"I see you have a lot of units near my borders..."

[kojax]

Yeah. It's basically a "Promise not to attack for 20 turns, or go to war now" ultimatum. A very useful tool if we had it as players.

If you don't promise not to attack for 20 turns, then not only are you at war, but you are considered to be the one who declared that war.

 

[Loucypher]

Except it's actually 50 turns. Not 20.

 

[Polisurgist]

Except it's actually 50 turns. Not 20.

Someone should be able to prove this one way or the other based on the code. Unless you're both talking about different game speeds.

 

[scarpz]

That's 20 turns from whenever you move your forces back, right? So if you keep them there forever, the promise is never fulfilled?

From what I remember, in order to keep the promise all you need to do is hold off on attacking them for 20 (or turns). Doesn't matter where your troops are. It's pretty straightforward.

The promise = I am only keeping these troops by by border as a defensive measure and will not attack you (for 20 turns)

Keep this promise and there's no penalty. (In fact, I think you get a bonus for keeping you word.)

Again, it does not matter where you keep your troops. They're only asking for an assurance that these troops are for defensive reasons only.

This happens in real life all the time by the way. It's 1940. Stalin is worried that Hitler might attack. Hitler gives his assurances that he won't by signing a non-aggression pact. Stalin lets his guard down, Hitler attacks. Hitler takes yet another diplomatic hit. If Hitler kept his word, and never attacked the USSR, he'd get a diplomatic bonus with Stalin.

[I thought it was 20 turns. If it's 50, I think that might be too many and the rule should be changed. I'd be okay with anything up to 30 turns since I usually have some idea whether or not I'm going to attack someone within that timeframe. Even so, I still agree with the concept.]

No, I want to attack him in like 5 turns so all my units except 2 random ones are 4+ tile away from their border. And then it's just plain annoying if it pops up. As said, the rules need to be clearer.

But I think this is totally fair and realistic. By you're own admission, you want to launch a sneak attack in five turns. Perhaps you weren't subtle or artful enough to do it without alerting your neighbor to the obvious threat of an attack. Or maybe you just have an excessively paranoid neighbor (plenty of leaders, especially dictators are known for their paranoia). He asks you for assurances that you don't intend to use those units in an offensive capacity. Makes sense to me - you were planning a sneak attack and somehow the AI sensed it. Sometimes I get "false alarms" but usually when they call me out, it's because I really was planning to attack. I don't see why, when caught red-handed, players should be able to lie without taking a diplomatic hit. I think that would make the game significantly less realistic.

I've launched countless sneak attacks that the enemy has never detected. I've also been called out before attacking plenty of times. I think ambiguity is more realistic than knowing a firm rule, because that's the case in real life - some leaders are more suspicious than other leaders in other circumstances. My best advice for attacking in five turns without getting called out on it? Keep your units as far aways as possible, in a way that will still enable you to carry out a successful ambush. This might require careful use of roads, artful positioning of units, and other tactical elements that might be difficult to orchestrate. That's war. In the real world, you can't always successfully deceive your enemy.

 

[Polisurgist]

But I think this is totally fair and realistic. By you're own admission, you want to launch a sneak attack in five turns. Perhaps you weren't subtle or artful enough to do it without alerting your neighbor to the obvious threat of an attack.

This. If your complaint is that a game rule stops you from doing the very thing that game rule is meant to stop you from doing, you just aren't playing all that well. Other issues with this still stand...if you get called out because you just discovered Astronomy and happen to have three caravels close to a rival's border but nowhere near each other, then that's a problem, especially if it affects you 100 turns down the road.

Whether the rule should be explicit or obscured is an interesting question...there are plenty of obscured rules in the game that don't impact it that badly (there's nowhere specifically mentioned that says how much culture or food you need to expand to X). Having a more-or-less explicit rule that's affected by the personality of the leader in question would be interesting, and sort of cover both grounds. Maybe making this demand should incur a diplo hit against a leader if the person they make the demand against actually holds up...the rest of the civs are going to start recognizing him as paranoid, &c.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Helps ally defend capital from Shaka
Gets diplo penalty because my army scares him

Fix idea:
snipped bad idea, here are the good parts of it

Don't bother calculating aggressive posturing when the player in question is at war with a mutual enemy who had units in my borders within the last 5 (10 maybe?) turns, or enemy shares a border with me.

If I am marching against this player, don't give military warning if my own posture is also aggressive towards him

 

[Rohili]

Except it's actually 50 turns. Not 20.

