Any way to ensure an AI won't declare war on you?

[Iberian]

I don't think we have Diety players here complaing there's too many wars. There's been always war variants with high level civ play since time immemorial, and well, CivAI with lots of military has always tended to be more agressive. Diety play relies heavily on exploit(ing) AI weakness, special map types to limit AI power etc. etc.

More generally, on the point of war the biggest change from Civ4 is that having active friendship treaties does not prevent DoW.

Incidentally, having active trades does help the arithmitic, because it's not simply an empty promise, the AI is getting something concrete from a trade. It's not fool proof, but some (the less agressive ones) AI will wait until a deal expires to declare. A good idea is to resign deals the turn it expires and not let it lapse.

Also, I keep hearing Alexander/Isabella mentioned, infact, OP mentioned those 2 Civs. There's a few more. Those Cvis are warmongers, Alexander in particular almost always cleans the floor in his corner and will be a challenger as top dog, and are useful friends selectively and or if they are far away. I for example, will always butt heads with Alex; Bismarck to name a few.

The issue here is that people assume having Alex as your neighbour and trusting them is a good idea. The Civ flavours in Civ5 is far more consistent.
One change from Civ4. Civs are no longer generic AI playing generic game with an RNG roll applied on how often they declare war. Warmongers will get more easily offended by almost everything you do, and will thus pull the trigger 'rationally' more often.

The last thing you also need to watch out for is to the scheming between AI, and or the AI and you against someone. Global politics is now an active arena, rather than set-piece of vassals/relgion controlled by the human player.

Civ 4 with Shaka or Alex or Monty it was still possible to be a peace with them the entire game. Civ 5 not so much. The diplomacy mechanic simply does not have the tools to enable this.

Now you can argue this as good or bad. As you mentioned in many ways Civ IV diplomacy was very much controlled by the player. In Civ V you have no control and in fact are nearly assured mass DOW's if you are near a victory condition.

 

[dexters]

Civ 4 with Shaka or Alex or Monty it was still possible to be a peace with them the entire game. Civ 5 not so much. The diplomacy mechanic simply does not have the tools to enable this. .

Which is a huge problem when you can 'control' warmongers.

You can control DoW in Civ5, just select Civ with agressive ratings below 5 on setup.

But considering people consistently treat crazy powerful/agressive civs like Alexander as interchangeable with every other Civ, there's a pretty big player component here. It will go away in time.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I don't understand the fervent defense of civ5's diplomacy. There are obviously a lot of long-time civ players who are unhappy with the lack of control that the player has over his own game's diplomacy.

That being said, there are many things I like about Civ5's diplomacy. One of the things that begs to be tweaked is the souring of relations towards end game just because player is near victory. If you want that, multiplayer mode will most definitely fulfill your wishes.

Also, "warmonger" status needs to be adjusted. Capturing 1 CS (and nothing else) should not be grounds for the warmonger penalty.

 

[dexters]

Not a defense just to correct information, where people post untruths and assumptions as facts. Doesn't take much work to check out xml variables or bibor's chart to figure it out.


The biggest issue is a player isse. We still have people complaining who are treating all civs as generic and interchangeable. That's simply not the case in Civ5. Flavours count.
Oh who backstabbed you? we later find its one of those unspeakably agressive civs.

 

[Iberian]

This doesn't happen. People are either exageratting or not telling the whole story about their own games where they make general claims about weak AI's being mindlessly agressive.

If you're on good terms(didn't backstab, gain too big a warmonger penalty) weaker AI will let you win just like any Civ game.

According to the demographics there generally isn't many weaker AI's. With their massive ammounts of units they are technically the stronger. Problem is the AI is so bad at war it doesn't really matter if you are outnumbered 10 to 1 in the power scale you will still win.

It isn't that this is making it impossible to win but rather it makes the end game in effect always a domination game. You must posses the hammers/science to field an army that can withstand the attacks of the most powerful nations. If you can win a science victory or a cultural victory you can win a domination. For most games you have to essentially win a domination victory.

Not saying it was good gameplay balance but in Civ IV you could often win a science/culture victory with just your starting warrior.

As others have mentioned Civ V is a war game. If people want to complain though Civ I was a war game as well. Bigger was better and you had to have an army because the Mongols would land and start taking your cities. Or the Russians.

