working diplomacy

[thebenjomonster]

I've been playing a lot of games on Noble recently, and in my last one with Pacal/Maya on a huge fractal map, I had trouble with diplomacy.

I founded Hinduism and brought one of my neighbors(Joao) into the fold. We had friendly relations for the entire beginning, I was beelining towards defensive pacts and doing pretty well on the scoreboard. I had to fight off Monty and Churchill from the south but they never posed a real threat. Once I got Military Tradition and thus defensive pacts, I couldn't create one with Joao until the war with Monty stopped, something he wasn't willing to let happen. So about 6 turns later Joao (and 3 other civs, 1 from annoyed, 2 from cautious) declares war on me! He had dropped to pleased relations one turn before, and the next my game is brought down around my head.

>> Summary : How do I manage diplomacy to get 2 or 3 solid allies in the world? It seems like allies take forever to create and enemies only take a second to manifest.

 

[PureE]

Try to beeline liberalism and then go for free religion. That makes diplo so much easier =)

Also, pc's are ********. You don't want solid allies, you want vassals that HAVE to do what you do, instead of people who can go turncoat on you in about a turn.

Also, it's probable that the annoyed civ payed the others to attack you. They're never really that hard to bribe anyway.

 

[shulec]

In the early to mid portions of the game, religion is one of the biggest factors in diplomacy. You can forge strong relations based on this.

If you insist on founding an early religion and running it, you should spread it to your neighbors as quickly as possible. Once they get it, send more missionaries to keep them running that religion. It is nice to have spies and espionage points to flip them back to your religion if they stray. Build the holy wonder in the founding city to rake in the gold. To do this you will have to divert precious hammers that are needed to build your military and fuel your expansion and economy. I think it is a waste to found an early religion if you are not going to jam it down everybody else's throat.

I prefer to pursue other early techs like bronze working (slavery), alphabet and mathematics (improved chopping). I hold out on choosing a religion until I see what a majority of my neighbors choose, then I choose that one. This is the best way to build positive relations. If I do found a religion, it is usually confuciounism or taoism, but I continue to run the "popular" religion.

Diplomacy is important enough that if my neighbors demand something that won't affect my relations with other civs, I will usually give in unless I am about to war with them or their demand is ridiculous.

 

[HornetCiv]

If you take Shulec's approach to religion, how much effort would you spend later in the game trying to control religion?

Early on it's pretty important obviously, but even late in the game a swing of four in relations (same religion is typically +2, different typically -2) will often be the difference between furious and annoyed, annoyed and cautious, or cautious and pleased. Which goes a very long way to making sure wars are on your terms, rather than forced on you.

Would you go all out to take the Holy City of, say, Hinduism (assuming that's the big one), would you spend more time spreading Taoism to the people you want to be friendly with, or simply take a no state religion approach, spreading everything everywhere and trying to pit the AI in holy wars against one another?

 

[Joecoolyo]

Welcome to the forums thebenjomonster

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I usually just switch to the AI religion for diplo. If I bother with a shrine for confucianism (which I sometimes found on emp/immortal even though I don't oracle it) or taoism (via bulb), then I might spam missionaries. You don't need to be in a religion to get the shrine gold though. So, I'll just run the AI religion for diplo and the religious civic bonuses.

Or, if the religion situation is really tense, I won't run any.

Don't forget that in addition to avoiding bad religion choices, you can win points with the AI off favorite civics, resource supply, fair trade, and not trading with their enemies relatively easily.

On huge maps it will be harder to keep everyone happy. I recommend making a few friends and then screw the rest. Trade whore to a tech lead with your allies, possibly kill your enemies. Don't antagonize enemies unless attacking but also don't accept anything that will piss off the people you chose as allies.

Balancing tech trades and isolating an AI from those trades means you can get a substantial lead on that AI even if your tech pace is otherwise unimpressive.

 

[HornetCiv]

Don't forget that in addition to avoiding bad religion choices, you can win points with the AI off favorite civics, resource supply, fair trade, and not trading with their enemies relatively easily.

In my case religious bonuses are usually very important if I want friends, as I'm too much of a swindler to do any of that.