It's 20 on standard speed; not sure if it is different for other speeds. I've tested it myself (declared war somewhere between 21-24 turns after getting the message; I had like 10 troops around that civ's borders and didn't move them away during the 20 turns) and others have also looked through the game code to come to the same conclusion.

A lot of complaints in this thread seem to stem from ignorance, imperfect recollection or people simply playing a different version of the game (the rules might be different in vanilla). The BNW code shows that it is simply not possible to receive the message unless you have at least 3 units within 5 hexes of the AI's city (and twice that number if your units are in your own borders). If you slowly increase the number of units near the AI's city rather than sending them all at once, you can get away with having 5/10 units near the the AI's city before triggering the message:

Spoiler :

The AI will send the statement under these conditions:

The target must be able to declare war on us
The target didn't resurrect us
The target's military aggressiveness is HIGH and last turn they weren't - OR -
The target's military aggressiveness is MEDIUM and last turn they were NONE
The target doesn't have a DoF with you
We're not at war with the same player
They're not at war with any of our neighbors.

If these conditions are satisfied, then the AI will send the statement.

MILITARY AGGRESSIVENESS CALCULATION

Loop through other player's units
Ignore if unit isn't a combat unit
Unit must be visible (i.e. that plot is lit up for them, not just fog of war!)
Unit must be on our home front
If player is at war with someone
If unit is near another unit near our territory they're at war with, then don't count that unit as aggressive
Else
Add 10 for that unit
If unit is stationed in a plot owned by the target
Divide by 2 (because he may be defending his lands)
If the total value is >= 80: Aggression is Incredible
If the total value is >= 50: Aggression is High
If the total value is >= 30: Aggression is Medium
If the total value is >= 10: Aggression is Low
Else: Aggression is None

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1jcyda/ama_about_the_civ_v_brave_new_world_diplomacy_ai/cbdfmzg

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Then what about that Pocatello pic on page 2? Carthage would have had a threat of 15, not enough to trigger it.

And besides, an AI who is itself in a threatening posture should not make this demand, or at least give the human player the option to respond with "I'll move my army when you move yours.", bouncing the ultimatum back to the AI, who could choose "You're not as stupid as you look." or "Very well, but should you be foolish enough to attack, keep in mind what you have seen is but the barest fraction of my forces."

The first option would make the AI the aggressor, the second would put the no attack promise on the AI as well as the player.

 

[Rohili]

Then what about that Pocatello pic on page 2? Carthage would have had a threat of 15, not enough to trigger it.

Yes, that should be the case. I don't know why it triggered but I personally have never gotten that message with less than three troops near the AI's borders.

And besides, an AI who is itself in a threatening posture should not make this demand, or at least give the human player the option to respond with "I'll move my army when you move yours.", bouncing the ultimatum back to the AI, who could choose "You're not as stupid as you look." or "Very well, but should you be foolish enough to attack, keep in mind what you have seen is but the barest fraction of my forces."

The first option would make the AI the aggressor, the second would put the no attack promise on the AI as well as the player.

I agree that the human player should have the same option to tell the AI to move away it's troops or declare war. My main beef was with posters who were complaining that there shouldn't even be such an option for the AI. IMO the human player is much better than the AI at exploiting Civ V's combat mechanics and launching surprise attacks, and this feature helps even things up a bit.

 

[MerchantCo]

Often I get this message accidentally, and it's really annoying.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I've always thought of it as a counterweight to AI intrigue. My spies can tell me the AI is preparing a sneak attack against me, but the AI can gather no such information from the human player, because we haven't told the game what our intentions are.

 

[Moriarte]

I've always thought of it as a counterweight to AI intrigue. My spies can tell me the AI is preparing a sneak attack against me, but the AI can gather no such information from the human player, because we haven't told the game what our intentions are.

We move our troops and that is what spies detect and deliver as probability of an attack. To both human player and AIs.

What makes you think AI has some special spies that don't share intrigues?

 

[Polisurgist]

We move our troops and that is what spies detect and deliver as probability of an attack. To both human player and AIs.

What makes you think AI has some special spies that don't share intrigues?

The AI's "intention to attack" thing has nothing to do with troop movements; spies don't have line of sight to see where my troops go anyway, unless they're within two tiles of the city the spy is stationed in (which would not give them much of a hint as to where I'm sending them).

Think about it like this: when you're spying on an AI, you get a popup messages that says "Nebuchednezzar is plotting against Askia!" You don't have to constantly hover over their cities and deduce from the tiny bit of troop movement you can see whether they're mobilizing and against whom their mobilizing. No AI spy can get that kind of impression from you because your intentions aren't coded into the game.