What I think Civ V is missing that other Civs had was guns vs butter. Without the "slider" your science/income/culture is nearly fixed. Units and war don't just have the greatest ROI but are the nearly the only path to victory.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Not a defense just to correct information, where people post untruths and assumptions as facts. Doesn't take much work to check out xml variables or bibor's chart to figure it out.


The biggest issue is a player isse. We still have people complaining who are treating all civs as generic and interchangeable. That's simply not the case in Civ5. Flavours count.
Oh who backstabbed you? we later find its one of those unspeakably agressive civs.

Don't get me wrong, I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying. I don't disagree with the diversity with regards to the different flavors (and I would never complain about a Montezuma or Alexander backstab). However, as we can see in the real world, there are plenty of countries that won't let relations sour because a certain country has severely overdeveloped its military and has over-exercised it. With respect to the space race, I'm not all that worried about Venezuela, Nigeria, or India declaring war on the US just because the US is much farther along the "space race" path than they are. Nor has England stopped trading resources with the US because we are growing too large. On that point, CHINA hasn't even stopped trading with the US despite ALL of our differences (that directly relate to the Civ5 world).

My point is that at the expense of realism AND gameplay, we have these end-game AI cascading DoWs and most of the world will turn their back on you (with respect to trading) once you hit that ever-annoying "warmonger" status (which is quite easy to reach). I don't seek the old Civ4 way of making permanent-never-declare-war relations, but I do seek a more diverse end game scenario as well as the ability to continue trading resources even if I am powerful and large.

 

[Ellye]

I have a fun situation in a King Archipelago game I'm playing:

There are 6 civs on the game, and literally everyone has a DoF with everyone else. All civs, with no exceptions, are declared friends to all the other five civs.
No war so far (turn 250~, Epic Speed). Let's see how long this will last.

 

[dexters]

My point is that at the expense of realism AND gameplay, we have these end-game AI cascading DoWs and most of the world will turn their back on you (with respect to trading) once you hit that ever-annoying "warmonger" status (which is quite easy to reach). I don't seek the old Civ4 way of making permanent-never-declare-war relations, but I do seek a more diverse end game scenario as well as the ability to continue trading resources even if I am powerful and large.

More tools to manage diplomacy is always better and more 'fun'.

I would like an alliance tier agreement that will reduce or even eliminate DoW, just so there's a clear difference between friends and allies.

There should also be more diplomatic symmetry so that you can do what the AI can do, namly ask for stuff when you are friends with them and taunt them, with varying effects (hate penalties) depending on the leader and your history with them.

Would love one of those taunts leading directly to doW. lol.

 

[Iberian]

More tools to manage diplomacy is always better and more 'fun'.

I would like an alliance tier agreement that will reduce or even eliminate DoW, just so there's a clear difference between friends and allies.

There should also be more diplomatic symmetry so that you can do what the AI can do, namly ask for stuff when you are friends with them and taunt them, with varying effects (hate penalties) depending on the leader and your history with them.

Would love one of those taunts leading directly to doW. lol.

I never understood why the AI could ask for things as you couldn't. In Civ IV they would straight pity you and give you a tech because you were doing so bad. of course you took that tech sold it to another backwards civ and then sold that for two more and in 1 turn became as advanced as the civ who gave you the tech in the first place for being backwards.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Not a defense just to correct information, where people post untruths and assumptions as facts. Doesn't take much work to check out xml variables or bibor's chart to figure it out.


The biggest issue is a player isse. We still have people complaining who are treating all civs as generic and interchangeable. That's simply not the case in Civ5. Flavours count.
Oh who backstabbed you? we later find its one of those unspeakably agressive civs.

Do you know how these parameters are used? You don't. Nobody does. Is there any proof the dependency is linear? Nope. So who is presenting assumptions as facts here?

 

[basta]

I would like an alliance tier agreement that will reduce or even eliminate DoW, just so there's a clear difference between friends and allies.

Well it's already there, the defensive pact, but it's obviously far too weak/poorly implemented to reduce the current almost endless inter-civ warring, and is also too easily overridden by the must-DoW-to-impede-the-leader mechanic so overwhelming in place right now.

I'd love to see civs actually build defensive pacts/alliances/blocs that would be mutually beneficial and make my games more truly challenging. A cultural and a science civ that share borders strike an alliance, for example. Great--they funnel more of their resources into their objectives rather than endless unit spam. I'd even like to see their map placement rigged a bit so these alliances/blocs would pop up more often. You attack one and you find out you're at war with 2 or even 3 civs--ain't never happened, but would be quite refreshing if it did.

