New Here and new to the Civ world and have one question.
Question: What is the Point of Diplomacy in this game ? Am I missing something. Doesn't matter if I make friends with other Civs. They never help when I need it and I always get backstabbed by a friendly civ.
Just seems like a totally pointless thing and isn;t even worth bothering making friends via diplomacy.
The biggest quantifiable benefit of diplomacy is access to research agreements. You need to have a Declaration of Friendship with a civ to be able to sign them, and at higher difficulties especially they are essential to success. Additionally, you get more favorable trade conditions with civs you have better relationships with. More money for selling your excess luxuries and strategic resources is always a good thing.
There is actually a wealth of subtlety to the diplomacy system, but it still suffers from being a largely black box operation with little feedback. This has improved with the addition of mouse-over info on what positive and negative modifiers you might have to a leader's attitude, but still requires a pretty steep learning curve to master.
You might have better luck doing a more targeted search in the forums if you want more information, but some quick tips to get started at becoming a well loved overlord:
1. Always keep your word. If a leader asks you to stop buying tiles near them and you agree, then don't buy any more. If you're building up for war and they ask if you're going to declare war, don't say "we're just passing through" and then attack.
2. Pay attention to leaders' attitudes towards each other. If you want to be friends with leader A who is at war with leader B, then don't make a declaration of friendship with B.
3. Leverage your existing friendships to put pressure on your intended enemies and targets. If you and a friend share a border with a civ you're planning on attacking, very often your friend will agree to jointly declare war if you ask. If that doesn't work they can often be bribed into war, either before or after your own declaration.
4. As you're learning the system, pick 2-3 allies in a given game, preferably people you don't share a direct border with, and cultivate those relationships.
5. Learn to anticipate when you're going to be backstabbed. Certain leaders will do this more often than others. Montezuma's the poster child for this behavior, but Napoleon, Odo Nabunga, and other "warlike" leaders are high on the list. If you are still displaying as "friendly" but your trades suddenly become more expensive, this is a prime indicator. Espionage to gain intrigue (shifting your spies around to different cities instead of waiting around to steal techs) can be great too. And then there's just plain observation of large numbers of units moving your way. If you detect a backstab early, it's fairly straightforward to distract your rival by convincing him to declare war on someone else, or bribing another civ to attack first. Usually the backstabber will back off and often forget his planned betrayal entirely, rather than face a 2 front war.
Anyway, hope this helps shed a little light. Despite the flak it gets, the diplomacy system is pretty good now, being responsive and mostly predictable once you get to know it a bit better.