 

[Walter R]

No AI spy can get that kind of impression from you because your intentions aren't coded into the game.

made me think: Hell, imagine if you had to write miltary orders for your units (in the game)? How tedious would that be? But it would help those poor AI spies to report back...

 

[Moriarte]

No AI spy can get that kind of impression from you because your intentions aren't coded into the game.

Human intentions Can be coded into the game. 5-6 human units near AI borders means there is a probability of an attack.

 

[Rohili]

Human intentions Can be coded into the game. 5-6 human units near AI borders means there is a probability of an attack.

But that would be totally useless because the AI can see that for themselves and react accordingly (which is why we even have this thread to begin with). In contrast, you get warnings about an AI plotting against you well before any of their units are anywhere near your borders. There is no way the game can divine the human player's intentions in the same way.

 

[Polisurgist]

Human intentions Can be coded into the game. 5-6 human units near AI borders means there is a probability of an attack.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with espionage, since espionage detects the intent to attack before units are moved, and can tell the target in ambiguous cases.

 

[project_mercy]

I've quit a bunch of games purely for seeing this message. I feel it's basically a hallmark of the worst aspects of Civ V. The reasons this interaction is stupid

1. No reciprocity. There should be NO interactions the AI can do to you that you can't to it. There's so few interactions as is, removing the few there are is asinine. This includes other things like "stop buying tiles next to me"
2. It completely invalidates the rest of the diplomacy system. The ACTUAL question they're asking is "please remove your troops from my border". The answer should either be a yes or no, with the appropriate standing changes. The "declare war" is stupid and needs to be removed
3. They ask it whenever they can. Later in the game the pure fact that you have troops in your border results in the AI complaining. So either you just stay at war with the AI, or you take double penalties (warmongering, oath-breaker) when you do go to do it. And yet the AI will build massive armies and backstab you and there's nothing you can do.
4. Answering yes gives you NOTHING. you don't get a bonus for saying yes. You only will get a later penalty if you break it.

So, really it's less that this interaction is a problem (beyond the annoying popup), it's more that it's the most obvious sore on the terrible diplomacy system.

Functionally the "diplomacy" in this game is nothing more than the AI manufacturing reasons to hate you and go to war. The AI never manufactures reasons to like you. Nothing happens without you actively attempting to bribe the AI for them to like you. They will pretend to like you so you will protect them and they can force you to give them stuff. For the most part, there's generally very little difference in how the AI reacts if you are at war, or if you have open borders with them. In fact, given how much resources the AI will waste building troops that it will waste in some poorly-planned attack, in most cases the best thing you can do is just declare war on everyone at the start of the game. Free workers, free gold from pillaging, and basically no competition.

"Scramble for Africa" really took home to me how terrible the system is. If you haven't played it, for some terrible reason someone though it would be a good idea if all the powerful nations couldn't declare war on each other. They'll throw tantrums, but they can't declare war. The whole system functionally breaks down, especially on Deity, There's no POINT to any of the diplomacy, because nothing can come of it other than war. If you don't have war, you don't have diplomacy.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

...in most cases the best thing you can do is just declare war on everyone at the start of the game. Free workers, free gold from pillaging, and basically no competition.

Sounds like great plan... on warlord

"Scramble for Africa" really took home to me how terrible the system is. If you haven't played it, for some terrible reason someone though it would be a good idea if all the powerful nations couldn't declare war on each other. They'll throw tantrums, but they can't declare war. The whole system functionally breaks down, especially on Deity, There's no POINT to any of the diplomacy, because nothing can come of it other than war.

Complains about diplo, cites scripted war scenario as example

If you don't have war, you don't have diplomacy.

Clausewitz would agree

 

[project_mercy]

Complains about diplo, cites scripted war scenario as example

It's the exactly opposite.

What I'm trying to say without having a wall of text is that, by playing a scenario where it is functionally removed, you find that it does nothing. My gameplay did not change, nor did it have any effect what so ever on my play. The only thing that I found I missed was the ability to declare war.

And yes, I'm talking about on Deity. Though I would point out that any game should be the same game at ANY difficulty. Difficulty should NOT change the game, it should just effect the user's challenge. Not that CivV actually does this, but that's not the point of this thread. All deity does is expose the failures, because what little rules the AI used to have to follow it doesn't anymore, due to being able to basically ignore happiness, city placement, GPT, etc.

All they've done to address this is try to provide some incentive for friendships by removing abilities you used to have, half of which were exploitative at best.