Is the diplomatic AI more clever than we get to see, or not?

OK

A) I agree that the AI has some coding issues (borders, breaking pacts via war, etc)

B) I also agree that the AI is probably a bit more clever than a lot of people give it credit for, but item "A" tends to cloud that fact.

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

I'm not saying V is finished, or that the AI is the best thing since sliced bread. But I agree with the OP's premise that the AI is probably much more clever than some people are giving it credit for, albeit with a few glaring blemishes to be fixed.

da6d said:

OK

A) I agree that the AI has some coding issues (borders, breaking pacts via war, etc)

B) I also agree that the AI is probably a bit more clever than a lot of people give it credit for, but item "A" tends to cloud that fact.

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

I'm not saying V is finished, or that the AI is the best thing since sliced bread. But I agree with the OP's premise that the AI is probably much more clever than some people are giving it credit for, albeit with a few glaring blemishes to be fixed.

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A & C can't both be true, though. It can't both be super-secret-smart, taking all you said into account, & *at the same time* settle right next to you, refuse even trade agreements when you're 8x stronger than them, get angry with you for warring when they asked you to war, break a good deal with you by declaring war & never send any units against you, etc.

It can't be both obviously stupid & secretly a genius.

The problem isn't necessarily that the AI is "unpredictable." I don't find it unpredictable. There's a flavor to the individual AI's at lower difficulty levels (say King and below.) Its not a strong flavor, but its a flavor - Gandhi will usually make 3 cities and keep to himself unless you start mongering a lot; Augustus will expand like wildfire; Bismarck will spam 1000 pikes and eventually declare on everyone, etc. Beyond that, the AI will leave you alone if:

1. You have a reasonable strong military.
2. You don't expand aggressively.
3. You don't whore all the wonders.
4. You don't ally city-states in others areas of the world.
5. You're willing to trade with them at a disadvantage.

So essentially, the only way to play a peaceful game is to build the so-called Shafer-ideal "3 city empire" and go for a cultural victory. There's a few other factors, but basically, if you do anything else and aren't runaway in front, they're all going to eventually declare on you. Some will declare right away. Some wait for you to do something unmentionable, like actually win one of those wars you get declared on you.

So there's the "flavor." The issue is if you play at the higher levels, its almost impossible to have an equal military with the AI without warring. So you're going to get the first declaration quickly. Once you "win" that war, you suddenly get branded a bloodthirsty warmonger and the rest of the Civs are just ticking away, waiting for the moment to declare. Its not surprising and you can't avoid it.

The real problem is none of this is anything like real diplomacy, nor is it anything like the diplomacy we've come to expect from Civ. For sandbox players or narrative players, it doesn't make sense. Oddly enough, it might be the only part of the game that was meant with the challenge players in mind. I for one don't enjoy MP diplomacy in a SP game. I like the immersion of feeling like I have real friends and real enemies. But I don't think that's coming back, this crazy sociopathic AI seems to be absolutely intentional.

The literal answer is that yes, the AI does attempt to backstab. There are settings for it in the leader XML that dictate how, uh, "tricksy" they are. I haven't examined all of it but Catherine is notorious for her double crossing. Whether the game implements the features well I can't say, but some AIs are definitely configured to be more roguish than others if the source files are to be believed.

RobAnybody said:

A & C can't both be true, though. It can't both be super-secret-smart, taking all you said into account, & *at the same time* settle right next to you, refuse even trade agreements when you're 8x stronger than them, get angry with you for warring when they asked you to war, break a good deal with you by declaring war & never send any units against you, etc.

It can't be both obviously stupid & secretly a genius.

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Um, comment A acknowledged that there are certain coding issues that lead the AI to make odd decisions, particularly with regards to borders and offering unsustainable trades that can be broken immediately afterwards by DOW.

Comment C said, essentially, that any extended "peace" is just a cold war dominated by one or two superpowers. So it makes sense that all roads lead to war (not that this is optimal for everyone's fun, just that it's realistic and makes sense both from a historical and a "playing to win" perspective)

These two items are in no way mutually exclusive. By all means, disagree with me. But please read my post first and respond constructively.

Edit: History is full of examples of weaker powers snubbing stronger ones, leaders being hypocritical or short-sighted, wars being declared over petty/imagined slights, etc.

