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[member66170]

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[headcase]

1) Tying into this, currently there is a relations value for each pairing of Civ leaders. What they could have is a second relations value for each pairing showing the relations of those Civ's people. So if France's people like Arabia's people, then there are more bonuses for trade and more penalties for war (with the penalties focused on the leader that started the war)

2) That's a perfect idea; though with the high cost for breaking it, it's less likely a civ would do it. What would require even more trust is if both civs experienced the same cost when it was broken. In any case I'd be happy to see mutually beneficial trade agreements for gold, culture, etc, besides the usual luxury swaps.

Edit:
3) missed this one, but it's good too, and a bit of a no-brainer that should have been in previous games as well.

 

[PhilBowles]

I think I've finally worked out what the problem with diplomacy is. Partially, it is the AI often acting seemingly randomly and out of context, but more importantly is that there is nothing to gain by making good friends.

The aim of diplomacy in the current Civ5 game is to not make enemies. This reduces the chances of a DoW and increases the number of RA you can sign and luxuries you can trade. But you can do those things with a Civ which is guarded or just a little friendly. Investing in making relationships stronger than that is pointless because there is nothing more to gain from them. Indeed, by making strong friends you are likely to annoy other Civs, and therefore lose out on RA/luxuries.

You can do that to some degree without DoFs, but they certainly help and allow you to rely more on not getting backstabbed. They also buffer you against negative diplomatic modifiers you would otherwise receive for, e.g. taking a capital or competing for CS favour. The most important effect, however, is that DoFs increase your standing with civs who also have DoFs with the same civ.

What the game needs is an incentive to become very good friends with a few civs, even at the expense of making a few enemies.

You've mentioned a key incentive yourself: to get a feeling of realpolitik and to choose your friends and enemies. Since Civ is ultimately about the experience rather than doing what you need to to win, you can gain a lot out of playing the game diplomatically just for the hell of it, regardless of whether or not you "need" to. And if you ever feel the need for a defence pact, good luck getting it with someone Neutral or Guarded.

Nothing as major as your suggestions is required - simply make friends more likely to favour you than they are now. It's very difficult to persuade even your best friend (in my current game Siam, with whom I have 'common enemy', 'declaration of friendship', 'they asked for your help and you provided it', 'friendship with their friends' modifiers, and we're on our third consecutive DoF) to declare war at your behest, even when I'd previously done so with them (and against the same enemy). They'll never go any better than the 1-for-1 luxury deals, and will get upset if you demand things just like any other civ. Also, while most deals become harder or impossible with less friendly civs, there's not a huge difference between Friends and civs that like you but with whom you don't have a DoF, and RAs in particular will be signed by nearly anyone who isn't very unhappy with you.

So, friends should offer/let you get away with better deals for you, enemies should be more reluctant to offer or accept any deals, particularly those not heavily-stacked in their favour.

A penalty for backstabbing would also be good. In addition, a good diplomacy system should work for MP as well, and not rely on arbitary feelings from the AI but real politik. Agree? If so, my proposed solution is below.

3) Change the diplomatic interface slightly so that when ever a deal expires naturally, the diplo screen pops up with the same options as the expired deal giving you the chance to extend it automatically.

Particularly for open borders, to prevent having units temporarily kicked out of your allies' territory.

 

[spider1]

I think I've finally worked out what the problem with diplomacy is. Partially, it is the AI often acting seemingly randomly and out of context, but more importantly is that there is nothing to gain by making good friends.

Exactly. Right now it just doesn't matter how you act in the game, you will end up at war with almost everyone in the game anyway. And you will get denounced multiple times by any player known to you no matter what you do in the game. It just doesn't make sense.

I realize that you can't play a friendly game (exception on the lower levels), but that's not the point. You should be able to make allies at the higher difficulty levels that are dependable. Perhaps you should be able to share victory with your allies, which would satisfy their need to also win. Perhaps there is a formula for the number of allies you could have depending on the number of AI players in the game. Just thinking out loud there.

I hope something is done about this. Diplomacy is really the only complaint I have about this game. Otherwise just about every other aspect of it is either awesome or at least (mostly) workable. Especially with all the mods to chose from.

