Pact of secrecy question

[yanner39]

Unfortunately, the manual once again is terrible in explaining some of these mechanics. And really, what's happening here is important and SHOULD BE easily understood to the player as to what consequences may occur. It seems Firaxis took the lazy route of leading the player to a trial & error thing, finding out the hardway through numerous sessions.

Explaining? Are these pacts even mentioned in the manual? Honestly, if my military advisor tells me that my military is strong enough versus AI #1 or AI#2, I could give a rat's ass whether these AIs like me or not.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Explaining? Are these pacts even mentioned in the manual? Honestly, if my military advisor tells me that my military is strong enough versus AI #1 or AI#2, I could give a rat's ass whether these AIs like me or not.

Not explained as far as I've found.

And the diplomatic full-screen interface is severely lacking in giving you the information needed to make the choice.

If I'm about to sign a pact of secrecy with nation Y, and assuming that it means "don't make agreements with nation X", then the game needs to tell me that "you have agreements ABC with X" rather then it being a shot in the dark. It needs to let me see the official statuses of who is at war with who, who as defense pacts, and who is allied with who.

 

[SirTurtle]

Options:
A) You will pay for this
B) Okay

This "You will pay" choice comes up in a lot of diplomatic interactions. Does your choice in these interactions have any effect? If it does something, what is it? More importantly, how can we figure this out?

 

[Kruelgor]

I was coming to this forum to ask the exact same question, but found this in the search. It's also funny to note that the term 'Pact of Secrecy" is nowhere to be found in the manual or civilopedia.

 

[Duo]

It's a shame, you would think it would be very easy to just have a pop up come up after you sign your first pacts of secrecy/cooperation explaining what you have to do and the sort of benefits you can expect! Even a one word summary of relations with a rival on the diplo screen wouldn't be amiss, without being totally transparent. I once had someone listed as "Hostile", and thought it would be nice if they could do such succinct summaries for every civ.

 

[Aaroc]

Even a one word summary of relations with a rival on the diplo screen wouldn't be amiss, without being totally transparent. I once had someone listed as "Hostile", and thought it would be nice if they could do such succinct summaries for every civ.

I noticed that earlier as well (after I back-stabbed Suleiman, Catherine became "hostile"). I wonder if perhaps that is how we know how other civs feel about us? The strangest thing was that, after having wiped out Suleiman and Catherine off my starting continent, I ran across Montezuma and Alexander. Alexander had apparently wiped out Egypt (or perhaps had Monty help him) and Monty was "scared" of me, while Alexander didn't have any descriptors, but did ask me to fight Monty with him. It was kinda cool, because I had the option of asking for ten turns to get myself ready (and in so doing, had to use Alexander's borders to get into Aztec land, which got Alex all paranoid that I was going to attack him instead of Monty).

 

[Johan de Witt]

I played a game with the Greeks and between me and the French were three city states that were my allies. Old Nappy was very friendly to me and always eager to trade.

At a certain point (he was warmongering all game long), he declared war against the three city-states and quickly annexed them. When I talked to him, he was all "Hey good friend, how are you". So I declared war, his reply was something like "Oh good, I would like to cross swords with you!". I retook the three city states and made them my allies, Nappy didn't need a lot of encouragement to make peace again. The trade agreements were happily formed again.

Not too long after, he attacked them again (they were about his only border) and when I talked to him, he replied something like "Hey, good to see you". I declared war and again, he was like "No probs mate, lets cross swords again". Because this war didn't go so well, I didn't manage to protect the city states and was forced to make peace. Again, he was friendly and resumed trade.

When our truce was over, he talked to me saying something like "Dude, now the masterplan is revealed" and he steamrolled over my diminished defenses.

I love this... There I was, thinking that me and Nappy were friends and he just used that to further my inevitable doom. That's realpolitik!

 

[phillosopherp]

my problem with the pacts of secrecy is that they really have no effect once so ever. I am in a current game where basically everyone and I had a pact of secrecy against Alexander only to find that when Alexander actually decided to attack me that no one would assist me, and no one went to war with him at all. So why exactly were you wanting to sign a pact against him if when we could all jump in together and attack him no one wanted to do so. Last I check if you are wanting to isolate him, then he gives us an excuse to steamroll him you all are like, I don't know what you mean he is nice...

 

[pi-r8]

It's a pact of SECRECY.

It wouldn't be very secret if you knew about it, now would it?

 

[Gwynnja]

It's a pact of SECRECY.

It wouldn't be very secret if you knew about it, now would it?

Can't they break the fourth wall just this once and put it into the civopedia or manual?

 

[Martin Alvito]

I am in a current game where basically everyone and I had a pact of secrecy against Alexander only to find that when Alexander actually decided to attack me that no one would assist me, and no one went to war with him at all.

Does Alex have your military badly outnumbered? If so, the AIs may be waiting to see how the war goes before jumping in. If you kill enough units, he may take a DOW from other civs once he is sufficiently weakened to be an attractive target. Until then, the other AIs probably figure that you're going to be defeated, and do not wish to antagonize Alexander fighting a losing battle. Under those circumstances, the best response for the other AIs is to dogpile you, in the hopes of winning an easy city or two before Alex takes them.

