"You broke your promise not to acquire land..."

danaphanous

religious fanatic
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Sep 6, 2013
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So Germany has told me this twice now,

the thing is though, I've never promised to him not to buy land next to him. We were at war about 30 or so turns ago and he asked me not to before that...like 50 turns ago. I said no and made him mad but that's the only case I remember. I also haven't bought any land near him in about 50 turns because that initial buy was sealing my borders. Everything since then has been natural city expansion on their own culture. The only thing I've done recently has been to convert a few cities near him from "puppet" to annexed status and to build courthouses. About 10 spaces away I also made a new settlement but that's it.

So what's the deal with this? Is he just lying and saying this because he's mad? Because I have most definitely never promised this to him and if I have it definitely hasn't been in about 70 turns because I've been on bad terms with him for about that length of time. I did notice he already had this as a neg. in his status descriptor a while back so it's possible I did something like this before the 70 turns, but if so, why is he bringing it back up now? Any deal I made with him should have expired ages ago.

Also, is there any way to check what promises or deals I've made just to see if for some reason it's buggy and remembering wrong?
 
oh, and now I remember I haven't even had a city near him until 90 turns ago. Now I'm definitely sure I never made him this promise as I remember the first time he asked and I definitely rejected it and told him I'd do what I wanted.

All the other promise mechanisms I've seen have been legitimate though the settlement one is annoying. Apparently "close" is pretty relative. After accidentally breaking this one by building 5 spaces away I just always so no so I don't accidentally break it. Plus who cares, I'm not gonna stop settling if I need space...jerks. I'm really confused about the times required to keep them though. This particular game doesn't give me certain announcements. For instance: even promises I've kept for 80+ turns it never tells me I've successfully kept. I thought maybe it was just skipping the announcement but now I'm starting to think that they're stuck on persistent this game. Another thing: I've made 3-4 research agreements and it never tells me after 10 turns that anything has come of them. Sometimes the next science is a bit cheaper so I think they may be working but it isn't announcing anything like I've heard it's supposed too.
 
AI does not distinguish between natural border growth and tile purchases when considering this promise. Agree it would be nice to have a log of these events in diplo history screen. Did they change RAs to be 10 turns? Used to be 30 turns, AFAIK still is, 10 sounds like an insane gold:science conversion ratio...
 
RAs are still 30 turns at Standard speed, so, danaphanous, you should not be expecting feedback on RA status after 10 turns. You can confirm whether an RA (or other trade) is active in the Deal History tab in the Diplomatic Overview (it shows the turn on which the trade was initiated).
 
Okay, cool. That's annoying that it doesn't distinguish natural growth from buying. I was sure it was buying bc he complained after I bought near him. I guess I'll just always say no to that one bc apparently no matter what I do if I'm near him I'm forced to break it.

RA's are 30 turns. I think the RA's are working, I was just reading old posts which said you get an announcement when they end. I'm using Aspyr's mac version and I've never gotten an announcement when a research agreement is completed. However, I do notice that either I'll finish the one I'm on early or a random science will be way less turns than normal afterward. I thought it would be applied selectively but apparently the science researched is randomly chosen bc it's only one that is a lower cost. For instance, metallurgy just plunged from 7-->2 turns of required research after my last RA with Napoleon. Still no announcement though...
 
AI does not distinguish between natural border growth and tile purchases when considering this promise.
If this is the case the game is ridiculusly broken!
You could NEVER keep such promise then since your cities will ALWAYS expand their borders unless you have 0 culture in that city.
Surely the "promise" should only refere to actively purchasing tiles?
And why do the AI think you made them a promise when you told them to off?

This is annoying me to the point where I dont find civ fun anymore.
 
NO, natural growth counts. I've had this happen to me to. Unless you can click a "do not expand borders" button, then this is a stupid rule.
 
Yeah, this annoys me that Natural border growth apparently counts. Definitely a glitch.

But I solved it by not only breaking my "promises", but breaking my foot up their... context sensitive.
 
The settlement complaints are dumb. I get them when dropping cities at the other end of my territory from the AI. The most absurd ones come from Venice. Really? It's not like he had plans to found a city there.
 
