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[Ivefan]

It just ruins it when Zakharov tells me, "I've had enough of your brutal nihilism!" and declares war. It makes no sense.

This is why I never bother with others, because I know that they will attack me sometime no matter what I do

[Virex]

Different in Alpha Centauri though. Associated a lot of "human" qualities with Lady Diedre if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure how much I agree with you there. Playing as the Hive, I often found myself allied with Zakharov, feeling that we're similar enough in means though we may have different end goals. It just ruins it when Zakharov tells me, "I've had enough of your brutal nihilism!" and declares war. It makes no sense. More human qualities than normal civ, though, I agree.

Have you ever had a look at the Hive and University? The Hive is a police state, based upon suppressing dangerous ideas. The state (cue Judge Dred reference) can do whatever they want because they believe it's for the greater good and there is nobody to oppose them (they're all locked up). The university is a much more open society. While not exactly as strong as Rose, Zharkov does believe in the free flow of information, as he often defends large-scale information exchange networks. The justification for their often unethical research is that the whole university is drenched in the concept of "The end justifies the means". He needs next to no enforcement for his policies as long as the people believe he's doing the right thing, which is also exactly where the extra unrest comes from as the cities grow, because people are bound to not agree with the choices made and this is strenghtend when the rulers are less directly related to the working class.

[Rakonas]

Different in Alpha Centauri though. Associated a lot of "human" qualities with Lady Diedre if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure how much I agree with you there. Playing as the Hive, I often found myself allied with Zakharov, feeling that we're similar enough in means though we may have different end goals. It just ruins it when Zakharov tells me, "I've had enough of your brutal nihilism!" and declares war. It makes no sense. More human qualities than normal civ, though, I agree.

Have you ever had a look at the Hive and University? The Hive is a police state, based upon suppressing dangerous ideas. The state (cue Judge Dred reference) can do whatever they want because they believe it's for the greater good and there is nobody to oppose them (they're all locked up). The university is a much more open society. While not exactly as strong as Rose, Zharkov does believe in the free flow of information, as he often defends large-scale information exchange networks. The justification for their often unethical research is that the whole university is drenched in the concept of "The end justifies the means". He needs next to no enforcement for his policies as long as the people believe he's doing the right thing, which is also exactly where the extra unrest comes from as the cities grow, because people are bound to not agree with the choices made and this is strenghtend when the rulers are less directly related to the working class.

Regardless, both societies are nihilistic in nature and based on the whole "end justifying the means" concept. As much as it makes sense that Zakharov would disagree with the Hive's system, it makes next to no sense for Zakharov to insult the Hive for its nihilism and invade it after years of technology trading and brotherhood. AC would have more of a connection to the leaders, rather than the countries, if alliances were less easily broken by the AI.

[Sowelu]

And that's why you play AC multiplayer and roleplay!

Besides, Yang's "ends" that justify the means are just personal power and ruthless domination.  Zahkarov's are "for the people who are still alive~".  He really does want to improve humanity's lot!...he just doesn't like to dance around the issues.  Look, kid, we needed living human test subjects to find a cure for that new disease.  I know you loved your Grandpa but his cancer was pretty bad and he only had, like...a year, so we figured, why not sign him up for testing?  Besides, I'm sure it's what he would have wanted.

[Rakonas]

Besides, Yang's "ends" that justify the means are just personal power and ruthless domination.

The thing with Alpha Centauri is that all the different philosophies have their own merits and downsides. The Hive was Yang's own personal power splurge as much as the University was Zakharov's own personal mad scientist operation. Yang does not do it merely for personal power and ruthlessness, he does it because he actually believes in what he's preaching as does every other leader. The Hive is based on a philosophy that the individual must always succumb to the masses for the benefit of the entire hive, with no mere individual mattering at all in comparison to any benefit to the hive as a whole.
 It does suppress intellectualism, but it's really the kind of "Let's just get everything done as soon as possible" focus with no regard for the pain caused to an individual in comparison to whatever benefit received by the human race as a whole. Anyway, let's get back on the topic of Civ 5, which I'm installing right now.

