[BTS] Fed up with Diplomacy mechanics

[jokulmorder]

Originally Posted by GA econ FTW

Oooh, reminds me of something that just recently happened. Since i have no fancy patches and bugs and play normal BTS, I don't know if this is a bug or not...I just gotta say it was a pretty fancy AI ploy (again, possibly justifiable by history? I dunno)

Playing a diety fractal huge map with 2 hapshepsuts (one running EGY, one running maya), A Lincoln/Celt empire and a team of Freddie/HRE & Bismarck/GMN. I've pretty much wiped all the other civs off the map. It's industrial age, and I'm consolidating and healing. Lincoln has been friendly since the beginning of time, and techer/philosopher that he is, he's at rifling now and finally up on the power chart. I beat Fred/Biz so badly in a war that they sued for big peace in medieval but I couldn't vassalize them. Lincoln on same island with Fred/Biz, so he declares and starts beating them like a redheaded stepchild. I wasn't planning on getting in the war, but wanted to continue playing lincoln sweet because my goal was to stop Hap/Maya from culture winning, a quick raze of her 3rd culture city and that should do the trick.

Lincoln invites me to war, I agree to continue to build friend-in-war plus points.....On the same TURN I AGREE, the one remaining city of Fred/Biz WARVASSAL to lincoln and all of a sudden, I'm at war with Lincoln/Remno-freddie/Biz.....Lincoln's still PLEASED but can't/won't talk.

I resigned with a chuckle and a salute to lincoln's prowess at an AI "steamroll"

i'm rofling at the fact that lincoln of all AIs not only went on the warpath but came out clobbering everybody. he must have had a ridiculous start.

[GA econ FTW]

^ Lincoln only was beating what was left of the Fred/Biz team. it his first war in 2000 years, and to my knowledge, the ONLY time he declared or was declared upon!

Lincoln was MY buddy (has been since the beginning of time) the reason Lincoln was beating them was because I had Wrecked Frederick, razed 4 of his best cities (the AP city just HAD to go), captured a dual-shrine city at the very end with a verrry wounded remainder of my army and when it was clear it was going to culture flip, gifted it to Lincoln. In the meantime, I had annihlated what navies both the germanoids had. Lincoln's only land-neighbor was Fred/Biz. I honestly expected lincoln to NEVER declare on anyone (but as the game went on he would go back-and-forth from pleased to cautious with me, but since I would require an amphibious invasion, I wasn't worried)

In the end, when the weird flip of all three of them declaring on me (when I agreed with Lincoln's offer, the war horns sounded on ME INSTANTLY after I agreed...which indicates to me that the diplo offer of joining a war and the capitulation of the Germanic team came all during the diplo-opening phase of the turn??) ....honestly, I probably could have weathered the war. (however, it WAS a fractal world, and Lincoln and I were separated by water...all two tiles of water along a 10 tile coast, but it was frigate/galleon time....a rush amphib invasion was possible for lincoln, at best I wasn't ready for a counter-amphib, I could use my ships to harass, blockade and sink his.)....most likely, barring accidents I could have sat it out since I'm guessing the computer hadn't had lincoln PREPARING UNITS for an amphib invasion on me and it would have taken 10 turns or so for him to organize some sort of real assault (frederick was lucky to still be sucking oxygen, and Bizmarck, even though infrastructurally untouched, was still trying to frigature out frigates (pun intended). In the end, I just gave lincoln the win because of what you said, the fact that he was ...winning at ALL (my spy network wasn't great so I have no clue what KIND and number of units were beating each other on that land mass) and steamrolling ANYONE, even if that other civ was at musket tech.

Who knows, maybe lincoln was plotting against ME, and at the last moment just saw the opportunity for better gains versus Freddie.

[plasmacannon]

When you start a new game, select the box labeled "Always War" and you won't have to deal with this annoying diplomacy again.

[Kaosprophet]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Diplo is all fine now.
Otherwise, the balance would too much in favor to the player as the normal AI is supremely stupid.

I would say that while it's not perfect, it gets the job done. And that building a better system without screwing up the job it's supposed to do (serve as both mechanic for influencing the AI's war-target selection and create tension amidst peaceful cooperation) is a task beyond my own capabilities.

It has it's quirks, some of which are really counter-intuitive or gamey, but it's nowhere near as bad as Civ5's diplo model.

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Close border sparks tension mechanisms...

The demerit to steal tiles from your neighbour (and yes a crappy city makes a far away AI a neighbour by definition) depends of neighbour XML values, that is each leader has its tolerance.
Some will show a low maximum while others will show the bottom 4, i.e. intolerant f-ggot.

Just for the record, as an uppity f-ggot I take offense to that turn of phrase.

[GA econ FTW]

Originally Posted by plasmacannon

When you start a new game, select the box labeled "Always War" and you won't have to deal with this annoying diplomacy again.

