What's the use of cooperation and secrecy in diplomacy?

[pawelo]

I must say I have received the new system with a "pinch of salt", especially for the lack of real information on what the Pacts are and how they influence RL.

I still find that we lack some middle ways - nothing is either black or white.
Also, advisers should be able to learn, as the game goes on. It's alright they don't have a clue in the beginning, let them learn gradually.

I am happy the Tech trading is gone, as it has been plainly exploited by players, and the Research Agreements are a nice way to randomize it a little bit.
Otherwise, I must agree with the way the game changed. Think of it as if you were in the other players position - if you have a military edge, no matter the other guy is offering you piles of gold, you need his land to evolve. Also, if someone settles near you, in "your" planned expansion spots, you will be pi$%&d off, and you will be prone to attacking him.

The new system is pretty much a trial and error stuff, with no definite way that works for every game, and I'm happy with it. It's not empty - I am currently playing my first (almost) pacific games, I have a strong defensive position as Babylon and cooperate/trade with neighbors like Askia and Oda who are fighting each other for past hundreds of years. And although my army is no longer as strong as it used to be, trading, researching together, OB and cooperating works! They could roll me over much more easily than in the beginning - muskets & rifles vs longswords and trebuchets, but they aren't

Also, I'm happy that the blood-thirsty Monty, religious Izzy, tech-madman Mansa are gone. It's nice to see that Gandhi is not an empty shell, but is really competing to win the game (i.e. even if it means warring). It's nice to cooperate peacefully with Japan, even despite the close borders, for thousands of years. It's good to see that, if you attack AIs, the others cool down and blame your ways of doing.

Maybe some lifting should be done in regard to the adviser system. Aside this, I'm happy with the way it went.

 

[Tale]

I'll never understand people who complain about everyone attacking you. They play to win, if you don't want friendlies trying to take a conquest victory, turn off conquest victory.

Otherwise, you're just asking them to be an imbecile. "Oh well, I can't possibly win this game by science or culture, but if I get lucky, I might win conquest. But I think I'd rather lose the game because he traded me sugar for 30 turns."

 

[dexters]

Leader AI works a lot more like Civ3 AI which is nice. I think people are just spoiled rotten by the 'same religion' crutch in Civ4, which made it super easy to avoid certian civs from declaring war.

That is off the table, but to say friendly civs are just as likely to DOW on you is ridiculous. AI is pretty astute, it knowns how strong you are. If you're strong enough, even the warmongers try to be diplomatic.

8/10 times that AI has DOW on me, I can trace it back to something I did. Either I refused their advances for closer partnership or I was on the receiving end of a plot (one AI got another to DOW on me).

And pacts of secrecy make the AI more likely to DOW and dogpile on the same Civ if the other Civ goes to war

 

[kaltorak]

I'll never understand people who complain about everyone attacking you. They play to win

/facepalm

Again, this is not a deathmatch game. It is civilization.

/sad

 

[Drawmeus]

The thing I find really funny is that people thought Civ IV had better diplomacy.

Believe me, I don't think the diplomacy in Civ V is good. I don't think it's as bad as people are saying, but not good.

But diplomacy in Civ IV consisted of some trivial number manipulation causing the AI to play contrary to its own best interests. It wasn't deep diplomacy, it was one more layer of game-isms, which was fine. But I don't see how anyone could have nostalgia for that. Desire for better, sure, but not by going back to that system.

 

[Tale]

/facepalm

Again, this is not a deathmatch game. It is civilization.

/sad

/facepalm

Then turn off victory conditions. If you don't want them to be concerned by winning, play a no-win game. Otherwise you're just wanting AI that lets you win.

/obvious

 

[kaltorak]

Sorry about the facepalm. English is not my language and I couldnt express with words how I felt, so I put it with an "expresion". But it looks bad.

 

[dexters]

The thing I find really funny is that people thought Civ IV had better diplomacy.

Believe me, I don't think the diplomacy in Civ V is good. I don't think it's as bad as people are saying, but not good.

But diplomacy in Civ IV consisted of some trivial number manipulation causing the AI to play contrary to its own best interests. It wasn't deep diplomacy, it was one more layer of game-isms, which was fine. But I don't see how anyone could have nostalgia for that. Desire for better, sure, but not by going back to that system.

CivIV diplomacy is refined and stable. It doesn't do obviously dumb things like breaking its own MA and declaring war. The biggest problem is that the AI is just there, and with religion they really are too easily manipulated.

But hands down Civ3 has the best diplo AI until now. Take no prisoners dog eat dog. And the game could sort it out and you often get 2 loose alliances of civs with alliances against civs in the opposing bloc. It was organic and real. It was fun! Jury still out on Civ5 leader AI, but I get vibes of Civ3 already.

