Diplomacy.

[stormbringer3]

When attempting to establish the first treaty with another civilization what is the best course of action? Offer just one option or maybe two? Also, what would be good to offer first?
Thanks for any opinions.

[Cablenexus]

In my experience this is a good approach, but I think you also have to look at it from the AI players side. What can they use from you? Not only what you want from them. The AI is pretty capable of knowing what they want so if you offer something they can use (map exchange if you know lot's of territory) or homeland treaty if you are in the other players frontline for example.
The relation and how much you like each other plays a big role here. Long term relation is something to build upon.
Making nice treaties, don't make treaties with their enemies, trade with them, even gift them something over a longer period of time will help them to like you and make better diplomatic actions for you.
The treaties btw are somewhat "ordered" by importancy as I understood.

[pavelk]

When attempting to establish the first treaty with another civilization what is the best course of action? Offer just one option or maybe two? Also, what would be good to offer first?

The treaties are already sorted per "trust". It usually doesnt make sense to ask for something like homeland movement when you dont have any other treaties yet.
It requires time to build trust. It is the best to start with simple city visibility, give it some time and add offer few more treaties a bit later, etc.

Making nice treaties, don't make treaties with their enemies, trade with them, even gift them something over a longer period of time will help them to like you and make better diplomatic actions for you.

Yes, that is absolutely correct. AI does take into consideration which "side" did you choose. For example if there is a civil war in country o one of AI players (with whom you have some treaties or peace) and you sign peace with this newly created "country", it is not received well by that player. You basically recognize this newly created player as a valid country and that is a sign of mistrust. It is the same like what is happening now in South Sudan - barely any country has recognized it as a legal country because that would worsens the relationship with "North" Sudan.
That being said, this is also the reason why you can sometimes see two "groups" of players picking sides which can even lead to a total division of the known world to two groups hating each other.

[stormbringer3]

I think that this a wonderful game! One of the areas I'd like to see some improvement is in the diplomacy area. I'm currently playing the Ardiaei. Antigonid who is at war with everybody on the map except for two other civilizations who are far away from them just declared war on me. This does not seem logical to me. I'm hoping some thought will be to this kind of AI action.

[Geordietaf]

Frankly I try to be terribly nice to everybody when I meet them, but 200 years of peace later they still won't even agree city visibility. I seem to have to wait for them to make an offer, sometimes on the turn immediately following a similar offer to them that they have just refused.

[pavelk]

I'm hoping some thought will be to this kind of AI action.

Diplomacy has beening always reviewing and it will probably never stop:)

It is very helpful to send us save files with particular AI actions which don't make sense from your view. It must be end-turn save file so we can reproduce that particular decision.

Frankly I try to be terribly nice to everybody when I meet them, but 200 years of peace later they still won't even agree city visibility.

Maybe you are doing sieges? Btw. once you hover over the "Attitude" bar in diplomacy window, you will see what are the affectors of that particular relation.

[dejvid2]

Maybe you are doing sieges? Btw. once you hover over the "Attitude" bar in diplomacy window, you will see what are the affectors of that particular relation.

I do like the diplomatic hit you get from conducting dishonorable military actions (ie staving a city into surrender) but you can end up doing this by accident. I a recent game of mine playing the Invasion of Britain scenario, the Romans landed in Hibernia and then offered peace after occupying a single tile. They built a city on that tile and then declared war again. When I attacked the city, it automatically came under siege as all the land hexes round it were held by me. I didn't have enough units to take it in one go to it surrendered before I could take it. It would be nice if the game recognized situations where sieges occur by accident and not penalize them or nor penalize them as much.

It also might be nice to implement "diplomatic protests" so that the ai tells players explicitly that they are unhappy with certain actions.

Both the above are "nice to have" things that are, I admit, low priority.

Something that I really would like is the ability to tell a AI player to make peace with another player.
Sometimes I want to say this to a key ally and I want to nudge them to making peace so they will concentrate on our common enemy.
At other times the attack is being made against a player I consider to be a key ally and in that case refusal should mean war.

Perhaps still not the highest priority but it does seem a gap in that you can demand war but not peace.

[pavelk]

I do like the diplomatic hit you get from conducting dishonorable military actions (ie staving a city into surrender) but you can end up doing this by accident.

Yes I agree. It would probably be better to have another unit action called "siege city" in the action bar.

It also might be nice to implement "diplomatic protests" so that the ai tells players explicitly that they are unhappy with certain actions.

Honestly I don't think that it is a good idea. Player would be "spammed" with every attitude change of every AI player. There are now more than 40 different factors which have impact on the attitude. The number of poped up windows shown every turn is also quite high as it is. If you want to see the most important affectors of the attitude, hover over the attitude bar in diplomacy window and see the tooltip.

Something that I really would like is the ability to tell a AI player to make peace with another player.

Yes I agree. We already have it in our tracking system.

[stormbringer3]

We have a cancel peace request. Would it alter the game balance too much if a cancel war request was added? Sorry, I just noticed my request was answered already.
Thanks.

[dejvid2]

I do like the diplomatic hit you get from conducting dishonorable military actions (ie staving a city into surrender) but you can end up doing this by accident.

Yes I agree. It would probably be better to have another unit action called "siege city" in the action bar.

Yes, make it a button would do the trick. After all surrounding a city simply means you are able to stop food coming in not that you have to.

It also might be nice to implement "diplomatic protests" so that the ai tells players explicitly that they are unhappy with certain actions.

Honestly I don't think that it is a good idea. Player would be "spammed" with every attitude change of every AI player. There are now more than 40 different factors which have impact on the attitude. The number of poped up windows shown every turn is also quite high as it is. If you want to see the most important affectors of the attitude, hover over the attitude bar in diplomacy window and see the tooltip.

I had in mind that diplomatic protests would occur only occasionally not that every single thing that irritated the AI would trigger a protest and might be useful for new players and also for more experienced players as a warning that the relationship with that player needed a closer watch. But, as I said, not a high priority.

Something that I really would like is the ability to tell a AI player to make peace with another player.

Yes I agree. We already have it in our tracking system.

Excellent news.