3461

This is very irritating. The reasons for it seem completely opaque: of course I’m going to be heavily armed, I was sharing a continent with Montezuma for a long time. I practically gift them excess luxuries, and they respond by graciously accepting them and taunting me in the next turn. I warn them that city states are under my protection, and then they are unpleasantly surprised when I use a fleet of destroyers, donated units, and a counterinvasion to address their invasion of Hanoi.

I also think the degrading influence makes little sense, especially if the relationship ought to be mutually beneficial in terms of resources. I should be penalized for deeds, not just as a function of time.

3462

How long are your guys’ games going? I am about at turn 600… I did an epic paced game :P

3463

Exactly what I meant when I said Civ5 needs a “Beyond the Sword” expansion.

Let me talk to the civilizations that make the world what it is about the things that matter to them.

Edit: Reldan: What you’re describing isn’t diplomacy, though. It’s gaming the system. There should be a way to get a fair trade from the AI, say 1 Silver <-> 1 Gems for 30 Turns, provided the AI doesn’t have the resource you’re offering and thus could benefit from it.
Yeah, you CAN trade it away for gold, and that works reasonably well, but I think it’s you that misses the point of diplomacy - it shouldn’t be a resource->gold converter but a tool to make enemies, forge alliances and project your power.
There’s plenty of other i-scratch-my-head design decisions like that in Civ5. Take the silly low production->gold conversion rating. You CAN get around it by mass producing workers, which will often take a single turn to complete in late game cities and which, when disbanded, will net you 20 gold, while disbanding a piece of artillery which costs a lot more production and takes ten turns to complete will only net you 40 gold. This forces you to babysit your cities and spend time each turn to get a decent run for your production. The conversion rating needs to be AT THE VERY LEAST 25%, like for science. It’s one of the first things I’ll mod when I’m finished playing vanilla.

rezaf

3464

I think you guys are missing the point of diplomacy - it’s not to make friends but instead to obtain gold from other empires. While you can’t sell technologies any longer, the AI will often pay you quite a bit for resources and cities.

Early game, I sell any resources I can get to whoever will pay the most as long as the sale won’t drop me into negative happiness. A golden age early is a waste as you don’t have enough population to work enough tiles to make it worthwhile, and each age just bumps the counter to the next subsequent golden age higher.

I’ve found it’s a bit tricky to sell resources and get what you want (gold) since the “What will you give me for this?” button will often times cause the AI to offer a variety of things. Here’s what you do:

How To Cash In on Resources:

Put a single luxury resource or start with about 5 of the strategic resource you want to trade and hit the “What would you give me…” button.
-If the offer is purely in gold then it’s the best you’re going to get. Accept or decline depending on if the gold offer would be useful.

-If they throw in Open Borders on their side and you don’t want it, manually remove it and then bump the Gold Per Turn up by 1 or 2 then retry the “Would this work?”. Keep fiddling until they re-agree to a gold amount sans Open Borders. I’ve found Open Borders is usually “worth” 1 or 2 GPT to the AI.

-Likewise, if they want Open Borders from you and you don’t want to give it, remove it and decrease the GPT offer until they stop asking for it.

-If they offer any other resources and you don’t need them, remove them and fiddle with the GPT until they agree again.

-If it’s a strategic resource, remember that you can adjust the amount you’re offering up or down as well to make a deal work.

-Also with strategic resources, sometimes the AI will refuse a trade altogether simply because they don’t think they have enough gold to trade you for what you’re offering. If they flat out refuse to consider a trade for 5 Horses, try 1 Horse and see if they’ll bite, then adjust upwards from there.

-If the “Would this deal work?” button disappears, just remove and readd anything from the trade and you’ll get it back.

-Remember that upfront gold is better than GPT, because GPT will end in the event of war or if the Civ you’re trading with is conquered.

Assuming the AI has gold to cover it, you can reduce any trade into a purely gold trade, and the AI values resources insanely high (as you may notice if you try and trade to get one FROM the AI). Remember that you can get gold from an AI for resources, then use that gold on a City-State to get resources back to replace the lost happiness plus get the City-State bonuses.

