2 negative thoughts from a BtS fan

[oranges4ever]

It would be a good idea if it could be implemented, but adding more diplomatic negative modifiers would make wars even more likely.

I think that may be realistic. The more backstabbing, the more need for a 'pre-emptive defense' of wiping someone else out before they get you.
Certainly military buildups happen in real life where there is military aggression.

Warmongers might not care about more wars.

Friends who support each other against aggression would get the helping-us-with-the-war bonus and hence would reinforce their good relations. Even less likelihood of war there.

Also, don't forget the puppet masters who manipulate war and peace. They might have a more difficult task, but I'm sure they are up to the challenge!

 

[aelf]

I can't agree with people whining because AI attacked them at pleased.

I'll wait till you are talking about some aspect of the game that you don't like or about some ideas that you don't agree with and I'll say that you are whining. How about "LOL whiner"?

First of all, pleased is not a diplomatic status which assures you from being attacked by someone else, as showed elsewhere some leaders which are pleased toward you won't dogpile you others will dogpile you but in any case chances are lesser than at Cautious status to be attacked, so Pleased does matters.

So far so good.

Secondly there are lot of situations where AI has a lot of interest in attacking you even if it is pleased toward you, i'm referring for example when you have close borders and AI can't expand, in this case not allowing AI to dogpile you is just asking to make AI dumber.

The situation that you just described is valid. But I believe the OP wasn't talking about such a disfunctional marriage.

I could list a lot more situations where AI would be smart attacking you even if pleased, but in any case i'm of the opinion that AI should try to do i's best to win, asking to limit its "freedom" would be just asking Firaxis to make it dumber.

Yup, such as making the AI gang up on the most powerful civ. When you have been peacefully building up your empire for the past millenium and making it the most propserous, I'm sure you'd be smiling with nostalgia when all the other civs sign a pact "to contain [your] aggression".

Again, we can have ruthless AI or we can have diplomatic AI. No this-turn's-dice-roll-says-I-should-be-ruthless-AI.

Firstly, to aelf: you're dead wrong. I am not somebody who spams military units and ignores the diplomatic aspect of the game. In fact, it's the exact opposite. I find the military aspect of the game to be both the most tedious, and the most skewed in the player's favor. Thus I generally avoid it as much as I can. So your assumptions about my personality based on our disagreements are ill-founded.

Good for you, then. The optimal solutions to an AI that cares less about diplomatic relations are unit spam and warmongering, though, so be careful what you wish for.

The best way I could explain my argument, is to have you imagine that diplomatic "odds" were displayed in the game. Imagine that when you mouse over another civ's name, a percent chance to declare war was displayed. For a friendly civ, the "Chance to declare war per turn" might be 1%. This is no different than the combat odds.

Even if unit X versus unit Y displayed a 99% chance for victory, given enough battles unit X would eventually lose. Similarly, even though you are almost guaranteed to never have a war with a friendly civ, there is always a small chance that war will be declared.

Further, even if you took these percentages, on their own, to be less than 100%, that still doesn't include contingencies that could occur on each turn - e.g. a rival bribes that civ to attack, that civ wants a resource that you have, that civ feels boxed in and wants to expand, et cetera.

And we can assume that that percentage is always less than 100%, otherwise diplomacy would be the be-all-end-all of the game. All you would have to do is keep a positive Diplo modifier and you would never have to worry about an invasion. Does that seem balanced or challenging? It doesn't to me.

I don't agree. I don't like dice-roll diplomacy. It shouldn't be that. The reasons why a Pleased AI would declare war must be based entirely on real factors that force its hand, such as closed borders and being boxed in by you. After that, the AI should consider how strong it is relative to you. Friendly AIs should never attack. I'm aware that the current system employs the kind of dice rolls you describe, and I don't completely agree with it either. There is certainly no need to make it worse than it was in Warlords and before.

You don't want diplomacy to be the be-all-end-all of the game, but I don't see why it would. Can you always guarantee you'd be friends with everybody? And, as it is, unit spamming is becoming the be-all-end-all of the game.

