[Civ V] Diplomacy/hostility

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Sometimes the diplomacy in this game confuses me. Does just doing well in a game cause negative points with other civs? I mean, I have few troops. I'm not settling near people, I'm opening trading etc... but somehow 3 civs that were all my ally 10 turns ago all denounced me and are "hostile' .... but why? I don't think I'm perfect at this game, but I've spent a lot of time playing Civ 4 and 5...

Any tips or commentary are welcome.

[Deleted]

I never understood when or why they denounce people. It definitely has a random element in it: When I was working on a strategy for Praise the Victories, I saved every ~5 rounds or so to see how different approaches would change the course of the game over a few turns. Sometimes, even loading a game and ending a turn did lead to Portugal denounce me, sometimes not.

But I'm sure about some implications: If someone denounces you, it has a negative impact with your standing with other factions, especially when they're buddies. There are multiple other reasons they can become hostile: Being at war for some time with other nations or attacking and conquering city states, differences in social policies, you building a wonder they wanted before them, they wanting to expand where you are, ... In addition, the higher the difficulty, the more aggressive they become - against the player, and against all others. And sometimes they just seem to think that you're weak and a nice target to attack. Even if you have a good defensive position and can hold all attacks, just having a small military for your overall standing in the game may lead them to want a piece of the cake, i.e. your cities.

But all in all: Yep, diplomacy isn't the strong point of Civ5, and at times seems too random.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

It does seem random at times. The only thing I can think of was taking wonders... I'm playing on small continents and kinda far from them.. which is why it was surprising lol...

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Here is another thing I don't understand... how warmonger penalties are given for taking cities. In the same game I mentioned earlier... Russia, Carthage, and Songhai all war decced me. ... If I take a Songhai city I would get a major penalty... and with Carthage and Russia I would get only a minor one.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure about that one. I've never explicitly looked at it. I guess it depends mostly on two things: the time and the city.

Time: If you push early on, you can conquer a whole country and most others don't bother for the most part. In the later game, even taking a few cities from someone makes others skeptical.
City: It seems big cities give a bigger warmongering "bonus" than small ones, with capitals being ahead. It would be realistic: A small village being sacked is small news compared to the occupation of a metropole.

But, as said, those are only guesses.

[McLovenIt]

Warmonger Penalty is typically based on the cities population size. One way to get around some of that, is you can obviously make it a Puppet City, OR you can Raze the city and let some of the citizens die and than decide to stop razing & officially take control of the city.

But than in times where you've met the whole world, and even if you didn't start the war, but you wiped out your 1 opponent, the entire world yells at you and denounces you anyways.

I think these are getting addressed in Civ VI, because they were already talking about how relationships will become much more interactive and adaptable. So I think what will happen is that trades will obviously help, maybe donating things will help, obviously going to war together vs opponent could help strengthen bonds, and stuff like that.

I'm super excited to play a new Civ......5 was cool, and I still like playing it, but I have so many hours invested into it (and I'm not even a hardcore fan), that it'll be great to play a whole new game and experience the new additions. Tried playing Beyond Earth several times, even bought the expansion on sale; just can't force myself to like that piece of shit though

[AztechZero]

Sometimes the diplomacy in this game confuses me. Does just doing well in a game cause negative points with other civs? I mean, I have few troops. I'm not settling near people, I'm opening trading etc... but somehow 3 civs that were all my ally 10 turns ago all denounced me and are "hostile' .... but why? I don't think I'm perfect at this game, but I've spent a lot of time playing Civ 4 and 5...

Any tips or commentary are welcome.

The only tip I can give you is to play with Falcon's AI Diplomacy mod. It makes the AI a little less dickish/fickle.

[McLovenIt]

I'm not sure about that one. I've never explicitly looked at it. I guess it depends mostly on two things: the time and the city.

