invested 100% on spying them for espionage. Then begin a long bombing campaign of the Sakkra home world. 

So here's the part that jarred me over the next ~20 turns: 

1. The Psilons, despite our twice refreshed trade deal and exchange of tech, abruptly declared war. The only thing I can think of is I had 3 or 4 spies stealing tech from them (which had net me 2 or 3 techs in the proceeding ~15 turns). Is that why? If so, is it weird I never got a notification that they caught me spying? Based on how abrupt it was and their wording, it seemed totally uncalled for and frankly silly.
   
2. After only a few turns after declaring war on me, I got a message from Psilons that more or less said, "The Sakkra are a threat! We must work together to defeat them". I was floored. First, we are enemies! Second, the Sakkra have 0 fleet, 1 world, 0 factories, 60 pop, and I'm bombing them as we speak!
   

Hey, I'm having fun. But what the hell? Is the dumb AI due to my low difficulty setting? Or is there a 'randomness' to AI logic that sometimes disrupts immersion like this?

[Dp101]

Check the personalities of the alien leaders, the Psilon one might be erratic. The AIs can also just be generally insane at times.

[RefSteel]

H'lo! And welcome!

There are many reasons that the AI will declare war in MoO: Sometimes they'll do it opportunistically just because they think they can gain something from you, but more often it will be as a result of poor relations. It is true that they don't take well to spying, and they don't always complain aloud when they catch one of your spies; they'll sometimes nurse grudges without telling you. They will sometimes dislike you for growing too powerful as well. The AI in MoO is not passive by default. And, yes, they can sometimes be a little loony.

On the Races screen, where you set your spies up, you can see what the other race thinks of you; this allows you to observe when something (like spying or expanding or moving ships near their borders) is causing relations to decay or when something (like trade or enemy-of-my-enemy bombing) makes them improve, without the need to wait for them to complain to you. But what if you've been checking that, and they seem perfectly happy with you and then declare war out of the blue? It does sometimes happen; the two most likely causes are these:

1) They may be assisting an ally, and this is an important thing to check while you're at war with another race if you don't want a dog-pile to spread. Still on Races screen, try selecting "Report" and then clicking on the portrait of (e.g.) the Psilon ruler. You'll see a report on the Psilon's techs on the right, filling most of the screen, which gets out of date if you don't have spies in place (whether the information is current, and how long ago the last update came, is displayed on the left-side of the page, e.g. "Report is Current"). But on the left-hand column, with the portrait and the age of the tech report, there's more information: Up to three apiece of their current wars and alliances. If the Psilons list "Sakkra" under their Alliances, the Sakkra will ask their Psilons buddies (at some point, likely reasonably soon) to declare war on the race that's at war with them - in this case, the Humans: You. The Psilons might refuse and break their alliance, but more likely, they'll agree. This may be what happened here. (Then afterward they might break their alliance anyway. Unfortunately, the way AIs make and break alliances with each other is really buggy. But it can make for a wild game!)

2) They could be Erratic. On the same Report screen, still on the left, up near the top, there's some information about the leader's personality. Psilons are often Pacifistic Technologists, like me. This means they prefer to avoid war if possible and like to commit a lot of resources to research relative to other races. It's not the same in every game though, and sometimes your Psilons may show up as Honorable Diplomats (who get angry over any slight and like to spy a lot) or Erratic Technologists or somethng. The one to look out for is Erratic: This is another way of saying, "This race's leader is crrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazyyyyyyyyy! No, but even crazier than a normal 20+ year-old AI, I mean!" An Erratic leader, among other things, rolls the dice every turn to decide whether or not to declare on some random other species. They are ... not reliable trading partners. You can usually tell an Erratic war declaration from a regular one too because they offer especially loony reasons for their war declaration like, "The alignment of planets" or getting bored of diplomatic games and deciding they'd rather play war games. When you meet an Erratic leader, be ready for war at any time!

Of course ... in MoO, you might want to be ready anyway....

All that said, you can absolutely build and maintain good relations with other races (as long as they're not erratic!) via trade, tech tribute (I'm not a fan, but it's a thing) and especially mutual wars with a third party in which you are destroying lots of ships or especially population. ... Up to a point. MoO AIs don't like to lose. (They do it anyway of course. But they don't like it.)

I hope this helps!

[EDIT: Oh, and the "Thanks for killing Sakkra" thing: This means that by the time you got the message, they were at war with the Sakkra too; this message is just a courtesy to inform you that "Hey, relations are improving because you're helping in our mutual war!" Sometimes this will suggest it's a good time to propose a peace treaty. Sometimes though it's just a way to point out that relations are on their way up. And though it's possible the Psilons and Sakkra were momentarily allied but soon thereafter at war, erratic or not, my guess, like Dp101's, is that you've got Erratic Psilons on your hands.]

[Artorius]

Check the personalities of the alien leaders, the Psilon one might be erratic. The AIs can also just be generally insane at times.

"Honorable diplomat" heh

[RefSteel]

"Honorable diplomat" heh

Heh - my favorite misnomer title. "Honorable" means they take major offense at any negative action (like spying on them). Xenophobes are like this too, except Xenophobes are also slower to warm up to positive actions.

So another guess: The Psilons might have just gotten really, really upset about all that spying, didn't bother to tell you, then went to war with the lizards because your bombing made them look like a juicy target. Then when the bombing continued, they said, "Whoa! Looks like we're on the same page here about the Sakkra being targets, neh? Maybe our war won't last forever after all if you keep this up!"

Un(less/til) of course you successfully exterminate the Lizards. Then everyone will hate you for beating them to it!