Haven't played in 4 months.

[radiohodet]

The diplomacy in Civ V is a joke compared to even the call to power series.

Its so simple, bland and empty compared to other Civ games.



Is it heck possible to play Civ V peacefully, the AI constantly declares war on you, yet its incredibly simple to beat.

In Civ IV you could easily get through a whole game without ever getting into war by picking peaceful civs as opponents.

The AI is pure dumb and useless in Civ V, though it is still an enjoyable game.

Since you appararently don't understand diplomacy in Civ 5, since it's easy to stay on good terms with the AI, maybe "simple, bland and empty" is too advanced for the Civ 5 haters?

It's way more advanced (although it still isn't good enough IMO) than any other Civ game (especially the -extremely- simple Civ 4 diplomacy), something which tons of ridiculous comments from people who obviously have never even tried to figure it out, clearly proves.

The AI isn't any better in Civ4 either, although a lot of people like to pretend it is.

Moderator Action: And I already asked everyone to stay civil - you failed at that.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[chazzycat]

It's possible to avoid war the entire game, even with ZERO military. I played an OCC culture game where I built no military units the entire game and won (on emperor). All I did was make friends with a couple of warmongers on my contintent that were far away from me and did not covet my land. Any time someone else declared war on me, I would bribe the warmongers to attack them and no units would ever reach my city limits. I don't think that would have been possible in previous civ games diplomacy systems.

It is very easy to get on the AI's wrong side if you are playing even slightly dickish. Little things like clicking the wrong response (polite vs "go F yourself") can hurt you. Giving the polite answer but then ignoring their request is WORSE than the rude answer. If they stay stop settling cities near me, your better off saying "bugger off" if you plan on continuing to expand in their direction. The leaders actually appreciate honesty, and loyalty too. If you make a declaration of friendship with a civ but then refuse their requests, you will be worse off than if you never declared friendship in the first place.

The civs to watch are the ones that covet your land. Those bastards will attack you at every opportunity - nothing you can do will make them your friends. Everyone else is generally easy enough to get along with. To me, this makes perfect sense. It's exactly how a human would play. Has an AI being nice to you ever prevented you from attacking them when you wanted their land? I doubt it. To give them the same sense of aggresiveness is only fair.

 

[learner gamer]

@chazzycat: Thanks for a very concise and informative post. At the risk of going off topic (for which I apologise), how do you view / deal with an AI that "suspects we might be a threat to them"?

 

[cman2010]

Since you appararently don't understand diplomacy in Civ 5, since it's easy to stay on good terms with the AI, maybe "simple, bland and empty" is too advanced for the Civ 5 haters?

It's way more advanced (although it still isn't good enough IMO) than any other Civ game (especially the -extremely- simple Civ 4 diplomacy), something which tons of ridiculous comments from people who obviously have never even tried to figure it out, clearly proves.

The AI isn't any better in Civ4 either, although a lot of people like to pretend it is.

Moderator Action: And I already asked everyone to stay civil - you failed at that.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

the ai in civ 4 was a million times better than the ai in civ 5. I love how some people attemeted to defend the ai in civ5 by saying its playing to win, or it has a random personality. The reality is that there is no dealing with the ai it will never give you a fiar deal even when that deal would benifit the ai.

 

[eric_]

The reality is that there is no dealing with the ai it will never give you a fiar deal even when that deal would benifit the ai.

Perhaps that's *A* reality, but my experience is exactly the opposite of what you describe. I regularly maintain game-long 1:1 deals with multiple AIs.

 

[cman2010]

Perhaps that's *A* reality, but my experience is exactly the opposite of what you describe. I regularly maintain game-long 1:1 deals with multiple AIs.

No that is the reality.

 

[chazzycat]

@learner gamer - thanks for the feedback. I can't recall seeing that specific reason, but it sounds like they are scared of you. Are they "guarded"? You can generally still trade with such civs, but they won't give you as good of a deal as if you were friendly. They also might be inclined to gang up on you with other civs - definitely watch out for any declaration of friendships, this could be a sign of coalition-building. But you are probably not at risk of them DOWing you unless they have friends.

Alternatively, you can validate their suspicions and just invade their country.

 

[chazzycat]

@ Eric

Totally agree, it's not that hard to keep fair trades with the AI. Unless they covet your land or are scared of you, it shouldn't be a problem at all to maintain peaceful relationships. A "Friendly" AI will always accept a 1-to-1 luxury or 300gold per luxury trade.

 

[Slippped]

Come on now, all true civfanatics know that beer is the only way to go.
yes ciV getting better, all the time.

 

[learner gamer]

@learner gamer - thanks for the feedback. I can't recall seeing that specific reason, but it sounds like they are scared of you. Are they "guarded"? You can generally still trade with such civs, but they won't give you as good of a deal as if you were friendly. They also might be inclined to gang up on you with other civs - definitely watch out for any declaration of friendships, this could be a sign of coalition-building. But you are probably not at risk of them DOWing you unless they have friends.

