AI Diplomacy, not so bad

[Naokaukodem]

I couldn't make heads or tails; AI Civs would constantly declare war on me and continually denounce me all game. Eventually I got more accustomed to the game and soaked in all the wonderful info here, and soon I discovered the problem: it's not really the game, but me and how I play.

This is the whole problem with Civilization games lately. They are not designed in a natural, instinctive way.

You will say : but what game is such designed ? Games are games, not reality, so they are not entitled to simulate perfectly, they have their own rules, which have to be learned.

I will answer : First, I think it's possible to design a game that is instinct-friendly. for example, do so that the rules are not hiden in any way, or by explaining them extensively, and in that case there is a need for a clever initiation through the game itself, or by making some trivial features not key, by not introducing them in a confusing fashion, example : why propose the player to DoF if it will for sure be negative ?
Second, I will say that as a game with distinct and sometimes opaque rules must not be pushed toward streamlining everywhere. This mean, the player should not have to streamline his game to take pleasure. Features should be mostly axed on fun, and an average comprehension of the real real world, say around the 7-8 years old, should be enough to win the game in easy or even normal difficulty. As to the hard difficulty, it should requiere an understanding of the game mechanics, but that does not include the confusing/opaque/hidden/complicated ones. Someone should be able to beat the hardest difficulty mode without coming into a forum like CivFanatics.

 

[Ginman]

And you are clearly missing the point what I am trying to say the AI is so agressive and land expansion that it wil declare war and denounce constantly even ghandi... As result the global politics screen isfull of red stuf wars denouncements and signing a decleration of friendship is just suicide because everyone hate you..

Have you ever cleared your Civ5-Cash? I´ve played much games without world-wars and only minor conflicts. Then there were other games where nearly all civs are at war. It´s all a result from the diplomatic evolution. DoF and denouncements are very important instruments and you should handle them right.

Simply because they make their decissions based on numbers (units,gold,hapiness) not on flavor or what actually is going on in the world...

[...]

If there where diplomatic options or not the AI wil act the same it doesn't matter it wants to win and makes his decissions on numbers and will not calculate the amount of positif modifiers it will still makes it decission for example denounce,delcare.. Say what diplomacy ?

The AI make their decissions based on numbers. Yes. This ist what an AI almost do - it´s a computer. The behaviour is based on strict numbers including your former actions and things like DoF modified by random parameters. For example, if there is a triangle-constellation between you and two other civs and all of you are friends then you are in their good books and you have to be a "very, very bad boy" to provoke a denouncement.

 

[headcase]

I like the AI diplo too. One touch to make it more human is to have a failing civ leader RAGEQUIT, reducing that civ to city-state status so it`s not such a nuisance. This is a serious suggestion.

 

[King Patrick]

Really? Maybe you're right it becomes so predictable you get backstabbed that isn't unpredictable...


And you are clearly missing the point what I am trying to say the AI is so agressive and land expansion that it wil declare war and denounce constantly even ghandi... As result the global politics screen isfull of red stuf wars denouncements and signing a decleration of friendship is just suicide because everyone hate you..

you are saying :
DoFs -- and would only accept them under a few circumstances: they are not enemies with anyone I'm not already enemies with, and they're not an expansionist civilization that will be declaring war on people.
Wich Ai has ever donne that? Not beeing an expansionist all of them are because they want to win..


So diplomacy works no it doesn't the system idea is good but the AI can't handle it..

Simply because they make their decissions based on numbers (units,gold,hapiness) not on flavor or what actually is going on in the world...It will olso hate you if you are winning or have more cities again based on numbers

thats why you see constantly wars and denounciations someone is weaker declare and so on then the warmonger civ is weaker because of the war and other declare war on hin and so on and they get mad and denounce...

If there where diplomatic options or not the AI wil act the same it doesn't matter it wants to win and makes his decissions on numbers and will not calculate the amount of positif modifiers it will still makes it decission for example denounce,delcare.. Say what diplomacy ?

Learn how diplomacy works in Civ5. Pay attention to what you're doing. Don't insist on playing exactly the same strategies you used in Civ4 and then get angry when they don't work. Problem solved.

Also, it's a computer program. All computer programs make decisions based on numbers. That's how computer programs work.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

The AI is pissed that you exist. In my most recent game Russia and I were god buddies we traded, we had research agreements, we had open borders, and then WHAM! I settled a city that eventually grew to be adjacent to Russian borders and suddenly Cathy is grumbling and canceling treaties, then denouncing and DOWing on me.

 

[King Patrick]

The AI is pissed that you exist. In my most recent game Russia and I were god buddies we traded, we had research agreements, we had open borders, and then WHAM! I settled a city that eventually grew to be adjacent to Russian borders and suddenly Cathy is grumbling and canceling treaties, then denouncing and DOWing on me.

