2 negative thoughts from a BtS fan

[GoodSarmatian]

The AI attacking you when you are friendly is annoying but let's face it I think we all pretty much declared war on an AI despite it being friendly at us at one time or another.

I usually do this to guys like Alex and Monty, but only because I know they will attack me sooner or later.
I really hate it to betray a long term ally but sometimes a preemptive strike is necessary.

 

[dh_epic]

I have to strongly disagree on #1. The human players do #1 all the time. Why? Because they're trying to win the game. The point of the game is to beat your rivals to Alpha Centauri. That means finding a perfect time to backstab. The AI has been too kind to the human, and humans have been able to exploit that. Now the stakes are much more even.

 

[Ecofarm]

Good ally = builds wonders for me.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

I have no problem with the AI backstabbing me...really, I backstab them quite a bit. They should do it from time-to-time. Some AI leaders are just plain untrustworthy. It IS clear that backstabbing needs to have some ramifications(and espionage should have graver consequences among friends.) But I think a "huge" penalty is completely inappropriate, because, if there was, eventually diplomacy could become entirely worthless. IRL, people eventually forgive you for declaring war on them, or trading with their worst enemy, or betraying them, or conducting espionage against them. It should start as a -2, which eventually decays completely. Additional violations while this penalty is in affect increase it by -1...

 

[InFlux5]

If said ai, will then turn around and ignore all this just because it possibly feels him to be slightly weak for a moment, then what was the point in his millenia diplomacy. In fact, what's the point in any diplomacy ?

How about all those turns of peace leading up to the war? Surely the AI would have attacked much sooner if relations were not as good. And there have always been some civs that would attack regardless of your relations (e.g. Alex).

Further, I don't know how you can assume the attack is "irrational". You don't know what "motivations" were programmed into the AI. Perhaps the attack was actually entirely "rational". You simply don't know why it occurred.

And finally, how do you know that civ wasn't bribed into war by some other? Good relations certainly raise the price of a bribe, but they don't preclude it completely.

 

[aelf]

Come on, let's just agree to do away with diplomacy. The whole concept of it is preposterous anyway. The player would care nothing for a common religion or a history of peace with the AI. So if the AI should backstab because the player backstabs then the AI should ignore diplomacy because the player doesn't care. It's fair, right? Why implement things halfway? If we want a truly machiavellian game, we should do so! Quit beating around the bush saying, "Oh, the AI should backstab sometimes 'cause it makes me feel like I'm playing a fair game, but let's not do away with diplomacy 'cause sometimes I also want to be able to use it to my advantage." If you think occassional exceptions to the rules of diplomacy are good, why don't we also have the occassional exception to other rules of the game? It would be good if the AI would sometimes Worldbuilder in some nukes because some humans do that when they are losing before they abandon the game. Maybe it shouldn't happen so often, but it should because that would make us feel like we're playing against ourselves.

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.

 

[kt_atis]

How about all those turns of peace leading up to the war? Surely the AI would have attacked much sooner if relations were not as good. And there have always been some civs that would attack regardless of your relations (e.g. Alex).

Further, I don't know how you can assume the attack is "irrational". You don't know what "motivations" were programmed into the AI. Perhaps the attack was actually entirely "rational". You simply don't know why it occurred.

And finally, how do you know that civ wasn't bribed into war by some other? Good relations certainly raise the price of a bribe, but they don't preclude it completely.

I think I understand where your getting at. Say for example you have a long alley but he has only 2 or 3 cities and his Civilization is very small and is losing more land because of your cultural boarders keep expanding. The AI might not like this so he may declare war on you so he can expand his boarders and thus gain more resources. Well if thats the motives behind AI they should show that. If an AI has a very small civilization he should have a negative face towards superior neighbor or something.

 

[kt_atis]

Come on, let's just agree to do away with diplomacy. The whole concept of it is preposterous anyway. The player would care nothing for a common religion or a history of peace with the AI. So if the AI should backstab because the player backstabs then the AI should ignore diplomacy because the player doesn't care. It's fair, right? Why implement things halfway? If we want a truly machiavellian game, we should do so! Quit beating around the bush saying, "Oh, the AI should backstab sometimes 'cause it makes me feel like I'm playing a fair game, but let's not do away with diplomacy 'cause sometimes I also want to be able to use it to my advantage." If you think occassional exceptions to the rules of diplomacy are good, why don't we also have the occassional exception to other rules of the game? It would be good if the AI would sometimes Worldbuilder in some nukes because some humans do that when they are losing before they abandon the game. Maybe it shouldn't happen so often, but it should because that would make us feel like we're playing against ourselves.

