Fed up with Diplomacy mechanics

MeatUnit2

Warlord
Joined
Jan 12, 2010
Messages
174
I am getting tired of the mechanics of diplomacy in Civ IV BtS. The last straw came when I saw that another empire had given me a -1 hit because Our close borders spark tensions. Our empires are on separate land masses and our closest borders are separated by 11 ocean tiles. But even outside of this oddity I wonder at the way the diplomacy mechanics work when, turn after turn, my worst enemies demand I stop trading with and/or wage war against my best allies, ask me to join in wars on distant continents when I am engaged in wars much closer to home, try to get me to engage in some hostile act against the vassal of a powerful empire as if you could enrage one without enraging both.

Is there a mod out there that makes diplomacy saner? I haven't been able to find one.
 
i'd have to see a picture of the first to see what you're talking about.

for the second, i don't see what's wrong with that or what makes it insane. i don't have any idea which mods would remove those features though. as i said before though, i think it's reasonable: just say no. if they're your worst enemy, of course they'll be angry for not changing policies they find threatening. if two countries got into war, one of the countries would be unhappy with third parties if they continued to trade with and refused to fight their enemies.
 
I am getting tired of the mechanics of diplomacy in Civ IV BtS. The last straw came when I saw that another empire had given me a -1 hit because Our close borders spark tensions. Our empires are on separate land masses and our closest borders are separated by 11 ocean tiles. But even outside of this oddity I wonder at the way the diplomacy mechanics work when, turn after turn, my worst enemies demand I stop trading with and/or wage war against my best allies, ask me to join in wars on distant continents when I am engaged in wars much closer to home, try to get me to engage in some hostile act against the vassal of a powerful empire as if you could enrage one without enraging both.

Is there a mod out there that makes diplomacy saner? I haven't been able to find one.

The first one sounds weird. It would aggravate me too.

The second one seems to go on the principle of "If you're not with us, you're against us". Which a lot of real-life Civs seem to believe in.

Maybe it's realistic. Diplomacy in the real world sometimes seems insane - North Korea, for instance.
 
I am getting tired of the mechanics of diplomacy in Civ IV BtS. The last straw came when I saw that another empire had given me a -1 hit because Our close borders spark tensions.

Um, yer gonna REALLY hate it when your scouts or caravels reach a civ you've never MET (and they've never met YOU, obviously) and you already have a -4 diplo hit because you traded with their worst enemies.

Plaigarizing someone else's gripe, but it's a legitimate one nonetheless. As for the -1 hit on close aquatic borders striking tensions, I'll justify that one...people have died over cattle rustling and squatting....what about "fishing rights"? I can imagine if at Scientific method, I look and see some water oil between us and the other civ's culture had pushed me out, oh boy I'd personally have a lower than a -1 against that civ.

oops, reread OP. 11 tiles apart?....hmmmm....are you SURE they didn't settle some cruddy Iron-tundra city in the north regions of your empire and you haven't noticed it yet....yeah, 11 tiles separate is a bit much.

Then again, I think all humans have a -20 "your stupid AI civ's mere existence keeps me from achieving victory conditions" pre-programmed in at the start of every game for every civ. ;)
 
Diplo is all fine now.
Otherwise, the balance would too much in favor to the player as the normal AI is supremely stupid.

Close border sparks tension mechanisms...

The demerit to steal tiles from your neighbour (and yes a crappy city makes a far away AI a neighbour by definition) depends of neighbour XML values, that is each leader has its tolerance.
Some will show a low maximum while others will show the bottom 4, i.e. intolerant f-ggot.
 
Yes the diplomacy is dumb as heck. For example, if an AI doesn't like you enough, you cannot threaten them for techs (they can demand everything from you of course).
 
Um, yer gonna REALLY hate it when your scouts or caravels reach a civ you've never MET (and they've never met YOU, obviously) and you already have a -4 diplo hit because you traded with their worst enemies.

I'm torn a bit on that one. It's not great to get the diplo hit, but after all you actually traded with their worst enemy - and now they find out you're to guy who provided their worst enemy with whatever. So it's not completely insane for them to hate you, and it's a risk you should be aware of when trading while not having met everyone.

oops, reread OP. 11 tiles apart?....hmmmm....are you SURE they didn't settle some cruddy Iron-tundra city in the north regions of your empire and you haven't noticed it yet....

