Diplomacy seems geared towards hostility.

[vyyt]

I see a post like this from time to time and I am always baffled - how do you guys do it?

In my games, AIs want to befriend me left and right and I always have to provoke them a lot to make them hostile and dow me. That's on huge crowded maps on the emperor level. It's not that I don't get dowed at all, I am often dowed after first roughly 100 turns if my military is not large enough to deter my neighbors. I rarely dow by myself, but when dowed, I always try to conquer a couple of cities of the aggressor, which makes them hate me and dow me again later. But it also improves my relationship with their enemies. Then (not all) AIs start to be hostile after I conquer one third of the world or when the ideologies kick in.

I should note that I keep only time, domination and recently also science victories on - maybe these have some impact.

A lot of good explanation has been posted above, but I have a feeling that @dailyminerals is either trying to be friends with everyone (which makes the enemies of your friends angry - and they might backstab you if you if the said enemy is also your friend) or turtling in, trying to stay neutral with a weak military (which makes the other civs want to eat you) or you are playing too well and the AIs are trying to stop you from winning. These are my wild guesses.

I disagree that VP AIs are geared for war/hostility. I would say that they are geared to form blocks / alliances and they remember and hold grudges. You cannot be friends with everyone, but if you dennounce an enemy of your friend, if you comply with their requests and trade with them, you can keep quite stable friendships (and hostilities). Then of course the world congress, ideologies and approaching victory can shake the things up quite a bit - which I think is a great thing.

All that said, I would support having an aggressivity/friendliness setting in the game options like in Civ3 (yes, you guessed it, I was always tuning it up a bit). If it is not too difficult to program, it would make everyone happy.

 

[Rekk]

I mean, the most recent game I played, I became friends with everyone except for the two warmongers, who I denounced and joined wars to defend their targets. Things broke down a bit after ideologies were chosen and my defensive pact brought me into a war with Germany (who I had been friends with until this point). But I managed to stay friends with Siam (He and Germany were number 2 and 3) all the way to the end. I probably would have become friends with Germany again after the war if we hadn't chosen different ideologies. Babylon was my friend since I met him. I gave him amazing trade deals, defended him from Greece and Montezuma, liberated his cities, Research Agreements, etc.

 

[dailyminerals]

I have a feeling that @dailyminerals is either trying to be friends with everyone

I'm not trying to be friends with "everyone", but I am trying to be friends with the one civ that I've propped up over and over and over again in the face of imminent destruction. I am trying to be friends with my historic trading partner whose past deals have mutually benefited both our civs. I am trying to be Friends with my literal "declared friend". But whoops. I'm good at researching. Whoops. I can build wonders. Whoops. I finally hamstrung my neighbor in our 50th war that's been trying to kill me for the last 1000 turns. Whoops. I'm playing the game. Silly me. Also, it seems like the ONLY thing the AI seems to care about is how strong your military is in determining if they'll be your friend or not. This mod just isn't for me. I'll just play something else.

 

[JohannesWasHere]

Takagi Hiro put it nice:

"
You may as well just give every civ this modifier from turn 1 if competition is the "reason". Land disputes are reasons, opposing friendships are reasons, denouncements are reasons, ideologies are reasons. Being weak is a reason for this. And the list goes on... Winning the game should not be one of those reasons; this is something that isn't justifiable without the AI breaking the fourth wall and realizing they're playing a "game". We already have plenty of ways diplomacy can crumble, do we REALLY need another -80 for just playing the game well?
Regardless, I feel a toggle for "competitive AI/lax AI" would be welcome by many, myself included. There are two types of civ players, the ones who view it as no more than a competitive game, and the ones who view it as more of a sandbox.
"

 

[Gazebo]

I see a post like this from time to time and I am always baffled - how do you guys do it?

In my games, AIs want to befriend me left and right and I always have to provoke them a lot to make them hostile and dow me. That's on huge crowded maps on the emperor level. It's not that I don't get dowed at all, I am often dowed after first roughly 100 turns if my military is not large enough to deter my neighbors. I rarely dow by myself, but when dowed, I always try to conquer a couple of cities of the aggressor, which makes them hate me and dow me again later. But it also improves my relationship with their enemies. Then (not all) AIs start to be hostile after I conquer one third of the world or when the ideologies kick in.

I should note that I keep only time, domination and recently also science victories on - maybe these have some impact.

A lot of good explanation has been posted above, but I have a feeling that @dailyminerals is either trying to be friends with everyone (which makes the enemies of your friends angry - and they might backstab you if you if the said enemy is also your friend) or turtling in, trying to stay neutral with a weak military (which makes the other civs want to eat you) or you are playing too well and the AIs are trying to stop you from winning. These are my wild guesses.

I disagree that VP AIs are geared for war/hostility. I would say that they are geared to form blocks / alliances and they remember and hold grudges. You cannot be friends with everyone, but if you dennounce an enemy of your friend, if you comply with their requests and trade with them, you can keep quite stable friendships (and hostilities). Then of course the world congress, ideologies and approaching victory can shake the things up quite a bit - which I think is a great thing.

All that said, I would support having an aggressivity/friendliness setting in the game options like in Civ3 (yes, you guessed it, I was always tuning it up a bit). If it is not too difficult to program, it would make everyone happy.

Maybe you just have one of those likable faces.

G

 

[Bromar1]

My only wish for diplomatic modifiers is that there were higher caps for positive boosts.

