Diplomacy with AIs

[Humdinger]

I'm sure someone has created a guide to Civ5 diplomacy and I'd sure like to look at it.

Because right now I am so disappointed with how stupidly these leaders behave. Bismarck invites me to war against Alexander, I accept, and 10 turns later he's denouncing me - this despite the fact that Alex' score is sitting at 1048 and I'm in third at 515. Pardon me while I express my displeasure.

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid waste of time no you aren't ever getting any dlc money from me you tards until this is resolved

OK. Now I've REALLY enjoyed Civ over the years but this is not very good. So someone please tell me how I can make this game enjoyable again. Thanks!

 

[generalwar]

I think such guide doesn't exist because AI has irrational patterns and if you know them, you know everything about diplomacy.
Bismarck denounced you because in his mind, you are a warmonger because, you DoWed someone and the fact you DoWed someone on his demand is the same if you DoWed him without his demanding. That's the same to AI, especially to Rammy who hates warmongers and he goes to war against warmongers because he hates warmongers.

 

[Thry]

Until more patches come along, diplomacy in Civ V is completely broken. Also, don't ever agree to DOW on another AI. It's pointless.

Edit: generalwar hit the nail on the head.

 

[mchl]

I've found no declare war together deal and no friendships the whole game the AI is less aggressive. Open borders and frequent trading also helps with the AI being less aggressive. I usually explore early and don't care about going through other civs territory. I'm not aware of any bonus that exists in civ 5 for having an open borders with another civ (like in civ 4)? A friendly civ will give 50 gold for your open borders, so every so many turns you get a nice gold boost for a research agreement or unit uprade or something.

I personally like to trade extra luxuries for gold until military conquest, if happiness is in check then you have a hold on the countering AI if you decide to attack him later (a happiness hit by no more luxuries makes it harder on the AI), attacking while a trade agreement is in place doesn't affect the AI like in civ 4 and also unlike civ 4 the AI can be friendly after attacking. A research agreement just after making peace with a civ sometimes mellows them out, may have to offer them enough gold first. Always attack down to their worst city then leave them that one if possible.

Also when at war keep a few up-to-date units on the outskirts city that would be on the opposite side of your nation as your military front, or next to any other civ in general. The AI tends to become hostile if they are the same or lower military strength as you and there is no military presence next to them. The computer doesn't determine power in upgrades or strategy which is annoying. Its just base number of offense for the units. So even if you could wipe them out easily they may sneak attack your flank when the opportunity arises.

Over-use of research agreements and city state donations makes the AI agressive as well. You can gather who is upset at who by looking at the denouncements when they come up periodically, for example if alexander AI is by far in first place and was attacking ghandi AI and he wanted me to attack ghandi as well, I wouldn't. Rather I would remember who else he denounced and attack that civ, then alexander is happy with me and doesn't get upset for me taking his 'spoils' cities or beating ghandi while he's down.

Oh and the biggest thing I don't like about diplomacy - the way its programmed the AI counter offers more out of you. Never less. Civ 4 they would drop their own counter offer instead of trying to get more out of you. The reason I don't like this is if I want for example the most gold out of some resource of mine (I usually trade for gold), I try to get 320 gold and they say no, if I ask for counter offer they keep 320gold on the table and will add some junk from my side. So I have to take 5-10 gold off and keep seeing where they'll deal. Now I know what price the AI wants for most things, but its just annoying because civ 4 AI would just counter offer less gold.

 

[Kerosene31]

I can write a diplomacy guide for Civ V:

You need to produce a ton of "diplomats". Give your "diplomats" armor, swords, guns, tanks, nukes, etc and use them to "negotiate" with the other leaders.

Now, I am not a Civ V basher. I play it and have fun with it. Diplomacy is obviously something the game does not do well. You just always need to have a big army and largely need to ignore the AI as much as possible. Don't get messed up in their wars. If you have a big army they tend to backstab you less.

 

[chazzycat]

Diplo is not broken in this game, despite what people will say. It just takes some understanding and getting used to.

