Civ IV: What's the point of the diplomatic options

[SlyFrog]

So I just finished a game of Civ IV with Beyond the Sword, using the add-ons from here: http://www.kynosarges.de/Civilization.html.

I have to ask something, having watched Caesar grow increasingly powerful in an obvious way until he was twice as big as anyone else (though I could not easily get at him, and was hampered by a stupid war from what turned out to be his first victim). What is the point of most of the diplomatic options, at least when playing against the AI? Declare War on X, etc., they're just constantly red. Never once have I seen the option ever be usable.

It just seems like a lot of junk in the diplomatic menu (which really seems to only ever give the option to occasionally trade techs or resources) for no reason. It's basically a tease for a better game.

Did they find out the AI got taken advantage of too much, and make the "solution" simply having the AI never agree to those things?

[Troy S Goodfellow]

I often use the AI to attack my other enemies and cancel trade agreements. But either their relations have to be really bad or you have to be their favorite person in the world. They won't start a war with someone just because they sort-of like you. If they are "Friendly" with you and "Annoyed" with your target, you can buy them off pretty cheap.

It depends on the AI nation, too. Alexander and Montezuma are always at war every few turns so they piss people off, making them good targets. But the AI doesn't want to fight more than one opponent, so they won't start another war if they're already busy.

The long and short of it is you need friends. Similar religions, generous trades, the occasional gift, etc. And if someone asks you to help them in a war and you say "yes", they remember that.

Troy

[Jason McCullough]

There's an art form to getting the other AIs to do what you want. Bribery, using their favorite civic, sharing religions, mutating alliances so everyone is ganging up on everyone else - Vel has written a lot about it over on apolyton.net.

[Alan Au]

There are some interesting things you can do with religion, particularly using the Apostolic Palace to keep your aggressive (heathen) neighbors from harassing you with large stacks of knights.

- Alan

[AndrewM]

It's another of Civ4's many minigames. You also should try to build a coalition, instead of being friends with everybody. That was the big thing I was doing wrong.

[Raife]

So I just finished a game of Civ IV with Beyond the Sword, using the add-ons from here: http://www.kynosarges.de/Civilization.html.

That looks suspiciously like Chris Nahr's website.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

It's another of Civ4's many minigames. You also should try to build a coalition, instead of being friends with everybody. That was the big thing I was doing wrong.

Good point. Being friends with everyone ends up in the least liked person getting screwed and that's usually the human. Plus, even if you want to play nice, your neighbors might not want to.

Pick and choose your allies based on all the things you do to assess threats. You want a friend on your border, but not on the border you want to attack. If you have a Holy City, you want someone who will spread your religion willingly. And, ideally, someone who can work with the resource disparity - has something you want and will trade it because you have copper or cows.

The tricky part is getting out of an alliance that isn't working out without pissing off Tokugawa.

Troy

[SlyFrog]

That looks suspiciously like Chris Nahr's website.

I believe it is.

Also, good to know that the options work, if you are smart enough to play the game properly.

Back to the drawing board, I'll take some more hacks at it.

Thanks for the help!

[Jason Lutes]

Yeah, they work. The diplomacy screen is your friend for keeping track of who likes/dislikes whom, and exploiting that to your best advantage. One of the great things about Civ IV's AI and diplomacy model is that you really have to work hard to get another civ do your bidding. Making friends and allies is all the more satisfying for it.

I never understood the "favored civic" aspect of the AI, though. Is it purely a diplomatic tool? If so, what is the advantage of getting another civ to convert to one of your favored civics (which is one of the dilpomatic options)?

[ravenight]

I think the option is actually to get them to convert to your current civic. If you share civics, they like you more, if you don't they like you less - the same goes for them vs. other AIs.

I think the favorite civic thing is just something that makes the AI personalities a little more unique - one of them loves bureaucracy, so you always see them using that when they can, which adjusts how their civ plays, and interacts with how you like to play, etc.

[Raife]

I believe it is.

I know this because I played Star Chess like 2,500 years ago.

[ydejin]

The tricky part is getting out of an alliance that isn't working out without pissing off Tokugawa.
Speaking of Tokugawa, some leaders are more likely to trade techs than others. IMO leaders which will not trade techs like Tokugawa make poor allies. At the higher levels of the game trading techs is the only way to keep up, so if you have no friends (or crappy friends who won't trade techs), then you will fall behind on tech and lose the game.