 

[LaRate]

My biggest problem is the lack of information. I don't know what actions will cause the AI to be mad at me and what I can do to calm them down. Civ4's system might have been primitive to some extent, but it made its rules quite clear. Using religion to befriend your opponents might not be the most "realistic" concept, but I wouldn't call it an exploit just because you could use it. It's a game mechanic that can be part of your strategy or not - it might have been a tad too easy but that is more a problem of balancing than of the general concept.

If you want the AI to behave like a human opponent in a multiplayer match, the agreements mentioned in the OP should be removed since they have no purpose. My personal opinion however is, that the AI should rather pose a challenge for you winning the game, rather than trying to win by itself by all means necessary. This is different from games like Starcraft2, where I want the AI be as close to a human opponent as possible - to train for multiplayer, which is the core aspect of the game (it has the campaign for non-competitive play, which is scripted for the most part). Civ for me is more a single player game and thus I view the AI more as part of the gameplay in contrast to an equal opponent. As such, I want clear rules and not a "vague feeling" of what effects my decisions make concerning AI civs.

 

[Drawmeus]

CivIV diplomacy is refined and stable. It doesn't do obviously dumb things like breaking its own MA and declaring war. The biggest problem is that the AI is just there, and with religion they really are too easily manipulated.

But hands down Civ3 has the best diplo AI until now. Take no prisoners dog eat dog. And the game could sort it out and you often get 2 loose alliances of civs with alliances against civs in the opposing bloc. It was organic and real. It was fun! Jury still out on Civ5 leader AI, but I get vibes of Civ3 already.

Better messaging of the Civ V diplomacy and I think it'd be there already, honestly.

I don't mean with +2s and such, but just contextualizing it ("Catherine is annoyed with you!") would make a substantial difference.

 

[dexters]

I don't want the AI to behave like human oppoents, I want them to be interesting.

Now this can mean a number of things. Civ4 handed you their diplo modifiers to you on a silver platter then added religion ontop of it, making it super easy to manage.

Diplomacy in SP should be fun, that involved roleplaying AI. But roleplay AI shouldn't also be wooden posts that are there for players to interact with. They also need to have motivations and they need to scheme. This is where Civ4 AI generally did not perform well. They were predictable and locked in once you get out of the middle ages and the religion blocs are set.

Civ3 AI was far more dynamic. Things were constantly evolving diplomatically.

 

[ohioastronomy]

I'll never understand people who complain about everyone attacking you. They play to win, if you don't want friendlies trying to take a conquest victory, turn off conquest victory.

Otherwise, you're just asking them to be an imbecile. "Oh well, I can't possibly win this game by science or culture, but if I get lucky, I might win conquest. But I think I'd rather lose the game because he traded me sugar for 30 turns."

No - I'd like to have the AI be able to compete in the peaceful victory conditions. Some of us like empire building, and there are plenty of examples in the real world of nations not attacking their neighbors because they're "winning". Or I'd like to be able to make an AI an ally, in effect sharing in my victory, if I'm so inclined. Instead you have a bunch of incompetent schemers, and the game actively penalizes you unless you start by wiping out anyone near you before you build your empire.

 

[Aboikos]

It is indeed filed under LAME, that there is no info available about what the H is going on. Not just diplo but in all aspects of the game. Try to find an answer in civO and it will give you a history lesson and absolutely NO real info that I can implement in my game. Im pissed.

 

[ond_magiker]

The thing I find really funny is that people thought Civ IV had better diplomacy.

Believe me, I don't think the diplomacy in Civ V is good. I don't think it's as bad as people are saying, but not good.

But diplomacy in Civ IV consisted of some trivial number manipulation causing the AI to play contrary to its own best interests. It wasn't deep diplomacy, it was one more layer of game-isms, which was fine. But I don't see how anyone could have nostalgia for that. Desire for better, sure, but not by going back to that system.

But Civ4 HAD better diplomacy. It wasn't deep, but was one of the many little mini-games that made the game more than the sum of its parts. It also wasn't perfect, but why on earth replace it with the opaque mess in V? If they didn't like the old system, they should've gone the similar-but-improved route, or made something better.

At least now they have added text when you mouseover the Coop and Secrecy options in the diplomacy menu. That deserves some scattered applause.

Next they need to add some clues as to what is going on; not necessarily numbers, but "I cannot believe you razed that city! " or "So long, and thanks for all all the sugar " type messages. And for the love of god, teach the strategy AI that their tactical AI sucks! If the human player has half the troops of the AI, he'll still win easily.

