You broke your promise to move your troops away from the border

[kaspergm]

You did break your promise.

I believe it is effective for 50 turns.

<Row Name="BORDER_PROMISE_TURNS_EFFECTIVE">
			<Value>50</Value>

Even if you didn't know it was 50 turns, declaring war after 10 turns was essentially a lie. Most deals last 30 turns in this game.

The irony of course is you were preparting to attack all along but you just wasn't ;ready. I'm glad the game caught you out on it

I sort of do agree with this, BUT I will say that 50 turns is too long. A lot can change in the game in 50 times, and I have had several cases where game came running because I had units stationed defensively on my borders (because THEY had previously DoW'ed me) and then demanded that I came out and told them, and where I truthfully said no, and then many terms later things had changed (like them suddenly backstabbing me and denouncing me while we had DoF!) and then when I DoW them, I face chain denouncements for breaking a promise to another civ. Seriously?

 

[Xichael]

What's the point. People are upset because they do take a diplo hit for essentially lying because they wanted to attack, but NOT YET!

What you want is to take less of a diplo hit for being an ass. How about we double the penalty instead!

Well, breaking a promise to move your troops also gives you a diplo hit with other civs as well, my idea would only be a diplo hit with the civ you are dealing with.

 

[That Other Guy]

A diplomacy penalty against someone you just declared war on hardly seems meaningful.

 

[Matthew.]

You just have to play differently.

By not keeping any units near my capital?

If you have no intentions to DoW they you should have no problem keeping your promise.

50 turns.

We are not talking about "Oh, hold on Mr. AI while I move my troops into a better position. Okay, now we can go to war".

50 turns. 1/5th of the game. And again, the AI just throws out the screen whenever. Just have your units near the capital? Forced peace for 50 turns or be punished. Moving units to another city? Forced peace for 50 turns or be punished.

That is not a 'fault' or a weakness to the AI. It adds strategic challenge.

Being unable to calculate is clearly a fault. The AI just throws up this screen whenever it detects a few units near their borders and then attempts to punish you for a significant portion of the game. Having to adhere to a poorly-coded AI by doing things like leave my capital unprotected is certainly a fault.

What you want is to dow on your own timetable on your own terms.

Uhh... yes? Of course I do. Any system that takes the choice away from the player is terrible for gaming, especially when it is only done as a band-aid fix over a greater issue (incompetant AI). I have no issues with mechanics in place to try and prevent abuse, except this particular mechanic is not done well at all.

The argument of "Well if you ever DoW within those 50 turns that means the AI was right all along!" does nothing to defend it.

Diplo screen pops up, you say no, then the AI plops down a new city right in the spot you were going to expand to 20 turns later. Oops! can't do anything about it.

Diplo screen pops up, you say no, then the AI sacks the mercantile CS keeping your happiness above 0. Wait 40 turns and maybe you can do something about it.

You want to put a hood over the AI and lie to them until you DoW.

No. I want to be able to keep units near my capital without being punished. I have zero issues with what the mechanic is designed to do, but the way it is implemented in the game is terrible.

You are essentially telling me that as the human player I should have the foresight to know exactly how the game is going to play out and determine in advance if I will ever declare war on another Civ or not. Sorry bud, if I could see the future I'd be too busy trying to burn through all my lottery money than spend time typing on an internet forum.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Well, breaking a promise to move your troops also gives you a diplo hit with other civs as well, my idea would only be a diplo hit with the civ you are dealing with.

I don't see much reason for the AI to trust a civ that just lied about its intentions to declare war. It's the same kind of behavior that makes me rather wary of giving Dido my DoF's.

You are essentially telling me that as the human player I should have the foresight to know exactly how the game is going to play out and determine in advance if I will ever declare war on another Civ or not. Sorry bud, if I could see the future I'd be too busy trying to burn through all my lottery money than spend time typing on an internet forum.

This is a grand strategy game. You SHOULD have the foresight to know if you intend to DOW your neighbor and get some more living space or turtle up and play peaceful.

 

[Matthew.]

This is a grand strategy game. You SHOULD have the foresight to know if you intend to DOW your neighbor and get some more living space or turtle up and play peaceful.

