How CIV5 diplomacy works

[sabinfire]

3) Use culture to expand borders, not buying tiles (if the bought tile borders them).

Is there some menu somewhere where I can see when and where another civs culture will expand borders for their cities? I can't find it. Please let me know where it is, because I would like to keep tabs on the other civs tile purchasing habits as well.

Unless someone bought up 4 or 5 squares in one turn, there's no way I would notice another civ buying tiles over culture expansion. How would another civ know if I purchased a single tile or if that tile was obtained culturally? If that civ didn't have an open borders agreement or didn't have a unit parked nearby to watch my land, how would they even notice this?

OH RIGHT. I forgot. The AI knows things that we aren't allowed to know. I keep forgetting the AI is allowed to play outside the rules and cheat. That's how Civ 5 diplomacy works!

 

[Unearthly]

Is there some menu somewhere where I can see when and where another civs culture will expand borders for their cities? I can't find it. Please let me know where it is, because I would like to keep tabs on the other civs tile purchasing habits as well.

Unless someone bought up 4 or 5 squares in one turn, there's no way I would notice another civ buying tiles over culture expansion. How would another civ know if I purchased a single tile or if that tile was obtained culturally? If that civ didn't have an open borders agreement or didn't have a unit parked nearby to watch my land, how would they even notice this?

OH RIGHT. I forgot. The AI knows things that we aren't allowed to know. I keep forgetting the AI is allowed to play outside the rules and cheat. That's how Civ 5 diplomacy works!

I do not know of a way to distinguish this. As for knowing when you buy a tile, it's only when the new tile is bordering theirs. So they know you gained a new tile, though it does appear to be AI omniscience that tells them it was bought.

I agree, I'd love to have some of the diplomacy actions the AI has. We should be able to bash them for any of their wrongdoings, with justification from the world at large.

 

[Bibor]

I do not know of a way to distinguish this. As for knowing when you buy a tile, it's only when the new tile is bordering theirs. So they know you gained a new tile, though it does appear to be AI omniscience that tells them it was bought.

Actually its pretty easy to notice purchases even to a human player. Any player (including the AI) can see border pops once you remove the clouds. If two pops happen in rapid succession, it counts as "land purchase" and the AI reacts.

For a human this is easiest to see when an AI places a new city and immediately buys a tile to claim a resource.

 

[ChaosPearl]

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.

 

[aimlessgun]

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.

I'll try it my next game haha. Would be awful if true.

 

[Bibor]

Has anyone else noticed that a nearby civ almost always requests open borders with you before it attacks you?

Not always the case. You just got "lucky". But the AI does have a habit to ask for open borders and then attack.

 

[Supp]

My question is how angry do they get? Last game I played I got dow'd by all three people on my continent and only one of them sent an army. Its not as though they were scared, my army at the time consisted of 2 warriors and maybe 7 or 8 cities.

And the one attack that did get thrown my way was defeated by 2 wall-less cities.

 

[aimlessgun]

If you got DoWed by 3 people at once it was probably 1 guy who wanted to invade you asking the other 2 to come along. The other 2 weren't really set up for an invasion so they didn't show up. That would be my guess.

 

[jibjib106]

Not sure if this is a ******** question, but I'll give it a go anyway.

What if there are no victory conditions, like, if you turn the all off? How would the AI react? Surely the developers coded the AI to only go for victories which were allowed for the game they were playing (so that in a game in which there was only culture victory allowed the AI wouldn't waste a 100 years building a spaceship) So based on that logic, would the AI not just play to serve their immediate needs? As in, the way a real nation works? (ish)

 

[tballz]

I'm pretty sure the AI will only ask you for free stuff if you have a pact of co-op with them, and its my theory that they will like you less if you refuse to hook them up.

Has anyone else seen anything in their games to back this up?

 

[Bibor]

So if the AI will declare war on me for going to war, and declare war on me for allying with city states, and declare war on me for being near them, and declare war on me for building wonders, and declare war on me for purchasing tiles, and declare war on me for settling other cities, and declare war on me for having a large army, and declare war on me for having a small army, and declare war on me for helping them in their own wars... ummm, what exactly am I supposed to be doing, again?

You're supposed to:
1) have a strong military
2) have pacts of cooperation
3) make AIs go to war with other AIs (diplo hit)
4) make AIs finish off other AIs (huge diplo hit)
5) sign pacts of secrecy against one "victim" AI with all other AIs

This way you channel the anger toward an AI that will have a worse standing than you have. The more the AIs hate someone else more, the less likely they will attack you or become "hostile" to you.

