Slitherine

The diplomacy interactions feel random.

On one turn an AI player offers me a trade pact, in a few turns the same AI player threatens me, in a few it offers me tribute, in a few it declares war on me, in a few it offers peace, and so on...

As an analogy, I have always disliked the CIV5 AI as it trains one to not pay attention to the feedback as it has similar irrational AI interactions, for instance declaration of a sugary sweet Friendship pact, to Denouncing soon afterwards, to some annoying insult about vermin breeding, to war in alittle bit down the line.

Non-stable interactions with AI lead to players disregarding the interactions as they end up feeling capricious, so why do anything other than prepare for war even in the face of current statements of goodwill?

At least with CIV5 the bipolar behaviors are not rubber-banding every few turns.

The other facets of the game are quite enjoyable though, keep up the good work!

I agree the AI needs some tweaking, however with the game in Beta - its understandable. I feel the AI is simply....weak with no interaction - there just doesn't seem to be a cause and effect with them.

For example one AI empire told me to move my troops from her/his border, I refused and nothing happened, I got a "here's some gold lets be friends" request a second later....... dont make sense?

I've noticed the same thing. It seems like there is no escalation based on prior interactions. For instance having a trade agreement, and research agreement, but still having tribute demands, followed by gifts.

Thanks for the feedback guys, we'll work on AI behaviour over the next week (also add some more options). Especially gifts and demands are a bit too erratic atm, that both come in a row should not happen.

butcher5012 wrote:For example one AI empire told me to move my troops from her/his border, I refused and nothing happened, I got a "here's some gold lets be friends" request a second later....... dont make sense?

Well, the empire demanded withdrawal because of being afraid of getting invaded; since you didn't give in (causes a standing loss) and your military was quite a bit more capable than theirs, they tried to appease you with credits.

void wrote:Well, the empire demanded withdrawal because of being afraid of getting invaded; since you didn't give in (causes a standing loss) and your military was quite a bit more capable than theirs, they tried to appease you with credits.

If this is the intended logic then I would change the dialogue and fulfillment conditions. For Instance "Please withdraw your troops from our territory for the next 10 turns and we will provide X credits"

I don't think gifts are the best idea. How about:

• Trade or shared research agreement that gives each a small bonus based on their own economy? That way, the AI can make an offer that also benefits the stronger party.
  Tribute of credits or research that only benefits the recipient. This should probably be available as either a one-time payment (gift) or as an on-going payment for several turns.
  Having either of the above tied to an unbreakable non-aggression pact that will last some number of turns (see below).

Currently, it's possible to go from non-aggression pact to war in a single turn. This makes the pact meaningless. Either it should be possible to negotiate a pact that will last for some number of terms or canceling a non-aggression pact should be followed by a cooling off period before war may be initiated.

Currently a non aggression pact will last a minimum of 10 turns, how about increasing it to let's say 20?

With a cooldown period, I'm worried that people might be confused why they can't declare war even though there is no ongoing non aggression pact. Tieing pact and and peace accepts to credits is something I am currently working on. Basically it's "I'll accept if you send over X credits..."

Hmmm, I could have sworn I negotiated a non-aggression pact, but found myself at war a turn later. Perhaps I misremember or hit a bug. Or more likely, I'm thinking I had a non-aggression pact for a while, but was attacked on the same turn that the AI cancelled the pact.

If I understand correctly, under the current system, a non-aggression pact is meaningful is negotiated recently, but meaningless if it's over ten (or twenty) turns old. That's non-intuitive and a pain to track.

I have two alternative suggestions.

Perhaps, the amount of time remaining in the pact could always be displayed. After the ten (or twenty) turns, the pact is expired and no longer exists. Perhaps it already works like this and I just didn't know that my pact had one turn left? It'd be nice if either side could ask for early renewal.

Second suggestion is that perhaps a non-aggression pact doesn't usually cancel after a fixed number of turns. However, when either side cancels, it takes a few turns to fully expire. So, if cancelled, your status could display something like "cease fire (5 turns left)". The prior suggestion is probably a better mechanic...