This is mostly conjecture on my part, because I'm not a programmer and I don't know how the AI was programmed. But clearly a friendly disposition is not a guarantee of peace, period. With that bit of information, I'm going out on a limb and suggesting that diplomacy and declarations of war are subject to the same variance as every other game mechanic. The complainers seem to think diplomacy should be unique in being a guarantee against aggression from select civs, but there is no reason to have that expectation.

Depends on how much effort you put into it. If you put effort into building up the biggest and most up to date military, you'd be pretty much safe from attack, right? So why can't diplomacy enjoy something similar? It's not as if my AI friends can't demand stuff from me. If I wanna play nice and give in to them all the time, why should I risk getting attacked? That would be dumb. Smart people would then spam units and perform pre-emptive strikes, diplomacy be damned.

Like I've been saying though, making diplomacy guarenteed is silly. I myself am not very aggressive, but find the increased aggressiveness of the AI...exciting. It makes diplomacy more valuable, IMO....on regular settings, I know that the majority of AIs will rarely declare war on me, no matter what I do to piss them off(with obvious exceptions). With Aggressive AI, I'm playing a balancing act, and a much more dangerous game. Peace becomes both more desirable(because it isn't as likely to last) and more difficult to obtain, and I know the AI will punish me ruthlessly if I get a little too into building wonders. I also don't have to worry so much about the other continent becoming some unstoppable Buddhist hippie peace paradise that shows up in 600AD in Caravels and shares everything and anything amongst eachother, without even the tiniest conflict, which is just utterly ridiculous. And, if it does arise, it will actually be able to defend itself once I catch up to it and dump infantry on it by the boat load(y'know, to prevent them from reaching Alpha Centurai in 1850AD). I'm sorry it's harder to handle, and I do agree diplomacy is damaged by being so simplistic.

So, at the end of the day, you unit spam your way out, right?

Because...really? What is diplomacy in Civ? Trading. Which really doesn't mean much at all. The Romans traded with the Celts, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians, but that didn't stop them from conquering those peoples. Trading really isn't the basis of a deep relationship, but such chances are limited to warring together in Civ. A better diplomatic model isn't concrete, it is more volatile. It includes penalties for being untrustworthy, fair and equal penalties for the human player and the AI, and different kinds of relationships and roles. Throughout history, powerful nations have meddled in the affairs of weaker neighbors, supporting their favorites with arms and supplies(not necessarily ground troops). Nations signed pacts and agreements, both for their defense....and for offense against a shared target. Sometimes, they warred merely because they wanted more land, sometimes for nobler reasons. It needs wider ranges, and more chances for positives as well as negatives, and more complex associations...

Do not equate diplomacy with trading, even in the game. Trade contributes to good relations, but only to a certain extent. Conversely, good relations contribute to trade to certain extent. The game has actually simulated it quite nicely. And, so far as diplomatic modifiers are mostly used to determine whether an AI would attack you or not, the game's system would be perfectly fine.

That's the whole point. It doesn't seem to matter. AI's that I've cultivated long relationships with, on friendly terms, and weaker, sometimes far weaker, attack. Right out of nowhere. There's some sort of probability that makes it inevitable. I'm a peacemonger/builder that often leads the power rankings. Just because you don't hack and slash doesn't mean you're weak. BTS seems to have been re-designed with a warmonger's attitude.

Anyway, I'm looking into modding this 'feature' back out of the game. It's boring and makes the game not fun or worthwhile.

Even if you are weaker, I don't think you should simply be subject to abuse from your friends. I, too, dislike the increasing bias in the game that favours warmongers and militaristic players. BTS is designed around MP, unfortunately, so we are seeing more Starcraft and less Civ4 here. In the time of Warlords, some people justified it with the expansion's title. Now the title is Beyond the Sword. Are they going to tell us that beyond the sword lies the gun?

 

[dh_epic]

Make up your minds. Do you want diplomacy or do you want ruthless human opponents? There is no wishy-washy halfway option to make youselves feel better.

I think there's a lot of merit to this line of thinking. A lot of people want a smarter AI that can't be exploited. But they also want an AI that will never back stab you. People really have to make up their minds.