Obviously, leader flavors also play a role, so Gandhi will be more likely to hate a warmonger than, say, Pericles.

 

[Danceofmasks]

WTH

I just played an archipelago game on a large map, and spawned on a tiny island.
So I packed my initial cities real close, 'cos there were a lot of sea resources to be had on all sides.

Halfway through the game, Alexander (who was halfway across the world), was getting hostile against me 'cos I didn't control enough territory!
Nobody tell him that I had more pop, more income, more science, AND more cities.

I guess he's just impressed by size alone.

 

[LDiCesare]

Do leaders buddy up in real life? Would you expect your king to sacrifice the well being of his nation just because he 'likes' another leader?

I would say all leaders until democracy.
Seriously, most nations didn't exist as such until they revolted against their kings. Before that, France would go to war agaisnt everyone else in Europe just so the king's grandson could inherit Spain, so it was jsut Louis XVI being on (too) good terms with the new Spanish leader.

 

[patsfan454]

Do leaders buddy up in real life? Would you expect your king to sacrifice the well being of his nation just because he 'likes' another leader?

No, but there isn't victory conditions in real life.

 

[Insanity_X]

WTH

I just played an archipelago game on a large map, and spawned on a tiny island.
So I packed my initial cities real close, 'cos there were a lot of sea resources to be had on all sides.

Halfway through the game, Alexander (who was halfway across the world), was getting hostile against me 'cos I didn't control enough territory!
Nobody tell him that I had more pop, more income, more science, AND more cities.

I guess he's just impressed by size alone.

Nobody told him that it's size that matters, it's how you use it.

 

[Syntax Error]

WTH

I just played an archipelago game on a large map, and spawned on a tiny island.
So I packed my initial cities real close, 'cos there were a lot of sea resources to be had on all sides.

Halfway through the game, Alexander (who was halfway across the world), was getting hostile against me 'cos I didn't control enough territory!
Nobody tell him that I had more pop, more income, more science, AND more cities.

I guess he's just impressed by size alone.

Must be compensating for something...

Anyway, I also notice that a hostile AI will declare war on you if your military is far away from your capital. Also, not accepting Open Borders will at least delay DOW's. It seems that the AI will like to check out your military first before thinking of attacking.

So yeah, the diplomacy is like a cloak-and-dagger world without the cloaks, and the stabbings rarely happen from the back. I just want to have previous alliances and friendships actually matter down the line. This applies to CS's as well. This way, the diplomacy victory may not as well be called Gold VIctory.

 

[E66man]

Actually its pretty easy to notice purchases even to a human player. Any player (including the AI) can see border pops once you remove the clouds. If two pops happen in rapid succession, it counts as "land purchase" and the AI reacts.

For a human this is easiest to see when an AI places a new city and immediately buys a tile to claim a resource.

Any guesses as to the definition of 'rapid'? So a player could plan on sprinkling out tile buys to one every 2 or 3 turns to try and stay under the AIs' radar?

 

[Dai]

Haha, the thread title has the words "CIV5 diplomacy works" in it.

