Everything that doesn't work with diplomacy right now

[teks]

In a nutshell that's basically the state of diplo in this game imo.
I can hear Halcyan2's counter-arguments too, that grudges can actually last ages, but not to the point it utterly destroyes your relationship forever. First coz it's not the way it works irl (only fools still hate present-day Germany for WW1&2 and it was only 1 century ago at most) and second coz even though you can allways find counter exemples so what ? what's the solution then if it's not reasonable peace and new hope ? We once were ennemies so let's hate each other until death do us part ? That's not what I want to see in this world nor in this game.
I'm ok with the idea of some kind of long term penalty since there will allways be people within any civ who can't/won't forgive but not to the point a whole civ hates an entire other civ for something they did millenniums ago.

Whatever, I could live with the current diplo/warmongering penalty system if there was not this one thing that really drives me mad :

I get massive warmonger penalty even when another civ declares war ON ME !! I can make do with anything else but being diplomatically punished for eons because I am winning a war I did not initiate (or forced by abusing AI susceptibility) is just too much for me^^
If I could ask only one tweak to the warmonger penalty system it would be to not get warmonger penalty when you are in a war you did not initiate. Or very low and fast depleting.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in these great forums ang GG to you all !

Hmm, your opinion on historic grudges is really something unique to the west, specifically America
* Greece does hate Germany for WW2 and continues to demand reparations from it.
* Russia hates the US over the cold war.
* Middle East and Greece still hold a grudge over the crusades (ISIS declared a new caliphate, a clear reaction to a crusade, a word which the west did accidently use to describe the conflict.)
* Greece and Turkey hate each other over the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and Greek war for Independence. Russia still considers themselves the third Rome in many ways.
* In Africa, many inland tribes continue feuds over coastal ones who aided slavers during the colonial times.
* Many people in Africa and the middle East still hold grudges over the colonial conquests.
* Brexit is a push back from British hayday as a colonial superpower.
* The battle over Tiawans independence from China is centuries old, but mostly is a post-WW2 conflict.
* Heck, even in America, we recently had a battle over the sovereignty of an Indian reservation at standing rock.

Pretty much every conflict in some way harks back to some conflict which occured before our time. And it's honestly a problem that we don't understand this history.

Anyway, I haven't had too many problems with war mongering. If I give land back to the civ I fought it seems to go a long way in relieving warmongering penalties. I try to be on the lookout for joint wars. They are practically a garunteed alliance down the road.

 

[ZeOldOne]

It's always good to have a better understanding of the game and the mechanics behind, I'm kind of a minmaxer myself and tho I'm not a theorycrafter I like theorycraft for the knowledge it brings to me.
Nevertheless understanding a game mechanic does not mean I endorse it.
And no knowledge of the game will make me think it's ok that the defensive war I had milleniums ago still significantly thwarts my diplo today with each and every civI've met so far (and even some I have not, and even some who hated the aggressing civ at the time it dow'd me),
no better understanding of the numbers behind will drive me to believe it's ok that a whole civ hates an entire other civ coz they had different govs for the past few decades/centuries and one of them was clearing too much forest.

I love this game and I think on paper civ6 does have the best diplo system of the franchise so far, it's intricate and deep. In practice I can't find such subtle gameplay when the overwhelming magnitude (and duration) of a few penalties (some you don't even know about like hidden agendas) can just deny you proper diplo gameplay for ages. Again I'm ok with my acts or other civs specificities holding consequencies but not with such stupid magnitude over time (even more so when you are playing non-aggro/defensive).
Sure you can spend your game brainstorming about the numbers, using workarounds constantly, even exploits, and you might keep decent diplo relationships.
Afaic I'd like to play the diplo game with diplo tools provided by the game, not having to tryhard to avoid or exploit them. Or I call it a wobbly game design to say the least.

I do realize the complexity of such a diplo system and I never expect a game to bestainless or to perfectly match my own vision of what it should be or how it should work. That's why I'm only trying to focus here on 1 or 2 issues that seem so preposterous to me that they might reach a consensus among players and might not have been intended by the devs in the game design. Like the 2 points above or such things as being denounce by congo for not sharing your religion at the very beguining of the game when you didn't even practically had time to found one; and so on with France/espionage etc
I just can't imagine those were specifically designed to be like so.

ty for reading and sharing, GG to you all !

 

[Zuizgond]

Real question is: what does work with diplomacy right now?

