member66170
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headcase
Limit 1 Facepalm Per Turn
Pretty interesting cases, will keep them in mind.
Compared to earlier games this is a war game, in my opinion.
This game no longer has any war weariness, actually you can have great benefits from keeping a war going with a week target.
There are no international trade routes to keep an incentive for mutual open borders and corporation.
Most diplomatic demerits will last all game, while most of the positive ones will wear off.
The goal of the AI is to "play to win", so if you appear to win the same way there is even more diplomatic tension.
This game no longer has any war weariness, actually you can have great benefits from keeping a war going with a week target.
There are no international trade routes to keep an incentive for mutual open borders and corporation.
Most diplomatic demerits will last all game, while most of the positive ones will wear off.
The goal of the AI is to "play to win", so if you appear to win the same way there is even more diplomatic tension.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Sigh...suggested reading material is the pulled game data that actually lends ideas to how diplomacy functions. A lot of this advice is off...for example people don't care if you capture cities as long as they didn't see you declare war or wipe someone out. Just one example.
Optional
Deity
There's no war weariness as we know it, but it's still there in a way. You get unhappiness from conquering towns. Which means you get war weariness from successful warring, instead of from unsuccessful warring. It's err... a different design choice (sorry, crosspost with Olleus).
...or to find or create those trade routes, to explore, to build harbours, to research techs that enabled certain forms of international trading. Here is where the game becomes thin, too thin for me. And to lay a road to a City State is not a satisfactory alternative.
The negative ones should wear off as well, for game's sake, for real life's sake. The penalties are fine, they may be heftier for me, but they should wear off. Look at real life; because of World War II we all hated the Germans for a couple of generations, but now that's over, the ill-feelings are completely gone, while 70 years is not that long a time.
LegionSteve
Motörhead
I agree with the OP in that I really like the way diplomacy works now. I have found that if I want to play peacefully or aggressively I can steer things in that direction with the game setup. Very roughly speaking, less civs and more ocean = peace, more civs and less ocean = war.
My previous 2 games were culture wins (well the first one would have been a win if it hadn't bugged out). The first one I was on a small continent with Siam and we were friends the whole time. At one point he did start to "covet my lands" but I kept being nice to him and he never declared war. The second one I was on a medium size continent with Ottomans, Songhai and Spain. Songhai and Spain constantly declared war on everyone else (including each other). I took out Spain, then helped Ottomans take out Songhai - I let him have the capital. Ottomans stayed friends with me for the whole game.
Current game, 18 civs on a pangea. Took out a neighbour and a couple of city states. Epic wars followed.
I still managed to keep a couple of friends to trade with, Alex and Monty, who don't seem to care that I am a warmonger.
My previous 2 games were culture wins (well the first one would have been a win if it hadn't bugged out). The first one I was on a small continent with Siam and we were friends the whole time. At one point he did start to "covet my lands" but I kept being nice to him and he never declared war. The second one I was on a medium size continent with Ottomans, Songhai and Spain. Songhai and Spain constantly declared war on everyone else (including each other). I took out Spain, then helped Ottomans take out Songhai - I let him have the capital. Ottomans stayed friends with me for the whole game.
Current game, 18 civs on a pangea. Took out a neighbour and a couple of city states. Epic wars followed.
I still managed to keep a couple of friends to trade with, Alex and Monty, who don't seem to care that I am a warmonger.headcase
Limit 1 Facepalm Per Turn
This is another thing I've been thinking about. How awesome would it be to discuss with AIs "this guy had flattened Greece earlier" and that kind of stuff? Almost hopelessly complicated, but it would be cool. Especially if both you and AI lied about it, and they could detect what is a convincing lie (example, if that civ has a bunch of cities right next to Greece, that has hardly any). It would also have to entail renaming cities to hide who they were taken from.
Sorry, but I have to contradict you in each and every point.
Nations with which you are at war should be hostile towards you, of course. So, the attitude of the Aztecs is understandable. But Egypt?
But why should Egypt hate you? All what you have done was to eliminate an opponent, a possible competitor for winning the game. And this competitor would have been a competitor for Egypt as well. So, they should be pleased, as now they will have to deal with less opponents - and as they could have improved their situation, while you and Greece were fighting each other.
Did they ask you to stop the war? Did they actively or passively support Greece? Did they try to mediate between the two of you?
After all what you have told us, the answer to each of my questions plainly is "no".
And why should the other continent not trade with you? As long as the trading would be beneficial for them, too, it would be just consequent to trade, as it would improve their situation in relation to close neighbours (the allegedly "designed to win" AI).
This seems to be quite a contradiction of what you have interpreted into your first example.
Seems, that your war has been successful for you and the result did strengthen your position.
Why does the other continent not respond to this stronger position of yours, now?
So, why did Arabia attack you? You were peaceful, weren't you?
And you haven't said anything about the other AI's becoming mad with Arabia who obviously is warmonger, who breaks peace with a rather peaceful nation - just one city.
And if Arabia was not able to achieve anything by warring you, why didn't they make peace? War for nothing? What kind of attitude would that be?
