Why did they add X if Y never occurs?

[crawf0rd]

After playing a few games, generally prince/king, standard/huge, continents, I noticed a few things are in the game that dont seem to do anything. I start the list:

1. Why did they add DoF's if your "friends" wont ever join you in war?

 

[Scarpa]

Defensive Pact is the one that means they join you in war, I think.

Declarations of Friendship are looser alliances that pretty much mean the enemies of your friends now hate you, and your friends will ask you for free stuff.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

To scam the player basically, DoF's are usually only profitable for the AI, they'll ask for free stuff, everyone that doesn't like the AI will hate you and most likely they will eventually backstab you.
Even if you go into them DO NOT trust them, it'll attack the moment your army is away or just based on some RNG roll.

Other useless diplomacy features:
Defence pact, these are like yeti's
Demand, unless you outdo their score about 10-1 this will never work.
GPT trading, only there in case you feel like cheating.

 

[Sonereal]

Other useless diplomacy features:
Defence pact, these are like yeti's
Demand, unless you outdo their score about 10-1 this will never work.
GPT trading, only there in case you feel like cheating.

You forgot to add "diplomacy" to that list.

Yeah. I'm not quite sure how you can have an overtly broken mechanic in a game for a year and not have it patched. Then again, Civilization IV had it's own rather broken mechanics like Global Warming but not diplomacy for God's sake.

 

[blasto]

Apparently you've never had a Yeti haul stuff for you.

 

[Tokira]

Other useless diplomacy features:
Defence pact, these are like yeti's
Demand, unless you outdo their score about 10-1 this will never work.
GPT trading, only there in case you feel like cheating.

So true. I've never had anybody to be willing to form a defensive pact. Not even a civ that I liberated. Thus I would add a few more options to the list:

1) "Don't settle new cities near us!" Why is this one there anyways? The AI always gets provoked by it. I've had it work only once when I had destroyed Germany to a one city empire. They accepted the threat when I told them not to make new cities near me. I guess it goes to the same series with "Demand" which has only worked once for me.

If there is an option to tell the AI not ot settle new cities near your empire, there should be options to tell them not to build a specific wonder, not to have their troops near your borders and so on..

2) The liberated civilizations. Basically you only benefit from the liberated city states and the civs are only worth liberating if you go for a diplomatic victory. It annoys me to death to see the liberated civ to be hostile to me or to refuse trading things with me for a reasonable price. They're usually very far behind in technology too and have no armies at all. Seriously.. If I liberate someone, shouldn't they be thankful for at least 50-100 turns insteads of going hostile after 3 turns?

 

[The_Quasar]

If I liberate someone, shouldn't they be thankful for at least 50-100 turns insteads of going hostile after 3 turns?

A whole 3 turns, you were lucky!

Much also depends on who put them away... if it was you or a friend of yours who did the deed, they will still be hostile... as their friendships revert to those before they were crushed (in the same way that their relationships with CS do). Imho, there should be a positive modifier that works for, say 60 turns, after you liberate an AI, gradually decreasing over time.

 

[Deggial]

I really don't know why people always whine about your friends demanding "stuff" and thinking this is a bad thing. True, if this happens to you during a GA and your friend demands gpt, you are ###.

But hey: If it is just a (maybe even surplus) ressource, you will get an unlimited positive modifier as compensation! This will help you, even if your DoF expired.

And, at least in my experience, a DoF usually is honored. Of course, if you act like a total maniac declaring war to half of the world, they will turn against you. But with a DoF, this will be *way* later than without it!
It's another question, if the DoF will be renewed, after expiration. Maybe not, if you acted against the former friend's bias during your pact. Maybe the whole preconditions just changed in the meantime.

Political blocks are/may be just temporary in CiV. As time goes by, friendship may fade if necessity changes. This is - even if it is not the most popular though - a quite realistic picture of the *real* world.
So, in general, I like CiV's diplomatic model. Anyway, loyality *might* be at least a little bit more reliable and backstabbing less likely. But this is just a gradual issue for me, not an absolute.

 

[black213]

1) "Don't settle new cities near us!" Why is this one there anyways? The AI always gets provoked by it. I've had it work only once when I had destroyed Germany to a one city empire. They accepted the threat when I told them not to make new cities near me. I guess it goes to the same series with "Demand" which has only worked once for me.

Does this one even work? I've had Rome sometime agree on that, but after a few turns he settled a city right next to my borders.

 

[Gamewizard]

Quite often in my games I end up with atleast 2 good DoFs that will last up until the industrial era. To maintain these relationships I will gift excess resources to my friends, especially the turn I conquer another Civ (just like I tell my 3 year old, "You must share if you want to make friends!"). I find this reduces the warmonger hate from said friends and also reduces their eventual tribute demands.

And to answer the OP, friends will join you in a war if the enemy is shared and if your friend has an average army size. It may however cost you some gold or a resource to bring them in as well.

I am one that actually enjoys this diplomacy system. My biggest griefs are OP research agreements (I approve Thal's modded system of a small percentage of beakers per turn that benefits empires with a low tech rate) and being able to trade a resource for an instant 240 gold (I think it should be MAX 30 instant gold with 6 gold per turn over 30 turns...which is how I end up playing my games anyways).