Time: If you push early on, you can conquer a whole country and most others don't bother for the most part. In the later game, even taking a few cities from someone makes others skeptical.
City: It seems big cities give a bigger warmongering "bonus" than small ones, with capitals being ahead. It would be realistic: A small village being sacked is small news compared to the occupation of a metropole.

But, as said, those are only guesses.

Capturing cities & civilizations early is great for the sole reason of this......if you have not met most of the other leaders, than they will not know what you did before meeting them. SO! You can conquer the one or two civilizations who share your continent BEFORE meeting everyone else....and there would be no hard feelings toward you, because they were not aware of what took place.

That's why sometimes it's fun to get the Romans and other early military civs and just stack an army fast and run over your neighbor before you really start exploring

[Revik]

It is pretty random but I think I remember reading somewhere that based on points other Civ's just become your rivals. And if you have everyone holding hands and then you get ousted by one of the Civs all the other Civs will follow suit.

This is why you need a little war going on at all times. When there is war all the other Civs cannot present a united front which is really your worst enemy.

Other things that can factor in is military build up and if you do not have a large standing army (even if you know you have an army sufficient enough to handle any attack they might bring) that could be enough for some Civs start plotting against you.

[SidFwuff]

Sometimes the diplomacy in this game confuses me. Does just doing well in a game cause negative points with other civs? I mean, I have few troops. I'm not settling near people, I'm opening trading etc...
Any tips or commentary are welcome.

Some love it, some hate it, but the AIs in Civ5 have been alledged to try to win the "game"- which means if you are in the #1 spot, score wise, by a considerable margin... you do get some negative points. Now whether it's that, or because you're bound to be leading in most (if not all areas) I'm not sure. An AI that's trying to build wonders, and having to 'snipe' them will gain some hostility- same for City states, territory, religion etc.

but somehow 3 civs that were all my ally 10 turns ago all denounced me and are "hostile' .... but why? I don't think I'm perfect at this game, but I've spent a lot of time playing Civ 4 and 5...

AIs can be deceitful too. Some are more likely to than others (I'm looking at you Caesar). These AIs will pretend to be "Friendly" when they're actually Hostile or Guarded in an attempt to get you to drop your guard. This is especially true when, again, you're in the lead as you're more powerful than they are.

Early on, when they declared war players were so confused that their "allies" were suddenly turning on them, the Devs patched it so they actually say they were pretending when they declared war. Of course, if they never actually feel safe enough to declare war, when they drop the act they'll simply go from "Friendly" to "Guarded" or "Hostile" suddenly and the denouncing will start.

Generally you can tell if they're trying to deceive you if your relationships are all green. If you see no red, or grey... they're probably putting on an act. An honest ally will have some red (E.g, "They have early concerns about your warmongering (They tolerate some warmongering)" or "They covet your wonders" or "You told them not to spy on you" etc.)

If you really want to be sure (because sometimes they honestly don't have any issues with you), you can try trading with them. While Caesar may lie to your face, he won't give you any more gold in a trade than what he actually feels. (Probably to prevent exploiting the AI).

A "Neutral" or above AI will trade you 1:1- one spare luxury item for another luxury item for example. In other words, if Caesar isn't looking to stab you in the back, and has (2) Silk, he'll trade 1 for any luxury he doesn't have, such as Salt. If he demands more (usually 3 luxuries) for his silk, he's Guarded or Hostile- no matter what he says to your face.

Note that no matter how friendly an AI is, they will always triple the price of a luxury they only have a single of. This is a safeguard to prevent exploiting the AI if I recall correctly.

My guess is that's what happened to you- your "allies" were actually only pretending to be Friendly, hoping you'd move your armies away from your borders in a false sense of security... to attack when you were weak (such as engaged in a war with another AI). As you didn't wage any wars (or get hurt too seriously in them), eventually they simply gave up and dropped the act.

[Nirawen]

It basically just comes down to potential enemies being actual enemies. If your infrastructure, points, population size etc indicate you could amass a huge army then they will see you as a rival. Without it you could just grow and grow with no troops and then create a world conqeuring army in 2 turns.