Why AI claim me as a war-monger for no reasons?

I was playing Rome, and conquered England with legions. At that time most AI haven't met England yet. After conquering England, I still maintained a good relationship with most AI and played peacefully for about 150 turns when China suddenly declared war on me. I repulsed their attack, but didn't capture a single Chinese city nor their allied city-state and made peace with them soon. But during the war with China, all my friends (even including some who were in bad relationship with China) suddenly turned against me and said that I am a warmongering treat to the world. Why? Just because I had a lot of soldiers within my border?

You totally wiped out another Civ - England? Can you imagine if you totally wiped out England in real life what the consequences would be and for the civs that haven't met England yet, people speak, history gets talked about.

Well... if so, why they didn't turn against me earlier but thousands of years after I conquered England?

Lordleoz said:

Well... if so, why they didn't turn against me earlier but thousands of years after I conquered England?

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There really isn`t enough information we know about your game to make any real judgement on it. Civ5 is a complex game and you`re only telling us a brief synopsis of what happened.

Maybe the other Civs were too weak to act early on (they do remember). Maybe a Civ`s rich enough to pay other Civs to turn against you. maybe you did something else you forgot about?

Socratatus said:

There really isn`t enough information we know about your game to make any real judgement on it. Civ5 is a complex game and you`re only telling us a brief synopsis of what happened.

Maybe the other Civs were too weak to act early on (they do remember). Maybe a Civ`s rich enough to pay other Civs to turn against you. maybe you did something else you forgot about?

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Yeah, thanks, you remind me. I also settled a lot of cities in that time and maybe they covet my land?

Lordleoz said:

Yeah, thanks, you remind me. I also settled a lot of cities in that time and maybe they covet my land?

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Or think you settle too aggressively.
Maybe I you build a wonder someone really wanted to build it will trigger something for them and it could snowball into mass denouement/Dow if the other one were already unsure of you before.

The AI will hide reasons why it doesnt like you when friendly. They show their ugly side once they feel compelled to. Think of it like High School, your friend wont tell you that you are a loser until you are fighting.

crawf0rd said:

The AI will hide reasons why it doesnt like you when friendly. They show their ugly side once they feel compelled to. Think of it like High School, your friend wont tell you that you are a loser until you are fighting.

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This is the correct answer

crawf0rd said:

The AI will hide reasons why it doesnt like you when friendly. They show their ugly side once they feel compelled to. Think of it like High School, your friend wont tell you that you are a loser until you are fighting.

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Actually, I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the diplomacy overview will, at any time, show truthfully the different modifiers that are influencing your relationship.

kaspergm said:

Actually, I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the diplomacy overview will, at any time, show truthfully the different modifiers that are influencing your relationship.

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Nope. The AI lies constantly.

kaspergm said:

Actually, I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the diplomacy overview will, at any time, show truthfully the different modifiers that are influencing your relationship.

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As Peng Qi and crawford puts it, no, the AI will not truthfully show its REAL feelings for you until they take the step to dislike you (denounce) or declare war on you.

Mozzington said:

You totally wiped out another Civ - England? Can you imagine if you totally wiped out England in real life what the consequences would be and for the civs that haven't met England yet, people speak, history gets talked about.

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According to this logic, everyone must hate mongolia now because they conquered a huge empire hundreds of years ago.

Question said:

According to this logic, everyone must hate mongolia now because they conquered a huge empire hundreds of years ago.

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Yea, but you`re missing an important point:

Civilization leaders in game (and you) live for hundreds of years, in fact, forever. They never die. So they (and you) can remember what happened from year 0 to year now and hold a grudge.

Now if they died and new leaders took over, then, as in real life, people would gradually forgive and forget.

kaspergm said:

Actually, I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the diplomacy overview will, at any time, show truthfully the different modifiers that are influencing your relationship.

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I agree with Peng Qi, crawford, and smallfish. One way you can tell that they are lying occurs when they say that they are "friendly" (and all the modifiers they show are green), but will still not give you full price when you try to trade them a luxury. In that case, there must a negative modifier that they are hiding. (Sometimes they will only give 179 gold instead of 209 or 240 for a luxury. This is a really strong sign that they are getting ready to denounce or even DoW.)

I'm sure others have seen this before, as the dialogue with other civs is pretty limited.

I actually had Ghandi tell me that he was pretending to be friend until the point in time that he could DoW on me (as he was declaring war). Ghandi of all people!!! lol

debufferman said:

I'm sure others have seen this before, as the dialogue with other civs is pretty limited.

I actually had Ghandi tell me that he was pretending to be friend until the point in time that he could DoW on me (as he was declaring war). Ghandi of all people!!! lol

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He is not Gandhi

He is Snake Gandhi

@smallfish: SNAAA-AKE!

*sigh*

does anyone not like how the diplomacy plays in Civ5 at all? It seems people have settled in to it for better or worse when it could be much much better.

I mean it's one thing to be hated for 100 turns but for the entire game?

Pretty soon, the leaders' nationalistic tendencies (protecting their own behind) would trump over outrage of a wiped civilization 1000 years ago.

this can be solved very efficiently too...

