Too easy to friend/ally

[Stringer1313]

Does anyone agree it seems way too easy to friend or ally? In every game I play(Emperor), I can extremely easily friend most civs and ally with 5 of them instantly when alliances become available. And none of them backstab me so it’s guaranteed peace for over half the civs.

It seems like u should have to work much harder to become friends and the AI should strategically refuse friendships or alliances instead of basing it solely on the modifiers

 

[Jkchart]

I think it depends on the game.

Part of the time I get this situation, where in others EVERYONE hates me off the bat, and then in yet others, I have some friends and some enemies.

Lots of it depends on the AI you get to spawn near as well, and some are just super easy to be friends with. It varies I would say.

 

[Tech Osen]

It's easy if you're not (too) aggressive. But when you warmonger early it can be hard to bounce back.

 

[criZp]

they made it easier after everyone complained, rightfully so, that it was too hard to gain allies.

 

[_hero_]

Alliances aren't impactful enough to warrant being hard to get.

 

[Dotsworthy]

It's far too easy.

The main issue stems from the fact that on the turn your friendship or alliance ends, you can 9 times out of 10 renew that friendship instantly, with the exception of a few odd cases. This often means you can softlock the ai into being your bestie no matter how many grievances you rack up against them or if due to changes in policy and their agenda they don't like the way you rule. This seems in part to be based on a rolling points score that goes up or down while you are not friends or allies with them but is always maxed out while you are friends (or the opposite when you are denounced/at war). It's funny because if you don't renew for a couple of turns they can do a complete about face.

I only have trouble when the Civ has agendas that are hard to meet (Seonduck or Wilhelmina if she is far away).

 

[Depravo]

If you recall, Civ 2 had it that all the AIs would hate you if you led in score. It was a bit of a blunt instrument, but at least it gave you something to think about if you were a runaway.

 

[Patchmaster]

To me it seems to vary widely. In my current game the top four civs, including me, have been friendly for a long time and I've been allied with the other three for some time now. One other civ keeps trying to friend me but I keep turning her down because she's unfriendly with a couple of my best buds. Germany has hated me almost since the beginning and keeps denouncing me, even though until very recently I've done nothing aggressive toward them at all and we've never actually gone to war. Others have run hot or cold depending on something or other I can't quite figure out, mostly, I think, that I'm friendly with civs they've gone to war with.

The ease of befriending and allying with other civs depends entirely on the specific situation. Some civs tend toward peace, others want to be obstinate all the time. Some seem to be incredibly fickle. Recently I had some "friend" who always refused my request to be a friend right after our friendship expired, then a turn or two later there has was asking to be my friend.

If I had one complaint about the friend/ally mechanism it's that expiration of the friendship/alliance just gets tossed in the alerts along with all the other trivial goings on that I don't care all that much about. I've overlooked it countless times. This is a major event that deserves more prominent mention. It ought to pop up a screen like the end of a spy mission and ask if you'd like to renew the friendship/alliance. Having to do it all over again like the first time is a needless annoyance.

 

[leandrombraz]

Alliances aren't impactful enough to warrant being hard to get.

Alliances are essential to get what is arguably the best trade route you can get: International using the Wisselbanken policy + Democracy + Reform the coinage (golden age dedication). which give you the best of both worlds: food/production like a domestic route and more gold than you can expend. It's not only impactful, it's the cornerstone of my strategy. My last game I played as Norway, so I didn't try to get alliances because I wanted to pillage the jesus out of everyone, it was just sad to have to choose between gold and food/production when I could have plenty of both if I had an alliance, plus a bit of other yields.

Some Alliance bonuses aren't impactful but there still stuff that can make a huge difference in specific victories. A tier 2 religious alliance give your religious units +10 strength, which is extremely good for a religious victory. If you can keep a military alliance while going for domination, inviting your ally to your wars for that +5 strength is quite useful and on tier 2 you get 15% production for units. Cultural alliances are good for cultural and to a less extent scientific, because of the tier 2's extra great people points. Alliances are essential for Diplomatic victory because of favors, being the victory where it have the most impact.



I was trying to write a complaint but I kept disagreeing with myself and calling BS on what I wrote , so I can only conclude that I actually like where diplomacy is now. If you're peaceful it's too easy to keep everyone friendly and the only thing that can make the AI say no when you ask to renew a friendship is grievances but honestly, I actually like having alliances that last forever. IMO diplomacy is in a pretty good place now. It can improve but we had worse, much worse.

 

[kb27787]

Hint: stop playing on emperor then... The initial impressions modifier can go much lower on deity such that you are guaranteed to be disliked if all you do is send them a delegation.

 

[steveg700]

Does anyone agree it seems way too easy to friend or ally? In every game I play(Emperor), I can extremely easily friend most civs and ally with 5 of them instantly when alliances become available. And none of them backstab me so it’s guaranteed peace for over half the civs.

