The New Frustrating Diplomacy of CivIV

[Dracleath]

The AI will gift you things if you ask for them and they like you.

And of course the ai is going to war with you if you just have like 1 archer defending your cities in the modern age. Wouldn't you?

 

[azurefx]

I think one of the big things people are encountering is that the AIs gang up on anyone that gets too powerful or far ahead. I've had this happen to me twice; everyone is fine while power is being shared equally, but as soon as I pull ahead in terms of techs, diplomacy with the other major powers goes down the crapper.

Another thing is that it was said a lot pre-release that the devs wanted the AIs to drag the player towards one politcal bloc or another. What people may be doing - and I'm certainly guilty of this - is trying to play on both sides of the game, and you end up just pissing everyone off.

On the other hand, I think that there's an oversight in the diplomacy system; the AI doesn't take into account what the player thinks of them. I've never had the AI gift me something to try and get on my good side, so they'd have some leverage later on. And they're not prepared to try and pull themselves out of an obvious downward spiral, or let the player pull them out of a downwards spiral.

 

[gakkun]

On the other hand, I think that there's an oversight in the diplomacy system; the AI doesn't take into account what the player thinks of them. I've never had the AI gift me something to try and get on my good side, so they'd have some leverage later on. And they're not prepared to try and pull themselves out of an obvious downward spiral, or let the player pull them out of a downwards spiral.

yes it would work with players who actually remember these things but to most people (read: warmongers) it's far too easy to accept gifts and backstab later when the opportunity arises. You can't pretend the AI are humans, they still have to be programmed so the human player won't take advantage of their sense of fairness, which frankly works against them.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Another thing is that it was said a lot pre-release that the devs wanted the AIs to drag the player towards one politcal bloc or another. What people may be doing - and I'm certainly guilty of this - is trying to play on both sides of the game, and you end up just pissing everyone off.

I think this is very true, azurefx. I've been trying to avoid the conflicts between the various civilizations (In addition to being the most powerful civilization) and my friends are lukewarm and my enemies crop up everywhere. I've been in a series of wars none of which I started and one following on the heels of the other. Every time I force one civilization to make peace, another declares war... sometimes they'll do so right in the middle of their war with another player...

I was in a war against the Greeks along with the French and the Egyptians. I'd captured one Greek city, and the French were passing on their way to the next one, and I guess decided they liked me even less than the Greeks and declared war on me and immediately began attacking my captured Greek city... (And then took it down in spite of its being defended by SAM Infantry with longbowman and cavalry... but that's another complaint).

So yes, I could see this being that they've already basically divided the AIs from the get-go and you have to pick a side... That said, the decisions are made far too early on... I was still getting snubbed by rejecting proposals made two millenia earlier when I had a much greater need for their enemy. Secondly, the combat system is such that you really don't even want to be the number one player because it just doesn't pay to be both diplomatically isolated and using modern units that seem to be about as effective as the ancient ones.

Still, I think the idea of two groups emerging is more fun than the Civ3 Grab Bag where whenever a war broke out, the stronger power immediately got all of the others to declare war on the weakest guy, dismantle him... wash, rinse and repeat with the next weakest guy.

I almost never had a situation where you had two rather equally balanced alliances unless I was one of the members and had orchestrated it that way.