I think the real problem here is that a lot of the playtesting was not done at the highest difficulty levels. I'm trying a King game at the moment, where all my previous games have been Immortal or Deity, and I'm finding the diplomacy much more bearable. Unfortunately the game is easier, but overall the gameplay seems a bit more balanced so long as you don't over use the powerful one trick pony strategies, like a 4 horseman rush.

Whatever the factors are that go into determining how an AI behaves (e.g. relative size of the two civ's militaries), they seem to be too dependent on difficulty level, and the AIs appear to be more 'bloodthirsty' at the most challenging difficulties.

I hope this is not by design but rather just a result of lack of thorough testing. Of course, I could be all wrong anyway - this is only my opinion formed from my observations so far with the game.

Uniform Sierra said:

I think the AI is just ******ed. I've only been playing about 60 hours and sometimes the stupidest decisions are made.

Also, I see no predictable character traits for leaders. Supposedly they are all different, such as one prefers war while another attempts to maintain peace as much as possible. I just know Ceasar is a scumbag no matter what.

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I give up... which civ is supposed top be the peace lover, I have yet to meet him/her They can have all my bananas

I think it's very easy to not implement any diplomacy and say it is a feature, the game is ONLY playing to win (aka no relations = no diplomacy)

kaltorak said:

I think it's very easy to not implement any diplomacy and say it is a feature, the game is ONLY playing to win (aka no relations = no diplomacy)

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Worked for the Empire TW team probably the most diabolical diplomacy engine hiding under the name of AI

I agree the main problem is that the AI does not tell you what it is thinking. For example I had China break off it's pact of co-operation with me, saying "You are too greedy building wonders" but it was pretty clearly because I had just signed a research agreement with Germany, who China and I had agreed to conspire against. I only had 1 wonder, which I had built millenia earlier.

She should just have said something like "You did not honour our pact of secrecy, therefore I cannot trust you any more." It seems like she only has 2 or 3 reasons to give so she has to pick the best fit, which in this case was not a good fit at all.

Of course, there are other issues, such as the player being unable to cancel pacts of secrecy, and the fact that China had already been signing research agreements with Germany for a while (which is why I thought I could get away with it.)

Also, I think a major dealbreaker with the AI is if you declare war on a Civ that you have a pact of cooperation with. So if you have a pact of cooperation with both Greece and Rome, then Rome asks you to declare war on Greece and you do so, Rome decides it can no longer trust your pact of cooperation (because you broke the one you had with Greece) so it cancels it, calling you a "warmonger" when really its because you cannot be trusted. Again there are issues with this - namely that it is unfair to the player, who is unable to see which Civs are cooperating with other Civs, meaning the AI has access to information that the player does not. However one thing you can do, is if Rome were to ask you to go to war with Greece, say "Give us 10 turns" and then cancel your pact of cooperation with Greece. I also think it helps to say things like "You will pay for this" if you plan to go to war with someone, you kind of have to "role play" the diplomacy so that you're not declaring war left right and centre on civs who think of you as a friend, otherwise your other friends will think of you as a traitor. I haven't empirically tested this so I may just be making things up, but I think there is a lot of investigation that could be done into the diplomacy system.

I have no idea why they did not include the diplomacy "web" that was in previous Civs, as well as the option to ask a Civ "What do you think of..." because this is even more appropriate and helpful in Civ 5 than in Civ 4, and given their stated views on making diplomacy more humanlike, it is baffling that I can have no idea what Civ X thinks of Civ Y. I hope this stuff gets patched in pronto.

TL;DR - I think the diplomacy system is sound for the most part, but the lack of feedback to the player makes it difficult and confusing and leads to people dismissing it outright.

da6d said:

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

I'm not saying V is finished, or that the AI is the best thing since sliced bread. But I agree with the OP's premise that the AI is probably much more clever than some people are giving it credit for, albeit with a few glaring blemishes to be fixed.

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Granted i cant find any example of a real life nation that has survived for thousands of years without an army, but i can find a modern time example quite easily, my own country, Sweden.
Soon 2 centuries of peace, including something going beyond much of what happened in the ancient past, being neutral during 2 world wars, basically the real life equivalent of playing a diplomatic ass-kisser in Civilization 4. Granting open borders to keep the peace, trading with the other side to keep the peace there as well, etc.
With pretty much no army at all, anyone could completely overrun our country if they wanted to. But thats the trick with real life compared to civ, in real life other countries rally together, in civ you can conquer whoever and noone else gives a damn.
Because in real life there's no way to magically "win the world".