 

[manarod]

The problems with diplomacy in civ6 is that the ai doesn't pose any treat to the player and the benefit from beeing friendly is non existant. In civ4 you want to be friendly with some ai you won't to have war with, but in civ6 who cares? Let the ai attack me! Also open borders in civ6 are not that usefull, in civ4 were so important to foreign trade!

 

[ZeOldOne]

Hmm, your opinion on historic grudges is really something unique to the west, specifically America
* Greece does hate Germany for WW2 and continues to demand reparations from it.
* Russia hates the US over the cold war.
* Middle East and Greece still hold a grudge over the crusades (ISIS declared a new caliphate, a clear reaction to a crusade, a word which the west did accidently use to describe the conflict.)
* Greece and Turkey hate each other over the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and Greek war for Independence. Russia still considers themselves the third Rome in many ways.
* In Africa, many inland tribes continue feuds over coastal ones who aided slavers during the colonial times.
* Many people in Africa and the middle East still hold grudges over the colonial conquests.
* Brexit is a push back from British hayday as a colonial superpower.
* The battle over Tiawans independence from China is centuries old, but mostly is a post-WW2 conflict.
* Heck, even in America, we recently had a battle over the sovereignty of an Indian reservation at standing rock.

Pretty much every conflict in some way harks back to some conflict which occured before our time. And it's honestly a problem that we don't understand this history.

Anyway, I haven't had too many problems with war mongering. If I give land back to the civ I fought it seems to go a long way in relieving warmongering penalties. I try to be on the lookout for joint wars. They are practically a garunteed alliance down the road.

erf that's why I'm more of a lurker on forums, it's much easier for me to understand people than to be understood :/
I agree with what you say. And I quote myself again coz my thoughts were scattered in several posts : "grudges can actually last ages, but not to the point it utterly destroyes your relationship forever" , "not to the point a whole civ hates an entire other civ for something they did millenniums ago" , even more so when the other civs around also decided to hate you for the very same reason ( which I can understand, but not with such overwhelming magnitude and duration).
and even if we consider it's legit : "so what ? what's the solution then if it's not reasonable peace and new hope ? We once were ennemies so let's hate each other until death do us part ? That's not what I want to see in this world nor in this game."

Or should we ? ok let's hate each other (in the game) until the ends of times for (evil) deeds long past. Oh and of course every other civ we know (maybe even some we don't) will also hate us for what we did, a lovely chain of hate. And they will do so for ages coz we've been very very nasty back in the days.
As a person I could maybe accept that coz you know human beings are... what they are. But as a player a whole feature of my game has just vanished, no more intricate and rich diplo gameplay over the next few milleniums. I could accept the idea if I was playing like a true warmonger waging war like crazy. Not when I'm playing as a good guy. Again, balance in magnitude and length is the key.

Also I would argue that if your examples are correct, for the most part it does not prevent them from keeping decent diplo/trade relashionships and even if it does(did) all other countries/civ around them are not also hating them all for having gladiatorial relationship, and even if so, once again, you can always find valid counter-examples like I said before with Germany not hated any more by the vast majority of the EU... that's why I try to avoid irl comparisons when talking about games coz you end up with never-ending lists of pros/cons that are not so useful eventually.
One last thing for the pleasure of contradicting myself : irl you rarely find situation where a whole country/civs really hates an entire other one. Even more so when the grudge is far in the past. The "disliking" shrinks as time goes by. Some part of the population can still hate or dislike the other pop but the more time the less people. And it does so even faster for "satellite civs" that were not directly part of the original conflict. And I'd like the diplo/WP game mechanics to reflect that better.

Well hope it was not too blurry, ty for reading and GG all !

 

[bladex]

Real question is: what does work with diplomacy right now?

trading lux...when the AI doesn't try to rip you off that is!

 

[FurballRocker]

diplomacy is a complete waste of time right now no maytter what you do the ai will backstab you later on so better to just bully the Ai into giving you what you want and if they won't give it than TAKE IT

While a few people have expressed the same sentiment i picked this one to quote as it effectively put that mindset into a single sentence.

The whole sentiment is wrong though and it is actually quite easy to be friends for the whole game with certain civs in particular and in all of my none conquest victory games i have managed to stay friends and get a whole game declaration of friendship with at least one civ, most often one of my neighbours who i have a direct border with.

People seem to think having a neighbour for example means guaranteed hate but in the longer term you can actually use that fact to make your relations stronger because you get something like -6 diplomacy for settling near them but if you then promise not to do so again then when that agreement expires you get +9 for keeping an agreement so you can actually become more friendly in the longer term with a neighbour by settling near them and i deliberately do so most times to actually increase our friendship.

