A friend making guide (DoFs)

[troc]

I am a lonely guy. I really find it hard to get other AIs to become my friends (through DoFs obviously). I want to learn how to befriend multiple computers in lieu of a sweden game in which I plan on going tall and making my cities GP farms...but, if I wish to do this then I'll have to generate some DoFs.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Althiosk]

At the start of the game, look whose nearby.

If there is an angry aggressive civ, watch out, they'll not be your friend. expect monty or bismark to go bonkers and invade early. If you find one of those, near a few normal ones, i've found it pays to denounce the crazy. The normal civs will all be denouncing them too, and the decs of friendship roll in.

The real trick is to get a DoF with a civ that has a doF with someone else-- you usually get it with all four of them.

If you see someone denounce someone else, denounce the same person-- that will give you a positive bump to rep.

I find all this to seldom be relavent for long. Eventually a friend will go violent-- either they got paid to do it, or theres simply too much pressure to invade your territory.

In my first game on king, Siam became my best bud for the whole game, til the end. Then we got into a sudden, massive nuclear exchange. About 15 nukes were exchanged over 10 turns, and a relatively even number from both sides.

Thats never happened in a civ game to me before, so G&K paid for itself suitably right there.

 

[Dtekkar]

I don't know all the diplomacy ins and outs, but I can give you what I shoot for in a peaceful game as an immortal player.

do
-Exchange embassies (make sure you buy theirs or they won't ask to be friends).
-Trade with them.
-Give them your religion if they don't have one.
-Keep all your promises. Expansion, land purchasing, spying, units caught at the border all are massive diplo hits for all civs, one lie about intent to invade can cost you your RA's for the rest of the game.
-Maintain a large standing army. Otherwise peaceful neighbors will go hostile, stop trading, and try to eat you.
-Denounce the same leaders. Find the alliance you want on the diplo overview, generally the civs end up in factions and you have to pick one.


do not:
-Attack CS's under protection, not even to steal a worker.
-DOW civs or city states,
-Take substantial territory even if attacked
-Take any capitols/CSes
-Fully exterminate any other civs.
-Spy on anyone you want to be friends with. Getting caught even once is a long term diplo hit, even if you promised to stop.
-Expand into another civ, or allow a civ to expand behind you.

Hardly an exhaustive list, but that's off the top of my head. Just a matter of time before a vet comes in with charts, tables, and/or links, but this should help in the meantime.

 

[Adjuvant]

To garner DoFs you do not need to exchange embassies, open borders or trade with them. Embassies is a "small bonus", and "trading recently" only gives bonus if the trade was heavily in the AI's favor, or in other words, giving them stuff.

You biggest bonuses to DoFs are "friends with same target", "denouncing same target" and "war with same target". You can watch the diplo tabs and see who's denouncing/friends/denounced/at war with with whom.

You can pick a side "early" (though it doesn't matter much til education unless you really need their help in multiple DoWs) or you can wait awhile til "sides" inevitably form. At this point you can "hop on the bandwagon", denouncing their targets and accepting their offers for mutual DoW.

Generally at some point the AIs that used to be enemies can/will have your better interests in mind. It's wholly possible to repair bad faction over time with constructive use of the above info in "retrograde", as long as you haven't taken their capitol, broken promises, stolen their land with great general, or earned huge (bright red) marks for city state competition or attacking their protected city states. These actions, even if you make friends later, are severe detriment to diplomacy.

These can be eventually fixed, over time or finagling: having been at war, dow on friends, friends with enemy, covet lands, warmonger or any denounce activity.

edit: I forgot to add the industrial age policies. You can lump sharing those in paragraph 2 above. Sharing religion is a bonus modifier, but I've not found it particularly leads to friendships if the rest is ignored.

 

[BobDole]

Pretty simple. Be nice to civs (don't demand stuff from them/DoW them/wipe them out) and make Declarations of Friendships with a group of civs that are all getting along, which gives you one nice coalition. Just don't DoF with the one civ that is pissing everyone else off. Basically, play favorites, and stick with the big group of civs by not becoming friends with the one civ that's by itself (usually someone crazy like Attila who keeps declaring war on everyone).