Game mechanic questions

[Question]

1. How can you view (or at least get an idea of) another civ's stats...such as research, economy, happiness, etc?

2. What affects how your content your people are with your current ideology? Once, i was getting dissidents because Germany had the dominant ideology, but after a short war with Germany, my people were suddenly content. I didnt even take any of his cities!

Similarly what decides the dominant ideology and how do you see the ideology happiness for the other civs?

3. Why do civs generate so much more gold than city states? It makes trade routes with city states pointless, especially for civs that have bonuses for trading with city states or lots of different civs at once (e.g. morroco). For that matter, how is trade route gold income calculated, if i mouse over the details panel, it says a particular city has a gold per turn value which gets bonuses from different resources. But the gold per turn value is obviously inaccurate, because i have a city making 270+ gold now but thats not reflected in the trade route details panel....

4. Is there any way to cancel a current trade route, or make it auto repeat instead of having to manually repeat it everytime? Similarly, can i get a trade to repeat automatically (e.g. cotton for sugar) instead of having to keep going back to the AI every 30 turns after it expires?

5. Is there a way to disable great prophet spawning in early eras, to save up faith?

6. Maybe im missing something, but i cant seem to use carriers effectively because after a single air raid on a city, my bombers need to spend several turns repairing, whereas with battleships i can just fire every turn. How do i get my bombers to repair faster? I can only seem to get them to engage enemy units, and even that gets slowed down by enemy AA, whereas with battleships i can just fire forever...

7. Can submarines blockade coastal cities (deny use of coastal tiles) and if yes, how do you tell which tiles are being affected?

8. I cant figure out how to tell how another civ wants to vote in world congress, even with a diplomat. E.G. Arabia has 4 delegates and i have a diplomat, my diplomat tells me that Arabia wants to vote Yea on both proposals, but it just tells me (4) for both proposals...without telling me the exact spread of delegates. Is this normal?

9. How do i get civ A to attack civ B? The discuss panel only has the option of having BOTH of you go to war, and i want only Civ A to attack Civ B without me getting involved.

10. How do i trade maps with an ally (please tell me there is a mod for this)

11. I have had a spy in my capital since the start of the renaissance era but my techs keep getting stolen even with max police buildings, why cant my spy catch the enemy spies? And when i try to steal enemy techs, i get told they need something ridiculous, like 100+ turns, and my spy usually gets caught first....whats going on?

12. What is the point of land trade routes when sea trade routes are so much more profitable (other than to reach a landlocked city that you want to spread religion to obviously)

13. The AI doesnt seem to care about archaelogists, even though they are in the modern era or beyond, is this a bug?

14. How does diplomacy work, because AIs just seem to randomly love and hate you, and no amount of bribing seems to help?

15. Why does the AI demand i give him more in exchange for a research agreement, when hes the one with lower tech and who would benefit more?

16. Why does the AI refuse to give into my demands or refuse to give me even trades when i have this massive military force that could easily obliterate him?

17, Is there a special bonus for getting all tenents in an ideology, similar to getting all policies in a particular tree?

18. Is there a way to disable great people spawning from a particular city or a particular type of great people from spawning (e.g. if you want to spawn only great writers and nothing else)?

19. I was playing as venice once and in the late game, i noticed that i could purchase stuff for my puppeted cities and i also had the option to annex them. No mods were involved. Was this a bug or some kind of feature?

20. Destroyers are supposed to auto intercept incoming aircraft right? How do i get them to do that? Enemy bombers just bomb my battleship one hex away and my destroyers sitting right next to it do nothing...

21. Can someone explain how patronage's cultured diplomacy work, because im not seeing a happiness bonus...and it doesnt seem to increase the amount of resources i can trade with either (in the diplomacy screens). Similarly for the Portugse Feitoria.

22. What is the point of buying or puppetting a city state with Austria/Venice's special abilities? Isnt it better to leave CSes alive so you can get their votes and also for their unique bonuses? Unless its a militaristic CS in a REALLY good spot, it just seems way better to have them as an ally...

23. Does an annexed city with a courthouse generate the same amount of unhappiness as a puppet city?

24. How do you get a AI to move his units so you can move past? Especially for CSes blocking archaelogical sites...

25. Is there a way to zoom in on a particular resource type in your borders? E.G. Newly discovered sources of uranium

26. International games and world fair is only a once per game thing right?

27. I cant seem to generate enough great writers in my games to fill all my great writing slots, compounded by the fact that i can only allocate two specialists to great writing in my entire empire. Am i missing something here?

 

[Browd]

Well, that is a right hefty basket of questions. I'm going to respond to the easier ones and let others answer the harder ones.

1. How can you view (or at least get an idea of) another civ's stats...such as research, economy, happiness, etc?

Absent mods, the demographics screen is the best you can do. It tells you the leader and straggler in each category, as well as your position. Most everything else has to be gleaned by careful observation.

2. What affects how your content your people are with your current ideology? Once, i was getting dissidents because Germany had the dominant ideology, but after a short war with Germany, my people were suddenly content. I didnt even take any of his cities!

Similarly what decides the dominant ideology and how do you see the ideology happiness for the other civs?

The short answer is that your empire's unhappiness is directly related to which other ideologies are at various levels of influence over you. You need to spend some quality time reviewing the "Culture Victory" and "Influence By Player" tabs of the Culture Overview screen. Pay particular attention to the tooltips, and on the influence by player screen switch views (use Select Player) to get an idea of reciprocal influence.

4. Is there any way to cancel a current trade route, or make it auto repeat instead of having to manually repeat it everytime? Similarly, can i get a trade to repeat automatically (e.g. cotton for sugar) instead of having to keep going back to the AI every 30 turns after it expires?

No to both.

5. Is there a way to disable great prophet spawning in early eras, to save up faith?

Nope. You need to find alternative uses for excess faith in the pre-Industrial eras.

6. Maybe im missing something, but i cant seem to use carriers effectively because after a single air raid on a city, my bombers need to spend several turns repairing, whereas with battleships i can just fire every turn. How do i get my bombers to repair faster? I can only seem to get them to engage enemy units, and even that gets slowed down by enemy AA, whereas with battleships i can just fire forever...

Get a land unit promoted to Medic II and have that unit swim in the water next to your carrier. Each bomber will heal 10 HP more on turns when they heal. Until you get air repair for your bombers (equivalent to land units' March promotion), they will have to use idle turns to repair. Of course, they have much longer range than battleships (and artillery), so there are trade-offs in their use.

