Dealing With Diplomacy

Lee Saxon

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 29, 2016
Messages
37
So I'm realizing I'm pretty clueless about dealing with other civs diplomatically and keeping the peace. Looking for advice (or links to advice). I'm posting this here rather than the Strategy sub-forum because I never really had these troubles in the base game. I have noticed that by the time I start gaining serious cultural influence, I end up with everyone [suddenly, for the most part] hating me, typically ending by the industrial era with everyone (separately) declaring war on me around the same time.

I'm going for cultural victories, not being aggressive. I pretty much cooperate with all trade requests. I don't start wars. I try to be careful not to push close to enemy borders with my settling locations. But I still end up despised because they pushed close to my borders then got mad at how close we were, or because difficult-to-avoid missions like 'accumulate the most culture' resulted in me 'stealing' their city-state allies, or because I'm moving troops near their borders to defend myself against another AI they aren't even allied with, or because my religion is passively spreading more effectively than theirs.

So I don't know, what are your approaches to balancing and mitigating these things, trying to keep more of the AI's happy with you, and making friends?
 
So I'm realizing I'm pretty clueless about dealing with other civs diplomatically and keeping the peace. Looking for advice (or links to advice). I'm posting this here rather than the Strategy sub-forum because I never really had these troubles in the base game. I have noticed that by the time I start gaining serious cultural influence, I end up with everyone [suddenly, for the most part] hating me, typically ending by the industrial era with everyone (separately) declaring war on me around the same time.

I'm going for cultural victories, not being aggressive. I pretty much cooperate with all trade requests. I don't start wars. I try to be careful not to push close to enemy borders with my settling locations. But I still end up despised because they pushed close to my borders then got mad at how close we were, or because difficult-to-avoid missions like 'accumulate the most culture' resulted in me 'stealing' their city-state allies, or because I'm moving troops near their borders to defend myself against another AI they aren't even allied with, or because my religion is passively spreading more effectively than theirs.

So I don't know, what are your approaches to balancing and mitigating these things, trying to keep more of the AI's happy with you, and making friends?

A few factors to keep in mind:

1) The AI is trying to win. So if it looks like your winning, they will hate you, and try to stop you.
2) Enemy of my enemy. Its very hard to be friends with everyone, its easier to create blocks. Find someone you like, and denounce that person's enemies. It can be a great way to start up a more lasting friendship.
3) The weak get destroyed. Just like humans, the AI is opportunistic. If you look weak, its going to try and capitalize. Keeping a strong force will reduce the AI's likelihood to declare on you.
 
If a civ gets denounced by two or three other civs, denounce him too. This will make the other civs like you, and they also like each other. Its like being one of the popular kids at school.
 
I wrote a thread on how the AI decides its Approach, which is still current: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/vp-diplomacy-ai-approach-opinion-demystified.645461/

I'm going to be transferring this to the wiki and adding a table explaining the opinion modifiers as well, but in the meantime, here are a few general diplomacy tips:

1) You can see the reasons for your current relationship with the AI by mousing over their visible approach (FRIENDLY/NEUTRAL/AFRAID/GUARDED/HOSTILE/DENOUNCING!/WAR!). If the visible approach is FRIENDLY (whether truthfully or just faking it), they might hide some of these modifiers, beware. You can use the Transparent Diplomacy advanced setting to show all modifiers and their numeric value.

2) The AI will rarely allow you to play a passive game free of aggression. The AI plays to win. If you're starting to anger the AI by being too far in the lead, you will notice the modifiers "Your behavior worries/angers/infuriates them." or "They fear/suspect/know you are competing with them." If you're getting close to winning the game, the AI will also get a large aggression boost, the magnitude of which is determined by difficulty level.

3) Maintain a strong military - this is one of the best ways to deter declarations of war. You can see your military power (and the power of other civs) in the score list. Your military power is increased when you have more/better units and is decreased for each city you have.

4) Make use of Declarations of Friendship and denouncements! These are the most useful diplomatic tools available to you. When the AI is willing to accept a Declaration of Friendship, they will almost always ask you, and typically you'll get some offers in the early game. You should accept at least some of them, because friends are invaluable - and you get a bonus with other leaders if they also have a DoF with them. Denouncing unpopular players will get you the support of the people who hate them, but it will piss off the people who like them - so use them carefully.

5) If you make a promise to the AI, you should generally keep it. If you make a promise and then break it, the penalty is always worse than if you ignored them.

6) If given a choice between an insulting dialogue option and a normal one, avoid the insulting option if you're trying to stay at peace. Even if they don't declare war instantly, they will be angry at you if you insult them. ;)

Regarding the specific issues you brought up:

"I'm going for cultural victories, not being aggressive."
As mentioned, the AI plays to win. If you start getting a lot of cultural influence over them, they will respond aggressively and deny you Open Borders. You can deter some of this aggression by making sure your military is strong and upgraded; see the approach thread I linked for more information on how the AI decides how aggressive to be.

