Demands - asking and answering

Magean

Magean

Prince
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
474
Demands are a diplomatic option I've almost never used. The last time I did it was before the fall patch : I played Attila, had a larger army than Kamehameha, my troops were near his borders. I demanded gold, and he refused, no matter the sum. So I thought demands were somehow broken.

I also noticed the AI never use demands aggressively against me. They only beg for gratuitous help when we have a declaration of friendship, that's all. And when I refuse, I apparently suffer no diplomatic hit.

That's why I wanted to ask people here : do you use demands, with friendly leaders (=help) or aggressively against hostile civs (=tributes) ? When used with allied or friendly civs, when demands take the shape of help, do they decrease your relations ? Have you been threatened by a hostile civ demanding your gold, and have you already deteriorated your relations with a friendly help-demanding civ ?

Thanks in advance
 
I've never been 'demanded' of by a hostile civ, myself. Making a demand of a friendly civ, will piss them off at you- it is always a negative diplo hit if you make one. If you want to ask a friendly civ for something without offering anything in return, do it via the trade screen. Probably won't get anything, but you can try. The only time I've ever made demands of another civ, is when I'm trying to tick them off more so they will DoW on me. Don't know that it's ever made one DoW me directly, but it might have contributed.
 
I think demanding, even from your friends, doesn't count as asking, but demanding. Like Smokeybear said, though, you could see if they would give you anything in the trade screen.
 
Well, placing a demand in diplomacy depends on the situation. I hardly ever give in or commit a diplomatic demand when I'm up against the AI.
 
Demands is one of several AI diplomacy aspects Firaxis did really poorly with Civ 5. AI will never give in to a demand/request from your side. Period. Which is really stupid, because that makes that part of the feature completely meaningless. The AI used to turn up with outrageous demands and then give you a huge negative modifier if you refused them. Then they removed the negative modifier when people complained about it, so now at least that part of the system makes some sense - give in to the demand and get good-will in return. Or turn it down for no good-will (but no hatred either). I frequently give them a lux for 30 turns if they ask for it and I have no urgent need for it. It gives a nice diplomatic boost, and when they ask to have it renewed, you can add gold on top and still get the "we traded recently" modifier, so all in all I think that can be well worth it.
 
I've demanding Gold from Lizzy. However, she listed our relationship as "Afraid." AFAIK, that's the only time it works, and you take a diplo hit.
 
jethris said:
I've demanding Gold from Lizzy. However, she listed our relationship as "Afraid." AFAIK, that's the only time it works, and you take a diplo hit.
Click to expand...
Ok, I stand corrected. I never heard of anyone having success before. Given that I've only seen the AI "afraid" a handful of times, and some of them are scams just before a DoW, I never tested it. I guess it has a potential use then, although I still think it's in urgent need of tweaking.
 
A while back (before the patch), I had an AI demand a lot of gold from me. I refused, and then the next turn he said then he would take it by force, and then DOW'd me :cry:

Am not sure if this was G&K or Vanilla.
 
jethris said:
I've demanding Gold from Lizzy. However, she listed our relationship as "Afraid." AFAIK, that's the only time it works, and you take a diplo hit.
Click to expand...

On Emperor, I have gotten an AI to accede to one of my demands even when the status was not "afraid". I think it was Darius? Doesn't really matter, I guess.

I had beaten him up early and he never really recovered so I was significantly ahead of him in tech, military, etc. I was trying to goad him into another war with me so I could take his capital. He already hated my guts (for good reason) so I thought that I might be able to get him to do something foolish.

I did everything I could to annoy him and one of the things I did was demand all of his gold. It was only about 140 :c5gold: but he gave it to me with a message like "anything to keep the peace". Subsequent demands went unmet. I never could draw a DOW from him. As I said, his status was not "afraid" but in practice that's how he behaved.

Trying to aggravate the AI is about the only use I have for demands. I rarely use them.
 
I have never played the other Civs outside of Revolution. I believe that game the Civs did demand and you could either concede or reject. Alot of times they were bluffing as well.

I think that the demand should work better than it currently does on both sides of the fence. At the moment it seems pretty useless to me. If a Civ is afraid, they should be willing to concede more often than they are, especially if i am going to take a diplomatic hit for it.
 
Demands could work if it were more of a tribute thing on a per-turn basis to postpone war. And then only if the AI were like, "dang, man, the rent is too **** high, I better build up my military so I can stop paying this stupid tribute."
 
yes like stated it works if there diplo standing is "afraid" but how u are able to get them to be "afraid" is something i have no idear about.
 
WarIsPeace said:
On Emperor, I have gotten an AI to accede to one of my demands even when the status was not "afraid". I think it was Darius? Doesn't really matter, I guess.

I had beaten him up early and he never really recovered so I was significantly ahead of him in tech, military, etc. I was trying to goad him into another war with me so I could take his capital. He already hated my guts (for good reason) so I thought that I might be able to get him to do something foolish.
Click to expand...
But does the AI ever decide to help you out if you are friendly? I mean, the AI comes running all the time with their "things are not going terribly well over here, and being on such good terms ..." plea for Gold or Luxuries. Which I don't mind too much now that you don't get a penalty for turning them down. But it would be kind of nice if the opposite would sometimes happen, that you could ask them for help when being friendly and that they would actually accept the offer (give you a minor penalty in return if they accept, that would be ok, you decided to ask yourself). But to my knowledge, that doesn't ever happen, does it?
 
I've demanded that someone not settle near me. He told me fine.. And that I need to work on my diplo skills.. His settler and escort disappeared into the jungle. =)
 
So apparently demands work when AI is afraid. Thanks ;)

VSorceress said:
If you are neighbors and you have a significant amount of military units they can become afraid. That is the only one factor that I know of.
Click to expand...

It's not that predictable and logical. I was playing a Legendary Earth with true start locations map, I was Spain and at some time Korea became afraid... while I basically never approached them with something scarier than a scout.

On the other hand, Nappy, Dido and Askia ended up as my backward and dirt poor neighbours but have never been "afraid". Only "cautious".
 
Only ever had one demand work. I'd gotten to muskets early. Upgraded all my existing LSman. Next turn, Montezuma goes "Affraid". Demanded Dyes and got them. That was on Emperor about 8 months ago.
 
I actually got a demand from Hiwatha once. He said "You have something I want. Either hand it over or I take it from you." It was all of my gold. I told him do get lost and he said "Then war it is.":mad:
 
Never used. also AI never used against me. but sometimes friendly civs beg for help.
 
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