To me, i dont care about the random PLEASED WAR ANNOYED cycle. Its the fact that the AI recieves NO diplomatic penalty for the war. While if a human declars war on a pleased AI, we get minus's to diplo. Take the game i just lost as an example. 4 Civs, same continent, same religion, all pleased with everyone. (one of the civs is me) Khan randomly declares war on me. I cannot bribe anyone to help me, because they dont lose trust with those AI's. I reloaded the save, and declared war on khan. He actualy brought in the other 2 civs within 5 turns of the war. And of course, they went from Pleased, to cautious, to annoyed in those 5 turns.

You can do the same thing to the AI. Say someone declares war on you, and they don't really have any close allies. You could bribe a few other people to fight them on your behalf.

There's no "trust" penalty for you when you declare war on anyone. Only if you declare war on someone's friend will you piss them off. This is fair. If someone declares war on you, they receive a small diplo penalty with your friends too.

 

[aelf]

I think there's a lot of merit to this line of thinking. A lot of people want a smarter AI that can't be exploited. But they also want an AI that will never back stab you. People really have to make up their minds.

Define 'exploited'. In any case, by your definition, if you can exploit the AI, the solution is then to make the AI able or more likely to exploit you?

 

[elderotter]

I have also noticed that Allies that are pleased with you can be furious with a Vassal of yours and start a war with them that sucks you in. I like that aspect of the game - it makes you be cautious about who you accept as a Vassal. I was on friendly terms with 2 Nations - my Vassal - Japan was not - they declared War on Japan - which drew me into the war - against my wishes - and since I won the war probably against the wishes of those Nations which had to fight me along with my Vassal.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Irl how does a spy manage to spread culture? This one is lost on me.

Ever heard of bootlegged DVDs in China? Aww yeah CIA tax dollars at work baby!!!

By the by has anyone ever actually been able to afford this? I get my guy into the city and check the price in the espionage menu to find it is ridiculously priced.

Example, I had been spending a healthy portion (almost always rank 3 or higher of 7) of my espionage points on Elizabeth as she was my strongest immediate neighbor. I had even hit her with a great spy for the espionage bonus yet when I entered her city to try to get it to flip (it was 40% mine anyway) the cost was DOUBLE what I had (54k to my 23k). Anybody else have this issue?

 

[Flak]

I think there's a lot of merit to this line of thinking. A lot of people want a smarter AI that can't be exploited. But they also want an AI that will never back stab you. People really have to make up their minds.

These aren't contradictory. It's quite possible to have a trustworthy AI that can't be necessarily exploited (atleast not obviously). Exploits are ofcourse going to be impossible to to stop, because we are humans and we will always find a way against a machine.

 

[marioflag]

Even if you are weaker, I don't think you should simply be subject to abuse from your friends. I, too, dislike the increasing bias in the game that favours warmongers and militaristic players. BTS is designed around MP, unfortunately, so we are seeing more Starcraft and less Civ4 here. In the time of Warlords, some people justified it with the expansion's title. Now the title is Beyond the Sword. Are they going to tell us that beyond the sword lies the gun?

I don't think that there is an increasing bias toward warmongering.AI without aggressive AI on is just better in making warfare, so you have to be more carefully prepared when you are attacked but nothing has changed that makes AI more biased toward warmongering.Frankly i don't even think that this thread is useful considered that we have 2 AI, one for people which likes a more aggressive and realistic AI and another for people which likes more nation building over warfare in general.Different people have different tastes, until we have options which give us a choice on what kind of game we want to play i'm fine with this.If you are having problem for example with enemy's invasions in BtS it's probably due to the fact that now AI is good in naval warfare, actually it uses plane to bombard your land, and uses stacks which can be deadly, in Warlords or Civ4 you had useless stacks of 10 units attacking you sometimes even without siege units...which could be destroyed without any problem.
What you are noticing is a more COMPETITIVE AI not a more aggressive AI on standard settings, which has the side effect to make your games a bit more militaristic.My advise would be to drop of a level from your Civ4 and Warlords level of difficulty, i have done that and the gameplay is a lot better for me.

 

[klokwerk]

I agree with marioflag. The AI is just more competitive now, and two different AIs were designed to please everybody. Maybe the 'normal setting' AI is a bit more militaristic than before though, just because it acknowledges war as a good opportunity more realistically.

