Several diplomacy AI logic needs fixing:

1. Other Civs consider you conquering another city as 'settling near them' and 'purchasing lands'

- When other leaders ask me 'not to settle near them' or 'not to purchase lands near them, it used to only mean that establishing new cities with settlers or actively buying tiles with gold.
Now they think I've found a new city and/or bought tiles when I take a city near their borders and I take a huge diplomacy hit for it.
Is this intended? or an oversight?

2. City-States under other Civs protection

- When I am declared war against, all CS currently allied with the aggressor also goes to war against me, which other leaders who have them under their protection view as 'my wanton aggression towards their friend'
Hey, I WAS DECLARED WAR ON! not the other way around!
Again, it this intended?

3. Defensive Pact

- When I'm dragged to war against other Civs and CS because of the defensive pact in place, other leaders consider that as my act of aggression and think I'm a warmonger, which simply isn't true, hence the name 'DEFENSIVE pact'.
I was not the one who declared war on others!
Is this intended or just another logic loophole devs failed to see?

I don't see why it need fixing, as long as you know about these things, what does it matter?

Miravlix said:

I don't see why it need fixing, as long as you know about these things, what does it matter?

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Because I consider diplomacy an important aspect of the game and I don't go for a military domination victory everytime I play

zeock9 said:

1. Other Civs consider you conquering another city as 'settling near them' and 'purchasing lands'

- When other leaders ask me 'not to settle near them' or 'not to purchase lands near them, it used to only mean that establishing new cities with settlers or actively buying tiles with gold.
Now they think I've found a new city and/or bought tiles when I take a city near their borders and I take a huge diplomacy hit for it.
Is this intended? or an oversight?

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Intended. Think about this way. what's the difference between breaking a promise and settling a town near them after saying you wont, and being sneaky and taking a town near them that to the AI's eyes essentially has the same effect (increased presence in their backyard). I don't really see one. Net effect is the same. You wouldn't like it either if AI expanding towards you didn't settle his cities but instead took cities from the Civ next to you. I think most people would consider that an agressive 'AI rival'.

That said, I think most people forget /don't consider the fact they made a promise not to settle near someone when they take cities. They're thinking about expanding through war and possibly resources gained.

The dialogue should perhaps simply say 'don't expand near me' ' though that has its own problem of being more vague and some players will complain about that too.

2. City-States under other Civs protection

- When I am declared war against, all CS currently allied with the aggressor also goes to war against me, which other leaders who have them under their protection view as 'my wanton aggression towards their friend'
Hey, I WAS DECLARED WAR ON! not the other way around!
Again, it this intended?

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Is this how it works? Are you sure you didn't bully a CS for tribute or DoW a CS directly? Because GnK 'protection' is also tied to the bully/tribute mechanic.

I rarely see this modifier in my games and it's not like I never go to war or had war DoW on me.

I would say this is a grey area. If what you are saying is true, it probably needs fixing or simply tone it down so that when they protect a CS, they will care more if you bully the CS and kill it, rather than merely being at war.

3. Defensive Pact

- When I'm dragged to war against other Civs and CS because of the defensive pact in place, other leaders consider that as my act of aggression and think I'm a warmonger, which simply isn't true, hence the name 'DEFENSIVE pact'.
I was not the one who declared war on others!
Is this intended or just another logic loophole devs failed to see?

Click to expand...

I can't comment on this as I don't use Defensive Pacts much.

zeock9 said:

Because I consider diplomacy an important aspect of the game and I don't go for a military domination victory everytime I play

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Are you playing GnK? Because it is exceedingly easy to stay friendly with Civs if you have embassies, trade with them, have a DoF chain going and don't mess up by friending a civ a lot of people denounced. The only challenge remains containing warmongers if they start near you and directing their agression to another party if you plan to play builder as they are guaranteed to attack someone.

zeock9 said:

Because I consider diplomacy an important aspect of the game and I don't go for a military domination victory everytime I play

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In 9 out of 9 games I've played lately I've had more problems with DoF than DoW.

So your doing something wrong if you can't be friendly with the G&K diplo system.

The Diplomacy has gotten way to friendly and boring.

Miravlix said:

So your doing something wrong if you can't be friendly with the G&K diplo system.

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Read the post again.

And it's 'you're', not 'your'

It's even easier to stay friendly if you don't go for domination/military expansion.

If you don't DoW

Faraway civs with no positive modifiers outside of an embassy will have a friendly approach and be willing to trade with you.

Civs in GnK are rather wimpy. They need to make them more aggressive, give them some backbone.

zeock9 said:

1. Other Civs consider you conquering another city as 'settling near them' and 'purchasing lands'

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My personal favorite is when the other Civ settles (or conquers) a new city near ME and complains that I'm settling near them.

zeock9 said:

2. City-States under other Civs protection - When I am declared war against, all CS currently allied with the aggressor also goes to war against me, which other leaders who have them under their protection view as 'my wanton aggression towards their friend'
Hey, I WAS DECLARED WAR ON! not the other way around!
Again, it this intended?

