AI Diplomacy after 1.332

Hello,

I stopped playing CiV because I couldn't stand the crazy /spoiled child like diplomacy any more. So, after reading the long patch notes, I decided to give CiV another try. My quick summary: AI diplomacy is as insane and unreliable as always.

The AI design flaw (at least in my eyes) is that they are programmed to stop you from winning instead of trying to "win" themselves. I put the "win" in quotes, because, to the AI, "winning" should mean "building a civilization that the leader believes is best". Obviously, Gandhi and Montezuma have different opinions on what the "best" civilization is. Similarly, I don't mind that different leaders have different attitudes towards "honor" and "backstabbing". But why Gandhi has to hate me because I am more peaceful than him will always be beyond me.

I was playing as the Germans on a large continents map on Normal difficulty. The militaristic Germans were probably not the best civ to test the new diplomacy, but I couldn't resist their new UA.

I started on a continent with Gandhi close by, Augustus a little further away and Washington far in the distance. In 2000BC Augustus starts to denounce me, because he believes I am trying to win the game in a similarly way as he. Well...

I denounce him too and DoW to steal his unprotected settler that was making his way to my territory. I make peace soon after, and since both Washington and Gandhi denounce Augustus, the three of us get along just fine. We (Washington, Gandhi and myself) even have mutual DoFs. The relation to Gandhi drops to Guarded after I tell him not to settle cities near me. At this point, I thought that the AI diplomacy started to make sense.

Time goes on, and Washington asks me if I want to DoW on Augustus again. After preparing for 10 turns and denouncing Augustus I enter the war and capture three cities, including Rome. I then make peace with Rome, since I couldn't capture any more cities due to happiness issues.

My relations with Gandhi start to drop since he believes me to be a war monger. This was the last AI decision I could kind of understand. I start to frown when Washington believes me to be a warmonger too. HE asked me to join the war against Augustus, for god's sake!

My frowns deepened steeply when Washington DoWed on me, saying: "the odds are not with me, yet I have no choice but to reveal my deceptive plans". He really should consult a psychiatrist if he has to act under such compulsions. (See Wikipedia on "Obsessive–compulsive disorder"). Steam seems to take a more humorous approach:

The comedy fix award for this set of patch notes goes to the entry that claims to have “made backstab routine more transparent” for more in-your-face AI betrayal.

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At least his assessment was correct in that the odds were clearly not with him.

The rest is business as usual. I meet a lot of other leaders and actually manage to stay on friendly terms with them. A turning point was me denouncing Siam to get on good terms with Elisabeth. Apparently, Arabia was on friendly terms with Siam and our relationship dropped from Friendly to Hostile pretty quickly. Arabia being the dominant civ in the world, I tried to throw some gifts at them, since I read in the patch notes that this should help against Hostile AIs. Maybe it worked for about five turns. Then Arabia DoWed on me, and I get the usual dogpile effect. Surprisingly, Persia remained Friendly almost up to the end.

After a long war, I manage to make peace with every one. Arabia is Friendly immediately after the peace treaty. I use this the next turn to sign a trade and research agreement. The turn after we signed the treaties, Arabia remembers that I am a warmonger and that it still covets my land and drops back to Hostile

Three turns before I assemble the last piece of my space ship, every one drops to Guarded or Hostile. But it is to late and I win.

The second time you'll DoW, you're a warmonger, regardless the reason.

If you'll expand too rapidly, you'll get dogpiled as well, within couple of turns some ridiculous reasons are made up by ALL your neighbours and that's it.

Don't liberate - exterminate, or the liberated civs will hate your guts.


For all the above reasons, I believe Civ5 is still Shafer's Little Wargame - "weeee!!! I has three soldiers them killed all the rest I'm AWESOME!" - Civ5 in a nutshell, forget about diplomacy.

Ah yes, and the endless, constant re-selling of everything every 30-50 turns is so tedious that I can't take it, why is it so difficult to have some "renegotiate deal" option? ...Silly me, 9months after release they've figured that graphs and stats are in order, I think I expect too much.

Guardian_PL said:

The second time you'll DoW, you're a warmonger, regardless the reason.

If you'll expand too rapidly, you'll get dogpiled as well, within couple of turns some ridiculous reasons are made up by ALL your neighbours and that's it.

