Maintaining lasting relations with a Civ

[AeonOfTime]

I have played through 6 different maps now, and I am a bit baffled by how fast my relationship with other civs can change from total friendship to denunciations.

An example: in one game, from the beginning up to 1150 AD (standard map, marathon, otherwise all standard settings) I was really good friends with Ghandi. We used to renew our friendship declarations every time they were over and I helped him out with resources whenever he asked.

Now the time came when he asked me to declare war on another civ, and naturally I agreed. That's what long time friends do, right? Except after the war was over, Ghandi started denouncing me. Now what the hell is going on?

As there is no real way to see what bothers the AI players, I'm starting to care less about how I treat them, as being consistent in your relationships yields no results.

Does anyone have pointers on how to keep relationships going?

 

[Becomedeath]

Trade regularly

Don't move units along their borders without an open borders agreement.

Keep a research agreement up where you can

Watch who they're friends with (don't attack their friends, attack their enemies and don't ninja their city states)

Keep those DoFs up.



If all else fails, build an army and show them how wrong they are for not being your friend. Preferably a little message backed with


In the situation you described however, I suspect you took more cities than Ghandi did. For some reason, Civs appear to want you to knock things over, but with no reward when they ask you for military help. Never tried it myself, but perhaps gifting a few units to them rather than actually taking cities if you really value the relationship?

 

[Strategist83]

Now the time came when he asked me to declare war on another civ, and naturally I agreed. That's what long time friends do, right? Except after the war was over, Ghandi started denouncing me. Now what the hell is going on?

You took their last city and thus destroyed their civilization, right? There is a *massive* penalty for 'destroying' a civilization. Gandhi is one of the AI's that is the most angered by warmongering - perhaps in your case even enough to offset the improvement in relations you get for dealing damage to 'a common foe'.

 

[basta]

After patch, if you want good relations, don't be leading in your game.

 

[AeonOfTime]

You took their last city and thus destroyed their civilization, right? There is a *massive* penalty for 'destroying' a civilization. Gandhi is one of the AI's that is the most angered by warmongering - perhaps in your case even enough to offset the improvement in relations you get for dealing damage to 'a common foe'.

Not exactly, but close - I took their capital. But this is good info, I'll try to make sure I don't go overboard next time. I thought war is war, seems like Ghandi wants war without killing, which would be quite a feat in Civ!

 

[AeonOfTime]

After patch, if you want good relations, don't be leading in your game.

Yes, that's one thing I noticed as well - as long as you're keeping your score crappy everyone's very civil. Otherwise you get denunciations and the occasional jest telling you that you're pathetic.

 

[JWAT44]

if you are on different continents they usually never get angry unless you befriend their enemies, denounce them or declare war on them

 

[Becephalus]

Steps to having positive relationships with other civs.

1. Maintain a strong army.
2. Maintain a strong army.
3. Maintain a strong army.
4. Under no circumstances make declarations of friendship
5. Under no circumstances take over CSs.
6. Under no circumstances completely eliminate another civ (let someone else finish them off).

If you follow those simple steps you may get the occasional random Dow, but you will almost never get the mass hate you do when you are stomping all over everyone, or making friends with the wrong people.

If you have a tiny army everyone will Dow you and there is no way to avoid that.

 

[Optional]

As there is no real way to see what bothers the AI players...

On the small diplo screen, where terms like 'friendly', 'guarded' etc are mentioned, you can hover your mouse curser over these words to see the AI's motivations.
But any AI can turn nasty from one turn to the other. In a way you're lucky if an AI denounces you, because it's a warning. Not always you'll get this warning, often the AI will go straight from being your best friend to an outright declaration of war. It's a roll of the dice rather than diplomacy.

When you have lux to spare I would strongly advice to trade them away rather to gift them away in the name of friendship. There is no real friendship in Civ 5.
It's an ongoing complaint here on the forums that diplomacy is lacking in Civ 5, it seems to be there, but it isn't, or it's too thin.