It is also quite easy to fulfill most AI's agenda's and make them very happy such as not having suzeran with CS to keep Germany happy initially and then once you have built up enough friendship you can then start to suzeran strategic CS.

Other civ's are also very easy to keep happy just by doing what you should be doing anyway.e.g. make Russia happy by having more science than him, make china happy by having less wonders than him (considering most wonders aren't worth building, particularly early on), any civ who has the random agenda to like high population or not having as many great people as Brazil which is again easy as the AI focuses on early writers and artists so Brazil in particular tends to get a stock of great people out quite early before you start generating them, etc.

From how easy it is to make friends with many AI's the fact that people think that no matter what they do all AI's will hate them leads me to conclude that they can only think that they should be just able to make friends with AI's without actually doing anything but friendships are built on mutual interest as well as giving and taking so, as in real life, you sometimes have to do something which isn't particularly what is best for you but the AI will like you for doing.
Either that or they simple don't understand even the basics of the diplomacy system where it may simply be a case that they haven't discovered how to bring up the diplomacy modifiers window which it took me a few games to discover and as soon as i did diplomacy became very obvious.

Yes there are a couple of AI's which it is harder to or seemingly impossible to keep happy much as there are again in real life where you just can't please some people but from what i read on these forums most people's difficulty seems to be that they want to disregard what might make the AI happy and want to actively do what makes the AI unhappy and then complain the AI is always unhappy with them.
In effect if you act completely selfishly then the AI is likely to always hate you much like if you are completely selfish and undiplomatic in real life but if you make an effort to be friends then you can make many friends, while it is impossible to be friends with some people.

 

[Zuizgond]

While a few people have expressed the same sentiment i picked this one to quote as it effectively put that mindset into a single sentence.

The whole sentiment is wrong though and it is actually quite easy to be friends for the whole game with certain civs in particular and in all of my none conquest victory games i have managed to stay friends and get a whole game declaration of friendship with at least one civ, most often one of my neighbours who i have a direct border with.

People seem to think having a neighbour for example means guaranteed hate but in the longer term you can actually use that fact to make your relations stronger because you get something like -6 diplomacy for settling near them but if you then promise not to do so again then when that agreement expires you get +9 for keeping an agreement so you can actually become more friendly in the longer term with a neighbour by settling near them and i deliberately do so most times to actually increase our friendship.

It is also quite easy to fulfill most AI's agenda's and make them very happy such as not having suzeran with CS to keep Germany happy initially and then once you have built up enough friendship you can then start to suzeran strategic CS.

Other civ's are also very easy to keep happy just by doing what you should be doing anyway.e.g. make Russia happy by having more science than him, make china happy by having less wonders than him (considering most wonders aren't worth building, particularly early on), any civ who has the random agenda to like high population or not having as many great people as Brazil which is again easy as the AI focuses on early writers and artists so Brazil in particular tends to get a stock of great people out quite early before you start generating them, etc.

From how easy it is to make friends with many AI's the fact that people think that no matter what they do all AI's will hate them leads me to conclude that they can only think that they should be just able to make friends with AI's without actually doing anything but friendships are built on mutual interest as well as giving and taking so, as in real life, you sometimes have to do something which isn't particularly what is best for you but the AI will like you for doing.
Either that or they simple don't understand even the basics of the diplomacy system where it may simply be a case that they haven't discovered how to bring up the diplomacy modifiers window which it took me a few games to discover and as soon as i did diplomacy became very obvious.

Yes there are a couple of AI's which it is harder to or seemingly impossible to keep happy much as there are again in real life where you just can't please some people but from what i read on these forums most people's difficulty seems to be that they want to disregard what might make the AI happy and want to actively do what makes the AI unhappy and then complain the AI is always unhappy with them.
In effect if you act completely selfishly then the AI is likely to always hate you much like if you are completely selfish and undiplomatic in real life but if you make an effort to be friends then you can make many friends, while it is impossible to be friends with some people.

You don't get it. It's not about being hard or not to be friends with AI (it's actually pretty easy if you accept all his requests), it's about what are the benefits of it? or what are the risks of not being friendly? As said by manarod 4 posts above:

The problems with diplomacy in civ6 is that the ai doesn't pose any treat to the player and the benefit from beeing friendly is non existant.

 

[View619]

The benefits from being friendly are the trade deals and boosts you gain for any victory that isn't domination.

I don't know why people keep citing non-threatening ai as a reason to ignore diplomacy when civ ai has never been a threat once the player understands the system.

