Successful Diplomacy?

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Hi, I'm sort of new to these forums, and I'm not especially a Civ 5 'pro' or anything, but I had a question.

Some of my friends and I have been playing for awhile on numerous difficulties, and something I've had a problem with is maintaining peaceful relations with the AI.

Obviously, you can't be friends with everyone all the time, but one of my favorite things to do in previous Civ games was to 'adopt' an AI civilization and make them an ally or friend for as long as I can. Protect them from enemies, help them with what they needed, and so on.

In Civilization 5, I haven't been able to do that. It seems like no matter what I do, no matter how doting I am, other civilizations will basically declare war on me with the drop of a hat. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding about not pressing on their borders, or building up military near their territory, or so on.

I was wondering if any of you had similar experiences, or tips around this?

A friend of mine mentioned there was some bug involving open borders that messed up AI, but I don't know how true that is.

 

[Andvare]

Don't go to war. Don't raze cities. Have a large army.
It seems the CivV AI has taken lessons from the Total War AI (the I in AI probably stands for intolerant, certainly it has nothing to do with intelligence).

 

[Pantastic]

In Civ5 there's no 'magical free alliance' mechanism like religion that lets you pretty much autopilot someone as your friend. (I say magical because being the same religion only affected AI relations - if you had 2 human players, why would either care which religion the other adopted?) There are a number of factors to manipulate to stay friends, but there isn't any guaranteed 'this guy won't attack me' route that I've found.

Don't share borders, it increases tension. This can be tricky if the AI settles next to you or you both conquer parts of another AI, try to use the 'don't settle near me' (IMO the 'I settle near you, now I don't like you' behavior should be fixed).

Keep trade agreements going, AIs like it when they're getting resources from you. I was messing around with saves and reloads on a a 'your army is too small' war and found that I ended up with 4 people declaring war on me by default, but just by running a standard trade of a resource (from me) for gold 2 of them did not declare after a reload, probably because they didn't want to lose the resource.

Sign cooperation and secrecy pacts whenever they offer them.
Don't bribe, attack, or do missions for CSs they like, if they complain agree to back off.
Be honest with the 'are you going to attack me?' type of questions.

Follow through on all of your agreements - if you sign a pact of secrecy, don't start giving stuff to the target. If you sign a pact of cooperation, don't declare on that guy, if you say I won't settle near you, don't. Being dishonest, even with enemies, tends to hurt relations a little and makes it more likely for you to get betrayed.

Maintain a decent-sized army. If your army is too weak, you look like an easy target, and the AI will try to take you down for extra cities, wonders, cash, etc., much like a human would. Currently that means you need a pretty big army at high difficulty levels, since the AI armies get so huge. (IMO the AI should assume you're a good player at high difficulty levels and treat your defensive army as better than its straight size, but it doesn't now)

Try to avoid excessive conquests, sometimes conquering and taking cities reduces relations. I think some of the AIs view it differently, the more aggressive AIs seem fine with you slashing and burning. I also don't think razing actually hurts your relations, I think it's just annexing, but I could be wrong.

Remember that AI relations aren't as static as in CivIV, they tend to think more 'what have you done for/to me lately' so you can have an early war but be friends later on pretty easily.

 

[Rime]

Don't bother. The AI is completely bonkers and makes decisions at random.

 

[Trickster7135]

I also don't think razing actually hurts your relations, I think it's just annexing, but I could be wrong.

Razing has no effect on relations, so you're right.

Different AI care about different things differently. Ghandi will go hostile at the drop of a hat if you're warmongering, while Alexander or Napoleon will pat you on the back and raise a toast to your aggression - assuming you don't border them anyways.

 

[Roxlimn]

Both Gandhi and Ramkhamhaeng really, really, really hate it when you declare war. If they're in your game and you attack an AI without being attacked first, you can expect to kiss peaceful relations with them good bye.

It has some wiggle room, though. If you gift them things and trade unequally, they can come around to fair trading eventually. If they don't kill you first.

Alex and Nappy are very prone to stabbing you in the back. Don't pay attention to what they say. Pay attention to where their army is. If their army is heading your way, you're about to be attacked. That said, they're a lot less uptight about wars and such. You can even declare on them and then expect cordial relations after a peace treaty.

Don't break your word. Sneak attacks and treaty violations are viewed negatively by all AIs on the board. Border tensions can also cause otherwise reasonable AIs to declare war on you, sometimes seemingly out of the blue. If their army starts looking like it's useless and you are the only one on the border, start comparing numbers.

 

[Crow, of Earth]

Certain parts of the new AI are nice, more importantly, that many AIs see you in worse colours if you warmonger. It's also nice that you can trick the AI a bit less, although selling them open borders when they don't even have a clue about your location on the map is still silly.

But there's one little problem with all the improvements they added: the AI is still an idiot, and what should have been improvements are nuisances.

For instance:
If you settle near them, they get upset, fair enough. If they settle near you, they get upset about you settling near them, even if you had those cities for a very long time and they just arrived there. Really? Did they think about adding that in the game or did the devs just want to annoy us?

If you get too friendly with a city state they're friendly with, they think you're interfering with their relationships, fair, although I'd like it if it were possible, when you're friendly with another civ, that both you and them are friendly with whichever CS without this penalty. But, again, as with the settling thing, if you've been allies with a CS for as long as you can remember, for instance, and one turn, an AI decides to befriend them, they still get upset about YOU becoming too friendly with one of their CS friends. That's infuriating.

Of course, acting rude is in no way foreign to this fancy species of yours , so the devs might have made some AIs act like jerks on purpose, but even among humans, you don't see friends being rude to friends

 

[DaveGold]

The AI decides whether you should be an ally or not. You don't make the decisions you just have to live with their decision. The further away they are the more they like you.

