Civ 3 vs Civ 4 diplomacy

[dschur]

The first game I won I had to engage in diplomatic shennanigans. Americans and Germans both started making SS Casings before I'd even begun to build Apollo. Yes, I forgot that they actually try to win this time. Started rushing my research and production, and got pretty close, but I still didn't have the tech for Engines discovered while they were in engine production.

So, I sent spies to go into both empires and find out where they were building their engines. I sabotaged the American's engine to buy time. I managed to bribe the Chinese with some tech to attack the Americans. Chinese were friendly with the Germans, so a few turns later I'd managed to get the Germans to into the battle too. Amazingly, they both abandoned their spaceship production and switched into Military mode. I thought I was home free, then I suddenly get attacked on the other side by the French. I am pretty sure that one of them paid off the French to attack me, since I was MUCH stronger than them.

In general, I have to say it is a lot more complicated now. Diplomacy and foreign relations are an intricate part of your strategy. It isn't perfect, I'd never abandon my engine production 17 turns from completion just to build some modern armor, but it was a richer gaming experience for sure

[khearn]

Remember, you don't abandon your SS engine work, it just gets put on the shelf for a bit. So when the AI went into military mode, they didn't lose all the work they had put into their engines. And as soon as they are done fighting, they'll continue right where they started (or maybe just a bit back, since they say you can loose some of the production if it sits too long). So you'd better get your engines ready before they're done fighting.

Keith

[Pickles78uk]

yes this is true...

I like this difference in civ 4, it makes more sence and it means that if you are building the pyramids and someone else completes it you cant just change to another wonder and so on untill you have enough shields to finnish any wonder in 1 turn!

GO CIV 4!

[Mirkwood]

i think that the diplomacy is better in Civ4 than Civ3 as it is a much more evolving art form it can take many years to move an annoyed person over to your side and there does appear to patterns to the behaviour...what annoyed me in Civ3 was when a civ just declared war without reference and then despite my lilley white reputation the same agressor would quote back to me about my betrayals as a reason not to trade etc.

I also thought that some of the trades were mad in Civ 3 where you got crazy deals including rucks of cash and gold per turn for a tech and there was no bargaining as the civ would come in and offer the max of what it had.

One thing that i would have liked was the bit in SMAC where a faction was on the ropes and would beg to survive.I remember playing as Lady Deidre and that bible basher Mirium was offering all she could to stay in the game.

I let her survive and maintained her so i could have her vote for the Diplo win i also just liked having her suck up to me as she knew she would be toast without my benevolence.

[TheArsenal]

I find a massive improvement is the ability to determine how one AI Civ feels about another. It adds an extra layer of decision making when determining trade deals, and more importantly, when and with whom to go to war against.

Overall I find diplomacy to be largely superior. Although, after my first couple of games I have been playing with tech trading disabled, so I don’t run into any of the annoyance there.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


It was too easy to exploit. When you mix gpt and such deals with instant trades, you have to teach the AI TONS of new stuff to handle risk and such.

Sorry, but this was too lame to ignore.

Diplo mixing was left out because it was an exploit but exposing the entire underlying structure so I can give myself a 3000% bonus to reasearch and 40000gpt is not something they thought might be exploited?

Explain that logic to me.

Exploits will be abused by people that abuse exploits. Put them in or don't, it doesn't change. Now all they've done is remove a part of the game I liked and used fairly (if not well).

Not a good trade-off if you ask me.

Tom P.

[padillah]

I also apreciate knowing WHY my trade may or may not work.

I hated getting shot down time and time again for no readily apparent reason in Civ3. At least now I can tell why (if not have a thing I can do about it).

Tom P.

[Pickles78uk]

the only thing i would maybe like to see back is the little advisor in the top right with wierd expressions that tells you how close to a deal we are!

tom