Diplomacy makes no sense! (G&K)

Hey all

Got gods and kings last night, and as i still dont really know what im doing (ive played 1 complete game on vanilla) i picked king level for an easy ride..playing a european map as england (a small one)

Its a sickening love fest till about 50bc, ive just got my longbows into my cities.. and im intending a peaceful game to learn the tech tree. Ive actually ignored religion, because i have been foccused on production and economy.

Then..50bc i get a denouncement from the french (who i have gifted gold regularly for research agreements) . The reason?. You are building cities too agressively... errm i havent built a city in 2000 years!!!!

Next turn a pile of denouncements, people who two turns ago were friendly with declarations etc also denounce and go hostile...why???

Then a pile of insults 'ahh its the puny one' (i have 2nd military on list although its just 4 triremes and 4 longbows)

Then finally russia (who i also gifted) denounces me because she 'covets my land'
errm shes on the other side of the map??

I dont want the ai to be a lovefest, i want o have to deal with diplomatic problems, but id like them to make sense!!!

OK its turning into a rant..sorry!

But the AI in G&K diplomacy has no logic to it at all, yyou dont go from best buddies to hating each other in 2 turns for no reason whatsoever.

Is it just me or does anyone else think the AI leaders have some sort of jekyl and hyde complex?

I think we all do, the Forum is full of threads about this!
I particularly hate the one you mention about coveting land - it's just childish nonsense when I only have two cities, they're on a different continent etc. and I've only just met them. I can accept it when space is getting tight, but in the early game it makes little sense unless they're close neighbours. If it said that they covet your luxes etc. that would be a little more credible, if there was a case for it.

I want a difficult diplomacy game, ie you cant be friends with everyone, i just want some logic too it.

Last one i got was greece dialling me up 'just to tell me how pathetic i am' (2 turns ago we were buddies and he was on about my strong economy)

And france telling me how pathetic my army is (im second, with longbows positioned in forest, able to provide crossfire in the unlikely event anyone managed to land on englands shores)..everyone else has swords and archers

Sorry if other threads on it, i am new to civ v forums, i just found it very fustrating and the civ franchise is pretty much the only game i play so i always look forward to getting it when the wife lets me spend cash on a game instead of decorating or something

paulcarri said:

Hey all

Got gods and kings last night, and as i still dont really know what im doing (ive played 1 complete game on vanilla) i picked king level for an easy ride..playing a european map as england (a small one)

Its a sickening love fest till about 50bc, ive just got my longbows into my cities.. and im intending a peaceful game to learn the tech tree. Ive actually ignored religion, because i have been foccused on production and economy.

Then..50bc i get a denouncement from the french (who i have gifted gold regularly for research agreements) . The reason?. You are building cities too agressively... errm i havent built a city in 2000 years!!!!

Click to expand...

Are you sure?

paulcarri said:

Next turn a pile of denouncements, people who two turns ago were friendly with declarations etc also denounce and go hostile...why???

Then a pile of insults 'ahh its the puny one' (i have 2nd military on list although its just 4 triremes and 4 longbows)

Then finally russia (who i also gifted) denounces me because she 'covets my land'
errm shes on the other side of the map??

Click to expand...

Again are you certain?

paulcarri said:

I dont want the ai to be a lovefest, i want o have to deal with diplomatic problems, but id like them to make sense!!!

OK its turning into a rant..sorry!

But the AI in G&K diplomacy has no logic to it at all, yyou dont go from best buddies to hating each other in 2 turns for no reason whatsoever.

Is it just me or does anyone else think the AI leaders have some sort of jekyl and hyde complex?

Click to expand...

I think a lot of it is you ranting without fully checking what`s actually going on. The AI isn`t perfect, but it`s not that bad once you look a little deeper into the possible causes of its actions.


I think there`s details you`ve forgotten to mention since in my game most of the time there is some sense to what they do. If they complain you`re plonking too many cities, they certainly don`t wait 2000 years before saying something.