 

[Trickster7135]

For instance:
If you settle near them, they get upset, fair enough. If they settle near you, they get upset about you settling near them, even if you had those cities for a very long time and they just arrived there. Really? Did they think about adding that in the game or did the devs just want to annoy us?

If you see a settler heading towards your territory, you can tell them 'not to settle near my lands', and if they like you or see you have some troops nearby, they'll usually back off.

 

[Thry]

Don't bother. The AI is completely bonkers and makes decisions at random.

What this person said.

 

[Vandraad]

In regard to the "don't settle near me" issue the AIs seem to have about what empty territory they see as theirs, I did a little experiment to see if the AI pre-selects future city cites early on or adjusts placement as turns progress.

Started a game with just myself and 1 AI and some city states on a small map with both of us on the same continent. I utilized the 'cheat' that let me see the entire map immediately and once I produced my first settler, I saved the game.

I proceeded to them move the settler (with a military unit backup to avoid losing the settler to barbarians) around the map stopping and dropping cities to see how the AI responds and from what I've seen, the AI gets upset when the distance between my 2nd city and his capital is shorter than the distance between my 2nd city and my capital.

AI also gets upset if you start claiming more varied resources than what he is getting, regardless of distances.

 

[Crow, of Earth]

If you see a settler heading towards your territory, you can tell them 'not to settle near my lands', and if they like you or see you have some troops nearby, they'll usually back off.

That mechanic is almost great, but unfortunately, in my limited experience so far, it doesn't seem to always work, even if the AI accepts not to settle near you.

I've had 3 AIs accept not to settle near me, 2 of them indeed didn't, one did. Of the two that didn't, one even took his settler back home. As far as the other one goes, I can't tell for certain, I was blocking a hill with a warrior, and that was the only land hex through which his settler could pass to get to what I think was his destination. He had optics, so he could have gone there by water, but he didn't, he kept the settler in the same spot for the next 100ish turns.

 

[lounahtic]

that's funny... i thought i was the only one to 'adopt' a civ... and i do agree it's extremely hard to 'adopt' a civ in civ 5... it does help if you know what the leader's traits are... there's a spread sheet for that somewhere... and the AI seems to be random most of the time... like you got an army on my border... i looked and he was on the other side of the world... none of my units are anywhere near him... and the whole warmongering thing... i haven't been at war in 200 years... i dunno what you're talking about... or dude i declared war on him cuz you asked me... now you hate me? or i'm a warmonger but you're the one who's at war with everyone in the known world except for me... i'm your only friend!


but i like to adopt a city state with civ 5.... it's a lot easier... though the problem is the 'hostile' city states aren't really hostile... the most cities i've gotten a city state to capture is 4 not including its capital... and they took their sweet time... i would like to be able to give cities i've capture to my city states in exchange for a boost in inf... city states with the patronage tree will never betray you... and they usually have tons of units... it's a good shield cuz i don't have a standing army... until the AI buy their alliance and declares war on you...

 

[H4run]

what i know, from reading the forum and practicing in my game,

1. Dont accept any pact of secrecy
2. Do trading, AI leader like Harun Al Rasyid love u if u do trading with him
3. If AI want to form pact with u, accept it.
4. Reject AI favor in polite manner, "sory, blablabla"
5. Give them what they need as far as its reasonable.
6. Tell your AI to "dont mess with me", by building military unit.

But still there are some AI that just really cant help themself for being an antagonize, competitive, domination backstabber leader. If u have any hostile relation with them. Attack them first, and sell their city to any AI who want to declare war with him (in addition u get more money, lux and gpt) then u got a friend, money, and more city to capture, or 1 city to re-capture.

Sometime u really cant communicate normaly with the AI, they just go beeb beeb beeb and attack everything, to counter that thing, u have to whip them hard, by exploiting their weakness.

 

[}{ELL/\/()]

I notice an army is essential here, I dont think they count navies, I was playing an archieplago map and really had no land units but a large navy and AI's I thought I had good relations with declared war. I mopped up their embarked units (lol) built a large army and took them out. No one else DoW'd me no matter what I did.

 

[Sainhann]

"Being dishonest, even with enemies, tends to hurt relations"

That is standard normal Diplomacy in today's world.

 

[H4run]

I notice an army is essential here, I dont think they count navies, I was playing an archieplago map and really had no land units but a large navy and AI's I thought I had good relations with declared war. I mopped up their embarked units (lol) built a large army and took them out. No one else DoW'd me no matter what I did.

i can use that. the AI still lazily build navies unit even in archeiplago map? If that is the case i have to try it for fun, in deity difficulty with large number of navy. i could rip the mech inf in two part with my trireme, that will satisfy me a lot.

 

[tballz]

Its been my experience that the only people that show up asking for assistance are the guys you've formed pacts of co-op with. So i'm assuming that if you dont give the handout when they want it, it probably hurts your relations somewhat.

 

[H4run]

Its been my experience that the only people that show up asking for assistance are the guys you've formed pacts of co-op with. So i'm assuming that if you dont give the handout when they want it, it probably hurts your relations somewhat.

yes, it seem give you additional relationship point on my experience, the AI get more tolerant on your war and the pact last longer, except for Ghandi. He bit hard to please and to calm if you going to war with some-one, include if u only protecting your nation from aggressor. He just dont care.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Yeah, I could adopt a City State, but the problem is that City States are very static and don't grow really that much. It's more fun to adopt an actual civilization.

Thanks for the tips, guys. Most of it is common sense stuff, but I just wish it was easier to have a 'buddy' AI.