Diplomacy is back to vanilla again broken?

Bechhold said:

I am denounced by all except Mongolia for being a Warmonger.

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So what? If you play through you'll see that only matters awhile, unless you're far ahead in score/tech/ military size, and then they'll always have a greater propensity to mistrust/dislike you, because they know you've already won the game and you are now only going through motions to completion. It's good that way and it makes sense, because it would be boring as hell if you could just placate everyone while you're obviously stomping to a victory.

"Hey, this guy's gonna win unless we kick his ass"
"Yeh, but he just gave me cotton"
"Ya! a_player_01 is a pretty cool guy! he just sold me 5 horses for 2 gold!"
"WTH?!? Help us kill this player so one of us wins!"

apocalypse105 said:

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...

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Even though you are Friendly or have a DoF with an AI doesn't mean that h/she won't still plot against you.

I regularly bribe AI's to war with each other. Oftentimes they'll do it for cheap. Sometimes they'll even DoW someone they have a DoF with for fairly cheap. If they are willing to DoW one of their DoF partners for 100-200 gold, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they DoW me even if we have a DoF as well.

Pre-patch, I was very rarely backstabbed by a DoF partner. With the latest patch, it does seem like the likelihood of DoF backstabs is increased but I haven't played enough under the new patch to fully understand the extent of the changes.

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...

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Also note that, as of a few patches ago, the "Fought against a common foe" bonus only accrues if you actually do damage (i.e. kill units) of the common foe. Declaring war and doing nothing won't help you gain this diplomatic modifier. Of course if you go overboard and take too many cities and wipe them out, that results in a different diplomatic penalty....

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?

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Some humans will turn on their friends due to the slightest provocation. Some humans will do things "just for fun."

Most humans are largely governed by their emotions, which regularly override what might otherwise be the most "logical" course of action.

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

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I do see a greater likelihood of deception/backstabbing, however I haven't played enough post-patch games to comment on how prevalent it is.

Adjuvant said:

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.

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Very well said Adjuvant. I applaud your efforts.

In addition to "Diplomacy is broken" threads, another thing I am sick of seeing is "Civilization X has a UU from a different civilization! Must be a bug!" when people simply don't realize that Militaristic City States can gift UU's (much more common now with G&K, though it still occasionally happened in Vanilla).

apocalypse105 said:

Its a good idea however it doesn't work in gameplay because this means that there is no benefit on making friends with diplomacy because they all backstab you... You're only ally is the city states.

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Making friends is necessary for Research Agreements.

Making friends is help for maintaining trade partners and to get the maximum gold you can from trading resources.

Again there is no proof that a Ai bribed washington. Even worse his money got down before he denounced me so he couldn't get bribed.

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Maybe he was asked (or demanded) without any gold compensation.

Maybe he spent it all before your turn.

If you remeber in civ 4 only a few AI would accept bribes for wars against their friends

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Oh Catherine, you little minx!

For those who didn't play Civ IV, the AI programming had it so that each AI would refuse to DoW a player with a certain relationship level or better. The threshold varied for each particular leader, and was based on the different diplomatic attitudes: Furious/Annoyed/Cautious/Pleased/Friendly. While the vast majority of leaders would not DoW a player with they were Friendly towards, Catherine was an anomaly since she wouldn't let her Friendly feelings get in the way of a war....

Really? The AI will hate you and will backstab you if : you have wonders

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Only if it was the wonders that they wanted as well and you beat them to it.

have low military

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You're easy prey.

has a higher score

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Pile on the leader? *However*, the point system is heavily weighted for wide empires so if you prefer small and tall, you don't have this problem as much.

Bechhold said:

Only one war when attacked by Austria during the Medieval period, and as soon as war was declared. 0 from conquest from defensive war, around the same number of cities. Caesar, Attila, Khan have more. I led score by about 80ish...

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Well if you have a higher score than the others but you have fewer cities, that tells me you have more wonders than them. It is odd that they would denounce you for being a wondermonger the very same turn you all go to war together. Austria went to war with you earlier in the game for some reason (assuming you were neighbors and she coveted your lands) and then made peace with you. I bet it said she had a "friendly" attitude toward you after the peace, but that is likely deception...she still covets your lands, she just doesn't want you to know anymore. Maybe she saw this as a window as you would now have to fight a 2 front war.

