A little annoyed at Diplomacy - how to fix?

[TheDarkside]

There's one thing that annoys me when I play this game which should be pretty easy to fix and would really improve my gameplay experience... and it's with Diplomacy.

The negative effects you get don't ever seem to go away. For example, I declare war on a guy and 2 thousand years later I still have people mad at me for that. If this is intentional I am not sure what the reasoning is behind it- difficulty maybe? But what's worse than that is I get people who come to me begging for techs, and if I don't give it to them (Sorry this is no rose garden here...) then I get a -1 penalt which also seems to either last forever or last way too long... It's particularly annoying with the advanced civs who have all these technologies which are conveniently in the red when I negotiate with them (as in they refuse to even think about trading them to me) yet they still come begging me for my one tech that I managed to get. This kind of AI irks me.

Can I fix this at all?

At least the duration of the negative effects... I found an XML file which I thought was the perfect place for editting the duration of these negative effects under CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml the tag but there doesn't seem to be an entry for MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR_ON_FRIEND, and if I add it to the list of MemoryDecays copying the format of the other ones and give it a really short timeframe I do not see any difference when I play the game. Any idea what's up?

[Saurus]

How long a diplomatic penalty stays, seems to be at random. There seem to be some minimum of turns a penalty stays but no maximum. This is my experience.

I remember one particular case were I agreed to cancel all my deals with Hatsepshut. That was during the ancient period. When we reached to inudstrial era she still refused to even talk to me and the penalty still showed up!!

[Will9]

Re: A little annoyed at Diplomacy - how to fix?

Originally posted by TheDarkside

But what's worse than that is I get people who come to me begging for techs, and if I don't give it to them (Sorry this is no rose garden here...) then I get a -1 penalt which also seems to either last forever or last way too long.

The thing is that when that penalty expires they come back. Also, the AI dosen't care about how you fell torwards them. One more thing, when they ask you for something there should a "Your greedy nation shall be elimated" option.

[d474ang3l]

How to fix the problem? Hold a grudge as long as they do and waste 'em.
I'm still working on one of my first games (got Civ4 last week) and even at Noble level the AI is a PITA when it comes to diplomacy. At the beginning of the game, when I was still developing and stuck on a giant continent with all other 10 civs, the Incas demanded I stop trading with America so I did just to be careful. Now we're at the beginning of the Industrial age and America who has been my 'ally' the whole game is Pleased. I've been trading with them for centuries now, and we're the same religion, but the AI refuses to go to Friendly because 'you stopped trading with us!' centuries ago. After I'm finished the infidel aggressors, I'm coming after you crybaby!

[Kc7mxo]

the diplomacy system is designed to make you pick sides.

you can't be friends with everyone you know. and sometimes being a friend means picking up a bar tab. if you want to be a selfish nation who doesn't help others. . . do so. but don't complain about how everyone else doesn't like you.

[Prussia]

Sometimes if you quickly give them what they wanted the penalty dissappears, but you don't get a bonus.

[Agrajag]

I've had a problem with the lack of real diplomacy in this game going back a long way. Don't get me wrong, I love Civ and IV is the best of them but this has NEVER been right.

I am SICK AND TIRED of exactly what the original poster said. They beg and you're dinged if you don't help them. You beg and you're dinged for begging.

How about some real diplomacy? I really would like to see Civ evolve to the point where Balance of Power was 16+ years ago.

For example, say I start developing "The Manhattan Project". Just like today with Iran, the rest of the world should be up in arms threatening me with sanctions, etc. If I actually pull it off and start building ICBM's how about threats of attack and stronger allies aligning against me to insist I not only stop building them but to destroy the existing arsenal?

The same approach could be used for just about anything. Things could be complicated by money I spend with the various other countries.

