Ok WTH?! (civs denouncing me)

[DST1348]

[T]he root of all these ******** issues is that the AI is programmed to win no matter what means necessary, or more noticably programmed to STOP you from winning.

Yes, to me it feels like whenever you are winning the AIs just declare war on you to stop you from winning. Instead they should put more emphasis on pursuing their own victory goal. This would make the game more interesting and give the leaders some personality.

Also, the AI does not seem capable to distinguish who started a war. In many games the AI considers me a warmonger just because I win a war the AI started. Then two other AIs DoW on me, I take some of their cities, other AIs consider me an even greater warmonger, more AIs DoW on me . It's a vicious circle

 

[Tokira]

In my opinion it is ridiculous that the AI can act like this. Maybe there should be a form of friendship between civs that wouldn't break just because of one disagreement. This could be called that the civ is "allied", maybe it could happen after 50-100 turns of friendship if the player wishes so. I would suggest that once civs are allied only following things could end the alliance and once ended they would still be friendly.

1) If they ask you to settle near them and you promise not to settle near but you still continue doing it within next 20 turns. Obviously the player should be able to ask them not to settle near you too.

2) Declaration of war on their friend/ally (in ally's case they'd probably turn hostile or guarded)

3) Buying many of their city state allies

4) The player could decide to end the alliance but the other leaders of world would get offended by it if there is no good reason to do it.

5) You would become an ally of a player that have declared war against them. For example if you've been an ally of Russia since early game and then you would become an ally of Rome later, Rome would declare war on Russia so you'd have to choose your side or loose both allies.

Maybe there would be more reasons but more didn't come up to my mind at the moment.. Oh also, allied civs couldn't denounce eachother or declare war on eachother. The player however can break the alliance so you could still declare war on your previous allies within a few turns. Maybe the DoF would work as before. This system would make atleast my games much more interesting and reasonable as you could have loyal friends too. It's not fun that you can't trust to any of the AI civs as they could declare war anytime.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Yes, to me it feels like whenever you are winning the AIs just declare war on you to stop you from winning. Instead they should put more emphasis on pursuing their own victory goal. This would make the game more interesting and give the leaders some personality.

Also, the AI does not seem capable to distinguish who started a war. In many games the AI considers me a warmonger just because I win a war the AI started. Then two other AIs DoW on me, I take some of their cities, other AIs consider me an even greater warmonger, more AIs DoW on me . It's a vicious circle

I think this might be what happened to me. At one point I had another Civ state that I liked picking on people weaker than me, as I was wiping out my nearest neighbor who had declared war on me. My neighbor was stronger than me initially, but at the point they attacked I started most cities building units, and my opponent wasn't able to take a single city of mine. After I stopped all of their units, they still wouldn't make peace, so I started an offensive campaign to see if that would do it.

So I don't think the game keeps track of who started the conflict, only the currrent miltary strength of the participants.

 

[Soronery]

Try denouncing someone before going to war. If you are friends with people your friends will dislike whoever you denounced.

 

[alaric1112]

I do love this game but since the patch i agree every civ by mid game denounces me this is b.s. hope they fix it soon!

 

[MadRat]

The problem as others have pointed out the AI sees the whole game as a zero-sum game in highlander style dual to the death. For a lite sim of world history that is a bit silly that everyone suddenly believes that the world ends in 2050 and you "lose"

One way around this (for MP and single player) is to have the concept of a shared victory or a bonus (points) for helping a civ meet a condition like culture, alpha centauri or domination. For example if Egypt wins the space race and you are close allies and you helped even perhaps make starhip parts for them you get a huge score bonus that gives you a score victory or a space race victory as well in the score table.

Rat

 

[jprc]

I didn't notice it, but yes, I got ahead in score (Me 960, France 940, Siam/America 750). Most of my score comes from Population and land. I can understand that other civs become wary, but that Washington gets angry at me for wining a war that he wanted me to fight in is just silly IMO.

Yes, Washington wanted you to go at war, but are you sure he wanted you to win ??
Read Machiavelli.
If I push you to start a war with another nation, it allows me:
- test my "friend"'s army
- put this "friend" into trouble, knowing that the opponent has enough power for counter attacking later
- keep both nations busy while I prepare my strategy
- let you go into deep trouble, then come later and be the saviour!
- weaken you, and attack you where you expect it least
- have a strategic alliance with your opponent and misinform you on purpose, under the cover that "we are friends".
- discover for free the opponent's territory / strength, expecting later to come and win the war against this nation.
- you die for me, I win for you. Is not it what Washington did? He seems consistent with his war philosophy (debatable, I know)
- attack you as your armies are far far away

You see?
Plenty of reasons for not being happy if you win when you were not expected to do so!!