 

[Horizons]

If you want meaningful friendships and long-lasting productive relationships, stop playing Civ5 and so something else.
Moderator Action: Such posts are considered spam if you don't give any reasons.

 

[pariahdise]

this is basically my only real big complaint with civ5 atm. i want to bring back the civ 4 style vassalage and perm alliances and whatnot.

 

[KevinLancaster]

I can usually maintain lasting relationships with AIs even if I'm on top if I have a DoF. But the thing is that it depends on who you're friends with. Some civs have a higher loyalty value than others, meaning they're less likely to backstab you if you have a DoF. Also it seems that Ghandi ALWAYS wants DoFs.

But the thing that I hate the most is that if you maintain a DoF with a powerful nation long enough, everyone hates you. But if you break it off with them, everyone still hates you and they forget immediately the years of friendship you have and may denounce you if you don't renew the DoF. This is particularly notable in the end-game.

 

[ShahJahanII]

this is basically my only real big complaint with civ5 atm. i want to bring back the civ 4 style vassalage and perm alliances and whatnot.

I had a thread on that, it got swept away by all the new ones though.
Vassalage, colonies, master, vassal, all these things are much more interesting democratic relations than, friend or foe.
That last patch really killed things. Sure, the AI started off violent before the patch, but when was the last time Lizzy declared war with 8 warriors and a few archers before she even had iron?

 

[Revoran]

It is difficult to do this, especially considering the AI's tendency to randomly backstab you.

However there are things you can do to avoid pissing civs off:
Try expanding less (and never near another civs capital), playing with less civs on a map to avoid congestion, always keep a reasonably large and modern army that is visible to your neighbours. Play pangea less - the more continents the better. Don't refuse a request after you have declared friendship. Be careful who you do and dont declare friendship with. Avoid taking out city states and civilization capitals. Avoid going to war with the same civ twice, or at least avoid DOWing the same civ twice.

 

[Pim]

maintaining a last relationship was a bit to hard for me last night. I generaly dont bother to do much about diplo in ciV, just selling my surplus luxery. But last night it got me into trouble, i was on a contintent with another 3 civs, hiawata, ceasar and washington. I befriended the first and the last, ceaer was a backstabber. After a while they started fighting eachother, i was teching like hell, reach riflemen and wanted to join the fighting so i dow'd hiawata. Took his capitel and another beautiful city and was pretty screwed in the diplo department.
Every other civ started to denounce me. Even the ones that met me after my victorious conquest. This made diplo nearly impossible for me, until the moment everybody started to denounce everybody, allthough they always were 'guarded'.
So the lesson for me was:
never attack a friend, not only will it screw relations with other friend or neighboring civs, everybody will hate you for it for way to many turns.

 

[Superluminal]

So the lesson for me was: never attack a friend, not only will it screw relations with other friend or neighboring civs, everybody will hate you for it for way to many turns.

True. If war is not completely necessary to achieve your short-term objectives in the game then I believe it's best to provoke the AI in every possible way so they declare war on you. Always good to pre-build some units in your cities, and letting them sit there with 1 turn completion just in case they declare and SURPRISE! Secret army force ready to roll out when they do.

Lately I played a peaceful game with Egypt, I just build 2 cities and trade with everyone, I don't attack CS, or provoke anyone, make RA's with everyone, No friendships, no denunciations, no war allies, I make AI's attack other CS or AI's, I only culture bomb city states and build lots of wonders on Prince difficulty. Most peaceful and rewarding game ever.

 

[cman2010]

yeah diplo is glitched in this game get used to it. You can even micro manage it like some have suggested but still get random dow all the time.
maybe theres a mod you could find that would make diplo better.

 

[LostInTime]

Hope they are on another continent and pursuing another victory condition than you.

I've pretty much given up on making lasting friends in this game, now it's a matter of exploiting the "friendship" as long as I can before it blows up.

I must say I miss the Civ4 system, where when you had "friendly" relations you were pretty much sure they were your friends forever unless you messed up or was friendly with Cathy. (gotta love that "friendly" slap ) They should bring back pleased or something, because "friendly" in Civ5 is a total joke.