The Diplo game

[King_Course]

I copied this post which I made in another thread (A GOTM thread), because I think it may be worthy of it's own discussion:

I have come to find out that you should always denounce at least the turn before you declare war. If you don't you get problems with everyone else. And if you do then nobody cares except if he is in defensive coalition or something like that.

I have also been in situations where everyone was guarded to me and chain denouncing me. I had some early wars of conquest but nothing more really and it annoyed me I couln't trade my luxury ressources for the rest of the game because of wars that were long gone. All I was doing was minding my own business.

I then tried and denounce Alexander, the biggest and most aggresive on the continent, not to war just to call him an idiot... and then things suddenly changed. Other civs popped out and agreed with my denouncenent and things started to work towards having friendly status and trade again.

So doing nothing is probably what people do and then go and complain that Diplo is broken. You need to instead; play the Diplo game too.

[Haig]

Good tip about the denouncement, I rarely do it except if I'm asked to do it by allies.
I'll gotta try that.

[JamesCivFan]

Interesting. But, did Alexander's friends start trading with you too, or just some civs?

[DST1348]

Originally Posted by King_Course

So doing nothing is probably what people do and then go and complain that Diplo is broken. You need to instead; play the Diplo game too.

When Gandhi hates me because I am more peaceful then him, I say Diplo is broken IMHO. But I admit that I have never tried the Denouncement before DoW. I will try it in my next game and see how it plays out. Thanks for the tip .

[King_Course]

Originally Posted by JamesCivFan

Interesting. But, did Alexander's friends start trading with you too, or just some civs?

No about half of them agreed with me and I could trade, the other half stayed enemies or the like. But better than when I thought I was peacefull and all stay guarded. I mean I offer 3 luxuries for 1 and they won't take it. Very annoying.

So better to choose sides.

[Tapewormlondon]

Its not the case of declaring before war that got them to friendly here, it was the fact they didnt like them and so then denounced them after you - giving you the "we denounced the same leaders" positive.

If you declare on to many people you will get the warmonger status from most civs, denouncments or ney.

Its a bit like in civ 4 where you made sure you didnt trade with those that are despised, except you need to be more open by publicly denouncing them. Usually a good tactic is to see who is asking you to war against who - pick a side and denounce the other. You dont need to go to war though.

[King_Course]

Originally Posted by Tapewormlondon

Its not the case of declaring before war that got them to friendly here, it was the fact they didnt like them and so then denounced them after you - giving you the "we denounced the same leaders" positive.

If you declare on to many people you will get the warmonger status from most civs, denouncments or ney.

Its a bit like in civ 4 where you made sure you didnt trade with those that are despised, except you need to be more open by publicly denouncing them. Usually a good tactic is to see who is asking you to war against who - pick a side and denounce the other. You dont need to go to war though.

No you are mixing two separate situations together into one. Firstly, if you do denounce before you wardeck, then you don't get such a bad rep with other civs. If it's the denouncement itself, of if it is tied specifically to their standing I don't know.

For example, attack a friendly civ will make others angry, if you denounce first Civ becomes guarded. Maybe attacking a guarded civ doesn't make others care. Or in other words, if a Civ is hostile to you, then maybe denouncing first doesn't do anything.

The other situation was a game where I had made war at the start, all were guarded and kept on chain denouncing me. Instead of just doing nothing, being peacefull and minding my own business, I denounced the most aggresive Civ. And as you say, those that had denounced the Civ too then changed status to me and I could trade again.

Point is it's better for standing to be aggresive than be passive.

[Drawmeus]

More broadly, you should always denounce the civs you don't like.

Denouncing a civ has two major effects. First, that civ likes you a LOT less. Second, civs which like you like them less.

By denouncing the civs which you're headed for conflict with, you signal to your allies that they should like that civ less, which can lead to denounce chains among your diplomatic bloc against them (and a bonus to relations within your bloc) and prevents subsequent denunciations by your enemy civs against you from affecting your allies too much.

