What good is 'Friendship' ?

[Sea]

This applies to BNW and earlier versions.

Am I missing something or are 'Declaration of Friendship's just a royal pita?

The only thing that ever seems to happen when I have accepted being a friend is that the country will ask for something.. either a luxury item that I rather use in a trade or gold if I have some saved for unit upgrades or tiles. And if I don't give it too them, then they use that against me and it spoils our relationship.

I have tried to ask them for resources or money and have never received a single thing.

The whole thing just becomes a time waster as I now give the same 'no' over and over again.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if not, I'd prefer that it is just done away with.

 

[whyidie]

Friendship allows research agreements (a good boost to science), trading for lump sum gold (instead of just gold per turn), and is a positive modifier in diplomacy which can help you build friendships (or enemies) with other civs.

 

[Polisurgist]

You can get better trade deals with a declared friend.
You have better diplomatic relations with other civs they've declared as friends (leading to more of the above).
You can sign research agreements and trade for lump sums of gold
You can be a bit more sure that your declared friends won't backstab you while the agreement is active (it's not a sure thing, but it's better than nothing)
You suffer less of a penalty among your declared friends for warmongering on third parties

 

[headcase]

If you give them something they ask for, they will remain quite friendly unless it's offset by a lot of diplo hits. It feels like they're taking advantage of you, but in the long-run it's often worth it, even if your friends never give you anything tangible. Each friendly civ is one more good trade \ RA partner and one less civ that can potentially cause a chain-denouncement.

They really need to change the "Demand" option to "Request" with Friends, and take away the diplo-hit for asking. Even if they hardly ever give you something, at least the nonsensical hit wouldn't happen.

 

[Beaver79]

It's also one of the best ways to get other civs to hate you. If you are friends with another Civ's enemy look out because you're about to get denounced.

Do not make a DoF with a puny civ or one that everyone else hates unless you want to fight all of those people.

Your friend can also ask you to denounce another civ. If you don't you friend automatically denounces you.

You have to make them for the research agreements, but they can get you into trouble.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

with BNW they made several things necessary, i.e Lump of Gold, and stuff like that required to have a DoF in order to trade.

Although it's finicky, I actually like the system of DoF, it has it's positives, you just need to use common logic to use it, the only problem is there's no mechanics to back out peacefully withotu getting the whoel world against you.

 

[EK834]

Maybe I'm missing something here

By refusing all DoF you're certainly missing on research agreements, which on King and above are fairly important if you want a science victory, and to just keep up, or keep your lead. It also waste a SP on Scientific Revolution, or give up finishing Rationalism.

If you're playing a bit with the WC, having DoFs also makes it much cheaper to bribe AI for its core votes. For about 50 gpt or less you can get your ideology passed as World Ideology with ease. Friends will almost always give you a very cheap option in the lot (you even get them to vote yea or nay on the second proposal so they can't vote on Ideology, whatever is cheapest if they won't give a good deal for voting Yea for your ideology).

It's also easier to keep runaways and warmongers in check, and start chain denouncements to isolate foes with allies.

It's also easier/cheaper to have allies agree to fight other civs you want attacked.

Etc.

It's not as important and more an annoyance in the end on the easier levels, where it's easier to simply run away and leave the AIs behind, focusing on your victory.

Edit: if you don't annoy the AI and aren't too weak, refusing the AI's demands for help doesn't have a huge diplomatic cost. I virtually refuse every demand for insane gpt amounts and never got into major trouble for it unless I was very weak and the AI broke the friendship to attack me. Usually it's not in itself nearly enough to end a friendship, sabotage its renewal, let alone to spark a denouncement or a DoW. My allies get to learn to say "ah, perhaps another time then" a lot in my games.

 

[Polisurgist]

I'v switched over to actually granting those requests most of the time, except when a friend is clearly on his way out of the game or the request is exorbitant. most often, they won't ask for too high a gold sum or a luxury I don't have multiple copies of, but it also becomes a good incentive to spend gold rather than hoard it and to trade away as many luxuries as I can afford before the beggars come knocking.

It's helped me keep really good relations with other civs, and been a huge boon when it came to getting rid of a troublemaker without getting too bad a warmonger hit.

 

[EK834]

I'v switched over to actually granting those requests most of the time, except when a friend is clearly on his way out of the game or the request is exorbitant. most often, they won't ask for too high a gold sum or a luxury I don't have multiple copies of, but it also becomes a good incentive to spend gold rather than hoard it and to trade away as many luxuries as I can afford before the beggars come knocking.

It's helped me keep really good relations with other civs, and been a huge boon when it came to getting rid of a troublemaker without getting too bad a warmonger hit.

I also try to grant them what I can afford, especially mid game (they're also happy with "generous" deals lately, selling to them at 6 gpt instead of 7 for lux and such). It's when I play Venice and get above 600 gpt and Maria Theresa or another of the beggars want 69 gpt for 90 turns (Marathon) that I turn them down systematically.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I NEVER give them Gold, because they want a ridicolous amount, at least with G&K refusing these offers means they no longer dislike you for that (there used to be a negative modifier for that).