It seems like u should have to work much harder to become friends and the AI should strategically refuse friendships or alliances instead of basing it solely on the modifiers

Well, there's a lot of snowballing.

• If you send a delegate before they decide to dislike you, they will accept and you'll get a positive diplo modifier bonus.
• Then you can ask for open borders to get another bonus. This is often enough to ensure they give you a green smiley.
• Then you can declare friendship for a nice, big bonus and an assurance of no war. Now, even when you gain a penalty (from, say, violating agendas), they will not denounce or declare war and whatever you did to earn a penalty will have time to fade before the friendship expires.
• Anybody that friend got chummy with now likes you more, so mutual friendships develop and generate further bonuses.
• Then comes an alliance, which has a gigantic bonus.

It's about +50 in bonuses, all told. Yeah, they'll never backstab that.

But if you don't manage to head off the yellow smiley, they won't accept the delegation, and the snowball just sits. The main thing to worry about here aren't agenda violations, but penalties for consorting with civ's they don't like, which will be everyone in the friendship chain. It's important not to befriend this "odd man out", at least until after getting some mutual friend bonuses and allainces.

 

[steveg700]

Alliances are essential to get what is arguably the best trade route you can get: International using the Wisselbanken policy + Democracy + Reform the coinage (golden age dedication). which give you the best of both worlds: food/production like a domestic route and more gold than you can expend. It's not only impactful, it's the cornerstone of my strategy. My last game I played as Norway, so I didn't try to get alliances because I wanted to pillage the jesus out of everyone, it was just sad to have to choose between gold and food/production when I could have plenty of both if I had an alliance, plus a bit of other yields.

Some Alliance bonuses aren't impactful but there still stuff that can make a huge difference in specific victories. A tier 2 religious alliance give your religious units +10 strength, which is extremely good for a religious victory. If you can keep a military alliance while going for domination, inviting your ally to your wars for that +5 strength is quite useful and on tier 2 you get 15% production for units. Cultural alliances are good for cultural and to a less extent scientific, because of the tier 2's extra great people points. Alliances are essential for Diplomatic victory because of favors, being the victory where it have the most impact. .

Oh yeah, a properly-nurtured alliance is quite impactful. Wisselbanken essentially makes domestic trade routes moot.

 

[enKage]

I play diety only and rarely have problems with befriending most of neighbours in the early game and ally whoever I want lately.

The system of alliances and friendship siply doesn't work well, if you can ally all civs except one or two on standard map and not worry about military at all for the whole game. This is nonsense.

What should be done:
- declaration of friendship should NOT prevent declaration of war, breaking friendship by war should be possible and effect in more greviances
- number of possible allance should be scaled with opponents in game. You should still be able to choose from 5 types, but alliances slots should be limited to maximum 1/3 opponents.

BTW
warmonger penalty is a joke here, take everything around one city, wait for culture flip. No greviances for taking last cities, no diplo penalty for accumulated greviances against other civ... You kill 3 civs and still ally all the others

 

[_hero_]

Alliances are essential to get what is arguably the best trade route you can get: International using the Wisselbanken policy + Democracy + Reform the coinage (golden age dedication). which give you the best of both worlds: food/production like a domestic route and more gold than you can expend. It's not only impactful, it's the cornerstone of my strategy. My last game I played as Norway, so I didn't try to get alliances because I wanted to pillage the jesus out of everyone, it was just sad to have to choose between gold and food/production when I could have plenty of both if I had an alliance, plus a bit of other yields.

Some Alliance bonuses aren't impactful but there still stuff that can make a huge difference in specific victories. A tier 2 religious alliance give your religious units +10 strength, which is extremely good for a religious victory. If you can keep a military alliance while going for domination, inviting your ally to your wars for that +5 strength is quite useful and on tier 2 you get 15% production for units. Cultural alliances are good for cultural and to a less extent scientific, because of the tier 2's extra great people points. Alliances are essential for Diplomatic victory because of favors, being the victory where it have the most impact.



I was trying to write a complaint but I kept disagreeing with myself and calling BS on what I wrote , so I can only conclude that I actually like where diplomacy is now. If you're peaceful it's too easy to keep everyone friendly and the only thing that can make the AI say no when you ask to renew a friendship is grievances but honestly, I actually like having alliances that last forever. IMO diplomacy is in a pretty good place now. It can improve but we had worse, much worse.

I meant merely in the sense that winning with 0 alliances is still relatively easy to pull off all else being equal. Yes, alliance trade routes are powerful but if next patch they made alliances nearly impossible to get, I don't think my games would be slowed much. I would simply move back to internal/CS trade routes and use different policy cards.

I agree we are in a good place with diplomacy though. My main complaint is that alliances do too little to help you win a diplomatic victory, and my allies gleefully vote against me to take diplo points away. The favors from alliances is usually dwarfed by the favor from city states, and the math on favors makes spending 100% of it on diplo victory still not enough to win against every other nation voting against you, which wouldn't be an issue if my allies actually acted like allies there.

