Diplomacy basics, please

[edmund22]

Anyone managed to get a AI player to friendly or allies status? Is this even possible?

I gave them gold, luxury and strategic resources. Answered every of their requests with yes, and they still showed only neutral at best. When they lost the capital, I went and gave it back to them, liberated every other city they lost. Still nothing.

 

[CornPlanter]

Anyone managed to get a AI player to friendly or allies status? Is this even possible?

If you mean "Friend" status in diplomacy window, no, I wasn't even aware it exists. But I did manage to get one to talk to me in friendly tone, agree with basically everything I propose, obviously never declare on me, etc., which would be sort of friendly behavior. Or to put it another way, sort of equivalent to Friendly status from Civ4. It was Napoleon btw, and I was playing Montesuma.

 

[Lacerda]

I noticed the best behavior with the AI is from when I'm in a continent, and he's in another. The avoidance of direct confront on the battlefield, helps quite a bit.

Still, don't count on friendly status, they just won't. I can't even get a defensive pact from them.

 

[Magil]

Apart from the debate over the AI declaring war, another dynamic that Civ5 has removed has been the importance of being friendly enough with AIs to trade. Civ5 doesn't have tech trading, so there's no need to be friendly with AIs to trade those. As far as I can tell, the AIs are also almost always willing to trade away their resources on a 1:1 basis, and offer/sign various treaties (cooperation, secrecy, research), whether they're very happy with you or immensely annoyed. So there's no reason to be nice to them for that.

I would guess that the AI modifiers are supposed to skew this behaviour so that annoyed civs won't trade with you or ask for a lot more than what is 'fair', but on empirical evidence it appears that this skewing behaviour is not working well enough. As a result I can ignore the diplomacy side of the game and just be a prick to everyone, and still get along fine.

I have not had as much luck getting AI to trade resources 1-1 if they're unhappy with me. They also won't sign open borders, or let me sell them anything.

 

[gskyes]

Looking over this thread yesterday inspired me to play a diplomatically-minded game to try to learn as much as I could. I played a few hours on a standard pangea and reached the renaissance, but I'm afraid I haven't learned much. The exploration period was a mess of cooperation pact and secrecy pact requests but I'm hoping that things calm down to where I have known friends and enemies. I am playing France, have 5 cities and working on culture.
A few observations:
-Persia wanted a secrecy pact against Egypt very early, so I accepted. But Egypt seemed to really want to be my friend and kept offering open borders and research agreements and pacts of cooperation. Eventually I gave in to Egypt, and Persia doesn't seem too upset, but he doesn't greet me as "good friend" like Siam and India do.
-Greece was next to me, so at first we got along fine, but when I started expanding in his direction he got annoyed with me, but I needed that iron and ivory. I gifted him some cotton and that seemed to improve his mood. He now greets me with something like "hello friend, my advisers are worried about your expansion in this direction." (culture will do that) Greece attacked two city states, one I was friendly with and one I was allied with, and gave the "sorry, I hope this doesn't hurt our friendship" message, to which I gave the polite response. I asked him to make peace with the one I was allied with and he did. Greece has conquered Egypt now, and a few city states, so India and Siam are getting annoyed with him (requesting secrecy pacts against him), and he's growing pretty large so we'll see how this plays out.
-America seems to like me as well, but he conquered the Ottomans and has now attacked Siam, so I'm going to see if I can get everyone to ally against him.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, this particular message was Elizabeth complaining that I had bribed a city-state "in her sphere of influence," not responding to her attacking one. I told her to "get over it" and she just wouldn't stop hating me.

I think if you gave the polite response and then continued to give them money, they'll hate you just the same.

BTW, I did a check on the audio files. I can't confirm this for graphics, but there are two settings in audio - neutral and hostile. For purposes of playing, I'd equate neutral and friendly as basically the same thing (it means they don't hate you). If you're really confused whether or not someone likes you, you can always listen to their sound files (for greetings, for example) and see if the one they say in game is the same as the file you played. I don't think it's really necessarily, though, it seems pretty clear.

 

[tflst5]

If you want peace, prepare for war. Thats my philosophy in this game. If your millitary is smaller and deemed inferior, expected to be attacked by everyone at once. Standing armies are essential regardless of whatever victory you are trying to obtain. Would you sit idly by and watch your neighbor - the France AI - win a cultural victory by skimping on millitary production? Heck no, you'd take advantage, invade them and take it all. That is the way the AI behaves, and it makes things much more interesting. Alliances are the means to an end - winning the game.

If you want honest allies, set up teams and play it that way.

