You just need to create a scapegoat. For example in my current game emporer/huge/marathon russia is the only civ, on the continent not buddhist, and as a result, no one trades with him, so occasionally hes been attacking random people getting dogpiled, but surviving by sheer numbers of horse archers, and the fact that I'm too lazy to move my stack of doom 1 square to the right, simply because the apostolic palace isnt working and even though I win by a margin of 600 votes I cant propose any resolutions.
2 negative thoughts from a BtS fan
- Thread starter Shawnosaurus
- Start date
aelf
Ashen One
Then you must be really dumb to put effort into something that you can't rely on. I think diplomacy is something that you deal with by accident. If some AI happens to be Pleased with you, that's good. That's why you don't understand the concept of having to put in effort on the diplomatic aspect of the game. All you probably do is build as strong a military as possible and win or survive by brute force.
InFlux5 said:
Wrong. The correct question would be "What's the point of having combat odds?"
But combat odds are within the rules of the game. Circumventing the diplomatic rules (which applies only to the AI since there is no player attitude as it is), while it does exist in a very limited form in the game (which I don't really like anyway), would just be undermining an aspect of the game. It will affect players' psychology and most people will then be forced to play like you do, just so that you can feel better about your games.InFlux5 said:
Well, it is stupid and shouldn't happen. The only reason that it would happen that I can think of is if you attack someone that civ is friendlier with, and the victim of your aggression bribes or asks that civ to help him or vassalizes to that civ for protection, provided that civ thinks it is able to take you on. That would be within the rules of diplomacy.
winddbourne
Prince
Honestly diplomacy is a good thing, it's implementation however seems to be poorly done. Trade is a wonderful thing, and the AI should be willing to trade more things and agree to more things with people it likes.
That has no bearing on whether it needs to go to war to stop me from expanding my borders and assimulating it's cities, or whether it feels threatened by my stack of 50 Impi sitting on it's border. Let alone if there is nowhere to expand to and it's feeling a bit cramped.
The problem is that . . . there are too few real things to trade for. We need more, and more meaningful, diplomatic options added to the system.
For example:
Sale of Arms: Selling soldiers directly to the enemy. Sure he can't build grenadiers and I don't want him to have the tech, but I'll trade him a few units to help in his war against Player X.
Secret War: It should cost both tons of cash and espionage points but it would be nice to be able to bribe an enemy civilization into declaring war, and likewise to be bribed BY computer players into wars they feel are in their benefit. Without Declaring war yourself!
Offensive Pact Against . . . : An alliance between players X and Y to stomp player Z off the map!
Scientific research Pact: Civilizations X and Y help each other research, thus each get a 10% boost to research points. They still may wind up with different techs, but both research faster due to the shared information and laboratory space.
Favored trade partner: The opposite of an embargo, civlizations X&Y reserve a certain percentage of their trade route capacity for each other and get slightly better benefits from each route. This would have to be limited so you couldn't simply have the treaty with everyone.
Diplomacy should mean a lot because the diplomatic options mean a lot. Plus . . . give espionage a bigger role, if I bribe player X into a trade embargo against player Y . . . why should he immediately know I did it? Maybe player X simply hates his guts. Let his spies find out, if they can.
That has no bearing on whether it needs to go to war to stop me from expanding my borders and assimulating it's cities, or whether it feels threatened by my stack of 50 Impi sitting on it's border. Let alone if there is nowhere to expand to and it's feeling a bit cramped.
The problem is that . . . there are too few real things to trade for. We need more, and more meaningful, diplomatic options added to the system.
For example:
Sale of Arms: Selling soldiers directly to the enemy. Sure he can't build grenadiers and I don't want him to have the tech, but I'll trade him a few units to help in his war against Player X.
Secret War: It should cost both tons of cash and espionage points but it would be nice to be able to bribe an enemy civilization into declaring war, and likewise to be bribed BY computer players into wars they feel are in their benefit. Without Declaring war yourself!
Offensive Pact Against . . . : An alliance between players X and Y to stomp player Z off the map!
Scientific research Pact: Civilizations X and Y help each other research, thus each get a 10% boost to research points. They still may wind up with different techs, but both research faster due to the shared information and laboratory space.
Favored trade partner: The opposite of an embargo, civlizations X&Y reserve a certain percentage of their trade route capacity for each other and get slightly better benefits from each route. This would have to be limited so you couldn't simply have the treaty with everyone.
Diplomacy should mean a lot because the diplomatic options mean a lot. Plus . . . give espionage a bigger role, if I bribe player X into a trade embargo against player Y . . . why should he immediately know I did it? Maybe player X simply hates his guts. Let his spies find out, if they can.
ArcadicGamer
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2007
- Messages
- 259
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.
I made a thread a little while ago asking for an updated Aggression Levels chart:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232024
I wonder how these "Pleased" backstabbers fit into that list. Maybe there are some people that you simply cannot trust.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232024
I wonder how these "Pleased" backstabbers fit into that list. Maybe there are some people that you simply cannot trust.
For this peacemonger who likes to play at anything higher than Warlord, I find BtS to be a disappointment.
I've played close to 20 games at Noble on BtS and am sick of it. For a game called "Beyond the Sword," which seems like it should mean "more than just war" the game favors warring more than it used to, I think.
Civs seem to build right on top of you, even more so than in previous versions. And mass wars can break out earlier with the new Apostolic condition. Even if I have Friendly relations, I can get pushed into a war because of this condition.
I'm putting this game aside for a while, because I'm incredibly disappointed. I want my strategy games to be intellectually challenging, not hack and slash.
