I am really bummed about the lack of relationship modifiers information

It will be exciting to see how diplo will work.
It is in close relation with how AI thinks of the game.

Devs say AI wants to win this time.

It translates it into this, I hope:

AI always try to "develop" in the way it chooses, in the direction that leads to the kind of victory AI aims to.
Like a human does.
I hope.

No, it shouldn't mean automatic gang up on the human player... but it could happen...

I can imagine that:

on the one hand:

- You can never trust the AI neighbour TOO much, whatsoever...
because a neighbour might wish to develop geographically ("phisically") in a way to make its the area bigger
- so war may always be an issue from a neighbour.
- Citiy states: you can easily hurt spheres of AI interest when dealing with a CS - leads to cold relations with AI, and to war maybe
- AI not neighbour to you might see at one point that
you, human are CERTAINLY the most likely civ to win sooner that named AI:
so AI can make Pact of Secrecy against you with your neighbour AI or another strong AI, or yes, even with as many AI as possible
(wouldn't you do the same?) - AI coalition might have war against you
(IF all AIs see this their best interest, for each and all of them)

on the other hand

- AI might enter into trade: if it sees it more positive than negative, or neutral
(ie. AI develops and you don't develop TOO much as to become an inevitable winner)
- AI might enter into Cooperation Pact or a Secrecy Pact, for a certain benefit it sees, and for a certain time frame it can mean that you are friends
- but hell, it doesn't and shouldn't guarantee anything for far future or forever... interests might change...

- you give (or get) a gift: it shouldn't mean TOO much, I mean, nothing much comes from it as indication relation
(for example I give units to AI to win a war against another AI - it doesn't mean I love the AI I give units to...)

All in all:
I don't care too much about relations, but interests, yes
Politics is done with cold heart...

And:
I hope the rule that apply to AI-human relations will apply the same way to AI-AI ones...

finally, I wonder:
Maybe some AIs will reach to a point in the game when they see they cannot win
(they are too undeveloped, too small, too weak...).
Will their behavoiur change? EDIT: maybe sg. like city states behaviour?
If yes, what will they aim to?
Simply to get a better overall score?
To help a "best friend"?

Uh, well wait and see, in a week or so

Those who favour a tough strategy game.

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This argument is ridiculous and insulting.

Its like saying: if you didn't get to move any of your units (the AI moved them for you) then the game would be harder, because you couldn't use superior tactical combat decisions to improve your performance.

Therefore anyone who wants to be able to move their own units is not in favor of having a tough strategy game.

chongli said:

I don't know whether it makes it more or less strategic but what you can't deny is that it makes it easier. Arguing in favour of making the game easier in order to promote "realism" puts you squarely in the first camp.

You simply cannot have a tough strategy game if the human player is given unfair advantages over the AI players.

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That makes no sense at all.

If in starcraft 2 all units you build would have a random attack value, it would make the game more difficult, but absolutly not more strategical. It's the oposite, it would make it hard due to luck beeing involved.

The game should be hard by other means, not by removing strategic layers making them random.

chongli said:

In your opinion. The way I see it, this whole issue boils down to 2 camps:

1. Those who favour an historical simulator.
2. Those who favour a tough strategy game.

Essentially, these are two very different video game genres. While Civ 4 was inclined toward the former, Civ 5 appears to be more of the latter. Arguing over which one is superior is pointless. It's simply a matter of personal taste.

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Civ4 Deity wasn't challenging enough?

kaltorak said:

That makes no sense at all.

If in starcraft 2 all units you build would have a random attack value, it would make the game more difficult, but absolutly not more strategical. It's the oposite.

The game should be hard by other means, not by removing strategic layers making them random.

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Well, what if you were given the same limitations as the AI? What if you were not permitted to attack another Civ if you were too good of friends? What if you weren't able to trick an opponent into thinking you're his/her friend, just to stab them in the back later? Does that seem like a good system?

I know that I abused the heck out of knowing what another Civ really thought of me in IV. I know why the system existed in CivIV, but it would be nice if it didn't have to be that way.

I don't think anyone's looking for "random" in how the AI behaves. I don't see it as removing a strategic layer, but adding a different type of thinking. Hopefully, if the AI is good enough this time around, it won't seem as erratic as in previous Civs. Hopefully, a little intiution and being a good judge of the circumstances will let you realize what is really happening. I mean, I talk to other people every day, and I normally have a pretty good idea of what they really think of me (whether I can hover a cursor over them to see all of the accumulated bonuses and penalties or not). The game will obviously be way simpler than RL; and no, not everything in the game needs to be totally realistic. But diplomacy has LESS meaning and is less strategic (IMHO) if the person you're talking to is totally transparent to you.