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You're also a warmonger when you conquer capitals of civs who have declared war on you.

This pick is ciV diplomacy in a nutshell:

I think there's a fundamental change in the AI in Civ 5 from previous versions of the game. While on one level the AI is designed to effectively emulate human play and strive to win the game (while preventing others from winning). It is also designed to act consistently in a specific manner in a specific circumstance, which isn't quite how human play works.

When the problem is relatively simple (Gandhi's reaction to telling him not to settle near you) it tends to work reasonably well. When it starts becoming more complicated, however, it starts to fail rather obviously. Washington's play described here is a good example. It should be reasonably simple to code the AI not to see you as a warmonger if you declare war on a Civ that it requested you to declare war against. However, there are quite a few circumstances where it should see you as a warmonger even if it asked you declare war on Civ X (nukes, capital etc...).

To my mind though, this really isn't the primary problem of Civ V diplomacy. The design philosophy for the AI in Civ V seems to be to get the AI out there and attempt to win the game. This overrides temporary variables, such as friendly relations. Civ IV's AI didn't override temporary variables and so most Friendly (and some Pleased) Civs never declared war on you, even if it meant that they'd lose the game. It's a fundamental change in what Civ's AI are designed to do. Previously they were meant to create a reasonably realistic political environment. Now they intend to beat you.

More competitive? Certainly. More realistic? Decidedly not.

I think they should introduce a casus belli system to make things clearer in diplomacy. Ever casus belli would have different objectives. For example if someone attacks your allied CS, then your objective would be to restore peace & demand gold etc from the attacker. If you go beyond that then you'll get the warmonger label.

Babri said:

I think they should introduce a casus belli system to make things clearer in diplomacy. Ever casus belli would have different objectives. For example if someone attacks your allied CS, then your objective would be to restore peace & demand gold etc from the attacker. If you go beyond that then you'll get the warmonger label.

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This would be the best solution.
However, if your CS get's attacked again and again by the same guy you shoould be allowed to teach him a lesson. It should be justified to wipe repeat offenders out.

GoodSarmatian said:

This pick is ciV diplomacy in a nutshell:

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Sad, but true!

Veneke said:

I think there's a fundamental change in the AI in Civ 5 from previous versions of the game.

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I totally agree with what you say. However, when I want a competitive game with opponents who want to win at all cost, I play a multiplayer game with humans. That's not what I want when I play in single player against the AI. I guess I am done with CiV once more...

Diplomacy? What diplomacy? There is no diplomacy in Civ5. Playing chess with my cat has more diplomacy in it.

Guardian_PL said:

The second time you'll DoW, you're a warmonger, regardless the reason.

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This is simply not true! I have had numerous games where I have DoW'd multiple times and didn't get a warmonger rep.

The diplo and rep systems do need improvement though. I want:
1) the AI to demand things of me
2) a reasonable chance of having my demands met
3) a way to beg things from friends, like the AI can

OP: Let me get this right, you can make sense of all of the diplomacy actions except those of Washington, who was apparently selected as the backstabber. You are blaming your decision to trust Washington the backstabber on the others?

Let me tell you what I have noticed, from one game so far. Catherine is, I am sure, trying to win by domination. She DoW'd me early on but I held her off and even took one of her cities. I decided to try to befriend her after that to test the system. She decided to forget that we were at war, eventually Declaration of Friendship, and even Defensive Pact. We also fought a joint war against Germany, and she is super-excited that I helped her by taking their capitol. We're still in a Defensive Pact and she has only positive modifiers with me and the prior war isn't affecting our status at all.

I fully expect she would declare war on me if she could, but she sees it as more beneficial to have the extra protection in case the arch-rival across the pond DoWs her. I'm employing the "trust but verify" attitude as applied to Civ V -- keeping a vast army near the border to make sure I am safe -- I'll be ready if she goes for my capitol, but I expect she's saving me for last at this point, and the diplomacy is playing out quite well. The positive modifiers are helping, it's not worse than before that's for sure, it's better.

Prior to the patch, Catherine was one of those nearly impossible AIs to get a straight Defensive Pact with (at least in my experience; you'd have to offer more than just a mutual defensive pact), but now the positive modifiers are making a much bigger difference.