Wouldn't it also be great if the world were say, 5 times larger but that the current players only represented the major powers of the world and the rest were represented by AI that spoke through diplomacy and aligned themselves with other major powers based on several elements? The rest of the world couldn't be conquered with units running all over it but instead, through diplomacy. Sphere's of influence would become major turn-by-turn factors. The end game would improve dramatically as each new tech would bring new changes to the balance. Instead, the current AI just seems to be on a timer with respect to everyone getting around to hating you. Unless you play like a complete robot and just automatically say yes to every request, the rest of the world will grow to hate your guts and move to attack.

In Balance of Power every single decision carried with it ramifications that could unbalance the world in ways you never expected. Civ could really head to the next level with that approach.

[Cort Haus]

Yes, unfortunately the AI does depend on special diplomatic penalties for the human player. The AI's never demand to each other that they stop trading with an enemy, for example, so only the human has these penalties. Various other penalties only apply to humans, like the fact that the AI can force penalties with completely outrageous tech demands, but the human can't trade for or demand AI techs in return as they are 'redded-out'.

Despite all this I quite like the Civ 4 diplo, I just wish they'd stop using it as an undocumented AI bonus though.

[DrSpike]

I empathise - many times I have shouted at my screen "but if you want the damn tech trade for it you tight ass!"

However, I think the (obviously asymmetric) way diplomacy is set up does make for some interesting (if sometimes annoying) SP decisions, and I've learnt to live with it.

[Martinus]

If you go into one of the leaders files, there are different values for each leader which rule both how much it hurts relations with them to do something they don't like (for example Gandhi never becomes angry with you if you refuse to give him a tech) and how likely it is for a penalty to go away. You can toy with these if you want to change AI behaviour re diplomatic penalties.

[Will9]

The AI has no relation score from you so the AI can demand techs without hurting a relation (from what they know). I have even seen a vassal demand a tech from me.

[Peter Triggs]

Originally posted by TheDarkside
At least the duration of the negative effects... I found an XML file which I thought was the perfect place for editting the duration of these negative effects under CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml the tag but there doesn't seem to be an entry for MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR_ON_FRIEND, and if I add it to the list of MemoryDecays copying the format of the other ones and give it a really short timeframe I do not see any difference when I play the game. Any idea what's up?

That should work. If there's a memory decay (say < iMemoryRand>200< /iMemoryRand>) defined then on each turn there's a 1/200 chance that the player will forget one occurence of you having declared war on him.

[padillah]

I dislike the redded-out the most.

Or, more to the point, I dislike that they have techs not redded-out but won't trade them no matter what.

I've seen techs that were no red, selected them and said "What do you want for this" and they said "I don't think that's possible at this time."

THEN RED IT OUT AND LET ME GET ON WITH THE GAME!!

I've offered cities, several cities, for a tech and they still refuse. But it's not red.

That's just dumb.

I fully agree with the OP that the diplo is quite skewed. They don't red-out stuff they won't trade, they don't care what you demand, they don't make the same demands of each other that they make of you...

Diplomacy needs a bit of work.

Tom P.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs


That should work. If there's a memory decay (say < iMemoryRand>200< /iMemoryRand>) defined then on each turn there's a 1/200 chance that the player will forget one occurence of you having declared war on him.

Using this logic then could we reduce that number and make it more likely for the player to forget about the occurence?

[Will9]

Originally posted by padillah
I dislike the redded-out the most.

Or, more to the point, I dislike that they have techs not redded-out but won't trade them no matter what.

I've seen techs that were no red, selected them and said "What do you want for this" and they said "I don't think that's possible at this time."

THEN RED IT OUT AND LET ME GET ON WITH THE GAME!!

I've offered cities, several cities, for a tech and they still refuse. But it's not red.

That's just dumb.

I fully agree with the OP that the diplo is quite skewed. They don't red-out stuff they won't trade, they don't care what you demand, they don't make the same demands of each other that they make of you...

Diplomacy needs a bit of work.

Tom P.

It's not red when the AI is willing to trade it to you at your current relation level. It will be red until its value decreases or your relation improves.