Diplomacy is back to vanilla again broken?

After the Patch diplomacy seems just a little bit more wierd.

i Just raged quit my game as egypt on a standard map(britsh islands epic speed)
Note :that the british islands is a a little bit larger then normal standard maps. I was planning to go for a peacefull culture victory.

This is the situation :
I Started off with scouting and found the other civs : washington montezuma, napoleon , bad don't you thinx? Well its about to get worse


greece beeing anoying denounced me and become hostile to me right after I met him makes sence he's alex..


after that washington asked for A decleration of friendship Wich i agree because he is far away. A few times later he denounced alex so I decide to denounce alex olso, Olso napoleon denounces alex.

Napoleon askes for a decleration of friendship I agree. A few turns later I get the notification that america is olso friends with napoleon.

I thought montezuma would hate washington but he doesn't. they sign a dof and the turn after montezuma oslo wants to be friends with me.

Olso : washington asked for wine and I gave them help.


So diplo situation

Beeing friends with:
washington
napoleon ( at war with alexander)
montezuma

all denounced : alex.

However here comes the wierd part I've had a lot of positif modifiers with washington like more then 5 for helping them having DOF and so on.. When he suddenly out of the blue denounces me
THe only reason I can find is that he settled a city close to me but still...

IF anybody can find a reason why washington would do such a wierd move. He olso had nothing to gain from it

I've gave him help , I ignored that he bullied a city state. It seems that its just not worth spending time in diplomacy becuase every single AI will backstab you..


after that napoleon and montezuma don't want to be friends anymore and I just stoped playing the game and started shogun total war 2 I'm done with this game fix diplomacy

It is not broken, it is like how human players play. If u play online games u would know what I mean.

it's not broken just because the modifiers don't tell the entire story, the modifiers in the diplomacy screen can help you get a clearer idea of how the AI *should* feel towards you, but isn't a psychic insight into the AI's thought process, nor is it meant to be. the AI is meant to represent a real human trying to win the game against you, if Washington decided to denounce you it was likely because he saw an opportunity, you appeared weak, or you were a threat to him in some way. a real life king would be a fool to put too much faith in another leaders claims of friendship and so should you while playing this game. friendship is just a tool, it isn't meant to be taken literally as meaning you are really bffs4lyfe and that they'll protect you and fight by you to help you win the game. try viewing things in this light and it makes a lot more sense - use friendships to form camps and dogpile dow's. use friendships to get better trade deals. i often bribe warmongers to attack my friends, this takes care of two problems at once, the warmonger is kept busy and the 'friend' is kept busy too while still thinking im his friend. i kind of see those modifiers and 'attitude' as the ai's tools to manipulate the human player into believing whatever it is the ai wants the human to believe. this is why some modifiers will disappear from the modifier area if the ai doesn't want to have the human think they feel a certain way towards the human. similarly, don't put a lot of stock in an ai who appears 'afraid' towards you, this is often meant to lower your guard/flatter you. likewise, if an ai is a jerk to you for half the game then suddenly pops up with a friendly attitude and asks for embassy, you can expect they are going to attack you very soon and just want the embassy to spy into your land.

woodshadows said:

it's not broken just because the modifiers don't tell the entire story, the modifiers in the diplomacy screen can help you get a clearer idea of how the AI *should* feel towards you, but isn't a psychic insight into the AI's thought process, nor is it meant to be. the AI is meant to represent a real human trying to win the game against you, if Washington decided to denounce you it was likely because he saw an opportunity, you appeared weak, or you were a threat to him in some way. a real life king would be a fool to put too much faith in another leaders claims of friendship and so should you while playing this game. friendship is just a tool, it isn't meant to be taken literally as meaning you are really bffs4lyfe and that they'll protect you and fight by you to help you win the game. try viewing things in this light and it makes a lot more sense - use friendships to form camps and dogpile dow's. use friendships to get better trade deals. i often bribe warmongers to attack my friends, this takes care of two problems at once, the warmonger is kept busy and the 'friend' is kept busy too while still thinking im his friend.

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The AI isn't trying to win or playing as a human if it was trying to win it wouldn't give a sum of gold for a luxury if it allready has happiness and if he wants it he would give gold per turn.. thats what a human does.

Olso the AI will vote for a other player even if it means they will win the game Olso they will sign research agreements with a player(either human or AI) who is running away with the game and the agreements only helps them to get even closer to victory.. Or they won't atack a player who is about to finish a space ship and so on.

The random backstabs is just to let the the game feel harder and to disrupt the human player. But In reality its just more anoying ..and easy to deal with because the AI can't fight.


