We just don't like you enough!

I'm wondering what can be done in certain diplomatic situations where for some inexplicable reason someone doesn't like me enough to join a war. It's one aspect of the diplo system that really, really, really annoys the hell outta me. I'm sure others have ran into these situations and I'm looking for input as to how you can get around these problems (I haven't found a way once they get locked into WJDLYE for war/stop trading).

Example:

Me and Augustus Caesar were allies for the entire game. I founded Christiantity with Oracle > CoL, I spread it to him and he was christian the entire game until FR came around. We fought numerous wars together, I gave him help anytime he asked for a tech, stop trading, the works. He was Friendly with me for thousands of years and everything was cool.

Then here's where it starts to get messed up. Zara DoW's on Caesar (for the record Zara was the other christian civ and partner in my diplo triangle since the early going as well). The three of us were the top three on the scoreboard for a long time. He was friendly with me and Caesar, then for some reason he dropped to Pleased with Caesar and decided to DoW. Zara was a monster with 4 vassals at that point so I decided to back Caesar in the war when he asked since Zara was aroudn 35% pop / 35% land for Domination at that point and threatened to run away with the game.

Zara takes 8 of Augustus' cities before I can move my SoD from the far reaches of my empire back to our end of the world. First I captured the three cities Zara had founded in this neck of the woods (one of which had the Pentagon and Broadway), then retook all the 8 cities Augustus lost and returned them to Roman control. He makes peace with Zara so I decided I'd do it too and take the 10-turns to move my SoD back to the other end of my empire to deal with the colossal stack Zara was building up. (note: Zara's mainland was to my far east, but he had settled to my west near Caesar with some boats early in the game. Just in case you're wondering why I had to go west to get war with him, then back east.).

Zara beats me to the punch and DoW's as soon as the 10-turns are up, so I go to ask Augustus to join the war and at first he's afraid of Zara's military might. Fine, I deal with it and after a massive battle Zara's power had dropped enough that Augustus was no longer afraid of his military. But guess what was there now? 'We just don't like you enough!!!'. First thing I said to myself was 'WTH DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T LIKE ME ENOUGH!'... I mean, you'd think liberating 8 of his cities when he got backstabbed would be enough on it's own. Factor in all the diplo bonuses and he was around +20-25 with me so very Friendly, and Furious with Zara. I ended up winning domination and not once would he join any of my wars from that point onward, he just never liked me enough. He wouldn't even cancel open borders with people.

Anyone have any clue why this happens sometimes to super-friendly AI's? I never seem to have trouble getting civs who just got to friendly with me to DoW. But all too often lately my solid diplo partners end up just becoming worthless eventually.

Of course different leaders have different tendencies, but keep in mind that it's not only how the leader feels about you, but also how they feel about the Civ that you're asking them to go to war with. It's possible that Zara's and Augustus' relations improved in the interm.

augustus joins only at friendly; probably you were pleased with him

SnowlyWhite said:

augustus joins only at friendly; probably you were pleased with him

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He was Friendly with me basically the entire game. He never once dropped back down to Pleased with me.

Silence101 said:

Of course different leaders have different tendencies, but keep in mind that it's not only how the leader feels about you, but also how they feel about the Civ that you're asking them to go to war with. It's possible that Zara's and Augustus' relations improved in the interm.

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After the war he was either Furious or Annoyed with Zara for the rest of the game.

then perhaps something is wrong and you should post a save and a description of what happened in the bug forum.

Or perhaps you had vassals ?

JujuLautre said:

then perhaps something is wrong and you should post a save and a description of what happened in the bug forum.

Or perhaps you had vassals ?

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Ghandi did become my vassal voluntarily sometime around the onset of the war. I eventually gained a few more as I attacked Zara's vassals and re-capitulated them. I know you get the -1 'worried about rivals being vassals' diplo hit but do they block any other kinds of dealings with the AI civs just for having one?

They consider their opinion of the vassal when dealing with you as well. I had the same problem with someone with "we fear you are becoming too advanced" not going away when they were friendly (they were only cautious with my vassals).

What you doing taking Gandhi as a vassal? He just goes for a culture win then and you can't try and stop it Plus he regularly gets dogpiled!

ParadigmShifter said:

They consider their opinion of the vassal when dealing with you as well. I had the same problem with someone with "we fear you are becoming too advanced" not going away when they were friendly (they were only cautious with my vassals).

What you doing taking Gandhi as a vassal? He just goes for a culture win then and you can't try and stop it Plus he regularly gets dogpiled!

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I know Ghandi's tricks! Fortunately Delhi and Bombay (both were holy cities) and a few other assorted cities we're taken by me in a war much, much, much earlier in the game so he was no threat to the cultural vic. I got back to pleased with him somehow then Zara probably demanded stuff from him and he came looking for the Greeks to bring big sticks and defend him.