 

[FurballRocker]

You don't get it. It's not about being hard or not to be friends with AI (it's actually pretty easy if you accept all his requests), it's about what are the benefits of it? or what are the risks of not being friendly? As said by manarod 4 posts above:

I do get it and the real issue is the lack of danger and capability from the AI so there isn't really the incentive to actually be friends with the AI currently because your better off conquering to get resources rather than trading, the AI is very poor on the military front so there is little risk from annoying them, things like research agreements come too late and if you spam commercial hubs and harbours in every city you are swimming in gold by mid game so trading spare luxuries for gold doesn't really mean much either.

The problem is that a lot of people think diplomacy is broken where as the diplomacy system in civ vi is actually very good and very clear so the diplomacy system is fine, it is the general AI performance which is bad and therefore makes the diplomacy system redundant in regards to an optimum game scenario.

So in regards to actually improving the game and diplomacy the AI needs to be made more competent and threatening in it's general game play. If you have a huge expansionist neighbour on your border with a large (up to date) military with a combat AI that can at least work out how to attack a city then it will be useful to be friends with them for example or to be friends with others so you can establish defensive alliances to prevent attack and with the current diplomacy system it is possible to do so in a defined way as we actually have clear diplomatic tools which you can actually use to be friendly with that civ which also aren't too spikey.e.g. in civ 4 if you were hated by a civ then adopted their religion you instantly became BFF's or mysterious as in civ V it often wasn't clear at all what you had done wrong and whatever you did it would actually end up being wrong even if you were trying to follow their lead such as denouncing their enemy
.
In civ VI it takes time and effort to change a relationship but also provides discernible and reasonably predictable results from your actions.

In short if we want to make the diplomatic game interesting and meaningful then we need to concentrate on how it would be best to improve the performance of the general game AI in it's empire and military management so that it provides competition and threat to the player.

 

[Kzell11b]

I admit that was an oversimplification and I personally prefer medieval history over 20th century history, so I will acknowledge your superior expertise in the area.

Nonetheless, the Civilization games are also a simplification. There is always talk about the distinction between the civilization versus the leader. For example, the agenda system is tailored to the specific personality of that leader, so essentially it is that LEADER who likes/hates you, rather than the state relationship of the civilization.

Ha ha. The discussion of a naval arms race reminds me of the Diplomacy board game, and whether Germany should bother building fleets and whether an England/Germany alliance is sustainable. (Generally England focuses on fleets, Germany focuses on armies, but it also means that England can stab Germany much better than Germany can stab England).

And as for calling it "England," that's what Civ VI calls it.

Also, "state relationships" can be tricky when it comes to elected institutions, since things can change after just one election. Although autocrats/monarchs/dictators can be mercurial, they can endure for decades instead of the higher turnover rate you see in elections. It does seem like Europe's parliamentary system tends to be a bit better since you have more career government bureaucrats who can maintain a state relationship regardless of the ruling political party. In the U.S., there are a lot more political appointments, so you can more easily do a complete 180 after an election. But the point is just because the political elite says or thinks something, doesn't necessarily mean that the nation or the people agree with it. And when it comes to Westphalian politicking, that is definitely something that the political elite cared more about than the average citizen.

In any case, my underlying point is that it can make sense for two parties, who are friendly with each other, to end up opposed in a conflict because of other considerations. So I don't mind "friendly" AI's declaring war on you, as long as they have a decent reason/logic behind it.

I think we are covering quite a few different topics, so please be patient and bear with me as I try to address each one.

Simplification of Civ games: I agree to a certain extent. I would argue the best approach for Civ games is to take historical inspirations and incorporate them until the game up to the point that they would negatively impact gameplay. Example : While assassinations of national leaders are a real thing in history, that would probably make for a frustrating experience for a Civ player if went from playing as Lincoln to Andrew Johnson very suddenly (Leader Ability is First Impeachement: -5 to every stat in the game).

In the game, the developers haven't made much of a distinction between the state and the leader. That's not surprising for a variety of reasons, not least of which is because it wouldn't really be historically accurate to talk too much about the "state" in 4000 BCE. I've always interpreted this distinction between the civ (as opposed to the state, another thing entirely) and the leader was simply a gameplay attempt at variety of play within the same civilization. Same for the agendas thing in diplomacy.

The England/British Empire thing: I understand why you use it. I just made the distinction to be a little more accurate with regards to the historical events you're referring to, i.e. British-German relations prior to the World Wars.