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The new "protection" system has a lot of problems centered around the diplomatic ramifications of when a city-state switches allies. The diplomatic hit seems to be negligible, but having to click through three of four of these diplomatic screens every freaking turn in the late game when the city-states start to ping-pong back and forth gets OLD VERY FAST.

zeock9 said:

3. Defensive Pact - When I'm dragged to war against other Civs and CS because of the defensive pact in place, other leaders consider that as my act of aggression and think I'm a warmonger, which simply isn't true, hence the name 'DEFENSIVE pact'.
I was not the one who declared war on others!
Is this intended or just another logic loophole devs failed to see?

Click to expand...

The way it seems to work is that when a Defensive Pact is triggered, you automatically declare war (for which there is no notification, by the way). So technically, you did declare war.

But, there are so many things wrong with the Defense Pact that this is just scratching the surface. There is no benefit to a Defense Pact... it does not appear to deter aggression, and you will still take the diplomatic hit as a warmonger. At it expires seemingly at random and has to be constantly renewed anyway. It's just a completely useless feature.

They could pretty much fix all the CS inconveniences and "WTF"s if they just made the diplo screens and diplo hits trigger when you or an AI actually attacked a CS or its troops instead of, as Arioch said, 5 times a turn due to quests, gifts, and, worst of all, coups. It's both a huge quality of life issue and balance problem, and the way it was implemented was pretty much unacceptable.

As for Defensive Pacts, they could fix all of those problems just by making it work like this:

Players A and B have a pact. Player C declares on Player B. Player C then automatically also declares on Player A, since player C knows full well that by declaring on B he's also declaring on A. He then justifiably gets noted as declaring on two civs and the diplo modifiers associated with that, instead of player A getting labeled a warmonger for really no reason whatsoever. (If player A does turn it into an offensive war by conquering Player C's cities, he'll get the full warmonger diplo penalty, because now he's using it to his advantage. But if it's really just a defensive war, slapping warmonger penalties on is just beyond stupid.)

Seriously Firaxis. Common sense solutions, please.

The only real time I've had big issues with Warmonger diplo... Was when I was a warmonger.

If they DOW you, but you use that as a pretext to take half of his cities. Then you are a Warmonger, don't expect Ghandi or many other pacifists to like you for it.

I do kinda agree that the pledge to protect is a bit funky late game when DoWs are floating all over the place and citystates change hands. Sucks to have a citystate change hands to then DoW someone who then tells you they "bullied" them and that you have to pick between 20rep or Diplo hit... To be honest I just don't bother with pledges late game, but it could be something to consider changing a little.

Silly, Bullied city states is my pretext to declare war. In fact, it's getting rid of one rival who could attack me in the rear as i focus on russia xD

Furycrab said:

The only real time I've had big issues with Warmonger diplo... Was when I was a warmonger.

If they DOW you, but you use that as a pretext to take half of his cities. Then you are a Warmonger, don't expect Ghandi or many other pacifists to like you for it.

I do kinda agree that the pledge to protect is a bit funky late game when DoWs are floating all over the place and citystates change hands. Sucks to have a citystate change hands to then DoW someone who then tells you they "bullied" them and that you have to pick between 20rep or Diplo hit... To be honest I just don't bother with pledges late game, but it could be something to consider changing a little.

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Agreed with the problems of Pledging.

Generally, I pledge when I first meet them but as soon as I become Friends/Allies with them, I revoke the Pledge ASAP.

Also, I've found that if another Civ DoW's a city state that you have pledged to protect, if you quickly click on the city state and Revoke your Protection (during the in between turns period), you can avoid the awkward talk with the aggressor civ.

dexters said:

Is this how it works? Are you sure you didn't bully a CS for tribute or DoW a CS directly? Because GnK 'protection' is also tied to the bully/tribute mechanic.

I rarely see this modifier in my games and it's not like I never go to war or had war DoW on me.

I would say this is a grey area. If what you are saying is true, it probably needs fixing or simply tone it down so that when they protect a CS, they will care more if you bully the CS and kill it, rather than merely being at war.

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Unfortunately yes, this is exactly how it works. All the CS loving AI immediately pledge to protect every CS they meet, whether they have the ability to protect them or not. So here's what happens:
-Siam becomes my friend, scouts into my lands and pledges to protect every CS that borders me.
-Japan allies one of those CS along my borders and declares war on me.
-I conquer that CS, get denounced by Siam (my friend) and become the most hated civilization in the world.

I can't comment on this as I don't use Defensive Pacts much.



Are you playing GnK? Because it is exceedingly easy to stay friendly with Civs if you have embassies, trade with them, have a DoF chain going and don't mess up by friending a civ a lot of people denounced. The only challenge remains containing warmongers if they start near you and directing their agression to another party if you plan to play builder as they are guaranteed to attack someone.

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Defensive Pacts are a wreck. They don't work to dissuade aggression and they foul up diplomacy beyond repair once you're called to war by an ally. They work pretty much exactly as the OP described. If you're small and weak and can get a runaway AI to protect you (more unlikely in G&K because you'll probably be at odds with that AI over the Industrial Era policy you chose) then it's possible to get good use of the Defensive Pact.