9. How do i get civ A to attack civ B? The discuss panel only has the option of having BOTH of you go to war, and i want only Civ A to attack Civ B without me getting involved.

You have to bribe them (through the trade screen, not the diplo screen).

10. How do i trade maps with an ally (please tell me there is a mod for this)

No map trading in Civ V, and not aware of any mods that do this.

11. I have had a spy in my capital since the start of the renaissance era but my techs keep getting stolen even with max police buildings, why cant my spy catch the enemy spies? And when i try to steal enemy techs, i get told they need something ridiculous, like 100+ turns, and my spy usually gets caught first....whats going on?

RNG on spy rolls. Once your spy gets promoted, the odds shift dramatically. Also, constabularies and police stations do not increase your chances of catching enemy spies, they just greatly extend the time period it takes for the spy to steal a tech (as you observed with 100 turn predictions).

12. What is the point of land trade routes when sea trade routes are so much more profitable (other than to reach a landlocked city that you want to spread religion to obviously)

You've summarized it well.

15. Why does the AI demand i give him more in exchange for a research agreement, when hes the one with lower tech and who would benefit more?

You only pay extra if you are era or more ahead of the AI. If the AI were doing an RA with someone in its own era, it would pay $X, but your RA costs $X+$100 (per era differential), so you need to "rebate" the extra $100 per era to compensate the AI for doing a more expensive RA with you. Also, in BNW, RA yields are capped by the beaker rate of the lesser partner, so the straggling AI does not get more from an RA than you do.

17, Is there a special bonus for getting all tenents in an ideology, similar to getting all policies in a particular tree?

No

18. Is there a way to disable great people spawning from a particular city or a particular type of great people from spawning (e.g. if you want to spawn only great writers and nothing else)?

Other than GGs and GAdm, who spawn from combat, GPrs, who spawn from faith, and GPs that are "free" from certain wonders and Social Policies, GPs spawn by the generation of relevant Great Person Points in a given city. GPPs come from wonders taht provide a specific number and type of GP points and from citizens assigned to work specialist slots in wonders and other buildings. In general you should be manually assigning specialists to control when and where GPs spawn. Note that Great Scientists, Merchants and Engineers operate on the same GPP counter, so each one that spawns increases the GPP cost of the next. If you are surprised by the spawning of a Great Person, you aren't manually working and monitoring your specialist slots. There is a tab on the left (where normally it shows what tech you are researching) that allows you to monitor when and where your GPs will spawn.

19. I was playing as venice once and in the late game, i noticed that i could purchase stuff for my puppeted cities and i also had the option to annex them. No mods were involved. Was this a bug or some kind of feature?

You should not have had the option to annex those puppets, but being able to purchase buildings and units in puppets is part of Venice's UA.

23. Does an annexed city with a courthouse generate the same amount of unhappiness as a puppet city?

Yes, but to anticipate your next question, you choose to annex in order to control that city's production (including to be able to build more happiness buildings), what tiles (and specialist slots) that city's citizens work, and to eliminate the 25% penalties for culture and science produced by the city.

24. How do you get a AI to move his units so you can move past? Especially for CSes blocking archaelogical sites...

You haven't found the "look, a bird!" command? Neither have I.

26. International games and world fair is only a once per game thing right?

Yes

27. I cant seem to generate enough great writers in my games to fill all my great writing slots, compounded by the fact that i can only allocate two specialists to great writing in my entire empire. Am i missing something here?

Not really. Every civ only gets 2 GW specialist slots, so it is rare to be able to fill all GW of Writing slots (even before considering that bulbing GWs to generate large amounts of culture can be more beneficial at times than creating a GW of Writing). The Aesthetics opener boosts GW, GA and GMus production by 25% and there is a level 1 tenet in Order and Freedom that provides a 25% boost to production of all Great Persons.

 

[DarkestOnion]

Sweet, let me see if I can answer the rest, as Civ Homework is something I enjoy perversely *not trolling*

 

[DarkestOnion]

3. Civilizations generate more Gold than City States as Civilization usually have multiple Cities and therefore more Gold Producing Tiles to work. Furthermore, multiple cities make for more Trade Route Options. As to how Trade Route Income is calculated, here is a fast and dirty answer: Sea Trade Routes and Farther Away Trade Routes are more profitable than Land Trade Routes and Closer Trade Routes. Here is a link to dive deeper into BNW Trade Routes (if you like)

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/International_trade_route_(Civ5)

7. Submarines can Naval Blockade Harbor City Connections if placed in every Coastal Tile that would allow Trade Access to the Capitol. If you are on the pointy end of such a naval Blockade you can tell by multiple Notifications on the right side of your screen that ‘City Connections between your Capitol and X City have been broken.’ Alternatively, you can go into the City Worker View and you will see several Water Tiles with angry red Swords/Shields showing that you have No Access to those Water Tiles atm.

8. You can tell best how any civilization is going to vote in the World Congress/UN through placing a Diplomat in their Capitol. This allows you to both gauge where they stand and possibly negotiate to buy some of their Votes or Sell some of your votes. The reason you only see 4 Committed is that is the maximum number that can be Bought/Sold to keep the mechanic balanced. Furthermore, you can often mouse over the Proposition at Hand and see a General breakdown of how the Vote will go, but there are no promises other than Bought/Sold Votes ultimately.

13. The AI does in fact build Archaeologist, and in fact it tends to spam them more than necessary. Some people have reported that long after all Antiquity Sites have been accessed some AI’s are still building Archaeologists for some odd reason. This is likely due to an odd interaction of an AI’s XML Flavoring interacting with Archaeologist Building priority.

14. How Diplomacy works is a big question, but I will try to hit the high notes for you. AI’s determine their Diplomatic Relationship based upon the Flavor Value of their Civilization. Warmongers like Shaka(Zulu) and Alexander(Greece) for example, don’t mind if you have considerable Warmonger penalties. Conversely, Wonder-spammers like Ramses(Egypt) and Ahmad(Morocco) get more upset if you Warmonger AND OR you Wonder-spam better than them. The trick in Civilization 5 is to understand each AI’s Diplomatic Flavor and to adapt your play accordingly. Common mistakes in upsetting the AI include: Forward settling them (or especially a Warmongers Capital!), building cities too efficiently (they say too aggressively), and Settling in very nice areas (they covet your lands.) Put bluntly, Civilization 5 Diplomacy is designed to make it very difficult not to upset one AI or another. Truthfully (especially after choosing an Ideology) you are really drawing up your battle lines with Diplomacy.