 

[DST1348]

Yes, Washington wanted you to go at war, but are you sure he wanted you to win ??
Read Machiavelli.
If I push you to start a war with another nation, it allows me:
- test my "friend"'s army
- put this "friend" into trouble, knowing that the opponent has enough power for counter attacking later
- keep both nations busy while I prepare my strategy
- let you go into deep trouble, then come later and be the saviour!
- weaken you, and attack you where you expect it least
- have a strategic alliance with your opponent and misinform you on purpose, under the cover that "we are friends".
- discover for free the opponent's territory / strength, expecting later to come and win the war against this nation.
- you die for me, I win for you. Is not it what Washington did? He seems consistent with his war philosophy (debatable, I know)
- attack you as your armies are far far away

You see?
Plenty of reasons for not being happy if you win when you were not expected to do so!!

If the AI's thinking were that sophisticated it would make sense. But I doubt that the AI is that smart. It seems more like the AI has the following reasoning:
- AI at war with other civ => needs help
- AI asks me to join war
- I start to conquer other civ's cities
- AI doesn't take into account the first two points but sees that I conquer cities of another civ => by their definition that makes me a warmonger
- my score> AI's score => AI denounces me
At that point the vicious circle with the other AIs begins.
- AI Hostile (or even at Friends) => AI declares war

I could understand somewhat that the AI becomes wary when I am close to a victory condition. But we were still in the Middle Ages! Even in that case the AI should put emphasis on winning their way. For civs like the Mongols this could indeed lead to a DoW, but Gandhi should spam culture buildings like crazy.

The way it's now every leader just declares war on you no matter what. All leader personality is lost and diplomatic relations are pointless.

 

[jprc]

(sigh)
I am afraid you are 100% right DST1348, and I am a dreamer...
Perhaps is it why I stop playing Civ 5 as I expected too much from it. Civ is a game in which you put a lot of you in it. It is/was a kind of turned based role playing game.
Playing against a "a+b=c" logic (vs a "a+b=variable" ) is not very sexy for saying the least. Predictable. hence quickly boring.

 

[texashopkins]

I agree that the diplomacy is seriously broken. I just tried playing a game as a friendly indian but quickly everyone came to hate me with lots of denouncements. Details that are now provided show me as a warmonger and having failed to help after declaring friendship even though I have not started any wars or taken any cities or had anyone agree to be my friend.

In a previous game I joined a war against India at Germany's behest(10 turns that joined when asked) and had only sank a couple ships on the turn when Germany denounced me. Followed of course by the rest of the world.

I had really wanted to like CIV v but Im about to give up on it. The answer is basically full time war or nothing and there are better pure war games out there.
tom

 

[Sonereal]

Oh come on guys, diplomacy is perfect! I just LOVE when Washington gets hostile on me because he covets land.

Despite being an island map.

And four turns in.

And plenty of room to expand.

*RAGE*

90% of my problems since Day 1 have revolved around the abysmal diplomacy system in CivV.

 

[nycguy]

I've experienced this as well. I couldn't take being friendly with a few civs and ending up all of them denouncing me and all of a sudden being at war with all of them! I have since gone back to CIV and personally having a blast! =)

 

[Hesha]

After my first couple of games played I concluded, that there is only ONE meaning to the relationship status: The exchange rate! Friendly trades Lux for Lux, Guarded wants something on top and hostile will take an arm and a leg for 1 GP if even.

BTW: That chain-denouncing the AI pulls of all the time is perfectly reasonable: Human players usually have tiny armies, because of 20:0 kill-death ratios. Therefor the AIs think human=weak and go for the boost in relationship to other leaders by co-denouncing (I guess you have noticed as well, that denouncing the same Civ gives a bonus in relations)

 

[Rusty Edge]

I was denouced as a warmonger, simply for acceding to the requests of my friends.

My best friend Hiawatha asks me to go to war with him against the Arabs, I said OK, give me ten turns. I didn't need the time to build an army so much as find Arabia ( which turned out to be several more turn's march on the other side of him ) .

Next turn about five more friends as well as almost every other nation make the same request, and I give the same answer.

When the time comes, I go to war at Hiawatha's side. The rest of the word immediately denounces me as an untrustworthy warmonger, and I go from friendship to guarded overnight, even though they, too, are going to war with Arabia.

In my world agreeing to my friends requests and honoring my commitments to them improves my status, not so in this game. Something is wrong here.
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It does seem like a game of "Survivor".