Diplomacy - Not bad, just different.

[AlexandrosV]

You need a constant influx of Gold, you need to have units prepared to dispatch and clear Barbs or aggressive Civs. You need to decide which side to take if two city states want each other gone, and even then you may decide to ignore their calls for genocide. If you do conquer one, do you annex or puppet? You need to balance their relationships with other Civs.

Allying with a single City State can have long running political and diplomatic consequences with every other Civ in the game and some states.

I once attacked Edinburgh and that one attack literally caused the entire diplomatic landscape of my game to change. In ONE turn, and I counted, 26 different declarations of war, peace and protection were made. My one act shattered an alliance between several Civs that were aggressively trying to wipe out India and allowed India to rally and survive.

Civ 5's complexity is about nuances.

Civ 4 was more complexity for the sake of complexity. It was easy to formulate and manipulate. yes, there were more "factors" and more buttons to press, but compared to Civ 5's system it wasn't even remotely close to a real diplomatic relationship.

i quote every word, civ V appears to be more complex if you don't evalutate it like it is civ IV (and so very predictable), also the understimated AI (that obviously needs improvements, in moving units) may reveal some unexpected cleverness and the overall system seems to be less obvious than it apper.

 

[spoooq]

Deciding how far to cooperate with your mortal enemy is a fun game-type though, and opens up lots of really cool possibilities.

 

[SRG]

This is why I feel Civ 4 was a computer game, and Civ 5 is a boardgame in the Euro style. It is much more like sitting around a table with a bunch of people. Instead of complex maths, you use simple maths and complicate it with human reactions and interpretations.

Since emotions don't come through well in text let me preface this with a



I dunno about you, but to me a finite system of simple coefficients that are sometimes mutually exclusive is akin to a linear algebra problem.

A system of sometimes unknown, varying shades of gray within a giving range is more akin to a calculus problem.

Thus...
Civ IV = Algebra, Civ V = Calculus....
Calculus Difficulty > Algebra Difficulty....

 

[spoooq]

Since emotions don't come through well in text let me preface this with a



I dunno about you, but to me a finite system of simple coefficients that are sometimes mutually exclusive is akin to a linear algebra problem.

A system of sometimes unknown, varying shades of gray within a giving range is more akin to a calculus problem.

Thus...
Civ IV = Algebra, Civ V = Calculus....
Calculus Difficulty > Algebra Difficulty....

Yep

It is going to be really interesting to watch the expansions roll out over the next couple of years.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

Since emotions don't come through well in text let me preface this with a



I dunno about you, but to me a finite system of simple coefficients that are sometimes mutually exclusive is akin to a linear algebra problem.

A system of sometimes unknown, varying shades of gray within a giving range is more akin to a calculus problem.

Thus...
Civ IV = Algebra, Civ V = Calculus....
Calculus Difficulty > Algebra Difficulty....

You know that calculus is not about "varying shades of gray" with "sometimes unknown"?

 

[spoooq]

Dennis Denuto: It's the vibe of the thing, your Honour.

 

[SRG]

Yes, I know about calculus. It was just a light-hearted "personality" type argument. The logic still applies though:

a continuum is (in my mind) the closest representation of "shades of gray"
on a continuum there are infinite possible points, or values

calculus can handle the infinite much better than algebra can

 

[Slayergnome]

Managing of city states seems ridiculously simple and straightforward. Gift money and stuff, fulfill the tasks they give. Was there something else?

250 gold for them to be your friends sometimes, not your allies just your friends which goes away unless you do something for them or even more money, and this is 1 city state you are doing this for. Yea you just blow all your money making city states happy instead of doing the mission they want and get raped by the other Civs because you did not have the money to invest in other tiles or upgrade your units. You obviously has not played or when you did you did not try to friend any city states!!!

 

[Horizons]

Why shouldn't I conquer a city state and build my own units etc ... surely I can manage a city-state's single city at least as well as the AI can ... or does an AI-managed city-state city get extra bonuses?

 

[spoooq]

It can be easier just to be friends with them and let them send you gifts. The gifts can be better than what you would earn with the extra city. They can also vote for you in the UN.

If you kill too many of them, the survivors will know you are aggressive and will attack you.

Also, you could be more usefully killing another civ instead of picking on a city-state who is just as tough to beat.

 

[acm2033]

Managing of city states seems ridiculously simple and straightforward. Gift money and stuff, fulfill the tasks they give. Was there something else?

Only when you and another civ are fighting over that city-state that has the incense (or whatever) that you want. Things get more interesting.

 

[Yfelsung]

Why shouldn't I conquer a city state and build my own units etc ... surely I can manage a city-state's single city at least as well as the AI can ... or does an AI-managed city-state city get extra bonuses?

If I befriend a Maritime city state, it gives food bonuses to ALL MY CITIES.

If I just conquer it, now it's just another city of mine.

 

[Slayergnome]

Why shouldn't I conquer a city state and build my own units etc ... surely I can manage a city-state's single city at least as well as the AI can ... or does an AI-managed city-state city get extra bonuses?

Unhappiness, Unhappiness, Unhappiness. And did I mention .... Gold???

 

[Soro]

On Civ IV:

It was more social accounting... it was a list of + and - that resulted in a relationship. Is that complex? Come on man, we all knew how to get all the + and how to avoid all the -. We knew how to manipulate entire civilizations into the palm of our hands. Hell, we didn't even really have to deal with them trying to WIN the game. Where is the complexity?

