cautious relation - help or tribute?

[sunround]

Hi,
I don't understand following lying behaviour:
Ceaser on me is cautious. He come and ask for help. This was not tribute demand, just ask for help.
I gave him technology, and started looking for trade. I found, he have 300 gold, so I asked 200 to get something instead. But my ask was understood as tribute, and another (-1) added to his relation - "unreasonable tribute".

How it can be, from his side just ask help, and from my side - it assumed as tribute? Where I am wrong?

 

[Mercade]

Asking for help and demanding a tribute are (almost) the same thing. Looking in the XML file, I can see that the game differentiates between "tribute" and "tribute - weaker". So my conclusion is that the difference between tribute and help is determined based on your relative strengths.

If you ask a bigger Civ, it's called asking for help. If you pick on someone smaller, it's demanding a tribute.

If you had turned town his request for help he'd have slapped a -1 "you refused to help us" onto your diplomatic relationships.

 

[sunround]

Thank you for response.
Yes, right, I was bigger civ in a game, with lack of gold so periodically I asked civ-friends about gold, and they were glad to help without changing my reputation. Caesar is not friend and he smaller, so he can ask, but I cannot.

 

[oagersnap]

I thought it was tribute if the civ you ask is cautious, annoyed or furious with you, or help if they're friendly.

 

[TheJediMaster]

This whole relationship thing in Civ4 is wacky.

Usually i'm not the diplomatic type. I prefer to kick AI butt and take over the world. However, when I feel like trying to make people happy, I find it is hard to judge what will make people mad and what will make people happy.

Early on in the game, I try to keep people happy until I can stabolize my economy and my military. I'll give free lum sums of gold (50-200 in size) as a kind of bribes. Also, if people want to trade +1 health for +1 happy or visa versa, i'll usually take it. I'll do all of these actions but rarely does this make the AI change from cautious to anything positive.

So, when an AI, who is 200-500 points behind me, demands technology for nothing of me after I try and be nice to them, I figure i'm not doing something right. I don't want to give people technology for technology as it is, but when they demand it I'll tell em to get lost.

Can someone explain how to do diplomacy in this game without compromising your national security by giving your research away?

 

[Mercade]

I thought it was tribute if the civ you ask is cautious, annoyed or furious with you, or help if they're friendly.

That sounds like a possibility but SunRound said that Ceasar was cautious and asked for help. Of course that doesn't prove how Ceasar figured that SunRound thought of him.