Does anyone else find the diplomacy a bit 'lacking'?

[Yossarian22]

Hello,
I'm a fairly new player, since getting a new computer a couple of weeks back I can finally play this game the way it was meant to be played.

I was a huge civ 4 player, so I know my way around most of the mechanics. I currently play at Prince level, where I have completed a few games so far.

A question to my fellow gamers: do you also find the diplomacy in this game a big 'lacking'? I say this because of a couple of things:

1. There is hardly any way to 'redeem' your reputation. It feels like damage done is damage done, and this can, for one thing, seriously hurt your chances in the game (once you're known as the bloodthirsty one for attacking just a couple of tiny city-states early game, there's no way back) and it also feels a bit unrealistic that opposing civilizations will hold a grudge for 6000 years.

2. Trading seems a bit rigid. Once you figure out that a friendly civ will give you 9 gold for a luxury resource, and a guarded one will give you 8 gold for two luxury resources, it's pretty easy to generate a lot of gold each time. I feel it takes a lot of the challenge away.

3. There's no way for me to stop trading with someone (forcing all trade agreements to end), to end a friendship, to take back a denounciation etc. All options that would make the diplomacy a lot more interesting.

4. Diplomacy feels like it can go three ways:
..........1. Everyone gets along. BOOOOOORIIIIING.
..........2. Civs will divide themselves into several factions.
..........3. Everyone hates eachothers guts.

Somehow, option three is usually inevitable, and that's a bit of a shame, especially since there's no way to redeem your stance with an opposing civilization. A more dynamic diplomacy AI would certainly increase the pleasure I get from playing this game. I loved the dynamic AI in Civ. 4, and I would like to see some of those elements return in an expansion of Civ. 5.

Anyway, as I said: I'm a new player, and I don't play on high end yet, so I am not experienced enough to state this as fact. This is just how the diplomacy AI feels so far. Are there any other (more experienced) players that want to comment on this? I would like to know how you feel about the points I just raised. Please be kind to my noob ass, I don't mean to 'denounce' the dev team ^^

[twersx]

I'm pretty sure everyone finds the diplomacy lacking. particularly the childish leaders who won't let anything go.

[Magic_Hotdog]

Diplomacy in this game is stupid, pure and simple. Whoever coded this ☺☺☺☺ needs to be fired. To illustrate:

a). Two AIs will denounce each other, then declare war for a few turns, then sign a peace treaty, research agreement, and declare friendship on the same turn.
b). Catherine declares war on you out of the ☺☺☺☺ing blue from across the goddamn continent after professing her love of you for the past millennia. Every time.
c). There is no military pressure on island maps. Even deity.

Honestly, I hope Firaxis gets their stuff together on this for G&K.

[Feasttalon]

I agree with your first statement as a leader will denounce someone, then the future denounces against you will be because they denounced you in the past.

Selling guide:

Open Border-50g
Lux. Resource-220-240g
Research Agreement-If you are in a different era you will need to pay for the difference.
Defensive Pact-Either all or nothing, as in they'll give it for free or they won't.
Strategic Resource-0-maybe 40 each, depends on if he still needs it.

The thing about not being able to end agreements is because the game operates under the pretext of you being completely honest and true to your word, so using a Machiavellian strategy is out.

For number four usually it begins with everyone friendly, the first war is usually around turn 100, then people split up, when it gets to the end-game late industrial to early modern every just starts hating each other cause most on the maps I have played will have touching borders, therefore they're pissed at each other. I usually try to stay out of the way for as long as possible and just sell stuff and then destroy everyone with my 1 era ahead army which you can get even on deity by having 7 research agreements.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Rebun]

I used to feel that there was hardly any control over friendships and that whether an AI hated you was situational based on whether or not you were next to them. That was until i played a emperor continents game where i was able to keep at peace a runaway civ on my borders, and even complete a space victory without them caring. Since then I've started to learn a lot more about the diplomacy AI and how to cement friendships and avoid being DoW'd by your friends. Heres what I've found:

1. The Diplomacy Overview -> Global Politics view is key, it will tell you who has denounced who, who have become friends and who is at war with whom.
2. To make a solid friendship, get someone to accept or request a declaration of friendship early on. From that point, keep an eye on them in the global politics screen, if they make friends with anyone else, see if you can make friends with this third party. The AI seems far less likely to betray you if there is a 3rd party in your makeshift alliance. After that, i'm usually able to refresh both AI's declaration of friendships indefinitely if they themselves remain friends (which they usually do because there both friends with you).
3. When your allies have denounced some other AI, you can seize this opportunity and denounce that same leader as well (unless they are a threat to you), this will further boost your relations and give you the 'We have denounced the same leaders' relations boost. But in doing this you may be setting up a long-term enemy.
4. Be careful when you've made yourself an alliance and an external AI wants a declaration of friendship, i usually refuse these offers and check the global politics screen to see if they've denounced or at war with any of my allies. If not, i consider befriending them later.
5. Trade luxs/research agreements to your allies, this will also make them more hesitant to betray you.