I think this is a relevant point. The argument isn't "complexity vs sublime simplicity," but "how much transparency is required for reasonable decisions based on diplomatic feedback." The whole purpose behind the diplomatic numbers in Civ IV was the endless series of games (MOO II, MoM, all the previous Civs, SMAC, etc) where you'd think you were some computer AI's best bud, only to discover the next turn that they in fact loathed you and were unleashing an armada in your direction. Those numbers were a revelation: they told us precisely how the AI thought of us, within limitations. (If you had no military and the AI had the best, plus an Aggressive personality, they would take you over even if they did like you a lot.)

Removing those numbers, then, isn't a solution, as much as a profession that the current development team didn't like the implementation of better diplomatic feedback to the player. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any alternatives to offer. So far from shouting "Welcome, Divine Simplicity!" many of us who don't like poor feedback are instead shouting "Welcome, a return to the idea of not knowing what the hell the AI thinks of us!" By all means, at least try to find different means of displaying necessary diplomatic feedback; ignoring this, and removing the best tool we've had to figure out what the AI thinks of us isn't going to please many.

And in the meantime? At least give players the *option* of having diplomatic numbers show if they *want* them. Unless, of course, we're simply not supposed to want them at all, and we're being told, in essence, it sux to be us.

 

[durindana]

Unhappiness, Unhappiness, Unhappiness. And did I mention .... Gold???

I don't know what "Gold???" means, but "unhappiness" is a good point. (One of the) reasons for not steamrolling city-states is the same reason for not over-expanding: since producing happiness buildings (or any building) is dog-slow, managing unhappiness becomes a huge chore for the expansionist.

Not only do you not enjoy the golden ages other civs are getting, you have to have a pretty substantial tech lead to overcome the -33% "very unhappy" combat penalty you get with 10+ unhappiness.

I dominated on Prince last night despite having brutal unhappiness, but as soon as my sadfaces went over 10 my progress slowed considerably - and this was my riflemen and cannon, with great generals and terrain bonuses, against the AI muskets/longswords. For combat that's fairly evenly matched, a -33% hit is huge.

 

[standingwolf]

Removing those numbers, then, isn't a solution, as much as a profession that the current development team didn't like the implementation of better diplomatic feedback to the player. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any alternatives to offer. So far from shouting "Welcome, Divine Simplicity!" many of us who don't like poor feedback are instead shouting "Welcome, a return to the idea of not knowing what the hell the AI thinks of us!" By all means, at least try to find different means of displaying necessary diplomatic feedback; ignoring this, and removing the best tool we've had to figure out what the AI thinks of us isn't going to please many.

And in the meantime? At least give players the *option* of having diplomatic numbers show if they *want* them. Unless, of course, we're simply not supposed to want them at all, and we're being told, in essence, it sux to be us.

hear hear! one of the greatnesses of civ is that it's so infinitely customizable, so why not simply have the option? or, if the info is there, someone who's not into addition & subtraction can just choose not to look at it. you seem to have to click two or three things to get any info in civ 5 anyway.

yesterday i liberated a siamese settler and the game told me that i could either keep it as a worker or liberate it to siam, for which they would be "very grateful." so being someone who likes to play diplomacy i liberated it, and there was absolutely no diplomatic consequence that i could see. what's the point of that? if siam actually does like me a little bit more now, then why not show me that somewhere? or if siam is just as likely to stab me in the back now, then why would i ever care how grateful they are unless i'm on the losing end of a war?

i think the "simple vs. complex" argument here is that in civ 4 you could do a whole bunch of things which would affect the other civs' opinion of you and which would then affect their willingness to trade with you, attack you, etc. this was not simply a straightforward matter of doing the right things: sometimes no matter how hard you tried some civs would hate you (or love you). but at least there was an elaborate, long-term approach you could take if you wanted to mold certain diplomatic relationships.

if in civ 5 however every civ is going to stab me in the back the moment they get a chance, regardless of how well we've gotten on in the past, that's basically removing diplomacy from the game. if there's nothing i can do that has any long-term consequence, then why do anything? doing diplomacy is a lot more complex than not doing diplomacy.

it may be that players who mainly enjoy war will like the idea that now anyone might attack you and you're equally free to attack anyone. but those of us who enjoyed diplomacy might be justifiably let down to see it gone.

 

[tpg0007]

And, they aren't trying to "win" the game, thus they will not backstab you.

They won't backstab you if you are the highest bidder. More like whore states really.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Why shouldn't I conquer a city state and build my own units etc ... surely I can manage a city-state's single city at least as well as the AI can ... or does an AI-managed city-state city get extra bonuses?

There could be many reasons for this, almost all of which revolve around Prince or higher difficulty (as you no longer get insane modifiers).

How happy your civ is could be a major issue. If you're sitting at around +3 happiness and you take control of a conquered city, you're looking at possibly having negative happiness. You could let it be a puppet city to get rid of this, but that's pretty much a waste as a City-State>puppet city.

How much cash your civ has could be another issue. If you're hovering around only a couple extra gold a turn, taking over a City-State could be a major issue for your economy.

The point of keeping a City-State as an ally is that they'll give you X in trade for either cash or doing random things. Typically you'll ally with the City-State that gives the missions that are most like how you are playing that game.

Free units, extra food, more culture, even for a short period of time, can be huge.

Of course, if you're making an empire with many cities, you probably don't care about extra food as having extra food will make your empire grow. Alternatively, you could use that extra food to work specialists and have it cut even.

More culture is always welcome. Policies matter.

More units can be a mixed bag, obviously it's good fi you're a warmonger.