Revamped Diplomacy

In theory, the new diplomacy system implemented in the new Civ 5 update would only seem to repair a broken system. However, this is not the case. The AI civs behave erratically and unpredictably, making diplomatic moves that completely contradict their supposed motives. For example, while playing as the Romans, Arabia declared war on Russia. Viewing this as an opportunity to expand my territory and help out my Arabian ally (Declaration of Friendship), I too declared war on Russia, capturing Moscow and liberating Russian controlled Arabian cities. Our alliance emerged stronger than ever. However, several turns later, Arabia denounced me as a warmongering menace. This in turn, led every other civ that I was to encounter to denounce me as well, initiating a huge chain of terrible relations, when my only "crime" was coming to the aid of my ally. This new diplomacy seems effective in promise, but is implemented terribly.

They really didn't change anything about the diplomacy. It's the same diplomacy, but they added the "declaration of friendship" and "denounce" features, and now we can see what the AI thinks about us. But the diplomacy is basically the same -- same old irrational AI.

Yeah despite their supposed AI tweaks, I haven't noticed any behavioral differences besides the ability to make these new diplomatic decisions.

The only change is now we understand better how bad diplomacy is :/

my game gone in the same manner....no leader have a smile for me now...no matter what

It's not even that much more transparent than before. Sometimes leaders will randomly become Hostile and the tooltip won't say anything more specific than "they don't want anything to do with us right now", like when Bismarck decided he hated me on turn 7 of the game for having a small army.

kaltorak said:

The only change is now we understand better how bad diplomacy is :/

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this.

I disagree. Actually this behaviour is pretty realistic. Remember that in WWII Germany and Russia were first allies and ended up as enemies. And don't forget 'we' usually do the same...

The declaration of friendship is just a diplomatic instrument. If someone declares you to be his friend, one shouldn't presume he is really your friend. Only for the time being he acts as your friend. And even that is not certain.

kaltorak said:

The only change is now we understand better how bad diplomacy is :/

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This +2

This patch has been the equivalent of giving the modding community mine detectors. Truthfully there something wrong if an AI's mindset in a game as versatile as Civ can't muster anything other than early RTS skirmish intelligence, where getting to the endgame rewards you with an automatic handicapped battle royale.

I'm not necessarily saying that the AI shouldn't play to win, I'm thinking that the AI should have better tools to use in winning other than 'DAMN YOU HUMAN! I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME'.

For all the people who are saying that the AI are behaving just as humans do ... if we want the AI to play like humans, we would use multiplayer. Yes, it doesn't work right now, but the point is, if we want terrible diplomacy, we will go against actual humans, if we want to build real relationships, we will go against the AI

Yeah the underlying mechanics of the Diplomacy system were never changed. We can just see what those mechanics are now. While there have been times throughout history that allies have become enemies, for you to help your friend with their war only to have your friend denounce you on the basis that you're a warmonger does not feel realistic in the least. It certainly is poor gameplay.

I do hope Firaxis takes some time to look at these problems soon, though I realize there are other issues that still need to be tackled as well which have had less attention so far than diplomacy.

In my current game I've had a war against Washington.
I took one of his cities then made peace to recover. The next turn he warned me not to settle next to him (remember, I've taken one of his cities).
The next turn he denounces me.
Then I check the diplomacy overview and it states him to be friendly with me.

:facepalm:

I cannot express how frustrating it is to see all these glitches, inaccuracies and plain stupid behavior.

Also to note, Arabia had asked me to declare Russsia along with them and reacted hostily when the war was over. Anyways, I agree completely what everyone has been saying about erratic AI. If we wanted "realistic" diplomacy, we would play multiplayer. Playing with AI has always been about having the opportunity to form alliances and good relations.

André Alfenaar;10039068 said:

I disagree. Actually this behaviour is pretty realistic. Remember that in WWII Germany and Russia were first allies and ended up as enemies. And don't forget 'we' usually do the same...

The declaration of friendship is just a diplomatic instrument. If someone declares you to be his friend, one shouldn't presume he is really your friend. Only for the time being he acts as your friend. And even that is not certain.

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I'm going to have to disagree that the AI makes decisions that are realistic. It does make its decisions based on impactful events that have occurred during the game, but their decisions are illogical. Its not like they're intended to be hiding diplomatic information from the player, they just respond to these diplomatic events in odd ways.

I am playing a current game as Spain with 2 continents. About 5 Civ on each. I am Friendly with Everyone. Rome on my continent was Friendly too but pissed everyone off and has been denounced by our 4 Civ's on this continent. The other continent is quite friendly with each other too.