 

[steveg700]

What should be done:
- declaration of friendship should NOT prevent declaration of war, breaking friendship by war should be possible and effect in more greviances
- number of possible allance should be scaled with opponents in game. You should still be able to choose from 5 types, but alliances slots should be limited to maximum 1/3 opponents.

Thing is, the determination to declare war is driven by negative diplomacy modifiers, so if you've won them over there's no condition by which they might backstab a friend. Moreover, assurance that you won't be backstabbed is pretty much the sum total value of a friendship before alliances come along. But yes, if the conditions change considerably during the course of a friendship, such as amassing grievances, then I agree it makes sense that it should be able to dissolve a friendship, possibly by expending diplomatic favor.

This all boils down into ludo-narrative resonance. Some people think AI's should be pursuing victory conditions, which means that all efforts of diplomacy are ephemeral and civ's should become more belligerent as the game progresses towards an endgame. Others want more simulation, where the AI becomes more civilized, with globalism overshadowing imperialism.

My preference that the AI should decide what kind of friends it wants and scales its positive modifiers accordingly. If a civ wants to befriend strong civ's, then a human player with no military isn't appealing and a friendship of declaration simply isn't worth much of a positive bonus. If civ's want income from trade routes, then they'll grade civ's by hubs and harbors within reach.

Also, I would tend to prefer that there should be a cap on the number of alliances a civ can establish. Maybe you have to level up an alliance to unlock a new one, or dole out an initial outlay of diplomatic favor that scales with each additional alliance.

 

[enKage]

One of condition to backstab may be emergencies. And a plenty of factors that can be introduced.

 

[leandrombraz]

I meant merely in the sense that winning with 0 alliances is still relatively easy to pull off all else being equal. Yes, alliance trade routes are powerful but if next patch they made alliances nearly impossible to get, I don't think my games would be slowed much. I would simply move back to internal/CS trade routes and use different policy cards.

I agree we are in a good place with diplomacy though. My main complaint is that alliances do too little to help you win a diplomatic victory, and my allies gleefully vote against me to take diplo points away. The favors from alliances is usually dwarfed by the favor from city states, and the math on favors makes spending 100% of it on diplo victory still not enough to win against every other nation voting against you, which wouldn't be an issue if my allies actually acted like allies there.

If I couldn't get my precious OP routes, I would lay on the ground and cry like a baby. I love my trade routes...

The diplo vote is a catch up mechanic, it's meant to give a chance for those who are behind to win diplo, it's not how you win if you did everything right and are ahead. Other leaders will vote against you regardless, allies don't vote for each other. Just vote against yourself, you get a point because you voted on the winning option, just like normal resolutions, so you can get a total of 3 points in that congress and counter the 3 points you lose. You should use your favors on normal resolutions, if you can't guess what the AI will vote for. Also to guarantee that certain emergencies will pass. Use your favors at will every congress, don't ever save it for the diplo vote, ever. If you do that, favors are extremely important for diplo victory and every point counts, one extra vote that you can get might be what you need to guarantee a point, so even though City-States are the main source of favors, Alliances still important. One point that you fall short can add 30 extra turns to achieve victory.

 

[criZp]

Hint: stop playing on emperor then... The initial impressions modifier can go much lower on deity such that you are guaranteed to be disliked if all you do is send them a delegation.

You are aware that the difficulty determines quite a few more things than just the diplo modifiers, yes?

 

[steveg700]

You are aware that the difficulty determines quite a few more things than just the diplo modifiers, yes?

I always wished games like Civ would make the various difficulty elements adjustable, parsing out production bonuses, combat bonuses, diplomatic factors, and so on.

 

[_hero_]

If I couldn't get my precious OP routes, I would lay on the ground and cry like a baby. I love my trade routes...

The diplo vote is a catch up mechanic, it's meant to give a chance for those who are behind to win diplo, it's not how you win if you did everything right and are ahead. Other leaders will vote against you regardless, allies don't vote for each other. Just vote against yourself, you get a point because you voted on the winning option, just like normal resolutions, so you can get a total of 3 points in that congress and counter the 3 points you lose. You should use your favors on normal resolutions, if you can't guess what the AI will vote for. Also to guarantee that certain emergencies will pass. Use your favors at will every congress, don't ever save it for the diplo vote, ever. If you do that, favors are extremely important for diplo victory and every point counts, one extra vote that you can get might be what you need to guarantee a point, so even though City-States are the main source of favors, Alliances still important. One point that you fall short can add 30 extra turns to achieve victory.

There was a time when internal routes were the OP routes.

Look, I get what the strategy is for diplo victory. I'm telling you it is bad design. You and your allies all vote against you in order for you to become world leader? What sense does that make? I honestly don't see how anyone can defend this design.