How do you maintain friendly relations?

[Oseas]

I just started playing VP, and i really want to know why the AI is so tempermental. It seems they're so quick to denounce me and often DoW me without really committing to anything.

Here's an example of my most recent game. It's on a communitas map (standard map settings), I'm playing as Netherlands, Poland is on the same continent, and the Inca are a sea away with their own large lands to play with. A bit more than halfway between me and Poland is a defensible choke that can lock Poland away from my section, so naturally I settle there immediately. Easy enough to predict what happens next.

Soon after the white peace is done, he DoW again but I pretty much have an iron wall, so I wonder why he wasn't discouraged. I take a city, we peace out, I consolidate my forces and form a line thats about 6 tiles away from Warsaw. Casimir doesnt care and DoW me again. I take Warsaw and another city to get a wine monopoly. Poland is left with scraps, but he DoW me once more despite being outmatched.

At this point, while I get why Casimir would hate me, I don't understand why he thought he stood a chance.

This isn't even where it gets weird. Inca seemed to have no problem with my wars with Poland since Casimir initiated all of them, Pachacuti trying to bribe me to do so, and then DoW on Poland himself. But soon I would have territorial disputes with the Inca who were a sea away. They also had a massive land army on their lands, but refused to have them cross the sea despite a DoW on me. Then all of the civs on the other side of the world would alternate between liking me and hating my guts. Most of my CS allies are close to my lands, yet the AI half a world away thinks they belong to them? I also stopped taking cities a long time ago, but it still got to the point where everyone voted to sanction me.

So tell me, what does it take for civs to not hate me and leave me in peace? Do your neighbours ever acknowledge that some lands belong to you? Is there a sweet spot between "you're weak, therefore I'll kill you" and "you're strong, therefore I must kill you"?

 

[Gav92]

1) The taking of cities is what probably prompted the denunciation and DoW from Poland. To me, I see that the AI doesn't know that it's outmatched because it doesn't see things the way we do.

2) City state location has no bearing on whether the AI wants their alliance or not, if they've had an alliance with the City state before, and you usurped their relationship, they'd be unhappy.

3) Taking a capital is a huge flag for other Civs to be wary, and eventually hate you. Even if the AI DoW'ed you.
Essentially, there's quite simply no way to go on a prolonged, multi-city capturing war, without triggering the rest of the found Civs unless you are allied with them. Even then, if your city capturing spree goes on for too many cities, they will likely also cancel their DoF.

For Civs not to hate you, offer them a trade bonuses (trades that are in their favor by about 50+), play peaceful, when DoW'd on, don't take too many enemy cities (1 is probably ok), & send trade routes to them.
Know that it is quite impossible to befriend every civ, because they have their own squabbles, denounce, & wars with each other, so pick the Civ(s) you want to be friendly with, and denounce those that they denounce, decline DoF from Civs that they denounced, don't do things that would likely make them or their allies angry at you (CS alliances, stealing territory with generals etc).

Also, know that when you're really close to winning, your allies may turn on you, even those allies that have been with you since 4000bc.

 

[tu_79]

Use transparent diplomacy option in advanced options.

Normally, you get denounced and attacked when you are weak. You get denounced but not attacked when you are strong. Conflicts turn sometimes the scales.

Other than having a sizeable army, if you want a pacific game, don't expand too much, don't ally more than two city states, don't convert cities from a religious founder, do trade with your neighbors, both with trade routes and agreements, propose always things that the others may like, and if there's someone everyone else is hating, denounce him yourself too.

 

[Oseas]

My impression was that Poland is the type of civ you don't want to let consolidate, plus I figured he would always feel entitled to my lands. I suspect that if I didnt take his cities, he'd eventually make carpets and I wouldn't be able to keep up. His coastal city of Lodz shared the same sea as Amsterdam, and it'd have been really bad if he had the luxury to make a navy there. It was also the first city I took.

