Diplomacy changes (Not a rant)

[Ossian]

After playing Civ IV/BTS for a while I was thinking of some changes they should do in Civ V:

-> Having "Diplomacy Points" where when someone makes a arrogent demand like demanding a newly researched tech you should be able to use these points to Slither your way out of it (what politician doesn't slither/manipulate /bribe/Flatter out of a bad situation?

So it would work like when someone demands something you can pick We'll give into your demand, we reject your empty threats or Diplomatic: Blah blah fancy talk

It will talk some out of your point bar but will give no -1 you refused our demands.
This would add a little more options to the game when talking to AI's because you could use it "offensively" also such as when talking for tech trade you can cash in some points to sliver down his demands, maybe even knock a tech off if you have a high enough point count.

Some ways to gather these "DP's" would be to build emissaries/Ambassadors and send them to the other civs to smooth relations.
Also you could give free tech's/Give into requests/Give coin but they wouldn't give much compared to the above.
Also you could send relief aid to their cities in need, +1 food to a mining colony thats starving etc.


Currently the AI is too touchy on somethings and not sensitive enough on others, a real world leader/Human player when receiving a free city would freak out and love you for a huge gift, a AI gives you +1
Likewise when a city of theirs falls to culture the human player would get angery and start making plans to crush you (if it was a big city)

Another thing I thought of the higher your relations with another civ the easier it would be to get DP's, also if you wish to get better relations with a civ you could cash the points in so if you gave them a gift send some points with it and it would be received a lot better.

One last change I'd like is a manner or speech when talking to a civ, for example you can be arrogant and loud when talking to ragnar and he'd think you are a man after his own heart, if you spoke that way with Ghandi he'd have a cow (we'll maybe not Ghandi )

These tones could be changed with ease at a drop down menu on the side, but be careful, some days they'd like to be talked at in their own way, some days they'd think your patronizing them.
(also switch tone too often they think your a con and have no respect for you)

What would you think of some/all of these options?

 

[Refar]

The AI sould also monitor the Humans diplo stance against itself...
- Shaka makes a demand, i decline - he gives me "-1 Refused Tribute" - thats fine, but he should also be aware that i give him "-1 Arrogant Demand" as well. The way it is now everything just works against the player... The AI just keeps Demanding/Asking happily handing out the diplo "-" and does not care in the least, that they actually make you .

In this line... About the demands/requests to join war
1) First of all: How about the AI trying to Bribe ? If i want Shaka to join my war, i need to bribe him... He just comes demanding - and of course handling out the "refused to help -1"... Perhaps there should be a possibilty to negothiate. If after renegotiating i still refuse, the AI can still give me the -1, but i want the possibility of actually getting something for a deal like this, instead of making it to not get the -1
2) While i kind of understand that the AI will give you "-1 Refused to Help" i think the other AI (who you refused to Attack/Stop Trade) should give you "+1 - Refused to dogpile on us". As it is now, it is a Loose-Loose situation for the human - Joinn war and Collect demerits with the victim, or refuse and collect demerits with the one asking...

 

[digitCruncher]

Here's a question about the AI-AI diplomacy, which is related...

Does the AI get "You made an arrogant demand / You refused to help us" penalties?

I haven't seen it on the glance menu, so I can only assume that the AI DOES NOT have a penalty for demanding something, which means that the human player has a MASSIVE diplomatic penalty.

If only us, as human players, could 'red-out' resources and technologies...

 

[Refar]

I think this whole "Demand/Request" mechanic only applies to the human player - that's what i tried to express in my above post - the AI treat the player different than the other AI's when it comes to Diplo. This is hugely annoying.

 

[Ossian]

I've seen AI's get it I believe toward eachother.

 

[Jedoc]

I like your ideas, Ossian. I would love for diplomacy to be a more involved process, and I hate it when EVERY time there's a war, both sides come to me bearing gifts of negative modifiers.

But Refar, the AI has to treat the human differently than its computerized rivals. We're fundamentally different, and we're not bound by the diplomacy system. We decide to attack friendly AI for (from the computer's perspective) no apparent reason. We learn from our past experiences. We know, for example, that turning your back on Montezuma will earn you an exquisitely chipped flint dagger in the back. But every time the AI faces us, it's for the first time. It doesn't know whether we intend to turtle and trade peacefully for the next six thousand years or whether we've decided to go for a conquest victory.

Until the game can force us to abide by our own diplomatic modifiers, the models for AI-to-AI and AI-to-human interaction are going to have to remain unbalanced.

 

[Refar]

Until the game can force us to abide by our own diplomatic modifiers, the models for AI-to-AI and AI-to-human interaction are going to have to remain unbalanced.

You are right about the human playing different than AI. However i did not say it has to be completely balanced, i said it should follow the same basic mechanics, because it hugely frustrating - at least to me - seeing that i just dont have the same options th AI has.

-----

A side note... The LH artwork is almost as frustrating to me as the diplo itself... All leaders with very few exceptions are purposedly depicted ugly and repulsive by those cartoonish, exxagerrated mood animations. This was something i really hated about CivIII, and it did not get better in CIV... I really hope CivV will employ another artistic premisses here...

For example why is that every leader playes a "angry/bad mood" animation on greeting - even if the attitude is friendly. This is no way to treat a foreighn souvereighn, even if the relations are bad, not to mention at friendly.