Sure. I can know in advance "I have this spot I really want to expand to. If the AI beats me to it, I will get it through force". There are already penalties in place for that (hit for declaring war, hit for taking a city).

Here is a poor game design: Space is already getting cramped, as is common in Civ5. AI decides to throw out a random diplo screen because you have one too many units. In your borders. Defending your empire. Part of the game.

Now you are forced to play by the AI's rules for a huge portion of the game. It expands to that spot you wanted? Remember when you had military units sitting around and doing nothing earlier? Because of that you either need to give up the spot or take another diplo hit. A diplo hit that, by the way, will reach all other Civs whether you met them or not, even on other continents. So glad that China on the other continent is pissed at me because my neighbor got a little paranoid 30 turns ago.

 

[dexters]

Matthew, I think what this comes down to is living with the choices you make.

This argument is a lot like the 'reloading' issue casual/new players have when things don't go their way and they reload and replay it again.

If you move troops near enemy border, either by mistake or by design and they ask you DoW? or passing through?

You have a choice. If it was really just passing through, say so. If you wanted to attack but isn't ready yet, you can lie and take the diplo hit later (but you still lied and gained an advantage from a surprise attack) or you man up and DoW right then and there.

If you chose only passing through, you should be prepared to live up to your word and not pout that you're blocked from attacking them for 50 turns. That's what you call having your cake and eating it too, or in Civ terms reloading again and again until you get a desired outcome because you don't want to be accountable to your choices.

The dilema the AI presents to over your troops near their borders, or not expanding near them or any number of promises you could make are real choices that require strategy and discipline to live your choice. If you chose to be duplicitous then be prepared to take the diplo hit. A game where there is no real strategic choices and no cost to your choices is less rich for it. I'm sad you can't see that.

Edit: The specifics of what you're describing ; troops near your capital being raised as a potential threat because it's cramped shouldn't happen all that often. Besides, looking at the screen capture you posted, he had 1 unit near your capital and was no where near attacking you. Amassing that may units right there with no immediate threat is weird when you had lots of space to the south and west of your empire. It shows you either was planning to attack or you just parked your units there and forgot about it. In fact, the more I look at it, the more it looks like preparations for war. You even had a GG in your battle line. LOL. Either way, That's really not the game's fault. The game saw you had a lot of units near it while it didn't have any units near you and asked wth you're up to and they had the right to do so.

 

[Matthew.]

I'm sad you can't see that.

Don't take my long-ish replies as me getting too worked up. In the big-picture it doesn't matter too much to me. I've gotten in the habit of just picking the DoW option then signing equal peace a few turns later (AFAIK, current friends won't put up the diplo screen, so won't ever get the "betrayed" diplo hit). If I actually want to declare war, I will just do it 10 turns later or beyond (already getting the war-monger penalty either way). Hell, doing it that way I can set up my units all around the enemy's borders and it can't even throw up the diplo screen that was supposed to prevent me from doing so in the first place

It is just one of those things that get to be because either by my own luck or by design, this diplo window seems to always pop up when I'm not actually preparing to DoW. Sure, I may recognize that potential side of my empire needs more protection or potential conflict will break out, so I may move my troops that way, but I'm not sitting there setting up my catapults and fortifying melee all in perfect spots surrounding the helpless AI.

I suppose I can feel sad for you, too. The system does nothing to prevent a player from cheesing the AI and needlessly punishes you for employing actual strategies (protecting cities/borders). I thought it was common knowledge by now that AI diplomacy in Civ5 is one of the biggest flaws of the game; defending band-aid fixes as adding strategic depth is... interesting.

 

[dexters]

^ read my updated post above yours.


Also I'm not into tit for tat 'feeling sad' this isn't some sort of group therapy.

I'm sad that you can't appreciate strategic choice and living with your decisions. I'm not sure what you're getting worked up about. Instead of reading 90% of what I wrote, you chose to focus on the last bit, which I assume you take as an insult. I think you need a break.

 

[Rathelon]

I don't think I have ever gotten that message when I WASN'T massing for attack, so I just lie if I'm not ready, or say 'Pack sand and fight me'.

