Why are leaders so unreasonable?

I've been playing a game on King difficulty and the most annoying thing I find about leaders is that trade is practically useless with them. For example, I offered to ask the neighboring Indians what they'd exchange for 50 gold when they switched the tables and asked for 5 horses in exchange for nothing. In addition, I have been at war with Mongolia for the majority of the game because the only way they'll sign a peace treaty is if I give them all of my available resources, gold and the majority of my cities in exchange for nothing on their part.

Thus, I have given up diplomacy and trying to get luxury resources to make my people happy because other civs won't make near reasonable deals. In fact, they bribe me into giving them resources promising they'd "give something back when times are better" but of course they never do. Fortunately, I am friends with every civ aside from the Mongols.

Krunchyman said:

I've been playing a game on King difficulty and the most annoying thing I find about leaders is that trade is practically useless with them. For example, I offered to ask the neighboring Indians what they'd exchange for 50 gold when they switched the tables and asked for 5 horses in exchange for nothing. In addition, I have been at war with Mongolia for the majority of the game because the only way they'll sign a peace treaty is if I give them all of my available resources, gold and the majority of my cities in exchange for nothing on their part.

Thus, I have given up diplomacy and trying to get luxury resources to make my people happy because other civs won't make near reasonable deals. In fact, they bribe me into giving them resources promising they'd "give something back when times are better" but of course they never do. Fortunately, I am friends with every civ aside from the Mongols.

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They only give reasonable deals if they like you, so you have to do things to make them happy (and if you can spare those horses, it's helpful to give them to Gandhi as a show of good faith - he'll give you a "We traded recently" modifier).

Except peace deals - the AI never makes reasonable peace deals until you've destroyed their army.

Also, as for the five horses for nothing, the AI does that just to see if they can get it out of you. If that's on the table for nothing in return you can generally safely click it off with no detriment.

Well I understand that they propose really stupid deals (Like 8 single luxury resources of your for one of their 7 silks) when they are Hostile to you, as you as a human wouldn't even look a deal with someone you know you are going to war with.
But it's just none sense how after a War when you wiped off every city of a Civ except for the most recent settled with 6 pop tops and no military, and they WILL NOT GIVE YOU EVEN OPEN BORDERS, NOR GIVE THEM TO YOU WHEN YOU DEMAND IT, having the best military of the modern era
I HATE this

DevilHell said:

But it's just none sense how after a War when you wiped off every city of a Civ except for the most recent settled with 6 pop tops and no military, and they WILL NOT GIVE YOU EVEN OPEN BORDERS, NOR GIVE THEM TO YOU WHEN YOU DEMAND IT, having the best military of the modern era
I HATE this

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I'm really hesitant to use the demand option at all, just because it tends to hamper (usually already poor) relations, and, at least for me, often makes the AI even more resistant and uncooperative. If you were playing a human player, it'd probably be different because the player will do anything to stay alive, but in my experience the AI isn't smart enough to know when to keep its head down. In this particular situation, I would give the AI some time to cool off and rebuild, and then try again.

Of course, some leaders are so obstinate that they refuse to talk to you once you do them the slightest injustice... I'm looking at you Lizzy

It feels as if there is currently a serious glitch when re-negotiating deals that screws up AI evaluation of items in a deal:

(1) The AI will often not value strategic ressources, mostly iron and horses, even when they could still be useful. Sometimes these are added to a deal by the AI, but since their actual value on the deal is 0, you can manually remove them and still come to an agreement. I have no clue how or why it happens, but as a rule of thumb:
Always remove any strategic ressource from a deal offer and see if the AI accepts.

(2) The AI is also regularary adding too much gold on the table on your side or too few on theirs. So you ALWAYS have to re-negotiate any offer (or counter offer) that involves money. SO. TEDIOUS.
Always re-negotiate any deal that involves money. Remove the gold from the list and add it back, with a slightly lower number if you are suppost to pay it, with a slightly higher number if you are supposed to get it, or add a small amount of gold if the AI previously didn't want to give you any.

The only deals that you can handle with safety seem to be the 1:1 research agreements and the 1:1 luxury trades. Which sucks, because it makes diplomacy a useless clickfest...

eisforeccentric said:

I'm really hesitant to use the demand option at all, just because it tends to hamper (usually already poor) relations, and, at least for me, often makes the AI even more resistant and uncooperative. If you were playing a human player, it'd probably be different because the player will do anything to stay alive, but in my experience the AI isn't smart enough to know when to keep its head down. In this particular situation, I would give the AI some time to cool off and rebuild, and then try again.

Of course, some leaders are so obstinate that they refuse to talk to you once you do them the slightest injustice... I'm looking at you Lizzy

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I did my waiting!
300 years of it!
*You know what comes here..*
I didn't touch Darius for 300 years, just gathered a couple of archers around my border to prevent him to use his 20 pikemen
So yeah.. This aspect is broken.. At least in Vanilla

DevilHell said:

I did my waiting!
300 years of it!
*You know what comes here..*
I didn't touch Darius for 300 years, just gathered a couple of archers around my border to prevent him to use his 20 pikemen
So yeah.. This aspect is broken.. At least in Vanilla

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Well, in that case he's probably not going to agree to anything. At this point, you might be better off wiping him out, whether you do it yourself or you bribe someone else into doing it. Sure, if you do it yourself you'll get the genocide and warmonger penalties, but IMO it's better than having him a) not trade with you whatsoever and b) denounce you over and over.

i wouldnt give up OP , trading is very important and offers big bonuses to your play , you can sell a resource allowing you to upgrade your army or rush buy something vital and of course the happiness boost you need at the start.