Let's take Izzy - when you just open diplo - at friendly - she displays a angry face, which then switches to a smile... But why the need of the "Angry"-greeting in the fiorst place...

Most notable example is Zara Yaqob with his "Grunting"-greeting. This immediately pisses me of that much, that i never actually seen his friendly animation yet - i just kill ethiopia on sight if i can, or reject everything he might ask for without reading...

 

[AmazonQueen]

I agree with Refar that its annoying sometimes that the AI can just not give you the option of asking for something when you can't do the same.

I've often incurred diplomatic penalties for refusing to give AI civs my prize tech when they won't even consider giving me some tech. Demanding Nationhood and refusing to consider trading Gunpowder occured in a recent game.

 

[Howard!]

I remember Gandi (yes gandi) asking me for some tech (rifling)... Needless to say I slept in Delhi that night.

 

[Refar]

I remember Gandi (yes gandi) asking me for some tech (rifling)... Needless to say I slept in Delhi that night.

Exactly. I think quite many players react the same way. But that's kind of defies the purpose of a diplomacy sytem in game...

 

[magicalsushi]

I think this whole "Demand/Request" mechanic only applies to the human player - that's what i tried to express in my above post - the AI treat the player different than the other AI's when it comes to Diplo. This is hugely annoying.

I've seen AI's get it I believe toward eachother.

My understanding - based only on what I've read in these forums over the past year or so, I'm afraid, rather than looking at the actual code - is that the AIs can get the positive "you gave us tribute" (or similar) modifiers, but not the negative ones. The reason for this is that they know in advance whether another AI player would agree to a demand, and if they find that the AI player would not agree, they don't bother making the demand. If they find that the AI player would agree, they make the demand, the other AI player agrees, and the first AI player gives them the same +1 or +2 modifier that they'd give to a human.

This puts the human at a huge disadvantage, diplomatically. Not only do we inevitably incurr tonnes of "you refused to give us help/tribute" modifiers (or get forced to give away tech that the AI would never dream of even selling to us), we also receive the lion's share of the demands in the first place.

An obvious improvement springs to mind: allow AI players to make requests of each other which *will* be refused. Then they'll be in more or less the same boat as the human. If they ask each other for stupid stuff that they'd never dream of giving away themselves, they'll get diplomatic penalties, just like we do when we refuse their ridiculous demands. Fair's fair.

 

[redmosquito]

I think this whole "Demand/Request" mechanic only applies to the human player - that's what i tried to express in my above post - the AI treat the player different than the other AI's when it comes to Diplo. This is hugely annoying.

I hate that too. I do not know why firaxis still ignores this problem. If I could say something to sid that would be it.

My other complaint concerning the diplomacy system is the elephant memory of the AI. modifier magnitude should diminish more rapidly throughout the game. who cares about refusal of a demand which was made 500 turns ago

 

[Justy]

I wish their was an option to offer clandestine assistance. Where I do not wish to declare war but I will offer money, maps, units etc. Maybe even putting their flags on my units which I still control etc. Maybe my support could help alleviate his war weariness etc. Obviously there should be an ongoing chance of discovery and a negative modifier with the attacked Civ if discovered. They are many options here.

Another angle could be when a war breaks out you have the option to declare neutrality which would only engender a temporary negative modifier with both nations.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMO it just needs some tweaking. It's kind of garbage to get war requests when all I have are caravels on an island by myself. Being a "coalition of the willing" isn't going to help that AI. I also kind of dislike requests for war when I'm at war.

Finally, tribute demands and friendly requests should be a LOT more based on "actual ability to attack" modifying the chances of their occurrence. Certainly, the AI would still have a chance to make a bluff demand, but something like this would make it (reasonably) less frequent and annoying. On the flip side, they should be *much* pushier when they are right next to you with 4x your power rating, basically wanting whatever you have (and not DOWing if you always accept). Sounds exploitable, right? Well...not really because they'd be on tech parity with you or pissed . This would make AIs a lot more dangerous and give them the ability to actually get powerful more easily, either through the player or other AIs.

I like the above tweaks but emphasize (as others already have) that the AI can't treat humans the same way it treats AIs, because the two react differently.

 

[Decius]

Of all the features in Civ4, I believe diplomacy is most in need of improvement. I particularly dislike being dogpiled by my best AI buddies.

I know I can gank friendly nations (and, hey, I do), but Civ4's diplomacy system lacks a sufficient degree of rationality imo.

What I would like to see is a method where, if one civ (AI or player) attacks a friend the other civs tell it something like, "Hey, now we feel free to attack you despite our friendly relations." Any civ that attacks a friend could then be attacked w/o the new attacker risking a negative modifier from all the other nations.

By itself this could be a big change in tactics for players so I think it would require further refinement. Some of the suggestions in this thread for making diplomatic overtures could give players (and AIs, I would hope) more control over their diplo relationships.

That way if Monty is next door, we can gradually tick him off to the point where he isn't our friend and then attack. He can do the same thing to us. This way backstabbing wouldn't make diplomatic relationships seem nonsensical (and frustrating to players). If players or the AI still want the advantage of surprise they can have it, but they'd pay for it on the diplomatic front.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I always play with the AI's having randomised personalities. I wonder does this in any way affect how they treat diplomacy with each other (due to them not knowing how the other AI will react, just like a human player).

Or is it how I suspect, the 'all seeing AI' simply picks up these tweaks to the script and the game engine just marches on!