Also it'd be good if the devs would at least rationalize DoWs geographically and increase the desirability of adjacent civs adopting defensive pacts--what's the point of Monty or Napoleon DoWing me if I haven't even found their lands yet, and after a dozen turns one lousy archer shows up through a mountain pass?

 

[qemist]

Im with dexters on this. The diplo is far from perfect (maybe even far from good) but a lot of the criticism is wrong (eg the AIs gang up on me from the start!) or wrong-headed (DoFs should make the AI my willing accomplice 4 eva!).

Well it's already there, the defensive pact,

That's not the same thing as a non-aggression treaty. At the moment the only way to get a non-aggression treaty is to go to war first. Then you can agree one that lasts only 10 turns. It would add to the diplo options if you could agree non-aggression pacts.

I'd love to see civs actually build defensive pacts/alliances/blocs that would be mutually beneficial and make my games more truly challenging.

At the moment the diplo seems too formulaic and insufficiently guided by self-interest, which paradoxically makes international relations chaotic. A and B are at war with C. A is weak and in danger of losing everything, so he either (a) denounces B or (b) DoWs B. That's unreal. A and B conspire to DoW C. They go through with the deal, then A promptly denounces B as a warmonger. What? That would be a transparently hypocritical and stupid thing to do. It might change his opinion of B, but he'd keep it to himself at least until C was done with. A settles close to B, then denounces B for "settling too close to him". Again not believable behavior. A is losing a war with B. C DoWs B. A then denounces C as a warmonger. etc etc

The principal "my enemy's enemy is my friend (for now)" is kind of represented in the diplomacy, but insufficiently for alliance blocs to form.

A cultural and a science civ that share borders strike an alliance, for example. Great--they funnel more of their resources into their objectives rather than endless unit spam. I'd even like to see their map placement rigged a bit so these alliances/blocs would pop up more often. You attack one and you find out you're at war with 2 or even 3 civs--ain't never happened, but would be quite refreshing if it did.

Also it'd be good if the devs would at least rationalize DoWs geographically and increase the desirability of adjacent civs adopting defensive pacts--what's the point of Monty or Napoleon DoWing me if I haven't even found their lands yet, and after a dozen turns one lousy archer shows up through a mountain pass?

I'm not in favor of rigging the game in this way. Historically there is a tendency for countries to be enemies with their neighbors and friends with the next country over (France and Scotland vs England, France and Poland vs German states, England and German states vs France). Tribes start going to war against the tribes they know, who naturally tend to be their neighbors. When they encounter their neighbor's neighbor, who is also his enemy, they have found a natural ally.

Attacking with insufficient forces is an old problem that I haven't seen much of recently. What level do you play on?

 

[basta]

Im with dexters on this. The diplo is far from perfect (maybe even far from good) but a lot of the criticism is wrong (eg the AIs gang up on me from the start!) or wrong-headed (DoFs should make the AI my willing accomplice 4 eva!).

Well, neither of these criticisms were brought up in my post, but yes some people do post these sorts of things.

That's not the same thing as a non-aggression treaty. At the moment the only way to get a non-aggression treaty is to go to war first. Then you can agree one that lasts only 10 turns. It would add to the diplo options if you could agree non-aggression pacts.

You say a defensive pact is not a non-aggression treaty--a 10-turn cease fire is. Well, no, not really, that's a 10-turn cease fire, after aggression has occurred. In truth neither are, and I know a defensive pact isn't either, but it's a lot closer to what a non aggression treaty should be than the weakest peace there is--which is the 10-turn cease fire (which should only be offered if you've taken your opponent's capital, and should only be accepted if you aren't up to speed yet to crush your aggressor, which is what you should do once it expires). Anyway, the idea of the defensive pact is positive, not neutral--it allows the civ to pursue its main goal with less aggression and creates a 2-party defensive alliance, which would be good things to see going on in the game IMO.