If you want Civ4 AI to be less militaristic, then war should become even less of an oportunity in the game mechanics, maybe by lowering offense and increasing defense. Then the AIs would become more peaceful since it would now be a more dominant strategy. The AIs just adapt to the game mechanics themselves. It happens that wars give good opportunities in this game. I wish it won't change, I think the balance is ok for me (at least on agg AI setting), a 100 % peaceful game would be boring. Only my taste.

Disclaimer : This post doesn't include any Blake quote whatsoever.

 

[aelf]

I don't think that there is an increasing bias toward warmongering.AI without aggressive AI on is just better in making warfare, so you have to be more carefully prepared when you are attacked but nothing has changed that makes AI more biased toward warmongering.Frankly i don't even think that this thread is useful considered that we have 2 AI, one for people which likes a more aggressive and realistic AI and another for people which likes more nation building over warfare in general.Different people have different tastes, until we have options which give us a choice on what kind of game we want to play i'm fine with this.If you are having problem for example with enemy's invasions in BtS it's probably due to the fact that now AI is good in naval warfare, actually it uses plane to bombard your land, and uses stacks which can be deadly, in Warlords or Civ4 you had useless stacks of 10 units attacking you sometimes even without siege units...which could be destroyed without any problem.
What you are noticing is a more COMPETITIVE AI not a more aggressive AI on standard settings, which has the side effect to make your games a bit more militaristic.

My contention is that the game was not originally designed for AIs that play like humans because of things like the diplomatic system. Granted there are some broken game mechanics that favour war in multiplayer, so Blake's stand has been since MP players almost always spam units and fight wars, either that must be the optimal way of playing or the AI must be built to be better able to overcome that in general. However, I have always said that equating MP with SP is a mistake, and that SP is different - to no avail, of course.

My advise would be to drop of a level from your Civ4 and Warlords level of difficulty, i have done that and the gameplay is a lot better for me.

Already done so, grandpa.

IDisclaimer : This post doesn't include any Blake quote whatsoever.

Still riding on others' arguments, though.

 

[InFlux5]

But I believe the OP wasn't talking about such a disfunctional marriage.

aelf, I think your argument breaks down without this premise, and there's no information in the OP about any aspect of the relationship other than the Pleased attitude of the AI. So I guess I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt, but I assume there was some factor other than a random dice-roll (not what I was advocating, btw) which accounts for the DoW. Without more information we can't know. And ultimately, without seeing the source code, we can never know whether there is a random element or not. I actually suspect there isn't, and that in all the anecdotal cases there is a reason the AI attacked. We just don't know what it is.

In response to me saying that I avoid the military aspect of the game, you said:

Good for you, then. The optimal solutions to an AI that cares less about diplomatic relations are unit spam and warmongering, though, so be careful what you wish for.

I'm not wishing for anything. For some unexplained reason I haven't experienced this AI-attacks-for-no-reason phenomenon. Thus I'm perfectly happy playing a game that's not focused on military, while also not worrying too much about backstabbing. But if I get backstabbed, I don't cry foul. Granted it's always from predictable civs in my game (e.g. Alex, Toku). But if it was from a more peaceful civ, I wouldn't see that as all that much different. I would just assume that while the threshold is higher for less-agressive civs, they still have a "backstab threshold", and it was obviously reached somehow.

 

[T.A JONES]

Wow it looks like they actually heeded to a lil of my advice! for improvin BTS. Still, somehow it ain't as I hoped.

In CIv4 you could cage a powerful civ by not signing open borders with him (no unit may enter without declaring war automatic)IN other words, If your in the middle and he wants to take out a civ for a resource it needs on the other side of you, you can block him from it!! Yes and later when you've built up enough forces, take whatever you seperated from him for yourself!. -MEGA EXPLIOT!For some reason even though he may be big enough to plow you down, as long as your the same religeon and have some trade going, hes content to be held at bay on your demand. Believe me CIv4 is far from perfect as well. The fact a civ has to declare war with you, his friend and place to ditch his extras resources on, just to reach another country to crush for a resource he's in desprate need of for is way worse then the facts of life you complain is a expliot. Think about it, by the time he fights you off he can't even complete his original objective

So I guess its the brown nosing in insignifigant areas that can snub out the drive for war against you in justified areas (resource blocking)are what need to be adressed come new X pak

 

[aelf]

aelf, I think your argument breaks down without this premise, and there's no information in the OP about any aspect of the relationship other than the Pleased attitude of the AI. So I guess I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt, but I assume there was some factor other than a random dice-roll (not what I was advocating, btw) which accounts for the DoW. Without more information we can't know. And ultimately, without seeing the source code, we can never know whether there is a random element or not. I actually suspect there isn't, and that in all the anecdotal cases there is a reason the AI attacked. We just don't know what it is.