 

[PhilBowles]

Exactly. Right now it just doesn't matter how you act in the game, you will end up at war with almost everyone in the game anyway. And you will get denounced multiple times by any player known to you no matter what you do in the game. It just doesn't make sense.

I realize that you can't play a friendly game (exception on the lower levels), but that's not the point. You should be able to make allies at the higher difficulty levels that are dependable. Perhaps you should be able to share victory with your allies, which would satisfy their need to also win. Perhaps there is a formula for the number of allies you could have depending on the number of AI players in the game. Just thinking out loud there.

I hope something is done about this. Diplomacy is really the only complaint I have about this game. Otherwise just about every other aspect of it is either awesome or at least (mostly) workable. Especially with all the mods to chose from.

Well, that's the effect DoFs do have. I was allies with Denmark for the entire game in my last full Emperor game, lasting from contact (they were the first or second civ I encountered) through to the end in 1963. I was never on great terms with India, my closest neighbour (they weren't fans of Denmark), but was never at war with them. I had, at the time, rather meaningless DoFs with Russia (on the other side of Babylon on the same continent, and while the most powerful civ in the game, I wouldn't have expected them to be a threat) - and in the end-game called on that favour to sign a defensive pact. They started nuking Babylonian cities when Nebuchadnezzar declared war on me, and we actually had some cool combined military operations - my artillery breaking defences down in Borsippa and Babylon while both Siamese and Russian mech inf attacked the cities.

In my first victory on Emperor (as Greece), after an initial war I remained friends with the Mongols right up until the 1990s when they realised I was about to win and tried to attack me.

In my current game I met Siam early and declared friendship almost straight away - it's getting close to 1000 AD and they're still firm friends; we're on our second war against a common enemy. That won't last indefinitely simply because I'm after domination victory and, unless I change my strategy mid-game, I'll have to take Siam down (we seem to be on a four-civ continent, the Germans are now reduced to Munich under siege from Siamese forces, and the Chinese are both friends with Siam, as I am, and less powerful. Since the AI won't launch effective naval invasions, that means if Sukothai's going to be removed from the game, I'll have to do it).

So, yes, you can make permanent friends at higher levels in Civ V, and do so reliably and consistently.

I

do agree with you in principle, Civ is a game and you should play what in a way you find fun and not just to win. However, a good game is one where actions that are fun/immersive/realistic are the one's that also help you to win. I see nothing to lose by having diplomacy fit into this, rather than having to chose between "successful" diplomacy and "fun" diplomacy.

Agreed - I don't disagree that Civ V needs to tweak its diplomacy favour system. Yet as a stopgap measure until this is achieved you can play these styles of game and have fun doing so.

I see what you are getting at with having friendly Civ more willing to give you stuff when you ask for them, but I don't see why they should accept trades which are worse than 1 lux - 1 lux often. It simply doesn't do them any good, and as a human player I wouldn't accept it. It is against the entire concept of realpolitik - which is that you don't do nice things for your friends just because they are your friends, but because it benefits you indirectly too.

True - and as a human, yes I will accept those deals when Siam asks me for those dyes I have lying around spare and can't trade because no one else has duplicates of any luxury (or if I can trade them but have sufficient happiness, or if I calculate that holding onto them is not worth the diplomatic penalty for refusing a request from a friend). Not because Siam's my friend, but because I get both a diplomatic bonus with Siam for doing so, and no penalty for refusing. And you're right that it's a problem that this is one-sided in the current game - I know that if I were to ask the same of Siam, I'd get a penalty, and so I don't. Realpolitik is not about simplistic like-for-like trades; it's exactly about doing things that will gain you diplomatic advantage.

I think one approach would be to have no penalty for demanding, say, a resource from a friend, but that you'd suffer an extra negative penalty if they accept, and you refuse a trade in their favour when they next ask. In other words, simulating the idea that you'll help out now in the expectation that they'll reciprocate (or vice versa).

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm not going to argue that it is always impossible to make good friends in Civ5, or that doing so never has any rewards, but it often isn't worth it. Sure, you have annecdotal evidence that it sometimes work, and so do I and I'm sure everyone else has too.

But when it is worth it, it really does enhance the gaming experience. Not sure I've cheered so much at a Civ screen as when I happened to end my turn looking at Borsippa, just to see the Russian nuke come down.

