How CIV5 diplomacy works

[aimlessgun]

Another interesting diplo situation .. First time this happened... on DEITY? T58 I tell Bismark to stop settling cities next to me when he builds one right up against my borders, he declines, and so I declare war. t60 Napoleon asks for a pact against Bismark. t61, Napoleon complains that I'm picking on weak leaders "Bismark". The human... picking on AIs... on deity... in the ancient age.... bizarre The AI is truly insane. And horseman

People can change their minds you know

Maybe Napoleon initially thought that it would be good to eliminate Bismarck. Then he was like "uh oh Jaycob is kicking the stuffing out of him, if he wins he'll become too powerful." Not insanity, realpolitik. Or maybe realpolitik is insane

 

[Syntax Error]

I recalled a thread that implies that the AI is actually more intelligent than we give credit. All they need is a little bit more flavor in the interactions (something like giving a better reason on the turn they declare war, or something).

 

[Sonereal]

I recalled a thread that implies that the AI is actually more intelligent than we give credit. All they need is a little bit more flavor in the interactions (something like giving a better reason on the turn they declare war, or something).

It is. The problem is that many of us came to CiV with a CivIV mindset regarding diplomacy and the problem is that a CiV AI could smash a CivIV AI because it plays on a setting far more ruthless than even Afforess's Ruthless AI.

There are problems but the AI isn't a strategic idiot. It's a tactical idiot for sure though.

Civilizations are no longer passive. Each guy wants to acheive greatness and increase its international standing until it feels like its ahead.

 

[Uniform Sierra]

What I don't understand is when I ask for a pact of cooperation, they refuse, then the next turn they ask for it. WTH?!

 

[aimlessgun]

What I don't understand is when I ask for a pact of cooperation, they refuse, then the next turn they ask for it. WTH?!

Well obviously something changed in that one turn

I do get that type of thing a lot with civs I just met though: if I try to sell them open borders just when I meet them they value it at 0g, but on their turn they come to me with an OB trade proposal (valuing my OB at 50g). Seems when they first meet you it may take a turn to process some stuff, I don't know.

 

[dubrown]

I think we all just remember the good side of the CivIV diplomacy. It had it's pros and cons but I guess most likes it because you could predict it. For instance:

-Leaders with different known personalities, Monty would always declare war, Isabella would pursue religion to a fanatical level etc. It gave a certain flavour but you always knew how to deal with each and everyone of them.

- Backstabbing happened frequently with some AIs, so the argument that if you where friendly in CivIV you'd be safe isn't really true.

- If you where weak military in CivIV you'd be the target, if you where strong military they'd leave you alone, even if you where about to win.

- You could easily postpone a war with an AI by gifting them something, thus you're safe for some turns.

Well, there's more but I hope you get my point, the CivIV AI was predictable, you always knew what would happen (random personalities remedies this somewhat though). The CiV AI is different and thus for me somewhat more interesting in this aspect. The only thing I miss is a bit more personality to the AI, it gives a certain flawor for sure.

 

[Crow, of Earth]

Nope, a BIG reason why I for one liked the civ4 diplo more is that in that game, an AI would never declare war on me after which they'd be upset with me for declaring war on them. (the civ5 AI doesn't declare war and then gets upset you declared war, but there's no other comparison I could find; the civ5 AI gets upset when they settle near you because "you've settled near us" and when they become friends to one of your CS friends because "you've become too friendly with our friends")

The civ5 diplo allows a bit more power for the AI and I have no problem with that, it's quite nice to have more challenging games. I do, however, have a huge problem with the "definition of hypocrisy" signs all AI leaders wear.

 

[ChaosPearl]

Nope, a BIG reason why I for one liked the civ4 diplo more is that in that game, an AI would never declare war on me after which they'd be upset with me for declaring war on them. (the civ5 AI doesn't declare war and then gets upset you declared war, but there's no other comparison I could find; the civ5 AI gets upset when they settle near you because "you've settled near us" and when they become friends to one of your CS friends because "you've become too friendly with our friends")

The civ5 diplo allows a bit more power for the AI and I have no problem with that, it's quite nice to have more challenging games. I do, however, have a huge problem with the "definition of hypocrisy" signs all AI leaders wear.