"I pretty much cooperate with all trade requests."
You can get an opinion bonus with AIs of up to +35 by giving them generous trade deals and sending trade routes to them. When the AI makes a trade offer to you, they will generally try to offer you an "Acceptable" deal which in their view does not substantially benefit them (and doesn't usually give much of a bonus). Sweetening your deals can improve their view of you a bit, and it may be worth attempting on your neighbors. There is also a bug where the AI is not properly evaluating trade deals when deciding how aggressive to be; this is being worked on.

"I try to be careful not to push close to enemy borders with my settling locations. But I still end up despised because they pushed close to my borders then got mad at how close we were..."
Most early-game wars happen because of territorial disputes, and most AIs are aggressive for land because they play to win. Unfortunately, this is mostly inevitable. However, if they ask you not to settle near them, you can avoid further diplomatic penalties by making and keeping a promise. This makes them less hostile than ignoring them, although it's not a deterrent to war.

"...or because difficult-to-avoid missions like 'accumulate the most culture' resulted in me 'stealing' their city-state allies..."

Again, the AI is competitive. You can reduce your Influence with City-States by declaring war on them (or if your Influence is low enough, bullying them/trespassing in their lands) but that tends to have other repercussions. The fact is the AI doesn't care how you stole their alliance, they just care that you have their alliance now and they want it back. This, unfortunately, is also mostly inevitable if you're doing really well, although rarer than disputes over land.

"...or because I'm moving troops near their borders to defend myself against another AI they aren't even allied with..."
Try to avoid keeping too many units within their sight, and try to keep them within your own lands if possible. Unless you have a large concentration of troops, it tends to make the AI more defensive than aggressive, and the malus fades relatively quickly once your troops have moved away.

"...or because my religion is passively spreading more effectively than theirs."

The AI does not get upset over passive spread of religion. They get upset if they have their own religion and you use Missionaries or Prophets to convert their cities.
 
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Thanks for the info, I have a minor issue though, I can't get the AI to support congress decisions either way, even though I give them techs, or land, the proposal is Impossible!

It's worth nothing that I am somewhat of a hegemon in my game, and I am mosty denounced, but my vassals act the same way, and they are quite content with me
 
it's a mixed bag for me when it comes to diplomacy.

some games i'm absolutely despised by the entire world and there's no coming back from it. i just deal with it.

but in my last game i noticed something quite fun. america kept denouncing the same civs i denounced. like 2-3 turns later they'd denounce and send me the splash screen thanking me for my example. we had a DoF non-stop being renewed for 2,000 years.

he also kept fighting the same wars i fought. everytime a civ declared war on me or i went to war with a civ he'd also go to war with them several turns later, i've never seen an AI copy me like that before. to top it off... he chose autocracy because i did.

i've never, ever, ever seen an AI civ copy me like that before.

that was a fun game, and i think the first time i've ever had an AI friend in-game.

usually they forward settle me so i have to raze their city and i spend the next 3,000 years as a hated warmonger just for defending my land. :D
 
Thanks for the info, I have a minor issue though, I can't get the AI to support congress decisions either way, even though I give them techs, or land, the proposal is Impossible!

It's worth nothing that I am somewhat of a hegemon in my game, and I am mosty denounced, but my vassals act the same way, and they are quite content with me

AI is reluctant or unwilling to trade away their World Congress votes, particularly if they don't like you and your proposals. The intention is that the AI is refusing to be exploited.
 
AI is reluctant or unwilling to trade away their World Congress votes, particularly if they don't like you and your proposals. The intention is that the AI is refusing to be exploited.

The problem is, that is the one main purposes of the diplomat (spy) option. If I can’t trade votes, than why even have it as an option?
 
The problem is, that is the one main purposes of the diplomat (spy) option. If I can’t trade votes, than why even have it as an option?

Exactly, also, declining a ban on a luxury for tech that will revolutionize their civilization should make sense for them...
 
I'd like to see how AI values deals.

Unrelated, but can you take a look at AI giving you a "don't be too friendly with MY city state" warning when said city state has open door policy?
 
I'd argue the AI should be trying to survive first and only afterwards win. a council vote should be a very welcomed commodity especially for the weaker countries
 
Hmm, maybe understanding and improving the deal AI can be my next project. :)

On that note, I keep having civs come to me offering deals to vote AGAINST the thing I proposed.

(Meaning, I propose "World's Fair" for example, Brazil comes to me right before the WC session and wants to buy something from me, one of the things he puts on his side of the table is voting against my World's Fair.)
 
@Recursive , I think a good question when dealing with all negative diplo modifiers is, would the community feel that it's acceptable for a player or AI to basically be pure evil during the early stages of the game and then play like saints for the remainder, while being forgiven on clean terms with all opposing players by late game through the degradation and removal of those early accumulated negative modifiers? The magnitude and/or permanent nature of specific negative modifiers currently makes this not possible, but I think it should be to a reasonable extent; I'm still on the fence with regards to backstabbing and breaking promises.

I know that the AI will ultimately base hostility most heavily near the later parts of the game on impending victory, but I think most players would be in favour of having something along these lines.
 
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