So, don't be upset by having the unfortunate luck of choosing the backstabber as your friend then blame the whole system because of it. I'd encourage you to try a few times before you jump to conclusions.

DST - I agree with you. When I play Civ I want to feel immersed in a story of the rise, development and decline of a civilization. That's the attraction Civ has always had for me, and most of the time, Civ has delivered. The current diplomacy model and AI coding aren't conducive to that. I still think it's a decent game, you just need to be aware that the other civilizations want to kill you, even your friends... in fact, especially them. In Civ V there's no such thing as paranoia, it is a fact - they are coming for you.

What I reckon would go a long way towards rectifying some of this, while staying reasonably close to the design concept, would be to force the AI to recognize that, at some point, its relations with the human trump its desire to win. The player needn't, and possibly even shouldn't, be informed of when this point is reached, but it should be possible to achieve.

GoodSarmatian said:

This would be the best solution.
However, if your CS get's attacked again and again by the same guy you shoould be allowed to teach him a lesson. It should be justified to wipe repeat offenders out.

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I once created a thread about it. Here is the link.
There is plenty we can discuss about it & hope that someone makes a mod for it or it is added through an expansion.

Guardian_PL said:

I believe Civ5 is still Shafer's Little Wargame - "weeee!!! I has three soldiers them killed all the rest I'm AWESOME!" - Civ5 in a nutshell, forget about diplomacy.

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This summarizes Joni's monster perfectly. Many here are not ready to accept it, but some day I think most of us will agree in our assessment of his mediocrity. Probably after he wrecks Stardock...

GoodSarmatian said:

This pick is ciV diplomacy in a nutshell:

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Ha! This is priceless. I have been betrayed by Civ 5 AIs so many times that I have learned to only exploit them to their last breath.

Diplomacy is still a joke. AI civs declare war countless times for no real reason on each other, with no diplomatic penalty, but if the player does it twice they are a warmonger, get real! Please Firaxis lets get some civ identity, and fix the diplomacy system. I hate the same outcome game after game. All it is is a bucnch of AI civs you can never trust, and they are sure to hate you in the end no matter what. It is getting old now.

nokmirt said:

All it is is a bucnch of AI civs you can never trust, and they are sure to hate you in the end no matter what. It is getting old now.

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Orly? I'm currently in the modern age. 14 out of 14 AI's are friendly to me. Only 3 of them have ever DoWed me in the course of the game. I don't think they all hate me no matter what

EDIT: just in case, a screenie.

aimlessgun said:

Orly? I'm currently in the modern age. 15 out of 15 AI's are friendly to me. Only 3 of them have ever DoWed me in the course of the game. I don't think they all hate me no matter what

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It's just a duplicate rants thread - not worth the time of Civ fans.

The civs still act the same. They need identity, and this is not a rant it is a real issue that needs addressing.

To my mind though, this really isn't the primary problem of Civ V diplomacy. The design philosophy for the AI in Civ V seems to be to get the AI out there and attempt to win the game. This overrides temporary variables, such as friendly relations. Civ IV's AI didn't override temporary variables and so most Friendly (and some Pleased) Civs never declared war on you, even if it meant that they'd lose the game. It's a fundamental change in what Civ's AI are designed to do. Previously they were meant to create a reasonably realistic political environment. Now they intend to beat you.



This is exactly what i aml trying to say!!!!!! A good AI typ is not a good choose for this game.

nokmirt said:

Diplomacy is still a joke. AI civs declare war countless times for no real reason on each other, with no diplomatic penalty, but if the player does it twice they are a warmonger, get real! Please Firaxis lets get some civ identity, and fix the diplomacy system. I hate the same outcome game after game. All it is is a bucnch of AI civs you can never trust, and they are sure to hate you in the end no matter what. It is getting old now.

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Well thats the difference between a good AI and a fun AI this typ still plays good and will provide a challenge but it will act differently according the human actions diplomacy!!! even if this means that the human will win. It will have personallity..

If i want to play a turn based war game firaxis I will buy advance wars... I play civilization because i can build my own story...


Firaxis will never make diplomacy well if they dont change the AI typ I said it 1000 times at this forum......


I am seriously it looks like i am playing rise of nations in a turn based strategy game (rise of nations had a diplomacy and it doenst work of course it would not work the AI wants to kill you)