My point is, there's more to the world than just ZOMG CONQUEEEEEEEEEESSSSSST, even if popular media is promoting ridiculous ideas about things such as "human nature is to wage war" and other bollocks.

Another example could be Egypt, a nation that STILL exists today, not because the ancients had a large army or fought off Hittite invaders, but because their culture was so strong as to even assimilate the invaders themselves.
A good example is the greeks, under and after Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, who themselves adopted nearly all of the egyptian customs and traditions, even burial styles and rituals.

Thats a great real world example of a nation playing the culture game in Civ4, there's more going on than just warfare in real life.

demidyad said:

I agree the main problem is that the AI does not tell you what it is thinking.

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I don't think THAT is the main problem. After all we know what the AI is thinking. Once they make it so the AI may like you, it will be an important point. But since that isn't the case now, why would we need it to clearly tell us that the AI hates us? we already know

kaltorak said:

I don't think THAT is the main problem. After all we know what the AI is thinking. Once they make it so the AI may like you, it will be an important point. But since that isn't the case now, why would we need it to clearly tell us that the AI hates us? we already know

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I have had plenty of AIs like me. I won a peaceful science victory where I shared a close border with America, who were larger and more powerful than me, and we remained good friends.

Once he ran out of room to expand, he told me my army was weak and became "hostile", but I was able to convince him otherwise by moving my troops to his border so that he could see them (and no longer signing open borders with him, so that he would not be able to see through my bluff). This convinced him that my army was not as weak as he thought, and we went back to being friends. It was actually quite cool to defuse a situation peacefully like that through my own actions. Not like in Civ 4 where you would just change religion or something and all of a sudden they are +8 BFF.

That's just one example, once you learn how the diplomacy is different to Civ 4 and you don't just sign pacts of cooperation and open borders with everyone, it's not that hard to have a friend or two. (with most others being fairly neutral, and one or two enemies)

I'm playing on King difficulty, maybe its much harder on harder difficulties, but isn't that the point?

Uniform Sierra said:

I think the AI is just ******ed. I've only been playing about 60 hours and sometimes the stupidest decisions are made.

Also, I see no predictable character traits for leaders. Supposedly they are all different, such as one prefers war while another attempts to maintain peace as much as possible. I just know Ceasar is a scumbag no matter what.

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I doesn't seem much so though. In my last games, Gandhi has started the first war three times (twice against me), unprovoked. But maybe the 25-years old head designer didn't know who Gandhi was.

Rohili said:

Yeah, the way the AI acts is just bizarre sometimes. I just came off a game where I got a ton of gold from Darius in return for my promise to supply him lots of GPT and luxuries - only to break my promise immediately by declaring war (this trick never fails to work on the AI). Since Darius was on another continent (where he basically swallowed up three other civilizations), I was pretty safe from attack.

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I've been offering as much GPT per turn and luxuries for as much gold as I can get before I DOW my neighbor, but never thought to do it to someone on another continent who can't get at me. Thanks for the tip

demidyad said:

I have no idea why they did not include the diplomacy "web" that was in previous Civs, as well as the option to ask a Civ "What do you think of..." because this is even more appropriate and helpful in Civ 5 than in Civ 4, and given their stated views on making diplomacy more humanlike, it is baffling that I can have no idea what Civ X thinks of Civ Y. I hope this stuff gets patched in pronto.

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Because it's realistic for a country to not know anything about international relations.

Oh wait, it isn't...

da6d said:

OK

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

Click to expand...

I agree. There should be an option "Play as city state" for anyone who's not interested in winning the game and wants to play peacefully

da6d said:

OK

A) I agree that the AI has some coding issues (borders, breaking pacts via war, etc)

B) I also agree that the AI is probably a bit more clever than a lot of people give it credit for, but item "A" tends to cloud that fact.

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

I'm not saying V is finished, or that the AI is the best thing since sliced bread. But I agree with the OP's premise that the AI is probably much more clever than some people are giving it credit for, albeit with a few glaring blemishes to be fixed.