16. The AI determines Peace Trade Terms/General Demand and Trade Terms based upon how much they are Not Upset with how you are playing the game. As you increase the game difficulty, AI’s become far less likely to offer favorable Peace Trade Terms in order to prevent steamroller Domination victories from aggressive Warmonger Players.

20. I believe that Destroyers have a hidden percentage chance to Intercept, but I find that a Carrier with 2-4 Fighters is far more effective at Interception as they can be promoted to excel in that role.

22. For Venice the primary point of using Great Merchants of Venice to purchase City States is to expand your Empire in order to increase the range of your Trade Routes to make much more Gold. It is also a good strategy used to weaken AI’s like Greece, Siam, and Austria that depend heavily on CS Allies. Since Venice can purchase buildings in Puppets, they can guide production in Puppets which gives them an advantage over other AI’s that have far less control over CS’es, even when compared to Austria.

For Austria the primary point of Diplomatic Marriage is to expand your territory via Diplomacy and Gold without incurring Warmonger Penalties or damaging your relationships with other CS’s worldwide. Like Venice above, this strategy also serves to undermine AI’s like Greece, Siam, and Austria that depend heavily on CS Allies.

25. The easiest way to find a Resource is to open the Menu where you can bring up The Hex Grid and other Map Features and select Show Resources. Then, in the case of uranium look for the distinctive yellow and black symbol while scrolling around the Map. Of course, when a Resource Detecting Technology is discovered the UI tells you if you have any in your Borders at that time.

 

[joncnunn]

1. How can you view (or at least get an idea of) another civ's stats...such as research, economy, happiness, etc?

Demographic screen. If the AI has adopted an ideology, you can see exact happiness on the tourism screen -> cultural victory tab.
If the AI has a city within trade range of any of your cities you can see exact number of techs they have that you don't and vice versa on the trade route screen -> available tab

2. What affects how your content your people are with your current ideology? Once, i was getting dissidents because Germany had the dominant ideology, but after a short war with Germany, my people were suddenly content. I didnt even take any of his cities!

Similarly what decides the dominant ideology and how do you see the ideology happiness for the other civs?

That's how many "torches" each ideology has over you. Which is based on how many levels more influence they have over you than you do over them.
These are add up.
There is a world council resolution that can adopt a world ideology which adds 2 torches towards that one. AIs following it already will generally vote for it, those following some other ideology will generally vote against it.

3. Why do civs generate so much more gold than city states? It makes trade routes with city states pointless, especially for civs that have bonuses for trading with city states or lots of different civs at once (e.g. morroco). For that matter, how is trade route gold income calculated, if i mouse over the details panel, it says a particular city has a gold per turn value which gets bonuses from different resources. But the gold per turn value is obviously inaccurate, because i have a city making 270+ gold now but thats not reflected in the trade route details panel....

It's mostly that city state sizes stay small compared to major AI cities.
Germany's UB gives them an incentive to use city states routes and in addition Freedom has a level 3 tenet that gives influence per turn from trade routes with city states.

4. Is there any way to cancel a current trade route, or make it auto repeat instead of having to manually repeat it everytime? Similarly, can i get a trade to repeat automatically (e.g. cotton for sugar) instead of having to keep going back to the AI every 30 turns after it expires?

Nope, trade routes can't be canceled, if planing a war plan accordingly.
The interface will tell you what the most recent route was, but it's good idea to make sure relationship with the AI hasn't soured and also check to see if there's a better route now possible.
The AI sometimes calls up trade renewals the moment they expire on its own turn. It can also do this if it lapsed though and give false values for the luxuries you both have.

5. Is there a way to disable great prophet spawning in early eras, to save up faith?

Nope. Other than buy a missionary / inquisitor / religious building right before a GP would have spawned.

6. Maybe im missing something, but i cant seem to use carriers effectively because after a single air raid on a city, my bombers need to spend several turns repairing, whereas with battleships i can just fire every turn. How do i get my bombers to repair faster? I can only seem to get them to engage enemy units, and even that gets slowed down by enemy AA, whereas with battleships i can just fire forever...

For city bombardment use real bombers instead of Great War bombers. Build them on a city with a military academy (and the required prereqs) so they start with 45 XP.
There actually is a promotion that gives air repair.
If the AI has things that could intercept bombers, use fighters to clear.

7. Can submarines blockade coastal cities (deny use of coastal tiles) and if yes, how do you tell which tiles are being affected?

Yes. Go to city view, it's quite visible there when a water tile can't be worked due to nearby unit there.

8. I cant figure out how to tell how another civ wants to vote in world congress, even with a diplomat. E.G. Arabia has 4 delegates and i have a diplomat, my diplomat tells me that Arabia wants to vote Yea on both proposals, but it just tells me (4) for both proposals...without telling me the exact spread of delegates. Is this normal?

Yes. If you have both a diplomat present in their city and share an ideology, you'll get more detail (strong yes, weak yes)

9. How do i get civ A to attack civ B? The discuss panel only has the option of having BOTH of you go to war, and i want only Civ A to attack Civ B without me getting involved.

You don't, removed due to massive human abuse over the poor AI

10. How do i trade maps with an ally (please tell me there is a mod for this)

You don't. It was removed to kill a free gold source to the human.

11. I have had a spy in my capital since the start of the renaissance era but my techs keep getting stolen even with max police buildings, why cant my spy catch the enemy spies? And when i try to steal enemy techs, i get told they need something ridiculous, like 100+ turns, and my spy usually gets caught first....whats going on?

The primary factor is that city's science production. Your own city has a high science production and so is vulnerable. That particular AI has a low science rate in that city. Note that the formula punishes tall much more than wide.

12. What is the point of land trade routes when sea trade routes are so much more profitable (other than to reach a landlocked city that you want to spread religion to obviously)

There's not.

13. The AI doesnt seem to care about archaelogists, even though they are in the modern era or beyond, is this a bug?

Flavor driven like everything else AI related. Some AIs will spawn them like there's no tomorrow, others will ignore. Also note that some AIs will bypass that tech getting to the modern era.

14. How does diplomacy work, because AIs just seem to randomly love and hate you, and no amount of bribing seems to help?