[Jasper]

If your government includes a leader's favorite civic, he'll like you more. If not, he won't like you less, but he may harass you to switch to it once you're able -- and will like you less if your refuse.

[Jasper]

Speaking of Tokugawa, some leaders are more likely to trade techs than others. IMO leaders which will not trade techs like Tokugawa make poor allies. At the higher levels of the game trading techs is the only way to keep up, so if you have no friends (or crappy friends who won't trade techs), then you will fall behind on tech and lose the game.
Tokugawa makes an awesome ally! It's just a real pain to actually get him to open borders. The advantage is that you can easily use him, since he's not likely to have any other friends.

True, you usually can't count on him for tech sleazing, but you don't have to ally only with him.

[Jasper]

Did they find out the AI got taken advantage of too much, and make the "solution" simply having the AI never agree to those things?
I make use of them all the time, although getting an AI to attack another is generally pretty tricky, but for good reason, as it's often a bad move for them to accept.

Some tricks I've found to help with diplomacy:
1) Don't be stingy with resources. Trade them away for money and good will, even though in strict financial terms it helps them more than you. If someone who isn't winning demands one of your spare resources, seriously consider giving it to them (for 10 turns). Give that spare iron or horse to nations that don't neighbor you. Pretty much the only time I won't trade is with a nation that is obviously ahead.

2) Open Borders == money. Potentially lots of money, especially if you control a religion's holy wonder.

3) Don't be afraid to trade tech at a discount -- it'll still work out if you trade with multiple partners. Judiciously give away slightly out of date military tech to non-neighbors, and economic tech to friends and especially those sharing your religion.

4) Push your religion, so that others adopt it. This makes you friends, lots of cash, and lets you keep your research slider high.

5) Don't be fooled by a Leader's friendliness -- you still need to keep your military up to date or you'll be viewed as a target. This is especially true for certain leaders, but true to an extent for them all.

6) Understand that if you're doing well, the AI will notice. Trades offers will be unfair, demands more frequent, etc. You can get great mileage out of keeping the trailing nations in the game, as they'll be so grateful when you meet their pissant demands.

[Chris Nahr]

Speaking of Tokugawa, some leaders are more likely to trade techs than others. IMO leaders which will not trade techs like Tokugawa make poor allies. At the higher levels of the game trading techs is the only way to keep up, so if you have no friends (or crappy friends who won't trade techs), then you will fall behind on tech and lose the game.

That's not a huge problem if you enable the No Tech Brokering option on the custom game setup screen, which you should anyway. Ringing everyone up each turn to see if they have new techs to trade is just too tedious.

[TurinTuramba]

No tech brokering is my preferred option too, but you don´t have to ring everyone up to see if they are willing to trade.
Just check the diplomacy screen once every turn and it gives you a nice summary what techs everyone can research/trade/won´t trade.

Besides even at emperor/ maybe immortal you can win the game without ever trading techs even when the option is not disabled.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Speaking of Tokugawa, some leaders are more likely to trade techs than others. IMO leaders which will not trade techs like Tokugawa make poor allies. At the higher levels of the game trading techs is the only way to keep up, so if you have no friends (or crappy friends who won't trade techs), then you will fall behind on tech and lose the game.

Tokugawa is an isolationist, which means he's a pain to deal with in the early going. No trade, no open borders, no help at all. But if you can get him to avoid attacking you, he makes a really strong ally in the late game when he is more likely to be friendly.

Troy

[Kael]

Incidently the options that are in red are those the game has already determined the AI player would refuse to trade you regardless of what you offer. It just saves you the time and frustration of asking for them.

[SlyFrog]

Incidently the options that are in red are those the game has already determined the AI player would refuse to trade you regardless of what you offer. It just saves you the time and frustration of asking for them.