 

[saraid]

I get the feeling that what people really need is a Lapdog status for AIs who have given up and are willing to help you win instead.

 

[Alphaetus_Prime]

I just looked in the code (XML file GlobalDiplomacyAIDefines), and it DOES appear that there is a value somewhere that tracks your relationship with the AI. (Meaning that it is possible to become their friend, or at least less of an enemy.) That said, it also appears that the modifications to this value do not change leader-to-leader, only the "flavor" of the leader changes. (Though I could be wrong.) Another thing is that there appear to be a LOT more negative relationship modifiers (which, strangely, appear as positive numbers) that ones that make the AI like you more. (note: I did not check requests too carefully, but I believe that there is a global value and a leader bias that affects the value. Not sure what they ARE, but hey.)

 

[CoffeeMonster]

My gripe is that I'm playing against 12 Monty Montezumas in each game. A little predictability and consistency would make the leaders seem more like who they are. Right now their supposed personalities don't seem to matter much, because they are all so random.

Gandhi might actually want peace instead of trying to take over the whole continent, etc.

 

[Shinian]

The wierdest thing I've come aross is Japan complaining about me building near his territory. At the time he had control of another continent, and our only physical contact was HIS ship exploring the coast of my continent..

 

[Rittmeyer]

@Rittmeyer,

I can see a problem where Darius was being stupid and didn't do the obvious thing to secure a Domination victory. My gut says that there's a bug in the AI decision algorithms related to continents: some kind of assumption that a civ should focus on their own continent.

But w.r.t. victory, it makes sense to me. Darius was (intentionally) throwing away a cultural and diplomatic victory in favor of a domination or technological one. You (somewhat) threw away the cultural victory, but you kept the diplomatic option open. That difference of decision cost Darius and won you the game. In fact, the way liberation is designed, it seems to be purposed as a counterweight to domination: you don't have to beat the huge monster civ, you just have to liberate a couple city-states to get an extra vote or two, or protect the remaining free ones from capture.

Also, it sounds like Darius did not even consider building a fleet to protect an embarked army to your continent. If you got a strong naval presence first, I think you could have prevented Darius from getting to you if he tried anyways.

So yeah, the AI moves were flat-out dumb, but I don't think it would have turned out much differently. And I don't think the end was a bad ending.

I would be ok with the AI choices if he had at least tried to win via space. Problem is, he was more advanced in tech them I was, I could say so because he entered the latter eras considerably earlier then I did. But I never got any messages about him building apollo program and starting a spaceship. I assume those messages are still present in the ciV, when someone starts on the ship?

Another possibility, that would scare the out of me was if he finished manhattan program. He didn`t.

So, I do believe that ending was ok (actually it felt great to me), because a diplo victory should be able to race a space victory when conditions favor the first one ( in those case they did. the fool wiped out half of the world and the other half loved me). problem is, he wasnt even trying.

if he had at least finished apollo program before we voted for my win...ok. or if he`s fleet was knocking on my doors. of if he was ready to go nuking me. But I saw nothing of that, only some few and mostly obsolete naval units, never paired with invading forces. Not what you would expect of a titan that hates you and wants to win the game.

 

[kaltorak]

Talking about an AI declaring on a much more powerful civ

Since the AI was trying to win against you. If you're more powerful and advanced, it's going to lose against you if it leaves you alone. If it attacks you, it may still lose anyways or it may weaken you to a point where you can win. If it loses anyways after the attack, it's no worse off than it would have been otherwise.

So now you don't even want the AI to do anything to win as if it were a civilization, but more like a gamer, even suiciding for victory. Cool history making game. Have you tried sc2?

 

[Daniel D]

I particularly like how they call you on massing on the borders...even when it's not correct. I wish we had that option...and they had the capacity to be truthful/liars, and deal with the repercussions too.

Has anyone seen the AI complain about where your troops are when you aren't directly next to one of their borders?

I was experimenting with what the threshold is for getting the declare war/traveling through interaction during my last game by reloading when preparing to invade one of my neighbors in my current game. I noticed that they only complained if I had a unit directly next to their border. At one point I had seven units massed outside of one of their cities, but with at least one tile between my front line and their border and this didn't trigger a response (Emperor difficulty).

But I never got any messages about him building apollo program and starting a spaceship. I assume those messages are still present in the ciV, when someone starts on the ship?

I lost to a space race opponent once when going for a culture win with one city. I know I got a notification when they completed the project and again whenever they completed a part, but I don't remember seeing one when they started the project (unless I just didn't notice it...not enough sleep lately ).