AI forgets its been bribed, so that doesn't work. However it's not random. However, it has little memory and circumstances can change every turn.
Establish an embassy which is a small positive modifier.
Not having contested borders is another positive modifier.
Then there a host of things to avoid doing since that give negative modifiers. (Such as being mean to city states)
Propose a resolution that when you hover over says they want is a great way to improve relations. World projects are always popular.

15. Why does the AI demand i give him more in exchange for a research agreement, when hes the one with lower tech and who would benefit more?

Because that's how it was coded. Just wait for the AI to catch up to your era.

16. Why does the AI refuse to give into my demands or refuse to give me even trades when i have this massive military force that could easily obliterate him?

Because that's how its coded to avoid the abuse of human demanding something and then DOWing them the same turn.

17, Is there a special bonus for getting all tenents in an ideology, similar to getting all policies in a particular tree?

Nope. In fact most of the level 3 tenets are highly specific to one form of victory are are worthless when not seeking that one.

18. Is there a way to disable great people spawning from a particular city or a particular type of great people from spawning (e.g. if you want to spawn only great writers and nothing else)?

Not entirely, but guild based great people are on their own counters anyway. In addition you could spread out the guilds.
And if you simply don't run merchant specialists you'll avoid unwanted Great Merchants, which is on a shared counter with GE & GS.

19. I was playing as venice once and in the late game, i noticed that i could purchase stuff for my puppeted cities and i also had the option to annex them. No mods were involved. Was this a bug or some kind of feature?

That's part of the Venice UA.

20. Destroyers are supposed to auto intercept incoming aircraft right? How do i get them to do that? Enemy bombers just bomb my battleship one hex away and my destroyers sitting right next to it do nothing...

Percentage chance and automatic.

21. Can someone explain how patronage's cultured diplomacy work, because im not seeing a happiness bonus...and it doesnt seem to increase the amount of resources i can trade with either (in the diplomacy screens). Similarly for the Portugse Feitoria.

Resources and luxuries you have via city states can't be traded. You can only trade ones you have local control of. You still get the use of the resources for units & buildings.
Hover over happiness and you'll see luxuries provided by city states giving more happiness if you have that policy.

22. What is the point of buying or puppetting a city state with Austria/Venice's special abilities? Isnt it better to leave CSes alive so you can get their votes and also for their unique bonuses? Unless its a militaristic CS in a REALLY good spot, it just seems way better to have them as an ally...

Austria: It's best used when the influence is down to 60/61 and your about to lose ally status, it's much more effective to give a few hundred gold now to marry to keep them forever than having to re-up the deal.

Venice: Part of the UA is the inability to found settlers, so buying city states is the only way to expand other than conquest. In addition, this works even if the city influence is currently 0.

In both cases, removing a city state reduces the vote count needed to win a diplomatic victory by 1.

23. Does an annexed city with a courthouse generate the same amount of unhappiness as a puppet city?

Yes, unless you have the Autocracy tenet that gives an additional happiness bonus for courthouses.

24. How do you get a AI to move his units so you can move past? Especially for CSes blocking archaelogical sites...

You don't, and the AI may actually protecting it for it's own archaeologist on route.

25. Is there a way to zoom in on a particular resource type in your borders? E.G. Newly discovered sources of uranium

New resources within your borders is on the right. Just click that icon.

26. International games and world fair is only a once per game thing right?

Yes, but the host of each gets several turns of benefits out of each.

27. I cant seem to generate enough great writers in my games to fill all my great writing slots, compounded by the fact that i can only allocate two specialists to great writing in my entire empire. Am i missing something here?

That's normal.

 

[Question]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Diplomacy wise it just feels too random.

For example lets say i play pacifist and i dont step on anyone's toes. Some guy will just randomly denounce me and it just goes downhill from there. If i take out the enemy civ that keeps attacking me? Im labeled a warmonger. Meanwhile nobody cares that a particular civ keeps declaring war on everyone else.

One time i had a great game in which i teamed up with germany to take down shonsons (or rather i did almost all the work since germany just kept shuffling his huge army around but refused to go near the defenceless enemy cities...). I leave him alive with a single city and settle it with a peace deal.

What happens? Germany denounces me and calls me a warmonger. Even though he was the one who asked me to declare war in the first place.

In another game i ally with washington and everything goes well until suddenly he thinks its a great idea to try to backstab me even though i keep giving him free stuff. To top it off, he cant take out Rome despite having a massive tech lead...he had riflemen vs muskets but ended up sueing for peace a few turns into the war, wtf?

Venice askes me to declare war on greece, and since greece always ends up being an annoying warmonger, i agree and take him out. Then venice calls me a warmonger...also Siam hates me now for killing Greece, but not Venice even though Venice was in the same war with me.

Another civ keeps spamming missionaries at my cities (seriously how do they get all that faith to spam missionaries?), nobody cares, but i do the same to him and everyone suddenly starts denouncing me.

Another civ wants to make HIS religion the world religion, nobody cares, but i do that and more than half the civs in the game suddenly hate me, and theres still 5 religions in the game.

I have a massive military, just beat a AI in a war, and want open borders to take a archealogical site...i get told no. So when can you actually successfully demand something?

Also i encountered a funny situation in which i was trying to save my ally, but i wasnt allowed to enter his lands without triggering war to save him, and this was before either of us had civil service for open border treaties. That just seems really stupid to me.

 

[DarkestOnion]

A few thoughts on your thoughts...

The AI does not 'Randomly Denounce' it looks at your behaviors. Then the AI checks which of your behaviors negatively impact it's goals. After that it weighs how other AI's have/are currently Denouncing you. Random seeming Denouncements usually stem from a Player not realizing how they are upsetting an AI.

If you are DoW'ed and do not want a Warmonger Penalty just defend your borders and kill units. A peaceful Leader should not respond to what they feel is Unprovoked Aggression with Counter-Aggression. To do so does in fact make you a Warmonger imho.

Think about your Germany example as if you were playing Germany. An AI attacks you and leaves you a single Crap City and an Ugly Peace Deal. Do you spend the rest of the game cowering in the corner or do you build up an Army and try to liberate your Cities? Would you be Friendly to an AI who did this to you? Seen from this perspective, the AI's behavior may make more sense. (Side note: Privately staging a War while public-ally condemning that War is a time honored real life Ugly Practice of covering all your bases, but I digress.)