Getting invited to be in a war does not rule out being a warmonger. If you took some cities from Alexander, that may be the reason. Say during WW2 America decided to keep France instead of liberating it. I don't think Englad would be happy about that...even though they invited us into the war.

Or, it's likely you did something else to anger them. When you hover over their status, what are the reasons listed? Did you tell them you would stop settling near them and then continue to do it anyway? Are you in a friendship with them and declined their requests?

What was your status with Germany before he invited you to the war? Has he coveted your land in the game? Have you considered that perhaps he baited you into war on purpose to weaken you, and will be invading soon because he wants your land?

There are plenty of valid reasons that would explain this.

 

[King Patrick]

Agree with Chazzycat. Also, I've found Bismarck to be the biggest fussbudgets and backstabbers in the game. He's always very friendly at first, but as soon as you balk him on anything, or do anything he doesn't like, or anything that even gives him an excuse, he'll be denouncing and declaring war on you.

 

[bryanw1995]

I never make DOF or DOW when other civs ask for it right now, those are two very easy ways to get chain-denounced. Other ways are aggressive early expansion, sharing a border, and buying up City-States that are another civs "sphere of influence" - basically CS's that are closer to them than anybody else.

Good ways to be friendly with a civ: DOF with the same civ (not recommended) and returning a worker that was stolen by barbarians (Unbelievably effective). One time I was in between the mongols and the rest of the civs on a pangea map. The mongols ended up declaring on every other civ several times, but even after my aggressive expansion near them and strong border pressure they remained my buddy for the entire game b/c I rescued their worker on turn 40.

 

[Humdinger]

Diplo is not broken in this game, despite what people will say. It just takes some understanding and getting used to.

Getting invited to be in a war does not rule out being a warmonger. If you took some cities from Alexander, that may be the reason. Say during WW2 America decided to keep France instead of liberating it. I don't think Englad would be happy about that...even though they invited us into the war.

Or, it's likely you did something else to anger them. When you hover over their status, what are the reasons listed? Did you tell them you would stop settling near them and then continue to do it anyway? Are you in a friendship with them and declined their requests?

What was your status with Germany before he invited you to the war? Has he coveted your land in the game? Have you considered that perhaps he baited you into war on purpose to weaken you, and will be invading soon because he wants your land?

There are plenty of valid reasons that would explain this.

Yes, I took some cities from Alexander and conquered one of his allied CS (ALL CS on the continent are allied with Alex). The cities I took were formerly Aztec. I suppose that I could have put Monty back into the game. But the reaction I've gotten in the past were just illogical with the liberated power becoming Hostile and refusing Open Borders. To use your analogy, deGaulle thanked the US by making a seperate peace with Hitler and kicking all American troops out of France.

Speaking of which, I captured another CS that Alex had conquered and decided to liberate it. I was pleased to see a nice blue bar, but when I clicked on it I found it was Allied with another power. I had 160 points in there, all very nice, but apparently Ghandi had more. This does not improve my opinion of this system.

 

[Blue Oyster]

Agree with Chazzycat. Also, I've found Bismarck to be the biggest fussbudgets and backstabbers in the game. He's always very friendly at first, but as soon as you balk him on anything, or do anything he doesn't like, or anything that even gives him an excuse, he'll be denouncing and declaring war on you.

You are right about Bismarck in the game. It is odd though that Bismarck acts this way, since the real Bismarck was a master diplomat and a genius at keeping many factions either happy or at bay.

 

[chazzycat]

Yes, I took some cities from Alexander and conquered one of his allied CS (ALL CS on the continent are allied with Alex). The cities I took were formerly Aztec. I suppose that I could have put Monty back into the game. But the reaction I've gotten in the past were just illogical with the liberated power becoming Hostile and refusing Open Borders. To use your analogy, deGaulle thanked the US by making a seperate peace with Hitler and kicking all American troops out of France.