Catherine's extremely devious and nearly always backstabs her neighbors once she runs out of room to expand. Any time we start near each other, I know I have to build up my military to make other civs more attractive targets once she starts lusting after everyone else's territory.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Catherine's extremely devious and nearly always backstabs her neighbors once she runs out of room to expand. Any time we start near each other, I know I have to build up my military to make other civs more attractive targets once she starts lusting after everyone else's territory.

Well actually that city was going to serve as a staging area for the invasion, but she couldn't have known that.

The best game I had for diplomacy was when I lived on this island. Meaning I rarely shared borders with anyone.

 

[Windsor]

The problem, significantly, is playstyle. If you decide to wonderspam or go 'builder' while starting close to another Civ, or next to the likes of Napoleon, Monty, Ghengis, Bismarck, Alexander, or any of the high agression Civs without first confirming they are fighting someone else, you deserve to lose.

No, the problem is not playstyle. I've tried maybe 10 starts (deity, standard speed, continents, no ruins, no barbs, quick combat). No wonders built, not settled close to the AI (if 2nd city settled at all, usually away from AI but you have to settle SOMEWHERE).

I've started next to Wu, Ramesses, Monty, Elizabeth, Alexander, Oda, Darius, Ramkhamhaeng and Isabella. They have all declared on me so leader doesn't seem to matter, one time (next to Alex) he didn't declare before turn 53, but else I have consistently been declared upon between turn 13 and turn 50.

I don't mind the AI doing an early rush in some cases, but seriously? I've even tried going straight warriors and archers while still having a decent distance to AI, even that didn't prevent war. Most games I tried only monument before military (getting worker and settler from liberty), but the AI just consistently declares war.

To me this is not only extremely predictable, it's not fun and it's just a cheap way of making the game harder. And of course, it doesn't matter if the AI is friendly when you meet them or not. They'll declare anyway.

 

[NotSure]

I like the AI diplo too. One touch to make it more human is to have a failing civ leader RAGEQUIT, reducing that civ to city-state status so it`s not such a nuisance. This is a serious suggestion.

I think maybe I need some more sleep or something, but this cracked me up. I thought you were being sarcastic until I read the last sentence. They already insult you all game long, so if they rage quit just as you were grinding them into defeat the "playing like a human" design would be complete!

Seriously though, yes diplomacy in the game makes sense (most of the time) if you understand the soft-coded values. I'm still conflicted about whether it's fun or not. I'm in the middle ground between "narrative player" and "competitor", so the competitive side appreciates an AI that will (sort of) challenge me. This game doesn't offer anything for the "narrative player" in me though. Other countries are mad at me because I'm trying to win the game in the same manner as them? The titles of some of the threads near this one tells the whole story: "The Reason Why You Get Denounced After Liberating"; "Is The Betrayer Punished?"; "Why Monte, Why?" The competitive AI only values winning, which makes diplomacy and the diplomatic victory condition feel shallow (for lack of a better word).

@Glassmage:
I've never seen "allied" status in a game. Will it say that or is it a hidden status? I once had the trifecta of major positive modifiers Catherine, and they all occurred within about five turns. I rescued two civilians (settler & worker), agreed to a DoF, and gave Catherine gold (that she immediately requested after the DoF). Not only did I not receive an "allied" status with her, but she immediately spent the gold I gave her to buy away one of my allied city states.

 

[dexters]

No, the problem is not playstyle. I've tried maybe 10 starts (deity, standard speed, continents, no ruins, no barbs, quick combat). No wonders built, not settled close to the AI (if 2nd city settled at all, usually away from AI but you have to settle SOMEWHERE).

Well diety is widely regardly as a different beast entirely given the AI unit advantages. In every Civ game, it is considered different and is meant to challenge the human players and allowable exploits are expected to be used to counter those massive advantages. Fastest way to get your 2nd city/1st settler out in any game is to beeline for liberty path. That's what I do when I have a crowded start. I beeline for that 1st settler and the 50% build bonus. Then you can dump your gold and get a 2nd settler right away if you need to.

I've started next to Wu, Ramesses, Monty, Elizabeth, Alexander, Oda, Darius, Ramkhamhaeng and Isabella. They have all declared on me so leader doesn't seem to matter, one time (next to Alex) he didn't declare before turn 53, but else I have consistently been declared upon between turn 13 and turn 50.

Without knowing your game, it's hard to discuss, but WuZetian, Monty, Alexander, Oda all have agression of 6 or higher. You're just extremely unlucky here and it goes back to my comment that Civ5 starts can vary in (actual) difficulty wildly on the same difficulty setting and 'canned' starts don;t work as well in this game as in previous games, though canned starts is probably ok to stick to in prince and below. But given so many warmongers were around, I am surprised they didn't war each other as well, giving you room to expand and play lackey to their coalitions. Unless you massively misplayed your hand, or did something wrong or again, just unlucky that they are arranged in such a way that they all had to attack you first.