But that doesn't stop the reality that, in general, it simply isn't worth it. The costs are high (as they should be), but the benefits are far too low (very rarely anything at all) and the risks are way way too high (back stabbing is too common, it should happen, but more rarely).

I think this is partly true, but also perhaps partly an artefact of your playstyle - I know I very rarely get backstabbed any more, and if I do I can usually trace the reason (most recently when it happened, the Greeks didn't like me parking an army in their territory). And a large part of the reason for that is that I make a lot of use of DoFs and denunciations - at the very least you could say that I don't get backstabbed simply because I know who I'm pissing off in advance.

Should there be more direct benefits from the civ you're friends with? Yes, I think there probably should be. But this is the only aspect you're focusing on, and this neglects the key advantage DoFs do provide - which is the effect they have on your relationships with third parties. And to be honest, this makes a lot of real-world sense. Two countries can get along very well and do all the deals they'd make if they were allied - declaring an alliance is a political gesture aimed mainly at telling other countries "Don't mess with X". We don't trade preferentially with other NATO countries because they're members of NATO, after all; instead that organisation was created to put up a unified political front against the Soviet Union. It wasn't necessary militarily - had the USSR invaded Europe, the NATO countries would all have responded against the common foe even without the organisation. But it was a powerful political gesture of unity.

Gamewise this manifests partly as the obvious "someone approaches you telling you how pleased they are that you're friends with their friends", but it can also take the form of negative modifiers between AIs that make your friends more likely to act in your interests. For instance, in the second Songhai-German war I was struggling to break through to take Berlin because of the ease with which Bismarck could spam Landsknechts and Archers. Unlike the first war, I didn't have Siam as an ally in battle (they'd declined my offer to join the fight), so the German units weren't having to spread out to defend two fronts. However, I had a DoF with Siam, which meant big diplo hit for Bismarck with them. So the turn after he decided to commit suicide by denouncing the Siamese, his relations with them were so poor that they declared war immediately. He lost the rebuilt Cologne and Siam is now surrounding Munich (I declared peace - let Siam get the penalty for wiping out the last German city). Meanwhile I took Berlin, which had suddenly run out of defenders.

It's doubtful Siam would have entered that war had I not had a DoF with them. And yes, I was already wearing German defences down and would have taken Berlin - but he could have rebuilt and reinforced more quickly had he not been losing ground to another attack.

You may also be underestimating their direct diplomatic value if you find yourself being backstabbed a lot. DoFs do drastically reduce the negative effects of many red modifiers, though since you can't see the numeric value of any given modifier you won't recognise how much of an effect this has other than through experience. The problem may arise if you just DoF and that's it, imagining you're friends forever more - making friends with their friends, denouncing their enemies, accepting their demands all increase favour and the DoF, I think, increases the positive bonus you get from that. You've already said you tend not to accept their demands for luxuries - that could be part of the difficulty. In my experience they rarely ask for a luxury I don't have duplicates of, and they're not big fans of their friends ignoring their "requests".

The only way I can think of resolving all of those issues in a meaningful way which uses the game mechanisms to make relationships worthwhile in a symmetric, fair way which works in both SP and MP is through the points I had in the OP. Merely changing the AI behaviour is fixing the superficial symptoms by making the AI play less effectively.

I don't see that any of the proposed changes I suggest to the AI behaviour would make it play less effectively. The only issue with such things as the AI taking a bad deal in the expectation of a good deal later, say, is that while the AI plays to a modifier-based system of reward and punishment, the human doesn't. But you're going to run into this whatever system you use.

As for your specific suggestions, I'm really not a fan of railroading players into always doing particular things with big penalties outside diplomacy (e.g. to science) - always keeping a friendship going, say, even if it becomes less useful. I'd rather see more options for making deals, and deals that only more friendly civs are likely to accept - such things as your trade caravan, but the only drawback for breaking it would be losing the advantages it brings, and a diplomatic hit (much like a research agreement - although that penalises you in the loss of the gold outlay as well). Diplomatic actions should mostly or exclusively have diplomatic repercussions, not effects on production or the like - get away from that basic premise and you aren't trying to fix the diplomacy system by making diplomacy relevant, you're trying to turn it into a system that fundamentally isn't diplomatic.