[Thendash]

So back to civ V... I hate the diplomatic AI! I'm playing as Greece on an archipelago map(got tired of continent maps where everyone starts on one continent except one civ and they obviously dominate everyone else), and as soon as I meet France, they ask me to form a pact of cooperation and to start undermining America. I go, ok that'll work out perfectly, America is the closest civ to me and I'd like to take them out first so that I can stand a chance against England and Egypt who both started on their own mini continents.
A while passes and France says we should attack America, I agree and wipe them out rather easily as I had just finished upgrading to musketmen. Then France starts getting a pissed at me for going to war with America, saying my warmongering and aggressiveness is going to far and that I will pay soon. What? Napoleon, you started that war, don't you remember? Bah, I guess he'll just have to die too now...

[Ampersand]

So Napoleon is a warmonger that will find any excuse to expand his own personal power?

So, Napoleon acted like Napoleon?

[Astral]

This game has me addicted to TBS games again; it's turned into the dreaded "JUST ONE MORE TURN" type of deal, even with the Steam demo...

[Rakonas]

I'm liking it so far, though the way that cultural borders expand isn't that great. Also, the AI loves canceling agreements and then offering them again the next turn.

[Thendash]

So Napoleon is a warmonger that will find any excuse to expand his own personal power?

So, Napoleon acted like Napoleon?

But he's not doing that, he's just calling me names not actually declaring war on me. So unless he just wanted everyone to hate me then he didn't gain anything from having amnesia, especially since I'd assume that everyone else hates him as much as me now, he too was part of the war after all.

[Virex]

He probably thought that America was a threat to his power originally, so he got you to usurp it, only to find out that you've suddenly become so powerful that you're a treath to him now. The AI isn't very trusting in that regard.

[Shades]

I'm liking it so far, though the way that cultural borders expand isn't that great. Also, the AI loves canceling agreements and then offering them again the next turn.

Don't forget the agreements are for only so many turns (30 on standard), and often the cancel messages are because of this and the next turn they want to restart them. (At least I think that is what is happening)

[Shadowlord]

This game has me addicted to TBS games again; it's turned into the dreaded "JUST ONE MORE TURN" type of deal, even with the Steam demo...

Funny, it didn't have that effect on me - I ended up stopping around turn 75 of the demo out of boredom and haven't started it up again since.

[Shades]

Funny, it didn't have that effect on me - I ended up stopping around turn 75 of the demo out of boredom and haven't started it up again since.

Each to their own But out of interest did you like the previous Civ games?

[janekk]

I also hate diplomatic AI. They are jerks for no reason and often don't want to accept trades that are VERY good for them, like their 1 surplus luxury for three mine  . It's just not very smart. Also its funny to be called warmonger or such by Iroquois who pretty much conquered half of large continent while only thing I ever did was conquering 1 city state and I did it because 2 other neighbouring city states asked me to do it. Also AI is too war happy. They declare wars left and right without any kind of plan, very often all I ever see is 1 scout unit that quickly dies, several turns later I get asked for peace treaty, sometimes I get really nice extras for no real reason (my units never moved out of my borders).

I encountered bug like this. I got city for signing peace treaty after Washington's army suicided on my defences. I make puppet out of it and then I can't hit next turn because I have to select production in New York, of course I can't, I could assimilate it but I don't want to, had to reload.

Also pro tip: if much larger nation wants to sign research treaty with you, you can be pretty much sure they will attack you the moment it's finalized. It's sound tactic, I get research and whoop their ass anyway so no gain for them but it's too obvious if it happens so often. I noticed I get attacked much less if I don't sign such treaties with super powers so it looks like its exploitable by human players.

AI isn't horrible but it needs a lot of tweaks.


Oh there is one another thing that bugs me. Research, best way to do it is to conquer huge amount of cities. Smaller nations have hard time catching up. I liked how it was done in EUIII. More realistic in my opinion, let's look at actual history, relatively small countries like Great Britain or Spain grew to be global super powers thanks to advanced technology. Hopefully someone will mod it in.