Hellfire
Prince
To lend a technical aspect to the discussion, the idea is was that the AI had a maximum reputation with the human which could degrade over time and couldn't be restored. For example, if you traded constantly with a civ, you'd be considered polite and the civ would like you and maintain good relations. The civ would, however, degrade their opinions down to furious. You might be able to get their opinion back up to Angry, but it would never again be higher than that, ever.
You could get it up to gracious if you signed a MPP but that usually requires that they be in serious trouble if they are angry or furious.
The scale was something like -100 to 20 or something like that, -100 being furious and 20 being gracious, and most civs beginning between -1 to 1 depending on the civ you were using. Many human civers only want to hit up the AI when they need something and the AI was designed around the fact that if you want something from them, you can't come knocking every 100 years and expect an easy trade, you had to actually keep up relations. The problem is that this forced you to keep up relations all the time and when relations soured through no fault of your own (The barbarian ship blocking trade routes is a great example) you could never fix it. The most important thing in the game is if things go wrong, you should be able to fix them in some way, and that the game should be out to try to make it tough for you to win, but it should never feel like being screwed.
As a side note, the barbarian ship trade route issue is something that should be fixed as a separate issue. It's not so much a problem with the AI as the several random elements of game converging at the right spot to cause tremendous grief, and having that instance happen way too often because sea power is weak, trade is important, and having trade routes over seas is fragile early in the game. The AI getting pissed at you and you getting a negative reputation is a symptom of a problem, not a problem itself.
You could get it up to gracious if you signed a MPP but that usually requires that they be in serious trouble if they are angry or furious.
The scale was something like -100 to 20 or something like that, -100 being furious and 20 being gracious, and most civs beginning between -1 to 1 depending on the civ you were using. Many human civers only want to hit up the AI when they need something and the AI was designed around the fact that if you want something from them, you can't come knocking every 100 years and expect an easy trade, you had to actually keep up relations. The problem is that this forced you to keep up relations all the time and when relations soured through no fault of your own (The barbarian ship blocking trade routes is a great example) you could never fix it. The most important thing in the game is if things go wrong, you should be able to fix them in some way, and that the game should be out to try to make it tough for you to win, but it should never feel like being screwed.
As a side note, the barbarian ship trade route issue is something that should be fixed as a separate issue. It's not so much a problem with the AI as the several random elements of game converging at the right spot to cause tremendous grief, and having that instance happen way too often because sea power is weak, trade is important, and having trade routes over seas is fragile early in the game. The AI getting pissed at you and you getting a negative reputation is a symptom of a problem, not a problem itself.