For example, the trade partners boost is maxed out at +35, which is relatively low considering how warmonger penalties can reach multiple hundreds. One thing I liked to do after capturing a city is to gift luxuries to my neighbors after I captured a city, hoping to show them that my conquests benefitted them. However, after playing with transparent diplomacy, I now realize that is pointless after a certain point.

Another thing I've noticed is that the "fought against a common foe" boost is entirely dependent on your final warscore. I remember one game where I agreed to join a friend in war (not a brokered war where I was paid). The enemy was on my borders and I managed to kill several units but I didn't want to push into his territory so I didn't get many pillaged tiles or trade routes. After it all, I did not get any diplomacy boost for helping my friend's war.

It just seems backwards that if I agree to war (that I was probably going to do anyway) and end up capturing 3 cities and a vassal I get rewarded with +50 diplomacy but if I hold the line against a larger enemy (when I would rather stay in peace and keep trading), diverting many forces to another front and potentially helping my friend capture cities, I get nothing.

 

[vyyt]

@dailyminerals, I hope you don't think that I was attacking you, I believe you that the AIs were hostile to you and I can imagine that it was frustrating. My experience with VP is just very different from yours. Maybe if you are new to VP and played just a few games you may just have had back luck?

I really think the aggressiveness setting in the options file would be nice. Would it be possible to add, @Gazebo?

 

[Stalker0]

It just seems backwards that if I agree to war (that I was probably going to do anyway) and end up capturing 3 cities and a vassal I get rewarded with +50 diplomacy but if I hold the line against a larger enemy (when I would rather stay in peace and keep trading), diverting many forces to another front and potentially helping my friend capture cities, I get nothing.

Honestly through killing a few units doesn’t hurt the AI that much. Pillaging his trade routes, tiles, and taking his cities is a much bigger deal.

Also it’s commitment. Sure you had to move some army, but killing ai units near your border is a low risk scenario. Pushing into enemy territory is a much greater commitment in terms of risk.

So the modifier makes sense to me

 

[Recursive]

Another thing I've noticed is that the "fought against a common foe" boost is entirely dependent on your final warscore. I remember one game where I agreed to join a friend in war (not a brokered war where I was paid). The enemy was on my borders and I managed to kill several units but I didn't want to push into his territory so I didn't get many pillaged tiles or trade routes. After it all, I did not get any diplomacy boost for helping my friend's war.

It just seems backwards that if I agree to war (that I was probably going to do anyway) and end up capturing 3 cities and a vassal I get rewarded with +50 diplomacy but if I hold the line against a larger enemy (when I would rather stay in peace and keep trading), diverting many forces to another front and potentially helping my friend capture cities, I get nothing.

It's based on units killed and cities captured; killing weaker units will give you a lower boost than stronger units, and it decays over time.

 

[JohannesWasHere]

Can someone tell me why "you betrayed them" stays for thousands of years?

 

[Moi Magnus]

Can someone tell me why "you betrayed them" stays for thousands of years?

(My understanding is) Because it is a "meta-sanction". It does not try to sanction you (the civ) to be sneaky, but try to sanction you (the player) for abusing the promise system. This penalty also exists between AI, but more for fairness reasons between AI and players than for balance reasons.

The AI cannot spies your government (i.e your though) to see if you're honest or not. In fact, he doesn't even know what is your attitude toward them. While your spies allow you to see if the AI is about to launch a surprise attack, and you can see what is their attitude (and quite easily guess when they are deceptive and fake their attitude). With this unbalance in information, the promise system is quite easy to abuse for the player.

For peace treaty, Firaxis chose to make them unbreakable per game rule to prevent abuse. For betrayal, they probably tried to make promises unbreakable per game rule, and found out is was too frustrating for the player, so they chose "eternal diplomatic penalty" instead.

As the VP diplomatic AI is still lacking human-like psychology skills, we chose to keep Firaxis' choice here.

 

[JohannesWasHere]

(My understanding is) Because it is a "meta-sanction". It does not try to sanction you (the civ) to be sneaky, but try to sanction you (the player) for abusing the promise system. This penalty also exists between AI, but more for fairness reasons between AI and players than for balance reasons.

The AI cannot spies your government (i.e your though) to see if you're honest or not. In fact, he doesn't even know what is your attitude toward them. While your spies allow you to see if the AI is about to launch a surprise attack, and you can see what is their attitude (and quite easily guess when they are deceptive and fake their attitude). With this unbalance in information, the promise system is quite easy to abuse for the player.

For peace treaty, Firaxis chose to make them unbreakable per game rule to prevent abuse. For betrayal, they probably tried to make promises unbreakable per game rule, and found out is was too frustrating for the player, so they chose "eternal diplomatic penalty" instead.

As the VP diplomatic AI is still lacking human-like psychology skills, we chose to keep Firaxis' choice here.

What an explanation, thank you!

 

[azum4roll]

I'd like to see a warning like "This action will break the promise you made with Washington! Are you sure you want to do this?" before you do it, but it's probably hard to code.

 

[dostillevi]

I'd like to see a warning like "This action will break the promise you made with Washington! Are you sure you want to do this?" before you do it, but it's probably hard to code.

I'd love to see this for *every* action that might negatively impact political status. For example with city settling, I'd love to know in advance who will be upset since it seems really random sometimes what will cause the AI to have territory disputes. Sometimes simply existing does it. I can imagine (but know it will never happen) a map overlay that highlights tiles where settling would upset an AI.

 

[Bhawb]

That is a whole lot of extra calculations for something not that important. If you are worried that you might accidentally break a promise because of ambiguous land definitions, just don't make the promise.