 

[headcase]

1. Why did they add DoF's if your "friends" wont ever join you in war?

1. Because a DoF has more subtle benefits such as keeping the civ more friendly towards you (if the DoF wasn't a deception in the first place).

2. "don't settle new cities near us": because sometimes it does deter them, and if not, at least you can say you warned 'em.

3. liberated civs: beats me!

All right, new question:
4. Why do we need another rants thread?

Ok, ok, here's a real one:
4. If Future Techs don't do anything useful besides increase your score, and you're supposed to finish the game quickly to get the best score, then what is the point of Future Techs?

 

[Tokira]

Does this one even work? I've had Rome sometime agree on that, but after a few turns he settled a city right next to my borders.

Well, I don't know what it actually does but at least in my game Germany never settled any cities near me. They actually sent their settler to a location near my borders and kept it standing there for the rest of the game after I told them not to settle cities near me.

I think that the "don't settle cities near me" is mainly about settling the cities near your/the AIs capital or then the Civ who agrees to do it has to be very weak to actually obey the order.

Ok, ok, here's a real one:
4. If Future Techs don't do anything useful besides increase your score, and you're supposed to finish the game quickly to get the best score, then what is the point of Future Techs?

It could also be questioned what is the point of the score since they don't seem to indicate the difficulty of the game in any way. You can get a huge score by conquering the whole map on prince difficulty and then get a very small score by winning an OCC game on immortal. At least I haven't noticed any difference on my scores between different difficulty levels.

 

[Trias]

Ok, ok, here's a real one:
4. If Future Techs don't do anything useful besides increase your score, and you're supposed to finish the game quickly to get the best score, then what is the point of Future Techs?

This has been the case in all iterations of civ except 4. Still it is a good question.

My best guess it is there as a coding convenience. Future techs guarantee that the tech tree never ends. Consequently, parts of the code effecting research do not need to take into account the eventuality a player runs out of things to research. (Otherwise we may be treat by various late game bugs, due to various coding mess ups.)

A less cynical answer:
They make sense in games where the only possible victory is a time victory. In such a case, it makes sense to reward players with lots of scientific output after they exhaust the tree with some score.

 

[apocalypse105]

You can basicly say that the hole "diplomacy " is a feature that doesn't work like it supposed to.

Because the AI plays like a Ai in a real time strategy it wants to beat you...


There are enough features from diplomacy that has no effect :
Like demanding,don't settle near us.
Other demands

Diplomacy can work on lower difficulties but at king and higher diplomacy is non existent. They thought by making the AI more agressive and backstabbing it would increase the difficulty No it doesn't its anoying.

It seams that civilization 5 diplomacy is for the show it doesn't really change the gameplay at all.

 

[Brichals]

DoFs definitely do mean something as they will trade with you on better terms. You have to also give back though when they request or it can turn negative. And in my last game I managed to instigate a world war dogpile onto France quite easily by asking my friends to join. It helped that france had just taken out 2 civs, but i did get the whole world onto them within 10 turns. I actually think diplomacy is not that bad, just it has strange nuances.

 

[Brigg]

Does this one even work? I've had Rome sometime agree on that, but after a few turns he settled a city right next to my borders.

Yes it does, but you must be more powerful. Some civs are liars.

 

[Brigg]

Dof works best in the friend of a friend mode. A / b are friends. You dof a and b likes you. Add a mutual war and some trades and it becomes pretty nice. Do not backstab or warmonger and you can survive politically.

 

[bcaiko]

1. Because a DoF has more subtle benefits such as keeping the civ more friendly towards you (if the DoF wasn't a deception in the first place).

THIS. If your winning strategy means you aren't making friends with the other powers, maintaining a DoF means you will at least have one fair trading partner when the other civs are only offering rediculous deals no one would ever accept.

 

[qec]

I've tried playing around with defensive pacts in games to try and get an idea of what they mean. I know that if you sign one while at war with a different A.I, the A.I you signed it with does not declare war on the enemy A.I. If you have an existing defensive pact and declare on another A.I, the civ you signed with will not declare war. The only situation that I haven't had is being declared war on while I had a Def.Pact with an A.I. I'm not sure but assume that they would then go in the war on your behalf, because otherwise the Def.Pact is just totally pointless and means nothing. I've tried to provoke this scenario, but never with any luck.

 

[Tokira]

I've tried playing around with defensive pacts in games to try and get an idea of what they mean. I know that if you sign one while at war with a different A.I, the A.I you signed it with does not declare war on the enemy A.I. If you have an existing defensive pact and declare on another A.I, the civ you signed with will not declare war. The only situation that I haven't had is being declared war on while I had a Def.Pact with an A.I. I'm not sure but assume that they would then go in the war on your behalf, because otherwise the Def.Pact is just totally pointless and means nothing. I've tried to provoke this scenario, but never with any luck.

How did you get any civ to form the pact with you anyways?

For me it's always either that everybody hates me or that everybody considers me militarily so weak that the defensive pact is not worth forming, I guess. Thus I've never made any of these pacts.