AI memory decay. There's already the code for Influence decay, why not have the AI's warmongering memory decline after 100 turns. Still have the effect of DOWing penalty but not to the extreme.

As for the backstabbing and lying, intrigue tends to trump that and if the pact of secrecy were brought back then it would act as a counter to the misdirection the AI runs.

dilettante said:

@smallfish: SNAAA-AKE!

*sigh*

does anyone not like how the diplomacy plays in Civ5 at all? It seems people have settled in to it for better or worse when it could be much much better.

I mean it's one thing to be hated for 100 turns but for the entire game?

Pretty soon, the leaders' nationalistic tendencies (protecting their own behind) would trump over outrage of a wiped civilization 1000 years ago.

this can be solved very efficiently too...

AI memory decay. There's already the code for Influence decay, why not have the AI's warmongering memory decline after 100 turns. Still have the effect of DOWing penalty but not to the extreme.

As for the backstabbing and lying, intrigue tends to trump that and if the pact of secrecy were brought back then it would act as a counter to the misdirection the AI runs.

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Imo. diplomacy is sort of ok in the frame, there are just some crucial things that need tuning: The Warmonger label and Denounciations.
1) Warmonger label really needs to decay faster like you mention
2) Warmonger label should depend on the number of times you have DoW'ed someone vs. the number of times the AI in speak has DoW'ed someone (if I have DoW'ed someone twice and AI has DoW'ed someone 8 times, he should not label me Warmonger!)
3) Warmonger should depend on flaver of civs. Civs with Autocracy should never or only give you a minor penalty for being a Warmonger, Civs who adopt Freedom should be more prone to labeling you Warmonger
4) Denouncing someone should require a specific action - I should not just be able to denounce someone randomly, and AI's should not spam denounciations randomly. There should be a fixed list of actions that could merit a denounciation like:
- Breaking a promise (not to settle, not to convert, etc.)
- DoW'ing a CS or a Friend of the civ
- Converting their Holy city
- ...

As it is now, I think Denounciations is the single most destructive thing for diplomatic relations, because AI will randomly throw Denouncements for minor things they find annoying (hey, I wanted to build this wonder, but you beat me to it, so now I'm telling the world what a horrible person you are! WTF really? Because I build something you wanted to build yourself?) - and then when they denounce you their friends will denounce you and then you denounce them and then they denounce each other and their friends will denounce each others friends until everybody denounce everybody and it's just a complete meltdown.

well its because there aren't that many positif modifiers so as soon you're decleration of friendship goes away or you get borders suddenly all negatif modifiers get kicked in and they dow

kaspergm said:

Imo. diplomacy is sort of ok in the frame, there are just some crucial things that need tuning: The Warmonger label and Denounciations.

As it is now, I think Denounciations is the single most destructive thing for diplomatic relations, because AI will randomly throw Denouncements for minor things they find annoying (hey, I wanted to build this wonder, but you beat me to it, so now I'm telling the world what a horrible person you are! WTF really? Because I build something you wanted to build yourself?) - and then when they denounce you their friends will denounce you and then you denounce them and then they denounce each other and their friends will denounce each others friends until everybody denounce everybody and it's just a complete meltdown.

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1) Warmonger label really needs to decay faster like you mention

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I'm ok with warmonger penalty decaying, but there should be something in place that addresses those who would war once the decay has completed.

2) Warmonger label should depend on the number of times you have DoW'ed someone vs. the number of times the AI in speak has DoW'ed someone (if I have DoW'ed someone twice and AI has DoW'ed someone 8 times, he should not label me Warmonger!)

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Why not ? If you're a warmonger, whats wrong with a warmonger thinking you're a warmonger ? Those who don't live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones ? Pah.

3) Warmonger should depend on flaver of civs. Civs with Autocracy should never or only give you a minor penalty for being a Warmonger, Civs who adopt Freedom should be more prone to labeling you Warmonger

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Too restrictive, I like that its tied to your actions, not your theory.

4) Denouncing someone should require a specific action - I should not just be able to denounce someone randomly, and AI's should not spam denounciations randomly. There should be a fixed list of actions that could merit a denounciation like:
- Breaking a promise (not to settle, not to convert, etc.)
- DoW'ing a CS or a Friend of the civ
- Converting their Holy city

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There is a fixed list. I like that its not entirely visible. I like that a denouncement may not matter. Example is if there is a legitimate warmongering Civ on the map, you can gain easy points by denouncing them as there is usually a coalition that hates them. Should that Civ eventually denounce you, it will have limited impact because no one likes them.

If they don't already have it for the human player, they should implement something similar to the AI response of "You denounced my friend, so I'm here to say you stink" when you denounce someone they get on with.

I'm not saying diplomacy is perfect, I'm just weary of it becoming too mechanical and rigid. As it is now I do feel that I've a much better handle on diplomacy than I did in the past. Just took a bit of effort. Have to keep on top of global relationships and actively manage them. Halcyan2 is a good user to watch for diplomatic enlightenment.

Overall I'm ok with a Bismark who has conquered over half of the known world denouncing me or calling me a warmonger. I wouldn't expect him to be quiet diplomatically or admit that he is a warmongering fool hellbent on world domination. Not publicly anyway