I'm guessing India was better friends with Austria than you (they are usually BFFs in my games) and Austria convinced Ghandi to go to war against you.

And Caesar is just a whack job, he will DOW cause you looked at him the wrong way.

You didn't tell me your "military might" compared to the average, this info is important.


Anyways, in my current game (Immortal, Large Islands), it is the Modern Era. I'm busy trying to invade France to the east as he is the clear winner via conquest. Earlier in the game I helped Germany in the west beat down Japan on their shared island. I liberated a CS, liberated a German city, and took 2 Japanese cities for myself. I left those 2 cities largely unattended while I sent most of my military to France, thinking that Japan is no threat with 1 city left and Germany being a good friend won't cause trouble. He proved me right for most of the game, but once he teched to Great War Infantry and saw my cities still unattended, he back-stabbed and invaded! Bravo sir, bravo!

My point here is that even though we have been good friends the whole game and worked together well, the AI still needs to say "I have military superiority now and my friend is ripe for the picking...I need to make a move now or else I can't win!" Am I mad I was back-stabbed at the worse possible time for me. Of course. Am I happy the AI isn't rolling over and playing dead and making the game challenging? YES YES YES!

Gamewizard said:

It is odd that they would denounce you for being a wondermonger the very same turn you all go to war together.

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I fail to understand why people keep trying to come up with lengthy explanations to rationalize the AI's behaviour (often with non-rational arguments like it's ok for them to randomly denounce you when you have higher score than them) when the explanation is very simply if very disheartening: The AI is just poorly coded. The obvious - and multiple times proven - explanation for the "odd" case above is very simple: AI will denounce you if you declare war multiple times (they consider you a warmonger). That is in itself not a problem. The sad thing is that the developers forgot to add an extension to this rule which says that a) AI will not consider you a warmonger for joining them in a war (pretty much a no-brainer, no?), and b) AI will not consider you a warmonger if they have engaged in war many more times than you have, and possibly c) AI will be less likely to label you a warmonger for engaging in war with someone they dislike.

This is just the top of the iceberg (don't get me started on how the AI will denounce you for capturing cities from someone who DoW'ed you - wtf?), but one of many examples of why the AI of this game is, let's say, illogical*.


(* In an attempt to avoid the word that will get everybody out of their chairs without considering what's actually written.)

I disagree about it being poorly coded. I don't have a problem with the positive and negative modifier system as it is. The modifier reaches a certain threshold and the chance for denunciation goes up. I view it similar to the coup system...just because it says there is a 45% chance success doesn't mean it won't work. You could play a game a certain way, and then replay THE EXACT SAME WAY over and over and over, and the AI will always act different towards you. There needs to be some element of unpredictability or else the game would be too easy/boring.

I fail to understand why people keep trying to come up with lengthy explanations to rationalize the AI's behaviour (often with non-rational arguments like it's ok for them to randomly denounce you when you have higher score than them)

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Like you, the AI is trying to win the game. Do you not feel threatened by the AI with the largest score? Or do you feel that the AI should not be playing to win but rather just be an obstacle in the path to the player's victory?

I agree with both sides of the argument. AI is both complex and broken. Funny twist happened last night, while playing on Deity, i thought i'd share it here.

I'm Catherine, in the middle of thin, snaky Pangaea, surrounded by Napoleon, Oda, Boudicca and Wu .. Cultural game? No way. I am sitting tight at turn 60 when Oda shows his true nature and moves in 6 warriors and 2 CBs against my city of St. Petersburg. Little does he know, that i have 9 CBs hiding in the fog...

Took 10 turns to kill his army and capture Osaka. Turn 70. He comes with peace and 300gpt on top. I agree. Turn 80. He wants to be my friend. Hey, why not? I could use a friend .. Turn 81, he DoW's me and moves in another 10 units for slaughter.

That was the fastest backstab i've seen

Gamewizard said:

Like you, the AI is trying to win the game. Do you not feel threatened by the AI with the largest score? Or do you feel that the AI should not be playing to win but rather just be an obstacle in the path to the player's victory?

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This. I feel that it is ridiculous and detrimental to a fun game that the AI behaves like a human playing counterstrike rather than like a real civilization. The game has very deep flaws at a conceptual level. Is not a question of balance.