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.

IMO some AI should be ruthless and back stab you like Stalin, Mao, Julius, etc. But the much peaceful people like Roosevelt, Elizabeth, and Churchill shouldn't back stab you at all. It would be wired to have Churchill declare war on you after an entire game of peace.

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

The only way to diplomatically secure an alliance is to actually create an alliance. Defensive pacts and cooperative wars are how you build allies, not trading resources and stuff. The AI will try to improve it's position even when it means stepping on allies. If you want to be war partners, you have to actively cultivate such a relationship.

 

[aelf]

IMO some AI should be ruthless and back stab you like Stalin, Mao, Julius, etc. But the much peaceful people like Roosevelt, Elizabeth, and Churchill shouldn't back stab you at all. It would be wired to have Churchill declare war on you after an entire game of peace.

So adding more Monty-like leaders would improve the game?

The only way to diplomatically secure an alliance is to actually create an alliance. Defensive pacts and cooperative wars are how you build allies, not trading resources and stuff. The AI will try to improve it's position even when it means stepping on allies. If you want to be war partners, you have to actively cultivate such a relationship.

Defensive pacts and cooperative wars contribute to improving relations the same way trading does, by adding points towards making the AI 'Pleased' or 'Friendly'. If the AI can backstab you whenever it sees fit anyway, these things will not help you either.

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

Defensive pacts and cooperative wars contribute to improving relations the same way trading does, by adding points towards making the AI 'Pleased' or 'Friendly'. If the AI can backstab you whenever it sees fit anyway, these things will not help you either.

Try it. It works. The AI doesn't just look at its relation modifier with you, I thought that was painfully obvious as evidenced by the fact that they will attack if despite a favorable attitude.

 

[Flak]

Am I the only human player here that has never attacked an AI with whom I was friendly? I guess I get to immersed into the game, but I really consider those relationship important. Otherwise, why work to form and maintain them?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

How about all those turns of peace leading up to the war? Surely the AI would have attacked much sooner if relations were not as good. And there have always been some civs that would attack regardless of your relations (e.g. Alex).

Further, I don't know how you can assume the attack is "irrational". You don't know what "motivations" were programmed into the AI. Perhaps the attack was actually entirely "rational". You simply don't know why it occurred.

And finally, how do you know that civ wasn't bribed into war by some other? Good relations certainly raise the price of a bribe, but they don't preclude it completely.

Why the frik should it have to attack at all. Because a human would? Which particular human?...oh you mean the one who thinks they can get away with it. Why the heck would the "ai have attacked much sooner if relations were not as good"....don't you see the freaking paradox? You are basically saying, that in the long term it doesn't matter how good the relations were, because they were going to attack anyway. Hence the point, why bother with diplomacy? Why not just play every game with one condition, all other civs must be conquered, and "diplomacy" is purely there to keep Civs from attacking you long enough for you to attack them.

If thats someone's idea of what Civ should be about, its become twisted beyond all recognition from the game's original ideas.

 

[InFlux5]

Wow, this thread has gotten really ridiculous. A couple examples of friends backstabbing you and suddenly diplomacy is "meaningless". Just absurd. You're looking at a few exceptions to a rule, while completely ignoring the fact that the rule holds in the vast majority of cases. This is just one more example of how there are no guarantees in the game.

To illustrate the absurdity of aelf and Drew's arguments, I could apply them somewhere else: why even have combat in the game at all? If my Cavalry can be beat by an Archer, what's the point of even having strength ratings for the units? You can't go "halfway" here, it's all or nothing. Either higher strength means a win 100% of the time, or strength is totally meaningless.

For the record, I can't remember a time when this mysterious attack-for-no-good-reason happened to me. So this confirms to my mind that it's a very rare occurance, and I can't help but assume there is some good explanation for it in the game design. It's simply that we don't know what that is, so some people are whining that it's stupid and should never happen.