What would you all do in my situation? FYI, after taking Warsaw and Krakow, in the war that came after (that he started) I conquered Wroclaw and got Gdansk from a peace deal. Some of you are probably facepalming at this point, but this was well before anyone had caravels, so the other 5 civs didn't even know we existed.

 

[Gav92]

What victory conditions are you aiming for? Are you and Poland the only two Civs on the continent? Taking an enemy capital city guarantees every new Civ meeting you will be aware that you've been to war and will be slightly wary of you. It does sound like you DoW'ed Poland first to take Lodz, which is probably why Poland want berserk on you thereafter.

However, if you're already rolling over Poland ' well before caravel', then I'm assuming at this point nothing can stop you anyway. Don't mind the pesky little Civ's denounciation :v

 

[Oseas]

What victory conditions are you aiming for? Are you and Poland the only two Civs on the continent? Taking an enemy capital city guarantees every new Civ meeting you will be aware that you've been to war and will be slightly wary of you. It does sound like you DoW'ed Poland first to take Lodz, which is probably why Poland want berserk on you thereafter.

However, if you're already rolling over Poland ' well before caravel', then I'm assuming at this point nothing can stop you anyway. Don't mind the pesky little Civ's denounciation :v

The game is pretty much won, but I'm only playing on Prince since this is only my second VP game, and my first game didn't go so well when Attila had an endless carpet and multiple cities to keep it sustainable. I'm just asking for future reference when I play a difficulty that's actually suitable for me.

 

[Dawnpromise]

Seems like you've got a bit of a warmonger spiral going on. Once you start to win at war you start to suffer 2 major penalties to foreign relations:

1. Other civs dislike you purely because you've used force to claim other civs territory.
2. Your borders get bigger due to the gains you've made which puts you into dispute with neighboring civs.

Eventually this leads to a spiral of denouncements and eventual declarations of war from other civs so you go to war and wind up taking more territory, which makes other civs hate you even more.

Eventually you wind up becoming a continent spanning empire building a naval fleet just to protect your borders from foreign civs who are constantly declaring war on you. from across the sea...until you finally get fed up and cross the pond to put an end to that once and for all.

Then you pause a moment to wonder why there's only 7 civs left out of 16 from when the game started....

 

[Oseas]

Thanks for your suggestions. I decided to play a new game with Germany on king difficulty and oval map. It's the first time I'm playing tradition, and I'm surprised how much of an easier time I'm having and even though I'm barely halfway through the game (playing on epic game pace btw), it seems I've pretty much won. Transparent diplomacy really makes things easy, so much so that I wonder if I should just turn it off.

That's what I get for expecting a challenge on King I guess, but I suspect I'm also pretty damn lucky with placement.

20171210175314_1

• Oseas
• Dec 10, 2017

King, only Quick Combat, Movement and No RA's turned on.

Btw, is epic game pace easy mode? It's what I'm used to, but if I'm actually making things easy for myself, then I'll consider switching it to standard.

 

[Dawnpromise]

Btw, is epic game pace easy mode? It's what I'm used to, but if I'm actually making things easy for myself, then I'll consider switching it to standard.

I'd say yes, especially with the recent changes to AI handicaps moving much of their difficulty bonuses to later eras. If you're playing on epic speed I'd advise you going up 1 or 2 difficulty levels from what you normally play at.

 

[Paramecium]

Considering your wars against Poland, did you turn off vassalage? Because when you enter the medieval age and fight wars and you get a war score of 85 or higher, you can demand the capitulation of your enemy, making him your vassal. He will give you a percentage of his science and culture, can be taxed, which you should avoid if you dont want him to rebell, but most importantly, his foreign affairs are highly tied to you, he cant declare war anymore...

Considering the difficulty, I havent played on King anymore lastly, but from what I remember, it can be very dependent on your map layout. You can have settings where everything is quite equal or you can get some runaway (on the other side of the world). But I cant speak for epic King, never played it, just standard.
But if you think to move up to Emperor, I have to warn you before, it is quite a jump, at least it was for me, but I cant still say how the AI changes of the last patches play out, still testing myself ...