Sorry again, but your examples actually don't show any diplomacy at all.
If at all, they show some reactions of single nations to ... whatever. You assume, it would be reactions to your progress, but this seems rather unlikely.
All what you've done in your examples was to trigger certain pre-defined actions of the AI: settle "next" to them (has anybody ever found out, what "next" means in that context, btw?), be successful in war, come close to some victory conditions.
But these reactions have nothing to do with "diplomacy". When you kick a dog and it bites you, this is hardly "animal-human diplomatic interaction". It is just following basic instincts.
Diplomacy is negotiation, learning about the other side's intentions and the attempt to find a mutual understanding or at least a way to live with each other.
None of the things which you have described come even close to this.
The main costs of being successful... is making enemies.
The whole game has been designed to be an obstacle for the human player.
Hit some triggers and the predefined reactions will take place, almost completely regardless of any in-game situation.
I will agree that one could say this would enhance the "difficulty level" and maybe even make the game more interesting or challenging - but it doesn't mean anything like "diplomacy".
Sorry, this is not good gameplay, this is tremendously stupid.
It just means that the game has been designed for being an obstacle for you.
If you have overcome the military threat, you will be punished. Your citizens are going mad with you when your army is successful, when you are beating your arch-enemy, but will be cheering all day long when you are losing your cities? C'mon.
This just means only one thing:
You are successful? You will get punished.
You are unsuccessful? You will get another chance to get finally punished.
Actually, the war effects on happiness are really a testimony of perverted game design, nothing else.
Once again I have to disagree.
(Disclaimer: I am not going to say that Civ4 had the best design which couldn't be improved, I am using it just as an example since most people here should at least know it)
I completely agree that snowball effects should be avoided, as taken to the extreme this would mean that a positive roll of dice during the first turns would carry you through the complete game. Here we agree.
We're no longer in agreement about the "war weariness" thing.
This was both, rather realistic and avoiding the snowball effect in Civ4. Your war weariness would slowly increase until you were just forced to make peace - or you would have to spend a fortune to supress the war weariness effects.
And the way in which you were doing during wartime had an effect on the war weariness, too.
Now, we could discuss all day long whether even that system could have improved but this here is not the Civ4 section.
Where Civ4's system was intuitive AND working, the Civ5 system at least is completely counter-intuitive - and if it is really working at least is debatable.
If you are warring 6000 years long, it doesn't effect your citizens at all - as long as you don't make the mistake of conquering a city.
But if you lose one of your cities, your empire sighs in relief?
This is such a stupid system that I am really missing the proper words and in total it counts for a missed opportunity to provide us with something meaningful.
The effects of a successful war as losing potential trading partners is equally unrealistic.
The USA are currently fighting two wars. Has any major power nation stopped trading with them due to these wars? No, of course not.
The US are a global player in each and every aspect. One could even say they are the most influential country of our times. They can happily trade with whomever they desire to trade. And they could do so as much before these two wars.
It just didn't have any significant influence on their trading situation.
But they are suffering from severe war weariness in the meantime. Support for the engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan has shrunk, to say the least. But this has happened due to the costs in terms of finances and blood toll, not because they would have occupied Baghdad or Kabul.
Both aspects are displayed completely the other way around in Civ5. There, nobody would care about shot down helicopters, no president would rush to the airport to receive the dead bodies of killed soldiers.
Yet, upon taking Baghdad, there would have been riots and almost civil war all over the country.
And this is just complete nonsense.
The "diplomatic system" (which actually doesn't deserve that name) in Civ5 is a completely artificial setup of certain functionalities, of which many are triggered in a very random way.
Others are completely obvious, but nevertheless highly questionable.
A nation complains because another nation claims unoccupied land?
Now, in Civ4 such complaints would have made sense, when a Nation A culturally claims land of nation B.
But even that we cannot do in Civ5.
All what we do is we spread our empire and are punished for doing so.
Diplomacy? Not at all, if you were going to ask me.
Just some predefined reactions to successful playing which are disguised as "diplomacy".
Diplomacy does work.
I think some work needs to be done to make a few things more transparent (perhaps a quick reference table on relations when you get friend requests so you don't accidentally friend someone and spoil another relationship)
The other point is Afraid/Hostile needs better guidance on how they work with more tool tips when you hover over the relationship status.
Lastly, more well defined 'rationale' for relations.
- A 'liberation' note (this AFAIK is not avialable) for liberating a civ
- More nuanced notes on trading history
- Track who starts wars
I think some work needs to be done to make a few things more transparent (perhaps a quick reference table on relations when you get friend requests so you don't accidentally friend someone and spoil another relationship)
The other point is Afraid/Hostile needs better guidance on how they work with more tool tips when you hover over the relationship status.
Lastly, more well defined 'rationale' for relations.
- A 'liberation' note (this AFAIK is not avialable) for liberating a civ
- More nuanced notes on trading history
- Track who starts wars
ohioastronomy
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I think this is the core issue. The underlying design favors war and minimizes the benefits from trade and diplomacy. It didn't have to be that way; city-states, for instance, are designed to be more useful as independent entities than as conquests.