At the moment the diplo seems too formulaic and insufficiently guided by self-interest, which paradoxically makes international relations chaotic. A and B are at war with C. A is weak and in danger of losing everything, so he either (a) denounces B or (b) DoWs B. That's unreal. A and B conspire to DoW C. They go through with the deal, then A promptly denounces B as a warmonger. What? That would be a transparently hypocritical and stupid thing to do. It might change his opinion of B, but he'd keep it to himself at least until C was done with. A settles close to B, then denounces B for "settling too close to him". Again not believable behavior. A is losing a war with B. C DoWs B. A then denounces C as a warmonger. etc etc

The principal "my enemy's enemy is my friend (for now)" is kind of represented in the diplomacy, but insufficiently for alliance blocs to form.

Well, aren't you saying, in a rather convoluted way, that diplo kinda sucks? Taking that a step further, that maybe something like working defensive pacts might not be so bad?

I'm not in favor of rigging the game in this way. Historically there is a tendency for countries to be enemies with their neighbors and friends with the next country over (France and Scotland vs England, France and Poland vs German states, England and German states vs France). Tribes start going to war against the tribes they know, who naturally tend to be their neighbors. When they encounter their neighbor's neighbor, who is also his enemy, they have found a natural ally.

Is the way the game is rigged now better? Monty or Askia or Alex declaring war from another continent simply because a scout finally made it to yours? If you're leading, rump civs--those you've already decapitated and have TP-spammed their capital and major cities--DoW you so that you have to divert 2 units to mop up the dregs? I am always loathe to appeal to history to support game mechanics--does the current diplo, with all its cheesy/gamey nonsense, really make you think of Talleyrand, and is it in any way comparable to France's long diplomatic and strategic history?

Seriously, what would be so bad about more bloc/alliance building and less mindless warring and unit spam? An AI a bit more focused on its VC and less upon pointless skirmishing? Getting the wild-card shock of finding out you've DoWed on 2 civs, not one? Really, functional defensive pacts wouldn't be that bad for the game's playability IMO.

Attacking with insufficient forces is an old problem that I haven't seen much of recently. What level do you play on?

Mostly immortal, but I just had that example last night during a deity/pangea game. And anyway, I'm sure they didn't lack for forces; my point was that they were so ridiculously far away that they shouldn't have DoWed in the first place, because their army couldn't physically get to mine across 2/3 of the map. These 'phony wars' happen far too often and can drag on, pointlessly, for 30,40, 50 turns, because your army never engages theirs and without losses there's no reason for the AI to accept peace.

 

[Iberian]

Attacking with insufficient forces is an old problem that I haven't seen much of recently. What level do you play on?

Ironically enough I think this happens most on Diety. The AI sees you are weak with one or two units and decides to declare even if they don't have any units near.


I think most of us agree diplomacy in Civ V sucks. How it should be changed is something we probably won't reach agreement on.

I hate the win at all costs play. The goal should be to have the best civ when the game ends. If you can prevent someone else from winning so that you have a better civ when you win yourself then that makes sense. If you can't then do your best to build your empire.

The game shouldn't dogpile the leader either automatically. If there is a civ that looks poised to run away and myself and another can probably stymie him then that makes sense. If Civ A score > Civ B score then = war shouldn't be how it is played. (not that it is like that now) Every decision should be based on how can I (or AI) maximize my score at the projected end date. Sometimes it means killing my smaller neighbor so I get bigger. Sometimes it means attacking the biggest civ to slow him down. Sometimes it means biding my time till I have an advantage. Even a human multiplayer game would be fun if you were ranked on score as a % of the winner's or if you are the winner the % above your compitition. Adds another dimension to assesing risk.

 

[ahawk]

Not a defense just to correct information, where people post untruths and assumptions as facts. Doesn't take much work to check out xml variables or bibor's chart to figure it out.


The biggest issue is a player isse. We still have people complaining who are treating all civs as generic and interchangeable. That's simply not the case in Civ5. Flavours count.
Oh who backstabbed you? we later find its one of those unspeakably agressive civs.

As to realizing one civ is not like another, I think this is a pretty good point. Go check the program code and you can see the aggression scores. There are admittedly certain civs that it'd be highly unusually to not see DoWing you unless you're either very distant on the map, or you have just a completely dominating military compared to theirs. And even then. The aggression scores may account a bit too much for why a civ DoW's you, and maybe the aggression score should be weighted a little less, but each civ definitely acts (and should act) differently in terms of DoWing based off this.