I'm sorry Why did they add positif modifiers and diplomacy options like giving them help or letting bullying agaisnt a city slide if it has no effect.

Why should I pick a positif answer so I get a psoitif modifier because it doesn't give me anything I might as wel exploit. I might ass wel play as a human and go slaughter everyone . Yep that does sound like a really good game design.

i disagree, while the ai does have some programming which can be self-defeating at times, it is designed to play as a human player trying to win the game - hence the backstabs/false modifiers/false attitudes. i personally don't see the big deal with it though, why are you so upset that washington denounced you? because it was unexpected and not predictable and based upon some mathematical formula? the game would get pretty dull if it was based on nothing but creating positive modifiers with those you want allied with you and negatives with those you want to conquer. i dont know the situation of your game but im sure if i could take a look i could tell you almost exactly why he wanted to denounce you. that's because even without reading modifiers/attitudes, playing enough you begin to see patterns and things even then become predictable all too often. here's an easy one - if someone has a bigger military than you, they will likely denounce you.

woodshadows said:

i disagree, while the ai does have some programming which can be self-defeating at times, it is designed to play as a human player trying to win the game - hence the backstabs/false modifiers/false attitudes. i personally don't see the big deal with it though, why are you so upset that washington denounced you? because it was unexpected and not predictable and based upon some mathematical formula? the game would get pretty dull if it was based on nothing but creating positive modifiers with those you want allied with you and negatives with those you want to conquer. i dont know the situation of your game but im sure if i could take a look i could tell you almost exactly why he wanted to denounce you. that's because even without reading modifiers/attitudes, playing enough you begin to see patterns and things even then become predictable all too often. here's an easy one - if someone has a bigger military than you, they will likely denounce you.

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I'm upset because every single AI is a douche in this game. There are no bad guys or good guy.. I might as wel ignore diplomacy

I might as wel steal all their techs with spies and kick them in the head with my army because they do the same. Might as well exploit them and get their gold .
if you asked them to stop spying they just do it again they don't care.



Like one of the producers of civ 5 said: " diplomacy is a important part of civ 5 it makes you feel like you are going through the history ."
RIght now It just feels like a wargame rather then a civ game

Yeah, I've been disappointed ever since Civ V came out, in civ iv you could maintain friendships a lot easier. I remember many games in Civ iv I'd buddy up with someone like Mansa Musa and it would be fun going over to his territory to help him stop an invasion from Shaka or something. After months of Civ V though I've long since given up thinking that that sort of thing can happen with this game. You basically have to play like a completely opportunistic Machiavellian ahole. I don't even bother with declarations of friendships generally unless specific camps are forming, otherwise it tends to just complicate things. I'm playing a game right now where I have four aggressive civs on my border and struggling with production to field a large military, so everytime I see a bunch of units headed my way I bribe that civ or one of the other 3 civs to declare war. At this point they have all declared war on eachother at some point while I've had a chance to fix my economy a bit. Not really my ideal way to play, but it works. In my last game Theodora was taking out Sejong and I declared on Theodora, saved Sejongs capital in the nick of time... and then Sejong declared on me, despite his having virtually no army and my being extremely powerful and never having any bad events with him. But.. it didn't bug me, since nothing surprises me anymore and I never considered him a friend and saved him only because I didn't want Theodora becoming too strong.

Would love to say its fine but two games in on king and its been nothing but war. First game was full of the warmongering types so I wrote it off. Second game Washington back stabbed me, which I hadn't seen him do before. Not able to say its worse, but 1 1/4 games in and I can't say it's played the same.

Gotta love the diplomacy in this game... I just took *one* lousy city state to, ahem, straighten my borders (sorry, Warsaw ), and after my rightful acquisition three civs declared war on me and the WHOLE WORLD except two faraway civs denounced me! "Well, bring it on, douchebags, I've had worse!" quoth Stalin. I've killed two of the transgressors now and sent their families to the gulags for good measure, but the denunciations keep on coming, meaning I'm screwed fo lyfe when it comes to research agreements. So, kids, whatever you do, under no circumstances EVER conquer a city state. It's safe to not even think about it, as the AI might read your mind.

Fwiw, I greatly preferred the Civ IV diplomacy AI. You could actually have meaningful foreign relations in that game. Sure, it's unrealistic, but who the hell cares? If I want to play against total opportunist cutthroats, I'll just play multiplayer. Why make sp into mp? I never got this decision. Then again given the general state of vanilla Civ V it's understandable that the diplomacy is still broken... I just wish they'd take it at least *a bit* more to the old 'gamey/reliable' direction.

