Let's talk about diplomacy in the start of game

[maxgal]

Hi, everyone!

I love diplomacy! I believe that diplomacy is one of the most important things in Civilization!
Let's talk about it.
Using diplomacy you can do better than you could do without it.
In start of your game you should get a best relationship with all of your neighbours. Especially if your country located in centre of map. Why? It's easy to understand. If you've got a best relationship with all of your neighbours, you won't be afraid of WAR with far civs and of course with your neighbours.
If some civs will declare war on you, just visit all of you friendly neighbours and ask they to stop trading with your enemy.
If enemy armies can't come to you (if your neighbours will stop trading with your enemy), you won't be afraid of WAR and you will continue develop your economy.
And of course you can use a friendly neighbours territory to attack your enemy, but your enemy can't do it!
So, don't wait anymore, let's go to your neighbours!

Coming soon - how to crash enemy economy without declare a war.

 

[Michelangelo]

Welcome to CFC

Even better, you can get them to fight the war for you.

 

[maxgal]

Welcome to CFC

Thank you

Even better, you can get them to fight the war for you

Yes, it's good idea, but if your enemy has a big, strong army your neighbour will have a problem And may be it will be your problem! So you should much think before you ask your neighbour to join your war campaign.

 

[Bagpuss]

But you can't be everyone's friend. In the (admittedly) few games I've played I've never found it to be that simple. Often there's a psycho somewhere in the vicinity; either Spain demanding an inconvenient religion swap or Montezuma just going nuts for no reason at all etc. Even if you decide to go down the appeasement route there are the inter-AI relationships to consider. Often you can't trade with one without significantly worsening your relationship with another. It seems that going for a group hug is only rarely a an acheivable option.

For me it's been a case of
a) Identify who you're never going to be on good terms with because they're just psychos, and make sure you give them nothing because they will surely try and beat you with it soon.
b) Make and maintain the friendships you think will be most advantageous to you in the long run.
c) Let what's left in the middle shake itself out!

 

[CivDude86]

I think most people believe in the inverse. Its easier to conquer your neighbor that someone halfway across the world and you'll always have close borders spark tensions with them.

 

[Howitzah]

What I like to do is, early on, pick a neighbor or two who are "slated for destruction" so to speak, preferably Civs that have lots of grassland.

I antagonize them early on while making friends with the Civs on the other opposite side of them. Once they declare war, I enlist the help of their neighbor. They usually move their units to defend against the AI, then their precious cities are all mine.

 

[svv]

I will usually select my enemies based on when their UU comes into play, especially if they have a really good one. If I can nail Rome before they get the Praetorians, I will do it. Otherwise, I'll schedule them for late in the game. I'll leave Mali for a while while the skirmishers become obsolete. Russia cannot be allowed to have Cossacks. England and Germany must be dealt with before their UUs become available.

 

[Torvoni]

...
In start of your game you should get a best relationship with all of your neighbours.

This is the reason I can't ever win by diplomacy.

I can get land to give myself votes.
I can get one very friendly friend who will vote for me to win.
My main opponent votes for himself to win.
Everyone else abstains.

Grrrrr.

The issue that keeps getting in the way is that the other civs like me enough to make me the head of U.N. but not enough to vote me as winner. They are mad because I "traded with their worst enemy" at some point in the game.

You can't trade with everyone.
I'm not even sure what is considered trading anyway.
Open borders?
Resource for resource?
Tech for tech?
Anything for anything?

The free religion civic gets beyond all the zealots who hate you for not switching to their religion. A fake war against a weak third party will build up some "shared struggle" points. The negative modifiers I never seen to get around are the trading with enemies subtracted points.

... by the way ... you can be on very friendly terms with a neighbor ... but if they think you are weak they will backstab just the same ...

 

[maxgal]

This is the reason I can't ever win by diplomacy.

I didn't say about win by diplomacy. I just said that my way is good in the start of game. I like an alternative history. I play Civ not because I wanna win by diplomacy (or land and etc). I play Civ to enjoy this game and I like watching different situations which happened between different countries.
I've found that my way works if you have 2 or 3 neighbours. And of course just in the start of game

 

[CivMonger]

... by the way ... you can be on very friendly terms with a neighbor ... but if they think you are weak they will backstab just the same ...

Yuppers. if you fall to far behind in power its probably because yoru building too much infastructure and too little units. Which makes you ripe for the taking, and a valuable addition in the new "not yours" empire.

 

[Shadzy19]

You should be carefull trying to befriend everyone , if some civs have very loisy relations and you keep trading with both of them you will end up with -4 you have traded with our worst enemy with both of them resulting in having both nations starting to dislike you .

IMO your much better off trying to befriend 2-3 people in the same friends group and try to get them to friendly (usually the same religion, make sure you take AI's that will be willing to trade with you and have a decent army ) then have 8 civs balancing around between cautious and pleased because they will backstab you .

 

[KMadCandy]

a lot of it depends on the map too. my current game is archipelago (which i don't like, so playing it to learn it, i'm brennus). isabella was right next to me so i took her out, using galleys, before she met anybody. this resulted in no diplomatic 'you declared war on our friend!' modifiers with anyone, since they never knew she existed. she had a sweet home island. madrid is my oxford city, barcelona is wall street (jewish holy city, i'd not founded any of the first 3 religions).

i was first to optics and first to astronomy, found julius by my religion spreading. he hadn't met any of the other 3 civs yet. went to war using galleons, oh the travel time ugh! i captured both the great wall and chichen itza from him, thanks for taking the time to build wonders for me julius! i was taking his last city when cyrus showed up with a caravel. happily, they didn't have time to become friends (even tho they both had my religion), so i didn't get the war on friend modifier with cyrus yay!

one thing totally surprised and scared me. i'd scouted the map, found isa, cyrus, julius, louis, and churchill. then many many years later catherine shows up to talk to me!!! i'd completely forgotten there was another civ out there, and the war with julius distracted me from exploring once i got the circumnavigation bonus.

obviously totally map dependent, but in this case, wiping out two rivals before they had contact with anyone made it easier for me to keep relations with the other civs pleased/friendly later. atm isabella, julius, and louis are no more, cyrus was my first (ever!) vassal, churchill just capitulated to me too. it's catherine's turn as soon as i move my troops to a staging area muhahaha.