 

[Danei]

For what it's worth, the pacts seem to work just fine for me.

If I make a pact of secrecy against someone, the person I made the pact with almost always declares war on our mutual foe if he can gain anything from it at all, and when I have a pact of cooperation with someone, they give me better trade deals.

The thing is, you have to honor your side of the agreement. If you make a pact of secrecy against monty and then you turn around and trade with him, it's going to bother the civ you made the agreement with.

If you make a pact of cooperation but you don't "cooperate" by treating that civ better than you treat the others, that probably ticks them off, too.

I don't mind not being able to know what they're thinking, and contrary to the claims of some people here, I don't think they all declare war on me eventually; they only do it if they think it's in their best interest--and the more they like me, the more they need to have to gain from it to do it.

I've regularly played games where AIs near me haven't ever bothered me militarily. I won a deity cultural victory without ever going to war at all. Diplomacy works, you just have to treat it sensibly, and not like Civ IV diplomacy but with hidden numbers.

Most of all, I like that the AIs aren't mindless pushovers that are there to be manipulated by the player. I want them to backstab me, scheme against me, break their agreements, and so forth if they think that's what will help them win, just as I'd do to them. The only problem is they're stupid, and they're rarely right about what will help them win. That's an AI issue, though. Not a design issue.

 

[Kolath]

They aim for the ai in diplomacy to be a bit more human, seeing as humans very often say useless fluff that sounds pointless out of context. The AI will actually say, than you for seeing the pact of secrecy through all these years after a while (not certain how long) meaning that their relation goes up. But not by an arbitrary number like in civ 4 where everything is statistics.

Except behind the scenes it is just arbitrary numbers... we just don't get to see what they are. Which is the OP's point. There is little to no feedback on how any of the diplomatic options affect diplomatic relations. The developers tauted this saying it is somehow "more realistic", when in fact it just means that there is little to no feedback and therefore you cannot make effective decisions.

 

[dexters]

For what it's worth, the pacts seem to work just fine for me.

If I make a pact of secrecy against someone, the person I made the pact with almost always declares war on our mutual foe if he can gain anything from it at all, and when I have a pact of cooperation with someone, they give me better trade deals.
.

That's one area where the game UI could be improved.

In civ3, you could see who is trading with who. You can't in Civ 5, though AI undoubtedly will know if they're allowed to look at that information (which I assume they do)

But humans don't have access to similar information about AI trades. It would make for interesting politics if we also did.

 

[Drawmeus]

But Civ4 HAD better diplomacy. It wasn't deep, but was one of the many little mini-games that made the game more than the sum of its parts. It also wasn't perfect, but why on earth replace it with the opaque mess in V? If they didn't like the old system, they should've gone the similar-but-improved route, or made something better.

I believe they actually did exactly this. They just did it off the Civ 3 base instead of the Civ 4 base - but to be fair, those aren't that far apart either, once you factor the much-too-easy religion stuff out. There are things it needs to do better (like plot out a path to victory that doesn't involve warmongering, though to be fair culture victories would be f'ing annoying because unless you're checking the victory conditions screen constantly it'd be an out-of-nowhere "Bismarck has won a Culture Victory!" message), but it does what it does well.

Opacity is its biggest flaw. It needs to tell you that what you've done has had an effect.

At least now they have added text when you mouseover the Coop and Secrecy options in the diplomacy menu. That deserves some scattered applause.

Next they need to add some clues as to what is going on; not necessarily numbers, but "I cannot believe you razed that city! " or "So long, and thanks for all all the sugar " type messages. And for the love of god, teach the strategy AI that their tactical AI sucks! If the human player has half the troops of the AI, he'll still win easily.

I agree on the context clues. I agree completely. You need to be able to see that your actions mattered.

On the teaching the strategic AI that the tactical AI sucks thing, can you imagine what the reaction from the community would be if they did that? "OMG they even know it's broken and won't fix it!"

They need to fix the tactical AI. It's not impossible, and if I had more resources (basically, time) I would undertake that project myself.

 

[DaveGold]

Beside the fact that since you have no information about the diplomacy system you can't make decisions, I think there are other problems. If you start on ocean map the other leaders probably don't know where you are and won't give you open borders. They don't trade. They just dislike you for the whole game, you never get a chance to get started with them, and you don't even know why.

 

[Gath]

I'm amazed people defend the diplomacy in civ 5. It's a black box and yet people still want to assign some massivly complicated interior mechanism.

Until I'm shown some evidence, I stand on my belief that the Ai is not acting in any coordinated diplomatic fashion with anything near the complexity of civ 4. If anything its on the order of civ 1.