You're right to worry and it's time that you die

Obviously the diplo modifers are there to feed back data to the human and the diplo rep penalties are there to keep human players somewhat honest. The AI itself doesn't have to protect itself against bold faced lying.

I've long proposed a mechanism to feed back the same diplo modifers AI uses back to the game (but for the human) but with a system like that, you invariably run into cheating and lying and psycopathic human behaviors

So you'll need a scoring mechanism to go with that to track honesty. So that when we said we are friendly with X, did you really mean it etc etc but because such a system can only rate you after the fact, it can never be accurate in feeding back the right data to the AI. So the current reputation penalties for 'breaking your word' is as good a penalty as it can get.

We're just making sure they are working properly and don't punish players for liberation.

You don't have to complain, and the AI doesn't need a diplo hit. The human isn't bound by diplo modifiers, you declare war whenever you feel like.

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And the AI doesn't? Play higher difficulties, the AI will declare whenever it feels you are weak as well, just as a human would. Opportunism isn't limited to human players in this game.

That's kinda the problem, making an effort at diplomacy while doing some warmongering gets impossible, so you are better off ignoring it totally once your reputation gets bad enough, and just be the most evil bastard and exploit the AI's early on while you still can. I would like some sort of "honorable" war possible, where you convince allies into thinking your foe is the villain so you can actually keep some friends throughout the game.

LostInTime:

That's really a problem with the AI not scaling to the adjusted difficulty bonuses at the higher settings, not a problem with the core AI coding.

The AI is code. It's not really sentient. It's not even all that adapatable. It can't be because this is a game and we need it to be fast AND run on the dinkiest netbooks on the market.

The AI declares when your management of your army strength falls below the trigger points. That's all it is. It doesn't really perceive when you're weak, it's just comparing numbers, and those numbers can be gamed.

I think we've all gotten so used to the Civ3/4 stock AI with aggressiveness modifiers and flavours that I think a lot of people are missing the obvious.

I've reliably known Bismarck, Alexander, Isabella, China, Vikings, Mongolia as instigators. No matter what you do, if they start near you, they will attack you sooner or later because they go from friendly to 'i want you to die' very fast. It's just in their nature. If they don't start near you, they will be attacking someone else sooner or later. Reliably. No questions.

I think Civ5 is more about managing your neighbours as individual players and getting to know each Civ, than the stock: "build build / bribe/ switch to safe religion/ triangulate with 3rd party/ attack neighbour" games where humans players almost have complete diplomatic control. Previous games you could reliably manage warmonger Civs with triangulated warfare (possible in Civ5, but always very dice dependent on who you roll as your neighbours). The old stock AI basically functioned exactly the same, and agressiveness only measures likelihood of declaring war. Civ5's mechanics allows the aggressive AI's more room to be aggressive, and it's far more difficult to triangulate and stop them.


Granted there's a ton of things I want to see adjusted/added/fixed to Civ5 diplo AI, but agressiveness or what did people who hate this game call it? psychopathic behaviors, isn't one of them. Some AI Civs are psychopaths. There's no way you're going to reason with Bismarck or China or Alexander. All 3 Civs I've rolled against in many plays and they always start wars against someone.

The best case is to have them start next to each other and fight each other, but that's not always possible. That is why I have to always add the caveat that difficulty levels in Civ5 only describe production bonuses, they don't actually describe difficulty. Some games offer ideal Civ4-esque conditions, others do not, and playing on the fly and adapting is required for the diplomatic game.

Edit: Cross referencing my anecdote with Diplomacy by the Numbers spreadsheet; I feel vindicated. Every Civ I listed as instigators, save for China, have an aggressiveness rating of 7 (red) China is a 6.

Edit2: Why didn't I mention France/Japan or the Inca? I've rolled next the Inca suprisingly rarely, and I often play Japan or France, taking them out of the picture as an AI opponent.

Edit3: Why did I handpick Alexander/Bismarck and WuZetian as the 'instigators'? Their high aggressiveness settings and early UUs give them the perfect excuse to war. Japan is actually fairly docile most of the time until they get Samurai. They are often not a strong performer under AI control.

Diplo hit or not, when the enemy pops up and asks me about my troops, I basically have to lie to keep my first strike. If I say yes immediately, he gets to attack first (it is still "his/her" turn), which honestly sucks, especially if my troops are kinda close to his. So basically I am forced to lie, no?

My civilisations don't believe in hiring translators, so we just assume that any communication from other civilisations means "we'd like you to kill us please"

wannabewarlord said:

Diplo hit or not, when the enemy pops up and asks me about my troops, I basically have to lie to keep my first strike. If I say yes immediately, he gets to attack first (it is still "his/her" turn), which honestly sucks, especially if my troops are kinda close to his. So basically I am forced to lie, no?

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I just fess up and declare, often the turn they ask, they're not ready anyways.


It gives them 1 extra cycle to move troops into position as they will ask during their turn in the inter-turn after you hit 'next turn'.

boxturtle said:

What if everyone hates that civ?
I had a game where I lied to Ghandhi who was pretty much hated by everyone and I don't remember much of a diplo hit with other players.

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I once killed monthy and nobody cared He only had once city and 4 puppets captures his capital and goodby monthy...

JamesCivFan said:

Sorry for the double post. It's true that you take a hit with civilizations you haven't met yet when you do that,

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Yes. I blundered recently. Germany and I both had DoF with Rome. Germany suggests we attack Rome. I took the 10 turns option. When time comes around Germany is as pleased as punch when I DoW Rome. Next turn he denounces me as does everyone else. Thereafter every civ I meet denounces me in a turn or two (not sure why it isn't immediate).

My bad but it seems a little lacking in the realism stakes.

I wish it was possible to tell your neighbor to get their units off your borders also. They already have a "don't settle near me" request, why not a "get your units away from my land, or declare war" option.

wannabewarlord said:

Diplo hit or not, when the enemy pops up and asks me about my troops, I basically have to lie to keep my first strike. If I say yes immediately, he gets to attack first (it is still "his/her" turn), which honestly sucks, especially if my troops are kinda close to his. So basically I am forced to lie, no?

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I find myself forced to think ahead and arrange my troops as they amass so that I am ready for when the other civ gets upset and complains. If I am good with my logistics, I can get my troops up to the border before they complain and get the first strike, but it is a challenge. I actually find it useful to have melee backed by siege on my line and let them take their first strike. They seldom have siege in place themselves and I can take out a few attacker and outrider units on my way through their borders.