On the other hand, I still agree that diplomacy is in need of a bit of an overhaul. My main complaint is that, going all the way back to the OP, there's just too many all-or-nothing situations, where once you attack a single CS, you now need to prepare to be a military power and confront DoWs that you should have at least a little more control over in terms of preventing. The main problem is that actions against one AI civ or CS affect your overall diplomatic standing too much. Unless an AI civ is friendly with who you attacked, or is morally opposed to war perhaps (Gandhi, for one), then the most of a hit you take with the AI civs you didn't attack should be a small one, so long as they don't have reason to collectively fear your military yet.

 

[LeHam]

Agree with you. I want fun from the AI, not human, game-playing emulation.

It's very frustrating that the AI tries to act like a human player, but can't play anywhere near as well as a human tactically. It's got all the acting talent, with none of the tactical skill. It's not even that hot strategically.

It becomes very predictable and a bit of a chore to yet again be declared war upon by puny Civs who even acknowledge their own weakness in their declarations...

I don't think the AIs DoWs are humanlike at all. If I were playing multiplayer and was going to lose, I'd want to play to the end anyway, do my best, and have fun, not get destroyed in a suicide attack.

With these late-game DoWs it feels more like the AI is a troll or griefer rather than a competent human.

 

[LeHam]

The issue here is that people assume having Alex as your neighbour and trusting them is a good idea. The Civ flavours in Civ5 is far more consistent.

One change from Civ4. Civs are no longer generic AI playing generic game with an RNG roll applied on how often they declare war. Warmongers will get more easily offended by almost everything you do, and will thus pull the trigger 'rationally' more often.

That's just not true. If you look in the xml files, the different AIs in CivIV are affected differently by what you do. Montezuma is more likely to declare war on you immediately if you refuse tribute. Others will only start preparing for war, but won't declare right away. Alexander will often attack stronger civs, but Gandhi won't do so unless they are weake, and Cathy loves dogpiling (chances of DoW is further affected by whether it's a Total, Limited, or Dogpile War, and how close the victim civ is).

I think the AIs in CivIV have way more personality than the ones in CiV. There are also less irrational declarations of war, because civs take other factors such as strength into higher account.

You're right. Civ flavors in CiV is more consistent. Consistently asinine, that is.

 

[LeHam]

The last thing you also need to watch out for is to the scheming between AI, and or the AI and you against someone. Global politics is now an active arena, rather than set-piece of vassals/relgion controlled by the human player.

I thought vassals and religion added more to diplomacy in CivIV. Easily broken "Declaration of Friendships" and "Research Agreements" are no replacement for the longstanding friendships you could form in CivIV. I think there were more diplomacy modifiers in general, as well--like, by having trade routes with another empire, you would gain diplomacy points with them (now of course trade routes have been dumbed down). Finally, resource deals and open borders didn't automatically end after 45 turns, forcing you to renew them.

With trade routes between empires gone and the fact that the word "friendship" means very little to the AI means there is almost no reason why two empires should stay at peace with one another.

 

[Noatz]

What confuses me is the "afraid" status the AI civs sometimes get into. It doesn't appear to actually correlate to how powerful you are relative to them.

There have been occasions where I have a dominating military force capable of unleashing an almighty ass-kicking blitzkrieg that would wipe out my nearest neighbour in a matter of turns, yet said neighbour will be sitting there pouting and spamming denunciations. And yet, sometimes when I have met a new civ while exploring with all the terrifying might of a scout, for some reason "they fear our great might".

Seems broken to me.

 

[Iberian]

I thought vassals and religion added more to diplomacy in CivIV. Easily broken "Declaration of Friendships" and "Research Agreements" are no replacement for the longstanding friendships you could form in CivIV. I think there were more diplomacy modifiers in general, as well--like, by having trade routes with another empire, you would gain diplomacy points with them (now of course trade routes have been dumbed down). Finally, resource deals and open borders didn't automatically end after 45 turns, forcing you to renew them.

With trade routes between empires gone and the fact that the word "friendship" means very little to the AI means there is almost no reason why two empires should stay at peace with one another.

The Civ IV dilpomacy had a lot of tools which was awesome. The only downside though was the level of player control over the diplomatic situation. One of the key skills of a high level player was controling the AI via diplomacy. Ifluence is fine, control is removing some of the game element.

Civ V took things too far and simplified many toolboxes to the point where all you have is a hammer and all the other civs look like nails.