Ikael said:

Originally Posted by Gamewizard View Post
Like you, the AI is trying to win the game. Do you not feel threatened by the AI with the largest score? Or do you feel that the AI should not be playing to win but rather just be an obstacle in the path to the player's victory?

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This. I feel that it is ridiculous and detrimental to a fun game that the AI behaves like a human playing counterstrike rather than like a real civilization. The game has very deep flaws at a conceptual level. Is not a question of balance.

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I think the question whether the AI should focus on "winning" the game is indeed a very fundamental one for laying out the AI behaviour, and obviously one that points in two very different directions depending on what answer you favour. I am also of the oppinion that AI behaviour needs to be (at least partially) decoupled from score - it makes no sense to have AI Dow/denounce you just because you are leader in score, compared to real life, that would correspond to every world power denouncing or declaring war on USA just because they are a (the) super power, which obviously is not happening. And perhaps more relevantly, it also makes the game boring if diplomacy always converges to total war when you approach victory.

On the other hand, I do understand those who say that just having the AI sitting around watching you win without taking any action to actually stop you is boring, and they obviously also have a point. I think one important distinction is that AI should trying to oppose you by any means possible to them when you are close to winning but within the frame of their diplomatic status, which should not itself be affected by your approaching win. In other words, a hostile civ should be more likely to DoW you (if that will hinder you) if you are close to winning, but they should not turn hostile because you are winning.

Furthermore, I think there should be a check for civs evaluating their chance of winning which will determine their behaviour. I hate it when a civ that is reduced to one or two cities and has no chance of ever standing up against the large civs acts like maniacs and throw around denouncements to everyone around them. That makes no sense in terms of real life politics and diplomacy. I think such civs should enter what I think I have before labeled "survival" mode, i.e. they will be less likely to denounce and DoW you in order to not be crushed.

Civ5 vanilla diplomacy was broken, I think we can all agree with that, no point in elaborating. Gods & Kings fixed that. Probably too much since I feel that after G&K it was probably "too easy" to get friends and backstabbing was rare.

My question is. Where is diplomacy now after the fall patch? Are we back to Civ5 vanilla, are we more or less like we were after G&K came out or are we somewhere in between? I would appreciate any answers because this is a game breaker issue for me. I like it if there's more challenge now, but I'll be very disappointed if the AI is schizophrenic again.

I'll reply to myself. I'm playing an Emperor game with the fall patch and the diplomacy has been fair and at the same level as I seen before the patch. Nothing weird to report so far, thank god.

I was backstabbed recently post patch. Three turns after signing a DoF. The AI said something about how difficult it was to pretend to be friends with me. At least the whole thing made sense in my mind. I mean after all I was Austria-Hungary and the backstabber was Russia.

The other interesting thing is the fact that I denounced Germany the turn I got peace with Russia. Pretty much with everyone else. I actually thought my plans to attack Germany could go forward with Russia as a friend. Now I have Germany a typical warmonger ready to march in at any moment. If the Kaiser has a half a brain, he'll do so. This will be the perfect chance to see what this AI is made of.

Now in the other single player game I am playing. Things are interesting as well. I am playing as the Celts and I am ready to take Ethiopia's capital, the AI's last city. I have to take it based on the city's location. To the south I have a strong Arabia, who at the moment is friendly with me. I have a DoF with them and they have also been in an ongoing war with Ethiopia. So I am interested and seeing how Arabia views me after I take Ethiopia off the map. They probably will not have the best opinion with me, but winning is the name of the game.

I believe anyway that taking the other civs out of the game should be the point. On the other hand, I feel that civs who see you killing everyone should not trust you very much. I suppose the easiest way is to put yourself in the AI's shoes. Would you trust a guy that knock three civs out of the game? Hell no!

There is another question though. What if those three civs that were taken out of the game deserved it? They DoWed the civ and it defended itself. Can you blame it for knocking off its enemies? This is the very reason they should expand diplomacy. There should be more room for explanation. Sometimes there are reasons why things are done. This would be a question of national security and above all survival. Some civs that see this going on should think to themselves. If I was in a spot like that and everyone was trying to DoW me and destroy me, I probably would kill them off too. Right now as things stand this is one sided. There should be two sides to every story. Especially, in diplomacy.

Anyway, If another civ DoWed me and I am able to begin winning the war. I want to finish it off and do away with it. Why keep it there so it is any kind of threat, even a diplomatic threat? That's how I feel.

