I agree that Defensive Pacts could be made better. For example, others have suggested (and I agree) that it would be better to have the option of honoring a DP (or not), with a penalty if you do not honor it.
My apologies, I thought that you already did have the option to either uphold or ignore the DP when the time came, the way you can back out of a promise to go to war in 10 turns when the 10 turns pass.
Completely avoiding warmonger penalties through DP's could be abused, however. For example, if you hypothetically signed Defensive Pacts with every civ (or nearly every civ) then that essentially gives you the capacity to automatically enter any war that might occur. (Civ IV was actually better in that regard, since it became increasingly harder to enter into more and more Defensive Pacts b/c the AI's factored in how many other DP's you are currently in).
But to fair, you would be facing diplo hits from the people you are war with, even if you are only upholding the DP. I just don't think players should be denounced by other civs you are not at war with for upholding a DP.
You also wouldn't have the capacity to enter into any war as the DP is canceled if you attack someone. You would only go to war when someone else DoWs one of your DP partners. If it is true that you don't get a choice in honoring a DP, then if you went and signed DP with everyone, sooner or later you are going to be forced into wars with people you don't want to fight. This would counteract the tendency to DP everyone, and I think making additional DPs harder to get is good. But after such a war you will still have bad relations with those you fought, and if you eliminated them or took their capitals, you should still get a warmonger denouncement. This also counteracts the tendency to DP everyone.
I do not favor taking the warmonger penalty away if you honor a DP and then use it to conquer half the world - but you shouldn't be hit with the penalty just for honoring the pact and you should never get denounced by the person you defended, even if you do conquer the rest of the world.
In many cases, it would be helpful if AI's *and* players could be more explicit about why they are denouncing. But how would you explain "I only denounced you because I want better relations with this other civ that denounced you." Or (something players do but AI's won't) "I thought it would be funny" or "I was bored" or "some personal reason b/c I hate civilization X or the bright orange color of the Netherlands, or whatever."
It could be done with some clever writing. Really, I don't think it would be that hard to come up with scripts that explain the denouncements. Honestly I didn't even think of the vanilla character of the denouncements; a little more input from the AI when they are doing so would actually be welcome now that I think about it.
I don't play multiplayer much, but I would imagine it would be similar to that. Why did this other player attack me? Was it simple proximity? Did I build a wonder he was working on? Are we competing for the same city states? Would he even tell me why if I asked? Usually it's not just one thing but a combination of factors developed over time.
I am not really focused or care much about how you would do it with players because I don't MP and don't know how diplomacy in MP work.
People can often be irrational, so I actually don't mind if there is a little bit (though not too much) irrationality and unpredictability with the AI's.
I do too, and I actually don't always mind being back stabbed. I'm not saying take backstabbing away. A back stabber is going to back stab you for no reason whatsoever, not necessarily because they have secret modifiers against you. They should do this - it adds flavor to the game. You can even see it when you get backstabbed but have no negative modifiers. But I don't like how (at least it seems this way to me) you build up negative modifiers and then get denounced and only then see that they had legit beef with you. That's not backstabbing, that's opaque diplomacy, IMHO.
But I think a lot of these "negatives" should be fairly obvious too.
I find it hilarious how every couple of weeks you will see a post about "why is everyone calling me a warmonger? All I did was DoW and take over 2 or 3 city states!"
I'm with you 100% here. The funny thing is is that it is a lot easier to stay friendly as long as you aren't a jerk to people. When people make the above complaints I dismiss them. I'm just talking about the sometimes wonky things that happen. Did you read that Babylon post I tried to point out? I'm more concerned with crazy, non-sensical things happening like that or being denounced by a civ you have done nothing but support and defend than I am about letting players warmonger worry-free.
If you build every wonder, or you ally with every city state, or you expand towards and block off other civs, or you run around DoW'ing and wiping out other civs, of course there will be diplomatic penalties. Even if your Friendship status is hiding some of those red modifiers, it shouldn't be all that surprising that you're accumulating them!
Yes, it might be helpful being able to see all the modifiers, but is it that bad (or unrealistic) not to have access to that information?
But that's what I'm talking about! Backstabbing is backstabbing and needs no justification from the AI, but just playing the game and being denounced for it (and not knowing they are mad about things you are doing while playing to win) is bad. Especially so with the hidden modifiers.
I do want to know about all the modifiers so that if I
want to maintain relationships, I can give it a good effort.
At a personal one-to-one level, sometimes individual people are just going to dislike you. Most of the time you won't know why. Many times its for reasons you can't even really fathom even if they were explained to you. I think it's great that some AI leaders are easier to get along with than others. I like how there's a +/- 2 modifier each game which gives you a bit of variety. Yes, it would occasionally be helpful if I could sneak a peak under the hood to see exactly what values the AI has this game, but I'm okay not having access to that information.
I agree, I love that +/- modifier and the randomness it presents you with. I don't mind being backstabbed, as explained above. I just want some of the random quirks to be ironed out and a little more transparency in the system is all.