HUGE diplomacy bug

[l.galant]

Originally posted by De Gaulle
As mentionned by Zero-Tau this is not a bug but a feature of the diplomacy system.

OK, but accepting a deal and refusing the same deal + something/turn is not logical.
They may be suspicious, but not stupid.
In the worst case, the interest of a deal must be inchanged when something is added.

And what do you think of my idea : "force the AI in per turn promises, so they will not declare war" ?

[De Gaulle]

OK, I can see what you mean by saying it's illogical to have the AI accept deal X and refuse deal X + luxury. I agree with you on this.

I am guessing the AI has been coded to behave this way so as not to be fooled again by an opponent. It does seem a bit overboard for me, but the bottom line is that if you have broken treaties/trades you need to suffer consequences of some kind. The hit you take in reputation and the added difficulty in trading are fair consequences I think.

On the issue of trading to avoid war, I think it's commonly acknowledged in this forum that trading brings you friends and enhances your reputation. But more to the point, I often set up deals with AIs looking threatening and always include a gpt component in these trades (even only 1gpt). The purpose for me is to a) dissuade the AI to attack me
b) if it still attacks, it hurts its reputation and creates trading difficulties for my new ennemy.

I am pretty sure to have read this somewhere before, and other people probably use it as well.

[Switch]

There are bugs beyond that, though. Apparently 20g traded for 20g would insult the AI

I've heard of some stupider stuff, though

[Boracks]

Yup, I've run into this as well. But then if I turn around and ask what they'd offer for ivory (for example), then they usually come back and offer cash per turn.

As for 20gp for 20 gp, I'd feel insulted - it looks like you're insulting my intelligence (assuming you found it ).

I think diplomacy has improved in PTW although still nowhere near SMAC level. And it still suffers from "You're human so we hate you" syndrom.

[Zero-Tau]

In case Soren is reading this thread, here is an idea:

Suppose your credibility as a trade has been ruined the way we spoke of. Then you might suggest the following deal to the AI:

AI gives: X
You give: Y + luxury and/or gpt

where X and Y are techs, maps, and/or lump sum of gold.
The AI would then accept this only if it would accept this deal:

AI gives: X
You give: Y

that is, the immediate payments are enough to pay for X.
Furthermore, if you keep the deal all 20 turns, the AI will reevaluate your credibility, and might accept per turn deals with you later.

This wouldn't give rise to exploits, because you'd have to spend something extra to convince the AI.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Zero-Tau
Have you broken a deal involving gpt og resources before? If so, the AI civs will never accept you paying resources or gpt, under any circumstances.

I had hoped this Diplomatic stupidity with reputation hits had been fixed with PTW - apparently not.

We went over this many times earlier this year. First of all, you often get blamed for something you never did, or something extremely minor. Then, civs you haven't met for a thousand years still hate you for it. Which is absurd.

As a result, they wil not do trade deals with you - no matter how great the deal is for THEM!! It makes no sense whatsoever, like so much of Civ 3.

I would have a nice deal set AND AS A FREE BONUS I would offer the other civ up to six resources. No charge; just a bonus. Be happy and enjoy! THE STUPID BRAINDEAD AI REFUSES THE DEAL AND INSULTS ME!

All this is why I hate the Civ 3 AI, and you've just given me a good reason never to get PTW unless it is packaged free with something else.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Coracle
I would have a nice deal set AND AS A FREE BONUS I would offer the other civ up to six resources. No charge; just a bonus. Be happy and enjoy! THE STUPID BRAINDEAD AI REFUSES THE DEAL AND INSULTS ME!

Well, this has been discussed before, but I'll let you guess. Why does the AI accept instantaneous deals, but reject seemingly better deals when a per turn offer is thrown in?

Got it yet?

C'mon, I'm sure you know this one... it's pretty obvious...

[Nakar Gabab]

No really, Coracle does have a point here (Oh God, I can't believe I said it!).

You *do* often get blamed for deals YOU didn't break. Hell, you get broken for deals you had NOTHING to do with. If an opponent defaults on a deal because all the other civs are kicking his ass, guess who gets the reputation hit?

You got it. The human. If you move a stupid galley across a trade route early in the game you might also get tagged for "breaking deals."

And let's not forget the old favorite "We know Leader X has betrayed our friends Civ Y," in the case where Civ Y waged unparalleled and uncalled-for war *against* Civ X. The game does not seem to care who actually STARTS the whole mess.

[Cyclotron]

I didn't quote Coracle on the AI blame. I agree that that is a problem. I am talking about his problem with the AI rejecting seemingly good deals that were acceptable before he added a per turn deal.

There is a very good and reasonable explaination for it.

[Nakar Gabab]

Well, I'm definitely not going to argue with you there. On the other hand, why NOT accept a deal for FIXED QUANTITY + PER-TURN?

I mean, let's look at this from my perspective as a (hopefully) rational human being. I'm willing to take a deal for FIXED QUANTITY. I'll be perfectly happy with FIXED QUANTITY, whatever that happens to be.

Someone comes along and offers me FIXED QUANTITY, which I'm great with. They also offer me PER-TURN. Now, the AI reacts as follows:

"Per-turn deal? Are you KIDDING me? You're going to backstab me and cancel the payment!"

I would react to it as follows:

"Per-turn deal? You're a dirty backstabbing cheat, but I'll take it anyway and avoid you as long as I can. You turn on me, oh well, I still got FIXED QUANTITY, sucker!"

So again, this is an AI matter. It's rational for them not to accept per-turn deals if they've got reason to think you'll break the deal early, but why can't it be equally rational to take MORE than you want, no matter what it is, and just consider it gravy if you actually get to ride the whole deal out? In fact, such deals should, if successful, restore a good deal of trust in the AI's eyes.

What we've got, basically, is diplomatic shortcutting. The AI looks at a per-turn deal as bad if your reputation's been trashed (whether your doing or not), rather than evaluate each situation somewhat differently. I realize you can't do EVERYTHING, but surely you can code the AI to understand (What I Want) + (Anything Else) = (GREAT Deal).

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Nakar Gabab
Well, I'm definitely not going to argue with you there. On the other hand, why NOT accept a deal for FIXED QUANTITY + PER-TURN?

Elementary, my dear Nakar.

A per turn deal doesn't just mean a per turn deal: really, it's a treaty too. If you break a per-turn treaty, your rep gets a hit. Thus, if the AI signs a per turn deal, it now faces a penalty for breaking it.

Situations change, especially in 20 turns. I have declared peace with a civ jsut to find that 8 turns later, a war with them would be really useful... but I have to wait. In addition, lots of per turn deals means that if I am dragged into a war via MPP or border violation, I'm going to take the rep fall for that incident. Per turn deals take away my room to maneuver.

In my games, the AI tends to be big on MPPs, and even bigger on sudden backstabbing... both of which are quite likely to break per turn deals, and soil reputations. It makes perfect sense that the AI would reject per turn deals in many situations... many times I myself would refuse such a deal. That is, if I cared about my reputation.