In short, you should have denounced any civ which you're planning to invade quite a bit earlier than when you actually invade them, just to keep your friends from getting too close to them.

EDIT: I realize I'm using English descriptions of what happens here... but the game actually works this way, I'm just applying descriptive language to their game mechanic.

[Tapewormlondon]

Originally Posted by King_Course

No you are mixing two separate situations together into one. Firstly, if you do denounce before you wardeck, then you don't get such a bad rep with other civs. If it's the denouncement itself, of if it is tied specifically to their standing I don't know.

For example, attack a friendly civ will make others angry, if you denounce first Civ becomes guarded. Maybe attacking a guarded civ doesn't make others care. Or in other words, if a Civ is hostile to you, then maybe denouncing first doesn't do anything.

The other situation was a game where I had made war at the start, all were guarded and kept on chain denouncing me. Instead of just doing nothing, being peacefull and minding my own business, I denounced the most aggresive Civ. And as you say, those that had denounced the Civ too then changed status to me and I could trade again.

Point is it's better for standing to be aggresive than be passive.

Ah I see - yeah sorry didnt read your first post properly, didnt see you were stating two different situations

[Drawmeus]

Random aside - my current game (King difficulty, so playing it kind of easy) is the friendliest civ game of all time. Every civ in the game has a DoF with almost every other civ. Very odd situation, I guess nobody wanted to warmonger.

Though Isabella keeps trying to pressure me to DoW various others, including civs who she has DoFs with... she's kind of cutthroat.

[eric_]

So doing nothing is probably what people do and then go and complain that Diplo is broken. You need to instead; play the Diplo game too.

I've felt this way for a long time. I have always had tons of fun playing other civs against one another throughout the game.

[Drawmeus]

Just discovered one more - REXing will get you DoWed. I have two of three civs at war with me now (ancient era) based solely on a large "They believe you are settling cities too aggressively" modifier.

[SpearMan153]

having a large expansive empire will tend to get you hated due to either/or "settling too close" and a higher change of "they covet your lands" since you have more land for everyone to covert

also beware taking out too many enemy capitals (assuming you aren't going for domination) as it can wreck alliances as it will look to the ai as if you are going for domination victory which will earn you either a "going for same victory condition" or a "warmongering menace"

had it happen in my last game (post march patch) - got denouned by friend (bismark) after taking out perisan capital (it was 3rd capital i'd taken)

Note: amazingly I didn't get any "your friend found reasons to denounce you" penalties from my other ally (alex) so the patch has definelty improved things

[Drawmeus]

Originally Posted by SpearMan153

having a large expansive empire will tend to get you hated due to either/or "settling too close" and a higher change of "they covet your lands" since you have more land for everyone to covert

also beware taking out too many enemy capitals (assuming you aren't going for domination) as it can wreck alliances as it will look to the ai as if you are going for domination victory which will earn you either a "going for same victory condition" or a "warmongering menace"

had it happen in my last game (post march patch) - got denouned by friend (bismark) after taking out perisan capital (it was 3rd capital i'd taken)

Note: amazingly I didn't get any "your friend found reasons to denounce you" penalties from my other ally (alex) so the patch has definelty improved things

In addition, there's literally a "You are settling new cities too fast" penalty for an overt REX, in addition to the settling near other civs penalty (covet lands you control is actually something different - it's the message indicating that they're a warmongering leader who might be gearing up to invade you). You have to go pretty fast to get this - I was at 8 cities (Standard map size) heading into the medieval era when I got DoWed for it.

[Babri]

I always denounce the civ when I start preparing for war against them. This way my 'friends' will have some time to think about denouncing that civ & when I declare war, sometimes my allies agree to declare war too if they are close enough.

[Seikninkuru]

Originally Posted by Drawmeus

Just discovered one more - REXing will get you DoWed. I have two of three civs at war with me now (ancient era) based solely on a large "They believe you are settling cities too aggressively" modifier.

Don't you love it? You can't expand too rapidly but they can drop a city right next to your capital if given the oppurtunity then they yell at you for settling too close to their lands while coveting your lands. It's ridiculous.