I also have not been at war, attacked a CS, or helped anyone in a war. Peaceful game and all Civ's are still around and it is 1800. I play Random Personalities and my games depend. Sometimes they are very peaceful and others our constant backstabbing and war-mongering.

The main problem with Diplo is the fact if you help someone at War or Defend one of your CS you take the Diplo hit as being a warmonger etc. The way they decide to punish you for taking land and conquering Civs is to have everyone hate and Denounce you. A simple improvement should be no one gets pissed off when you defend a CS or Ally War with someone (at least not the Civ your are Ally warring with) instead of treating it all the same. OR if someone declares war on you. Seems like a simple mechanic totally missed.

I mean if someone declared war on me and then I wiped them off the map and the Diplo info left my relationships in tact I would enjoy the diplo system more. Also, if your are going to have DoF and they are going to ask me for stuff ... can I not have the same freakin' option where I can ask them for some stuff and sometimes get it without having to demand it which takes a hit.

In my current game, I was friends with Rome, which was down to 1 city. Hiawatha was also my friend, and doing ok in the game. Hiawatha asked me to denouce Rome. So I did.

Then I checked my status with Hiawatha, and now he like me more because we denounced the same leaders, but likes me less because I denounced a friend of mine (ie I backstabbed someone).

That's yet another stupid diplomacy "feature".

But, my biggest problem with the system is that periods of peace, and periods of trading activity seem to do little to nothing to improve relations, compared to a single denouncement. Once you are denounced, you may as well declare war, because you are toast with them for the rest of the game.

In other words, you can't actually use diplomacy to improve bad diplomatic relations. That's a bit of a problem, don't you think?

nsotos said:

The AI civs behave erratically and unpredictably,

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I don't think this is true. I find it very predictable. I might disagree with it, but I find it very predictable. To quote myself:

Pazyryk said:

There are three things you can never do and one that you can almost never do:

1. You cannot be weak and stay at peace. (Exception: if geographically isolated you can in early to mid-game, but not late game.)
2. You cannot be friends with everyone.
3. You cannot have a growing USSR-size empire and be loved.
4. It’s possible, but very very rare for neighbors to get along over long periods. It’s quite definitely impossible if you violate rule #1. Even if you don’t, however, it’s probably best to assume ahead of time that relations with neighbors will be hostile.

Now you can argue until you're blue in the face that these are unrealistic or unfun. Whatever. If your strategy involves violating any of the 4 rules above, you will only be frustrated in your efforts. Given rules above, I have three diplomacy “modes” that I use:

• Conqueror: This is really the "no diplomacy" option. Maybe you can get a resource trade early on. But once you get going, forget it. There is little you can get from diplomacy, so don’t bother.
• Neutral player: Don’t be friends or enemies with anyone. Works if empire stays smallish (< 6 cities before 1 AD on standard map). AIs will stay Neutral or Friendly with you, allowing equitable resource and research pact trades (which you will need to make up for a smallish empire). You will probably fight with neighbors on and off, but you can pretty much maintain peace with other civ's (as long as you observe rule #1) even as you approach a space or culture victory.
• Manipulator: Pick friends and enemies carefully (remembering #4 above). This is tricky but it is possible to keep the world at war, so that you are only fighting half the world rather than all of it.

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I'm guessing that you were trying to do #3 (it's not clear from your post how big your empire was) and it wasn't working out as you wanted.

They should also absolutely rework liberated civilizations. When you liberate them you would expect some sort of alliance or a huge bonus to diplomacy relations; instead last time i played after a few turns Babylon (which i liberated) denounced me for no reason.

Civs should also try to stay away from wars with civs which are too far from them or on another continent consider that it's rarely on their interest.

Post patch AI is not perfect, but it's greatly improved. However, you really need to think of it differently to avoid frustration.

This is a game, and the AI knows it. The AI is not on your side. There are no alliance victories. The AI is not there for you to steamroll on your path to inevitable victory. So don't expect the AI to be your BFF. They might maintain good relations if they believe it's in their best interest, but don't be surprised if they turn on you for the same reason.

Dralix said:

This is a game, and the AI knows it. The AI is not on your side. There are no alliance victories. The AI is not there for you to steamroll on your path to inevitable victory. So don't expect the AI to be your BFF. They might maintain good relations if they believe it's in their best interest, but don't be surprised if they turn on you for the same reason.

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That is the design flaw we are talking about. It is gandhi, not AI oponent number 3. Or it should be.