I've played close to 20 games at Noble on BtS and am sick of it. For a game called "Beyond the Sword," which seems like it should mean "more than just war" the game favors warring more than it used to, I think.
Civs seem to build right on top of you, even more so than in previous versions. And mass wars can break out earlier with the new Apostolic condition. Even if I have Friendly relations, I can get pushed into a war because of this condition.
I'm putting this game aside for a while, because I'm incredibly disappointed. I want my strategy games to be intellectually challenging, not hack and slash.
aelf
Ashen One
I sympathise with you. I feel your pain, really, and I think the same way. But I also think that BTS has a lot new and exciting features. I guess if you don't want to miss out on them you are forced to adapt to the new circumstances, which is what some other people want. Isn't it ironic that they advocate adapting only when most of it is done by others who don't play the same way as them?
I hope when you come back to this game, you can put just a little hack and slash mentality into your play and can still enjoy the expansion. I'm thinking of continuing my Emperor level walkthroughs in the Strategy and Tips forum featuring games that are not played the warmonger way. You can also read them if you need some insight on how to play more interesting games besides just unit spamming and destroying enemy units.
Shawnosaurus
Esoteric Idiot
That is a really great suggestion! We rely on the diplo system to know who we can trust (at least semi-trust) and who we can't. So that extra granularity and reflection of the in-game systems would go a long way to helping. They've added degrees of intricacy to the game, but not to the diplomacy system.
To answer the question, I would not attack an AI ally just because they are winning. My CivPeen doesn't get smaller if I finish the game in 2nd place and my game long ally finishes 1st. Obviously we all play this game slightly differently and for different reasons, which is challenging for Firaxis.
That is some great suggestions. Diplomacy is really the weakest part of CIV4 now. We have got two war related expansions, lets get a diplomacy expansion next. Or maybe some with modding skills could take on the job
.marioflag
History Addict
I can't agree with people whining because AI attacked them at pleased.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
vilemerchant
Prince
Maybe you should try sim city. Here's one tip however, if you're a strong military power yourself you're far less likely to be attacked. Being a peacemonger is fine, being vulnerable is not.
DrewBledsoe
Veteran QB
Fine, as long as whether its you or an ai backstabbing, you pay a diplo penalty with everyone else. Im worn out with constantly typing this, I've put the idea in at least 3 different places. Aussie Lurker has expanded on it nicely,
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.
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.
So I don't see a big difference between this and combat odds. In both cases, you can do a great deal to "stack the deck" in your favor, but there are no guarantees. And, again, things are even less predictable in the case of diplomacy, because there are many more random elements than in the case of combat odds, where you know all the variables in advance.
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.
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.
So I don't see a big difference between this and combat odds. In both cases, you can do a great deal to "stack the deck" in your favor, but there are no guarantees. And, again, things are even less predictable in the case of diplomacy, because there are many more random elements than in the case of combat odds, where you know all the variables in advance.
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.
Flak
vBülletin Förum
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.
crossmr
Warlord
I have to agree here with the random attacks. I had Louis spontaneously declare war on me. I had infantry and machine guns he had knights and long bowman.
Needless to say I drove him right off the continent, killed both his vassals (Americans and secondary French De Gaulle) and he's got like 1 island city and he's my vassal now.
Unless the premise is that Louis was snorting cocaine and dropping acid then decided to randomly attack something that looked shiny there is no explanation for the attack. He was pleased as well at the time.
Needless to say I drove him right off the continent, killed both his vassals (Americans and secondary French De Gaulle) and he's got like 1 island city and he's my vassal now.
Unless the premise is that Louis was snorting cocaine and dropping acid then decided to randomly attack something that looked shiny there is no explanation for the attack. He was pleased as well at the time.
vilemerchant
Prince
OK you've convinced me. That does sound pretty stupid. Fortunately there are so many different problems in the AI that a patch must be fairly imminent. Let's hope it all gets fixed.
Lance of Llanwy
King
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2006
- Messages
- 710
That is definitely a problem, no argument here. He shouldn't do that. That has more to do with the AI being too random than the AI being too aggressive, IMO. The AI should only DoW in the first place if it actually has a chance of victory....a good chance.
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.
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...
oranges4ever
Chieftain
Forgive my presumption in trying to summarise this thread, but three ideas come to mind.
1) For some of those who play Civ (purely as a game), the diplomacy isn't rational enough.
2) For some, there is no real problem. Military weakness (and hence likelihood of being attacked) just isn't correlated to diplomatic 'friendliness'.
3) For some, the real life observation that friendly (or at least like-minded) civs are more likely to cooperate than fight each other is not reflected in Civ. Furthermore, politically or militarily significant leaders in real life who claimed interest only in total world domination would soon rack up a mess of opposition.
The two diplomacy enhancements suggested in this thread seem useful for supporters of views 1) and 3). Supporters of view 2) would presumably not be unhappy with the suggestion but may not be enthusiastic either.
Personally I like the suggestions, thanks to the posters for their ideas
. Don't know if diplomacy can be effectively tweaked without C++ code changes but I'm going to have a play with the idea.
marioflag
History Addict
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 the -spontaneous- aspect of warmongering is what is most broken. It'd make far more sense if in order to war more effectively a country has to start obviously preparing for war. For example, you could have a propaganda option against the neighbour you want to attack- if they have spies then they can see you do this. If you skip it, then there is more war weariness. Then you should have to come up with a pretext for war with x number of turns for it to be delivered- again, more propaganda, but skip this and go right into a sneak attack against an unprepared nation- that should really make your people unhappy and annoy other countries too. But instead it's merely: "identify weak point, attack, win". At least in multiplayer, if you do that then your neighbours know not to trust you.
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