I'm not wishing for anything. For some unexplained reason I haven't experienced this AI-attacks-for-no-reason phenomenon. Thus I'm perfectly happy playing a game that's not focused on military, while also not worrying too much about backstabbing. But if I get backstabbed, I don't cry foul. Granted it's always from predictable civs in my game (e.g. Alex, Toku). But if it was from a more peaceful civ, I wouldn't see that as all that much different. I would just assume that while the threshold is higher for less-agressive civs, they still have a "backstab threshold", and it was obviously reached somehow.

This "backstab treshold" is entirely determined by dice rolls. That is known.

And the OP did somewhat describe what the relationship was like. He also said that it was an "ally", so it couldn't be just some neighbour that happened to be Pleased due to one good trade.

Illogical AI declarations of war have also been described by others, so I'm not making things up.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

This "backstab treshold" is entirely determined by dice rolls. That is known.

And the OP did somewhat describe what the relationship was like. He also said that it was an "ally", so it couldn't be just some neighbour that happened to be Pleased due to one good trade.

Illogical AI declarations of war have also been described by others, so I'm not making things up.

I would go even further, and say that more than just illogical, they are becoming inevitable, which in turn starts to make them predictable, so even less point to them....

 

[Skavenrot]

If you are referring to one's own cities being poorly managed, I totally agree. I could be mistaken, but it seems like when I turn off automated city management, the computer turns it back on (the button is still off however) and starts working tiles that I don't want it to. It's totally annoying, since every 2-3 turns I have to check every city to make sure they're doing what they should be, and I find that they are not. As I said, I could be wrong. Anybody else get this?

Absolutely. Every so often I'll check and find they've made priests in my cities that I had no plans to specialize in religion, no matter if I have the auto populate set to off (I've never turned it on). They seem to do it when I leave forests around. I've been hoping since Vanilla Civ that this got fixed.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Absolutely. Every so often I'll check and find they've made priests in my cities that I had no plans to specialize in religion, no matter if I have the auto populate set to off (I've never turned it on). They seem to do it when I leave forests around. I've been hoping since Vanilla Civ that this got fixed.

This is true. Every time either a city grows, or another tile in that city's radius becomes improved, even with all gov functions off, the game seems to re-asses every tile combination in that city, and re-assign them as it sees fit. Occasionally useful, often annoying, sometimes ruinous.

 

[jackdog]

Forgive me if I am repeating something said before as have not had time to read the whole thread but re the backstabing dice roll surely some civs are well known to have a very strong tendency more than others, alex/gandi for instance, this is not a random 'dice role' chance of the back stab.

As far as the illogical attacks surely this is just more like real life than ever with annoying unintelligent dictators doing illogical warlike things agianst all odds and common sense, if the AI was always very smart it would soon become predictable and patterns would emerge, such attacks though a real pain keep us on our toes and are overall not a bad thing IMO. if it was predictable well it would be predictable....

I'm sure if you looked at the power graph of some of the people who thought they were well protected before the attack it would show the AI though opportunity was there, this may account for a good number of complaints about 'random' attacks, the rest are probably just alex and the like being themselves. I realise the power graph may bare no relation to what a human player sees as reality but its what the AI goes off so needs constant attention.

Is the power graph not the thing that needs the work....

 

[Innawerkz]

I agree with this, but I would take it a bit further so that it affects multiplayer as well. The player should have an AI active for themselves, just like any other leader, except it wouldn't make anything happen. All it would do is measure your friendliness with other nations, to represent the citizens of your nation. Whatever other nations have done to or with you would affect the friendliness level. If they have been very friendly with you, and then you attack them, it will make your citizens unhappy. It would be like if the US attacked Canada or the UK. We've been good friends with them for a long time. Unless they do something very serious to provoke an attack, it would make the population very angry to be at war with them.

