Patch was supposed to decrease backstabbing?

[apocalypse105]

Do some of you prefer not have any of the AI opponents bother you and instead, leave you alone so you can play in a sandbox? What would be the point of playing if you don't have to worry about defense or having opponents in a game?

Sure of course some Ai has to be agressive but main point here is that all of them are agressive and non to be trusted...

Yes if i play a game like c&c i want the AI behave like human's because The single player has the same mechanics as a multiplayer only with a AI..


People who play single player civilization. Play it to build their own civilization like they want it and get a unique experience. So the AI should be trying to win but not that it will ruin the gameplay experience of the player.

Programming a good AI typ that makes his decisions on numbers completely removes the diplomacy and thats mostly the reason why you play a single player game instead of a multiplayer game isnt it?

 

[apocalypse105]

That would be like asking what's the point of the entire game Sid Meier's Railroads. It's a game played competitively against AI opponents, but you can't go to war with them, e.g. by destroying things they have.

Players differ in their preferred playstyles and I can perfectly understand that some would be frustrated by a game that forces them nearly every game to engage in military conflict.

Who deserves to direct the design of Civilization games I can't say. However I think one or the other group would be served well by a mod that alters the AI behaviours. IMO there's no question that the AIs in civ4 allowed for a more peaceful playstyle if it was chosen by the player.

In short, I'm sure there'd be a way to mod leaders to be a bit less hungry for war.

I spend my money on this game that was made by firaxis so if someone should fix this issue then its them.

If they feel that they lose certain gamers... Then its them not a other person who has to fix it if its so easy to fix it shouldn't be a problem to add this option if they really care about it but i doubt it..

 

[Baleur]

Answer is simple: Civ 5 is largely a war game. Diplomacy is virtually nonexistent. Your armies were smaller than the AI's (in their calculations), so they declared war on you.

It sucks, but what is Firaxis going to do to *really* fix the lacking diplomacy issue? No idea. I wouldn't expect anything revolutionary though, I mean look at the minor changes they've made to multiplayer over the past few months.

1. Adding more techs.
1,5. Result from more techs = being able to enable tech trading without skyrocketing through the ages, so you can trade SOMETHING of value to civs other than +5 happiness (luxury resources, no matter what you call them, they are all the same). Every single 4x game in history that has had even just decent diplomacy has had tech trading. It is an absolute must in these games otherwise you have NOTHING exciting to discover when meeting a new civ, and neither you nor them have ANYTHING tangible to offer eachother. Hence no point in keeping peace.
2. Adding religion.
2,5. Result from religion, alliance blocks forming from the same ideologies.
3. Add actual normal automatic road/harbour trade between civs when having open borders.

Thats all they need. Its simple, yet they fail to comprehend that. Just look at Civ4 and copy what made diplomacy great there. Its so easy.
Yet they keep messing with declarations of friendship and nonsense that makes no sense. Its like schoolkids saying "I LIKE THIS PERSON, HE IZ MY FRIEND YA?!".
Come on Firaxis..

 

[The Pilgrim]

It's actually plausible to win, and even be in the lead against AI with just 4 cities.

Not on immortal. Probably on emperor neither. AI expands quickly and very soon their settlers will jump around your 'natural borders' all frustrated cause they have no space to expand even more. Then you know you're gonna be bugged in the nearest future. They'll find their stupid reason to do so.

Mores than in Civ4, what matters in Civ 5 is population, not territory. The hugest land in the world won't do you any good if you don't have the population or the happiness to fill the tiles.

Right. However... Less cities = less territory = less happiness resources = less population = less science... Do I need to go on?

FWIW, I never sign DoFs with near neighbors because I know they're going to be denouncing me soon for having cities near them. Provided that you bash the heads of your near neighbor in, and stop at natural borders that no sane AI would settle (like vast desert), you can be set for a mostly peaceful game.