Trying to make the AI behave as a human won't work in civilization. For that to happen you would have to remove personalities and almost all the diplomacy aspect. That would not be civilization.

So don't campare them. There's the AI's, and there's the human players. And they work different.

No relationship modifiers?!

If this is true... it's pretty lame.

Last time I checked, digging a mine into a mountain doesn't miraculously increase production output, it provides more rocks. If there is a resource in the mountains, then it provides a definitive limited amount of that resource after which there is no more. The resource doesn't increase productivity either, it just provides more raw materials. However, in Civ4, putting a mine down on a hill increased your city's productivity.

My point is that there are many things that are much LESS realistic than being able to quantify how strong your civ's relationship with other civs is.

I remember the vagueness of relationships in Civ3. It was soooo lame compared to Civ4.

All I ask is someone mod relationship modifiers into Civ5 if they have truly been taken out. I'll even try to help as best as I can.

Knowing all the relationship modifiers is test-amount to cheating, why would anyone know exactly what someone else thought of them or even another third party. Perhaps their could be shared modifiers if you and another Civ become allies, but even then, he doesn't get to see how you are feeling, if they want single player to be anything like multi player, then it should be like playing another human, who are unpredictable and at time's completely illogical. Not that the AI will ever be that good, (not till it can learn for itself and tries to eliminate man kind.) but keeping us from being clairvoyant stops us having that extra advantage, perhaps in Civ4 it was needed because the AI had other diplomatic benefits with each other, but that doesn't make the mechanic essential this time around.

Its comparable to turning off fog of war but not doing the same for the AI's (who are hidden from knowing where your stuff is until it is close, fog of war).

I agree with 12agnarOk. The human really had an unfair advantage with relationship numbers.

I'm really happy Civ V removed them. I find it funnier when the AIs really try to win like a player would.

Since the AIs don't know what I think, there's no way I should know for sure what THEY think either.

It doesn't mean randomness at all, since good relations ARE still important. Having friends is still as important as before, to reach the goal of your nation, so you won't want to make everybody angry, and neither will the AIs.

Much funnier that way in my opinion.

It comes down to "Good" AI vs. "Fun" AI. I know this has been brought up in threads in the past but anyone interested in this subject should take some time to watch Soren Johnson's talk on AI design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

Basically he argues there are two philosophies of AI design that apply to games in general, not just CIV. On one hand you have the "Good" AI which is primarily designed to "win the game". Think of chess AI, or WOPR from "War Games" On the other hand you have "Fun" AI which is more focused around improving the player experience while you play the game. This is the AI that you can interact with and "roleplay" a bit -- its goal isn't explicitly to "play human" but for you to have fun with while you play the game.

Both systems have their pros and cons. "Good" AI, while being challenging, can lead to un-fun games if you constantly lose to it, and the lack of transparency can feel too random to a player. "Fun" AI, while more "roleplay" focused, is more subject to being gamed by clever players since its rules of behavior are more transparent. There's more to it than that, but that's the basic argument.

He goes on to say that when they were designing CIV 4, the AI system sat somewhere in the middle of those two design approaches. It was transparent with the modifiers representing the "Fun" AI, but it also wanted to win the game.

It's pretty clear to me that the designers of CIV5 took that philosophy from CIV4 and split it in half. They basically created two different AI systems: The Leaders, and the City-states.

The Leaders represent the "Good AI". They are the black box, that is playing to beat you. They are less predicable but being world leaders you should fear them.

The City-states represent the "Fun AI". Your relationship to them is very transparent. You can very clearly see where you stand with them and what it takes to improve your standing. They interact with you more and "roleplay" via quests and what not.

Now here's the good news for CIV 5. We have both types of play. EVERYONE WINS! We should all be happy

Would we expect a poker AI to let us hover our mouse over and look at its hole card? Or tell us when it was about to bluff?

That would not make for a fun game. If the Civ 5 AI wants to win it will need to mislead and deceive, and giving us a truthful answers to "what do you think of me/other AI" is irreconcilable with that.

I think its a good thing to remove the modifiers. To be honest there is no way the AI at this point is going to outsmart a reasonable intelligent human being. The only way the harder difficulty levels are even hard is due to a bonus to the AI's science and production, at least in previous Civ's.

So anytime something is removed from the game that gives the player information that can be easily manipulated in a way only the human player can manipulate it, it should be removed. Human players can build up a great standing with an AI only to back stab him when convenient. In order for the AI to do this as well you can't have a modifier system. If you did all of the fans of it would cry foul whenever the AI turned on em when they had a +35 positive relationship.