 

[dexters]

I don't think I have ever gotten that message when I WASN'T massing for attack, so I just lie if I'm not ready, or say 'Pack sand and fight me'.

Yep. It's happened by accident occasionally, and when it happened I just told them the truth. But most of the time it's because I'm about to attack

 

[Matthew.]

Amassing that may units right there with no immediate threat is weird when you had lots of space to the south and west of your empire. It shows you either was planning to attack or you just parked your units there and forgot about it. In fact, the more I look at it, the more it looks like preparations for war. You even had a GG in your battle line. LOL. That's really not the game's fault. The game saw you had a lot of units near it while it didn't have any units near you and asked wth you're up to and they had the right to do so.

Sweden was no threat (crippled from the cities I took from them). Had plenty of protection south near Siam. Any other threat would need to walk through two city-states to get to me, not to mention would end up sandwiched between the units I had in the north and south.

Yes, I had generals with me. What do you suggest I do with them? Keep them apart from my military units?

The problem here is you have the idea in your head that I was planning to DoW the Maya within a few turns anyway, the AI caught me planning my attack, and now I am ranting that the system must be changed. All wrong. Like I said, I specifically wasn't going to DoW Pacal because he didn't have any unique luxuries and I needed to focus on infrastructure. The AI, playing by its own rules, decides it is going to force me to choose between 50 turns of peace, or a pointless game of DoWing, signing peace, and then DoWing later on if I so choose to.

Again, don't know if it is my own luck, but I have tons of screenies just like the above one. I take a screenshot every time this window pops up and I can't figure out what the hell I did wrong other than make good strategic decisions and be punished for it in a strategy game.

Edit: And yes, I did read your replies, and I'm not getting worked up (most of my posts tend to be wordy, can check posting history ). Just seems to be like Me: WTH, I'm not going to even attack and I got this message! You: Naw man, you totally lying, you were going to attack anyway

At this point any further comments will end up being circular, so I'm out. Again, not worked up, just lengthy replies. As I said way back in my first reply, I'm biased on this issue (hate it, completely terrible system), so of course my stance is going to seem a bit aggressive. Nothing personal against you at all. Cheers.

 

[kaspergm]

I just want to chime in that when this was discussed some time ago somone brought up something I felt was a pretty good idea, namely that we should have a 3rd option which would basically be to say "mind yourself" (I think he worded it a bit nicer, something like "We intend these forces for defensive purposes only, because we don't trust you enough to leave our borders unguarded."), which would give you a diplomatic hit with that civ in question but which would not count as a promise and therefore would not give you any penalty if you later went into war.

I can fully see the argument of those who say that the current mechanism is intended as a way to prevent abuse, and I would even agree with this if not for two facts:

1. There is no way for the human player to do the same to the AI. When they start amassing troops on our borders, we can just sit by iddly and prepare for them to come out and DoW us.
2. The system has a history of a pretty large number of examples of this not working as intended and putting the human player in an unfair lose/lose situation.

So I think if one wants to keep the current system, there needs to be a very clearly defined set of rules as to when this can trigger - like, "you need to have 5 or more units stationed directly on the border, or within two tiles of the border if this is not also within the workable perimeter of a city" - and then it should go both ways, so that if the AI meets this criteria, the human player can throw the demand back at the AI also.

 

[Matthew.]

It just doesn't work well in a game like Civ5 where all cities are crammed so close together. If and when a Civ6 comes out there should be much wider spacing between cities for several reasons that go beyond this one issue. If the game was set-up where it actually was odd to have a line of military towards the edge of your lands and too close to another Civ, then whatever, add some kind of check system for the AI.

In the current system, it doesn't work when the distance which scares another AI is also the distance between cities. It is impossible to avoid "being too close" if just standing near your city throws off the trigger. Would work much better in a game with larger maps and 6-7+ tiles between cities, so keeping your guys away from borders is actually an option.

Larger maps would solve several other issues, too, but I guess the hardware just isn't there yet. At least for 1UPT, modern graphics, and such.

