Here is why. Why do people find this game less fun at the moment than CiV? Because at some goddamn point, no matter what point you're at or how well you managed your relations, when you trip a certain threshold with the AI... BAM... Borg collectivity engages and they all want you dead or removed from the game. With humans this is a lot more subtle. There will be more open relations, more wars, more everything in a big game vs humans. But the AI in the way it turns on you is so blatently contrived and childish that you can't help but laugh and facepalm.
All of a sudden you're not playing a Civ game. You're not making clever deals in order to trick the AI or embargoing third parties so you can make head-way. Hell, why not just get rid of the Diplomacy menu and just have everyone at war with you
if that's the way CiV is going to treat you. Because frankly that's how things are at the moment.
I'm sorry but I am not accepting (- Your friends found reason to denounce you) as a legitimate feature of this game. It is contrived, unfair and it creates a pointless articifical handicap that no player would enjoy except for those who prefer
'Always War'. Why the hell should the other AI's care that I'm stomping all over CSes that they're not even involved with? In fact, THEY declared on ME! So as soon as I get some sort of upper hand, the AI immediately calls me out for it? How is that even fun?
It's not clever, it's not fun, in fact, it's a backwards step in the AI. It's reminiscient of Skirmish AI that you'd find in old RTS games.
Let's give an example. Anyone here played C&C Red Alert? If you played skirmishes in that you'd know that most games were free for alls. In an 8 player game for example, you could attack everyone and anyone, and the AI did the same, they attacked everyone and never allied...
Which is a lie by the way. The AI in Red Alert didn't start out as allies. However, once a computer player or two was eliminated from the game, THEN they would form what I can only assume was an ad-hoc NATO and then went for you and you alone, creating
bizzare situations where you were holding off 6 enemy armies at once.
The threshold I obviously tripped here was the 'Killing more than a few CSes threshold. So, hang on a minute, Russia has killed two. Yes admittedly I've killed off the most (3), but it's just ridiculous that I get flak for it when I was just getting rid of the thorns in my side. And the message of all things comes from my longest term trade partner, Nobunaga, which is just a slap in the face.
This isn't the only game I've had something like this happen before. I had a game recently (without this mod) where I played as Alexander and monopolised all the CSes and was pretty close to culture. There was peace all game and then suddenly they all declare on me. This was legitimate, I have to admit the AI knew I was going for culture and rightly wanted me gone. However, there's just something about the way ( - Your friends found reason to denounce you) is worded that pisses me off. Why not just say (We would rather win the game thanks). The AI used to use those exact words in Civ4 when they were holding off a tech from you so you couldn't get an advantage in the space race, but it didn't necessarily mean that all embassies were closed to you (other AIs were still willing to trade), nor did it mean the enemy AI that was withholding the tech from you hated you (indeed they were still willing to trade other things such as gold).
But this is not good. Why? I'm going to use that word again, that word that you see often chucked around threads in general discussion. It is the immersion factor. In a game where you're partly making deals with the world, they should have more reasonable and logical approaches to you.
Now don't get me wrong, if I were playing a CiV terminator edition where all my opponents were sentient AI and I was to roleplay the only human alive that had to get an advantage before Skynet came online, unified them all and got them to invade me and seek my elimination from their perfect AI world, that would make sense for this current version of the game.
But this is not a Terminator movie gone huge. This is not
AI War: Fleet Command . This is meant to be Civilisation. Fans to a certain extent should be allowed to roleplay. Victory is the icing on the cake, it is the journey that matters.
In conclusion, the diplomacy is too much of 'Do nothing and you'll be screwed. Do something consistently and you'll be screwed' This does not maketh a good game. I would be able to accept it IF I actually went out of my way to declare war on Mongolia. That would be a good reason for the AI to be afraid of me. But no. Alas, rather than Mongolia alone being vilified, I am thrown into the same camp. Without any prior warning from who I assumed to be my closest Ally all bloody game.
- With that off my chests, I have a few suggestions:
1. There needs to be more incentive to form agreements with the AI. It shouldn't be a case of the AI wanting to turn the tap of friendship on and off repeatedly for the sake of it, and growing timid just because their friend of one billion years suddenly cherry tapped a tiny nation that they actually don't give a crap about. I don't want AIs with 'cold war' personalities, sure, throwing some into the mix who have 'backstabbing slut' or 'impossible and immovable in diplomacy' personalities is fine, just don't have all of them adopt the same crazy paranoid demenour every time the human player so much as breathes.
1a. On top of this it you should be capable of forming relationships as well as souring them. For example, let the AIs see positivity in things such as having open borders with the player, having research agreements, trading resources, giving tribute and gifting the AI with something it needs at that time. And let the player SEE these things in the diplomacy screen, so it gives them more incentive to stay allied. At the moment there's too many things you can do to annoy an AI; this needs to be balanced out with more friendly options.
1b: With this in mind, the logical progression of a pact of friendship should be one due to the benevolent actions one civ has taken towards another, rather than it being the other way round. At the moment, the AI are like children in a nursery saying 'I like you, let's be friends' at the drop of a hat, rather than befriending someone on a mutual basis. AIs should earn each other's trust as well as you being able to earn theirs and vice versa.
Without this idea, the game literally becomes Civilisation 5: Everyone is Montezuma edition
If you manage to do this Sneaks (or if anyone else manages to figure out the AI) I will chisle a statue of marble of your likeness using my teeth and my manly soul and place it somewhere on Stonehenge as a testament to your genius.
For the meantime I will continue to play test your mod.
. So if you're releasing a new version I won't DL your mod and start a new game just yet