If you start on rich peninsula with a big desert between you and everybody else with at least 5-6 resources of the same type that you can export to the rest (meaning no one else has them), you can make it. Otherwise you cannot. BTW, it happened to me only once, and yet Alex DoWed me. Never saw a single unit of his and he refused to go peace for thousand years until his other 'friends' beat the hell out of him. He was too far from me to bother finish him off first. Please tell me what was the point of this backstabbing.

For the record, I play on King as well. I didn't play the diplo game in Civ4 because it felt too much like cheating. The AI in Civ4 was even worse in diplomacy than it was at war, and that's saying something.

IMO, Civ4 AI was not that bad in diplomacy neither at war.

As many others I do not want to play in a sandbox. I want better risk analysis. I want to be backstabbed only when AI can actually do something other than giving free XP to my units. Again and again and again.

 

[black213]

Hiawatha hates you from the moment he knows you exist in the world (maybe even a few turns sooner).

That's Elizabeth and Bismarck.

 

[snarzberry]

Be aware of all threats that exist to your empire, be ready to meet them. Friendly civs still pose a threat to you so you should factor in the risk of war with them to your decisions about defence investment and troop movement. I'll often have friendly relations with a civ for a long time but know that war with them is essentially inevitable at some point and I will be preparing for it. If you're getting backstabbed and wiped out often then you're probably not really considering the real threats that exist.

 

[Buccaneer]

I don't want the AI going to war with me when there is zero reason for them to do so.

The scenario is the civ next to me which is much smaller and with a pathetic army attacking me by surprise. I can push them back easily enough, but if I leave them alive they just do the same thing in another few hundred turns. If I wipe them out, I'm the warmonger for the rest of the game.

It is a no-win scenario if you are trying to play peacefully. I have no problem with the AI playing to win, but when they are losing they seem to just decide to suicide so they can go home early.

You already have an inherent advantage over the AI and while they cannot attack well most of the time, they should be attacking you just to keep you honest (or to provide some semblance of balance). It's one of the things they can easily do, along with racing ahead on techs, going after city-states and sometimes beating you to wonders. If you are allowed to ignore defense and defensive units, then that would give you an even greater advantage over them; As in, not having to build units and/or defensive buildings, techs or policies would free you up to build more other things, if that makes sense.

I like the reasons an AI would give to not liking you, they are the same ones we react to against them. People here have proven that diplomacy can work effectively at times but we need the backstabbing and unpredictableness so human players can get out of the sandbox mode and have a game against opponents. To be able to freely do (build, conquer, etc.) anything you want and to not having to worry about fighting defensive wars (as pathetic they are at times), seems a little like cheating to me.

 

[McRoos]

I always go strait for iron working.
As soon as I have a couple of archers and swordsmen, 5 is almost always enough, no AI declares war.

 

[The Pilgrim]

You already have an inherent advantage over the AI and while they cannot attack well most of the time

they just get a compelling urge to became our beating boys.

I always go strait for iron working.
As soon as I have a couple of archers and swordsmen, 5 is almost always enough, no AI declares war.

Let me guess, you always play Rome?
Joking. It works at the beginning but afterwards they will attack anyway.

Well, I repeat myself. So it's probably enough.

 

[AriochIV]

Be aware of all threats that exist to your empire, be ready to meet them. Friendly civs still pose a threat to you so you should factor in the risk of war with them to your decisions about defence investment and troop movement. I'll often have friendly relations with a civ for a long time but know that war with them is essentially inevitable at some point and I will be preparing for it. If you're getting backstabbed and wiped out often then you're probably not really considering the real threats that exist.

The complaint here isn't that I'm getting wiped out -- I'm not. I won that game where I was backstabbed 7 times. The complaint is that the diplomacy system is pointless and extremely un-fun.

The only reason we're talking about this is that the patch notes said that backstabbing behavior was reduced -- so somebody at Firaxis or 2K agrees that it was happening too much.

