[Suggestion] a quick and dirty way to alleviate the dogpile

Agreed.

Pretty much what I was thinking, so therefore I must state that you are a genious
(That kingdoms and Empires should mean more)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

That's a good point that it would also fit in with the lore and make the ideology meaningful.  Genius must be going around today.

I agree with a suggestion I read elsewhere that the goal of the AI should be survival and not trying to beat the player or win as quickly as possible.

AI aggressiveness should (and does, in theory, I believe) depend on coded personality and difficulty level.

I haven't had too much trouble, lately ... one AI will declare war on me, I'll generally wipe the floor with them, I'll be close to finishing them off when their buddies will declare war on me.  The first AI, by that time, has generally lost a city or two or more to me and is willing to pay me to stop warring them, which frees me to do the same to the second.

The frustrating part is, in my current game, this has been persisting for a long time, and while I am whittling down the second AI, just took one of their cities, its taken my military focus away from an unclaimed frontier that I badly need to expand into, but can't until I can spare sending strong enough forces to clear out powerful elementals, obsidian golems and dragons from the colonizable areas.

You guys get a dogpile every game?  Are you on a really high difficulty?  Through several games on challenging I just see Kingdoms vs. Empire world war every time (unless I screw up the dynamic myself by declaring war on a common faction).  Trogs or Altar tend to declare first and then their faction-mates jump in to join them; despite if I was friendly, trade agreement, or whatever.

I see this mostly on challenging.

It would make more sense that the AIs gang up on the most powerful  nation, not the weakest.  Right now, the nations seem to give up and give in to the front runner, giving them gold, sucking their cock, and joining in on their wars against the weakest opponents.

that would work too.  If a faction reached a certain threshold or relative rating, by all means go at it.  if things are really close but the AI's are itching for a fight, then ideology could come more into play.  either of those would be more balanced.

for me, I rarely start fights, but coming to the aid of an ally is a great excuse to annihilate someone and take their cities (it worked for Rome).  much better than competing for the scraps of a weak opponent with too few cities to go around.

Do they do that as well to Procipinee and Cereesa?  I think you have confused me Xia

Actually, that wouldn't make any sense at all. It is far more logical to kill the weak and use diplomacy to prevent the strong from killing you. Dogpile also makes sense: the A.I. has better odds of defeating you when you're already engaged in another war. A.I. sovereigns aren't auditioning to join the Knights of the Round Table, they here to kill you in the most expedient manner possible.

It depends on what the goal of the AI sovereigns is. Do they want to maintain status quo (at least temporarily)? Then it makes sense for them to aid weaker nations against stronger nations. Do they want to weaken a strong nation so that they have a chance at beating that nation eventually? Then it makes sense for them to support (though not necessarily openly aid) a weak nation in a fight against a strong nation. Do they want to see a great nation brought low? Then it makes sense for them to form alliances that they think have the power to bring down that nation in a war, and aid those fighting that nation. Do they think that by supporting the strong nation they'll at least have a little more time to build up strength before the strong nation turns on them? Then it makes sense for them to attack you when the strong nation does, for two reasons: one, by taking some of your cities they'll gain some strength; two, by aiding the strong nation in its assault on your kingdom they might gain enough of a relationship boost to at least be the last morsel eaten at dinner, rather than the be the next bite taken. On the other hand, if they have other options for gaining strength, it might make sense fro them to quietly support your faction's war effort against the invading nation in the hopes that war with you will weaken the strong nation enough to give them time to build up enough strength to stand a reasonable chance in open war with the strong nation.

Right now, it seems like the only motivation of the AI sovereigns is to be on the winning side of a war, regardless of how much or little they can gain from 'participating' in that war. If I'm on one side of, say, Yithril, and Gilden is on the opposite side, then it is in Gilden's interest that Yithril's attention be occupied by my nation for as long as possible. It isn't in Gilden's interest to declare war on me just because Yithril does, since Gilden will never gain any of my territory if they have to cross Yithril to get it, and the relationship boost with Yithril from helping Yithril in a war against me isn't going to significantly delay the time when Yithril turns to Gilden and says "Those are some nice cities you have, I think I'll take them for myself." On the other hand, Yithril is probably sending a fair number of its armies against me, leaving it (somewhat) vulnerable to being stabbed in the back by Gilden. And if my power rating and Gilden's power rating total up to roughly what Yithril has, the Gilden AI should go "well, at least there is a chance we'll win if we aid those guys on the other side." rather than "gee, those guys on the other side of Yithril have not a snowball's chance in Hell, I think I'll declare war on them to keep Yithril happy." In this example, Gilden is more likely to gain enough power to oppose Yithril by attacking Yithril while I'm occupying Yithril's armies, rather than by declaring war on me to keep Yithril happy. Even by remaining neutral they are more likely to have a positive outcome - Yithril isn't going to be ticked off that Gilden tried to betray them if I lose, and if I win I'm not going to be ticked off that Gilden attempted to jump me when Yithril decided to try to consume my faction.