In the case of Washington it sounds like he was being Diplomatically Deceptive with you. You should have been getting messages that Washington is Plotting Against You prior to a Denunciation or a DoW. As a general rule it is best to keep a large enough Army that AI's can plot their heads off, but when they count your troop strength they are too afraid to DoW you.

Wars in Civ 5 can be about many things. Sometimes it is about conquering cities. Sometimes it is about rallying Worldwide Politics to see your an Aggressive AI as a Warmonger. Sometimes it is about DoW'ing someone with no intention of attacking to show Support for your Ally AI's. From your descriptions it seems that you see War only as an exchange of Cities when it can be so much more.

As to Religion take a moment and decide whether you want an Intruding Religion. Sometimes I let the AI found a Good Religion and happily become his Brother in Faith to foster Peaceful Relations. It means that I do not have to Found my own Religion which can free up time to do lots of other things in the Early Game. However if you truly do not want the Intruding Religion then I suggest the following measures.

Do not give them Open Borders. If they do not have Open Borders their Missionaries and Great Prophets suffer Attrition Damage in your Borders. Maneuver your Units to block their pathways to your Cities wherever and whenever possible so that they take additional Attrition Damage. Send Inquistors to cleanse your Cities. Send Missionaries and Great Prophets into their Borders to turn the tide of Religious Pressure. If all of those fail, then Demand that they stop Spreading Their Religion. The next step is to Denounce Them and look for other AI's who you can pay to DoW them. As a last resort, DoW them and kill all of their Religious Units and then sue for Peace on your terms.

As to a World Religion, any AI that is not you religion is going to hate your proposal obviously. Consider not proposing a World Religion unless you have spread it far and wide and know which AI's are going to be cranky if you force a World Religion on them.

As to why an AI won't give you Open Borders after you fought a War with them so you can steal their Cultural Heritage with an Archaeologist are you kidding me? As to when you can Demand things from an AI: the simple answer is at Lower Difficulty Levels when you could take what you want just as easily.

As to not being able to help an Ally within his borders, all you need is Open Borders. Declarations of Friendship and Defensive Pacts do not allow you into their territory. Engaging in a multinational war prior to Civil Service is an extremely unusual situation. I might suggest waiting until you have Open Borders with a potential Ally before DoW'ing in the future.

 

[Browd]

Agree with all of this, except Great Prophets taking attrition -- missionaries will take attrition without open borders, but Great Prophets will not.

You also can park an inquisitor in your city (more precisely, in the city center tile or in one of the 6 tiles immediately adjacent to the city center) to deter missionaries and great prophets from manually converting that city. If multiple cities are being targeted, put the inquisitor on a road and shuttle him from city to city as needed.

 

[linaker]

Diplomacy wise it just feels too random.

For example lets say i play pacifist and i dont step on anyone's toes. Some guy will just randomly denounce me and it just goes downhill from there.

The diplomacy is not random; there is a logic to it, but admittedly it results in things happening that don't seem to make much sense, if you don't fully understand what's going on. Certain actions will cause AIs to look more favourably/negatively on you. They don't randomly denounce you. You will have done one or more things to annoy them, like beating them to a wonder they were building.

You don't even have to do something bad to a particular civ. If you declare friendship with civ A; if civ B regards civ A as an enemy, that could result in civ B denouncing you. Once civ B denounces you, then other civs get plus diplo points with civ B for denouncing you. So civs wanting to be in civ B's good books can denounce you, despite you having done nothing to them. It looks random, but it actually is not.

If i take out the enemy civ that keeps attacking me? Im labeled a warmonger. Meanwhile nobody cares that a particular civ keeps declaring war on everyone else.

There is no concept of fairness in diplomacy. Do you care if Spain and France are at war? Well not really, unless it affects you. If France takes out Spain, do you think "that's excellent because Spain started the war", or do you think "uh oh, Napolean's on my borders and he's got 10 cities. Maybe I should be building my defences...". Its the same with the civs. Each time you take a city you become more powerful and other civs will note that and give you a diplomatic penalty. Taking out an entire civ means other civs have one less civ to trade with, sign RAs with etc and will get you a big penalty.

If civ A declares war on civ B, civ B will give civ A a diplomatic penalty, so they do care. But that might not be enough to change anything diplomatically, if its a phoney war and no cities are taken.

One time i had a great game in which i teamed up with germany to take down shonsons (or rather i did almost all the work since germany just kept shuffling his huge army around but refused to go near the defenceless enemy cities...). I leave him alive with a single city and settle it with a peace deal.

What happens? Germany denounces me and calls me a warmonger. Even though he was the one who asked me to declare war in the first place.

As mentioned before, you get a diplomatic penalty for declaring war (DoW) on a civ. I believe that if you and another civ declare war on a third civ, the DoW penalty is halved, though I'm not sure about that. What is true, is that you won't get any penalty from Germany for DoW'ing and you will get positive diplo points with Germany for being at war with the same enemy. So, civs that invite you to DoW on another civ that you wanted to attack are actually doing you a favour.

However, as mentioned above if you conquer cities you become more powerful and a greater threat. What happened is that the diplo penalties you got from Germany for taking the Shoshone cities got bigger than the plus points for being at war together and passed the threshold at which Germany considered you a warmonger. Basically if you are successful at conducting wars and conquer a lot of cities, you will be labelled a warmonger. Inept civs that couldn't conquer a dolls' house with the door open won't.

If you want to avoid being a warmonger, then resist those tempting invitations to war. Or if you do accept, just do a Germany and move your army around, killing a few enemy units that are unfortunate enough to stray into your path, but don't conquer any cities. (Well 1 or 2 might be OK). Or weaken the enemy civ by reducing his city defences almost to zero but let your war partner conquer the city (although some won't take a defenceless city when they have a melee unit right beside it). Or conquer a couple of cities, help your war partner to conquer some, so you convince the enemy civ he's losing badly and he offers you one or more of his cities in a peace deal. (You don't get a diplo penalty if cites are gifted to you).

Alternatively, you could conquer the enemy civs cities and gift some or all of them to your war partner and/or other civs that you want to be friendly with. I've not tried this though, so I don't know if the diplo boost from gifting the cites would outweigh the penalty for conquering them.

 

[beetle]

Great list of questions and answers!

7. Submarines can Naval Blockade Harbor City Connections if placed in every Coastal Tile that would allow Trade Access to the Capitol.