Saying that though, does not necessarily mean I am going to go on a tear and destroy every other civ in the game. There are several VC options after all. The other AIs should realize that. I feel they still should be very wary, but diplomacy with the civ that knocked the bullies out of the game, should not be at an end. It still should be able to make friends if the other civs can grow to trust it. They could add non aggression pacts to certify the good will in a neighborring civ. They also could add straight alliances. I mean wouldn't it be better to have an alliance with a civ that can truly stick up for itself, than one that cowers to its enemies? Something to think about.

nokmirt said:

Would you trust a guy that knock three civs out of the game? Hell no!

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This is pretty much it. One thing i`ve noticed since the Patch that if the AI CIV attacks you for apparently no reason, the text tends to help make sense of it, like when Germany attacked and simply, " I just don`t like you very much" or , "I`ve been pretending to be friends, but you can`t be nice to be powerful!" Or words to that effect. I even appreciate it when a way weaker Civ attacks my powerhouse and says, "I know I have little chance, but I have no choice but to try and stop you."

I just wish there was a better transition when a few turns later they want peace. They always look happy, when really, they should look a bit angry, if forced to ask for peace.

nokmirt said:

I was backstabbed recently post patch. Three turns after signing a DoF. The AI said something about how difficult it was to pretend to be friends with me. At least the whole thing made sense in my mind. I mean after all I was Austria-Hungary and the backstabber was Russia.

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Deceptive approach.

When AI is friendly/want to be friend but you find nothing when you mouseover (ie: there is no real light green modifiers, it's likely a deceptive approach.)

These kinds of friends are doable when they are far away and could rack up extra RAs.

But You probably want to be more cautious when they are next to you.

dexters said:

Deceptive approach.

When AI is friendly/want to be friend but you find nothing when you mouseover (ie: there is no real light green modifiers, it's likely a deceptive approach.)

These kinds of friends are doable when they are far away and could rack up extra RAs.

But You probably want to be more cautious when they are next to you.

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Indeed, I was certainly taking a chance in that situation. Although, I had to try. The AI is sneaky, that makes the game better.

There's a few things that I don't like about diplomacy:

1) The human player is treated differently than the AI player.
2) Everything is so binary either/or.
3) Similar to 2 there's no character or options in the dialogue choices.
4) The open borders system is stupid
5) The constant interruptions and diplomacy screens

1 -A fundamental flaw in the system is that the same rules don't apply to the AI players and the human player. This applies to stuff like warmonger status, but there are also things like the AI being mad at you for doing something, however there's no way for you to indicate to the AI that you are mad at them for doing the exact same thing. Also when trading a friendly AI will refuse a 2 for 1 luxury offer from the human even if it results in a net happiness increase for the AI. That just feels so gamey, it really takes away from the immersion (see 3). I understand that there are a few things that can't apply to the human in the same way, but there are many things that should.

2) Every decision is a yes/no, either this or that. There's no variety to how you can respond to a request.

3) There's no immersion in the diplomacy system. Each AI responds with the same dialogue and your dialogue responses are the same. There needs to be more ways to say things even if the results are similar. I want to get sucked into the world and not feel like I'm just playing a board game with binary answers. I was just playing a game where I made a DOF with someone and then I had 4 straight AI popups saying "Ahh, I see you have....". Give me some variety and personality in the text.

4) Despite the move to 1upt the open borders system is still the same. Quite often open borders is detrimental and yet the AI is constantly asking for open borders. Also why does an AI who is on another continent place any value in having open borders with you? He can't use them so why would he trade something for the right to cross through your borders?

5) The diplomacy screens themselves need some work. First don't interrupt me! Unless you are declaring war or need to make a desperate plea to me, request an audience first. A simple pop-up from your diplomatic advisor saying so and so would like to request an audience to discuss X would make things far less annoying. Constant interruptions for things I'm going to say no to are really annoying. Finally, let me access all game screens before I have to respond! Info addict is nice, but you still for instance can't review the map to see where exactly an AI is located or where a specific city is located etc.

I agree with a lot of what you said. One thing I would like to see is them diversify each leader's dialogue. Napoleon should not say what Alexander would say. They should say things based on their character and who they were. Their responses in diplomacy should match the kind of leader they were, and how they would realistically have dealt with the current situation in the game. Just make them act like they are supposed to act and talk like they are supposed to. A change like this would help the game become more immersive.

