Diplomacy

[onejayhawk]

I never did very well in the game by that name. Maybe that's why I get confused when Starlifter and Smash talk about manipulating the AI. Going through the logs of Smash's GotM I can see he gives away a ton of ****, but gets it back in money from time to time. How. If I ask for a gift the AI laughs or cancels a treaty. What are the cues? How can you direct the AI, to do what, when?

Also some more advice on how to use MPE would be nice.

J

 

[Dark Ascendant]

The AI can be goaded into action for your benefit easily. An opponent civ will give in more often to your demands for cash if you are equal or surpassing him in power. Asking for tribute or gifts will make an AI civ very angry if done repeatedly. Asking for gifts from an aly seems to be damage relations less than demanding tribute.

 

[Smash]

ok I generally only gift in OCC.Not because I am a nice guy or am concerned about my neighbors or anything.I do it to avoid a science penalty or to gain back the penalty.Pure selfishness

Cues?..well its never set in stone they will gift but you want them enthusiastic in attitude..at least.Usually need it for map trades also.Tech trades will occur in neutral and up.I have had some rare exceptions but a good general set of rules.
Alliances are a liitle tougher.Anywhere from receptive>worshipful.Alot of times,alliances are very one sided.The AI gifts nothing.Reason-who knows .Other times the AI are incredibly generous.I've seen them completely empty their treasuries for me.

This varies abit between MGE and 2.42 but its basically the same.

In MGE they always get attitudes reset.So the idea is to have enough techs to gift to bring them from hostile to enthusiatic or better.3 or 4 techs is usually enough.Then ask for maps,alliances or gifts.Another thing that is important in MGE is when you contact,try to have as little gold as possible.Especially when you are at war.If not they always demand gold for a ceasefire.You want them to demand tech.
So don't deliver a caravan and then contact.Contact first or spend the money prior to contacting.

Your best bet for gifts is fairly early.Once you get rolling they are a little less generous.Not always though ..I've gotten some of my biggest gifts late game.

Marco's-

Lets say you have Trade.You check your embassys and see 3 others researching Trade.If you gift Trade to those civs, they pick a new advance to research but do not loose accumilated beakers.
Now you check your embassys again next turn and see what new tech they have chosen.If you have it,you can gift it.It is possible to get each AI researching a different tech that you don't have for you.
You can "leapfrog" in effect.Amazing what can be done in multiplay using this idea.

Conversely if you see an AI is closing in a tech that maybe you want to be first to,you can "tech bomb" them with gifts raising their research cost adding many turns to their science rate.One idea in OCC is to gift everything to everybody ASAP.The AIs science rates can literally go 100s of turns to complete a tech or just add enough to get you there first.

Or-you often get spots when you are not offered a tech that you should be.If you know AIs have other techs,you can select one of them and then immediately trade for it.This saves lots of turns.Next turn you will be offered the tech you originally wanted
You must be careful in OCC though.In gotm 19 I got rooked by tech choices but knew an AI had Communism.I selected it with the idea of trading.BUT,the ai wanted Advanced Flight.This was just too risky as the AI in question was on my landmass and would certainly send bombers over.Bombers are a real nightmare in OCC.So I had to bit the bullet and waste the turns researching Commie on my own.Had the AI been farther away or something I may taken the gamble.

 

[Smash]

oh ya..in my occ log for gotm 19,I didn't write down all the gifting.Its gets too tedious.Gift xxxx to xxxx.Gift xxxx and xxxx to xxx and xxxx etc.

But the gifting was liberal and occured everytime I got hit with a penalty.For occ I will gift up to but not including Flight.Sometimes at Combustion.You don't want an ai killing off the Collosus by researching Flight on you.I'm not fond of the ai having Mobile Warfare either.

 

[onejayhawk]

Thanks. One thing I dont understand are all the references to research cost. Obviously the bigger the tree the more it takes, but could you clarify .

J

 

[Smash]

yes each techs takes more beakers.

What happens is the game will "award" a science penalty or bonus depending on your rating compared to a certain "key" civ.If you are too far ahead,the cost of the tech being researched will suddenly and seemingly mysteriously,increase from say 2 turns per to 4 turns per.
So by gifting techs to your key civ you avoid the penalty or correct it immediately.

 

[ElephantU]

Also useful to know: both of you have to have MapMaking before you can exchange maps. In 2.42 you only have to get the AI to Cordial to exchange about 75% of the time; Enthus or Worship seems to work all the time. Keeping a neighbor at Receptive or better seems to keep them from starting wars. Each time you offer to gift a tech, the AI seems to choose two options from their "favorites" list (see RULES.TXT for AI tech rankings). You must decide whether you can afford them to have it vs the benefit you might gain. Expect the AI to trade their new tech to any other AIs they are in contact with. Also, you cannot ask for tribute from an AI you have not been face-to-face with (MPE does not count). And tribute asking seems to disappear at some point (1AD? Democracy?).

 

[Smash]

You can get tribute via Marco Polo's.It acts as an embassy with every civ.

Tribute doesn't actually dissappear.Its just not an option for Republics or Democracies.

 

[starlifter]

If I ask for a gift the AI laughs or cancels a treaty. What are the cues? How can you direct the AI, to do what, when?

You Cues can from experience in similar situations, like: What is the relative strength? What is their attitude? Who are they at war with? Who are they allied with? Are you at war/peace with their enemies, allies, etc.? How much gold do you have/they have? When did you contact them last? What are the differential techs? What is your rep?

You cannot just barge in and demand whatever you want and expect compliance. Some things that work in OCC may not work when you are Supreme/Spotless.

For even more details about science cost and gifting, a good thing to do would be to read some of the posts, like about the #20 or so IIRC, in the first link of my sig block.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

I have found having nuclear weapons very imtimidating to other civs, it's not a good idea unless you have a huge tech lead and it's too late in the game for the other civs to reach rocketry. Don't build a lot of the missiles really, if I wanted to nuke, I use the 30-shield spy instead of the 160-shield nuke

 

[ElephantU]

Smash - I was referring to asking for tribute from civs you have not had unit-to-unit contact with, ie you have built MPE and gotten free embassies. I tried over several games to get one of those civs to give me gold, giving them techs till they were worshipful multiple times, but no go. As soon as one of my ground units met one of theirs things changed. The last GOTM, where we got a free Wonder and started on a continent with only the Greeks, while all the rest were on a bigger continent to the north, was a classic example. I kept asking the Japanese and the Americans for gold, but no luck till I could get some ground units over there. Try it.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Smash - I was referring to asking for tribute from civs you have not had unit-to-unit contact with, ie you have built MPE and gotten free embassies. I tried over several games to get one of those civs to give me gold, giving them techs till they were worshipful multiple times, but no go. As soon as one of my ground units met one of theirs things changed. The last GOTM, where we got a free Wonder and started on a continent with only the Greeks, while all the rest were on a bigger continent to the north, was a classic example. I kept asking the Japanese and the Americans for gold, but no luck till I could get some ground units over there. Try it.

Really, you don't say...

I've got to try this one.

 

[ElephantU]

Update to my previous comment: in GOTM 20 I had not made unit-to-unit contact with the Zulus but got some tribute out of them (after gifting them with techs enough to drive them up to Worshipful and getting their map!). I'm usually playing island-type games as I enjoy the naval side of CIV, so I may not have analyzed the tribute issue on a single big island rigorously before. I'll have to run some broader tests on this.