Is it possible to NOT piss off all the Computer Players?

[CrapFactory]

Should I just never use any religion? That's a few negative points.

Also they all seem to be so intertwined in their alliances. I just played a game where I had one guy hating me for no real reasons. So he starts a war and this pisses off his friend. Well I start killing him and his friend comes to save him. I kill his friend and his friend's friend is pissed. Etc etc...

My last game it was so bad I eventually pissed off everyone. I still won but it was annoying and not the kind of win I was looking for...

[Dr,ape]

Don't try to make friends with everyone; that would only have the opposite effect.

[baboon]

Usually most AI kind of like at the start. Yesterday I decided to refuse all open borders. That wasn't a good idea, my neighbours attacked me after a while.

I never saw that much aggression before

[TheHateMale]

If you can quickly get a religion and spread it around, you're in luck. I managed to get Saladin to adopt my religion (founded before theocracy civic was discovered). Latest game had 7 civs with my religion as their state one for a while. Since then I've lost one to Buddhism and one to Taoism though...

[Nikolai]

I always have at least 1 or 2 very good friends, and the rest indifferent or angry on me.

[Tattila the Hun]

Managed to get Louie to adopt my religion, paid him 540G, only for him to switch back few turns later...

Well, he had founded the religion he returned to, so he had no incentive to remain in the flock... What bugs me, is that I cannot ask him to adopt my religion again.

[Yaga]

I find it very difficult to maintain friendships and nearly impossible to purposfully build them.

In a recent 16-player, large terra game I had about 10 adherents to my state religion and attempted to make them more friendly by supplying them with strategic resources, giving them techs, etc. I capitiulated to their tribute demands (most of the time) and even declared war with them on the heathens, when they asked.

Still, I had a couple of them declare war on me, and a few never rose above "Annoyed." Most curiously, a non-believer civ (Aztecs?) whom I'd given nothing but open borders to back at first contact was my best friend.

Especially for many-civ games, it would be nice if the UI gave some help on how deals with onoe civ will reflect your standings with another.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Dr,ape
Don't try to make friends with everyone; that would only have the opposite effect.

This can't be emphasized enough. You have to pick a small number of AIs to be friends with. Talk to the AIs and find out who they get along with (e.g. what they think of the other AIs). For a block with a few AIs that like each other and don't trade with the other AIs. If you try to be nice to everyone then you just piss everyone off for trading with their worst enemies. Avoid going to war with people your AI allies like. Now, you can violate these principles a little (the odd trade once in a very rare while with *ONE* of the guys your allies don't like or a war with a guy they do like), but only a little. Only do this when you have a lot of +'s (+7 or more net plusses). The same religion helps a lot, but it isn't necessary.

To get friendly with the AI you need more than 10 net +'s I believe. Well, it varies from AI to AI. If you notice some guys, like Montezuma start out annoyed with you whereas others just start out cautious. Early on (before you have any real modifiers with the AI) this is a clue to how warlike and aggressive an AI is.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Yaga
I find it very difficult to maintain friendships and nearly impossible to purposfully build them.

In a recent 16-player, large terra game I had about 10 adherents to my state religion and attempted to make them more friendly by supplying them with strategic resources, giving them techs, etc. I capitiulated to their tribute demands (most of the time) and even declared war with them on the heathens, when they asked.

Still, I had a couple of them declare war on me, and a few never rose above "Annoyed." Most curiously, a non-believer civ (Aztecs?) whom I'd given nothing but open borders to back at first contact was my best friend.

Especially for many-civ games, it would be nice if the UI gave some help on how deals with onoe civ will reflect your standings with another.

Hmm, I think this could be done in a mod. Much like the treaty/political relations map you could make one to reflect attitudes. Red is furious, Orange is annoyed, Yellow is Cautious, Green is Please, Blue is Friendly. Is there a higher state than friendly?

Hmm, I'll write this down on my mod to-do list. : )

-Drachasor

[Martinus]

You can very easily check what the AIs think of each other by going into the diplomacy screen and just left-clicking on their portraits - then it will show their attitude towards other AIs.

[Shogun Gunner]

Totally agree with not being everyone's friend. That was a mistake I was making in the first few games. Now I have to make earlier decisions regarding who I'm going to be cozy with and who I'm going to start pissing off right away.

No one likes a brown noser, everyone's buddy type person in cIV.

[LordShiva]

Instead of trying to get everyone to like me, I usually try my best to piss everyone off (esp. Isabella). Much more fun that way.

[Shogun Gunner]

you war monger, you!

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Managed to get Louie to adopt my religion, paid him 540G, only for him to switch back few turns later...

Someone should mod in a rule that forces them to stick with that religion/civic they were bought to adopt for at least 20 turns instead of the 5 turns where there's 100% (?) chance they'll go back

Originally posted by Dr,ape
Don't try to make friends with everyone; that would only have the opposite effect.

And the same goes for the opposite? At least in one game it did. I kept attacking everybody, friends or foes, didn't matter, what mattered was did they have any holy cities or maybe they were just close

But still everybody loved me (only those I was at war with at the time of the war was annoyed with me)

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Martinus
You can very easily check what the AIs think of each other by going into the diplomacy screen and just left-clicking on their portraits - then it will show their attitude towards other AIs.

Ahh, really? I didn't know that. Thanks.

-Drachasor