The AI seems to do an effective job of subscribing to realpolitik. It follows Kissinger's maxim that nations do not have friends, they have interests. The AI will backstab you if the opportunity presents itself, and it will not willingly throw itself in front of the oncoming train of a dominant civ.

The one major flaw with the way this is implemented in CiV is that peaceful play is not rewarded. In real life, war is a rare event. In part, this is because nations have broader interests and richer diplomatic options. War is also rare because it is more costly in real life. In principle, strong AIs (and humans) should prefer to achieve their aims peacefully wherever possible, should demand those ends of weak civs, and should receive those demands within reason.

Unfortunately, the unit promotion system means that it can be strictly profitable to fight a war, even if you accomplish no ends except improving some of your units. Even minimal losses are perfectly acceptable if the result is a few highly promoted, unusually durable units. This promotes warmongering, which in turn causes the programmers to tell the AI to be hyper-aggressive. Since the AI presumably calculates power from units and population (which represents the potential for units), you're disproportionately likely to be targeted early on the higher difficulties. Plan accordingly.

The diplomatic experience must also be limited because the AI is bad at calculating the relationship between its desired ends and the expected costs of attaining those ends. The more options you give an AI that cannot make this calculation, the more opportunities players have to exploit the AI. (People have found plenty of ways to exploit the few options the AI has already.) This is probably a large part of why diplomacy is so limited in this version of Civ.

But this AI makes much better decisions about determining who to fight when. If you're not getting assistance against a dominant power that everyone hates, odds are that the other AIs don't think you stand a chance.

It seems Firaxis took the lazy route of leading the player to a trial & error thing, finding out the hardway through numerous sessions.

No, this is just a game that was rushed into release to make the publisher's financials look the way the CFO wants them to look. Believe it or not, top executives of corporations don't maximize their own earnings by maximizing the company's profits, due to the way that Wall Street evaluates companies. This leads to all kinds of silly behaviors, such as rushing games that aren't ready to market.

 

[CornPlanter]

I found the diplo in Civ 4 way too exploitable and really rigid.

Obscurity is not the right mean to make something not exploitable. It only delays the inevitable, because people must figure it out first. But they will figure it out in terms of +1/-1, you can be sure. Especially if they plan to release so called SDK which is game's code

 

[strollen]

I am little surprised people are finding diplomacy so hard to figure it. It is explained in the manual, albeit not real well.

A pact of cooperation is basically a commitment to do mutually beneficial in the future.
This is include research agreements, trade, and open border. You should think, am I really going to these things in the future. If you are answer naw I really don't want a research agreement, nor do I want the pesky Roman sending their scouts (much less there army), than politely tell the guy. Now thanks I prefer to go it alone. I don't think it hurts too much to say no to a specific thing say open borders as long you do other stuff like a research agreements. However, if you sign a pact of cooperation than don't make any follow up agreements, you are basically lying. Liars get penalized in real life and the game.

A pact of secrecy is far more serious. A minimum the expectation is that you wont trade with guy, , sign open borders, or anything the help the target country. Realistically. if you sign a pact of secrecy, you can expect that in the future you will be asked to declare war on the target. If you don't do so, than you'll be consider a liar and untrustworthy. If you don't intend to declare war against somebody don't sign a pact of secrecy.

I think the key is stop thinking in Civ IV terms open borders gives +1 relations and trading tech gives +2 to +4, and start thinking like a diplomat. When in doubt, George Washington's Farewell Address has some terrific advice for future leaders.

40 It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

 

[CornPlanter]

I think the key is stop thinking in Civ IV terms open borders gives +1 relations and trading tech gives +2 to +4, and start thinking like a diplomat.

That is obviously what Firaxis intended. But the best intentions of developers mean nothing compared to dedicated competitive player base Like I said, eventually all diplomacy will be reduced to your +2 to +4 stuff. No later than SDK gets released, most likely earlier. Why? Because thinking in cold hard numbers is more efficient than thinking in roleplaying terms and obscure "likes/dislikes".

Then again, what I always liked about civ series is that every1 can play it the way they like. And RP is not always opposite of efficiency, quite the contrary. Mad Scientists games with artificial limitations basically force you to play as efficiently as you can and is a RP at the same time.

 

[strollen]

That is obviously what Firaxis intended. But the best intentions of developers mean nothing compared to dedicated competitive player base Like I said, eventually all diplomacy will be reduced to your +2 to +4 stuff. No later than SDK gets released, most likely earlier. Why? Because thinking in cold hard numbers is more efficient than thinking in roleplaying terms and obscure "likes/dislikes".

Then again, what I always liked about civ series is that every1 can play it the way they like. And RP is not always opposite of efficiency, quite the contrary. Mad Scientists games with artificial limitations basically force you to play as efficiently as you can and is a RP at the same time.

