Backstabbing Penalties Rework

[Recursive]

I've been working on improving backstabbing penalties, because the way they currently are (mostly by Firaxis choice) is...lacking in terms of nuance.

Examples of silly situations that can currently happen:
- Poland backstabs France by declaring war on them. You decide to join Casimir in backstabbing France, but take a large diplo hit with Poland for doing so.

- Rome is backstabbed by the Shoshone, your friend. You decide to backstab the Shoshone in retaliation. Rome gets mad at you and you take a large diplo hit.

- Montezuma declares war on several of his friends and razes their cities to the ground; but gets mad at you for denouncing, or being denounced by, one of your friends.

- Egypt gets mad at you for backstabbing Ethiopia, even though Ethiopia is Unforgivable to them and captured their capital, Thebes.

- You ended your Declaration of Friendship with Carthage via the Discuss menu. Every civ in the game considers you an untrustworthy friend, even Carthage's enemies. You then destroy all of Carthage's cities and eliminate them. Everyone considers you trustworthy again.

- You break promises not to attack Babylon and their protected City-State. This doesn't affect their willingness to be friends at all.

- In multiplayer, where a Declaration of Friendship is required to trade Gold with other humans and cannot be revoked except through war, you take major diplo hits with every AI for breaking it.

To avoid these kinds of situations, I'm reworking the backstabbing penalties. I will post my new idea for a rework shortly.

Also, I'm working on a system of putting penalties on a timer rather than having them be permanent, although the worst penalties (especially declaring war on friends) would last much longer.

If you have any feedback on your current issues with backstabbing penalties and how they could be improved, please post them here.

 

[TranceBlossom]

If these kinks were ironed out it would easily double my enjoyment of the diplomacy aspect of Civ 5. Would it be possible to trigger a diplo screen of a leader thanking you / expressing approval when you, for example, join them in a joint war or attack their enemy? That way the player gets a tangible notification that the other civ noticed and appreciated you attacking a bully (or joining them in bullying lmao)

Also, as discussed in the other thread, but I'm restating here for consistency:

"Move your troops from my borders"
1→ Nope, time to die (Declare war)
2→ Okay (Promise not to declare)

I really don't think 1 should carry "extra" penalties on top of declaring war for "refusing to move troops"; declaring/waging war already carries huge diplomatic repercussions, and it feels bad for the player to get extra penalized just because their troop movement happened to catch the AI's attention, especially in its current state where the AI seems rather touchy about your troops remotely close to them. As it is, if your intention really is to go to war, getting this diplo screen is a lose/lose situation that is triggered too easily.

 

[Recursive]

If these kinks were ironed out it would easily double my enjoyment of the diplomacy aspect of Civ 5. Would it be possible to trigger a diplo screen of a leader thanking you / expressing approval when you, for example, join them in a joint war or attack their enemy? That way the player gets a tangible notification that the other civ noticed and appreciated you attacking a bully (or joining them in bullying lmao)

Also, as discussed in the other thread, but I'm restating here for consistency:

"Move your troops from my borders"
1→ Nope, time to die (Declare war)
2→ Okay (Promise not to declare)

I really don't think 1 should carry "extra" penalties on top of declaring war for "refusing to move troops"; declaring/waging war already carries huge diplomatic repercussions, and it feels bad for the player to get extra penalized just because their troop movement happened to catch the AI's attention, especially in its current state where the AI seems rather touchy about your troops remotely close to them. As it is, if your intention really is to go to war, getting this diplo screen is a lose/lose situation that is triggered too easily.

It is possible to create a statement and have the AI say anything you want, although I'm not fully familiar on how, as it involves UI work.

For now my focus is on the approach/opinion penalties, but your idea and others like it are definitely something I'm interested in tackling in the future.

I intend to eliminate the penalty for refusing to make the troop movement promise, as it doesn't really serve any purpose (the permanent penalty is uncalled for, while putting it on a timer wouldn't really change much, since Opinion is irrelevant while you're at war) and it's generally unfun.