NotSure said:

Defensive Pacts are a wreck.

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Are they really?

Think about it. we change DP's so they no longer have negative effects, then every player just chain DP with everyone.

DP is an advantage and you want that advantage with no chance of anything bad happen. Thats dumping down the games difficulty.

when a civ agrees to stop spying, the continue to spy - they should be auto-blocked from this. Because the other AI's don't give a diplo penalty (that i know of) for breaking this promise.

and i have NEVER signed a defense pact, it just isn't to my advantage in any situation - peace is easy to keep without it, and having it just creates a no escape situation, and i don't like entering into things i can't get out of.

I would prefer an option to "not honor" the pact at expense of a global diplo hit.

Unfortunately yes, this is exactly how it works. All the CS loving AI immediately pledge to protect every CS they meet, whether they have the ability to protect them or not. So here's what happens:
-Siam becomes my friend, scouts into my lands and pledges to protect every CS that borders me.
-Japan allies one of those CS along my borders and declares war on me.
-I conquer that CS, get denounced by Siam (my friend) and become the most hated civilization in the world.

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but it isn't one sided, you can do it too! i do it all the time, and threaten everyone who bullies or attacks a city state. the hate you receive for this is pretty negligible - i have never had relations change for better or worse from doing this.

Miravlix said:

Are they really?

Think about it. we change DP's so they no longer have negative effects, then every player just chain DP with everyone.

DP is an advantage and you want that advantage with no chance of anything bad happen. Thats dumping down the games difficulty.

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DPs always will (and always should) have the enormous risk of pulling you into wars you wouldn't have fought otherwise that are range from inopportune to disastrous. That's more than enough. Adding nonsensical diplo hits to it is unnecessary and really terribly gamey. Bottom line: I reject the premise of a risk-free DP, because something that causes you to end up in more wars is by necessity risky. No need to defy logic and break immersion with artificial penalties.

If the AI were good at deciding to declare war AND bad at knowing when to sign DPs (like a big strong AI signing with a weak player for no real benefit to itself), that would be a potential problem. But since the AI sucks at knowing who to DoW on, and it attacks civs that could easily steamroll it, DPing with a strong AI doesn't make you less likely to get DoWed on anyways. It makes it MORE likely. Even assuming the AI factors DPs into its war-making decisions, which it may not.

thadian said:

but it isn't one sided, you can do it too! i do it all the time, and threaten everyone who bullies or attacks a city state. the hate you receive for this is pretty negligible - i have never had relations change for better or worse from doing this.

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I suppose you could. But if you're the civ that has a military CS within your borders at war with you, pumping out units for itself and your AI enemy, it probably makes sense to do more than just kill all of the CS units before moving on to the front. It probably makes sense to conquer that CS. I very rarely conquer a CS. I'd hoped that, in G&K, you could do this without ruining any chance at positive relations with every other civ in the game ("reduced warmonger hate from conquering CS"). The consequences for conquering a CS as a defensive prerogative are actually about the same. I was immediately denounced by my "friend" and all but one other AI in the game. Then my "friend" and another AI soon declared war on me. So, IR to the OP's second point, I agree.

2. City-States under other Civs protection

- When I am declared war against, all CS currently allied with the aggressor also goes to war against me, which other leaders who have them under their protection view as 'my wanton aggression towards their friend'
Hey, I WAS DECLARED WAR ON! not the other way around!
Again, it this intended?

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There may have been more to it, but the impression I had was that warmonger hate and all of the minor civ diplomacy flavors seem to have more influence than Declarations of Friendship and shared religious beliefs.

Lyoncet said:

DPs always will (and always should) have the enormous risk of pulling you into wars you wouldn't have fought otherwise that are range from inopportune to disastrous. That's more than enough. Adding nonsensical diplo hits to it is unnecessary and really terribly gamey. Bottom line: I reject the premise of a risk-free DP, because something that causes you to end up in more wars is by necessity risky. No need to defy logic and break immersion with artificial penalties.

If the AI were good at deciding to declare war AND bad at knowing when to sign DPs (like a big strong AI signing with a weak player for no real benefit to itself), that would be a potential problem. But since the AI sucks at knowing who to DoW on, and it attacks civs that could easily steamroll it, DPing with a strong AI doesn't make you less likely to get DoWed on anyways. It makes it MORE likely. Even assuming the AI factors DPs into its war-making decisions, which it may not.

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Well said. I would be hesitant to make Defensive Pacts even if they didn't result in unjustified diplomatic penalties.

City States need to do more i.e. have their own set of goals, heck give them spies or actually have them update their units per age.


Defensive Pacts need to be overhauled to allow more than two Civs to cooperate in such a Pact or just bring back Alliances for one civilization or all to adjust the agreement(sharing of resources, trade/research agreements) or just breaking off entirely. This MUST include City States allies of said Civs, including Protectorates(if not allied then to a lesser extent)

I'm tired of this dumb down Civ game.

Also get rid of the stupid negative modifier (I bullied a CS and you gave the wrong reaction).