 

[nitevision]

How about having DoF/DoW have an effect on citizen happiness?
Going to war with a friendly civ causes the aggressor's happiness to take a huge hit, with a decrease in happiness to the attacked civ as well.

Similarly, "very unpopular" foreign wars (in the vein of Vietnam) might cause citizens to protest, shutting down production etc. Social Policies may be adopted to lessen this effect, to represent a warlike society willingly following its leader to war.

 

[headcase]

How about having DoF/DoW have an effect on citizen happiness?
Going to war with a friendly civ causes the aggressor's happiness to take a huge hit, with a decrease in happiness to the attacked civ as well.

Similarly, "very unpopular" foreign wars (in the vein of Vietnam) might cause citizens to protest, shutting down production etc. Social Policies may be adopted to lessen this effect, to represent a warlike society willingly following its leader to war.

Exactly, and, (speaking of Vietnam) one factor can be the differences in civ size (production capacity, etc), so if a large civ declares on a small one, the citizens will be extra annoyed unless the small civ has done something to anger the large civ's citizens.

This can work as soft protection for small civs so they can focus on catching up instead of desperately pumping out units.

 

[historix69]

Exactly, and, (speaking of Vietnam) one factor can be the differences in civ size (production capacity, etc), so if a large civ declares on a small one, the citizens will be extra annoyed unless the small civ has done something to anger the large civ's citizens.

This can work as soft protection for small civs so they can focus on catching up instead of desperately pumping out units.

What about US-Invasion of Grenada (1983)?
Grenada had about 1.500 infantry men + some Cubanian/Sowjet military advisors "forming an imminent military thread to the US security and safety".
A month after the invasion, Time magazine described it as having "broad popular support" in the US.

Probably it is more important
- if a war is optional or neccessary,
- how many troops are involved (10.000 or 100.000 or 1 mio),
- if there are high military losses (in form of dead or wounded citizens),
- if there are high economic costs,
- if there are war crimes / genocides committed by either sides,
- how long the war lasts (days, months or years),
- if there is visible progress in achieving the military objectives.

Only optional wars can cause unhappyness and protest. Neccessary or unavoidable wars usually cause resignation but not unhappyness (in Civ5-sense) or strike since usually the option to end war and choose peace to acceptable conditions is not available. So a strike would be unreasonable.

Wars are usually fought until unconditional surrender of the inferior side or until the superior side stops its advance and offers armistice / peace securing its gained strategic positions. If both sides are equal strong it is also possible to return to "Status Quo".

It would be interesting to make a reasonable / acceptable peace offer to another player and if they decline, a happyness malus would be applied.
The difficulty is to decide the acceptability of the offer. A good starting point would be Woodrow Wilson's 14 points from WW1 : democracy and self-determination of people. This would not allow annexion of foreign cities and eventually would lead to the release of occupied foreign cities to its original countries.

 

[headcase]

What about US-Invasion of Grenada (1983)?

Probably it is more important
- if a war is optional or neccessary,
- how many troops are involved (10.000 or 100.000 or 1 mio),
- if there are high military losses (in form of dead or wounded citizens),
- if there are high economic costs,
- if there are war crimes / genocides committed by either sides,
- how long the war lasts (days, months or years),
- if there is visible progress in achieving the military objectives.

All fine points (though the first seems to be somewhat circular logic); also for both Grenada and Vietnam, the social policies play a hand (freedom vs. order in Civ5 terms).

To recap from earlier, there's also:
- Are they a threat to our own cities?
- How much do we have to gain?
- Past history
- Plenty more

The last 5 points there concern war weariness, which I agree is important. Lots of people here don't like war weariness as a mechanic in Civ, but it's a matter of implementing it in a fair, non-frustrating way that punishes cocky large civs and rewards determined small civs, and these points are a good start on that.

It would be interesting to make a reasonable / acceptable peace offer to another player and if they decline, a happyness malus would be applied.
The difficulty is to decide the acceptability of the offer. A good starting point would be Woodrow Wilson's 14 points from WW1 : democracy and self-determination of people. This would not allow annexion of foreign cities and eventually would lead to the release of occupied foreign cities to its original countries

Totally agreed on a malus for rejecting a reasonable offer.

 

[chazzycat]

Good thing they are addressing your main point in the expansion pack.

Research agreements will now require a declaration of friendship. There ya go - Incentive!