Someone earlier said that CiV diplo would make more sense if there were a little more flavor to the messages, a little more variation... the more I think on it, the more I agree to a point.

Take the example where a civ keeps settling cities near your borders and then pops up complaining about YOU settling too close to it. It does make sense that your relations with another civ are going to get worse and worse as your borders become closer. I don't mind that part, in fact I agree with it. What makes me insane is the fact that the messaging makes it seem like the inter-civ relations are worsening because of something you did, when in fact it's exactly the opposite.

If I played a game wherein the exact same situation occured -- another civ started settling cities near my borders and as a result, that civ disliked me more and more -- BUT the diplo screen said something that actually made sense, even if it were just that civ's leader talking smack about how my borders look weak and undefended and my cities look tasty ... well, I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. It makes perfect sense.

So in the end, in a lot of the "crazy AI" situations what I actually think is moronic isn't the situation itself, it's the wording of the diplo screens. Unfortunately that only makes me think even worse of Firaxis than if the problem were truly stupid AI. Stupid AI might be difficult to smooth out; stupid messaging is just plain lazy. Seriously, how hard could it be for the AI to differentiate between it settling cities near you, and you settling cities near it, and use two different diplo screens for each situation even when the actual relations hit remained identical?

 

[eric_]

Personally, I think a lot of problems arise in making the transition from an extremely explicit diplo model to an extremely implicit, memory based one.

You have to remember with whom you've made PoS, and who those PoS's targeted. If you forget and trade with that target, without first making a PoS with them against your first partner, I think you are "seen" as duplicitous, and your PoS partner gets upset. Likewise, you may cavalierly reject a few harmless offers made by an AI, forget about some or all of them, and then be mystified as to why they're becoming less than friendly.

Also, I have the sense that there are subtexts in things like, "You have a strong economy. Perhaps someday you'll share your secrets with your friends." I'm starting to think something like that is a veiled request for an RA from a hostile or unfriendly leader with a "cagey" personality. If you don't make friendly overtures on the heels of those, I think you miss an opportunity to improve relations.

And so on.

The more I play this game and think along these lines, the more I find myself successfully navigating the diplo waters, and the more interesting and dynamic that aspect of the game becomes.

 

[Bibor]

Leaders always seem to point out your worst or best current trait that they see in you. This helps immensely in assessing your diplomatic standing.

 

[Dai]

Regarding the AI rejecting your offer, then coming to you the next turn with the same offer -
I'm pretty sure that the AI, especially since the patch, has a built-in factor with regards to trades that causes it to prefer trades that it itself proposed. (This is both reasonable as human behavior - people like ideas better if they think it was their idea - and reasonable as a game AI technique to protect the AI a little from exploitative trade agreements.) I get this behavior constantly with research pacts - I'll ask for a research pact, be told that I need to throw in everything I've got if I want it to go, then have the same AI propose a research pact on even footing right after I end my turn. While it's true that things can change over the course of a turn, this happens so frequently that I suspect something else is up.

 

[Danceofmasks]

What I don't understand is when I ask for a pact of cooperation, they refuse, then the next turn they ask for it. WTH?!

That's not as silly as what happened in my current game.
(I play marathon speed, so next to nothing happens between turns, usually)

Monty asked for a PoC, then cancels it the turn after.
I was like, WTH ... absolutely nothing happened.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I've been getting the "secrets of your strong economy" +praise text alot, mainly because I trading post spam and autoworkers no longer do, even though still the best economic strategy is city state seafood + trading posts instead of farms + mines.

I generally like the opaque strategic AI, it feels so much more realpolitik than gamey TMIT-style "+1 open borders +1 peace +3 faith bros +4 fair trade +1 liberated city awesome I'm safe from Immortal-level unit spam". Even that draws rage from the intrinsic "-2 a first impression" demerit, when someone like Tokugawa eventually calls him out on Farmer's gambiting.