You are probably right but I am hoping that formula's are so complicated it will be force to depend on something beside math to figure it out.
For instance refusing to sign and open border agreement when you have a pact of cooperation will be probabilist and not determinist.
RelationshipScore += LeaderCooperationTendency * dealrenenger() - Random()* IrrationalTendency plus a dozen things I have not thought about it.

So instead you'll have to pay attention to things like did Montezuma greet me as friend or did say something about the power of my empire, and when he said friend did he say it with a smile on his face or a scowl.

And yes eventually somebody will reduce that when Montezuma says friend that +3 on the relationship scale but if he says it with a scowl that is minus 3.

 

[WuphonsReach]

I am little surprised people are finding diplomacy so hard to figure it. It is explained in the manual, albeit not real well.

And yet, we're not giving the information the game to figure out whether a pact of secrecy against civ X is a good idea for us in the current game. There's no way, other then writing everything down on a pad of paper as you go to keep track of "I have deals X, Y and Z with that civ, so I'd better not sign a pact of secrecy".

It's about 1/2 bad UI design and 1/2 bad diplomacy design.

 

[quinalla]

Pacts of secrecy are sort of in the manual, here is what the manual says under diplomacy:

"Discuss
This button allows you to open up dialog on a variety of topics. Depending upon circumstances you may do any of the following. The leader’s response will depend upon his or her relations with you and their own self-interest.
• Ask the leader to work together.
• Ask the leader to work against another civilization.
• Ask the leader to go to war against another civ.
• Request that the leader not build any more new cities near you."

The 2nd option is a pact of secrecy.

I agree it needs more explanation, as for now I assume it is an agreement not to trade, do a research agreement or open borders with that civ and that it acts as a stepping stone before going to war. Not that they will always go to war if you have one of these, but they are more likely to. It would be good to know a little more about what is expected for sure though. And yes, it is similar in concept to the "They are my worst enemy" deal in civ4 from what I can tell.

And I too enjoy that the civs come to you occasionally and you get to respond either pissed off/aggressive or neutral/passive. The first one basically tells them that you are getting more angry with them, the latter keeps things the same. There is no documentation on this as far as I know, but to me it seems like instead of assuming your reaction, you actually get to react to the civs and hopefully they take that into account. So if you have been provoked and respond that you are pissed off and then end up declaring war, others should look on you more favorably because of that instead of thinking you are a warmonger. I don't know for sure that it works that way, but it should Either way, it is satisfying to be able to tell off the civs when they insult me or let them know that I really am not offended.

 

[Blacklanner]

One effect i've noticed of a pact of secrecy is that it makes other ai's get dramatically less upset with you if you capture cities from the target of the pact. As such if you plan to conquer someone and don't want to ruin your diplo, it's essential to get every ai your target knows to sign a pact of secrecy vs your target. (or at least every ai you don't want to anger)

There still seems to be some negative attitude, but its not nearly the same. Gandhi muttered a little after the second AI i wiped after getting him to agree to a pact vs, but he didn't act nearly as hateful as i'm used to after taking even one city, or seem to care at all about my first conquest.

I also got a bunch of negative comments from ai which I had met but my target never had after i eliminated the second opponent. I wonder if there isn't some separate check for eliminating civs, in addition to the stupid hatred for conquering cities. Most of the diplo checks seem to be minor effect the first violation, eternal hatred the second.

 

[TheFourthDoctor]

Not explained as far as I've found.

And the diplomatic full-screen interface is severely lacking in giving you the information needed to make the choice.

If I'm about to sign a pact of secrecy with nation Y, and assuming that it means "don't make agreements with nation X", then the game needs to tell me that "you have agreements ABC with X" rather then it being a shot in the dark. It needs to let me see the official statuses of who is at war with who, who as defense pacts, and who is allied with who.

Agreed. Unless you are taking notes - and I don't - it's really difficult to remember what you have promised to whom. Surely, as the leader of a great civilization, we are able to call on our Department of of Foreign Affairs and Trade to give us a clear indication of our commitments, and perhaps a rough understanding of foreign leader sentiment.

I also dislike how, when you are approached by another leader and you turn down what they are offering, there is no way to counter offer. You are taken straight back to the "board" and then have to re-contact the leader if you want to discuss something else.

 

[Aaroc]

Agreed. Unless you are taking notes - and I don't - it's really difficult to remember what you have promised to whom. Surely, as the leader of a great civilization, we are able to call on our Department of of Foreign Affairs and Trade to give us a clear indication of our commitments, and perhaps a rough understanding of foreign leader sentiment.

I also dislike how, when you are approached by another leader and you turn down what they are offering, there is no way to counter offer. You are taken straight back to the "board" and then have to re-contact the leader if you want to discuss something else.

Actually, it's quite easy to find out with whom you have pacts of secrecy and/or pacts of cooperation. Just click on the diplomacy button in the top right of the screen, then click the Global Diplomacy button that pops up there, and on the screen that pops up, there are three tabs. The one on the right has your current pact information.