 

[Norseman2]

I have proposed before, and will do it again here, that any nation attacking any other that has a supposed pleased status relationship, should receive a very large neg diplo modifier with all other nations. Then by all means do it, but face the consequences afterwards. Players can do this now, because there is no more a penalty for attacking a an ally, than there is from attacking an enemy. This "its only playing to win" whiny rubbish is becoming an annoying reply too.

In Shawn's example, he stated that he wasn't exactly leaving the cities undefended. He stated that he had Diplomatically (a word that seems to have been thrown in the bin for BTS) induced relations to an extremely cordial state, over a large amount of time. If said ai, will then turn around and ignore all this just because it possibly feels him to be slightly weak for a moment, then what was the point in his millenia diplomacy. In fact, what's the point in any diplomacy ? Im quite sure, when this war was over, the attacking ai went immediately back to its original "pleased" or whatever status, and expects you to open borders and trade with it again. And in many cases, you probably don't really have much choice, if you actually want any foreign trade.

So let me clarify, Im not saying attacking supposed allies should be in anyway banned, no not at all, just that this action needs to carry a very large penalty to it.

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.

 

[vodlaian]

I'll never understand why people play civ and then get upset when the AI attacks them as part of their strategy...

 

[BARBEERIAN]

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?

God yes I'm getting that and it's pissing me off. I remember last night I had this one city, and it's only hammer tile was plains/stone on a river, and every 2/3 turns I'd see the city taking 80+ turns to build something and reassign a worker to the tile. That never happened to me in Warlords, once I manually set a worker on a tile it was worked forever.

 

[Loose Nut]

It strikes me that one of the things an espionage system should be good for is telling you who is gearing up to attack whom, and when. Poisoning water supplies left and right, not so much.

 

[romelus]

"pleased" is not safe. i haven't had a "friendly" civ attack me, but i've attacked them many times. sometimes, they just want what you have. simple.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I don't think we need to do away with Diplomacy. What I think we need is a real system of 'Cassus Belli', one which impacts on Diplomacy & War Weariness.
I'll see if I can explain it:

If an AI Civ is already less than Cautious with you, then declaring war on him should not give you a diplo malus & your WW should grow at a much slower rate.

If, however, you are at Cautious with that Civ, then you should get an automatic -2 diplo malus with him, but only get regular WW. His Friends would also get the regular 'You attacked our Friend' Penalty (but only if they are Friendly with that civ).

If you & a Civ are at pleased, then attacking them should earn you an automatic -4 diplo malus, & a -1 with all other civs you have contact with ('Your Treachery towards a good neighbour concerns us')

If you & a Civ are at Friendly, then attacking them should earn you an automatic -6 diplo malus with him, & a -3 malus with all other civs you have contact with ('Your treachery towards a close friend is duly noted'). In addition, attacking friendly Civs should earn you an extra penalty to WW, & a slightly lesser penalty if you are Pleased.

To throw some extra intrigue into the mix, Civics should also impact on Diplomacy more-especially in regards to war. The Government Civics & the Religion Civics both have inbuilt 'Polar Opposites' which could play into the game. Those Civs running US or Representation should get a diplo penalty against civs running Police State (-3 Malus), & a slightly smaller one against civs running Hereditary Rule or Despotism (-1 & -2 respectively). Two Civs with US or Representation should get a +2 towards each other, wheras a US civ should get a +1 bonus towards a civ running Representation.

Now, where things get equally interesting is this: if you are running US or Representation, then attacking a Civ who is also running one of these two civics should get you an automatic -3 diplo malus with all Civs running either of these two civics ('You have attacked a fellow Democrat') Additionally, you would get a WW penalty for such a war. Perversely, though, you would get a +2 diplo bonus with any civs running Despotism or Police State.

By Contrast, if you declared war on a civ running Police State or Despotism, then you would get a +2 diplo bonus with other democratic civs, but a -3 diplo bonus amongst any civs currently running despotism or Police State ('We dislike your attempts to force democracy on other nations'). You would also get a bonus on your WW.

Now, I realise it might sound complicated, but I think it could add a lot more interesting situations to the diplomatic sphere of the game, whilst still allowing for the occasional backstab when it made sense.

Aussie_Lurker.