That's what I thought as well. Usually border tension malus makes sense...
And with the alternative of the greatly improved AD (artificial dumbness) in Civ V I don't even want to start complaining about what we have in IV. ;)
 
I made a similar post over this once.

Problem is, that when AI goes to war, they have a very high chance to ask you to join, even if you only have 1 warrior and sit on the other continent and have no ships. Of course, one cannot ask the AI the other way round. Then AI can demand everything, onesself cannot. If AI demands and one denies, onesself gets the Diplo-hit, if onesself demands and AI denies, it's again onesself who gets the Diplo hit.

Best way is still as Zx Zero Zx said a few days ago, Middle-Finger Diplomacy. Just steamroll that stupid AIs and make them all Slavey :mad: .
 
I'm torn a bit on that one. It's not great to get the diplo hit, but after all you actually traded with their worst enemy - and now they find out you're to guy who provided their worst enemy with whatever. So it's not completely insane for them to hate you, and it's a risk you should be aware of when trading while not having met everyone.

I do like to 'justify' the mechanics a bit....I've had to think on this one....so what happens could be one of the possible scenarios

A) when you meet the 3rd civ who is already mad at you for trade....the other civ KNOWS already about you via espionage of some sort and have just deigned to not open any formal diplomatic negotiations. ( I would LIKE this one if you got an event dialogue box of "rumors are that "aliens of an unknown nature" exist somewhere in the land....but otherwise, It's hard to justify this one)

B) Civ A (the civ that hates YOU (civ C) for trading with worst enemy civ B) has been spying on civ B. If enough espionage points are spent etc, then civ A gets KNOWLEDGE of civ C....however, what's good for the spygoose should be good for the spygander and therefore if this were to be justified, an option to use espionage to learn of associative civs should be available, and it isn't)

C) Civ B, while busy making ugly faces at civ A, is having their diplomats saying stuff to diplomats of civ A "oh, by the way, there's this other civilization out there, and they just LOOOOOVE us and hate YOU, so there, nyah....so don't pick on civ B, we gots civ C in our pocket and civ C will punch ya in the nose if you declare on us"

hmmm....actually, if I make the diplomats words from civ B sound even MORE childish...this third one JUST MIGHT WORK. :)
 
I made a similar post over this once.

Problem is, that when AI goes to war, they have a very high chance to ask you to join, even if you only have 1 warrior and sit on the other continent and have no ships.

Oooh, reminds me of something that just recently happened. Since i have no fancy patches and bugs and play normal BTS, I don't know if this is a bug or not...I just gotta say it was a pretty fancy AI ploy (again, possibly justifiable by history? I dunno)

Playing a diety fractal huge map with 2 hapshepsuts (one running EGY, one running maya), A Lincoln/Celt empire and a team of Freddie/HRE & Bismarck/GMN. I've pretty much wiped all the other civs off the map. It's industrial age, and I'm consolidating and healing. Lincoln has been friendly since the beginning of time, and techer/philosopher that he is, he's at rifling now and finally up on the power chart. I beat Fred/Biz so badly in a war that they sued for big peace in medieval but I couldn't vassalize them. Lincoln on same island with Fred/Biz, so he declares and starts beating them like a redheaded stepchild. I wasn't planning on getting in the war, but wanted to continue playing lincoln sweet because my goal was to stop Hap/Maya from culture winning, a quick raze of her 3rd culture city and that should do the trick.

Lincoln invites me to war, I agree to continue to build friend-in-war plus points.....On the same TURN I AGREE, the one remaining city of Fred/Biz WARVASSAL to lincoln and all of a sudden, I'm at war with Lincoln/Remno-freddie/Biz.....Lincoln's still PLEASED but can't/won't talk.

I resigned with a chuckle and a salute to lincoln's prowess at an AI "steamroll"
 
Yes the diplomacy is dumb as heck. For example, if an AI doesn't like you enough, you cannot threaten them for techs (they can demand everything from you of course).