 

[saraid]

I would be ok with the AI choices if he had at least tried to win via space. Problem is, he was more advanced in tech them I was, I could say so because he entered the latter eras considerably earlier then I did. But I never got any messages about him building apollo program and starting a spaceship. I assume those messages are still present in the ciV, when someone starts on the ship?

I recently went for a cultural victory that involved me hitting Renaissance before anyone else, but I had never actually gotten Horseback Riding. *shrugs* Actually, I hit Industrial first, too, but that was an accident. I didn't mean to get Biology.

But I don't honestly think that's what happened. The AI doesn't feel smart enough to race down one tree while ignoring another.

 

[Zogar]

Civs in Civ5 play to win. Would diplomacy work on you if you thought one of the AI was going to beat you?

No they don't. What I experienced in emperor is this :
- Japan : 1400 score points, 12 cities (and conquering the other AI one after the other)
- Me : 800 score points, 7 cities
- Other Civs : 400 score points, 3 cities

And Japan + 2 Civs declared war to me at the same time. What sane player would do this ? Who would let Japan get even bigger and destroy their only possible opponent at the moment ? It's even worse than that actually, they previously allied against Japan's AI enemy, as if Jap was not already taking an incredible lead with 8 cities at the time.

If civs always attacked the lead civ of the moment, I would totally understand, but that's far from being the case.

 

[Rittmeyer]

I had made a long post that I lost due to this stupid server too busy error that I seen to be getting all the time since CiV came out.

Short version:

- The behemoth AI problem keeps happening to me, now in IMM level.
- In my last game Nape wiped out everyone of his continent. I wiped only Bismark out of mine. We are the only civs left.
- Haven`t finished the game, but there are two possible outcomes: (1) - Most certainly will happen. I lose the game due to Nape doing whatever he wants to try to win. He is just too powerful and advanced for me to stop. Unfair and frustrating, since I couldnt stop him from becoming a superpower. (2) I win. That will only happen if Nape, like Darius in my previous game, refuses to try anything to win.

 

[Lyoncet]

The AI doesn't hate everybody.

If you think it does, then play better. Many people here (myself included) have played games where nobody hated us. It's opaque, but it's not random, it's not unwinnable (even if some crappy AI decisions make it difficult), and it's nowhere near as bad as a lot of people here say.

I'm not particularly hopeful that any of the naysayers will care, since despite multiple players saying that they've had reasonable, positive diplo through an entire game, they keep touting the same "IT'S TOTALLY RANDOM AND I'M GOING TO TYPE IN CAPS BECAUSE OF IT" nonsense. But figured I'd put it out there regardless.

 

[Dermo]

What really pisses me off is having to repeatedly declare war to tell Suleiman to keep his grubby hands off my friendly city states. I might as well just wipe his sorry rear off the map, but I don't want any of his crummy cities when I'm trying for a cultural victory.

I pledge to protect, I'm allied with them. And he still tries to invade them, then he says "i hope this doesn't come between us." How about 3 feet of steel come between us Suli.

I had this same problem in my last game. I was Greece trying to protect my allied CS's from Japan, and finally came up with the following solution (for lack of a better word)

I simply built enough units to surround each city state I was protecting and fortified them. the best Japan could do was lob rocks over my head at the city walls, while the city, lobbed rocks over my head at the Japanese. Eventually Nobunaga gave up, made peace and wandered off, without me ever having to DoW Japan

Granted this is a rather unit intensive strategy, and Japan did not DoW me (perhaps because of all the units). Looking forward to trying this again to see if this was a fluke or not.

 

[yanner39]

Great discussion. The AI is pretty cool and I think at some point they will improve it. Here's my only beef:

Everytime I try and trade with the AI, I don't get anywhere. He has cotton, I have fur, gems and silver. I need happiness so I want to trade 1 fur for 1 cotton, he says no. I ask what it takes, he says he wants furs, gems and silver, open borders and 200 gold. WFT?

There has to be something I am not understanding? On the trade screen when it list the luxury or strategic resources, at they the ones we have extra or are they all the resources we have? So if I camped ONE fur, On the trade screen, would that one fur show up?

Because that would explain alot: Why would the AI trade its only source of happiness for just one source of happiness? Are some of you accepting these trades? I mean, that in itself makes the AI a rutheless negotiator, which is 100 times better than Civ 4 where the AI would accept copper when they have iron.

I also thought that a Pact of Cooperation would allow the AI to be more reasonable in trades - wouldn't gouge the human player as much.

Any comments/advice on this would be great. I don't care much about how the AI "feels" about me.