Refusing demands should generate grievances

[megabearsfan]

I don't think it's very controversial to say that "Demands" are pretty much toothless in Civ VI. For clarity, I'm talking about the diplomatic option to "Make Demand", in which a civ demands a trade deal from another civ without giving anything in return (as opposed to "Ask for promise", which costs Diplo Favor). Beligerent CPU leaders come to me and ask for demands all the time, and I summarily reject them every time. The only time that I even consider agreeing to a demand is if I'm desperate for trade partners, friends, or allies, and I hope that giving in to the demand might make them like me more.

So in a game I was playing earlier, I thought "hey, maybe refusing a demand should generate grievances or something." And then later I thought, "if refusing a demand generates grievances, then maybe agreeing to a demand should provide diplomatic favor." The idea is that there should be some diplomatic repercussion to giving in to or refusing a demand, which might give the mechanic a bit more teeth.

To be clear, I don't think that it should be a lot of either grievances or diplo favor, and there would need to be restrictions on how often a civ could make a demand of a particular other civ. Maybe a 10-turn cooldown between demands similar to the mandatory peace period after a war ends? For grievances, I'm thinking maybe 10 grievances for each refused demand, and maybe something like 5 diplo favor for agreeing to a demand.

There would probably also need to be limitations on how much you can request in a demand. Or alternatively, perhaps the grievances and/or favor could scale based on the magnitude of the demand. If another leader comes to me demanding 1 gold, and I accept, maybe that's not even enough to warrant receiving Diplo Favor, but refusing such a small demand might generate more grievances. Alternatively, if another leaders comes to me demanding that I give her a great work, then refusing should grant fewer grievances because the request was more outrageous to begin with.

Strategically, issuing a demand that you expect another civ to reject could be a way to earn grievances against them, which could potentially sway global opinions in your favor in a conflict. On the other hand, issuing a demand that you think the other leader would readily agree to risks giving a potential rival extra Diplomatic Favor.

What does the community think? Would this make you think twice about summarily refusing the CPU leaders' many demands?

 

[Sirsquier]

I'd prefer a little more complicated system.
Making a demand causes 10 grievances.
Accepting a demand causes +10 Diplomatic Favor.
Refusing a demand causes 5 grievances.
This way you could either take 5 grievances away or get +10 Diplo Favor and I feel it's a little more realistic to have the AI hate demanders.

 

[megabearsfan]

I'd prefer a little more complicated system.
Making a demand causes 10 grievances.
Accepting a demand causes +10 Diplomatic Favor.
Refusing a demand causes 5 grievances.
This way you could either take 5 grievances away or get +10 Diplo Favor and I feel it's a little more realistic to have the AI hate demanders.

This highlights a problem with posting suggestions at 12:30 am: I hadn't thought much about the civ issuing the demand. Yeah, it makes sense that issuing frivolous demands should also be punished.

 

[playshogi]

How long would it take for 10 grievances to disappear? 5 turns? The better solution is to turn off the mechanic entirely because it just wastes the player's time.

 

[The googles do nothing]

What does the community think? Would this make you think twice about summarily refusing the CPU leaders' many demands?

Take the idea of defined deals like the 'Make Promise" but It needs to go beyond grievances and Diplomatic Favor to make it worth my time. Demands should be for military subservience , opening of trade to foreigners. For example..

- "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
Demander either gets +3 combat strength in a formal war when declined, acceptance gets the demand but looses 1 amenity for 10 turns.

 

[megabearsfan]

Take the idea of defined deals like the 'Make Promise" but It needs to go beyond grievances and Diplomatic Favor to make it worth my time. Demands should be for military subservience , opening of trade to foreigners. For example..

- "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
Demander either gets +3 combat strength in a formal war when declined, acceptance gets the demand but looses 1 amenity for 10 turns.

So replace "Make Demand" with "Issue Ultimatum". I like that idea too!

 

[ZeoLite357]

I take issue with the idea of granting 10 diplomatic favor on accepting a demand, as sometimes the demands the AI makes of you is worth less than 10 diplo favor which you can sell back to the AI for loads of gold per turn etc.

 

[ZeoLite357]

I love the idea of beefing up demands, here are a few ad hoc thoughts:

- The grievance cost should be affected by whether you are in a 'denounced state' with the civ, because you can't declare a war with a CB without denouncing first + 5 turns. Kind of makes the threat of a demand not serious.
- Demands should improve your relation to other AIs that have denounced, dislike or at war with that civ, and likewise lower if they are friends/allied with them. This could be a way to improve relation with another civ by hating their enemy. Kind of like the 'rival' system in Europa Universalis 4. Obviously this should add a fixed modifier for K turns and not spammable every turn.
- I like the idea of civs accepting your demands as a form of power projection, such that civs will view your civ more threateningly the more demands other civs have accepted from you, maybe there's an emergency that could come from this (as the world unites against you, sort of thing)?
- An interesting idea might be to integrate the rejection/accepting of a demand with the loyalty system. For instance if you accept a demand, your citizens might view you as weak and cities near to the other civilization receive -40 loyalty one-time hit, or maybe something milder such as -5 loyalty per turn for the next K turns or whatever. Maybe this is too punishing?

 

[The googles do nothing]

Maybe this is too punishing?

There should be a cost and a benefit to any result. If get a loyalty penalty for accepting a demand but still keep your cities a full loyalty you would get some extra bonus.

Now that the concept of 'modes' has been introduced the really should put demands into an optional mode.