I did do maybe 1 or two patches on line on civ IV w/BTS...but when I click Always war all my opponents peace with each other at the expected time for them to do so and I'm stuck battling the world (and I assume they are beginning their typical trading-love-fests)

I've heard of "real always war" on the strategy forum. Is this a mod that can be only found here or do I just need to check for more 'official' online patches to get 'real always war'

then again, I like diplo, getting the AIs to do your dirty work for you and then backstabbing them is half the fun, so if I never get a real-always war, that's ok

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by Kaosprophet

Just for the record, as an uppity f-ggot I take offense to that turn of phrase.

Who thinks Toku an @sshole? *raise hand*.
Do you have something against a bunch of stick for fire?



Ok, I know you meant homosexual. Then "bastard with extreme territorial instincts" should not insult anyone.

[plasmacannon]

Originally Posted by GA econ FTW

I did do maybe 1 or two patches on line on civ IV w/BTS...but when I click Always war all my opponents peace with each other at the expected time for them to do so and I'm stuck battling the world (and I assume they are beginning their typical trading-love-fests)

I've heard of "real always war" on the strategy forum. Is this a mod that can be only found here or do I just need to check for more 'official' online patches to get 'real always war'

then again, I like diplo, getting the AIs to do your dirty work for you and then backstabbing them is half the fun, so if I never get a real-always war, that's ok

Yes, you will be battling the world. If some are on different continents, or you are playing it multiplayer with the humans vs the AIs, it isn't so bad.
Remember to turn off tech trading and tech brokering, or it will just give them an advantage.
True, you won't be able to get the backstabbing, but other options are still out there, such as stealing techs and workers.
It helps a lot if you send out warriors at the start to harass the AIs steal workers and keep the rest, in the city. The slower they develop, the better the edge you will have on them. Zulu work well, because they can cross a continent quickly to harass the AI. A friend of mine kept 5 AIs busy this way, pillaging and worker stealing, while he teched up. It can be great fun to play the game a little differently.
Instead of teching up quickly and trading techs, by pillaging your opponents you keep them teching slowly until you outpace them.
Best on Epic or slower speeds.

[MeatUnit2]

Here is another Diplomacy example from my current game that makes me shake my tiny fist.
A neighboring empire (Empire A), who was friendly toward me, and who had been friendly for the entire game (and as the result of my careful cultivation of his good opinion) was engaged (along with my own empire) in the act of beating the snot out of another empire (Empire B). Our mutual military struggles were making us even BETTER friends.

Then, our common enemy, Empire B, decided to become the Vassal of Empire A and because of the game's diplomacy mechanics my old and trusted (not to mention powerful) friend, Empire A, suddenly regarded me as his worst enemy and we were automatically at war with each other. The huge negative diplomacy values of Empire B had been merged/averaged into Empire A's diplomacy scores - however that works - and despite centuries of good relations, gifts, mutual aid, mutual combat struggles, a good first impression, Empire A now hated me.

Sure, I could solve this by turning off the Vassaling option in the custom game menu, but I like the idea of empires surrendering rather than suffering complete annihilation. It's the diplomacy aspect of the process that I find difficult to swallow.

I would have liked to have maintained Empire A's friendship, but instead was forced into war against him, a situation that wasn't beneficial for either one of us, as it slowed my research and resulted in Empire A being ground into dust, removing him as a comfortable buffer state between my empire and Empire C, who is setting new records for generating Cossack units.

For the record, the game I'm playing is on a huge fractal map, marathon, with the Legends of Revolution mod. My empire (Sumeria) has been at war without a single turn of peace for over two thousand years. It is 2006 AD and the world technology is reaching WWI levels for the most advanced Empires. Talk about a grind.

[gps]

Originally Posted by GA econ FTW

Lincoln invites me to war, I agree to continue to build friend-in-war plus points.....On the same TURN I AGREE, the one remaining city of Fred/Biz WARVASSAL to lincoln and all of a sudden, I'm at war with Lincoln/Remno-freddie/Biz.....Lincoln's still PLEASED but can't/won't talk.

Originally Posted by GA econ FTW

Who knows, maybe lincoln was plotting against ME, and at the last moment just saw the opportunity for better gains versus Freddie.

What I've been wondering in that context for quite some time: is this vassalization / war declaration mechanism something that's kind of hardcoded and unavoidable whenever one of my war targets vassalizes to another Civ? Or does the "liege lord" Civ evaluate the situation properly based on the involved power ratios and other information and makes a (kind of) deliberate decision to accept the vassalization althoug that means war with me? If it were the first it's just stupid - otherwise it would be nasty and opportunistic, but kind of cool nevertheless...

P.S.: War academy clearly states the situation occurs based on an evaluation of the power situation. So this surprise should only occur if you underestimate the strength of your war allies.