 

[Gav92]

Also, a reminder that just because an AI is suddenly all buddy buddy with you doesn't mean it's all good. Beware the backstab!

 

[Oseas]

I'd say yes, especially with the recent changes to AI handicaps moving much of their difficulty bonuses to later eras. If you're playing on epic speed I'd advise you going up 1 or 2 difficulty levels from what you normally play at.

Well if VP is balanced around standard, I'll play standard. I've heard emperor is where it starts getting nuts, so before I do that I have some things I want to accomplish, namely:

- Overcome an AI with a carpet and cities that replenish his army quickly. I had this problem in my first game against the Huns, so I'd like to see if i can tackle this on an easy (i.e. king) setting before jumping into the deep end.
- Play and win an authority game. Domination games are well outside my comfort zone since I hate being behind on science and always fear there's someone who's going to run away and I become powerless to overcome them. Personally it's quite the mental hurdle.
- Deal with actual unhappiness and weariness problems. I barely felt this at all on my games so far and I ended up running away. Hopefully I'll actually feel it on standard speed.
- Beat a runaway civ, whether it's a late game science or tourism monster, or someone who absorbed a whole continent. Seeing an army spanning a whole continent just makes me want to curl into a ball, but I imagine it's something that can't be ignored on higher difficulties.

 

[Dawnpromise]

In all honesty there's some debate about where VP's difficulty is balanced at now. Some are arguing to have the game balanced around Deity, whereas Gazebo's general stance appears to be that he balances things via AI games set 'outside' of the difficulty spectrum so it's hard to say.

Personally I'd advise you pick a game setting you like (civ choice/ map type/game speed) then every time you win move the difficulty up a notch until you feel sufficiently challenged.

EDIT: After re-read, yes I would say the game is balanced around standard speed, but play as you like.

 

[tu_79]

Overcome an AI with a carpet and cities that replenish his army quickly. I had this problem in my first game against the Huns, so I'd like to see if i can tackle this on an easy (i.e. king) setting before jumping into the deep end.

Don't let your units die, play safely. War weariness mechanics will prevent AI from replenishing non-stop.

Play and win an authority game. Domination games are well outside my comfort zone since I hate being behind on science and always fear there's someone who's going to run away and I become powerless to overcome them. Personally it's quite the mental hurdle.

Being ahead in techs is not as powerful as it was in vanilla. Your army is smaller, your opponents research faster, your happiness suffer. Also, three modern units are better than two industrial units. Just don't fall too behind.

Deal with actual unhappiness and weariness problems. I barely felt this at all on my games so far and I ended up running away. Hopefully I'll actually feel it on standard speed

When you focus on means to avoid unhappiness you are paying an opportunity cost. But you need to pay it if you want to go warmonger. The key here is deciding when to raze, when to puppet, when to control. There are several threads on the issue.

Beat a runaway civ, whether it's a late game science or tourism monster, or someone who absorbed a whole continent. Seeing an army spanning a whole continent just makes me want to curl into a ball, but I imagine it's something that can't be ignored on higher difficulties.

Best way is luring them into attacking you. Choose the terrain, plan your roads and forts. Even if you can't counterattack, having to replenish their loses is already a cost for them. Try to avoid multiple war fronts.

 

[Oseas]

So I played a new game. Japan, king, standard speed, oval map. Didn't settle Kyoyo on a forest, and I went PF/Shrine/Monument/Spearman/Settler. Starting techs were Mining/BW/Pottery/The Wheel/Calendar.
I went Authority, with dominance first so my spearmen would get some payback for their work done, tribute, imperium then the rest. Unfortunately I didn't get to kill a lot of barbs since the camps were fortified by spearmen and I didn't bother to concentrate my forces for barb killing. I thought I'd find some warrior/archer camps and smash those, but I didn't find them with my soldiers and many other camps were already dead. I even saw a barb worker, but rather than capture him all I did was push him to Edinburgh and Boudicca got herself a free worker. I also didn't snipe any workers or kill any settlers from other civs, so that's probably a big mistake when playing authority.