I do think the second option in my example above should be something the AI considers doing, if they have particularly good relations with Yithril and not with me. It's just something that should be much less prevalent among the AI sovereigns - if you must go to war, at least go to war with someone who you border so you stand a decent chance of taking over a few of their cities in the war.

The problem is, that that strategy lets the leading player win.  It means that all the AI's have given up on beating that lead player.  

Agreed, the A.I. sov's aren't auditioning to be knights of anything or anyone, they want to be King, Queen, Emperor, or Supreme Warlord above all, not some sycophantic vassal.

A couple of ideas for AI diplo traits:

Underdog: will make better deals and have slightly better relations with lower power factions.  Also will tend to rally factions against the higher powered factions in wartime.

Overlord: basically the opposite.

I would would definitely love to see more power struggle type mechanics in the diplo area of the game.

Not necessarily. Suppose that we have the Resoln in the lead with 8 cities, Magnar trailing with 5 cities and Paridan in the last place with 4 cities.

Suppose Resoln decides to eliminate the Paridan and declares war. Paridan will put all of its forces against Resoln, leaving itself exposed to Magnar. Magnar delares war on Paridan and quickly takes 3 cities. Resoln takes the remaining one city having had to fight the Paridan for every inch. 

Now we have Magnar with 8 cities taken with very light casualties and Resoln with 9 cities and more serious casualties. Much better deal for Magnar. Had Magnar joined up AGAINST Resoln, it would have been more of a stalemate. This is pure speculation of course, I'm just showing a very clear scenario where attacking the weakest is a great idea.

The only time it's a good idea to attack the strongest guy is when you have an Alliance with your neighbors. Not just trade and good relations, not just Non-Aggression Pact. Alliance. Allies generally join in the fray and help each other out. Non-allies cannot be expected to do that.

So, the A.I. is being smart by killing the weak: it's a strategy that yields the most benefit for the least effort. 

Yes, I know, it's prisoners dilemma.  But what really seems to happen in game is Resoln will attack Paridan, Magnar will give Resoln gold to make them happy, Resoln will take all of Pariden's cities, and now we have a Resoln with 12 cities that will now declare war on Magnar and take him out.  

That could happen as well of course. The thing is that people seem to be complaining that the A.I.'s are dogpiling against them, not against other A.I.'s. In other words they experience unfair treatment at the hands of the A.I.'s.

As the OP, yes, I feel it most when it's against me and that is what prompted my suggestion.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen to other AI's.  However, it does seem odd that Gilden and Tarth would join Yithril in attacking Pariden, human or AI, and then everyone else joining in.  I get Yithril attacking Pariden b/c they're weak, and could see Magnar and Resoln joining them.

But, the suggestions put forward by Xia, Joeball and myself do not discriminate between human and AI, but are based purely on established lore and/or in-game events.  

There are probably a number of diplomatic strategies that could be implemented and probably should be to give variety.  I'm not suggesting that all players at the start of the game must survive until the end and that the human player should never lose, I just want all players in a match to be given more of a chance.  If an AI that was behind manages to overcome and beat me, well done for them too.

I know Brad is a fan of ganging up on the warmonger, but I think he gangs up on him a little too much too fast.  For example, if I rush an opponent and wipe them out, the rest of the factions I meet later on are already ready to fight me.  Heck, they don't even know me!  C'mon.  I can see Allies automatically declaring war, but just because you're on friendly terms with someone doesn't mean that you're going to go to war with them.  Please slow down the dog-piling.

Nah, just the Third Reich's war machine, which was pretty much unstoppable at that point.

So maybe you compared yourself to Rommel or Guderian

That said, I don't think there's should be any basis one way or another to who gets ganged up on. It should be fluid based on alliance, world view, recent dealings, etc. I definitely don't think there should be any bias as to AI or User as to who's controlling the faction.

I think the diplomacy in Seven Kingdoms might be a good model. That game didn't just have everyone gang up on the top nation, nor did they just try to keep the top nation happy. It COULD happen, but not always and no bias towards it. All depends on how things flow and the responses to various requests.

After all, in that Resoln vs Magnar vs Pariden scenario - Magnar and Pariden could be trying to work together (which sounds...odd...why would a Kingdom and the Fallen work together? Because I'm Resoln and the User faction is on top? Seems to shatter the whole flavor of the world if that's the reasoning the factions are using), but why isn't Resoln trying to cause the two of them to fight it out? Maybe play both sides against the other, etc.