Yeah, I knew that. Don't get me wrong, I like that feature (it's basically the AI saying these things are off the table). I was just wondering if they were really always off the table, and thus pointless to even have in the game. I am happy to find out this is not the case, not happy to find out my crappy play is what caused them to always be red. :)

[SorenJohnson]

Yeah, I knew that. Don't get me wrong, I like that feature (it's basically the AI saying these things are off the table). I was just wondering if they were really always off the table, and thus pointless to even have in the game. I am happy to find out this is not the case, not happy to find out my crappy play is what caused them to always be red. :)

If you mouse over the red items, it should give you one of the high-level reasons why the AI has decided to take it off the table...

[Jasper]

Yeah, I knew that. Don't get me wrong, I like that feature (it's basically the AI saying these things are off the table). I was just wondering if they were really always off the table, and thus pointless to even have in the game. I am happy to find out this is not the case, not happy to find out my crappy play is what caused them to always be red. :)
They often change. Typically AIs won't trade techs for wonders they're building, or cutting edge military techs, but they often change their mind once circumstances change. If they're all red-ed out, then the AI probably just doesn't like you, due to closeness, religious differences, or maybe you kidnapped his workers early on (that always pisses them off!).

[Theodore Rex DX]

Unrelated Civ poll that I didn't want to start a new thread for:

How many units can you have at a time before you start to get a bit sick of having to shuffle them around and the way they drag out turns and slow down the pace of the game? I'm interested. Research purposes.

[theKevin]

How close is Civ3 to Civ4? I'm playing Civ3 again for old times sake on my brand-new Gametap Gold account, and I noticed this thread, plus Civ4 in GameTap and I'm wondering if I should try the new version, seeing how the Greeks are about to finish off my Roman empire in my Civ3 game.

[ydejin]

How close is Civ3 to Civ4? I'm playing Civ3 again for old times sake on my brand-new Gametap Gold account, and I noticed this thread, plus Civ4 in GameTap and I'm wondering if I should try the new version, seeing how the Greeks are about to finish off my Roman empire in my Civ3 game.
Civ4 is a terrific redesign of the entire series. In almost every respect Civ4 is better than previous versions of Civ. Micromanagement is down, fun factor is up. Civ4 is also highly modable, and there are some good mods out (most notably the fantasy mod Fall from Heaven 2) The only caveat is that it is a resource hog (at least for a turn-based game). The 3D graphics do require a mid-range machine.

[Anaxagoras]

That's not a huge problem if you enable the No Tech Brokering option on the custom game setup screen, which you should anyway. Ringing everyone up each turn to see if they have new techs to trade is just too tedious.

The No Tech Brokering option was pure genius. That game setup option alone gave the game new life for me.

[Miramon]

Really, getting good relations with random AI civs is based on doing what they say. Sure, there's a bonus for the same religion, having their favorite civics, and so on, but really, when they ask you for iron, horses, and coal in return for fish, or rifling just as a favor between friends, if you say no, for some reason they get hissy....

Since kowtowing to inept AI is not exactly fun for me, generally I just manage relations with the AIs so they don't utterly hate me up until the point I choose to destroy them. I did win one diplomatic victory peacefully, just to have done it, but it wasn't much fun, really.

My idea of an efficient diplomatic victory is to get to say 40% of the votes needed by wiping out my immediate neighbors and outpopulating everyone else, and then to get the remaining 10% by nuking the entire world all at once. Sure, I suffer from global warming for a couple of turns, but they suffer from being vaporized, and soon enough I have enough votes to win on my own....

[Kael]

How close is Civ3 to Civ4? I'm playing Civ3 again for old times sake on my brand-new Gametap Gold account, and I noticed this thread, plus Civ4 in GameTap and I'm wondering if I should try the new version, seeing how the Greeks are about to finish off my Roman empire in my Civ3 game.

Conceptually its very similiar, you won't have any problem picking up and playing if you are familiar with Civ3 (though of course with all new versions there are things to learn). I agree with the previous poster that nearly everything is done better in Civ4 than in Civ3 (and Civ3 was my favorite game of all time up until Civ4 came out).

Personally my favorite new feature from Civ3 to Civ4 is the addition of levels and promotions for your units. It sounds a bit RPG'ish but it allows you to reward units that have survived battles and customize them for different situations. It doesn't add any micromangement (in fact tyou can have the game promote them on its own if you dont want to mess with it) and goes a long way toward making you feel like your army is your own.