My pantheon was god of all creation, and somehow I managed to get the last religion. Got orders of course.

Kyoto was a really good production city, so I got greedy and built quite a few wonders, like Pyramids, SoZ, ToA, MoH, Terracotta Army and Parthenon. I wanted to make the great wall as well, but Suleiman beat me by one turn. As for why I didn't make a big army instead, I wanted to wait until I researched steel and physics so I could make full use of my UA and UU, as well as trebuchets of course. During the classical era I thought I had a sufficient army to repel threats.

I had two wars with Boudicca at the beginning, and she didn't throw all that much at me. The terrain in and around her lands was garbage though, which made it troublesome to pursue her troops, thus killing not as many as I'd like. She had two cities, but I figured it wasn't worth the diplomatic penalties to take them, plus I didn't see the value in hamstringing her given how weak she was. I was also reluctant to commit to anything since I had two other fronts that I was wary of, and I had no way of knowing when my wars with the Celts would end.

Now to talk about my biggest mistake. Suleiman would tell me he was bothered by how close I was to some city state. I told him to get over it, and then he told me to die. Sadly one of my scouts with survivalism 3 was embarked near a CS allied to Suleiman and got promptly murdered. Anyway, by then I had quite a few samurai and trebuchets so I thought I had things under control, and for the first few turns I was making some headway on Edirne. At first it was only a few longswordsman, pikeman and heavy skirmishers. Eventually he'd send knights, then crossbowmen, and finally tercios and any hopes of taking Edirne were up in smoke. Here I thought I could overpower him with Samurai, but I didn't take him (or war) seriously enough.

 

[Oseas]

So this leads me to a few questions. Consider the following screenshot.

This is back in turn 141, I am currently researching steel, and the hill to the south of Tokyo is one of the few hills available to the city. Without a mine there, Tokyo's hammers is actually quite garbage. I'm also making a lighthouse in Tokyo to get a city connection, and only now am I bothering with roads so I can facilitate army movement.

I guess my first question is, what would you have done differently given the map, civ choice and opponents? What do you keep in mind when you draw a defensive line against the Ottomans, and how do you balance this against the other fronts near the Shoshone and The Celts? One of my screenshots in the previous post showed the buildings in the city of Tokyo. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

And to keep things relevant to the topic, is it still possible to pretend to be not a threat after you take a city or a capital? I realise that playing a warmonger means I'm eventually going to piss everybody off, but I'd rather not paint a target on my back from carelessly taking a city or two.

 

[tu_79]

So this leads me to a few questions. Consider the following screenshot.
View attachment 482720
This is back in turn 141, I am currently researching steel, and the hill to the south of Tokyo is one of the few hills available to the city. Without a mine there, Tokyo's hammers is actually quite garbage. I'm also making a lighthouse in Tokyo to get a city connection, and only now am I bothering with roads so I can facilitate army movement.

I guess my first question is, what would you have done differently given the map, civ choice and opponents? What do you keep in mind when you draw a defensive line against the Ottomans, and how do you balance this against the other fronts near the Shoshone and The Celts? One of my screenshots in the previous post showed the buildings in the city of Tokyo. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

And to keep things relevant to the topic, is it still possible to pretend to be not a threat after you take a city or a capital? I realise that playing a warmonger means I'm eventually going to piss everybody off, but I'd rather not paint a target on my back from carelessly taking a city or two.

I probably would have taken Purity as pantheon, with such a big lake. That small inland sea is forcing your roads to be longer, you can use it as a barrier, but settling all around it decreases its tactical value. I'd have used the sea as a barrier against Celts, fortified the south, and go against Ottomans to the west. Also, I would have settled where Te-Moak is now, to grab the citrus monopoly faster. Tokyo is a nice diplomatic civ, with those CS in its back door. I would have avoided Satsuma.