Odd Diplomatic situations and penalties (sure this has comeup before re: D Pacts)

[Becephalus]

Normally I don't use defensive pacts because of how messy they can get, but I thought I was the right situation today, and boy was I wrong...

So I am playing a game where Persia has run out to a simply giant lead. They are a full era ahead of me, and I am almost an era ahead of everyone else. There are 6 players left.

So me (Celts) and civs #3-5 (Songhai, Japan, England) are all friends and have all denounced Persia and their pet Byzantium who only has 2 cities and is 6th. Soon there is intelligence Persia is going to attack Japan and me.

So I quick make defensive pacts with everyone so we will all join the war when Persia attacks (units off the coast).

So now that we are prepared for the attack Songhai immediately declares war on England...

I get an automatic DoW on Songhai, AND Japan now hates me because I "attacked someone I have a DoF with" AND...

ENGLAND HATES ME for the same reason...which is absurd because I got pulled into a war to defend them.

2 turns later Japan Songhai and England denounce me, so now I am denounced by everyone. And 2 turns after that I am DoW by everyone but England. I have a large army, I had all positive modifiers with my three friends before the defensive pact fiasco. In fact I have no negative modifiers with anybody but Persia because I haven't attacked anyone all game or taken a single city.

Anyway I am one of the people who actually LIKES the current diplomatic model and its attempt to make the AI act more like a player, but the modifiers around defensive pacts and broken friendships are just stupid.

 

[Securion]

Sounds like a normal day of Civ 5 diplomacy. Have fun!
Its unbelievable that Firaxis dont fix small stuff like this. Its so easy to do. Modders do it in 5 minutes. Complete idiots could fix it in their sleep. Someone could probably fix it by face-rolling his keyboard. But not the people at Firaxis, noooo.... They are probably too busy axing features from the old classic X-Com they are doing a remake of.

 

[Khadroth]

I signed a Defensive Pact once in Vanilla to see what it was like. Never again.

 

[Adjuvant]

Sounds like your master plan backfired. Persia probably "bought out" Askia.

I do it all the time. You can look at the diplo "world" screen and see who's friends with/denounces/ at war with who. Then you can enter trade screen, select on their side other civs, make war with, and "make them an offer they can't refuse".

It's funny.

 

[jjkrause84]

Sounds like a normal day of Civ 5 diplomacy. Have fun!
Its unbelievable that Firaxis dont fix small stuff like this. Its so easy to do. Modders do it in 5 minutes. Complete idiots could fix it in their sleep. Someone could probably fix it by face-rolling his keyboard. But not the people at Firaxis, noooo.... They are probably too busy axing features from the old classic X-Com they are doing a remake of.

As anxiously as I am awaiting X-Com, I am concerned that the game might actually have fewer features than the original. When a nearly 20-year-old game has more depth you really have to ask yourself where gaming is heading.....

Anyways, here's my story (quite a common one, no doubt):

- I am England. Gandhi comes to me and asks if I'll join India in its war against the Ottomans. I say, "Yes, but give me 10 turns to prepare" since I was totally out of position.

- I get into position and declare war after 7 turns instead of 10

- India denounces me as a warmonger and our relations go from 'Friendly' to 'Guarded'

 

[King William I]

^^^^^

when agreeing to the 10 turn thing, wait until they give you the "it's time" message

 

[Miravlix]

*nodnods* And?

Warring carries a diplomacy risk, if you go to war to much, take cities, finish off a civ, etc. you get a warmongering score when that score goes over some threshold your a bad boy according to the diplo system.

Sure we could have a graph with numeric values so it's easy mode for everyone to know if taking that city or declaring that war make your score to high that they claim your a warmonger, but where is the challenge in that?

If it's your goal not to be on the bad side on AI's you need to grease them up with positive modifier to there is more room for your to be a bad boy.

Spread your religion to them.
Share spy info.
Denounce their enemy.
Be friend of their friend.
and all the others.

And don't forget diplomacy goes out the window if your civ has to low military score, then they simply hate you for being weak.

