Diplomacy tutorial

What is the "Research Agreement blocked path" exploit?
 
What is the "Research Agreement blocked path" exploit?

You research 25% or 33% into a tech, and it will never be picked as a random tech from RA if you have at least one other tech that is at 0% researched.
 
This is not a diplomacy tutorial. The true test of diplomacy is when a person does the opposite of what is suggested and things do not work out. I just tried the same settings as here and played a few maps until I got Spain as a neighbor. On turn 7 Issy was surprised that I hadn't been run over by barbs. (Not possible in the game.) On turn 8 she denounced me. So I DoWed on the spot. I didn't do a thing to prosecute the war. After a few turns, I got a peace treaty + 135 gold for doing nothing at all. Now try and tell me that diplomacy is working.
 
This is not a diplomacy tutorial. The true test of diplomacy is when a person does the opposite of what is suggested and things do not work out. I just tried the same settings as here and played a few maps until I got Spain as a neighbor. On turn 7 Issy was surprised that I hadn't been run over by barbs. (Not possible in the game.) On turn 8 she denounced me. So I DoWed on the spot. I didn't do a thing to prosecute the war. After a few turns, I got a peace treaty + 135 gold for doing nothing at all. Now try and tell me that diplomacy is working.

When they first meet you civs can be one of a mix of attitudes towards you. This is determined by RNG but with some civs having a bias towards particular states. Issy happened to be negatively disposed towards you from the outset. This is nothing to complain about, not everyone you meet wants to be your friend and some people or groups hate anyone different to them. The same is true in the Civ world.

Then she dissed the size of your army. It had nothing to do with the actual likelihood of you being overcome by barbarians. When a civ doesn't like you and you have a lower military power rating than them they will mock you about it. Your army doesn't even have to be small, just smaller than theirs. She's serious, she insults you and denounces you. So her actions up till this point are perfectly understandable. She doesn't like you on first meeting, and she's letting you know about it too.

Your actions on the other hand are quite strange. After she insults you you decide to declare war. This isn't bad in itself but what you do is very odd. You say that she offered you a peace 'after a few turns'. It's highly likely that you killed some of her units, or she lost them elsewhere, during these turns and her power rating dropped below yours, or at least to near parity. Now she wants to buy you out of the war as you are a threat to her.

And you decide to take her up on the offer for what? 135:c5gold: = peanuts. You just declared war, increasing your warmonger hate with other civs and making it more likely that sooner rather than later you won't be able to get full price for trades or have secure RAs. You didn't even denounce her before you DoW, which would have increased your relations with other civs who have denounced her in the past or near future. You want to get more out of this than 135:c5gold:.

Her actions I understand, but IMO yours on the other hand show a serious lack of understanding of how diplomacy works in Civ 5.
 
When they first meet you civs can be one of a mix of attitudes towards you. This is determined by RNG but with some civs having a bias towards particular states. Issy happened to be negatively disposed towards you from the outset. This is nothing to complain about, not everyone you meet wants to be your friend and some people or groups hate anyone different to them. The same is true in the Civ world.

Then she dissed the size of your army. It had nothing to do with the actual likelihood of you being overcome by barbarians. When a civ doesn't like you and you have a lower military power rating than them they will mock you about it. Your army doesn't even have to be small, just smaller than theirs. She's serious, she insults you and denounces you. So her actions up till this point are perfectly understandable. She doesn't like you on first meeting, and she's letting you know about it too.

Your actions on the other hand are quite strange. After she insults you you decide to declare war. This isn't bad in itself but what you do is very odd. You say that she offered you a peace 'after a few turns'. It's highly likely that you killed some of her units, or she lost them elsewhere, during these turns and her power rating dropped below yours, or at least to near parity. Now she wants to buy you out of the war as you are a threat to her.

And you decide to take her up on the offer for what? 135 = peanuts. You just declared war, increasing your warmonger hate with other civs and making it more likely that sooner rather than later you won't be able to get full price for trades or have secure RAs. You didn't even denounce her before you DoW, which would have increased your relations with other civs who have denounced her in the past or near future. You want to get more out of this than 135.

Her actions I understand, but IMO yours on the other hand show a serious lack of understanding of how diplomacy works in Civ 5
You mean doesn't work in civ V. The OP also made a comparison to civ IV. Try loading up an emperor level game there. DoW before turn 10 and show a profit by turn 20 without lifting a figure or any semblance of a military. Then come back and tell me how well diplomacy is working in civ V.

Granted I probably sounded overly harsh. But all items presented do not constitute proof of working diplomacy. The only proof is to show that doing the opposite of what is recommended fails. At this point in time it doesn't fail. So nothing has been proven.
 
You mean doesn't work in civ V. The OP also made a comparison to civ IV. Try loading up an emperor level game there. DoW before turn 10 and show a profit by turn 20 without lifting a figure or any semblance of a military. Then come back and tell me how well diplomacy is working in civ V.