Diplomatic relationships: I would strongly argue with considerable evidence that it is not historical as mercurial as you might think when it comes to shifts in foreign policy/relationships. In part because the nature of the state is impersonal and enduring (as opposed to the whims of leaders) sudden shifts in foreign affairs are much less common in elected governments, especially one looks past electoral bluster and views the actual policies implemented. Example: when one looks at U.S. foreign policy, it's remarkably consistent over the past several decades: opposition to the USSR during the Cold War, commitment to the trans-Atlantic community and alliances, support for Israel, etc. The shifts in foreign relations tend to be more 10-15 degrees than 180s. The nature of states with elected officials, though it of course varies from county to country, almost always involves some sort of checks and balances. Far more has to happen for a nation with a newly elected leader to go to war with a "friendly" nation than if it were the case with an absolute monarch.

Political elites: this is, as far as my understanding of our conversation, a newly introduced topic in our conversation so far. Although I made mention of how populations of citizens in the British and German Empires might have felt towards each other, that isn't really something that factors in Civ games. Your citizens in the game are not more or less upset depending on if you got to war with a friend or an ancient and sworn enemy (though that could be interesting in terms of gameplay). I consider it a truism to say that just because the political elites say something, the citizenry does not have to agree with. But they also do not have to oppose it either. Either way, I'm still not sure how that factors into the conversation. I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse.

Your underlying point: I again agree with you up to a point. Historically, I would argue it depends on time and place in history. Absolutist monarchs can certainly be fickle and arbitrary. Case in point: Peter III suddenly ending it's successful war with Prussia because he was a great admirer of Frederick II.

 

[teks]

erf that's why I'm more of a lurker on forums, it's much easier for me to understand people than to be understood :/
I agree with what you say. And I quote myself again coz my thoughts were scattered in several posts : "grudges can actually last ages, but not to the point it utterly destroyes your relationship forever" , "not to the point a whole civ hates an entire other civ for something they did millenniums ago" , even more so when the other civs around also decided to hate you for the very same reason ( which I can understand, but not with such overwhelming magnitude and duration).
and even if we consider it's legit : "so what ? what's the solution then if it's not reasonable peace and new hope ? We once were ennemies so let's hate each other until death do us part ? That's not what I want to see in this world nor in this game."

Or should we ? ok let's hate each other (in the game) until the ends of times for (evil) deeds long past. Oh and of course every other civ we know (maybe even some we don't) will also hate us for what we did, a lovely chain of hate. And they will do so for ages coz we've been very very nasty back in the days.
As a person I could maybe accept that coz you know human beings are... what they are. But as a player a whole feature of my game has just vanished, no more intricate and rich diplo gameplay over the next few milleniums. I could accept the idea if I was playing like a true warmonger waging war like crazy. Not when I'm playing as a good guy. Again, balance in magnitude and length is the key.

Also I would argue that if your examples are correct, for the most part it does not prevent them from keeping decent diplo/trade relashionships and even if it does(did) all other countries/civ around them are not also hating them all for having gladiatorial relationship, and even if so, once again, you can always find valid counter-examples like I said before with Germany not hated any more by the vast majority of the EU... that's why I try to avoid irl comparisons when talking about games coz you end up with never-ending lists of pros/cons that are not so useful eventually.
One last thing for the pleasure of contradicting myself : irl you rarely find situation where a whole country/civs really hates an entire other one. Even more so when the grudge is far in the past. The "disliking" shrinks as time goes by. Some part of the population can still hate or dislike the other pop but the more time the less people. And it does so even faster for "satellite civs" that were not directly part of the original conflict. And I'd like the diplo/WP game mechanics to reflect that better.

Well hope it was not too blurry, ty for reading and GG all !

I'm sorry, I responded because I'm enthusiastic about the subject. Its so crazy how today our society is being shaped by centuries-old conflicts and most people are completely unaware. I maybe got too excited.

 

[kaspergm]

Hmm, your opinion on historic grudges is really something unique to the west, specifically America
* Greece does hate Germany for WW2 and continues to demand reparations from it.
* Russia hates the US over the cold war.
* Middle East and Greece still hold a grudge over the crusades (ISIS declared a new caliphate, a clear reaction to a crusade, a word which the west did accidently use to describe the conflict.)
* Greece and Turkey hate each other over the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and Greek war for Independence. Russia still considers themselves the third Rome in many ways.
* In Africa, many inland tribes continue feuds over coastal ones who aided slavers during the colonial times.
* Many people in Africa and the middle East still hold grudges over the colonial conquests.
* Brexit is a push back from British hayday as a colonial superpower.
* The battle over Tiawans independence from China is centuries old, but mostly is a post-WW2 conflict.
* Heck, even in America, we recently had a battle over the sovereignty of an Indian reservation at standing rock.