I really don't think diplo is broken at all. It is just harder to manipulate the AI that's all.
I've had 6000 friendships with the like of Monty or izzy, but there must be something in it for them, like fighting a common war or intense trading.

My 2cents on your situation is that the American was deceptive all along and never actually wanted to be friend with you. It created a block of friendship that he did not intend. But don't worry, he's the one who did the betrayal, denounce him and wait for the other to do the same. Then bribe them to go to war with him and join in. You'll make two good friends and you will wipe the traitor off the map.

You have a weak military likely lagging techwise
You steal a tech to try and catch up.
AI comes to you demanding you stop.
You tell them it's none of their business so you can keep stealing without a broken promise penalty
They invade.

Nothing broken there but I don't doubt someone can and will selectively tell a story of the AI getting mad at them for no reason.

Being denounced isn't that bad, really. What likely happened, bat-guano-Monte asked friend Washington to denounce you, and gave Washington two choices. Being far from your empire, he could choose to remain your friend, go against likely aggressive neighbor Monte while Washington's in his REX/less-than-military stage and suffer a diplo hit, Monte denounce and likely Monte DoW, or denounce you and say sorry later.

Recognizing this, you should have DoW Alex for the diplo bonus of shared attack with Nappy, beat on Alex til he sued for peace, and asked/paid everyone to attack Monte. At least that's what I'd have done.

Adjuvant said:

Being denounced isn't that bad, really. What likely happened, bat-guano-Monte asked friend Washington to denounce you, and gave Washington two choices. Being far from your empire, he could choose to remain your friend, go against likely aggressive neighbor Monte while Washington's in his REX/less-than-military stage and suffer a diplo hit, Monte denounce and likely Monte DoW, or denounce you and say sorry later.

Recognizing this, you should have DoW Alex for the diplo bonus of shared attack with Nappy, beat on Alex til he sued for peace, and asked/paid everyone to attack Monte. At least that's what I'd have done.

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I agree with this, and Woodshadows' posts... you both show that you have a good understanding of the games diplomacy.

The main problem with the OP is that the poster obviously doesn't have the same understanding (sorry, apocalypse105, but it's true)...

This diplomacy can be quite devious, and it's often fun, on it's own, to work out what's really going on. Monty, especially, is very devious, and bribing/bullying someone else to denounce you is just the sort of thing he'd do, which is obvious when you've played the game a lot. If someone like Washington (who can also be devious at times) does something rather out of character, you should be asking why? rather than rage-quitting. By rage-quitting, you're not trying to learn. This game's diplomacy is very human-like, they seem to have mimicked real situations very well. However, you do have to try to understand it, to appreciate that.

Just want to throw in something: AI is just that, AI and not a human player. Game's interface should give you information, not hide it from you. So when interface shows all green modifiers for an AI with you and you have a DoF, the AI should be friendly to you, and when he then denounces you without an apparant reason something is odd. It's ok if it happens occasionally because the AI (particularly some leaders) is coded to have a deceptive side, so if denouncement is intended as a backstab, that's fine.

But if denouncement just happens as part of a regular routine when you have DoF and all-green modifiers something is broken - either broken in the sense that something isn't working as intended, or broken in the sense that game design doesn't make sense (if that was indeed intended). There is no point in a diplomatic game if regular (as in not-backstabbing) AIs will just turn against you without any cause even if you have done everything to nurture a good relationship.

I frequently see the 'AI just acts like a human being' argument, but that's not really a valid comparison - a real life, sane human being does not just turn against their friends all of a sudden without a good reason. It might be that many human players in game act out like maniacs, but that doesn't change the fact that game has to be centered around a logical and sensible core. Just imagine how game would be if every other aspect was completely random - like Universities increasing Science with +/- 25 %, or Markets increasing Gold with +/- 2 ... not much tactics left in the game then, if a seamingly sensible action has a high likelyhood of giving a bad return.

Adjuvant said:

Being denounced isn't that bad, really. What likely happened, bat-guano-Monte asked friend Washington to denounce you, and gave Washington two choices. Being far from your empire, he could choose to remain your friend, go against likely aggressive neighbor Monte while Washington's in his REX/less-than-military stage and suffer a diplo hit, Monte denounce and likely Monte DoW, or denounce you and say sorry later.

Recognizing this, you should have DoW Alex for the diplo bonus of shared attack with Nappy, beat on Alex til he sued for peace, and asked/paid everyone to attack Monte. At least that's what I'd have done.