Its still very important to have a military though, the AI looks down on civs that have a poor military and become more likely to attack. Its also important because you will undoubtedly make some enemies in your game and will probably be involved in combat at some stage. The upside to this strategy i find is that it allows you some control over who you want to be your long-term friends, which can even include your direct neighbours.

[Thorinbur]

I as well think that democracy is too mechanical sometimes. I was playing normal game on 4th difficulty level (normal). I was two eras over neighbouring England with my Japan civ. I decided that the game started getting boring and also had enough happiness saved to expand my empire with few English cities. They really didn't like me since I was so much ahead of them technologicly, plus our boarders met some time ago hindering expansion. Since I could basicly do whatever I wanted with them I did some experiments, like offering them protection (they had some problems with germany) and so on... Normal human player that had half brain would take the offer since I could make him disappear from the map in 20 turn war. England was asking if I am joking.

So I declared war on them, destroyed them pretty quickly (but with way more trouble than I expected... Who the hell thought it makes any sense that they can return fire at my bombers and tanks with a freaking bows??? Seriously my two tank units were useless since they both got backed away by archers! I ended up using 3 units of rocket artillery and slowly draining health from cities since naval units and modern infantry and mechanized units could not handle few arrows and city cannons... But that's separate story.) The point is I took two of their 3 cities when they made me ultimate offer. (They made me one when I was about to take their capital but it was some horses and 300 gold while they had over 8k.) But before loosing last city they decided to give me all they had, every resource and every last gold coin. So I took the offer and now the fun starts.

Immediately after I made peace with England, Germany declared war on them. So I decided to protect what left of them. And the game failed to deliver. I offered them protection treaty. And they declined (idiots...). I even offered them the same treaty backed up by some serious cash. I tried to demand from Germany to make peace... Option was unavailable due to "side not willing to make peace"... WTH! It was a demand. I don't care if they want it or not. I should be able to demand it. They should be allowed to decline my request, but why demand option was greyed because of other nations will is beyond me. It doesn't work that way.

Try to tell to the guy that is robbing you.
-"Give me all your money!"
-"You cannot demand it, since I don't willing to give it to you"
-"Oh well. Sorry mate. Didn't know you are not willing to do it. How silly of me. Have a good one"

(I don't know why robber turned into Australian)

It simply doesn't work that way. I couldn't bride Germany, I couldn't do nothing since neither side was willing to end the war (and England had one really small city and 2 workers as a defending army...). That was simply stupid that they didn't took my help... I ended up giving them 2k to maybe defend themselves against germany, and to see if they will take it. Amaizingly that was the only offer they took.





And I find it strange you cannot negotiate length of the treaty. Neither can you break it. Diplomacy here is very shallow. They can like you, dislike you or be neutral. There is no cassus beli here, no opinion. Basicly you think you have shoot in fight? Start a war. Don't think you have it. Don't bother in diplomacy, get your military and economy going. Diplomacy won't get you far.

And what's with the city-states... They have random missions, but if they don't like you, only mission you get is to destroy it's neighbour. Why can't race for wonder be for all. If we like you and you build this wonder we will be in awe. If we don't lie it's meh (but if you pay 250, they will love your wonder).:/

And AI can be strange sometimes. I had instance they denouced each other and made friends in the same turn. I had war that lasted one turn and ended with friendhip in the same freaking turn. ("We despise you, are are disgrace for mankind!" " This means war!" "War it is! Oh wait, wrong window... We actually really like you" "In such case lets be friends" (Politics trough IMs are dangerous)

[tfordp]

As Rebun said, there are relative easy ways to manipulate the AI so it doesn't seem completely useless, but there are
stull some things that need to be improved. Here's hoping the expansion fulfils the promised improvements.

There is just one thing I would quote:

(I don't know why robber turned into Australian)

Now, that's an easy one. We put the robbers on boats, and sent them off: Hey presto, Australians.

