why should we be friends?

[timtofly]

I am sorry I took it the wrong way. The reason I changed my mind in one turn, is because the Persia was the civ I was asked to declare war on. I happened to look at my map closer that next turn, and Persia built a city near my borders on the tip of India. I control the rest of that peninsula so it kind of aggravated me (why put a city so deep in my territory, away from support from it's own empire?). I wanted to burn that city to the ground. So I decided to ask Japan if they still wanted my help against Persia. Their leader refused and said the answer was still no, as if I had bugged him so much about the subject. Perhaps I am a lunatic, for trying to get along with the AI. It has no idea what a change of heart is does it?

Sounds like the AI knew that Persia did this and they were offering support to you. It would be nice though if that was the case that there should be a list of reasons to draw from why they wanted you to go to war. ie Will you DOW just to mess up your reputation, Will you DOW I just lost a city, Will you DOW Persia just built a city that does neither of us any good.

 

[nokmirt]

Sounds like the AI knew that Persia did this and they were offering support to you. It would be nice though if that was the case that there should be a list of reasons to draw from why they wanted you to go to war. ie Will you DOW just to mess up your reputation, Will you DOW I just lost a city, Will you DOW Persia just built a city that does neither of us any good.

You could be right I never thought of it that way. It may be possible because I was on very friendly terms with Japan. I still am in that game. I am playing as Russia, and England is the nemesis in that game. My friends Japan, and the Iroquois just denounced Elizabeth. I am a trading partner with her, but we do need to bring her down to size.

The thing is I just conquered most of the Mongol Empire, and I have a bit of an unhappiness issue, so I have been needing to trade luxuries to keep my happiness up. Until I can take the cities I captured and annex them. I cannot do that at this point, and it will be a slow process. I am thinking of posting some screenshots, it is quite a situation I am in at the moment.

Does anyone have an idea what to use to open the .tga file?

 

[City Raider]

What is a shame is there seems to be no distiguishing between different types of warring. There are:
1 - defensive wars (you were attacked, fought back, and ultimately took some of the attackers cities)
2 - wars you were asked to join in on
3 - warmongering (attacking anything/everything in sight)

In this case #3 should suffer more diplo penalties then either #1 or #2. #1 should cause no diplo penatlies at all except for the civ you beat up. #2 should only cause penalties with the civ you attack and their publically declared friends/allies. #3 should give penalties with all civs.

There also should be more options to smooth things over in the case of 1 or 2 so you can dig yourself out of an early hole (say you warrior rushed Monty or something at the start) from an early war.

Depending on your neighbor you could have different questions/options like this:

Option 1 (weak AI neighbor): We are glad you attacked the "Aztecs" It is nice to have strong neighbors. We hope we can form a great friendship with the mighty ....

Option 2 (neutral AI neighbor): We are concerned that you attacked the "Aztecs"

Option 3 (strong AI neighbor): We respect your fierce fighting skills.

Your possible responses:

a) Yes, the "Aztecs" were a threat to us all. (semi-peaceful response - trying to convince the AI to open up to further relations)
b) The "Aztecs" had encroached upon our lands. (neutral response - here the AI is still not sure what to make of you)
c) As long as you do as we say, we'll get along. (war type response - AI would feel threatened)
etc.

-----

Just something like this to kind of gear the diplomacy part of the game and give you ways to have different relationships that would depend on the level of your opponents aggressivenss as well. Obviously there would be penalties if you try and pick peaceful answers but break your word. But I just think you could do a lot by just having a few more options/questions/responses when you meet with various leaders.

 

[DaveGold]

My guess is that the same data flag is used by the programmers for when (a) you offer the AI a deal and it refuses and (b) the AI offers you a deal and you refuse. This would explain why it doesn't know what's going on from turn to turn .... it has it's own way of remembering conversations that often isn't the same as the reality.

 

[nokmirt]

Everyone denouncing everyone!

Too bad I cannont annex these newly acquired cities until my happiness is brought up substantially!

Finally a decent deal. I need the money!

Here is the AI placement of two cities deep in my territory.

Then Darius conveniently declares war on me. What a guy, what a help! The funny thing is that he thought I trusted him. Now I can take the cities and burn one. I was thinking of keeping the city on the island.

I can build theatres now, so unhappiness will soon be a thing of the past, at least I hope.

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

yeah, you get better deals from "friendly" civs, but you don't get better deals from a declared friend vs a friendly civ, and it seems like civs only want the declaration when they're already friendly. declining has no negative impact, they just say maybe later. and the declared friend is going to get pissed at you eventually so i still don't see any benefit to the declaration.

I got the impression that the friendship last longer after you sign a DOF. So when you start doing 'nasty' things like expanding or declaring war on a civ, other civs might change their opinion of you, but the civ with the DOF remains friendly. I don't know if the observation can be confirmed, but it looks like reputation loss is less with declared friends.

 

[Roto-Router]

Harpoon I used to play it in the Navy. Do they have that for the PC?

Again off topic...for my fellow Harpooners, check out The Red Pill: http://www.warfaresims.com/?cat=126. Let's just hope they don't break my heart like with Harpoon 4. (Matrix Games also has Harpoon proper, ported to modern OSs.)