Give me tips on how to manage relations with AI

What I've noticed the last several games is that around the end of Renaissance or beginning of Industrial age I end up at odds with most civs for seemingly no reason. And it seems almost impossible to revert their opinions without caving to all their demands for the next 1-200 years. Spreading my religion to the whole world = bad relations, being close to another civ = bad relations, building wonders = bad relations, asking them to stop spying = bad relations. And very few things give good relations, open borders which is hard to sign with half of the civs. At 190 income 2 of the civs require me to give them 100+ gpt to sign it. Or if you happen to be friendly with someone they tend to ask for 1/6 of your income just because (not sure if that incurs a penalty). And lots of other stuff like that.

So people how do you manage you AI relations ?!?

Propose stuff that they like for World Congress. Help them pass them (even by single vote). If you can't get majority to take control of Congress, vote for someone else to let them win. Give them gpt (up to 10 works I think?) or spare luxes you can't get rid off anyway. If one Civ is hated by others, don't friend with them, instead join the bandwagon and denounce away. If you must fight war, never completely eliminate Civ, taking last city still gives terrible relations, including your current friends (they just often hide them).

And the best way to stay friendly is to make sure others hate each other. Search for military leader and try to bribe him to DoW Civs he made DoFs with, even multiple at once. Double backstab will make him world-wide scapegoat.

Early industrial seems to be when the AI starts thinking about how it is going to win the game. And if you are playing Immo/Deity they're usually hitting ideologies. Once civs start to pick ideologies new alliances emerge while old ones crumble. I'm guessing that isn't the issue here. I'm guessing you are playing on emperor or below, and beating the AI's handily. They don't like that, they want to win the game.

Solution is to either up the difficulty so the AI can keep up with you, or figure out how to game them to think you aren't as far ahead as you are (less/delayed conquest/cityspam/wonderspam). You can also give them favorable trades.

@ nivrax thanks for the tips will try them to see how much of difference they make.

@ cbman yes the case is emperor, I'll try an immortal game these days and see how it goes.

Another question to add do all relationship modifiers that appear when you check diplo have the same value?

I'm pretty sure they don't. Negative modifiers show up either bright red or dark red. Bright red is worse. Same thing with Positive modifiers, except bright green is really good and dark green is kinda good. I have no idea what the raw diplo modifiers would actually be though.

You can try it out by trading a lux to an AI. Give it to them for 4 or 5 gpt when you could get 6 and you'll likely see a dark green "we've traded recently." Gift it to them for free and you'd see the same modifier, but in bright green.

basics for good relation with AI :

- accept ambassy (very easy, after first encounter AI will happilly exchange ambassy, or you can have them pay 1 gpt for it)

-try to keep your borders away from theirs

- trade lux for 5 GPT (if they don't accept your lux for 5 GPT something is already wrong)

-after some turns with a lux trade the AI will propose friendship, try to identify groups of friends, you don't want to accept DOF from anyone, if you want to be friend with an AI try to keep good relations with their other friends.

-Use the WC proposal to make friends, in the beggining a vast majority of AI will want arts funding, proposing this is a no brainer if you are aiming at a VC.

-if you can't be host of the WC give your vote to the AI with the more delegates.

-Don't be afraid to declare war on a far away AI if one of the others ask you, in general you have to pick a side in the conflicts between AI, it's better than avoiding war at all cost.
Sometime you can gain a city from the peace agreement without firing a single shot.

-Most of the time i decline tribute demand from AI, but if i really want to be friend with them and that the demand is reasonnable i might accept.

-If you identify an AI everybody hate denonce it, i often see the all world ganging on one empire, in this case you need to denonce and even go to war to grab a piece of its empire or just gain a bonus to relations for fighting the same ennemy.

-Don't spy on your friends, getting caught spying is a huge diplo hit.

-build an army and show you are strong on your borders, even your friends will DOW if they see there is no military units protecting your cities.

-Establishing trade routes can also avoid war if the AI realize they take a big hit to their GPT or science for DOWing you.

-Pick the same ideology.

That all i see for now, but the essential part is you can't stay neutral and hope everybody will be friend with you, you have to pick a side.

@ Xyuta

That last one really helped Thats exactly what I've been trying each game to be Switzerland. That in combination with what Cbman said about them not liking to lose seem to be the main reasons for my bad diplo.

Xyuta said:

but the essential part is you can't stay neutral and hope everybody will be friend with you, you have to pick a side.

Click to expand...

No. i had many games on king and emperor when everyone were friends, except one warmonger. And i often was a friend with both conflicting sides. As far as i know what is important is ai civ personality and their closeness to you.
Like Napoleon easy to befriend, will be very loyal to you and will easily forgive your misconduct.
And there are huge jerks like Elizabeth, or backstabbers that often befriend you only to make demands and always betray you like Kamehameha or Ramkhamhaeng.

I agree that some games can be really peacefull with nearly no DOW, but usually when the world hits ideology war is coming, and in that case you need to be on the good side.

I still think it's easier to become friend and maintain strong relations if you have a common ennemy.

Embassies don't help too much. To be honest, I seem to get super-early DoFs if I wait the Writing tech and they will want to befriend you just to next turn offer 25g for embassy. Although it might be coincidence, the value of embassy is extremely low, based on screenshot from mod that shows true values (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169448644)