Do you need a unit literally in every tile or is there some kind of ZoC? I certainly would not want to risk parking a sub next to city! A single sub can stop several water tiles from being worked (I am not sure of the range), but I guess it does not stop trade routes?

20. Destroyers are supposed to auto intercept incoming aircraft right? How do i get them to do that? Enemy bombers just bomb my battleship one hex away and my destroyers sitting right next to it do nothing...

Destroyers only get one intercept per turn, so (with the way the AI spams units) if you want to use them to screen battleships, you will need a bunch. The good news is that the AI does not let bombers rest to heal, and so will use them up relatively quickly. if you survive the first several turns, they will all be gone.

Diplomacy wise it just feels too random.

As others wrote, it is not really random. Once you accept and understand that it's very one-sided and not fair, you can make sense out of it, and it's becomes predictable (but still not really fair).

For example lets say i play pacifist and i dont step on anyone's toes. Some guy will just randomly denounce me...

Happens every game. Working as designed. Out-of-the-blue denouncements can be expected just because you are winning! On their own, these seemingly random denouncements carry little weight with the other AIs. Things go downhill because of your follow-up actions.

...and it just goes downhill from there. If i take out the enemy civ that keeps attacking me? Im labeled a warmonger.

You get a warmonger tag from initiating more than one DoW and taking cities. Those are separate factors. Taking cities earns you warmonger hate. The fact that you were DoWed does not matter at all.

Meanwhile nobody cares that a particular civ keeps declaring war on everyone else.

They care, it's just that the effects are less severe, and hard for the player to track. The AIs certainly do seem to hold the player to higher expectations than they do other AIs. Again, not fair, but working as designed.

One time i had a great game in which i teamed up with germany to take down shonsons... I leave him alive with a single city and settle it with a peace deal. What happens? Germany denounces me and calls me a warmonger. Even though he was the one who asked me to declare war in the first place.

Again, working as designed. Your warmonger score is not lowered by being asked to DoW (versus initiating a DoW out of the blue), not even with the civ that made the request. Your warmonger score for conquering cities is independent of being in a mutual war, even with the civ that made the request.

 

[Question]

Diplomacy : How am i supposed to know what the AI's goals are if they wont tell me? There is no indicator ingame i can find that says what the AI goals are. How can you possibly avoid upsetting an AI if you dont know what they like or dislike?

If you are DoW'ed and do not want a Warmonger Penalty just defend your borders and kill units. A peaceful Leader should not respond to what they feel is Unprovoked Aggression with Counter-Aggression. To do so does in fact make you a Warmonger imho.

Its widely accepted that you need to attack or the enemy will just keep attacking you forever. When the allies won WW2, they werent considered warmongers were they?

Germany : In this case it was me + germany vs shoshone, and germany asked me to declare war with him in the first place. It makes no sense to denounce me afterwards.

Washington : Except that Washington had no chance of winning a war with me because i was massively ahead in terms of military and score. So it didnt make sense for him to try and backstab me then sue for peace less than 10 turns later which was what happened when his attacking units got wiped out. Think of present day Canada trying to backstab America. Does that make sense?

Not being able to go into an ally's lands to help him is really silly IMHO. Think about it...real life civs were never stopped from doing that before the medieval age. The very idea is silly. Open border treaties should come much quicker, ancient civilizations could and did give permission to other civilizations to enter their lands.

The point of demanding things is that you can force a civ to give you what you want in exchange for not getting destroyed. Im not sure why everyone thinks that its an option that shouldnt exist or should not be successful. Historically it was used all the time. It doesnt make sense for an AI to commit suicide...

However, as mentioned above if you conquer cities you become more powerful and a greater threat. What happened is that the diplo penalties you got from Germany for taking the Shoshone cities got bigger than the plus points for being at war together and passed the threshold at which Germany considered you a warmonger. Basically if you are successful at conducting wars and conquer a lot of cities, you will be labelled a warmonger. Inept civs that couldn't conquer a dolls' house with the door open won't.

I think thats poorly designed. Which is a real warmonger : a civ that keeps trying to conquer another civ, failing, then sueing for peace, only to start it all over again every few years....or a civ that defends itself from attacks but takes cities in the process? Does the diplomacy model even take into account peace deals where you give conquered cities back? Using the civ 5 diplomacy model, most of the world should hate the countries that won the world wars, which makes no sense at all. Is there any detailed guide to what the diplomacy modifiers are or a mod that makes it more realistic? How do you even mod the diplomacy modifiers?

AI : I dont understand why the AI keeps declaring wars, fighting for a couple of turns then giving up. In one game i gave Germany more than a dozen advanced units which were one era better than Ethopia and paid him tons of gold to attack Ethopia. he spent most of the time moving the units around in his borders and didnt even end up hurting the enemy city a few tiles away before sueing for peace. Ethopia had almost no units at the start of the war, just garrisons, and Germany couldnt even take a single city?

Religion : Why do holy cities keep coming back?! See the save game : I have all of Byzantine's cities converted to my religion. I neutralized their holy city with a great prophet a while back, but the very next turn, the holy city status comes back. Hit end turn and see it for yourself. Im not sure if this is the correct save file but it should be turn 350 for Venice.

Is there any way to liberate a city that you own, where they go back to the original owner (e.g. city state)?

Why do i keep getitng the annex/leave as puppet/view city popup randomly as venice, when i click on cities? It doenst happen all the time, it happens randomly...

Edit : Is there a way to move population from one city to another?

I noticed that when you bribe an AI for wrold congress support, their bonus delegates from city states, etc are not counted AND they can vote both yea and nay on the same proposal, which you cant do...bug?

 

[beetle]

Taking a stab at these...

Diplomacy : How am i supposed to know what the AI's goals are if they wont tell me? There is no indicator ingame i can find that says what the AI goals are. How can you possibly avoid upsetting an AI if you dont know what they like or dislike?

There is a nice flavor spreadsheet floating around, but IMHO the AI pretty much all behave the same. I think you may be looking for nuance that just isn't there.

Its widely accepted that you need to attack or the enemy will just keep attacking you forever.

You can attack the enemy without warmonger penalty, just don't take cities. The AI will sue for peace when you kill most of his units and pillage his territories. Also, a perma war is not a bad thing, as your units get lots of XP.

When the allies won WW2, they werent considered warmongers were they?

Lots of difference between RL and games, but the allies didn't keep cities.

