No way to repair relations?

[B1sh0p]

Okay, I'm starting to get a little more understanding about how diplomacy works in Civ 5. Basically, it seems the 4 major things that will negatively effect your relations are

1) Taking out a CS

2) Finishing off another civ (i.e. complete genocide)

3) Denouncing

4) Declaring war (seems like simply declaring war in the first place makes other civs wary of you)

But my question is, is there no way at all to repair your relations once they're tarnished?

In my current game, I've found myself in a situation where there are 3 civs who hate me, and all have pacts of friendship with eachother, and I'm in an alliance of 3 other civs who I have pacts of friendships with.

However, there's a 4th civ, that's technically on my side of the alliance. He has a pact of friendship with the other 2 that I do, but he's denounced me, and I him. This happened early on, before the pacts were in place.

Now it's starting to become a problem, because this civ is looking like he's going to start some trouble, and I'm not sure where the chips are gonna fall. Likely it's going to tear apart my alliance, and then the other alliance is going to cause trouble for us all.

So, is there any way for me to actually repair my relations with another civ, if they're at "Guarded" or even "Hostile"?

Seems kind of dumb if you can't. I mean look at the real world. One can hardly say that America and Britain have always been on good terms, and yet today they're eachother's closest ally. Surely there must be a way to repair relations with civs in this game.

 

[The_Quasar]

you could try giving them gold and/or luxuries... that sometimes helps...

 

[GenericPlayer]

I would be interested in this as well. In Civ 4 you could, over time, repair relations with cash donations, favorable trading terms and technology transfer.

In my current game I was friends with Germany from the ancient era. I avoided attacking their friend (France), I conceded extra luxuries to them when asked, agreed to open borders, kept my forces away from them, and entered into research agreements. I also took part in joint denunciations when asked. Fast forward to the modern age, where they suddenly denounced me. I tried to repair the relationship without success. Even more perplexing there was no way to cancel the luxury concessions I had made while we were still friends!

I gave up and attacked France to annex their territory - and Germany attacked me 5 turns later.

 

[B1sh0p]

The thing is, I've gotten pretty good at knowing what actions are going to piss the AI off, but haven't found anything that will make them happy after being pissed off.

I knew from the get go, by studying who had denounced who, that we would have a 3 on 3 fight here. But that 1 wild card slipped through, joined my alliance, and now is likely to declare war on me and rip my alliance apart.

Would really like some confirmation if gifting money (how much?) or resources will actually give me any benefit before i do it. The last thing I want to do is give him money and resources if it isn't going to even do anything to help relations, cause then I'll just be funding his war effort against me in the future.

 

[B1sh0p]

Personally I'm leaning towards not believing that giving gifts helps relations. I've never seen the AI give gifts like they did in Civ 4. And if you mouse over their status (Friendly, Guarded, Neutral, Hostile) I've never seen anything like what you see in Civ 4 i.e. Our trade negotiations have been fair.

I just really hope I'm wrong, and someone can correct me.

 

[The_Quasar]

In my experience, they work fairly well near the beginning of a game, but get less and less use as the game progresses... near the end, and especially if you are winning, there is no way to hold onto any alliance, even more so at higher levels.

In most cases, you use them to build with, but once you get ahead, the AI will begin to try to take you down... again, more so at the higher levels... and nothing will disuade them, except a powerful military!

 

[lietkynes]

No way, it's broken.

Try this

Ask a civ to not settle close to your borders, this will give you a negative modifier with him.

Then donate him all your money, all your luxuries, all your resources, give him
one sided open borders for free, give him all of your cities, sacrifice your first male
child and let him sleep with your wife. He will still be hostile to you because one time 3000 years ago you asked him not to settle close to your borders

 

[Teperi Blaze]

They will all denounce you, if you're doing well.

If they don't denounce you, expect a war for no reasons at all.

They may love you as the little pup you once were, but the bigger and greater you become, the more they will hate you. No matter how many favors you done to them.

Diplo is just broken.

 

[B1sh0p]

In my situation though, it's not a case of me getting too big. I'll lay it out again.