They only give fair deals if they friendly , below that they usually rip you off . So having friends is worthwhile.

One thing that can screw you with diplomacy is a weak army , having a couple of extra units can make all the diffrence. If everyone looks at you as the wimp of the game you end up with nobody liking you. Even though your small army can crush the AI when its army suicides against your bowmen and walled city.

The AI is mental in this game but there are sensible things you can do to have it work in your favour more.

If the AI offers a vastly imbalanced peace treaty demand its simply because they think they can win or you havent done enough damage to them . Once they realise defeat is inevitable and you havent wiped most of there cities out they offer you the kitchen sink and all there gold for peace.

I've found the AI very fair if its 'friendly' , the deals they offer or will accept are basically always the same. If they dont offer a fair deal when 'friendly' its because they are about to stop being friendly very very soon. A couple of times this early warning of an attack has saved me.

I'm still at war with the Mongols. They entered the industrial era a few turns ago and I'm still in the middle of the renaissance era. Despite having 30+ cities compared to my 20, they have been unable to do much damage to my military. During the classical era, I captured one of their cities and they've been trying to get it back for the entire game. They've been unsuccessful due to terrible tactics. I built a citadel in the area and fortified it with a musketeer, which they have tried and failed to attack over and over again. Despite this, my need to produce units to counter theirs has led to a sapping of my resources. Persia is possibly stronger than the mongols and their recent hostility towards me suggests we are going to go to war soon.

My science is lagging and it takes an immense amount of turns to build military units because all of my cities are stagnant and won't grow even though I've built farms, granaries and food-producing improvements. I've tried to get gold from my allies but they only offer loan-type deals where they offer me 180 gold in exchange for 6 gold for 30 turns plus 5 iron for 30 turns ect.

Krunchyman said:

I've been playing a game on King difficulty and the most annoying thing I find about leaders is that trade is practically useless with them. For example, I offered to ask the neighboring Indians what they'd exchange for 50 gold when they switched the tables and asked for 5 horses in exchange for nothing. In addition, I have been at war with Mongolia for the majority of the game because the only way they'll sign a peace treaty is if I give them all of my available resources, gold and the majority of my cities in exchange for nothing on their part.

Thus, I have given up diplomacy and trying to get luxury resources to make my people happy because other civs won't make near reasonable deals. In fact, they bribe me into giving them resources promising they'd "give something back when times are better" but of course they never do. Fortunately, I am friends with every civ aside from the Mongols.

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I've seen trade deals range from 30 gold for a luxury (which I've actually offered to a civ that was weak but a good "buffer" for me on the map), to 159 gold plus 5 gpt for some luxury. Why such different ranges, I have no idea?

I've also often seen, at least once per game, some AI demand a resource for nothing ... I always answer, go to hell.

I think the stronger the AI is in comparison to the player the more they offer over time. I've seen both ridiculous concessions (500 gold plus 30something gpt plus other luxury for peace) to ridiculous demands like you describe. It has to be based on the difference between your strength & the AI.

One for one luxury always seem to work if the AI has 2 or more of that luxury.

I've also often seen, at least once per game, some AI demand a resource for nothing ... I always answer, go to hell.

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That's generally a bad idea. It's invariably a resource you have spare, and the "nothing" you gain in return is positive relations with a civ through the strong, and generally permanent, "You helped us when we needed it" modifier. This is usually more valuable than a one-off gold payment or a luxury exchange if you want an AI ally.

For my likings the AI still isn't nowhere near quick enough to realize that a war is not necessarily going well for it even though it seems to have better army by whatever measure it's using. After losing x units without killing one and losing one or more cities it should offer roughly equal peace rather than losing all units & then starting to negotiate.

Another thing is OB not included in peace deals - perhaps some purpose gamewise but totally against everything else. AI prefers to go extinct before giving up OB which seems rather odd priority. The real world is yet to see a peace deal dictated by the winner where the loser gives up everything but a right to pass through it's territory.

G

Krunchyman said:

I've been playing a game on King difficulty and the most annoying thing I find about leaders is that trade is practically useless with them. For example, I offered to ask the neighboring Indians what they'd exchange for 50 gold when they switched the tables and asked for 5 horses in exchange for nothing. In addition, I have been at war with Mongolia for the majority of the game because the only way they'll sign a peace treaty is if I give them all of my available resources, gold and the majority of my cities in exchange for nothing on their part.

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The AI is not being unreasonable. For whatever reason, he is simply valuing Horses at 0 gold.

This can happen if the AI already has enough of the resources (either he has his own sources or you're already providing a bunch). In addition, in later tech eras they eventually value Horses and Iron at 0.

Yes, it can be annoying when they keep asking for it on top of everything else (just remove it and they won't mind).

If it makes you feel better, you can sometimes (not always) play a similar game. If they value Horses and Iron at 0 but they have a supply themselves, you can often get them to give it to you for free if you are doing another deal anyway. So in the Industrial era, they will freely give you all their Horses and Iron, though it's not as if it will be that useful for you!