Also, there's the dogpile effect. If you're at war, there's a very obvious penalty applied to AI's view of your military strength and even weaker or civs on par may declare to try to gain advantage. This of course can also be used to your advantage given the AI isn't great in tactical troop movements and you can tie up easily, 1 or 2 AI's forcing them to waste their production making troops you kill while you keep your heavily promoted units.

I don't mind the AI doing an early rush in some cases, but seriously? I've even tried going straight warriors and archers while still having a decent distance to AI, even that didn't prevent war. Most games I tried only monument before military (getting worker and settler from liberty), but the AI just consistently declares war.

Again, without seeing your game it's impossible to discuss. That said, I am confirming the AI will DoW early as part of their slate of possible strategies.

This is not a problem, and defending against this eventuality is part of high level play.

To me this is not only extremely predictable, it's not fun and it's just a cheap way of making the game harder. And of course, it doesn't matter if the AI is friendly when you meet them or not. They'll declare anyway.

I can't say for sure, but you are probably playing a difficulty setting that perhaps is beyond you or you're sticking to a starting strategy that isn't suited for that partiuclar start, but worked well in another game and you didn't adjust. That's fine, I fail a lot of my starts, but that's fun. Maybe you had a good start on diety once and think you're diety level, but as noted, ACTUAL difficulty of Civ5 games can swing from game to game.

There are some games I've played that I feel should be rated much lower because of the AI selection I drew, their placement and early wars, and how they cancelled each other out, allowing me to easily breeze through the game.

 

[dexters]

I think maybe I need some more sleep or something, but this cracked me up. I thought you were being sarcastic until I read the last sentence. They already insult you all game long, so if they rage quit just as you were grinding them into defeat the "playing like a human" design would be complete!

Seriously though, yes diplomacy in the game makes sense (most of the time) if you understand the soft-coded values. I'm still conflicted about whether it's fun or not. I'm in the middle ground between "narrative player" and "competitor", so the competitive side appreciates an AI that will (sort of) challenge me. This game doesn't offer anything for the "narrative player" in me though. Other countries are mad at me because I'm trying to win the game in the same manner as them? The titles of some of the threads near this one tells the whole story: "The Reason Why You Get Denounced After Liberating"; "Is The Betrayer Punished?"; "Why Monte, Why?" The competitive AI only values winning, which makes diplomacy and the diplomatic victory condition feel shallow (for lack of a better word).

The'res no contradiction. Narrative play works in Civ5 if you work with the diplomacy, just as people projected intentions to Civ3/4 AI when infact the AI was just dogpiling or using random RNG to dow.

I agree war is more frequent in 5, but I haven't read a good/popular narrative AAR where the entire game is about the player building his way to victory.

Perhaps the issue is that wars come when the player would prefer it not to come, and that's an issue of balance that I think was skewed too much in favour of humans pulling all the strings and we're now returning to Civ3 level of mercenary/dogpiling.

 

[Windsor]

But given so many warmongers were around, I am surprised they didn't war each other as well, giving you room to expand and play lackey to their coalitions.

Just have to point out, I didn't meet all of those in 1 game. I tried (roughly) 10 games just to check out the status of Civ5. The problem is not that in a few of them an AI declares, the problem is when ALL games start with a war before turn 50.

Also note, I'm not complaining about difficulty, but simply that being rushed in every single game is not fun. Granted, it might be that I was just unlucky with all of my testgames, but I doubt it.

 

[dexters]

Just have to point out, I didn't meet all of those in 1 game. I tried (roughly) 10 games just to check out the status of Civ5. The problem is not that in a few of them an AI declares, the problem is when ALL games start with a war before turn 50.

Also note, I'm not complaining about difficulty, but simply that being rushed in every single game is not fun. Granted, it might be that I was just unlucky with all of my testgames, but I doubt it.

I don't think that's a problem, it's just how the game is and I quite like it, rather than the very static early games of the previous civs, with perhaps only the human player instigating early rushes. It's rare to draw a warmonger near you every game, but they do pop up quite frequently. you just have to defend against them so they pick someone else to war first at which point you either offer your services or join in uninvited and get the 'common foe' bonus.

 

[Rince]

I've had a game (on Prince) where not a single war was declared over the course of the whole game. It was Archipelago though, so it might be linked to there being less shared borders.

In my current game (King) I get along well with almost everybody. Nobody attacked me and I'm on turn 284 currently. At one point the whole world teamed up against Monty and declared war on him.

So while there are bugs in diplomacy as other poster have mentioned, the system itself does work quite well and ensures that no game is the same as the last one.

Only sure way to be attacked is being a neighbor of an aggressive Civ, buying/settling aggressively or being outnumbered military-wise. My experience stops at King though.

