"Ignore this request"?

If you agree to their request and you follow-through, you get a diplomatic bonus for doing so. The "Don't settle near us!" one is really easy to get.

However, the AI is unreasonably touchy about units near their borders. For starters, it applies to scouts and caravels, which is ridiculous. Second, it applies to your units in YOUR borders, which is even more ridiculous. I suppose I could see that being reasonable if you parked eight knights on your side of the border, but a single slinger unit is setting off the warning.

Also, the acceptance and follow-through of the "don't spy on me anymore" warning should cancel out the "you spied on us!" diplomatic modifier unless it was something really bad like space ship sabotage in which case the "you spied on us" modifier should be more than the "You agreed to and then didn't spy on us" modifier. Right now it seems like agreeing to not spy on people can only avoid further diplomatic negatives (original spying modifier + you broke an agreement). There are already plenty of ways to get the AI to hate you more and not enough ways to get them to like/forgive you. Also, there is plenty of historical precedence for civs spying on each other and forgiving each other. It wasn't that long ago the the USA was caught spying on Germany and diplomatic relations barely suffered and don't suffer at all now (as a result of that spying incidence).

In the intelligence/diplomatic world, it's widely assumed that everybody is conducting at least some level of espionage on everybody else regardless of diplomatic status. The only thing that changes is the kind of information sought or clandestine activities done. I don't think the USA is hacking French centrifuges in order to sabotage them or Russia isn't hacking India's political parties to screw with their elections.

 

Oh, and while we're kind of on it ... there really needs to be the opposite of the "Stop spreading your religion!" button. There are plenty of situations where you want someone to spread a religion to you and that goes for the AI as well.

I know Kongo has a diplomatic modifier on this very topic, but that's just a negative modifier and it's not a request. It would be ideal if a civ could ask you for religion, you could agree (and then have 20 turns to start converting their cities or suffer a slight diplomatic penalty), say no (very slight diplomatic penalty), or ignore them (no diplomatic penalty). If you successfully meet their demand (at least convert one city), you would get a small bonus to diplomatic relations. As usual, if you convert most of their cities, you get a large diplomatic bonus.

 

I was wondering the same. What are the diplo penalty for each answer:

- We settle where we please
- Ignore this request
- Accept and lie

Also is hitting ESC considered as 'ignore this request'?