Civ as a series has always permitted radically different approaches, which has been lost by flattening out the non-military game and boosting the aggression level. A game where I have no real benefits from a friendly neighbor is one where I always end up fighting them. And a game where I get penalized for defending myself against random aggression also violated the suspension of disbelief essential for a good game.
What I hope they move to is an approach where diplomacy has a logical (but evolving) basis. Early on it's might makes right and trade benefits are limited; as time goes on the role of trade grows, conquest gets harder, and the computer competes logically in peaceful methods for winning (e.g. band together for tech and use trade embargoes against a space race.) It's not just a better simulation; it's also a better game.
Generally, I'd say the AI is aware of what is going on rather than being a slave to RNG and set relationship modifiers from previous Civ ames.
Exploits (and yes it is an exploit) like cutting off their expansion and settling on a choice tile near where they would likely expand will get you into wars - borders touching not required. Those were free passes and counted as AI blindspots before. No longer. While that can generally be classified as 'agression' generally there's a real impetus to that.
You no longer have archaic mechanics like set negative modifiers just because of 'border' touching ; instead your settlement patterns and warmongering history determined ALOT of the agression from the AI. It's completely rational and action based, rather than broadly based on an assumptions that closeness breeds hate.
If you friend a Civ an AI has denounced, they won;'t like it and you incur a penalty. If you take too many Civs out they won't like it. If you're fighting for influence for the same city states or a CS close to them, but not you, they won't like it. similarly if you're all friends with each other, there is a coalition of sorts. It's far more organic.
A huge reason the original diplomacy seemed agressive is because it was bugged, and a lack of tool tips and ways to manage relationships made it frustrating. Diplomacy has come a long way from those days, and it's entirely disingenous to use old talking points and paint the game's diplomacy in 'broad strokes'.
Oh, I remember very well the old days. Even then, people told us how meaningful, consistent and logical the old diplomatic system would have been.
The pure fact that the AI complains about you buying tiles next to them is an indication already that there isn't real diplomacy involved, but "obstacle-ism".
Do you know, whether an AI buys a tile or whether it spreads due to culture? Why does the AI then take this as reason to "diplomatically" penalize you?
And still, the old habits of settling next to the human player and then complaining about him settling next to the AI are in the game.
Yes, the "diplomacy" may have been improved from completely insane to not really working, but in total there is still a long way to go until you can talk about a working "diplomacy system".
headcase
Limit 1 Facepalm Per Turn
It's pretty realistic for civs to see each others as obstacles in the early game. Problem is, more and more trade should be available as tech marches on (to trade food, units, give each other free gold via trading routes, etc), to make mutually beneficial partnerships more likely.
ohioastronomy
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In the absence of war weariness and trade it's optimal to attack people. The only claims I see here are that the current version is better at executing this concept, and that may be so. My argument is that it's simply a bad game design and I hope that they dump it in the next version.
ohioastronomy
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I see a lot of reports of very early game wars that don't seem to follow from this pattern. I suspect that's because the AI is now triggered to attack unless your army is "large enough" . If you always start with a bunch of troops (a restriction in player choice) then you won't see the AI as being quite as annoying. Is that the difference? e.g. you're building enough troops to deter random early attacks and they are not?
But...isn't an army large enough to deter attacks also large enough to eliminate your neighbors anyhow? Aren't you always better off attacking anyone starting near you?
Astounding logic....so, when you eliminate an AI, they should get angry when it suits your argument because you got stronger, or else they should be happy if it suits your arguement because you got rid of a competitor... I love it..
Sorry? I didn't get your point.
Pretty bad when someone else must decipher your own stuff...
"But why should Egypt hate you? All what you have done was to eliminate an opponent, a possible competitor for winning the game. And this competitor would have been a competitor for Egypt as well. So, they should be pleased, as now they will have to deal with less opponents - and as they could have improved their situation, while you and Greece were fighting each other. "
vs
This seems to be quite a contradiction of what you have interpreted into your first example.
Seems, that your war has been successful for you and the result did strengthen your position.
Why does the other continent not respond to this stronger position of yours, now?
And you talk of contradictions...
"But why should Egypt hate you? All what you have done was to eliminate an opponent, a possible competitor for winning the game. And this competitor would have been a competitor for Egypt as well. So, they should be pleased, as now they will have to deal with less opponents - and as they could have improved their situation, while you and Greece were fighting each other. "
vs
This seems to be quite a contradiction of what you have interpreted into your first example.
Seems, that your war has been successful for you and the result did strengthen your position.
Why does the other continent not respond to this stronger position of yours, now?
And you talk of contradictions...
You have identified the problem.
In the first example, he had fought a successful war and was fine with being penalized for having been successful.
In the second example, he had fought a successful war and was fine with not being penalized for having been successful.
Both examples he used for displaying that "diplomacy works".
So, I just asked why in the second example the other nations did not react to his now stronger position, when in the first example they did.
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