Diplo hit that really needs fixed

[Smokeybear]

When an AI civ plops down a city close to one of your *already existing* ones, and that action instantly triggers a churlish message from that leader saying "we want you to stop taking every available piece of land near us" message... that is so infernally and aggravatingly stupid. They are obviously the ones in the wrong by building too close to you, not the other way around. Firaxis, you really need to code in a simple check, that says "if AI builds new city, that AI cannot accuse player of settling too close due to a pre-existing player city, and can only make such accusations if the player then claims *new* tiles or cities within their 'thats too close!' parameters."

Seriously. That's just silly. It's like a burglar pitching his tent in your back yard and then berating you for living too close to him.

 

[Bakspatel]

There's plenty of weird diplo hits you can add up to that. One that also bugs me is when I've been allied to a CS for quite a while, an AI bribes their influence and pops up saying that they're in their sphere of influence. I beg your pardon?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The AI should not be nice to you because it should be a threat. Best thing to do is to show what the ai have wrong. If you want to be funny you could settle a city close to them and tell them to not settle close to you.

However the ai is also so dumb that you can make it your slave with some bribes and such. Controling it to destroy itself while you go for the win.

 

[smallfish]

They are a threat if you are not watching them with two eyes.

I once had two allied mercantile CSes right under the capital of Netherlands, as insurance so to speak. William was a bad man, with bad intentions to me (covets your lands, hostile, "its a shame some people love picking on blah blah"). So while I was having less than 200g and busy eviscerating his neighbor the French, he bought off one of the mercantile CS.

The next turn he DOWed me. No asking for embassy prelude or neutral stance stuff. Just straight "lands will make a fine addition" DOW.

Bam, my happiness tanked.

Then now with his own massive forces and neighboring CS, he proceeded to smash my only happiness bucket source. Bam, happiness went off into -12.

 

[Babri]

They are a threat if you are not watching them with two eyes.

I once had two allied mercantile CSes right under the capital of Netherlands, as insurance so to speak. William was a bad man, with bad intentions to me (covets your lands, hostile, "its a shame some people love picking on blah blah"). So while I was having less than 200g and busy eviscerating his neighbor the French, he bought off one of the mercantile CS.

The next turn he DOWed me. No asking for embassy prelude or neutral stance stuff. Just straight "lands will make a fine addition" DOW.

Bam, my happiness tanked.

Then now with his own massive forces and neighboring CS, he proceeded to smash my only happiness bucket source. Bam, happiness went off into -12.

I have seen worse. My CS ally was the only source of aluminium for me & Washington bribed them & DOWed. Bam I got it into red. Luckily he didn't invade my main continent & I was easily able to defeat him in naval battles.

 

[civnoob13]

I diplo hit I really hate is when someone DOWs at you and then you take over some of their cities, triggering your neighbours to say I am expanding too aggressively and asking me to not expand to their lands. Thankfully so far I've never promised to not expand near to their lands, only to take another city and for that to be classed as a broken promise.

One of the things I dislike about diplomacy in general in ciV is how one little modifier can completely change the AI's attitude to you. One second they are friendly, the next, you denounce their friend or something, which gets them just pissed off enough for a ton of other modifiers to come from nowhere; suddenly you've built wonders they coveted, the covet your lands, you are building too aggressively, you're a warmongerer, and they denounce you.

 

[jahsoldier]

It would be really nice if Civs told you why they are denouncing you when they do, since there must be some kind of trigger behind it. Recently, I negotiated peace with Monty. He was friendly the next turn. Next turn he denounced me. Turn after that I spoke to him to see what's up: "Hello, my friend."

Something like "I'm telling the other leaders that you're expanding too much" or "you're bullying city-states" would be helpful.

 

[animalguy]

It's not as bad as having civs being guarded towards you when the only modifiers are 'you have no contested borders' and 'they have an embassy in your capital'

 

[Sotof]

The AI is far too irrational when it comes to diplomacy with the player. It makes any possibility of forging an alliance futile and a waste of resources when all the AI do is:

- Ask you for your resources (without payment)
- Ask you to go to war and then hate you with a passion when you win it for them (the hell?)
- Suddenly thinks all your land is rightfully theirs despite having no previous grieves.
- Bribes your long-time city-state allies and tells you to gtfo.
- Attack you when you are close allies but you are in a war (or just at random).
- Steals your technology (or tries to).
- Makes you pay for their research agreements.
- Wants open borders to destroy your religion.
- Hates you for defending yourself against a third party (seriously?).
- and so on.

The AI is only out to get you no matter what. Your best bet is always to just consider everyone enemies and not care what they think.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's not as bad as having civs being guarded towards you when the only modifiers are 'you have no contested borders' and 'they have an embassy in your capital'

This usually means they are wary of your large military and your overwhelmingly large economy that bankrolls your steamrolling juggernaut of death. Take it as a sign that you rock at CiV.