 

[azum4roll]

Unrelated to backstabbing, but these can also happen when they shouldn't:

- Venice has a sphere of influence on Colombo. You gain influence with Colombo that exceeds Venice's current influence. Venice warns you to stay away from Colombo.

- Open Door is enacted on Byblos. England gets mad at you for staying too close with Byblos.

- The Shoshones are your vassal. They give you a war message (something they'd say when they declare war on you) and move their troops around your territory, but of course they can't attack. Approach stays HOSTILE.

 

[Recursive]

Unrelated to backstabbing, but these can also happen when they shouldn't:

- Venice has a sphere of influence on Colombo. You gain influence with Colombo that exceeds Venice's current influence. Venice warns you to stay away from Colombo.

- Open Door is enacted on Byblos. England gets mad at you for staying too close with Byblos.

- The Shoshones are your vassal. They give you a war message (something they'd say when they declare war on you) and move their troops around your territory, but of course they can't attack. Approach stays HOSTILE.

The first two should be easy fixes; I've never encountered the third situation but that sounds like a definite bug. If you see it again, file a bug report.

Edit: As of the next version, if the CS has an Open Door policy or they have a Sphere of Influence, you should no longer see the message, nor will it affect diplomacy. They will, however, still get mad about your Spheres of Influence (reasonably so).

 

[Rekk]

They will, however, still get mad about your Spheres of Influence (reasonably so).

Only if they were actually competing for that CS?

 

[LifeOfBrian]

It's great that you're tackling this, looking forward to see the diplo game improve even more!

 

[Recursive]

Only if they were actually competing for that CS?

Yes, of course.

It's great that you're tackling this, looking forward to see the diplo game improve even more!

I'll try my best

 

[Tarzan737]

This sounds Great!!

 

[Kim Dong Un]

You're doing God's work

 

[Stalker0]

You're doing God's work

You mean Dong's work?

 

[Bascule2000]

- Montezuma declares war on several of his friends and razes their cities to the ground; but gets mad at you for denouncing, or being denounced by, one of your friends.

I rather like it when this happens, I wouldn't change it. It's OK if the AIs are violent hypocrites.

 

[Recursive]

I rather like it when this happens, I wouldn't change it. It's OK if the AIs are violent hypocrites.

I don't plan on eliminating the penalties (or hypocrisy) entirely, rather it will be more fine-tuned to the AI's interests and opinions of other players, instead of a flat global penalty that takes none of this into consideration.

e.g. The AI may overlook the backstabbing of their competitors if they hate them enough, but if you attack their friends, they get mad at you - which is a more logical approach.

Another silly thing worth noting: suppose in the Ancient Era, you backstab a friend and wipe them out completely. Centuries later, you move to another continent and find that all of the AIs you meet are aware that you backstabbed that friend, and have huge diplo penalties towards you.

I'll remove penalties relating to unmet players, as that's flat-out cheating.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Well, there's such a thing as gossip...
"Did you know that 1500 years ago, Caesar did this to Pachacuti?"

 

[Recursive]

Well, there's such a thing as gossip...
"Did you know that 1500 years ago, Caesar did this to Pachacuti?"

Yes, but from a gameplay perspective, I'd argue the current permanent approach + opinion penalties are an unsatisfying game mechanic if the AI hasn't actually met that player, even moreso if they can't see any of the cities you captured.

Also, can't a guy change in 1500 years' time?

 

[usadefcon1]

Also, can't a guy change in 1500 years' time?

Just curious what time periods (in turns?) are you thinking for refusing a promise vs breaking a promise vs backstabbing?

 

[Recursive]

Just curious what time periods (in turns?) are you thinking for refusing a promise vs breaking a promise vs backstabbing?

I'm thinking something like 30-50 turns for ignoring and 2-3x that for breaking a promise, possibly scaling based on game speed. Once I finish developing my rework ideas I'll post them in this thread for feedback.