Another “diplomacy” technique is that after a war, puppet and then immediately resell the captured or surrendered cities to other empires - absolving yourself of all unhappiness and maintenance and making bank instead of razing - they will gladly take them and pay you handsomely (you can recapture them later if you need to).

3465

I actually like the idea of the change, since I always disliked how free and easy it was to trade techs in previous Civ games, even with “No Tech Brokering” on.

But there does seem to be at least one serious drawback to this new approach. I suspect that the “runaway civ” issue that some of us have encountered – one AI civ rapidly overwhelming its AI neighbors on the second continent and ballooning in power – has to do with a rapidly expanding tech gap that is impossible for the lagging AI neighbors to close.

3466

Am I the only one who has never had the AI offer up half their empire for peace? In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything besides peace treaty for peace treaty straight up.

And I’m on my way towards my second domination victory on large maps.

3467

Sorry - I’ve also seen the AI cough up a few cities when they were totally overwhelmed, although I would have taken them in short order, anyway.

3468

I’d missed it until my recent game, and I think it had to with it being the first one where chance put the opening of my invasion conquests right next to their capital, and they had a lot to lose with all my forces massed next to them. I’ve also started playing with Legendary start, and I find the AI slightly more interesting when it has a stronger starting position and more resources to negotiate with right off the bat.

3469

What does it mean when an empire is “Afraid” of you? How does this happen?
I have also seen “Hostile” which seemed to happen randomly. What causes this?
What other conditions are there like the above I have not seen and what are their causes?

3470

I’m not sure what’s happening in the games you guys are playing, but I almost always get a straight 1:1 luxury resource deal from the AI.

3471

Yup, happens to me all the time. If the AI doesn’t like you very much it will demand a better trade, but if they like you well enough they will trade 1:1.

3472

Only if they have spares of that resource.

There was an AI that had one gem, which I lacked. I offered the AI player three luxury resources they did not have for that gem, but they rejected the offer. Kind of amusing.

3473

Yup, they had +150 relations with me. They still allied with their old masters and DOW’ed me when I freed them. The same units that liberated them got bombarded by their city the moment I hit the next turn button.

3474

So this game has line of sight? Nice of my Military Advisor not to mention it.

I don’t know about what you guys think, but should not games be designed so that when I try to do something that I can’t, it tells me why??

Thanks

3475

One thing that is fun to do is find enough ‘upgrade your unit’ ruins so you have an Infantry unit in the late middle ages.

At that point, how can you not go on a conquest?

3476

Yeah I noticed that too. The threshold for giving up a “single” luxury is set so high the AI even refuses counter offers which are much more beneficial than that single luxury.

3477

Late Middle Ages? Bah, too slow. I once got a mechanized infantry by 1100 BC. Absurd.

3478

Exactly which games do examine all the various ways why a command might not work and explain them to you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Ranged attack obstructions are explained in the manual IIRC.

3479

My first game is going like this:

Click SPACE BAR (skip idle unit). Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. End Turn. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. End Turn.

Over and over, as I watch my money dwindle to 0 and beyond, while waiting for Banks to be built in all of my cities.

Ok, so I finally discovered that Workers cost gold. Fine. Dismiss. Dismiss. Dismiss… Still bleeding gold.

Banks built, still bleeding gold. RUn through Buildings list to see what else generates gold. Nothing. And everything costs money to maintain so I don’t want to build any of it… Nothing appeals to me 'cept making more damn gold. But how?

Finally, I get Commerce policy. Hmm, seems to help a little. I’m not losing gold anymore but my income is still too f’ing low to WANT to build anything else… like a Circus for more happiness…or that Seaport, which sounds great, but 4(?) maintenance!?! WTF!

So back to Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. Click SPACE BAR. End turn. Just waiting for something to happen…but not sure what’s going to help. Need to do more reading, I suppose…

I’m missing something and I think it’s because I’m playing it like Civs of old…? I took over my neighbor, annexed 2 cities, razed 1, and another is currently a puppet.

I also found a nice new continent but I don’t want to settle because it’s too damn expensive to do anything. So I just click SPACE BAR…SPACE BAR… NEXT TURN…

3480

Maybe you had too many roads built. Each one has a maintenance fee associated with it. If you hover over the gold/income in the upper left it breaks down your income and expenses - what does yours look like?