Stop telling me that I lied about not purchasing land because I never promised!

All I can say is that I routinely agree to the demand, and I routinely get the pop-up many turns later that I can consider the promise fulfilled. I have never gotten the “you broke your promise” except when I purchased tiles.

I remain skeptical, and until someone demonstrates someone convincingly, my conclusion is that the few folks asserting that organic growth caused them to break the promise are mistaken. It’s just not consistent with my own experience, and there is plenty of confusion caused from (1) two different but similar demands (settling vs. tile buying); and (2) demands phrased as requests. There are lots of posts where people demonstrate consternation over (1) and/or (2). There are a relatively few posts where people assert that organic border growth caused them to violate a promise.

I understand what you're saying beetle and may agree, but that's a different topic and one about which I have zero experience.

The author isn't talking about agreeing to the demand. He's saying he told them he'd do what he wanted, then took the subsequent diplo hit, and STILL later got another broken promise neg (shows up in red as exactly that) a couple dozen turns later. I don't think it's the AI re-complaining that they wouldn't comply with the demand because the AI pops up saying exactly: "So, I see you broke your promise not to buy land near me." Why would they say it as that unless the game thought you had made the promise when you didn't? I've had this same thing that the OP is talking abotu happen to me twice in my civ career when I told them to shove it and refused to promise not to buy near them. It is either a bug (the game thinks you made a promise when you didn't) or a very, very badly phrased neg, that is different from the first one you get when you tell them you'll buy what you want. Since there are two negs at the same time: "they told you to stop buying land near them and you refused!" AND "you made a promise to stop buying land near them and broke it!" I'm gonna assume it's a bug. The game thinks you made a promise when you didn't. If you have a different idea I'm all ears, but this seems the only explanation for getting both negs from the single action.

Also, when the BUG happens, at least in my experience, it recurs all game. The hit never expires fully (cycles from bright red to deep red and resets) and the AI pops back up like clockwork every 50 turns or so with the neg a new bright red. It seems to be a counter error to me and it recurs long after there isn't any shared border left to buy. I've also had it later say I completed the promise (that I never made) then the AI pop up the exact next turn and claim I didn't, then the cycle reset. It's ridiculous and I can't believe it was intentional on the gamemakers part. I might as well never refuse to make the promise as that seems the only way of avoiding the error some games.

I rest my case.

Yes, it is very, very badly phrased. No excuse for it.

“you broke your promise not to buy land near me” should be read as “you bought land land near me after I told you not to”
and
“you made a promise to stop buying land near them and broke it” should be read as “you bought land near them after they told you not to”

The error is in the text displayed, not the game behavior — which is why I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize as a “bug”. (The “they told you to stop buying land near them and you refused” part is okay: separate and distinct from the actual purchasing of tiles.)

It is definitely something that should have been corrected by now. It might even be one of the more egregious errors that has an easy fix (changing text).

Yes, all you can do is agree to the demand (promise), and then not purchase tiles. One of several pain points that has no good choices, only least bad ones (annex, puppet, raze being the most classic).

ahhh, okay, we are on the same page now. If this is true then I am finally at peace with this. It's been a while since I've seen this since I've started complying. Seems to be the only way to maintain relations. And I guess the recurrence I saw would be that any time I bought land later they reconsidered it a violation of the demand, which would explain why it finally said I kept the promise later. (which confused me even more at the time). I'm guessing the recurring neg after that was just them remembering as AI seem to have a long memory with this sort of thing.

Even when you don't buy the tiles near them, and buy the tiles on other side of the world instead then the same AI will popup whining about the broken promise.

In other words the AI basically told me that all my lands belong to his so I dow'd him and wiped him out.