I think the one thing one needs to be aware, is although the AI is finicky, there is a PATTERn, and if you can find the PATTERN the Diplomacy actually is fun, no one should ever give into a DoF with a warmonger (Attila, Genghis), and if peoplel ike Alexander, Augustus, Isabella, Dido are your neighbors THEY will attack you, but the fruther they are, the more likely they will remain loyal.

 

[mikeville]

I NEVER give them Gold, because they want a ridicolous amount, at least with G&K refusing these offers means they no longer dislike you for that (there used to be a negative modifier for that).

I think this is correct...

In my last several games (BNW, Emporer level) I have had DoF AI's come to me and ask for a lot of gold per turn... 45, 55 GPT, somewhere in the range. Every time I refused. I did not notice any negative diplomatic modifier.

 

[GamerFlair]

I get the feeling you only take neg diplo from declining a friend request to a current war now. I don't recall taking hits for anything else.

 

[GhostSalsa]

The best part of the request system is how frequently you're looking at the gift renew screen for a civ that has denounced you or popped up with a hostile warning in the 30 turns since you helped them out. At least once a game average.

Oh yes, I can see this huge drain on my income truly furthered our friendship. Clearly gifts bring you so much loyalty. Stupid feature. I still approve lux gifts anyway since I avoid selling luxes for gold for most of the game now (AI never offers you same price for their spare luxes and deal renew incorrectly will give away my last copy).

 

[comatosedragon]

Your friend can also ask you to denounce another civ. If you don't you friend automatically denounces you.

In 1500 hours, I have never seen this happen. Is this confirmed?

 

[Beaver79]

In 1500 hours, I have never seen this happen. Is this confirmed?

I'm not positive if it specifically comes from a DoF, maybe it's just if they are on good terms.

The wording is something like "Good friend I have a situation that I need your help with. I need you to denounce so and so."

If I don't he denounces me everytime.

 

[jogi]

In 1500 hours, I have never seen this happen. Is this confirmed?

I had this happen to me twice in my last game. I don't know if it's automatic or not, though.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I'm not positive if it specifically comes from a DoF, maybe it's just if they are on good terms.

The wording is something like "Good friend I have a situation that I need your help with. I need you to denounce so and so."

If I don't he denounces me everytime.

Yes I had this once. Hard to tell if it's still around since it's so rare.

 

[joncnunn]

DOFs went very totally useless to absolutely needed between Vanilla and BNW:

Vanilla: DOFs worse than useless. There would be a diplomatic hit if you refused a request for help from a friend.

G&K: Needed for RAs. Sign us as many DOFs as you want to be RA partners, but only during the time frame in which you are interested in signing new RAs. Keep in mind that every AI hates their neighbor so don't sign DOFs with two civs right next to each other. But that penalty for refusing to help was removed.

BNW: Absolutely needed to get full value for trade value with anybody because the AI will not pay cash at all without one. Made worse because the AI fails economics forever even worse in BNW (even post patch) than it did in G&K.
While you have always only gotten full value for selling a luxury if all cash up front; in G&K, it was 209 gold for 1 GPT; it pays even less now and if the civ is one that you have a DOF with, you are now always better off waiting for them to have the full 240 gold on hand.
For civs you don't have DOF with, the most you can currently get is as follows:
210 for a luxury; it's barely worth selling at all if you have more copies than friends.
30 for a strategic resource; no point at selling at all to someone who isn't your friend [and can then pay the 45 gold]
Also, with the AI no longer knowing how to cash rush units properly (it was introduced in last years fall patch to G&K but removed in BNW), the AIs no longer hate their neighbors in early game. (Other than the most aggressive ones), so you can now become friends with two civs that are neighbors.

 

[EK834]

Yes I had this once. Hard to tell if it's still around since it's so rare.

It's definitely still around.

Typically in my games it showed up in the late game, and I saw it mostly in games where the ideologies are split more or less equally and a whole lot of previously neutral Civs find themselves with different ideologies. It doesn't seem to happen often if several Civs have many DoF across the ideological board (they just become neutral, though some DoFs endure despite ideologies)

I usually get the demand from Civs with which I have a DoF (always, that) and who adopted a different ideology, or occasionally from a Civ from my ideology asking to denounce someone from another. It's denounced or be denounced; I think it's automatic or at least it always happened that way so far. It can snowball easily and within a few turns you're being chained backstabbed and denounced (the alternative is, most often, to backstab and denounce Civs from your own ideology, not a very wise choice, though sometimes they pick a Civ following the third ideology).

When that starts happening, you can be sure you'll have a late game with many wars.
The less you backstab in such situations the better, in my experience. Unless you're weak and then it's better to go with the stronger Civ involved. Otherwise I prefer to keep the friends among my ideology, as those alliances hold much better through the late games than mixed ideology friendships.

 

[headcase]

In 1500 hours, I have never seen this happen. Is this confirmed?

I had this kind of thing happen once. It was a friend (possibly neutral) telling me to denounce another friend (I had a lot of friends, and they weren't all... friendly with each other). I refused, they made a longer-than-normal speech about how I don't choose sides and act like everything's rainbows and sunshine and how I'm really just a weasel or whatever, and declared war.