 

[Roxlimn]

I'll have to disagree with that. The game is intentionally assymetrical in single player mode. Border demands are just one aspect of that. It is already way too easy to make the AI not war with you. Adding additional penalties to enforce even more peace would make it too exploitable.

There are already ways not to incur the border demand. Just not have more than 2 units within 2 tiles of the enemy space. So long as you observe this rule, the AI shouldn't ask. Furthermore, there seems to be an additional way to remove the promise. I believe moving all your troops away from the enemy borders (more than 2 or 3 tiles) fulfills the promise.

This supposition comes from two in-game events. In one game, I was actually moving troops through Greece to attack Siam. Since my land and water troops have different speeds, my land troops arrived later. I noted that Alexander asked about m intentions twice - once for the now-passed ships, and once for the land troops. There were less than 50 turns elapsed, of course. I figured the AI wouldn't be asking if the promise were still in effect.

In another game, I played Siam and contemplated war against France. Napoleon asked for the promise, and I gave it, but later withdrew all troops from his terrirtory, denounced him, and then declared war. No penalty. It may have been more than. 50 turns, but it was certainly not more than half an era starting from Renaissance, so I don't know.

 

[kaspergm]

I'll have to disagree with that. The game is intentionally assymetrical in single player mode. Border demands are just one aspect of that. It is already way too easy to make the AI not war with you. Adding additional penalties to enforce even more peace would make it too exploitable.

I'm not advocating total symmetry, but I don't see any reason for why this option should *not* be available to the human player. And I don't see that this will be a means of forcing peace or adding additional penalties for war either? But on the bottom line, my main objective would just be to fix it so that it doesn't get abused (if unintentionally so). Reducing the duration to 20 rounds would come a long way for me.

 

[mrwho]

It is broken either way. I have plenty of screenshots of my troops just sitting in normal positions not even close to the border and I get the message. Of course I am biased, because I hate this part of the game, but I'd guess at least half the time I get the message I had no intentions of declaring war and was just moving units around the map or keeping my military near the edges of my empire.

Here is one that is especially irritating because I specifically kept my guys far back to try and avoid the diplo screen.

View attachment 357773

Note how 4 units are right next to my city or inside. The other 3 are still 4 tiles away from the Mayan city, all of which are on "my half". I had no plans of declaring war on the Maya as I just got done grabbing a few Swedish cities and I needed some time to focus on infrastructure. Now I cannot DoW for another 30 or 50 turns or whatever without getting a diplo hit with the entire world.

It is a stupid mechanic that never gets calculated correctly. The least the devs could do is remove the world-wide diplo hit and just give you a diplo hit against that one particular Civ.

What's with this obsession with gamers calling something they don't like, or something pretty minor, 'broken'? If i saw that many enemy units close to my city I'd make the exact same assumption the AI did. It's a perfectly valid response when so many units are bunched up in a small space and there aren't any others near by. If you're not meaning to attack, then what's the issue? You won't take a diplo hit so there's no reason to complain. If you wanted to DoW as it seems you did then the AI correctly noticed this and called you out on it, seeing lots of units bunched up together very close to their border. I personally don't like the mechanic but it's not 'broken'.

 

[Staal]

The AI does not "throw out random diplo screens". That statement clearly shows this critique is based more on emotion/annoyance than a solid, game improving argument. Should the turn limit be reduced or completely removed if they denounce you later? Probably, but the base rule is good and should not be removed.

 

[Depravo]

I have to echo what others have been saying about 50 turns being simply too long. (I usually play Marathon where it's ludicrously long.) In any case there needs to be some way to see how many turns are left before your promise lapses.

If you're moving units within your borders, the AI should only get uppity if a good proportion of those units are offensive and siege units. Or at least add in a 'I reserve the right to transit across my own national territory you presumptuous dildo' option.

 

[JustinianIV]

Easily one of the most annoying diplomatic features of the game.

Even worse when you have some troops by your neighbours border with no intention of war. Then they call you out on it, and you honestly say that you don't intend to DoW. The AI then starts being a serious jerk causing you to then to DoW them and receive the penalty.

We should be able to ask the AI the same question.