When you make a deal with the AI, it evaluates the deal in totally unrational way.
Example 1 (deity difficulty level):
Pericles attackedme for some obscure reason. He lost 2 helicopter corps, one or 2 mech infantry, pillages 3 tiles of mine. I never set foot on his territory because there's a city state in between I can't go through.
He begs for peace.
His offer is:
Niter, Iron, Horses (dude, it's atomic era and I have many of these already)
Pitiful amount of gold (like 4 and 1/turn)
2 CITIES of his.
Yuck. Ok, let's say that, since England DOW'ed him, are a backwater civ with a single city, he's maybe afraid of waging wars on 2 fronts, whatever.
So, I think, why not? I don't care about the horses etc. so I want to alter this deal and get some gold instead.
If I remove the horses, he no longer wants the deal.
I imagine the negotiations go that way:
PERICLES: "Please take Corinth and Mycenae, and also take these nice horses and a few gold pieces."
ME: "Ok, but you can keep the horses."
PERICLES: "Are you crazy? I only declared war so I could lose and get rid of the horses! The deal is Corinth, Mycenae AND THE HORSES!!! Otherwise we don't have a deal."
ME: "Errr... OK. I'll take the horse too, then."
PERICLES: "No. I changed my mind. If you want that deal again, quit and reload the turn or wait a few years that I lose a few more units. Maybe I'll offer three cities at this point. After all, the only foray you did in my lands was pillaging my sea improvements and I've got no navy, that probably warrants more cities if I rebuild them."
Example 2:
Someone makes an offer. You change the luxury resource they propose (I mean, I already have it, why do they offer in the first palce?). They no longer agree. I tweak the figures, lowering the gold they offered till maybe they'll give me the luxury I want.
At some point, the AI suddenly accepts everything. Everything. All their gold, gpt, all their lucuries.
WTF?
Example 3:
Thsi one is more of an UI problem.
Someone sells you something. They offer 1 gold and 1 gpt.
You click gold. It goes up to 101.They still agree. You go on clicking until you find out they will agree to 143gold and 1gpt, but you had to click it by dichotomy instead of the "what would make it work" single click.
Conclusion:
The AI diplo screen does not evaluate the offer in a consistent way.
When you make a deal, the AI should give it a value and say yes/no based on it. If you add and then remove something from the deal, the AI must value it the same way. Otherwise, it's stupid, exploitable and leads to a click-fest in order to find out how to make the best deal.
I like bartering in this kind of games. It gives a feeling of interaction, something not warlike, it could be a lot of fun. But if the AI is irrational, it becomes an optimisation problem instead of an immersive bartering experience.
Example 1 (deity difficulty level):
Pericles attackedme for some obscure reason. He lost 2 helicopter corps, one or 2 mech infantry, pillages 3 tiles of mine. I never set foot on his territory because there's a city state in between I can't go through.
He begs for peace.
His offer is:
Niter, Iron, Horses (dude, it's atomic era and I have many of these already)
Pitiful amount of gold (like 4 and 1/turn)
2 CITIES of his.
Yuck. Ok, let's say that, since England DOW'ed him, are a backwater civ with a single city, he's maybe afraid of waging wars on 2 fronts, whatever.
So, I think, why not? I don't care about the horses etc. so I want to alter this deal and get some gold instead.
If I remove the horses, he no longer wants the deal.
I imagine the negotiations go that way:
PERICLES: "Please take Corinth and Mycenae, and also take these nice horses and a few gold pieces."
ME: "Ok, but you can keep the horses."
PERICLES: "Are you crazy? I only declared war so I could lose and get rid of the horses! The deal is Corinth, Mycenae AND THE HORSES!!! Otherwise we don't have a deal."
ME: "Errr... OK. I'll take the horse too, then."
PERICLES: "No. I changed my mind. If you want that deal again, quit and reload the turn or wait a few years that I lose a few more units. Maybe I'll offer three cities at this point. After all, the only foray you did in my lands was pillaging my sea improvements and I've got no navy, that probably warrants more cities if I rebuild them."
Example 2:
Someone makes an offer. You change the luxury resource they propose (I mean, I already have it, why do they offer in the first palce?). They no longer agree. I tweak the figures, lowering the gold they offered till maybe they'll give me the luxury I want.
At some point, the AI suddenly accepts everything. Everything. All their gold, gpt, all their lucuries.
WTF?
Example 3:
Thsi one is more of an UI problem.
Someone sells you something. They offer 1 gold and 1 gpt.
You click gold. It goes up to 101.They still agree. You go on clicking until you find out they will agree to 143gold and 1gpt, but you had to click it by dichotomy instead of the "what would make it work" single click.
Conclusion:
The AI diplo screen does not evaluate the offer in a consistent way.
When you make a deal, the AI should give it a value and say yes/no based on it. If you add and then remove something from the deal, the AI must value it the same way. Otherwise, it's stupid, exploitable and leads to a click-fest in order to find out how to make the best deal.
I like bartering in this kind of games. It gives a feeling of interaction, something not warlike, it could be a lot of fun. But if the AI is irrational, it becomes an optimisation problem instead of an immersive bartering experience.
And it was me who appeared in the diplomatic screen declaring the war on myself. I declared war on myself 
Then immediately attacks 