Pretty much every conflict in some way harks back to some conflict which occured before our time. And it's honestly a problem that we don't understand this history.

You are right in what you say here, but there's a crucial difference between what's going on in game and what you list here: Your real life examples pretty much all sum up to: Civ A hates Civ B for taking land from them (at some point). Which is fine - but which is not what's in the game. What's in the game is: Everybody hates Civ B for taking land from Civ A (at some point). Which is rather nonsensical all the time Civ A was the aggressor.

And there-in lies the problem: If someone DoW's me in the game, and I take some of their cities, it's fine that they dislike me for it. But the fact that I suffer a -60 warmonger penalty with every civ in the game because I captured three American cities after Teddy declared a surprise war on me is not only nonsense, but kills the (diplomatic) game completely.

 

[UWHabs]

You are right in what you say here, but there's a crucial difference between what's going on in game and what you list here: Your real life examples pretty much all sum up to: Civ A hates Civ B for taking land from them (at some point). Which is fine - but which is not what's in the game. What's in the game is: Everybody hates Civ B for taking land from Civ A (at some point). Which is rather nonsensical all the time Civ A was the aggressor.

And there-in lies the problem: If someone DoW's me in the game, and I take some of their cities, it's fine that they dislike me for it. But the fact that I suffer a -60 warmonger penalty with every civ in the game because I captured three American cities after Teddy declared a surprise war on me is not only nonsense, but kills the (diplomatic) game completely.

Well, I think some of it is there to balance out the person who's winning. So instead of having a negative modifier for "you're winning", they just make it prohibitively expensive to conquer people in-game.

I do think it goes too far, and I think part of that is that it seems to get on a negative reinforcement. So I get a negative for declaring war, and then they denounce me, which gives me another negative with them. And once you get there, it's really hard to get back up to neutral. The only times I've managed to stay friendly with people in-game are ones where I don't capture any cities ever.

 

[PhilBowles]

Yes, I've been able to obtain at least one ally regardless of my chosen victory condition once I figured out how diplomacy modifiers work.

I don't think the difficulty or otherwise of obtaining allies is as much a problem as the fact that it simply doesn't matter. There's nothing very meaningful to be gained from alliances - while I like the way research agreements work in principle (and indeed agitated for RAs linked to specific techs in Civ V), they don't seem very relevant. Who really cares about going to war with allies in a game where the AI is so poor at warfare? Trade deals don't seem to get much better with allies than with neutral parties.

Civ V caused the frustration it did for many because they found the diplomacy system opaque (I navigated it pretty well and found it particularly engaging, at least pre-BNW, but it was evident that I was in a minority at least here) - but it actually mattered if people hated you. Denunciations were relevant for affecting other civs' opinions of you, it was more important to have allies for good deals (and admittedly exploits), and it was quite often important to trade for luxuries. Declarations of war followed more or less logically, for the most part, from a civ's opinion of you - while there were backstabs, these were mainly predictable once you knew which civs were prone to that behaviour, and a civ would almost always declare war once its opinion of you hit a particular negative threshold.

In Civ VI, at most you might want someone who'll allow you to trade for a strategic resource you're missing, but that's about the extent to which it matters what anyone else thinks of you. No one declares war past the early game, when they declare war at all it's apparently as likely to be when neutral as when unfriendly or hostile, and the AI isn't remotely as threatening even as it was in Civ V - as well as usually being too willing to surrender with gold payments after losing a couple of units.

 

[PhilBowles]

Hmm, your opinion on historic grudges is really something unique to the west, specifically America
* Greece does hate Germany for WW2 and continues to demand reparations from it.
* Russia hates the US over the cold war.

The Cold War has been over for less than 30 years and Russia's grudge about it has less to do with the conflict than about the state it left the country in. Gorbachev is widely despised in Russia.

* Middle East and Greece still hold a grudge over the crusades (ISIS declared a new caliphate, a clear reaction to a crusade, a word which the west did accidently use to describe the conflict.)

That's excessively simplistic. It's less that Middle Eastern territories hold a 'grudge' than that, from their perspective, the crusades never ended - they consider themselves actively persecuted, and think of everything from Israel to the installation of the Shah in Iran to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as 'crusaders' continuing a centuries-long attack on their region and majority religion.

* Greece and Turkey hate each other over the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and Greek war for Independence. Russia still considers themselves the third Rome in many ways.
* In Africa, many inland tribes continue feuds over coastal ones who aided slavers during the colonial times.