"You declared war on a friend!" +2 if your status with them was pleased, +4 if your status with them was friendly.
"You declared war on an enemy!" +1 if your status with them was annoyed, +2 if your status with them was furious.
The happiness penalties or bonuses should last until 10 turns after the war ends. Neither of them should stack. When you go into the foreign relations screen, you should also be able to see how your citizens feel about the other countries.

Similar to how it affects your citizens, it should also affect your diplomacy. If you attack your allies, the computer players should view you as a backstabber. "You can't be trusted." -1 if you attacked someone you were pleased with, "You stab your friends in the back!" -2 if you attacked someone you were friendly with. Because of the changes above, this would also have an impact on multiplayer games, since this would make the citizens of other countries more willing to see you attacked.

Finally, to help out good allies, and peacemongers, there should be a bonus for helping out allies by declaring war on people who declare war on them. "You came to the aid of a friend!" +1 if you were pleased with them, +2 if you were friendly with them. This should also last until 10 turns after the war ends.

The AI would obviously need to be designed to work around this, so that it behaves in a manner that will help keep its citizens and allies happy. Likewise, this should change the backstabbing, warmongering strategies that so many people use.

Very late to this party, but this idea was not given enough attention. I think this would be a great balance for both AI & human players. It has clear & measurable ramifications. In addition, it is not needlessly complicated. Although I love the idea of Aussie Lurkers suggestions on tying relations to Civics, I don't think that would play out well. Essentially, everyone would be (more) peaceful in the first eras of the game as ALL are limited to a very small number of Civics to pick from. In addition, everyone already gets a bonus from pandering to AI"s Civics if they choose.

IMO, Norsemans suggestions are elegantly simple. I am speaking from on-going personal experience. Us, on Civfanatics, having played Civ for so many years, it's easy to lose sight that it is a complicated game to learn. Currently, I am teaching my girlfriend & my 8-year old son how to play. Explaining the combat system percentages, how to use siege engines & defensive terrain effectively, how production and growth are increased, happiness & health caps, cultural expansion, the sliders, what a specialist is, how to use great people, why we need resources, trading & diplomacy, civics & religion, what the traits are all about and on and on and on. Add espionage, corporations and some other BtS features and it is quite an uphill battle to streamline the concepts.

Why shouldn't our city populations be more vocal and involved in the worlds politcial scene? Not to the extent of Civ 2's 'Democracy', but actually show consequence to some of the more questionable decisions in the Administration.

 

[aelf]

Forgive me if I am repeating something said before as have not had time to read the whole thread but re the backstabing dice roll surely some civs are well known to have a very strong tendency more than others, alex/gandi for instance, this is not a random 'dice role' chance of the back stab.

That part is true. But random dice roll is still involved. There are several testimonies of illogical war declarations, also by some people who are familiar with Warlords.

As far as the illogical attacks surely this is just more like real life than ever with annoying unintelligent dictators doing illogical warlike things agianst all odds and common sense, if the AI was always very smart it would soon become predictable and patterns would emerge, such attacks though a real pain keep us on our toes and are overall not a bad thing IMO. if it was predictable well it would be predictable....

And the resultant unit spam to protect yourself makes the game very challenging? You can look at diplomacy as an alternate measure to keep yourself secure. Now that the effectiveness of it is reduced, only one measure is the most logical.

I'm sure if you looked at the power graph of some of the people who thought they were well protected before the attack it would show the AI though opportunity was there, this may account for a good number of complaints about 'random' attacks, the rest are probably just alex and the like being themselves. I realise the power graph may bare no relation to what a human player sees as reality but its what the AI goes off so needs constant attention.

If this is true and it's as simple as that, why now? Why with the introduction of BtS did many people suddenly talk about illogical war declarations? There definitely is a spreading or worsening of the Monty complex among the AI.

 

[Zhahz]

1. As a player I do this - if I want the land it doesn't matter if my neighbor has been my best friend for 2000 years - it's time to conquer. You see it often in game reports too. It might sucks that it happens when AIs do it to you, but war should always be a possibility, regardless of relations.

2. Pretty much agree. Sometimes it doesn't quite make sense to me and forces me into MM I'd normally not mess with.