Diplomacy is still broken?

[mike3640]

With BNW i thought the AI and diplomacy was supposed to improve but I find that it is exactly the opposite. My last game Rome gave me a DoF, asked me to declare war on Poland in 10 turns (Which I agreed to) and signed a research agreement with me. All on 2 turns. 2 turns after the DoF Rome decides to forgo declaring war on Poland with instead attacking me. So basically I spent 250 gold for no reason for a brainless AI attack? This game needs work.

 

[tomtom5858]

If Rome attacked you like that, it's because he had no intention of being your ally in the first place. You had a small army, were already at war with someone, and little gold in your treasury. Essentially... this plays like a well planned human attack.

 

[vra379971]

If Rome attacked you like that, it's because he had no intention of being your ally in the first place. You had a small army, were already at war with someone, and little gold in your treasury. Essentially... this plays like a well planned human attack.

Yep. Yep. Yep. This smells of general Roman backstabbing.

You will have probably got a - I didn't want to be friends anyway - message to support that point.

 

[z284pwr]

Think of it from a human's point of view. Convince someone to go to war. Offer a fake deal to steal from them Then attack them when their defenses are gone attacking leaving for easy offense. Sounding pretty smart for a computer ai to devise this

 

[Dux1]

Rome has a tendency to backstab often.

 

[Arksa]

So you basically got outplayed by AI, and because it is not transparent enough it needs work?

 

[kaltorak]

The AI in civ5 doesn't work like you want to. It is intended. I agree with you, it sucks, this is an empire game and we got chess players instead of leaders with personality.

Those "moves" are intended, they tried to make the AI play like a human, regarding diplomacy. Which is a total fail in my opinion.

 

[VainoValkea]

The AI in civ5 doesn't work like you want to. It is intended. I agree with you, it sucks, this is an empire game and we got chess players instead of leaders with personality.

Those "moves" are intended, they tried to make the AI play like a human, regarding diplomacy. Which is a total fail in my opinion.

I agree in that it is intended, but I disagree with it being a failure. I think this is far, far better than the horribly transparent, stupid and predictable AI of earlier establishments that performed poorly, in no small part because of its "desire" to role-play, and compensated for this by cheating a lot.

It's not like Civ V's AI is perfect, but making it gamey is a great design choice to me. No one's forcing the player to respect friendships, or to vote another civ for a world leader, or to leave that soon-to-be culture victor alone because they share your religion. It doesn't make sense to force the AI to do so either.

 

[The QC]

What I think is somewhat unfortunate in the diplomacy model of Civ V is that there is mash of role-playing and non-role-playing thinking in the AI. You get diplomatic effects from stuff like them coveting your land (player-type thinking) or from sharing ideologies (role-playing thinking). It all becomes a bit of a mess and I'd prefer it if, in a future game, they stuck to only one of the choices. It also needs to be well made, though. The theoretically pure player-type thinking in vanilla Civ V was anything but. A guy you could crush at any time could hate you openly and would refuse to make any kind of deals, even though they were the only thing that could postpone his demise.

Anyway, about the events in the OP, they sound awesome to me! This kind of stuff makes for a memorable game and I would have been happy to see it happen to me.

The only thing remotely as cool as that that I've seen lately was the Japan declared war on me, but didn't bother to attack and chose to buy off a nearby city state instead. Since I had already moved my army forward to prevent a Japanese attack, the city state could go behind my lines and was one turn away from destroying one of my cities. It made for a tense few turns.

Edit: I do think that the fixed nature of Civ IV diplomacy made the AI a little static and unable to do what was best for them in certain situations. I don't know if I'd want to see that system again. A role-playing based system of the future should also have some ways for diplomacy to be shaken up and get out of control somehow.

 

[kaltorak]

I am not playing a competitive game, civ is not an e-sport. I am playing a game about civilizations, empires and leaders. I want the leaders to have personality and act as close to that personality as possible.

I want Isabel to love me if I adopt her religion or hate me if I don't.
I want Ghandi to not declare war, or only declare war to warmongers.
I want Montezuma to act crazy and attack without even having the upper hand.
I want shaka to attack a lot too, but beeing more powerful, not like crazy montezuma.
And so on.

The AI doesn't behave like a human right now. It's what they tried, but in a game as complex as civ, its normal that it doesn't work.

I understand what you are saying, it makes the game more fair. But in the end, it makes it fair by mostly taking away the diplomacy aspect of civilization. I prefer it beeing less fair and more a game about empires and civilizations. I don't mind fairnes in PvE games.

 

[VainoValkea]

I am not playing a competitive game, civ is not an e-sport. I am playing a game about civilizations, empires and leaders. I want the leaders to have personality and act as close to that personality as possible.

Civ is a competitive game. There's a victory condition, one reaches that, the others lose. If you don't accept that you're living in denial.

Civ is not a simulator, for that you should see a game like Crusader Kings.

 

[kaltorak]

If you don't accept that you're living in denial.

That's a bit harsh. In my opinion, claiming that a game having a victory condition makes it a competitive game, is the wrong opinion, and I still wouldn't go as far as saying "you're living in denial"

A game as complex as civ, with different starting positions, with so many factors that affect the game, so many unbalances, so many random events and calculations and most of all, against AIs, is far from competitive.

 

[The QC]

I understand what you are saying, it makes the game more fair. But in the end, it makes it fair by mostly taking away the diplomacy aspect of civilization.