Ghandi, myself, and Japan are in a 3 person "friendship pact". Rome is in a friendship pact with Ghandi and Japan, but not me. So it's an alliance of 4 people, but 2 of us don't get along.

Rome and I denounced eachother long before any of the friendship pacts were forged. If I'd known he was going to be on friendly terms with Ghandi and Japan, I wouldn't have denounced him.

*sigh* I guess I'll have to do some tests myself. I'll start my save game and gift him a whole bunch of things, and see if that helps. If not, I'll just revert to my old game and watch my alliance crumble around me.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

I see your dilemma, but in the long run, they will all "find a reason to denounce you"

I had games where I gave them everything, resources, coins and even gpt, but down the line...

They will hate you!

If you're playing to win.

 

[B1sh0p]

Well, i ran a short test. I gifted Rome all of my horses, all of my iron, 5 different luxury resources, 2000 gold, and 100 GPT.

I then ran the game for 20 turns, and checked diplomacy again... no change. Still had all the same + and - figures when I mouse over "Guarded" in the diplomacy window. Did not gain anything from my generosity.

It's possible that one may gain something after the deals have concluded, (this is a Marathon game, and I'm not gonna play out 90 turns to find out). But I don't know that for sure.

I think it appears as though enemies are enemies for life in Civ 5. You can improve relations be denouncing the same leaders as they have, by becoming friends with the same leaders they're friends with, but as far as erasing your past wrongs... not possible.

That's a real shame. Old grudges really should fade away after a while. That would make a big difference in the diplomacy game.

At the very least they ought to put in an option to take back your denouncement of a civ. Once you've denounced t hem, or they've denounced you, you're denounced for life. Being able to un-denounce a civ would at least increase your standing with them a little bit. Maybe even enough to make them friends, if your relations aren't too degraded.

 

[Fizpez2]

In my situation though, it's not a case of me getting too big. I'll lay it out again.

Ghandi, myself, and Japan are in a 3 person "friendship pact". Rome is in a friendship pact with Ghandi and Japan, but not me. So it's an alliance of 4 people, but 2 of us don't get along.

Rome and I denounced eachother long before any of the friendship pacts were forged. If I'd known he was going to be on friendly terms with Ghandi and Japan, I wouldn't have denounced him.

*sigh* I guess I'll have to do some tests myself. I'll start my save game and gift him a whole bunch of things, and see if that helps. If not, I'll just revert to my old game and watch my alliance crumble around me.

The only point in an alliance is to hold off one or two Civs (the ones IN the alliance) until later in the game - eventually you have to kick someone's teeth in, which will make you stronger which will make your former friends hate you. If war is any part of your victory condition that alliance is going to fall apart eventually.

The only peaceful games I've ever had where cultural victories where I was suitably isolated from the other Civs for a sufficient amount of time. Either a OCC or maybe a small empire of 3 cities.

Get military tech parity with the biggest CIV anyway you can and go for it - much better to pick the time and the place then have the AI do it for you.

 

[Babri]

No you can't repair relations since the leaders in ciV are immortal & they never forget the past.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

Try a quick game or two with your parameters!

What I mean, play the game and look closely, for what you looking for.

Tomorrow, I'm happy to help out, but right now...
I'm totally drunk, tomorrow is public holiday, no work.

 

[Aldor]

I've had several games where I was attacked early on (usually by two opponents). I fought them off, then took peace when they offered it. Didn't take any cities in those wars.

After a while, one of them offered a DoF and then remained friendly throughout the rest of the game (and not because they were weak, they were set on domination apparently, while I was going for culture). The red "you have gone to war" diplo message changed to a grey "you have gone to war, but they don't seem to hold a grudge".

So it looks like relations can sort of repair themselves, at least for this war modifier.

 

[Tokira]

For me the hostile modifiers just seem to disappear after time oO For example in my current game as Napoleon, standard earth map, 19 civs, king difficulty Caesar came to me to tell that he is hostile in the early game.