Alternatively, you can validate their suspicions and just invade their country.

No problem re: feedback - that was a great post. Easy to understand and very effective.

As it happens, they (Siam) are indeed guarded. It's really funny that you should mention about watching those who covet my land BTW in your earlier post - because right next door to Ramkham' is Cathy, who's currently neutral / precisely that. Although Ramkham' will likely hate me (as a warmonger), I was thinking of paying Cathy a friendly visit with some knights very shortly, just to let her know that I covet her land (which is actually rather better than mine) too, before rolling onto Ramkham later in the game if the chance presents itself. Perhaps that's why Siam are guarded - they've seen one or two of my horsemen (which will shortly be upgraded to knights) around and can sense what's about to unfold.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

This thread is off to a bad start ...

 

[Tatran]

Diplomacy in Civ5 is a complete disaster.

Turn 637 and 638, see spoiler.
Turn 639, Tours got nuked and Hiawatha has another one.

Spoiler :

Time to turn off the Manhattan Project again, until the dummies at Firaxis have changed this mechanc.
I've tried to play with it, but I don't want to see every game turn into a nuke fest.


Solution to the barbarian archer.
The AI is so bad with 1 upt or should I say helpless, that I'm starting to hate this feature more and more.
One thing is for sure, sticking to 1 upt will never improve Civ5's gameplay and adding more DLC, extra units/buildings etc. won't change this.

Spoiler :

 

[Nares]

It's fully possible to play peacefully.

It was possible to play peaceful before, simply by taking a non-participatory approach to diplomacy while targeting certain thresholds for score and military power.

It's way more advanced (although it still isn't good enough IMO) than any other Civ game (especially the -extremely- simple Civ 4 diplomacy)

I've always wanted to see this position defended. Would you care to elaborate? I'm truly curious, because it's apparently the leading reason why CiV's diplomacy system was designed the way it was.

Solution to the barbarian archer.
The AI is so bad with 1 upt or should I say helpless, that I'm starting to hate this feature more and more.

There are XML settings which can improve this. For example, the AI uses workers as soft-scouts, which it shouldn't do at all. Fix the AI's propensity to soft-scout with its own workers, and you not only reduce the incidence of boneheaded AI archers, but you also reduce the incidence of braindead AI leaders which don't improve their tiles.

 

[Venereus]

This thread is off to a bad start ...

Third page is a bit too late for ominous posts.

 

[Thormodr]

It was possible to play peaceful before, simply by taking a non-participatory approach to diplomacy while targeting certain thresholds for score and military power.

I've always wanted to see this position defended. Would you care to elaborate? I'm truly curious, because it's apparently the leading reason why CiV's diplomacy system was designed the way it was.

There are XML settings which can improve this. For example, the AI uses workers as soft-scouts, which it shouldn't do at all. Fix the AI's propensity to soft-scout with its own workers, and you not only reduce the incidence of boneheaded AI archers, but you also reduce the incidence of braindead AI leaders which don't improve their tiles.

I suspect that the AI uses workers as "soft scouts" as a design.

This gives the player the opportunity to rescue them and improve relations with that Civ much more likely. Considering that there are much more ways to piss off the AI than there are ways to please them, I think this was a conscious decision.

 

[JohnnyW]

I suspect that the AI uses workers as "soft scouts" as a design.

This gives the player the opportunity to rescue them and improve relations with that Civ much more likely. Considering that there are much more ways to piss off the AI than there are ways to please them, I think this was a conscious decision.

Unlike you I don't think Firaxis thought through their game that much. I suspect they just programmed things how they assumed they should work without thinking through the consequences and whether those consequences were appropriate.

I believe that's how we got diplomacy in the very least.

 

[Drago Askani]

Just a reminder of those who seem to think so highly of the civ 4 ai. Its primary defining factor for everything in the game was religion. So much so that the easiest way to metagame the ai was to not pick a religion till much later in the game.

 

[chazzycat]

Just a reminder of those who seem to think so highly of the civ 4 ai. Its primary defining factor for everything in the game was religion. So much so that the easiest way to metagame the ai was to not pick a religion till much later in the game.

Seriously...THIS. Pick the right religion, give a gift...friends for life! Diplomacy is certainly more realistic and complex in civ V. I think people just need to get used to it...

I believe the notion that diplomacy should be predictable is the crux of the problem. Leaders SHOULD act a little unpredictable and crazy. Knowing exactly where you stand with +1 for this and -3 for that, just does not make any sense. You should have to figure out on your own, based on their actions and what you can glean from their personality, what their intentions are. Like real world diplomacy. I would not want to go back to the civ 4 system now.