On the topic of Civ5, does anyone know the proper response to insults? I've got Hiawatha down to 1 city in a corner of my empire, and I've been waiting for him to settle offshore so I could take that out and secure my borders without getting the "civ-killer" demerit. I'm hardly worried, I have Cavalry and he has spears/archers. He's been trash talking me and I've been responding with "You'll pay for this", does that give me casus belli to attack without getting a "bloodthirsty warmonger" label?

 

[pagh80]

I think some people try to find reasons why it is smarter than we give it credit for, because they simply cant accept that the AI sucks!

 

[Surgeon]

Has anyone else noticed that a nearby civ almost always requests open borders with you before it attacks you? It's like they want to be able to get closer to your cities, or they want to check out the lay of your land, then decide to attack you. Which makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is that it seems like they won't attack if you don't let them into your borders at all. I noticed a pattern in this because I got mad during a game where three civs in a row begged for open borders and then DoW'd me a few turns after, so the next game I wouldn't let anyone into my borders and I never got attacked. After that I kept trying it and it kept working.

It just seems too dumb to be true that it actually works like that. Am I just having a run of really weird luck with this? I've now played five games in a row on various difficulties and various maps, and the AI has never once declared on me until we sign open borders and they can recon my territory. Somebody please tell me that Firaxis didn't release a game where I can make it all the way to a time or cultural victory whilst fielding an army of two units in the middle of a pangaea, just by refusing to let anybody see just how puny my position is. This has to be luck, it has to be.

Maybe its a factor but I can tell you that closed borders won't help you forever. My last game (Russia-Emperor) had persia bordering me for a long while with no open borders but eventually they went for me.

Perhaps your army is just large enough to give the AI reason to pause but when they see that your army is located elsewhere they think they can get away with a blitzkreig?

I think some people try to find reasons why it is smarter than we give it credit for, because they simply cant accept that the AI sucks!

Perhaps you can't accept that an AI you can't understand is more complex than you realise.

 

[Surgeon]

There are at least five things wrong with this single statement. Namely, Hitler and Stalin did not buddy up. At all.

Not exactly true. They did enter a non-agression pact before WW2 which Stalin thought was good. Then Hitler stabbed him in the back!

 

[Arsenic Steel]

Leaders always seem to point out your worst or best current trait that they see in you. This helps immensely in assessing your diplomatic standing.

All I need to assess my standing is the demographic screen and for flavor the InfoAddict mod.
The leaders belittling me over some stat does not help me. Cathy calling my empire puny and going -HOSTILE after when I am doing an OCC or cultural attempt.

What would help me in this game would be if diplo worked by gaining positive trust via trade, agreements, or other exchanges which can outweigh the aggression that is triggered by proximity alone.

Having a status(positive) other than -HOSTILE or the random -AFRAID would be a sign of diplomacy actually working.

 

[Syntax Error]

This is probably the model for the diplomacy in Civ 5.

Don't make the countries anthropomorphized into cute little girls turn you off. It's a rather educational read.

 

[Bibor]

On the topic of Civ5, does anyone know the proper response to insults? I've got Hiawatha down to 1 city in a corner of my empire, and I've been waiting for him to settle offshore so I could take that out and secure my borders without getting the "civ-killer" demerit. I'm hardly worried, I have Cavalry and he has spears/archers. He's been trash talking me and I've been responding with "You'll pay for this", does that give me casus belli to attack without getting a "bloodthirsty warmonger" label?

Actually we all presume the two buttons are there just for show, but it might be the case that the "you'll regret this" is the player saying "you'll 'pay for this threachery".
Would make sense that the "you'll regret this" gives the AI -1 with other civs, while the other button does nothing, depending on how you want the world to react. (This is for non-insults like DOW on yourself or an allied city-state). Insults probably also "do something" but I'm not sure what.

We need to look into that code. Right now

 

[kaltorak]

Thank god greg confirmed that diplomacy is the focus of the next patch