It seems that there are just too few reasons to have good relations with the AI in this game.
In order to be on good terms with the AI, you must not:
- Spread your religion in their lands (if they have founded a religion of their own, which 80% of the civs will have)
- Go to war with ANY other AI, and especially not capture any cities
- Table or vote for any resolutions that are against their interests
- Vie with them for influence with a CS that they are interested in
- Break any promises you make to any AI
- Build any wonders that they want
In other words, your options to further your game are severely limited if you want to keep the AI happy. The inability to go to war and conquer cities without offending other civs is particularly crippling. In return, what do you get?
- Ability to trade resources at a fair price
- Open borders
- Research agreements
- Greater willingness to stop spying on you/spreading their religion in your lands when asked
That's about it. None of these items are particularly necessary to one's game. Take resources for example - my allied city-states tend to give me so many resources that few of the other civs have resources that I don't have.
IMO, there needs to be more benefits to maintaining good relations with other civs. Otherwise, it just isn't worth the trouble. For example, perhaps the gold return from trade routes to other civs could be modified by their attitudes towards you- a "friendly" civ will yield 50% more gold, while a "denouncing", "guarded" or "hostile" civ will yield 50% less. Individual civs should also be able to issue a trade embargo against your civ if they hate you enough (instead of this simply being a WC resolution). IMO, this would make it more worthwhile to keep other civs happy.
In order to be on good terms with the AI, you must not:
- Spread your religion in their lands (if they have founded a religion of their own, which 80% of the civs will have)
- Go to war with ANY other AI, and especially not capture any cities
- Table or vote for any resolutions that are against their interests
- Vie with them for influence with a CS that they are interested in
- Break any promises you make to any AI
- Build any wonders that they want
In other words, your options to further your game are severely limited if you want to keep the AI happy. The inability to go to war and conquer cities without offending other civs is particularly crippling. In return, what do you get?
- Ability to trade resources at a fair price
- Open borders
- Research agreements
- Greater willingness to stop spying on you/spreading their religion in your lands when asked
That's about it. None of these items are particularly necessary to one's game. Take resources for example - my allied city-states tend to give me so many resources that few of the other civs have resources that I don't have.
IMO, there needs to be more benefits to maintaining good relations with other civs. Otherwise, it just isn't worth the trouble. For example, perhaps the gold return from trade routes to other civs could be modified by their attitudes towards you- a "friendly" civ will yield 50% more gold, while a "denouncing", "guarded" or "hostile" civ will yield 50% less. Individual civs should also be able to issue a trade embargo against your civ if they hate you enough (instead of this simply being a WC resolution). IMO, this would make it more worthwhile to keep other civs happy.