Germany : In this case it was me + germany vs shoshone, and germany asked me to declare war with him in the first place. It makes no sense to denounce me afterwards.

It makes perfect sense. What if the U.S. had occupied and tried to kept Germany and Japan as New East and West California? You don't think former allies would have ended up denouncing the U.S.?

Washington : Except that Washington had no chance of winning a war with me because i was massively ahead in terms of military and score. So it didnt make sense for him to try and backstab me then sue for peace less than 10 turns later which was what happened when his attacking units got wiped out. Think of present day Canada trying to backstab America. Does that make sense?

Agreed, some of the AI behavior is very disappointing. I would be surprised if it was less than 10 turns (and not exactly 10 turns). The AI personalities are quite subservient to hard-coded conditions that invoke treachery. Coupled with the AI inability to accurately estimate war odds, the results are often pathetic.

Not being able to go into an ally's lands to help him is really silly IMHO. Think about it...real life civs were never stopped from doing that before the medieval age. The very idea is silly. Open border treaties should come much quicker, ancient civilizations could and did give permission to other civilizations to enter their lands.

This is not silly IMHO. Civil Service is pretty early in the tech tree. And yes, I think it is reasonable for a sovereign empire (early or late game) to see an uninvited roving army as enemy invaders. In terms of game play, what you have to do is let a city fall and then liberate it.

The point of demanding things is that you can force a civ to give you what you want in exchange for not getting destroyed. Im not sure why everyone thinks that its an option that shouldnt exist or should not be successful. Historically it was used all the time. It doesnt make sense for an AI to commit suicide...

I understand the developers not wanting to make this an easy exploit, but it does seem to me that the game mechanic could/should be improved. Specifically IMHO a demand should preclude a DoW for 30-50 turns. Also, IMHO defense pact wars should have to last more than 10 turns.

I think thats poorly designed. Which is a real warmonger : a civ that keeps trying to conquer another civ, failing, then sueing for peace, only to start it all over again every few years....or a civ that defends itself from attacks but takes cities in the process?

I think it works okay. Both are distinct and different types of warmongering. The AIs do hate other AIs that warmonger.

Does the diplomacy model even take into account peace deals where you give conquered cities back?

No, not at all. Tricky to implement I suppose.

Using the civ 5 diplomacy model, most of the world should hate the countries that won the world wars, which makes no sense at all.

For WWII, in game terms, Paris was conquered by Germany and then liberated by the Allied forces. In games terms, Japanese and German cities were reduced to zero health but never conquered. The partitioning of Germany is quite outside the scope of game mechanics.

Is there any detailed guide to what the diplomacy modifiers are or a mod that makes it more realistic? How do you even mod the diplomacy modifiers?

Others may be able to help with this bit.

AI : I dont understand why the AI keeps declaring wars, fighting for a couple of turns then giving up. In one game i gave Germany more than a dozen advanced units which were one era better than Ethopia and paid him tons of gold to attack Ethopia. he spent most of the time moving the units around in his borders and didnt even end up hurting the enemy city a few tiles away before sueing for peace. Ethopia had almost no units at the start of the war, just garrisons, and Germany couldnt even take a single city?

Yeah, its disappointing. I keep hoping to learn better tips for this. Gifting units just seems like a waste.

Religion : Why do holy cities keep coming back?! See the save game : I have all of Byzantine's cities converted to my religion. I neutralized their holy city with a great prophet a while back, but the very next turn, the holy city status comes back. Hit end turn and see it for yourself. Im not sure if this is the correct save file but it should be turn 350 for Venice.

You have to hit holy cities with an inquisitor. GP are great for other puppets, but holy cities keep their founder status until bombed by an inquisitor.

Is there any way to liberate a city that you own, where they go back to the original owner (e.g. city state)?

Nope. The closest is to let it fall in war or gift it to an opponent you don't mind DoWing, then liberate it when you take it back. Better not to conquer it in the first place.

Why do i keep getitng the annex/leave as puppet/view city popup randomly as venice, when i click on cities? It doenst happen all the time, it happens randomly...

Not sure about Venice, and it being random, but that prompt is the usual default behavior when you click on a puppet.

Edit : Is there a way to move population from one city to another?

No.

I noticed that when you bribe an AI for wrold congress support, their bonus delegates from city states, etc are not counted AND they can vote both yea and nay on the same proposal, which you cant do...bug?

Not really a bug, but quite annoying. I wish I could split my vote for world leader. That would sometimes let me control the runner up.

 

[DarkestOnion]

Diplomacy : How am i supposed to know what the AI's goals are if they wont tell me? There is no indicator ingame i can find that says what the AI goals are. How can you possibly avoid upsetting an AI if you dont know what they like or dislike?

By learning the how the AI Behaves through hundreds of hours of play, reading Diplomacy Guides, and asking questions/having discussions here on Civfantics.

Its widely accepted that you need to attack or the enemy will just keep attacking you forever. When the allies won WW2, they werent considered warmongers were they?

Hate to burst your bubble, but many did think of the Allies as Warmongers back then, and many still do to this day. However the Forum Rules make my shy away from this IRL Topic unfortunately.

Germany : In this case it was me + germany vs shoshone, and germany asked me to declare war with him in the first place. It makes no sense to denounce me afterwards.

Denunciations are announcements that you are a mean player who takes cities. You can either learn to avoid/manage AI Diplomacy, or you can complain about them as being unfair. In my experience victimizing isn't a tool for improving your play, but if that is what you wish to do we can discuss how 'the game isn't fair because my negative actions should not have negative consequences.'

Washington : Except that Washington had no chance of winning a war with me because i was massively ahead in terms of military and score. So it didn't make sense for him to try and back-stab me then sue for peace less than 10 turns later which was what happened when his attacking units got wiped out. Think of present day Canada trying to back-stab America. Does that make sense?

The AI does not have the same Intelligence as a Player. It makes far less complex decisions that do not reflect 'a calculation of whether it can outmaneuver/outfight a Player. It looks at Your Actions and comes as you because it wants it's Cities back. Perhaps more importantly though, you must remember this is a game with abstract concepts that does not always reflect Real Life. As such there may be some strange disparities. For examples, have you noticed there are no Waterfalls, Canyons, or Natural Disaster in Civ 5?

Not being able to go into an Ally's lands to help him is really silly IMHO. Think about it...real life Civs were never stopped from doing that before the medieval age. The very idea is silly. Open border treaties should come much quicker, ancient civilizations could and did give permission to other civilizations to enter their lands.