It only takes away some of the diplomacy aspect because it's not very well designed (it's really a patchwork of the Civ V vanilla system and some later, completely unrelated ones).

But a well thought out system that humanizes the opponents would be brilliant! Humans are great at diplomacy and at making it interesting. Just play a board game with similar systems to see what a great element human diplomacy can be.

But, in order to achieve this, they'd have to remove the current system 100%. The "+" and "-" concept does not fit with human behavior at all. And of course different leaders should have different personalities, just like different human players do.

/starts dreaming

 

[DemonMaster]

So basically, you complain about that the AI roleplays. In this game, the game has decided that Rome is going to be a rat. Now you know. Other AIs will also know this about him.

Funny, a lot of players have complaining about a to game-orienting AI and lack of roleplay. Perhaps it changes depending on what suits the current game.

 

[VainoValkea]

That's a bit harsh. In my opinion, claiming that a game having a victory condition makes it a competitive game, is the wrong opinion, and I still wouldn't go as far as saying "you're living in denial"

A game as complex as civ, with different starting positions, with so many factors that affect the game, so many unbalances, so many random events and calculations and most of all, against AIs, is far from competitive.

Randomness doesn't make a game non-competitive. The lack of ultimate altruism does. In Civ, you can be as nice guy as you like - but ultimately only one player gets to win, and for the rest, it is a loss. There is no "everybody wins". This is the way it has been since Civ I, and it's nice to finally have an AI that understands it, at least partially. "They think you're trying to win the game in the same manner as them and they don't like it".

Similarly, you're making the assertion that the game is a failure because it should be a role-playing simulation, even though that is clearly not how the developers intended it. The question is, why are you even playing Civ V and complaining about how the AI is, instead of playing games where it works as you like?

 

[Rohili]

Civ is a competitive game. There's a victory condition, one reaches that, the others lose. If you don't accept that you're living in denial.

Civ is not a simulator, for that you should see a game like Crusader Kings.

You keep saying that like it's the gospel truth, and not just your own opinion of what the game should be. If Civ were meant to be a pure competitive game, the devs wouldn't bother with having AIs have different personalities based on their historical personalities, or having civs start on terrain similar to their real world geographical positions. Since these features cause the players to start on different - an not necessarily equally optimal - footings, a pure competitive game would eliminate such differences altogether.

I would say that Civ is a competitive game with some sim aspects, and there needs to be a balance between the two. Diplomacy was clearly meant to simulate world politics to some extent, which is why you have relationship modifiers rather than pure strategic behaviour from the AI. So, while I would disagree with making the AI pure role-players (e.g. making Ghandi avoid declaring war altogether), I would also disagree with trying to turn them into pure gamers (e.g. completely disregarding relationships and trading with a player or backstabbing a player whenever it suits their interests).

Another reason not to go that route is because you can never make an AI as intelligent as a human player when it comes to diplomacy. So instead of trying to do so and doing a half-baked job, it is better to keep the current relationship modifier system and turn it into an enjoyable mini-game for the human player to navigate.

 

[kaltorak]

The question is, why are you even playing Civ V and complaining about how the AI is, instead of playing games where it works as you like?

Ok, first you tell me to I'm living in denial and now you basically tell me "go away and play other games", you are starting to be too rude to continue this conversation. I played each civ game for over 500 hours, starting with civ1, don't need anybody telling me this is not the game for me.
So ok, for you civ is competitive, for me it is not a competitive game, settled.

So basically, you complain about that the AI roleplays. In this game, the game has decided that Rome is going to be a rat. Now you know. Other AIs will also know this about him.

Funny, a lot of players have complaining about a to game-orienting AI and lack of roleplay. Perhaps it changes depending on what suits the current game.

Backstabbing is fine if it suits that leader's personallity. But there are many other things that aren't fine. For example, if a friend is beeing invaded by a third AI, and I crush him and save him, I want him to be even more frendlier. In civ5, since I now became more powerful, he dislikes me now.
Well, you would be dead, you are welcome for saving you, you ungrateful b*stard!
Just one of many examples that take away the civilization feel and make it a chess game about winning.

 

[vra379971]

So, while I would disagree with making the AI pure role-players (e.g. making Ghandi avoid declaring war altogether), I would also disagree with trying to turn them into pure gamers (e.g. completely disregarding relationships and trading with a player or backstabbing a player whenever it suits their interests).

Quite true. However since this is Caesar we speak of here, surely we can't suggest that backstabbing was a grievous fault of his can we

 

[VainoValkea]

Ok, first you tell me to I'm living in denial and now you basically tell me "go away and play other games", you are starting to be too rude to continue this conversation. I played each civ game for over 500 hours, starting with civ1, don't need anybody telling me this is not the game for me.
So ok, for you civ is competitive, for me it is not a competitive game, settled.

I don't intend to be rude, but the fact is that you are complaining about a feature that was clearly intentional and that many of us like. I don't personally bother to play games that I don't like, and if you dislike the competitive nature of Civilization V, there are series that I believe you would enjoy more. That's all I mean.

 

[Quineloe]

That's a bit harsh. In my opinion, claiming that a game having a victory condition makes it a competitive game, is the wrong opinion, and I still wouldn't go as far as saying "you're living in denial"

A game as complex as civ, with different starting positions, with so many factors that affect the game, so many unbalances, so many random events and calculations and most of all, against AIs, is far from competitive.

What do you think competitive game means?

It's not just tournaments and e-sports money.