I've had friendly civs say "i just don't like you enough" when I try to buy their maps. Anybody know the cause for this? Was it just because i'd done literally no exploring outside my own borders (it was a occ).

BARBEERIAN said:

Ghandi did become my vassal voluntarily sometime around the onset of the war.

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Then you have it.

When you have vassals, the attitude of a leader to a "team" (of vassal + master) is the mean attitude that he has for all the civ.

So let's say that Cesar is friendly to you and cautious to gandhi, then he will be ( friendly + cautious ) / 2 = pleased with "you + gandhi". And since he can only be bribed to war by civ for which he is at least friendly with, you can't bribe him to war (the explanation "we just don't like you enough" means this).

Call it a bad design or anything else, but that's a fact, and that's why you can't bribe him.

BalbanesBeoulve said:

I've had friendly civs say "i just don't like you enough" when I try to buy their maps. Anybody know the cause for this?

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I believe some civs are programmed to be stingy with their maps. Elizabeth, for example, will never trade her world map even at Friendly.

JujuLautre said:

Then you have it.

When you have vassals, the attitude of a leader to a "team" (of vassal + master) is the mean attitude that he has for all the civ.

So let's say that Cesar is friendly to you and cautious to gandhi, then he will be ( friendly + cautious ) / 2 = pleased with "you + gandhi". And since he can only be bribed to war by civ for which he is at least friendly with, you can't bribe him to war (the explanation "we just don't like you enough" means this).

Call it a bad design or anything else, but that's a fact, and that's why you can't bribe him.

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Wow that sucks , but at least I know why now. Thanks. It is pretty bad design though, the only person who's diplo should matter is yours and theirs.

BARBEERIAN said:

Wow that sucks , but at least I know why now. Thanks. It is pretty bad design though, the only person who's diplo should matter is yours and theirs.

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It actually makes sense if you think about it - when you acquire a vassal, you essentially become a team so if an AI likes you but hates your vassal, their opinion of you is now lowered. The only "design" impact here is the rounding down of attitudes: if they're Friendly to you but Pleased towards your vassal, the final attitude is averaged down to Pleased. I see this more as a balancing factor - it's the downside to acquiring vassals because as you become more powerful the other AIs resent you more. Rarely you can use it to your advantage: if your vassal is way more popular than you are, for example an AI is annoyed at you but pleased with your vassal, then they'll be now cautious with you.

oedali said:

It actually makes sense if you think about it - when you acquire a vassal, you essentially become a team so if an AI likes you but hates your vassal, their opinion of you is now lowered.

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When you take a vassal, you don't become a team. The vassal still tries to win on it's own, and you try to win on your own. If you win, your vassal doesn't. So you are still competitors. That's why I think this is bad design/ thing they didn't think about, especially since there already is the negative diplo modifier "...our rivals being vassals to your empire".

10 turns to cross your empire? Where is your rail network?

Still, having a vassal that the other civs dont like would naturally decrease your diplo with them. Perhaps it would be better if Augustus said "We just dont like you enough because you're associated with someone we dont like", because thats the situation.

I just played a game where I was at Friendly with Catherine throughout the whole game from having the same religion.

Then she changes to free religion, drops down to Pleased and backstabs me.

That game was going great, I had loads of wonders, but I never stood a chance against her so I quit. Maybe I should just play a Warlord game for fun now.

oedali said:

It actually makes sense if you think about it - when you acquire a vassal, you essentially become a team so if an AI likes you but hates your vassal, their opinion of you is now lowered. The only "design" impact here is the rounding down of attitudes: if they're Friendly to you but Pleased towards your vassal, the final attitude is averaged down to Pleased. I see this more as a balancing factor - it's the downside to acquiring vassals because as you become more powerful the other AIs resent you more. Rarely you can use it to your advantage: if your vassal is way more popular than you are, for example an AI is annoyed at you but pleased with your vassal, then they'll be now cautious with you.

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You don't really become a team. I could understand that behaviour for permanent alliances, but a vassal is a civs prison b*tch. It has no say in major diplomacy and other civs opinion of it shouldn't matter when dealing with you.

CivCorpse said:

10 turns to cross your empire? Where is your rail network?

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Zara had a city that clipped my rail network in half at an isthmus (until I captured it =P) so it added a few turns to having to use my small amount of transports.

In all it is not a bad mechanic, but it needs:
1) a serious drop in vassal weight in the equation
2) Better wording ( Why civs designers decided to be so criptic ( just to don't say misleading? ) "we fear you are becoming too advanced" = you traded too much techs for our confort , "we are with our hands full" = we are preparing to attack someone, " we rather win the game ,thank you" = you're asking us to deviate from our winning plan,..... ). a simple " We don't like your hound dogs" would be enough