Then the other essential thing they should do is expand diplomacy. Supposedly they started doing this with the new patch, so I will keep an eye out about that.

Does anyone think there will be anymore DLCs or a second expansion? This question has been on my mind. I am thinking of waiting until the entire game comes out before I work on another mod. So, I would love to know if we have seen the end of the game or not.

nokmirt said:

Would you trust a guy that knock three civs out of the game? Hell no!

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Of course not, but what bothers me is the AI WILL trust a guy who knocks 3 civs out of the game...as long as it's another AI. I was playing a game the other day where Atilla wiped out Spain with no consequence, wiped out Rammy after I liberated him and then becomes FRIENDS with England, his neighbor, the next turn. He eventually backstabbed England after I paid him for a pittance of 200 gold around turn 220.

Now, I have no problem with Attila doing ANY of that. He's Attila the Hun, he's a jackass. There should be leaders Attila and Alex and Caesar and psycho ones like Montezuma. But other civs should stop trusting the psychopaths at some point.

nokmirt said:

I agree with a lot of what you said. One thing I would like to see is them diversify each leader's dialogue. Napoleon should not say what Alexander would say.

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I know this is a minor thing but I agree with this so much. It's even more evident with wars. Monty's dialogue gives some speech totally unfitting of him about "uniting the planet" while he shouts SHIMMICACAN in the background. The same thing happens with other leaders saying things in their language totally different than the random dialogue. More stuff like "I will sacrifice 10 captives to commemorate this meeting!" would be awesome.

So yeah anyway, played around in a Deity game yesterday on my masochistic quest to beat it with Civs I hate playing, in this case Germany. I was friends with Isabella, about 5 turns I put a second city down. It was about 7 hexes from her second city if you pathed it directly, but it was about twice that from land. She demands I stop settling near her, I promise not to settle near her. Next turn...denounces me, hence backstabbing me, I denounce her back because she had no friends. Two turns later she DoWs me. Turn after that, Polynesia denounces me. Why? "Civs they like more than you have denounced you!", -2 modifier. They weren't even FRIENDS with each other, why did that matter? It was LITERALLY a popularity contest.

So let me get this straight:
-Polynesia conquers a city-state, doesn't get denounced.
-Isabella backstabs me, doesn't get denounced.
-Sweden DoWed me for no reason at all other than being neighbors on turn ~35, doesn't get denounced.
-I denounce someone who backstabs me, I get denounced.

Doesn't something seem a LITTLE out of whack there?

tl;dr The AI gets away with absolute murder but will denounce you for looking at them crooked or doing silly things like "not liking getting backstabbed". The only way it's like "playing with humans" is if you're the kid in middle school getting bullied and ostracized by all the other kids.

Light Cleric said:

So yeah anyway, played around in a Deity game yesterday on my masochistic quest to beat it with Civs I hate playing, in this case Germany. I was friends with Isabella, about 5 turns I put a second city down. It was about 7 hexes from her second city if you pathed it directly, but it was about twice that from land. She demands I stop settling near her, I promise not to settle near her. Next turn...denounces me, hence backstabbing me, I denounce her back because she had no friends. Two turns later she DoWs me. Turn after that, Polynesia denounces me. Why? "Civs they like more than you have denounced you!", -2 modifier. They weren't even FRIENDS with each other, why did that matter? It was LITERALLY a popularity contest.

So let me get this straight:
-Polynesia conquers a city-state, doesn't get denounced.
-Isabella backstabs me, doesn't get denounced.
-Sweden DoWed me for no reason at all other than being neighbors on turn ~35, doesn't get denounced.
-I denounce someone who backstabs me, I get denounced.

Doesn't something seem a LITTLE out of whack there?

tl;dr The AI gets away with absolute murder but will denounce you for looking at them crooked or doing silly things like "not liking getting backstabbed". The only way it's like "playing with humans" is if you're the kid in middle school getting bullied and ostracized by all the other kids.

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I've seen this exact same behaviour pattern in a post-patch King game (wasn't me playing). The backstabbing friend in that case was Dido, who a couple of turns later rocked up with a huge army that the player had no hope of defending against because he'd been foolish enough to assume that an early DoF with Dido meant she wouldn't DoW the second it was up. He lost the city - not sure what happened after that (think he ragequit, lol)