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Before you post something make sure you have proof or arguments for it. There is no proof that monthy did ask washington denounce me. Which wouldn't make any sence because he was friendly with me and had olso a DOF and was on the other side of washington so he could be more mad with washington then me...

And denounciations hurt a lot if someone denounces you their friends will not like you..ANd they are more likly to denounce you its a chain reaction.


Dowing alex just for a diplo bonus is bad because I didn't had the force to actualy take cities and he was still a few tiles away... Keep in mind that you get a penalty for declaring war so just randomly declaring war to get diplo bonus isn't a good thing I've have to have something to gain like territory...

The_Quasar said:

I agree with this, and Woodshadows' posts... you both show that you have a good understanding of the games diplomacy.

The main problem with the OP is that the poster obviously doesn't have the same understanding (sorry, apocalypse105, but it's true)...

This diplomacy can be quite devious, and it's often fun, on it's own, to work out what's really going on. Monty, especially, is very devious, and bribing/bullying someone else to denounce you is just the sort of thing he'd do, which is obvious when you've played the game a lot. If someone like Washington (who can also be devious at times) does something rather out of character, you should be asking why? rather than rage-quitting. By rage-quitting, you're not trying to learn. This game's diplomacy is very human-like, they seem to have mimicked real situations very well. However, you do have to try to understand it, to appreciate that.

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I understant diplomacy in Civ 5 Is all about forming pacts denouncing the one who they don't like and forming a mutal interest..
Instead of beeing assertive and give a reasonable argument why diplomacy isn't broken? you are atacking me dirreclty saying I don't understant it?

and the Ai isn't playing as a human even on multiplayer people don't turn on their friends withouth any reason did you ever see a human player declare war on someone who is on the other edge of the map in the medieval era? Its just not working as intended thats what is happening.

I' dont mind the AI beeing deceptive deceptive means : hiding you're true attitud towards someone in the case of diplomacy.
bUT THE PROBLEM WITH CURRENT PATCH EVERY SINGLE AI IS DECEPTIVE


my biggest point is why did they have all those positif modifiers and efforts to get positif modifiers like forgiving them if they bully you're city state , giving them a luxury if they needed it , DOF , and so on...
IF it doesn't matter?

Why did the developers of gods and king said in their interviews that they wanted to make diplomacy more meaningfull when it currently isn't? because as I said before If every single AI is going to backstab you while should I put effort in getting good relations?


There are basicly 2 options here :

1 Like I said it isn't working as intended BROKEN

2 firaxis is lying to their customers what they are selling. If they told that the AI is playing head to head with the human player to win the game . I wouldn't be that dissapointed.

My "argument" is that I'm very familiar and proficient with the game and see this every day.

Look, your post isn't the first to argue the diplomacy is odd, or even broken, but I have good, reliable experiences with it often, knowing what to expect from each leader. Just because something seems amiss to you, doesn't mean it's "wrong".

You must understand, knowing what I know and have experienced, having seen this argument a number of times, I'm being very nice, because I don't really like posting here much because of the misinformation many people often spread. It's only my intention to help when people ask questions. I did my best to answer yours. It seems, though, that you'll just argue no matter what I say, so there's not much more I can do.

edit: Incidentally, you never told us what difficulty you're playing, or what other factors cause "invisible" but common sense diplo hits with the other leaders. I guessed from your portrayal you're playing around prince difficulty, have "about" the same number of cities, maybe a couple wonders, tops, and a smallish military. There's enough going on that AI's are attacking each other and making friends with you, which means they don't see you as fodder and you're probably not in a particularly dominant lead. Monte's just being Monte. I'd suspect similar behavior from a distant Elizabeth, or Bismark, or a nearby Alex, Suleiman, or Catherine. It's just how they roll.

Also, on one last note, if you want help understanding something, which I presumed was why you asked here, cool, but don't throw it back at people when they give a crap enough to respond to you. If you're just here to complain, this isn't Firaxis's site. They have a site elsewhere and you can fill their time with accusations and complaints at that URL.

kaspergm said:

Just want to throw in something: AI is just that, AI and not a human player. Game's interface should give you information, not hide it from you. So when interface shows all green modifiers for an AI with you and you have a DoF, the AI should be friendly to you, and when he then denounces you without an apparant reason something is odd. It's ok if it happens occasionally because the AI (particularly some leaders) is coded to have a deceptive side, so if denouncement is intended as a backstab, that's fine.

But if denouncement just happens as part of a regular routine when you have DoF and all-green modifiers something is broken - either broken in the sense that something isn't working as intended, or broken in the sense that game design doesn't make sense (if that was indeed intended). There is no point in a diplomatic game if regular (as in not-backstabbing) AIs will just turn against you without any cause even if you have done everything to nurture a good relationship.