Many of the coastal tribes raided the inland tribes for slaves because they were already rivals - an existing conflict the Portuguese and later European colonial powers exploited. Long-ongoing feuds like those between Greece and Turkey, African ethnic groups, and until recently France and Germany don't have any specific historical precedent they can be traced to, any more than the traditional rivalry between France and England that lasted until the early 19th Century.

* Many people in Africa and the middle East still hold grudges over the colonial conquests.

This is true, but fundamentally again has more to do with what happened next than with colonialism. The British performed some fairly atrocious acts in India and were responsible for extremely regressive laws following WWI but there's much less hostility towards Britain in India - which came out of empire unified and stronger than it would have been without the British - than in many of the African and Middle Eastern territories that were left without effective governance or with tyrants. In some areas of Southeast Asia the British colonial period is actively commemorated, if only to bring in tourist revenue.

* Brexit is a push back from British hayday as a colonial superpower.

This has become a common meme but it's highly unlikely to be true. The main impetus behind Brexit is practically the reverse, the mentality stereotyped nationally as 'little Englanders'. People who want their island to themselves regardless of how much it reduces the country's international standing or power, many of whom wouldn't be overly concerned if Scotland were to secede.

* The battle over Tiawans independence from China is centuries old, but mostly is a post-WW2 conflict.

It's not correct that it's "centuries old", and it was not until very recently an independence struggle. Until post-WWII there was no dispute about the legitimate Chinese government - the Taiwan issue arose exclusively because of a dispute over the legitimacy of the Beijing government, with most of the international community recognising the government in Taipei as the official Chinese government until the 1960s. That government itself didn't relocate away from the mainland until after WWII. That's a very recent political issue that has never been resolved because both states still have autonomous governments and both, in principle, lay claim to the entirety of China (although for the last couple of decades Taiwan has informally accepted that this is unrealistic and that they can hope for independence from the mainland as a best-case scenario), not a historical grudge.

 

[whyidie]

I don't think the difficulty or otherwise of obtaining allies is as much a problem as the fact that it simply doesn't matter.

But it does. Sometimes.

Trade deals don't seem to get much better with allies than with neutral parties.

They do, and are miles ahead of the deals you get if you've been denounced.

Denunciations were relevant for affecting other civs' opinions of you, it was more important to have allies for good deals (and admittedly exploits)

Still true in 6.

...and it was quite often important to trade for luxuries.

Still true...sometimes.

Declarations of war followed more or less logically, for the most part, from a civ's opinion of you - while there were backstabs, these were mainly predictable once you knew which civs were prone to that behaviour, and a civ would almost always declare war once its opinion of you hit a particular negative threshold.

Haven't been backstabbed yet and while its somewhat predictable when war will come its not nearly as predictable (yet) as in 5. This is good.

In Civ VI, at most you might want someone who'll allow you to trade for a strategic resource you're missing, but that's about the extent to which it matters what anyone else thinks of you.

Amenities/luxuries still matter, just not as much as in 5. In 5 it was pretty much every game unless you got the right religion/city state mix. In 6 I've had more games where luxuries didn't matter, but I have had some where trade with the AI was crucial to support my sprawling empire.

No one declares war past the early game, when they declare war at all it's apparently as likely to be when neutral as when unfriendly or hostile, and the AI isn't remotely as threatening even as it was in Civ V - as well as usually being too willing to surrender with gold payments after losing a couple of units.

I have found the AI to be much quicker to offer favorable deals.

I've had plenty of DOWs on me in the middle part of the game. Not so much in the home stretch when I've either got a good lead, am still behind, or the AI is preoccupied elsewhere. Which is similar to my experience with 5. On the whole I would agree that there are less DOWs overall and so far the mid game DOWs I've seen have been pretty weak compared to early DOWs.

I would like to see the AI improve its military production when they make the mid game DOWs and would like to see at least some AI's capable of sweeping their continent as they would often do in 5, but thats not diplomacy.

On the diplomatic front I wouldn't mind some tuning of war weariness and cassus belli/warmonger penalties. I suspect they are at least somewhat culpable for the ineffective war AI mid-late game.

 

[Halcyan2]

I don't think the difficulty or otherwise of obtaining allies is as much a problem as the fact that it simply doesn't matter. There's nothing very meaningful to be gained from alliances - while I like the way research agreements work in principle (and indeed agitated for RAs linked to specific techs in Civ V), they don't seem very relevant. Who really cares about going to war with allies in a game where the AI is so poor at warfare? Trade deals don't seem to get much better with allies than with neutral parties.