This is very annoying. I can almost never get anything for free from the AI (unless it's a vassal), while they can extort techs from me whenever they please. Recent example, Catherine asks me for Civil Service just a few turns after I got it. Reject and she will hate me. Of course I accept, although it was hard, and I didn't even get a +1 for you helped us. WTF?!!!

But wage war twice on some minnow she's auto-pleased with and it's a -2 hit. Bah.
 
^ with cathy, you might have gotten a +1 "you gave us tribute" ....but with cathy, I dunno, what makes her one of the most interesting AIs is that militarily, she's imo the one that actually plays to WIN like humans would....doesn't matter if I liked you yesterday, you're in the way, and I've got 10,000 horsies..... playing cathy sweet is a dangerous game....and from what I've read, that's pretty close to Catherine the Great in Real history.

As for the reason you never get tech gifts...congratulations, that means your Civ IV play doesn't suck.....mine sucks so bad, I sometimes get gifted techs....that happens when I'm bottom of the scoreboard and the civs either pity me or they NEED to give me a tech so I can later be bribed to join their civics and agendas (which again, I thought was a nice attempt at AI programming, giving them SOME sort of agenda what-so-ever). But if you aren't getting freebies, that means you aren't bottom-of-the-heap! :)
 
I join in wars a lot that are on the other side of the world and I have no intention of sending troops to. Doesn't everyone? :mischief:
 
The unknown worst enemy thing doesn't require sophisticated justification, it's perfectly reasonable. I mean any human can figure out with easy logic who it was who gave our enemy techs before we met everybody, no espionage or alien intervention required.

Also, there is no imbalance implied when we get diplo hits in both situations - i.e. when we demand from AI and when they demand from us. It it simply a reasonable way for the AI to find out how we feel about them, when in reality we know, and they know (but pretend otherwise for gameplay reasons) that our attitute to every single AI is "-100" right from the first turn! They are perfectly justified in saying "if you want the benefits of friendship, pay up" :D

All in all I think it's quite realistic. The mood of national peoples really does fluctuate according to petty slights and royal weddings and all the other kind of stuff that happens in Civ 4. And international politics really is a kind of game (in the sense of game theory, not game fun) that the diplomats play with each other and with the world media, and there definitely are levers and tricks that can be used, and do work. Calling Civ 4 diplomacy "milkable", "gameable" etc. does not in any way suggest it's unrealistic. Maybe a little simplistic, but then we're only dumb gamers not Henry Kissinger...
 
The unknown worst enemy thing doesn't require sophisticated justification, it's perfectly reasonable. I mean any human can figure out with easy logic who it was who gave our enemy techs before we met everybody, no espionage or alien intervention required.
As far as diplomacy goes I agree, although there should've been a way to make contact with unknown civs through others. But in other fields there are some very illogical connections. Like when there are only two civs left, and the AI has no idea where those Privateers are coming from...

Also, there is no imbalance implied when we get diplo hits in both situations - i.e. when we demand from AI and when they demand from us. It it simply a reasonable way for the AI to find out how we feel about them, when in reality we know, and they know (but pretend otherwise for gameplay reasons) that our attitute to every single AI is "-100" right from the first turn! They are perfectly justified in saying "if you want the benefits of friendship, pay up" :D
This is an interesting point - the human attitude towards the AI is obviously invisible in the game. Whether I get pissed off and declare war after their 10th espionage mission in my territory is all up to me. This reminds me of one time I played as Alexander, and used the cheat to switch leader (Alt-Z) just to check "my" attitude towards my closest neighbour. When I learned that Alexander had a very bad attitude towards my rival, including -14 for "Your spy was caught causing trouble" I was like - "gosh, I didn't realize I was furious with them" :lol:
 
You could mod the XML files. I've changed mine so no-one remembers me refusing to join a war. I'm tired of being pestered to go to war by 3 civs every turn, going from excellent relations to near conflict with them all after 30 or so turns. I'll probably reset that for the more aggressive leaders though.
 
The unknown worst enemy thing doesn't require sophisticated justification, it's perfectly reasonable. I mean any human can figure out with easy logic who it was who gave our enemy techs before we met everybody, no espionage or alien intervention required.