 

[dexters]

Yeah, Wars is dependent on the Civ mix as well. and Civ flavours matter much more this time.

After you play a few games, you'd starting picking up the usual suspects of Civs who instigate wars and its fairly easy to actually plan your strategy around the civ mix in your game.

If wars just happen completely randomly then I would agree it's a problem. But that's not the case.

 

[Optional]

Just have to point out, I didn't meet all of those in 1 game. I tried (roughly) 10 games just to check out the status of Civ5. The problem is not that in a few of them an AI declares, the problem is when ALL games start with a war before turn 50.

I do agree with you here; if it's always happening it's no fun. I misunderstood you somewhat at first; I thought you had played the same start over and over again with every time being declared on, whichever tactic you chose yourself. Someone has posted that experience, you see.
I didn't think you meant different games, as I don't believe it's happening in every single game. From my experience, a row of 10 games in which it's happening would not be so strange, as I see it happening lots of times, but not all the time. I think you had a bad spell.

 

[NotSure]

Yeah, Wars is dependent on the Civ mix as well. and Civ flavours matter much more this time.

After you play a few games, you'd starting picking up the usual suspects of Civs who instigate wars and its fairly easy to actually plan your strategy around the civ mix in your game.

If wars just happen completely randomly then I would agree it's a problem. But that's not the case.

Well, he's talking about a Prince/Archipelago game, and Archipelago maps are famous for being love-fests. I'm not trying to be argumentative, and you are absolutely right that the soft-coded flavors dictate who is more likely to start wars. But, the higher up you go, the more likely flavors don't matter and everyone will declare war on everyone else, regardless of the grand strategy each civ rolled. A Deity/Pangaea game often degrades into a total war game early and stays that way until the end. I'm not saying this is bad or good it's just my experience (and maybe I'm doing it wrong).

The wars, by the way, aren't the primary setback to narrative play for me either. It's the fact that if you play for a challenge and also want a little engaging diplomacy, you're barking up the wrong tree. There are very few positive modifiers that will actually put you in a position to ally another civ & even if you could there would be no point to it. DoF is the closest relationship you can have with any civ AFAIK. That relationship gets you very little (50 turns of peace?). You're "friend" will watch you get nearly obliterated by two other civs in the ancient era, ask you for a resource they could easily trade for fairly in the middle ages, and denounce you in Renaissance because you built Big Ben. The AI only values winning.

I appreciate your perspective regarding previous Civ games (because I never played them) and I can see your point regarding player manipulation of the AI with regard to powerful positive modifiers such as religion. I also accept that this might be considered the best diplomacy model to keep the player engaged in conflict and active while pursuing victory. I just wonder if there could be exceptions without compromising the competitive concept. Sure, an AI that truly allied the player might be putting itself in a position to ignore the fact that the player is outpacing the AI, but in cases such as liberation, should that matter? That civ has already lost the game once. I don't like the fact that they take the competitive spirit to the point of suicide either. Shouldn't the AI value survival and seek out allies that would prevent them from being destroyed? Sure, this takes the nasty competitive edge off a few of the civs in every game. But would it change the outcome of those games?

Sorry I've rambled.

 

[spicytimothy]

I only wish there's a way to know what I did that cause certain status/reaction.

For example, if they can tell me on the hovering tool tip something like

Warmonger:
"Turn 121, invaded Belgrade, ally of England"
Covet Lands:
"Turn 121, settled New York, disputed territory"
Covet Wonders:
"Turn 121, built Big Ben, 7 turns from completion"

Is this too much information??

 

[Civsassin]

I only wish there's a way to know what I did that cause certain status/reaction.

For example, if they can tell me on the hovering tool tip something like

Warmonger:
"Turn 121, invaded Belgrade, ally of England"
Covet Lands:
"Turn 121, settled New York, disputed territory"
Covet Wonders:
"Turn 121, built Big Ben, 7 turns from completion"

Is this too much information??

Here's a better idea. Before you take action against another civ, check the global politics screen. You should then know exactly why that civ's allies are pissed with you after you've attacked their ally. Instead of the game telling players the most basic information, players should learn to check their informational UI priior to taking actions. That's what I was talking about in one of my posts. Players don't take the time to check their informational UIs and then wonder why things happened the way they did.

On the other hand, some civs will do things randomly. Just like you will say my troops are just passing through prior to attacking, the civs will backstab you. Check the thread with the downloadable flavors spreadsheet. It will give you an idea of each civs' likelihood of taking certain actions. It will give you an idea of how each civ is programmed to respond. There is always a random factor, but flavors are a good guide to reading general and reasonably consistent actions / reactions.

 

[headcase]

Yeah, if I ever tried at a serious mod for this game, it'd start with AI giving much more information about what it likes\hates about you and other AI (while still allowing for deception).