[Securion]

I used to feel that there was hardly any control over friendships and that whether an AI hated you was situational based on whether or not you were next to them. That was until i played a emperor continents game where i was able to keep at peace a runaway civ on my borders, and even complete a space victory without them caring. Since then I've started to learn a lot more about the diplomacy AI and how to cement friendships and avoid being DoW'd by your friends. Heres what I've found:

1. The Diplomacy Overview -> Global Politics view is key, it will tell you who has denounced who, who have become friends and who is at war with whom.
2. To make a solid friendship, get someone to accept or request a declaration of friendship early on. From that point, keep an eye on them in the global politics screen, if they make friends with anyone else, see if you can make friends with this third party. The AI seems far less likely to betray you if there is a 3rd party in your makeshift alliance. After that, i'm usually able to refresh both AI's declaration of friendships indefinitely if they themselves remain friends (which they usually do because there both friends with you).
3. When your allies have denounced some other AI, you can seize this opportunity and denounce that same leader as well (unless they are a threat to you), this will further boost your relations and give you the 'We have denounced the same leaders' relations boost. But in doing this you may be setting up a long-term enemy.
4. Be careful when you've made yourself an alliance and an external AI wants a declaration of friendship, i usually refuse these offers and check the global politics screen to see if they've denounced or at war with any of my allies. If not, i consider befriending them later.
5. Trade luxs/research agreements to your allies, this will also make them more hesitant to betray you.

Its still very important to have a military though, the AI looks down on civs that have a poor military and become more likely to attack. Its also important because you will undoubtedly make some enemies in your game and will probably be involved in combat at some stage. The upside to this strategy i find is that it allows you some control over who you want to be your long-term friends, which can even include your direct neighbours.

Im sorry mate but this dosnt work at all. You can be Best Friends Forever with a civ and it can DOW you 1 turn later. Whatever you do it wont matter.
The basic rule of thumb is; If they are close to you, they will declare war on you no matter what. Unless you are lucky. But then again; a diplomatic system that is based on luck is no real diplomatic system at all, and is completely broken imho.

Firaxis either made the diplomacy in this game stupid on purpose, or they dont know how to fix it. I dont know which one is worse tbh.

[lavenders2]

Im sorry mate but this dosnt work at all. You can be Best Friends Forever with a civ and it can DOW you 1 turn later. Whatever you do it wont matter.
The basic rule of thumb is; If they are close to you, they will declare war on you no matter what. Unless you are lucky. But then again; a diplomatic system that is based on luck is no real diplomatic system at all, and is completely broken imho.

Firaxis either made the diplomacy in this game stupid on purpose, or they dont know how to fix it. I dont know which one is worse tbh.

There is nothing "luck" based about it.
- When you are in the diplomacy screen, you can move your mouse over the part next to their name that tells you your status with them (friendly, neutral etc.) and this will tell you all the factors currently influencing that civs relationship with you. If they are at war with you, there is more than likely a reason. Being close to them is definitely a justified reason.

If I parked a tank, fully loaded, outside your house and said "don't worry, we are friends" would you just sit back and not care? Because I would certainly feel uneasy. Likewise, if a leader has some other guy with cities close to his taking all of the resources he could be using, why shouldn't he react?

- Having an army seems to help. The AI likes to bully weak civilizations (and if they are trying to win, why shouldn't they?). In a similar fashion, you can abuse this and make good friends with weak civilizations easily. In the odd event they turn you down, throw your military at them and watch them beg for peace again.

[VicRatlhead51]

Not only that but each AI opponent is usually going for a certain VC. If the guy you're trying to be friendly with is going domination or science (needs to expand but lacks room) he'll DoW you. Sometimes I think the complaints about the diplomacy are from people who don't want an AI actively trying to beat you. It's all mathematical and there's nothing truly random about what the AI does. They're usually quite predictable as long as you don't have the random personalities option on. Keep a sizable standing military and you'll find the AI rarely DoWs a stronger civ.

[GoldenShadowGS]

This is correct. They will always pick on weaker civs. Do not skip a military and hope you can make friends with everyone. Even if you give them lots of stuff, they will be hostile since you are so weak. They don't understand that your 4 units can easily defend forever on those forts and citadels, they just see that they have 1,500 worth of military, and you only have 150.

[TheEarthSheep]

In all fairness, find me two nations that have shared a border that have not been at war at least once in their respective existences. I'm sure it's happened, but it's very, very improbable. I mean, really. United States has been at war with Mexico and Canada (was still part of British Empire then) England has been at war with France, Germany. Germany has been at war with France, Russia. Russia has been at war with Germany, Austria, Japan, China, Afghanistan. China has been at war with Japan, Korea. Japan has been at war with all of Asia and also a bunch of islands. All of the things in this list happened within the past couple of centuries, are only wars on borders or over short stretches of ocean, and only with the countries listed, and I'm probably missing a lot.