If unsarcastic, This implies that the human player has some foreknowledge of the game already and the programmed personalities of the AIs. Even though I don't see how if I have a map and random opponents, how I could deduce who is trading with a civ I have met, when I have no knowledge who the other civs or leaders are in the game.

If, say, "random personalities" were checked on, then those who have only played Civ IV and spent some time knowing how the AIs settle, tech, communicate and war with each other would be able to eventually deduce who is who, after a time.

Regardless, then I see the argument as to this diplo hit being justifyable is that it's a balancer for the experienced human's ability to fairly quickly deduce once they have even the knowledge of who their opponents are the most probable outcomes as to what their long term strategies and agendas might be towards diplomacy.

Fair enough, I have no problem with that. But I would argue then that if it is a balancer, it wouldn't be justifiable as something that is being modeled by the game as realistic. In order for the opponent AI to be "clever" like the human and deduce from ....many times playing the game, that the human is up to no good...well, that would imply that ...how to put it...for the AI, "civilization" has happened multiple times, that the AI has 'squared off' with the human in multiple permutations of the multiverse, and that isn't the case.

Even so, one thing I can say about any rule, 'broken' or not, justifiable or not, is that diplo CAN be 'gamed'. Some diplo policies have to be adjusted. As a poster mentioned above, in a war, the human will be approached by both sides, and if the human doesn't want to get involved, will take -1 diplo hits across the board unless you mod the game. So, knowing that, you have game the system to survive by trying to figure out IF one should say 'no' or just declare a fake war against the AI most likely to lose and do the least damage long-term to your civ.

Likewise, the -4 "we haven't met you but we KNOW yer up to no good" hit can likewise be gamed.

If, for example, you are in 1000AD and not Saladin, say you are playing...Japan.....or Monty....thanks to foreknowledge, it's wise not to TRADE with saladin at all (unless you are mansa musa), and declare on him as soon as possible to become close buddies with the european union. (still, you'd want to get Christian ASAP, because the AP will still most likely cheese you on that scenario)....

you know...after saying all that, maybe if they just changed the text to "heyy...we eventually FIGURED OUT you traded with our worst enemy....-4" there....that's the fix ;)
 
It'd probably make more sense if the 'you traded with...' stuff was a passive espionage thing, like the demographics.

The penalty I really hate is the one for changing civics or religions, especially when the AI is one of those that asks ALL THE TIME and I'm not spiritual. I think it'd be better if swapping on demand could happen without anarchy, like when the UN votes in Global Emancipation. Then you would be making the decision based on diplomatic reasons and not based on 'I really really can't afford anarchy right now'.
 
^ ooh Happyturtle you unlocked another possible religion/diplo/reality debateable glitch. One of the possible "tactics" for diplo (especially on more advanced starts or scenarios) is to stay in NO STATE religion. You don't get any religious love, but you don't get the heathen hate....which again I'm not sure is realistic.

At first one would think it's crazy for anyone to say "we hate you because you are a heathen, but atheists, oh....they're ok" (most of the time it's US and THEM, period.)

but if one argues "hey, people typically dislike some sort of opposing religion" I would counter argue that in that case it should be a SPECIFIC opposing religion (which due to marketing and Political correctness reasons wouldn't happen)....so imo even NO STATE religion should get the heathen diplo hit.
 
If unsarcastic, This implies that the human player has some foreknowledge of the game already and the programmed personalities of the AIs. Even though I don't see how if I have a map and random opponents

Hehe no, wasn't being sarcastic, just typed my post in a hurry so not as smiley as normal! The easy logic I meant was not dependent on AI personality knowledge.

If I watch the trade screens and see somebody get a tech without seeing the other side of the deal, it must be a trade with unknown civ. I think the range of situations where it's subsequently not obvious who the culprit was would be very small. It's hard to think of one.

Maybe if I find a continent of 3 with a caravel, and the trade happens after I meet the first civ but before I meet the other two, it might not be so simple if they were all friendly and all had the same tech. But then if that was the case it would probably be reasonable to assume they had all been trading their friendly little asses off up till that point anyway!

So it might be a bit complicated to program, and I bet the devs said "well it's always going to be pretty much obvious to any sentient being, let's just save ourselves the working out and just give the AIs that piece of information".Like Fermat's last theorem :)
 
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