 

[steveg700]

When an AI civ plops down a city close to one of your *already existing* ones, and that action instantly triggers a churlish message from that leader saying "we want you to stop taking every available piece of land near us" message... that is so infernally and aggravatingly stupid. They are obviously the ones in the wrong by building too close to you, not the other way around. Firaxis, you really need to code in a simple check, that says "if AI builds new city, that AI cannot accuse player of settling too close due to a pre-existing player city, and can only make such accusations if the player then claims *new* tiles or cities within their 'thats too close!' parameters."

Seriously. That's just silly. It's like a burglar pitching his tent in your back yard and then berating you for living too close to him.

OK, you've vented. Feel better now?

I think "squatter" is more what you're looking for in your analogy. When you use someone else's property as your home, that's squatting.

In the pet peeves, I find it about as annoying as Alexander, Napoleon, and our new up-and-comer Gustavus plotting day-one DoW's that cannot be deterred in any fashion. Even if you spot his forces and they spot yours, it's still a fight.

 

[jahsoldier]

The AI is far too irrational when it comes to diplomacy with the player.

I actually find it somewhat better and less random in G&K, but still a long way from where it should be. There's just a massive imbalance of negative modifiers vs positive ones - ie too many ways for the AI to hate you and very few meaningful ways to win friendship. Even caving when they want something for nothing doesn't seem to have much effect, it just avoids the 'you refused to help us' negative diplo hit.

I've found one of the best ways to avoid wanton aggression is to make defensive pacts with as many people as possible, even the puny ones - the AI really seems to take it into account when deciding whether or not to act the dick. Oddly enough I've never seen the AI making defensive pacts with one another - can anyone confirm if they've seen it happen? IIRC they did it all the time in Civ IV.

 

[Kerosene31]

I just had a funny one. I'm playing as France and it is around 1800 or so. I built my 4 cities thousands of years ago. Alexander suddenly pops up and tells me to stop settling near him. I haven't settled anything in forever.

The one thing I wonder is if my culture (I am going culture victory) took one of his tiles somewhere.

 

[Mizou]

They are a threat if you are not watching them with two eyes.

I once had two allied mercantile CSes right under the capital of Netherlands, as insurance so to speak. William was a bad man, with bad intentions to me (covets your lands, hostile, "its a shame some people love picking on blah blah"). So while I was having less than 200g and busy eviscerating his neighbor the French, he bought off one of the mercantile CS.

The next turn he DOWed me. No asking for embassy prelude or neutral stance stuff. Just straight "lands will make a fine addition" DOW.

Bam, my happiness tanked.

Then now with his own massive forces and neighboring CS, he proceeded to smash my only happiness bucket source. Bam, happiness went off into -12.

i would say the AI outplayed you, i would have DOWed em long ago

 

[Smokeybear]

OK, you've vented. Feel better now?

I think "squatter" is more what you're looking for in your analogy. When you use someone else's property as your home, that's squatting.

Mildly, yes. I'll feel much better when they fix it, since it is just bad or misguided coding that allows it in the first place.

Squatter, yes. They are taking a squat on my doorstep, then accusing me of being too close to their freshly-dumped scat city. Quite approriate.

 

[draaibaar]

Some Civ leaders are just very cheeky.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

Sooner or later- usually sooner- they will all want to destroy you. If you base all your play on that at least you will be prepared.

 

[AiTenshi1]

Sooner or later- usually sooner- they will all want to destroy you. If you base all your play on that at least you will be prepared.

Or sometimes not destroy, per se, but simply outpace you in tech or culture, or buy out the world with cheating amounts of money.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I remember my last game... I built 2 cities around turn 70 and Ramses and Suleiman both got really worried, believing I was building new cities too aggressively. Ramses hadn't been expanding at all (I thought for sure he was going like OCC or something). He later proceeded to do the following:
2 cities in 3 turns in the 160s
A city right adjacent to my border on turn 233
2 more cities on turns 248 and 250
2 more cities in the 270s
One more to grab the last little bit of land on the continent on 330.

The whole time I got the "Your expansion has worried several of my officials" message when I went to talk to him and got the "Lands I feel are mine" warning in like 1200 AD. Those two cities I had plopped down were my last, by the way. That's just not fun to deal with. I was tempted to ask him not to settle near me, if not for the fact I needed research agreements from him. Paid off when I hit Alpha Centauri by 1923.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I remember my last game... I built 2 cities around turn 70 and Ramses and Suleiman both got really worried, believing I was building new cities too aggressively. Ramses hadn't been expanding at all (I thought for sure he was going like OCC or something). He later proceeded to do the following:
2 cities in 3 turns in the 160s
A city right adjacent to my border on turn 233
2 more cities on turns 248 and 250
2 more cities in the 270s
One more to grab the last little bit of land on the continent on 330.

The whole time I got the "Your expansion has worried several of my officials" message when I went to talk to him and got the "Lands I feel are mine" warning in like 1200 AD. Those two cities I had plopped down were my last, by the way. That's just not fun to deal with. I was tempted to ask him not to settle near me, if not for the fact I needed research agreements from him. Paid off when I hit Alpha Centauri by 1923.

Well I'm glad that it did work out for you in the end. But I still would have told him to back off the borders and city spamming, then DOW'd him if he didn't. But hey, I'm a warmonger .