 

[Generals3]

Aaah backstabbery. It can be fun and add a little spice but if it is done like Catherine did against me it's just plain and simple lame.
Excellent relationships => her declaring war to me with the reason she just pretended to be friends and here comes the best: she never sent a single unit to me and than asked for peace...
And to make it even worse later in that same game she did it again! this time she even used the word "backstabbing" in her DoW and again... not one single unit sent to attack me

Someone needs to explain to me what the point is to backstab someone just to ask for peace a dozen of turns later. It's simply beyond ******ed.

I must admit that this experience made it twice as satisfying to steamroll her later on. I basically showed her how a good backstab works.

 

[RonMar]

Before the patch it was Augustus backstabbing me, apologizing for doing it of course. He explained he had been only pretending to be "Friendly".

I'm in the first game after the patch. Again Augustus backstabbing me twice already. One time a turn after offerring a research agreement. The second time, he mentioned he would probably lose. I guess something in his genes. Of course he would lose. I was #1 in military and the border city, which he had agressively expanded towards, was heavily defended. He was "Friendly" both times. The first time he offered straight up peace, which I declined until I had wiped out his units near my city. The second time at least he offered a good lump sum and 25 gold per turn, which I am still getting even after the 10 year's of peace. Otherwise, his small cities he built near me would have made good targets. And of course, each time after peace he immediately switches back to "Friendly."

At the other side of my empire, Askia is hostile. Built right up next to my city. He can see it is heavily defended. He "knows" it's likely not a good idea to attack. He hasn't yet. But at least he is not pretending to be friendly or even guarded.

 

[apocalypse105]

1. Adding more techs.
1,5. Result from more techs = being able to enable tech trading without skyrocketing through the ages, so you can trade SOMETHING of value to civs other than +5 happiness (luxury resources, no matter what you call them, they are all the same). Every single 4x game in history that has had even just decent diplomacy has had tech trading. It is an absolute must in these games otherwise you have NOTHING exciting to discover when meeting a new civ, and neither you nor them have ANYTHING tangible to offer eachother. Hence no point in keeping peace.
2. Adding religion.
2,5. Result from religion, alliance blocks forming from the same ideologies.
3. Add actual normal automatic road/harbour trade between civs when having open borders.

Thats all they need. Its simple, yet they fail to comprehend that. Just look at Civ4 and copy what made diplomacy great there. Its so easy.
Yet they keep messing with declarations of friendship and nonsense that makes no sense. Its like schoolkids saying "I LIKE THIS PERSON, HE IZ MY FRIEND YA?!".
Come on Firaxis..

I actually like the idea of decleration of friendships and denoucning without religion..

Only thing is this good AI typ can't handle it it will consantly declare war on everybody and denounce Even you if its friends because it wants to win..

As result it is olmost impossible to keep good relationships because if you sign one friendship the AI just randomly pisses everybody off So everybody hates you...

IF they fix the ridicoulous warmongering and backstabbing of the AI than it actually could work...

Aaah backstabbery. It can be fun and add a little spice but if it is done like Catherine did against me it's just plain and simple lame.
Excellent relationships => her declaring war to me with the reason she just pretended to be friends and here comes the best: she never sent a single unit to me and than asked for peace...
And to make it even worse later in that same game she did it again! this time she even used the word "backstabbing" in her DoW and again... not one single unit sent to attack me

Someone needs to explain to me what the point is to backstab someone just to ask for peace a dozen of turns later. It's simply beyond ******ed.

I must admit that this experience made it twice as satisfying to steamroll her later on. I basically showed her how a good backstab works.

It would be fun if its more unpredictable now every AI does it and you can trust nobody it would be cool and interesting if some AI dont backstab you and others do and you dont which one is going to do it.... Now its just stupid...

You already have an inherent advantage over the AI and while they cannot attack well most of the time, they should be attacking you just to keep you honest (or to provide some semblance of balance). It's one of the things they can easily do, along with racing ahead on techs, going after city-states and sometimes beating you to wonders. If you are allowed to ignore defense and defensive units, then that would give you an even greater advantage over them; As in, not having to build units and/or defensive buildings, techs or policies would free you up to build more other things, if that makes sense.