 

[Securion]

*nodnods* And?

Warring carries a diplomacy risk, if you go to war to much, take cities, finish off a civ, etc. you get a warmongering score when that score goes over some threshold your a bad boy according to the diplo system.

Sure we could have a graph with numeric values so it's easy mode for everyone to know if taking that city or declaring that war make your score to high that they claim your a warmonger, but where is the challenge in that?

If it's your goal not to be on the bad side on AI's you need to grease them up with positive modifier to there is more room for your to be a bad boy.

Spread your religion to them.
Share spy info.
Denounce their enemy.
Be friend of their friend.
and all the others.

And don't forget diplomacy goes out the window if your civ has to low military score, then they simply hate you for being weak.

You didnt read the thread did you?

 

[jjkrause84]

^^^^^

when agreeing to the 10 turn thing, wait until they give you the "it's time" message

I know that now....but you shouldn't have to. It is absurd for Gandhi to denounce me for going along (roughly) with his plan!

 

[Miravlix]

You didnt read the thread did you?

There was no thread when I started my post just the ops post.

I'm getting tired of the arrogance around here where everyone assume they are so good that the system has to be broken if it beats them. Is it to much to ask to shelf the arrogance and simply ask why something happened and we can pool the collective brainpower of the forum together to come up with a counter to game mechanics, but noo it's always just yet another whine.

 

[kgoodrid]

It would be nice if the system were a bit more user friendly. Why in the world are Defensive Pact DOWs automatic? Every other game I can think of has given the player the option of honoring it, or not honoring it, with diplomacy impacted accordingly. Really strange that that was removed.

Also, the AI does a terrible job of putting things in context. There are so many situations like this where an AI will get pissed at a player, when the player has honored an AI request.

 

[Securion]

There was no thread when I started my post just the ops post.

I'm getting tired of the arrogance around here where everyone assume they are so good that the system has to be broken if it beats them. Is it to much to ask to shelf the arrogance and simply ask why something happened and we can pool the collective brainpower of the forum together to come up with a counter to game mechanics, but noo it's always just yet another whine.

The system dosnt beat us. It fails us. Its broken. Everyone knows it is. Everyone can see it. Who is the arrogant in this case? You who refuse to see the problem even though its right in front of you, or the rest of us who wants it fixed so we can enjoy the game more?
People are not idiots, and if the system behaves in a way thats completely illogical and offensively stupid, people will react to it. A good example is AIs that hate you for doing what they ask you for; it is simply put hilariously dumb programming, or a bug, nothing else.

 

[Andulias]

DPs work just fine, but you have to know how to use them - never make a DP with more than 1 civ, it's as simple as that. And pretty logical if you ask me. And I do prefer the AI getting mad when I stab someone actually. Yes, the system isn't perfect, but it's your fault that you made a DP with everyone

 

[jjkrause84]

DPs work just fine, but you have to know how to use them - never make a DP with more than 1 civ, it's as simple as that. And pretty logical if you ask me.

It's pretty logical that you cannot form blocs?

 

[Harv72b]

The AI is not your friend.

The AI will never be your friend, no matter how large an advantage the AI might reap from being your friend.

The AI is a schizophrenic psychopath who does not play well with others, particularly not with others who drink mountain dew and need to shave. The AI is riddled with an uncontrollable urge to denounce anything and anyone, for any reason, and to get involved in expensive wars in which no cities are actually taken. The AI will declare war on anything and anyone, for any reason, but will denounce any other civ (especially human ones) who dare raise a rifle on anything not wearing barbarian red; Ethiopian red, while similar in appearance, is not the same thing.

Whenever doing anything diplomatically in the game, it's best to ask yourself first, "Is there any way whatsoever in which this can backfire and have me at war with the entire world within the next 3 turns?" If the answer is "maybe", then don't do it (unless you want to be at war with the entire world within the next 3 turns). Warning the AI against doing something which you consider to be nuke-worthy does no good, as the AI knows deep inside that no matter how hard it pushes you and no matter what it itself has done in the past & continues to do in the future, you will still be denounced by every other civilization in the world as soon as you do something about it.