Granted I probably sounded overly harsh. But all items presented do not constitute proof of working diplomacy. The only proof is to show that doing the opposite of what is recommended fails. At this point in time it doesn't fail. So nothing has been proven.

Different levels of infraction have different consequences. An early DoW (pre turn 10) means that you and the AI haven't all met each other yet, and therefore the tree of relations has yet to include everyone. If you go and declare war on Isabella 20 turns later, the repercussions are likely to be much more severe. By this time you are both likely to have met most of the civs between the 2 of you (depending on map size) therefore that declaration is going to be seen by a good percentage of the civs.

The diplomacy system in V is different from the others, so it takes a different angle of approach. It is partially unnecessary in V, but can be a great asset when used correctly, which I think is what this tutorial is really about.
 
I'd like to be able to ask them directly, thanks. Having to sift through diplomacy menus and figuring out "who denounced/friendship'd who" can get rather annoying. Is it wrong to add this feature in, when it has been in other Civ games?

Try the InfoAddict Mod. It will show a diplomacy windows close to that of Civ4.
 
Different levels of infraction have different consequences. An early DoW (pre turn 10) means that you and the AI haven't all met each other yet, and therefore the tree of relations has yet to include everyone. If you go and declare war on Isabella 20 turns later, the repercussions are likely to be much more severe. By this time you are both likely to have met most of the civs between the 2 of you (depending on map size) therefore that declaration is going to be seen by a good percentage of the civs.

The diplomacy system in V is different from the others, so it takes a different angle of approach. It is partially unnecessary in V, but can be a great asset when used correctly, which I think is what this tutorial is really about.
Its a fine tutorial as far as tutorials goes. I only maintain that all the supposed fixes only mask the fact that the diplomacy system is broken. Both the AI and UI lie to a person's face. UI says an AI wants friendly relations, but it means only if they ask but not if I do. Dishonesty is at the core of diplomacy. I make most decisions based on where my gold is coming from. It is better to spend my time coin collecting than lie detecting. A person can play a nearly peaceful game based on gold considerations alone while following the advice of this tutorial can go haywire. The thing I do the same as here is have a military on hand whether I build myself or have a CS do it. Carrying a big stick is always nice.
 
Thanks for nice comments, and love the discussion taking part here.

I've never said that diplomacy is perfect in Civ 5. I am far from completely satisfied by it. Diplomacy has always been bad in Civ, but the whining in these forums is always about how bad Civ 5's diplomacy is compared to previous titles, where I totally disagree. It's much better than the previous games, it's just that most people either don't understand, or don't want to understand. Liberation is still a joke though.

This is not a diplomacy tutorial. The true test of diplomacy is when a person does the opposite of what is suggested and things do not work out. I just tried the same settings as here and played a few maps until I got Spain as a neighbor. On turn 7 Issy was surprised that I hadn't been run over by barbs. (Not possible in the game.) On turn 8 she denounced me. So I DoWed on the spot. I didn't do a thing to prosecute the war. After a few turns, I got a peace treaty + 135 gold for doing nothing at all. Now try and tell me that diplomacy is working.

Well, Spain acted like Greece did in my game. There's not really anything you can do about that, but you can influence your other neighbours to join you in an alliance against Spain. This makes them less likely to go to war against you, and more likely to become your friend. Civs have a bit random personalities from game to game, and Spain can surely be a crazy one. I don't think I've ever seen psychopath AIs only hate the player though, so ask around, bribe, sign a DoF. (But be prepared to pay the "gifts")

If you get a peace treaty + 135 gold, then that must mean you have a stronger army than hers. No wonder she wants peace then.
 
Well, Spain acted like Greece did in my game. There's not really anything you can do about that, but you can influence your other neighbours to join you in an alliance against Spain. This makes them less likely to go to war against you, and more likely to become your friend. Civs have a bit random personalities from game to game, and Spain can surely be a crazy one. I don't think I've ever seen psychopath AIs only hate the player though, so ask around, bribe, sign a DoF. (But be prepared to pay the "gifts")

If you get a peace treaty + 135 gold, then that must mean you have a stronger army than hers. No wonder she wants peace then.
I can usually play a pretty peaceful game, ignoring the diplo stuff altogether. Trying to understand it's dishonest roots only makes me mad. So ignore, and peacefully inoway.
 
Some people like to play nice and building and expanding peacefully. I'm the backstabby kind so the AI in this game doesn't affect me much. I secretly do want their lands...
 
To the OP:

Can you generalize this tutorial in a 1), 2) etc etc. steps form, so it will become easier for us to know exactly what to do and why we're doing this or that?

Thanks in advance.
 