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I'm sorry - I reject your premise in C completely. There are many, many examples of nations with peaceful borders that have lasted centuries, Countries don't tend to declare war on long-term allies because they build the Louvre or the like. And, more to the point, why design a game with such a relentless war focus?

I'm saying that the AI will declare war on me even if my army is better than theirs. It has to be significantly larger than theirs to maintain a cold peace - and, of course, I could just win the game at any time by conquering them if I wanted to do that.

So, in effect, I can win a military victory - or I could have a much bigger army than I need for a military victory and try something else. It's senseless.

It's trivial to design a game that favors anything other than mindless warmongering. There could be lucrative foreign trade that you lose when you go to war. The AIs could adopt a balance of power approach instead of a "pick on the weak" approach: cutting anyone too large down to size, defending someone about to get wiped out. The AI could be designed so that long-term allies would be possible.

Instead a group of terrible game designers decided that "challenge" involved AIs who backstab, declare war on a whim, and gang up on weaker nations. It's awful design and a terrible turn for this series. Not all of us enjoy zerg rushes.

da6d said:

C) I don't understand people crying that you have to win a war, "hot or cold" to win the game. No civilization in the history of the real world has "won" (ie: survived centuries and influenced global history) by being a complete "dove". Peace is a luxury purchased with blood, sweat, and steel. Anybody who wants a game where totally-diplomatic victory is possible without a significant military to back it up has a right to want that, but their expectations are far from realistic. Even in IV, at difficulties above Noble (or Monarch, depending who you ask), it becomes necessary to keep a decent army to deter DOW. Basically, the real world is cruel, and historically speaking, humans are happy to kill and exploit anyone weaker. An AI that plays this way is behaving *exactly* as most humans would.

I'm not saying V is finished, or that the AI is the best thing since sliced bread. But I agree with the OP's premise that the AI is probably much more clever than some people are giving it credit for, albeit with a few glaring blemishes to be fixed.

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I'm sorry - but this misses the point of the dove/builder entirely.

War was the challenge and limiting factor in IV to the "fun" of the builder -- but the fun for the builder was managing the civilization... building infrastructure, building OOBs, managing diplomacy, etc.

The "fun" is gone -- all of the peaceful/non-tactical warfare gameplay aspects feel like they were treated as annoyances... as if Jon truly did say "I want to build a big wargame, but if I don't include resources, buildings, and diplomatic options -- some people will complain so I'll just toss some thoughtless facsimiles out there to shut 'em up".

There's this false idea that seems to have gotten into the heads of the warmonger set that the builder types saw Civilization as a more expansive Sim City... We (at least I, but I suspect other players of this type would agree) most certainly didn't. You had a wide variety of "war by other means" at your disposal -- proxy wars, religious chicanery, espionage, even cultural hegemony.

War was certainly an expected part of a "builder game" - but if playing as a builder was your style, previous civ iterations allowed you to put it in a secondary role because, A) you had other options beyond just rampaging your own army, and B)there were other things to do that made the game fun.

Both A and especially B are largely gone -- the expectation in V is that everyone wants to build armies and smash the other civilizations.... that wasn't the expectation in previous iterations of the series.

I'll readily admit that IV had more of A and B than III, II, or I -- but V goes farther in 'streamlining' A & B out of the mix than any previous iteration.

The ironic part of it all -- I've actually been able to play more games in V completely at peace than I could in IV.... simply steer clear of settling near AIs and don't capture other cities. 9 times out of 10, you just have to deal with the annoying taunting of the AI...

Civilization - at least, previous iterations - worked hard to create a delicate balance where warfare was an integral and necessary part of the game, but wasn't the pinnacle of gameplay.

V casts that thinking aside and basically says "screw it - we're going to WAR!".

ohioastronomy said:

It's trivial to design a game that favors anything other than mindless warmongering. There could be lucrative foreign trade that you lose when you go to war.

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The game doesn't favor warmongering. It favors building a military force. Weather you use it or not, is your choice. Which seems pretty fair to me.

Anyway, if you choose not to use it, it gets pretty boring, basically the game resumes to pressing 'next turn'. Until they introduce new unit types or mechanics, religion maybe...warmongering keeps me up at night.