Again this is an Abstracted Game, not a Real Life Historical Simulator. The reason for Open Borders being required is to create a Game Mechanic for the Player to adapt to and work with rather. I suspect that the real heart of your problem is the fact that you Anger AI's so early that they won't give you Open Borders (and you may be going to War way too early as well).

The point of demanding things is that you can force a civ to give you what you want in exchange for not getting destroyed. Im not sure why everyone thinks that its an option that shouldnt exist or should not be successful. Historically it was used all the time. It doesnt make sense for an AI to commit suicide...

While I acknowledge that the point of making Demands is; to you, bullying the AI who should just lie down and give you what you want...I argue that this is not how the AI thinks of Demands. Put yourself in the AI's shoes for a minute, would you just sit back and give a Runaway Civ everything they Demanded or would you eventually launch a desperate attack to regain your homeland?

I think thats poorly designed. Which is a real warmonger : a civ that keeps trying to conquer another civ, failing, then sueing for peace, only to start it all over again every few years....or a civ that defends itself from attacks but takes cities in the process? Does the diplomacy model even take into account peace deals where you give conquered cities back? Using the civ 5 diplomacy model, most of the world should hate the countries that won the world wars, which makes no sense at all. Is there any detailed guide to what the diplomacy modifiers are or a mod that makes it more realistic? How do you even mod the diplomacy modifiers?

Warmongers take Cities, and that is a very simple equation. The Civs that take the most Cities are the biggest Warmongers according to Civ 5 AI Diplomacy. There is no differentiation of 'she started it Mom!' and 'well he finished Dad!' in Civ 5. AS to taking a city and then giving it back to the AI you just took it from...why would you take a Warmonger Penalty/Diplomacy Hit like that?

As to people hating the Allies for wining the World Wars, as above there are a lot of people who still harbor such thoughts, but again the Forum Rules limit Real Life discussions that tend to boil over into rants/hurt feelings so we must let that alone.

There are a few Mods in the Steam Workshop that claim to make 'Smarter AI' but you will find that the creators of those Mods often 'fix' things that you might not agree were broken and make the AI very unpredictable. The Diplomacy can be modified through XML and SQL Editing via an application like ModBuddy if you would like to look into 'Fixing the AI to your preferences.'

AI : I don't understand why the AI keeps declaring wars, fighting for a couple of turns then giving up. In one game i gave Germany more than a dozen advanced units which were one era better than Ethopia and paid him tons of gold to attack Ethiopia. he spent most of the time moving the units around in his borders and didn't even end up hurting the enemy city a few tiles away before suing for peace. Ethiopia had almost no units at the start of the war, just garrisons, and Germany couldn't even take a single city?

Again, you seem to be expecting Human Intelligence in an AI, and that is currently an unrealistic expectation. However, I encourage you to devise Better AI through Modding, and let us see what you can do to make things more interesting.

Religion : Why do holy cities keep coming back?! See the save game : I have all of Byzantine's cities converted to my religion. I neutralized their holy city with a great prophet a while back, but the very next turn, the holy city status comes back. Hit end turn and see it for yourself. I'm not sure if this is the correct save file but it should be turn 350 for Venice.

Real world thought for a moment: Why didn't Jerusalem just pick a new Permanent Religion every time it was sacked historically? The answer is that a Religion persists historically no matter how inconvenient that is in Civ 5. In Civ 5 you cannot just stamp out a Holy City (because you cannot raise Capitols). This seems to be an intentional Design Feature to prevent Holy Wars which Firaxis is a bit too politically shy to model in their increasingly politically correct games.

Is there any way to liberate a city that you own, where they go back to the original owner (e.g. city state)?

I am unsure, as I tend not to conquer CS's in the first place as they are valuable Allies. I do know that upon conquering a CS taken by another Civ, that you can Liberate that CS in order to make a virtually lifelong CS Ally though.

Why do i keep getting the annex/leave as puppet/view city popup randomly as Venice, when i click on cities? It doesn't happen all the time, it happens randomly...

If you click on a Puppet City as Venice you should not be getting such screens. I have never seen that behavior from Civ 5, but I would recommend a re-install or Turing Off Your Mods and seeing if it stops.

Is there a way to move population from one city to another?

No. However you can use Caravans and Cargo Ships to Create More Food Output between any two Cities in your Empire that both have Granaries. This is not taken form City A (Source) and given to City B (Destination) however. It is is just +X Food Output to City B.

I noticed that when you bribe an AI for World Congress support, their bonus delegates from city states, etc are not counted AND they can vote both yea and nay on the same proposal, which you cant do...bug?

This is an intended Feature. When you purchase AI Votes you get only a portion of their Votes (4). They are then free to Vote Their Conscience with any Votes they have not Sold. If you wish to Split Your Player Vote, then offer to Sell some of Your Votes YEA and some of them NAY prior to the Vote.

 

[joncnunn]

For WWII, in game terms, Paris was conquered by Germany and then liberated by the Allied forces. In games terms, Japanese and German cities were reduced to zero health but never conquered. The partitioning of Germany is quite outside the scope of game mechanics.

No, in game terms German cities were in fact captured and puppets were set in.
Now the game doesn't have a mechanic for how integrated US & UK forces were nor the splitting of Berlin into four sectors.

The western allies though had in game terms gotten extreme liberation bonus for bringing the French civ back into the game and liberating all their cities prior to capturing German cities.

In case of the war with the Pacific Theater, that is mostly US liberating areas combined with recapturing a few US pre war possessions that Japan captured, but towards the end of the war, the US captured some territory that Japan had control over before the 1930s. Again, in game terms the US had earlier built up enough liberation bonuses to cover it.

The game also can't handle Italy in 1943 well either. US had captured Sicily, but Italy was surrendering as the forces landed landed on Italy itself while the German army was moving in to fight the allies.

 

[Question]

For trade route gold :

The total Gold output of the origin city and the destination city - 5% of the Gold output of each city; does not include revenue from other trade routes

According to the link posted earlier, if the total gold output is, say, 100 (not including trade revenue), then i should be getting 90 gold for the trade route? That cant be right...

When trading to the AI, do diplomacy modifiers depend on how much is traded away? E.G. Does 1000 gold give more of a modifier compared to 100 gold?

Is there a way to see which civs want which resources? Its getting reallly annoying going into each individual leader's screen just to check.