You`re denouncements could`ve been bribed from the enemy Civ that don`t like you. Although without more detail it`s hard to know exactly- There maybe other things you`ve done you`ve not told us about.

I dunno, you say it`s a `sickening` `lovefest` which I don`t think, peace is peace, which I thought you wanted, but when it goes wrong you`re whining about that too!

So upload a save so we may see.

Socratatus said:

Are you sure?


Again are you certain?


I think a lot of it is you ranting without fully checking what`s actually going on. The AI isn`t perfect, but it`s not that bad once you look a little deeper into the possible causes of its actions.


I think there`s details you`ve forgotten to mention since in my game most of the time there is some sense to what they do. If they complain you`re plonking too many cities, they certainly don`t wait 2000 years before saying something.

You`re denouncements could`ve been bribed from the enemy Civ that don`t like you. Although without more detail it`s hard to know exactly- There maybe other things you`ve done you`ve not told us about.

I dunno, you say it`s a `sickening` `lovefest` which I don`t think, peace is peace, which I thought you wanted, but when it goes wrong you`re whining about that too!

Click to expand...

Hey

yup im sure, id literally spoken to napoleon at friendly the turn before he denounced- it is a small european map

I had literally just visited napoleon to see if he had gold for a research agreement the welcoming message was ' hello my friend etc etc'

And as this is my first G&K game im paying attention to everything...its a training game.

Literally next turn he came up saying he was denouncing me. The reason was definitely ' aggressively settling cities' the message he said was 'we are going to tell our friends about what your like' or something similar

He hadnt given me a request to not settle or anything earlier either.

We have had bordering culture for a while (paris is close to london) but i got my 4 cities out quite early and havent moved at all. Its a tiny little map, and i wanted to learn the tech tree.

I now have just two hostile civs.. i played a bit at dinnertime- germany has swung back to 'desire friendly relations' as has russia (i have no idea why!!!).

The french now 'covet my lands'

The greeks are hostile because 'someone we like more denounced you'

I purposely avoided building an overly scary military (ie top dog) and stayed upper tier rather than go miles ahead

Ive even stayed away from city states other than dublin.

As for the 'sickening love fest comment'

a) I expect some aggressive AI, just not absurd reasons for it

b) It was doing my head in every turn someone dialling up to say 'i notice your friends with xx, good stuff i am friends with them too. Everyone literally loved everyone else until 50bc, and the messages were constant.

Now its constant denouncements (it was a relief to see the ai at least denounce each other

Its a very crowded map..i dont know if thats a factor but...

basically my game has consisted of

1) building 4 cities on the british mainland and sitting there, building libraries, watermills, national college etc and 1 or 2 wonders and a moderate military ((4 triremes, 4 longbows, 1 longsword i believe)

2) agreeing to all reasonable requests

oh yeah, when i was denounced i was supplying napoleon with horse for a small sum of gold lol.

OP: It's time I told the world about your sins!

(I covet your thread)
(I believe you are posting too aggressively)
(Other posters we like more have disagreed with you)

Walter R said:

OP: It's time I told the world about your sins!

(I covet your thread)
(I believe you are posting too aggressively)
(Other posters we like more have disagreed with you)

Click to expand...

lol it is literally as stupid as that, yet despite the ******ed Diplomacy i still like the game, and was so chuffed to find a europe map that both my laptop can handle, and lets england have more than 1 city

I'll admit that when I first starting playing Civ 5 I would have agreed the diplomacy seemed to make no sense. And then I remembered that this game is supposed to be a simulation of what has happened during the history of human civilization on planet Earth, a planet inhabited by many a rude, hypocritical, irrational, and jealous persons (and here and there a saint). So yeah, way to go Sid

After that realization, my only complaint about the diplomacy would be that it can be kind of difficult to read or predict (as compared to the readily apparent +/- point system of Civ 4) and so I basically end up becoming a paranoid paulie, just like the AI.

