Reduce "I refuse to speak with you" -diplomacy

[Ralf]

One rather annoying thing in Civ-2 was the large frequency of "I refuse to speak with you" diplomacy AI-responses. As I look at it; "I refuse..." should be the exception (even in wartime) - not the more-or-less standard phrase one is confronted with ever so often.

Everything have a pricetag (although not necessarily measured in mere money, of course). The AI-civs are free too blackmail and/or make rather stiff & greedy demands for peace - but they should however nevertheless almost always be reachable through diplomacy. In order to avoid too many AI-diplomacy requests; all agreements should have a stiff minimum/flexible time-limit attached to them.

Also, the higher the culture-rate is between negotiating Civs, the more an agreement is considered an agreement. Infact, many times I would rather prefer enforced (but time-limited) peace- & ally-rules, so both the AI-civs and the HP-player really can trust them better. Diplomacy with too weak backstabbing-deterrant rules, becomes more-or-less meaningless.

[Urban Ranger]

In Civ 2 your reputation suffers a hit if you break an agreement, however there doesn't seem to be any penalties for computer players with a really bad rep.

I agree with the point that the computer players should not be able to refuse your diplomatic efforts. Even during the Cold War both sides were in close contact.

[SerapisIV]

Inter-AI diplomacy should definitely be changed from CivII. SMAC made a big advance in this area by giving the AI agendas that they usually did follow which gave them much more personality in the game. Hopefully Civ3 will continue this, especially given the Cold War possibilities that the trade/resources/luxuries have given to the game

[Kc7mxo]

I think the worst part of the "I refuse to speak with you" was when I was trying to play nice with some one city civ moron who attacked me cause he was friends with the zulus. But I suppose one should admire their courage, standing up to my hordes of stealth fighters and mehcanized infantry with their courageous pikemen.

The main reason its implemented is to reduce the strength of wondrs like the great wall and the united nations when used by the player. Of course it doens't work when the AI's have the damn things.

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-19-2001 07:14 AM One rather annoying thing in Civ-2 was the large frequency of "I refuse to speak with you" diplomacy AI-responses. As I look at it; "I refuse..." should be the exception (even in wartime) - not the more-or-less standard phrase one is confronted with ever so often. Everything have a pricetag (although not necessarily measured in mere money, of course). The AI-civs are free too blackmail and/or make rather stiff & greedy demands for peace - but they should however nevertheless almost always be reachable through diplomacy. [/b]

I agree. Sometimes I tried very hard to make a generous agreement to some SMAC faction, just to avoid the hassle to destroy it, or because I want to focus on others targets.

We know some people hate each others too much to sign an agreement, but they should listen at least. Third part Civ could still "force" him to cease fire (in SMAC that worked well enough, if both fighting civs are yours allies).

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A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.
- Admiral Naismith

[MrFun]

One example of diplomacy between hostile peoples is Palestinians and Israel. They do not completely shut each other out -- they have too much of important issues to work out to slam the door on diplomacy in spite of the bloody conflicts.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Kc7mxo on 05-20-2001 03:07 PM The main reason its implemented is to reduce the strength of wondrs like the great wall and the united nations when used by the player. Of course it doens't work when the AI's have the damn things.

Hmm! I didnt thought of that. Well, in that case the Great Wall and the United Nation wonder must be tweaked & adjusted in order to bypass, or counteract that somewhat. Its more important for gameplay reasons that these inflationary "I refuse to speak..." diplomacy-messages gets minimized as much as possible. Maybe Im cynical; but everything have a pricetag - and if the price is increasingly more generous & persuasive enough, and no certain AI-victory is possible anyway. Well why not make a deal?

Two things is important here: Offering some money, a tech or 2-3 units can only persuade the AI so far. The real "hard currency" here, is giving up a city, or two - as geographically close as possible to the AI-civ in question. On the other hand, and as I said in my previous reply:
Any peace-agreements should be "carved in stone" = 100% non-breakable (perhaps mutually exclusive nullified attack/pillaqe ability for both parts, for a certain amount of turns). Just declining diplomatic reputation or hall-of-fame civ-points, simply isnt deterrent enough for most pro civ-players.

[Pilfur]

Originally posted by Ralf
Diplomacy with too weak backstabbing-deterrant rules, becomes more-or-less meaningless.

Agreed. So why are you looking at prohibiting backstabbing rather than making it costly? I don't want the game to have some arbitrary rule stopping me from turning on my friends. It feels fake. Make it cost more, and make the computer players consider those costs more carefully. Have political strife both externally and internally (via happiness penalties). You could even have the peoples of differfent societies react differently to different actions taken by the leader, having some peoples more into blood lust and others more into peaceful coexistence (perhaps depending on government or the particular civ)

Yeah, the "refuses to speak with you" is worse than "it's not you, it's me." It was just poor programming. CTP had way the hell better diplomacy than Civ2. CTP's diplomacy was weak and too simple, but far better than Civ2. What I didn't get was how often another Civ would go with the "Prepare to die!" response, even in scenarios! It was just too many bugs with the AI that were never fixed, so it's probably nothing to worry about, I'm sure Firaxis will come out with a pretty decent diplomacy model for Civ3. After all, with all the strategy games coming out these days, their whole reps are on the line with this game. SMAC had better diplomacy, but only because it had less bugs. It was too predictable, and it's pretty obvious the designers played it safe. You knew no matter what, the Morgans would nuke you if you weren't capitalist, the believers would nuke you if ya didn't believe, and the Gaians would nuke you if you didn't get green. Like The Rock says, know your role. Civ3 will probably have the best diplomacy model ever built into a game. If it doesn't, there'll just be more people goin off to play Warcraft and Age of Kings, etc. where there is no diplomacy, just razin' buildings.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Pilfur
Agreed. So why are you looking at prohibiting backstabbing rather than making it costly?

OK, then - maybe I got carried away to the other extreme. I admit. But, they should definitely make it more costly. And I belive that Firaxis vill tweak it that way.

One interesting thing to point out, is that in Civ-2 the AI-civs could only show their aggression by moving combat-units against you. In Civ-3, however, they can also choose to strangle your trade-economical agreements, as well as your special-resource/ luxurie agreements.

[Chronus]

"OK, then - maybe I got carried away to the other extreme. I admit. "

Oh, drat! I was looking forward to my first disagreement with Ralf ;-)

Anyway, I agree that the backstabbing should stay . . . but with a higher penalty. Furthermore, I still want the "begone" attitude to come up. I simply interpret this as "hey, I have the upper hand here and you simply do not have anything of interest to offer", or "I hate you and I shall see to it that you die, even if it takes my life". People (and leaders) like that do exist, though, I'll admit, we see quite a bit more in the game than we do in real life. However, since the programmers can't represent every possible human trait/attitude, a generic statement will have to be used somewhere.