This example shows that the Declaration of Friendship is a strong tool to maintain good and peaceful relationships, but it's all based on that they want to be your friends in the first place. Had Aztecs and Spain been hostile and not friendly when they were met, there would have been little to do except to wait if they just happen to become friendly in some point. The diplo situation is pretty much given - you can maintain it or mess it up doing simple things, but there is little you can do to improve it with any kind of strategical planning.

Basically diplo play in this game is really simple (much much simpler than it was in IV), and can be summed up quite well in couple of points:

-Don't do things that tend to make everyone angry (wipe enemy civ completely, attack city states, declare war or denounce a civ you have a declaration of friendship with...)
-If you wan't to be a long lasting friend with someone, make a declaration of friendship with him and give him tribute when he asks it.
 
I have a few specific questions.

Does bribing civs to go to war with someone have any negative diplomacy effects on the briber?

If I kill off a civ or city state and other civs havent met me yet will they have the warmongering menace diplo penalty.

Can there be "second hand" warmongering diplo. By this I mean America knows both India and Aztecs. India and Aztecs don't know each other. Aztecs kill off a city state and civ. America will view Aztecs as a warmonger, but will India also when Aztecs meet india? What if America denounces Aztecs and india hasn't met Aztecs. Can india "see" the denunciation before they meet Aztecs? What about after they meet Aztecs will diplo still show India the denunciation.

Once viewed as a warmonger is there any way for you to undo that or will everyone just hate you the rest of the game?

Is the warmongering menace only from killing off civs/city states or is DOW also attain that diplo status?

Now my comments:

I want them to have other civs occasionally attempt to bribe you to war with other civs. Doesnt seem fair that they only ask you to, when Im willing to bet they bribe each other or you can bribe them.

I also think you should be able to politely ask for things and sometimes they will give it.
Right now the only way i know is to demand it (negative diplo effects) or offer a one sided trade which they view purely as a trade and will always refuse.
 
Do you think this strategy would be easy to implement on say a Pangea where there are so many civs who know each other from the get go? I mean you had to maneuver Monty and Elizabeth to dislike Alex, but I would imagine that gets tougher when you have 4 more civs to deal with.

Love the tutorial btw, I am going to try it out right now.
 
First, thanks for trying to help us with diplomacy. It is appreciate. Anyway,

Let's see how many examples of bad diplomacy we can see in this post:

"This means Greece will go to war against you, it's just a matter of time"

If you can (rightly) predict who will go to war with you almost immediately, this is a sign of poor diplomacy

"He wants to have open borders with me, but I refuse. I always refuse open borders. Maybe it's just paranoia, but I think war is more likely with open borders signed. "

Now you can't enter any other territory because of the bad diplomacy in this game.

""Montezuma is friendly against me though"

There is absolutely no reason for him to be against you. Another sign of bad diplomacy.

"Montezuma offers me a Declaration of Friendship."

Judging by the near complete lack of positive modifiers, I can safely say that this DOF is based on close to nothing. Another sign of bad diplomacy.

"Now the thing about DoF is that they can be quite expensive if you are a rich civ, since you always have to give in to their begging, and the richer you are, the more they want. So make sure you don't have too much gold in your "bank" if you sign a DoF. "

Now you can't save up money if you are friends with anyone. The pleading is a guaranteed outcome of a DOF and the AI doesn't return the favour. Another sign of bad diplomacy.

"I've also met Spain, who is friendly" "America is friendly"
Two people who, If I understand you properly, immediately are friendly with you for no reason. Another sign of bad diplomacy.

Sorry, this is not diplomacy. Working a rubbish system doesn't make that system any better. Diplomacy is broken.
 
I really appreciate the write up the OP did on this and it's an interesting read.

I'll agree with him so far that some of the complaining about Civ V diplomacy gets old (I know, I've done a lot of it myself) but with that said, I have a problem with the premise of this thread:

- that you can play a single game with carefully laid out rules for gameplaying, work the diplomacy in this game and make a general statement about diplomacy, based on this very specific and restricted way of playing the game.

In my opinion, if you want to disprove or argue against the broken nature of diplomacy in Civ V, you have to play a series of standard games with no self imposed rules or restrictions and make those work under different strategies for each game, be it peaceful, science oriented, cultural, warmonger or something else in between.
 
A problem I have with the current diplomacy is that there is no "fear" caused by warmongering. I completely understand and agree that wiping civs/city states off the map should anger other civs.

Also remember that brutality was used in history as a means of keeping other powers in line. For example the Mongol Horde kept the peace (ironic isnt it) by the threat of their warmongering. After obliterating cities and trampling over all who opposed them many cities/governments found it easier to not oppose them at all.

It would be interesting that if you completely dominated some civs/city states, other civs would have an afraid status. This would mean as long as you appeared to be a dominant force they would fear you and obey demands/ not attack you. If you lost your military lead relative to them or a coalition, then they would come back with a vengeance for your bullying in the past.
 
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