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I look at the 'games interface', ie the modifier section in the diplomacy screen as being under the AI's control. This represents what the AI is trying to convince you of, or let you know. For instance, if Putin goes and visits Obama, they are going to make some small talk and Obama might let drop "oh hey Putin, I don't like you making declarations of friendship with Iran"... or alternatively, Obama might decide to conceal that he doesn't like that (conceal the modifier). Similarly in the game, sometimes an AI leader doesn't *want* you to know that he/she is pissed off that you declared war on their friend, because they might be in a weak position and want instead to form a friendship with you, so by hiding those modifiers from you it helps justify you in putting faith in their request for friendship.. but ultimately those modifiers never really disappear, they are still there coded into the memory of the AI leader. This is why it feels more like dealing with a human rather than a machine. With a machine you could simply get some + marks and avoid - marks and you could completely control who likes you or not in the game, that would be like playing against a calculator, with no appearance of a will of their own and very easily manipulated into self-defeating behaviours. for instance, you could simply give some free stuff, make declaration of friendship with their friend, give in to a request, etc with a particular leader and they will be your friend and not attack you, but say by being your friend it works against their best interest in winning the game, perhaps you are huge and suddenly suffer a military setback and they have a huge military which could grab some of your cities.. i for one am glad that the ai isn't at the mercy of the modifiers and instead the modifiers are simply a tool in the ai's warchest to use against the human player. i think though that some people should try to look at the modifiers differently, not see them as omniscient insights into the ai leaders real thoughts, but instead as the conversation (deceptive or honest you decide) of that leader during a diplomatic meeting. do you generally walk into a room and start talking with someone and see modifiers pop up beside their head? telling you what they think about you, plus or negative? or do you generally walk in and talk to someone and through conversation you gain some idea of how they feel about you (conversation in which they are free to lie/conceal/etc depending on what they want out of you).

Civking5 said:

It is not broken, it is like how human players play. If u play online games u would know what I mean.

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And this is why I hate with passion the whole design philosophy behind this Civilization, and hope that Firaxis take the very opposite route with Civ VI, fires the previous designer or whatever.

If I would like to play a boardgame that pitch me against humans, I just go and buy a freaking boardgame and play it with my friends. Catan, Republica or 7 Wonders are great boardgames that tries to be... boardgames instead of videogames, go figure.

It is not a question of realism VS gamification, since the Civ series have always been a mixture of both, but rather a question of knowing what your series is about: building a civilization that pass the test of time. Not merely "winning". Civ is beautiful because it mirrors human history, which is not a "sum zero" type of game, mind you. This title, a civilization game is not. It is just a board game. And an unfunny one at that, because it has eschewed real world logic (aka: the only logic that truthly exist) in order to push an internal "competitive sum zero game" type of logic that only belongs to boardgames such as chess, which has paradoxially, turned the game into a more boring, predictable ordeal.

A realistic diplomacy is a funnier diplomacy not because of a simulation aspect, but rather because it makes room for a more ample set of choices and playstyles to the players. Yes, you have countries that defends their interests and some are even willing to go to war in order to defend them, but noone goes in a war just because they want to "win the game", specially when different civilizations have different notions of what it means to "win", and because in many cases you don't know who is truthly your friend or foe, which adds to the tension (and fun!) to it. The fact that many US political comentators define China as a "frenemy" should really give you a clue about what a fun diplomatic system looks like: a realistic one.

It's predictable to me because I play a new single player game on emperor or immortal almost every other day. I "know" when I need to put myself in debt building archers for an anticipated attack. I "know" if I can rush with 3 spearmen and 5 archers. I "know" when/if I should found religion or am wasting my time. I "know" when my empire or military size are going to make me a target.

I bought the game and the expac at their respective releases. I've seen the unit advantages wax and wane. Hell, I can tell at any given time practically what the AI's hiding in the fog. Very little surprises me. Play 300+ games to their ends and you will, too.

woodshadows said:

I look at the 'games interface', ie the modifier section in the diplomacy screen as being under the AI's control. This represents what the AI is trying to convince you of, or let you know.

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That's how you look at it, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it is. If you have any solid evidence from the game to show that your belief is actually how things are I'd love to see it, but I'm quite sure you are wrong.

Their overall status to you - i.e. whether they are friendly, "friendly", hostile, neutral, guarded, etc. works that way - hence they will frequently show the "friendly" label and then in the next minute denounce or DoW you - but I'm quite sure the modifiers show just what modifiers are currently affecting your relationship.