After I had conquered a few civilizations and was his neighbour he wasn't hostile anymore. He accepted fair trades until I declared war on China (his neighbour, they had DoF). After that he was hostile again, but it didn't matter since I annexed his cities in about 20 turns.

 

[B1sh0p]

Now that I think about it, my last game I had some peculiar things happen with Russia. I ended up declaring war on her cause a civ I had DoF'd asked me to. We fought for a while, but no cities were exchanged. I had a peace treaty with her, and within a few turns she asked me to DoF her.

It seems that different civs have different tollerances for violence. Some abhor it, and if you even look at them the wrong way they hate you for life. Others, like Russia, you can slap around a little and it almost seems to make them respect you.

More testing needed.

 

[Bibor]

I think it appears as though enemies are enemies for life in Civ 5.

Incorrect.

But my question is, is there no way at all to repair your relations once they're tarnished?

Some leaders don't mind if you go into wars, buy out their city-states, are close to winning etc. Other AIs do.

Refer to my spreadsheet @ http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=409062 for more details.

As a general rule of thumb, most diplomatic relations you can repair if the AI evens out with you (this includes wonders for "they desire the wonders we have" as well as "they desire our lands").

Denouncement is the only penalty that cannot go away, and the AI really needs to be angry (or it got a really bad die roll) to toss it.

 

[esemjay]

The only point in an alliance is to hold off one or two Civs (the ones IN the alliance) until later in the game - eventually you have to kick someone's teeth in, which will make you stronger which will make your former friends hate you. If war is any part of your victory condition that alliance is going to fall apart eventually.

The only peaceful games I've ever had where cultural victories where I was suitably isolated from the other Civs for a sufficient amount of time. Either a OCC or maybe a small empire of 3 cities.

Get military tech parity with the biggest CIV anyway you can and go for it - much better to pick the time and the place then have the AI do it for you.

I won a diplomatic victory on Epic speed with 2 wars being declared on me, by specializing all of my cities towards economy... and then giving all that money to the city states. For the entire game. Until the UN was built. The city states contributed about 80% of my culture, 90% of my military, 50% of my great people, and 25% of my food. I won off of city-state votes, alone.

I started the game stuck on a continent with Rome, France, Siam, Japan, and America- as the Songhai. I built 3 cities, and focused on economy. After a while, managing my 3 city empire, I started getting a lot of hate from my bigger, stronger neighbors. I bribed a CS between Rome, Japan and myself; Rome and Japan responded by declaring war on me. I responded by bribing all of the city states around Rome, and none of the Roman's units actually made it to me, because the city-states kept killing them.

Japan had a relatively weak military from a recent conflict, themselves, and my ally CS's kept gifting me units that I was using to take Japanese cities. After Rome and Japan gave up and declared peace- Japan from losing it's capital and Rome from having it's military weakened by having to fight a bunch of hostile city states.

Later, France declared war on me, and (again) I just bought off the city states around France and they ran out of units fairly quickly. I took a city so they would declare peace, and allow me to continue building. With the territory that I acquired, I was getting enough money to be able keep all of the alliances with CS's alive, even into the late game- even with the diminishing returns.

After Astronomy was discovered, I built 1 ship allowing me to meet Russia and Germany; as well as all of the remaining city states in the game. I bribed all of the other city states, and the science, income, luxuries, great people and military I was getting from them was ridiculous. Well worth the investment- I went from near-last in technology to second (Catching up to Catherine- who had a 2 Era lead on me); and winning the UN Elections with 17 out of a required 10 votes.

TL;DR - Focusing on GPT income, enough to be near-suicidal; and spending all of that money to bribe City States can help prevent wars from being declared on you. The AI may be afraid to have to fight city-states and lose diplo-points with the rest of the world by being declared a warmonger.

 

[Roto-Router]

Returning an AI's units (workers) to them is the only thing I have found to positively improve relations. I had a game with China next to me, hostile to me, and attacked another AI which had attacked China in the past. I returned every Chinese worker to them during the course of the war, and they were friendly for the rest of the game.

Other than that, AI attitude is up to the AI's whims; I've never been able to influence it.