I definitely think there SHOULD be more benefits to Friendships and Alliances, but there currently are some:

1. Both prevent the other party from declaring war. Completely. In Civ V, there was still the chance of a backstab, even from a friend. In Civ VI, you know that your friend/ally simply CANNOT declare war on you. That definitely provides some security.

2. Research Agreements suck right now because research and culture speeds are way too fast. But there is a Eureka (for Chemistry) that is dependent on completing a Research Agreement.

3. Alliances come with built-in Open Borders. In some games, the AI's actually want several luxuries and a good amount of GP for Open Borders. If you are willing to enter in an Alliance (and many AI's are quite willing to enter into it), you can get Open Borders automatically.

4. Since duplicate luxuries are not useful to you, friendly relations (which includes Friends and Allies but also others) definitely open up trading opportunities.

5. I don't know if you've noticed but AI's actually value Alliances at some tangible value (in that they might be willing to give you GP and other stuff for one). I know there was at least one case where I wanted a Great Work from a weaker AI and he was willing to give it to me at a substantial discount if I entered into an Alliance with him (which I did).

 

[Victoria]

You don't get it. It's not about being hard or not to be friends with AI (it's actually pretty easy if you accept all his requests), it's about what are the benefits of it? or what are the risks of not being friendly? As said by manarod 4 posts above:

For me the reason is it makes the game more engaging and fun.

I am currently playing on emporer and kongo and china are next to me with russian and spain behind them. Kongo and china DOW'd me because of early forward settling and I got a city off china but kongo too strong and powerful. 60 turns on I settle 3 extra cities within 2 turns and I suddenly have a quadra DOW, never seen this before and suspect there must be a mechanic on racing away with number of cities. Rather than horrified I am intrigued ... More to the point, within tirns of peace with russia and spain they are friendly to me also indicating a victory switch must have triggered the DOW.

I am loving every second of the game ATM and can barely remember what VC I am playing...IDC, just having fun.

That to me is the point

 

[whyidie]

I definitely think there SHOULD be more benefits to Friendships and Alliances, but there currently are some:

1. Both prevent the other party from declaring war. Completely. In Civ V, there was still the chance of a backstab, even from a friend. In Civ VI, you know that your friend/ally simply CANNOT declare war on you. That definitely provides some security.

THATS why I haven't been back stabbed! Mixed feelings on this. I actually like the tension this introduced in 5. Suuuure, Monty, we can be friends....

Think this is actually part of what made the blocks more predictable in Civ5. If played your cards right the backstabbers/warmongers would present themselves then it was just a matter of starting the ball rolling with a denouncement or jumping on the denouncement train. Also gave you another positive modifier.

2. Research Agreements suck right now because research and culture speeds are way too fast. But there is a Eureka (for Chemistry) that is dependent on completing a Research Agreement.

Wish they had research agreements for culture. Current playstyle has me focusing on expansion (conquest or not) and science at the expense of religion and culture. Maybe I should switch it up and use RA's to get to science parity.

5. I don't know if you've noticed but AI's actually value Alliances at some tangible value (in that they might be willing to give you GP and other stuff for one). I know there was at least one case where I wanted a Great Work from a weaker AI and he was willing to give it to me at a substantial discount if I entered into an Alliance with him (which I did).

Can't wait until more people get friendly with the AI so we can see the "they keep asking to be friends" complaints pop up.

For me the reason is it makes the game more engaging and fun.

I am currently playing on emporer and kongo and china are next to me with russian and spain behind them. Kongo and china DOW'd me because of early forward settling and I got a city off china but kongo too strong and powerful.

Kongo can be a beast in this game in science and culture. Consistently strong performances out of the Kongo AI.

60 turns on I settle 3 extra cities within 2 turns and I suddenly have a quadra DOW, never seen this before and suspect there must be a mechanic on racing away with number of cities. Rather than horrified I am intrigued ... More to the point, within tirns of peace with russia and spain they are friendly to me also indicating a victory switch must have triggered the DOW.

I've seen similar things happen. The first time it brought horror. The second time intrigue. The third time a smile.

The first time it absolutely crippled me as I had been pushing war weariness to its limit and needed peace. The second time I decided to push on and try to take the last two Civs capitols and secure the domination victory. I have never seen so many rebels. Modern armor, mechanized infantry, it was a bad scene. Unfortunately the rebels didn't take my cities or do much of anything so I ignored them while I fought the AI. The third time I smiled because it was becoming a pattern. I like it, but the AI needs to dedicate more to the war.