In my experience, here are the main Civ V diplomacy points -

- There's no such thing as being nice. You can be nice, but the AI simply doesn't care, or the amount that is cares is trivial compared to how appealing you are as a target and how much stuff you've done that angers the AI.
- Along with this point, there's a human tendency to consider a series of trades that seem mutually beneficial and friendly to be building up good relations with another civilization. That doesn't work. You don't have good relations with other civilizations. You have not-fouled relations - ones where they're not angry yet - and fouled ones.
- Avoid initiating wars, except perhaps super early on or when you're pushing to win the game outright. Initiating wars poisons your relations with most civilizations forever. Things like "you begged me to declare war on that guy" or "I declared war to save your ass and liberated four of your cities" have zero or negligible weight.
- Instead, if you want to go to war with someone, piss them off until they declare war on you. Pissing people off doesn't seem to have any, or at least any significant diplomatic repercussions except that it probably means that the AI you're angering is more likely to make pacts of secrecy against you.
- The number one deterrent to dodging DOW is having a large standing army. The AI will generally DOW extremely quickly if you look vulnerable. You can get away with all sorts of stuff if your army is big enough.
- AI that got "dragged into" a war where the main front is super far away will frequently not contribute to the war at all. The AI is roundly incapable of conducting warfare from another continent. If you do things like shell their random dudes with a naval unit, they'll often conclude that they're losing and surrender to you.
- Don't accept surrender from someone (call them Empire B) whose capital is near yours. Wipe them off the map entirely. If you don't, one of two things will happen. They'll either build back up, a process that typically includes spamming settlers all over the place inconveniently, get ticked at you for being nearby, and re-DOW, or, while they're weak, a third civilization (Empire C) will move in, take their remaining cities, and then get pissed at you for being nearby. (Since they now control cities that belonged to Empire B, which are near your capital.) Oftentimes both will happen, so now Empire C has a bunch of annoyingly-placed cities smushed all up against your borders.
- The only time you should typically trade open borders for open borders is with a civ on another continent when you want to look around or explore that area. Trading for open borders with a not-unfriendly civ so you can conduct war with a civ on the far side of them is a bad idea, since they'll construe your units marching through their territory as a hostile action against them. Trading open borders for open borders for no reason just invites the AI to look into your territory so that they can decide to declare war on you. Trading open borders is not a mutually friendly act, even though it sounds like one. Civ V doesn't have friendly acts.
- If pacts of cooperation have a positive effect on relations, it's negligible. A pact of cooperation is an invitation to the AI to ask for random stuff (gold and luxuries) and to be disappointed when you don't really want to give the person you're "cooperating" with 300 gold.
- Again, friendly acts are negligible compared to relative power. I wouldn't be surprised if you keep better relations with a civ by disbanding one of their liberated workers and using the gold to improve your own position than you get by returning it.
- In general, giving the AI stuff makes them more likely to attack you, not less. Any benefits to relations that a gift has are negligible compared to the fact that by giving the AI something you weaken your position and strengthen theirs, making you a more appealing target.
- The AI is often surprisingly amenable to being asked to do something. In particular, they're often willing to make peace with city-states that they're randomly attacking in exchange for nothing.

The Civ V AI seems a lot less crazy if you flat-out ignore everything that happens in the diplomacy window and pay a lot more attention to what's happening in the world window.

 

[Sonereal]

Not sure if this is a ******** question, but I'll give it a go anyway.

What if there are no victory conditions, like, if you turn the all off? How would the AI react? Surely the developers coded the AI to only go for victories which were allowed for the game they were playing (so that in a game in which there was only culture victory allowed the AI wouldn't waste a 100 years building a spaceship) So based on that logic, would the AI not just play to serve their immediate needs? As in, the way a real nation works? (ish)

I've been playing a game without victory conditions. The idea that they will become more sane is out the door because....well, I'm still going to war after all.

The thing about it is that they start caring less about going for victories but don't like it when civilizations upset the balance of power on the continent or the order which is why when I took half of Babylon, everyone got pretty mad including the regional power, India.

Civilizations get pretty mad once you start getting aggressive still but the aimless AI actually plays better without victory conditions in some regards. The AI can smell weakness and will try to reclaim cities lost in past wars if possible. Babylon is the perfect example of this. They were the most powerful civilization really early in the game before I took one city and destroyed their army. Then the Iroquois became the leading powerful for a while and took a city or two away from Babylon but the second the Iroquois start going under, Babylon seized a chance to get old cities back (and succeed) and since surpassed their holdings greatly (before I took his core cities).

The AI doesn't stay hostile forever. If you go a long time without a war, many AIs simply forget anything happen and start getting friendly unless they're bordering you.

As for the AIs requesting open borders, they don't always go to war after doing that. The AI is looking for concentration of troops and where they're at. If you have a massive force near the border with the AI, they may not even go to war with you. A show of strength, more often than not, gets the AI to step down its plans

Still, there's work that needs to be done but it can open up the way for interesting mechanics like gunboat diplomacy and hopefully the AI choosing peace over war in situations where it sees no chance of walking away without several broken bones.

 

[Raethwyn]

Not sure if this is a ******** question, but I'll give it a go anyway.

What if there are no victory conditions, like, if you turn the all off? How would the AI react? Surely the developers coded the AI to only go for victories which were allowed for the game they were playing (so that in a game in which there was only culture victory allowed the AI wouldn't waste a 100 years building a spaceship) So based on that logic, would the AI not just play to serve their immediate needs? As in, the way a real nation works? (ish)

I recall a game where I turned off the victory conditions. I'm pretty sure that it just defaulted to Domination being the only victory possible. There were nearly constant wars going on as a result.