Speaking of which, I captured another CS that Alex had conquered and decided to liberate it. I was pleased to see a nice blue bar, but when I clicked on it I found it was Allied with another power. I had 160 points in there, all very nice, but apparently Ghandi had more. This does not improve my opinion of this system.

Well it's fair to say you were branded a warmonger, at least a "minor" one if not full-fledged. Some civs care about this a lot - some not so much. Frederick is one that cares. Getting to learn the personalities is part of the learning curve, much like real life diplomacy.

I will admit, I have never liberated a rival civ's city so I'm not familiar with the resulting diplomacy affects. My analogy was more an attempt to explain how being invited to war does not preclude being judged as a warmonger by the very civ who invited you. I can understand how if you liberated a civ and they hated you, that would be friggin weird. I am curious to try this now.

Regarding liberating the CS, 150 influence is nothing to sneeze at...that's 1500 gold worth of influence. If another civ has more than that, that's pretty tough luck. I think you will find this is pretty rare. Remember you're also coming from zero, if you were friends/allies before you'd be in the 200 range now.

 

[MkLh]

Diplo is not broken in this game, despite what people will say. It just takes some understanding and getting used to.

Getting invited to be in a war does not rule out being a warmonger. If you took some cities from Alexander, that may be the reason. Say during WW2 America decided to keep France instead of liberating it. I don't think Englad would be happy about that...even though they invited us into the war.

Maybe it's because that war wasn't against France.

Bismarck's behavior is truly stupid and illogical. There is no way you can explain it away.

 

[grandad1982]

Here and here.

 

[bryanw1995]

Yes, I took some cities from Alexander and conquered one of his allied CS (ALL CS on the continent are allied with Alex). The cities I took were formerly Aztec. I suppose that I could have put Monty back into the game. But the reaction I've gotten in the past were just illogical with the liberated power becoming Hostile and refusing Open Borders. To use your analogy, deGaulle thanked the US by making a seperate peace with Hitler and kicking all American troops out of France.

Speaking of which, I captured another CS that Alex had conquered and decided to liberate it. I was pleased to see a nice blue bar, but when I clicked on it I found it was Allied with another power. I had 160 points in there, all very nice, but apparently Ghandi had more. This does not improve my opinion of this system.

Taking out a CS, even one allied with a rival, gives you the same warmonger reputation that taking out an entire major does. So you took several of Alex's cities plus a CS, no wonder you were branded a warmonger. Don't get me wrong, I typically do the same thing, especially against alex b/c all the CS's love him and it's too easy for him to win diplomatically if you don't. Sometimes I prefer to just leave the CS's alone, take out Alex, then gradually get all his old allies to "see the light".

 

[Humdinger]

Here and here.

Thanks Grandad, I read the shared link.

I like the approach the developers are taking but imo they made a serious error by making the conditions so black and white, where a condition check gives you +50 points or none at all. A better way to go about it would be to have attitudes (both positive and negative) decay over time, which they already have modeled with CS.

It's silly when civs with jet fighters and tanks are still your friends because you liberated some slaves captured during the Stone Age. A more gradual approach would be better and is fairly easy to model.

And though I like the DECEPTIVE mode I gotta admit it just makes the designers look dumb. It was puzzling to me to see a leader that I had just concluded a hilariously one-sided war with suddenly Friendly to me, and I just assumed that was poor game design rather than cleverness on the part of the AI.

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Summary: Attempting to make sense of the AI's in this game is frustrating and counter-productive. Kerosene31 is correct, as sad as that conclusion is.

 

[joncnunn]

If your going for Diplomatic Victory, you'll get that CS vote as the Liberator even with Ghandi having giving that state a lot of cash.

But you'll need to outbid Ghandi if you really want to be allies; best bet is to outbid Ghandi by sending another 1000 gold to it but this will probably anger Ghandi. (Might or might not be something you care about)

Speaking of which, I captured another CS that Alex had conquered and decided to liberate it. I was pleased to see a nice blue bar, but when I clicked on it I found it was Allied with another power. I had 160 points in there, all very nice, but apparently Ghandi had more. This does not improve my opinion of this system.