I must be lucky because I've never had it happen to me. Just had an AI complain about me settling a new city in their direction (east), somewhat hypocrytical as he'd settled north and south of me , hemming me in against the ocean. But I promised not to settle any more, then put a monument and ampitheatre in the new city, took the Tradition opener, and actually bought a tile north and east of that city to stop a city state getting it. Yet, many turns later the AI considered my promise "fulfilled".

Pretty sure you're meant to fulfill this promise so long as you don't purchase any border tiles or found new cities nearer to the AI than the one he complained about. Anything else is a bug.
 
I don’t think the problem is natural border growth. I almost always agree, and many turns later there is a pop-up about keeping my promise. I use that a prompt to go on a tile buying spree!

I read elsewhere on these forums, but cannot confirm, that the problem is actually that, even if you disagree, the AI holds you to the promise! If that is correct, and it’s consistent with my own experience, and with what is reported on this thread, then the actual choices (and consequences) are:
  1. Not agree (small diplo hit), buy tiles (small diplo hit).
  2. Not agree (small diplo hit), but don’t buy tiles (no diplo hit).
  3. Agree (no diplo hit), buy tiles anyway (big diplo hit).
  4. Agree (no diplo hit), don’t buy tiles (no diplo hit).
If this is correct, then (1) there is no opportunity as part of this dialog to improve relations; and (2) there is no getting around that buying tiles during that 50 turn window will degrade relations. It’s not a promise request, it’s a demand.

I believe the “don’t settle near me” promise demand works the same way. Both are one-way offers with no good choices.
 
I promised not to settle any more, then put a monument and ampitheatre in the new city, took the Tradition opener, and actually bought a tile north and east of that city to stop a city state getting it. Yet, many turns later the AI considered my promise "fulfilled".

It is not usual to get both demands from the same AI, but buying tiles does not count as settling, and settling does not violate the demand not to buy tiles. (Forward settling after the demand not to buy tiles gives me special glee, but I can’t often pull that off.) There also seems (in my experience) to be a short window from the “don’t settle near me” demand that aggressive tile buying does not trigger the other demand. If I can afford it, I will agree to no more settling, but then buy a bunch of tiles.
 
It is not usual to get both demands from the same AI, but buying tiles does not count as settling, and settling does not violate the demand not to buy tiles. (Forward settling after the demand not to buy tiles gives me special glee, but I can’t often pull that off.) There also seems (in my experience) to be a short window from the “don’t settle near me” demand that aggressive tile buying does not trigger the other demand. If I can afford it, I will agree to no more settling, but then buy a bunch of tiles.

Can you remind me of the difference in dialog again? The message i got after founding a new city was along the lines of "your habit of buying every scrap of available land has not gone unnoticed" . I hadn't bought any tiles at that point, so i think the other message i sometimes see - "if you continue to settle in lands i consider to be mine" would have been more appropriate.

In my experience the AI seems to use these two wordings interchangeably and assumed there was no difference in the demand not to settle and not to buy tiles - whichever message you got, and howsoever you triggered it, the AI wants you to stop doing both!
 
Yes, the dialogues are similar, but sorry, I am not sure where to get the exact phrasing. Once you know that there are two different demands, it's pretty easy to keep them straight.
 
I think I know why firaxis devs left this promise broken because they realized human players would promise to not buy tiles anymore then instead buy all cultural buildings in the city then transfer all the great works to that city to accelerate it's border expansion.

Out of all promises this is only promise I always tell the AI to take a long walk off a skyscraper with.
 
I think I know why firaxis devs left this promise broken because they realized human players would promise to not buy tiles anymore then instead buy all cultural buildings in the city then transfer all the great works to that city to accelerate it's border expansion.

That does not break the promise. Here’s the text:

Your habit of claiming every bit of land you’ve spotted has not gone unnoticed. I advise you to discontinue this.
Our apologies, we’ll refrain from settling near you in the future.
We’ll settle what lands we please.

Your purchase of land in my vicinity has caused some alarm. I caution you so that this issue does not become more serious.
Our apologies, we’ll refrain from claiming land near you in the future.
Our affairs are none of your business.
 
I get the feeling that the game sometimes considers promises to have been broken when they do it to you.

At least, I know I've had the penalty for stealing tech when I had no spy in their cities, and it seems to happen when they steal my tech. Not sure if the other promises have the same problem though.
 
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