Another thing that I've noticed is that the best way to make friends is to NEVER expand very far past your original borders. And then, after a hundred years of this, the AI out-grows you and basically treats you like another city state; if they were your friend before they'll begin demanding regular tribute, and if they were unpleasant before they become openly aggressive. Catch-22. Hence, the need for a glorious leader who can interpret and navigate a world full of such perplexity

people seem to think im some sort of hater... im not, i desperately want to love the game

but..the ai is terrible sorry..

napoleon went friendly, declared war after friendly, then after losing all his troops made peace..and straight back to friendly!!

the war... consisted of him lining his knights up for me to shoot them with SOTL and bows, or occasionally swimming them up right next to my caravel fleet!!!

at no point did he build a single ship??? just suicided his troops

the 4th city is the one that usually puts the AI out. Getting 4 cities out in under 70 turns will guarantee a DoW. Try pushing out 3, and then waiting for a bit before you get the 4th.

Some AI's will just always covet your land, Greece, England, Germany, France, and others. Some will just covet your demise like Attila. Settling in the direction of a warmonger means they will war on you first.

Some tips to help with diplomacy
always hover over the screen where it says "friendly." You will often see with back stabbers like France and Greece a bunch of red text telling you the truth.

If you are still in doubt, open the trade window and offer to sell them something at full price and click the "how do make this work" button and if they won't give you full price they are unhappy. The lower the price the more unhappy. 141G for a lux means imminent DoW.

Always sell or trade embassies, it gives positive diplo.

Gifting on an RA is not a gift. You are ahead of them and they want recompense for being behind in tech.

If you have a warmonger neighbor, make friends with their friends (not them), or bride them to war on someone else.

The AI's have a random factor built into them. I have had Nappy as a neighbor and signed DoF's with him for the entire game and he was a perfect gentleman. I have also had him DoW me every 10 turns for an entire game simply because he is bored.

^^ thanks...is that why at the start the ai woud do (almost) equal RA

But now they suggest i give them gold, iron and horses as my part of the deal?

BTW on a positive note, the espionage is handled very well indeed

paulcarri said:

^^ thanks...is that why at the start the ai woud do (almost) equal RA

But now they suggest i give them gold, iron and horses as my part of the deal?

BTW on a positive note, the espionage is handled very well indeed

Click to expand...

The AI wants 100G for each era difference to make up for you being ahead of them. It makes getting RA's impossible endgame on anything lower than emperor because you will have to pony up 200-300 gold.

On emperor they will always be behind unless you are running military techs. On immortal most of the AI will fall permanently behind in eras around the modern era and only the one or two runaway science civs like Cathy will be in the same era part of the time

joshua43214 said:

If you have a warmonger neighbor, make friends with their friends (not them), or bride them to war on someone else.

Click to expand...

Is this a new Civ UA in BNW?

open the trade window with a civ, there is a button that says "other players," click this and select "declare war on" and see what they want to declare war on someone. You can also shop around and see who will pay you the most to declare war on your neighbor.

joshua43214 said:

open the trade window with a civ, there is a button that says "other players," click this and select "declare war on" and see what they want to declare war on someone. You can also shop around and see who will pay you the most to declare war on your neighbor.

Click to expand...

Yeah I get that - you obviously missed the joke (you had written "bride" not "bribe", and so I figured war-by-marriage sounded vaguely Austrian UA...)

well despite the ai issues, i totally enjoyed my first game, and it felt how the english should play too!!! all about the navy, and the spies reminded me of 'the great game'

I dont know if its a bug, but when i upgraded my longbows to gatlings, i kept the range!

and when going to machine guns..

Yet that meant i couldnt upgrade to mech inf (not sure id have wanted to though)

Also because i had no coal i couldnt upgrade caravels to destroyers because you HAVE to do the intermediate upgrade, odd but no biggie

Anyway game is a lot of fun ..onto the next one