I am not saying remove all available information or anything like that. what I am saying is make the same information open to interpretation. Don't give us a + or - number to anything. If Washington likes you when you talk to him he gives you a smile and a warm welcome. If not you get a poker face or scowl. Let there be a line or two of opening dialog where they can comment on a good or bad thing that they see toward you. This would let you know what you are doing right or wrong and you can go about fixing it if you choose.

Another thing that would be great would be to add a system like Civ 4 had for asking what the leaders of certain civs thought about other civs. Now take it a step further, ask Monty what he thinks about some of your actions or policies instead of just what he thinks about Washington. Does he like, dislike, or feel indifferent to your military being so close to him? You done need a + or - number for this. He can just tell you his general feeling. This would not be a set in stone thing, and would be left for you to interpret. Is he being honest? You will need to look at your past dealing with him to decide.

This is what makes the game fun to me. Being able to beat a game on deity is not really a challenge when the entire game is really just an extra credit project for a math class. Some things need to be vague and uncertain. And vague and uncertain in no way equals pure randomness.

kaltorak said:

Yes, I know I am talking in civ4 terms. We just don't know enough about how civ5 relations are going to work, so I use civ4 to make the examples. But the little we know doesn't look better than civ4 ones. Just too erratic.

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Well, it seems to base everything on an entirely different logic. From a Civ4 perspective, it might seem erratic, from a Civ5 perspective, it'll probably seem logical. It's like trying to understand football by applying the rules of baseball. Sure you could say that downs are like at bats and a failure you complete a pass on a down is like an out, but when a guy throws an interception on the first pass and turns the ball over, you can't call the change of possession random because he didn't get three outs. It's a different game with different rules. Civ5 diplomacy isn't Civ4 diplomacy. It's not about relationship building like the last game was. Telling if another Civ "likes" you isn't as important as knowing which civs are threatened by you and which would rather work with you.

Louis XXIV said:

Diplomacy is City-State centered. The strategy to win is to have more city-state friends than your rival (and, ideally, convert or destroy your rival's city-states). Apparently (if indications are true), a Civilization will vote for you if you liberate their capital. In that sense, there are still game mechanics that separate them from people, but it's limited in its application.

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Which also means YOU may be forced to vote for another civ if They liberate your capital.


An interesting way of looking at it, the AI doesn't have Friends, the AI has interests.

The AI is continually evaluating you (and other AIs) in terms of which actions toward you will best further their interests.

I doubt that. Nothing would piss a player off more than losing to a diplomatic victory because someone rescued them 50 turns ago and they were forced to vote for them.

My guess is it's a gameplay mechanic designed to reward a player for playing nice and being the liberator (otherwise, you'd just keep other player's cities and capital instead of returning them). Civs should play to win, but this is something that's limited enough in its application that they can make an exception and have them play more like a computer.

Louis XXIV said:

I doubt that. Nothing would piss a player off more than losing to a diplomatic victory because someone rescued them 50 turns ago and they were forced to vote for them.

My guess is it's a gameplay mechanic designed to reward a player for playing nice and being the liberator (otherwise, you'd just keep other player's cities and capital instead of returning them). Civs should play to win, but this is something that's limited enough in its application that they can make an exception and have them play more like a computer.

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Well in that case the AI should be coded to never liberate a human player's capital (have the Human player buy it off of them for several hundred gold per turn)

Or perhaps that can be an explicit deal.... we will give you your capital, if and only if you promise to support us for diplomatic victory.

Stop using the "it would be too easy" argument against displaying the mods. Turning the game into a guessig game isn't making it harder, it's just making it more luck based.

If you think beeing a player is a diplomacy advantage, you can always think that the AI has 6 possibilities of winning against 1 of the human, asuming equal skills (and 7 civs)

I like the change. You have to consider how the other side might feel about a deal based on your past experience with them, rather than just have the game tell you everything. It adds a layer of skill to diplomacy rather than just min/maxing numbers. Increases the immersion.

12agnar0k said:

Knowing all the relationship modifiers is test-amount to cheating, why would anyone know exactly what someone else thought of them or even another third party.

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In real world, countries have (and have always had) quite good knowledge of what other countries think of them, and what country A thinks of country B. It may not be exact, but it's much more than nothing. Black box AIs are utterly unrealistic and take away the immersion.

if they want single player to be anything like multi player, then it should be like playing another human

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That's a wrong goal. People play MP because they want to play against real humans. AI that act like a human player is not the same. There's no point trying to imitate MP in SP.

I hope they didn't try to make the AI play like a human, because that would fail.