AI diplomacy in this game exists solely for you to sell luxuries to in order to rush production of your stuff and to pester you with constant offers of open borders and requests for 2/3rds of your coffers--all other possibilities contained within the diplomacy screen are merely designed to make the AI laugh in little 1s and 0s whenever you attempt to use them. The AI will occasionally make offers to you which seem prudent, fair, and mutually beneficial, such as mutual defense treaties or joint declarations of war against a runaway leader or warmonger; these are not genuine offers, but rather an inside joke among AIs which they giggle about afterwards amongst themselves.

The AI is your utterly evil ex- who would beg you to do something, only to rage uncontrollably on you whether you did it or not.

Whenever you start to get frustrated at the AI not doing what's best for your plans, or even what would be best for its own chances of victory, simply remember what you're dealing with and be thankful that it doesn't want to come over for poker or hang out after the game.

 

[Adjuvant]

It's pretty logical that you cannot form blocs?

The "ones that form such blocs" usually are in such a position no 3 or 4 opponents can think of "taking" them anyway. It's a bid to sell their weapons and culture to those who feel vulnerable. Do you see any NATO flying MiGs?

 

[Securion]

The AI is not your friend.

The AI will never be your friend, no matter how large an advantage the AI might reap from being your friend.

The AI is a schizophrenic psychopath who does not play well with others, particularly not with others who drink mountain dew and need to shave. The AI is riddled with an uncontrollable urge to denounce anything and anyone, for any reason, and to get involved in expensive wars in which no cities are actually taken. The AI will declare war on anything and anyone, for any reason, but will denounce any other civ (especially human ones) who dare raise a rifle on anything not wearing barbarian red; Ethiopian red, while similar in appearance, is not the same thing.

Whenever doing anything diplomatically in the game, it's best to ask yourself first, "Is there any way whatsoever in which this can backfire and have me at war with the entire world within the next 3 turns?" If the answer is "maybe", then don't do it (unless you want to be at war with the entire world within the next 3 turns). Warning the AI against doing something which you consider to be nuke-worthy does no good, as the AI knows deep inside that no matter how hard it pushes you and no matter what it itself has done in the past & continues to do in the future, you will still be denounced by every other civilization in the world as soon as you do something about it.

AI diplomacy in this game exists solely for you to sell luxuries to in order to rush production of your stuff and to pester you with constant offers of open borders and requests for 2/3rds of your coffers--all other possibilities contained within the diplomacy screen are merely designed to make the AI laugh in little 1s and 0s whenever you attempt to use them. The AI will occasionally make offers to you which seem prudent, fair, and mutually beneficial, such as mutual defense treaties or joint declarations of war against a runaway leader or warmonger; these are not genuine offers, but rather an inside joke among AIs which they giggle about afterwards amongst themselves.

The AI is your utterly evil ex- who would beg you to do something, only to rage uncontrollably on you whether you did it or not.

Whenever you start to get frustrated at the AI not doing what's best for your plans, or even what would be best for its own chances of victory, simply remember what you're dealing with and be thankful that it doesn't want to come over for poker or hang out after the game.

This is simply the best post ive seen on this forum.

 

[Securion]

The "ones that form such blocs" usually are in such a position no 3 or 4 opponents can think of "taking" them anyway. It's a bid to sell their weapons and culture to those who feel vulnerable. Do you see any NATO flying MiGs?

Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia springs to mind... But thats not counting all the Partnership For Peace NATO members... Like Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia, etc, etc, etc...

 

[Adjuvant]

How about ones that weren't Warsaw Pact 25 years ago and still trying to use up the spare parts they bought?

 

[Securion]

How about ones that weren't Warsaw Pact 25 years ago and still trying to use up the spare parts they bought?

Hehe, you didnt ask for that mate
Seriously though, a few NATO countries are considering upgrading their MIG-29s with the new MIG-35. Even SU-35s...
But we are drifting off topic here....