I like the reasons an AI would give to not liking you, they are the same ones we react to against them. People here have proven that diplomacy can work effectively at times but we need the backstabbing and unpredictableness so human players can get out of the sandbox mode and have a game against opponents. To be able to freely do (build, conquer, etc.) anything you want and to not having to worry about fighting defensive wars (as pathetic they are at times), seems a little like cheating to me.

Dude you are missing the point this threat is because a lot of people said:
Firaxis/2k games promised to reduce this backstabbing behavior(even they thought it happend to much)


I know what point you are trying to make and i kinda agree with it on a certain way but alot of people even people like you(and others) who like a challenge and dont like the sandbox game should agree if it happens to much it become predictable and you can prepare for it.. If certain Ai's should backstab you and others wont (and you dont know who) wel then the game becomes more difficult and fun...

 

[Baleur]

Well thats exactly what is wrong with Civ5 compared to the other games.
That the AI tries to "win the game".

It ruins everything. Ruins the fun, ruins the immersion. Sure it may be "harder" to have the AI's act as insane mass murderers, but if i wanted it harder than Civ4 i would just prefer complex gameplay or raising the difficulty level instead.

 

[apocalypse105]

Well thats exactly what is wrong with Civ5 compared to the other games.
That the AI tries to "win the game".

It ruins everything. Ruins the fun, ruins the immersion. Sure it may be "harder" to have the AI's act as insane mass murderers, but if i wanted it harder than Civ4 i would just prefer complex gameplay or raising the difficulty level instead.

Agree , If i want a competive civilization game I will play online on multiplayer or play a turn based war game or real time strategy...
I actually play civilization for a cool single player experience Interacting with the world...

This is someting I just dont understant of firaxis and 2kgames aren't they mad of the producers there self?

Producing a game with diplomatic options and beautifull diplomatic leaders videos...
Wich makes diplomacy interesting...

They even put it on the CD box(translated from dutch):
"With the new diplomatic system you can interact completly with interactive leaders"

But they choose to make a good AI wich ruins the hole concept of diplomacy where they put their effort in?
Why would you make such a good diplomacy design that looks great talking to those leaders but ruin it by installing a wrong typ of AI still dont get that

 

[MkLh]

Well thats exactly what is wrong with Civ5 compared to the other games.
That the AI tries to "win the game".

It ruins everything. Ruins the fun, ruins the immersion. Sure it may be "harder" to have the AI's act as insane mass murderers, but if i wanted it harder than Civ4 i would just prefer complex gameplay or raising the difficulty level instead.

Those who want to play a challenging strategy game should try Civ4 on higher levels. Compared to Civ4 Deity, Civ5 Deity is simply a joke.

 

[The Pilgrim]

It's a known fact Civ5 is less challenging than BtS. Does it really have to be more annoying too? Basically we're just trying to brainstorm and think how diplomacy issues can be fixed and you suggest us to give up on the game. Not very constructive. When released Civ4 also was a mess. But eventually developers did their job properly and managed to create quite a masterpiece. No reason not to give them a chance to do the same once again. And for these purposes they do need our feedback.

 

[Thormodr]

Hopefully when the source code is released, modders will overhaul this disastrous system and make diplomacy fun and meaningful again.

Until then, it just isn't enjoyable to play a game with meaningless diplomacy.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Personally, I'd feel in a much better position to give them feedback if I had access to the DLL.

That said, when we finally do see the code, right away many myths about AI diplomacy are going to get squashed. It'll a little bit sad in one sense for the AI to be essentially fully predictable again, but the positive contributions it will allow modders to make will easily make up for it.

EDIT...(oh, cross-posted with Thormodr)

 

[jbevermore]

I've noticed a trend among people getting backstabbed.

# of cities># of units

That's just not going to cut it. Don't get me wrong, the diplomacy screen is probably the weakest part of the game (especially in the eyes of a hardcore Alpha Centauri player like myself). But the client taking advantage of a weak enemy is just being oppurtinistic, not broken.