Getting denounced for no reason?!

[マルコ]

Since the begging I supported my neighbor sweden the best way I could, never settled near their space, never purchased tiles in their direction, always accepted declaration of friendship with them and with their friends, always accepted trade deals (except few times when I couldn't really part with a luxury resource for happiness reasons), always casted all my votes in their favor to let them host congress...and out of the blue they denounce me, with no explanation whatsoever.

It seriously makes no freaking sense, is like the game has a timer that when detect the city expansion is stagnating for a while it just makes your closest neigbhor go psychopath just to spice things up for the player, and it TOTALLY RUINED an otherwise enjoyable long session.

I mean, there is no point trying and make friends with AI in this game for this precise reason, because at the end of the day it feels like you're just playing with a dumb AI, basically you are alone VS AI and never a more enjoyable you cooperating with good AI against bad AI.

I personally may be uninstalling after this, because there is just no freaking point in even trying, since the game is rigged. Does anyone else experienced this situation in this game?

[General Malaise]

It could mean they're thinking of war with you.

Denounce you, taunt you on the size of your Civ, your Army, you Culture etc. Then decide to attack you.

My advice - kill them.

:)


There often isn't what can be percieved as a real reason. Denouncing you, might give them more favour with other civs, and you less.

[マルコ]

Originally posted by stevethebarbarian:

There often isn't what can be percieved as a real reason.

Exactly my point. The thing is, the reason is not there because of the mentality of Sid Meier.
I went anch checked his GDC talk, this part -> https://youtu.be/MtzCLd93SyU?t=13m51s

Listen to 1-2 minutes from link.

He is basically saying he programs the AI with a shi*ty attitude for moral clarity, basically has a AI leader acting like a psychopath instead of having him make the more rational and logic choice so that the player has a reason to brutally crush them and feel good about it.
Thing is, this erratic behaviours totally fails and are out of place if your player is just trying to have good and friendly longlasting diplomatic relationship and want to go along with that leader.

So, for this precise reason I consider that man to be far away from being a genious of strategy game design, as many players seems to consider him. Is more like a genious in stroking the naive player ego (as he says, with different but similar words), providing them with a nonsense reason to crush an AI leader and have them feel like they are good or even skilled players for it. (as he remarks often during the talk, kind of making fun of his own player base xD)

[Evilous]

Originally posted by Marcus 矛盾:

Since the begging I supported my neighbor sweden the best way I could, never settled near their space, never purchased tiles in their direction, always accepted declaration of friendship with them and with their friends, always accepted trade deals (except few times when I couldn't really part with a luxury resource for happiness reasons), always casted all my votes in their favor to let them host congress...and out of the blue they denounce me, with no explanation whatsoever.

It seriously makes no freaking sense, is like the game has a timer that when detect the city expansion is stagnating for a while it just makes your closest neigbhor go psychopath just to spice things up for the player, and it TOTALLY RUINED an otherwise enjoyable long session.

I mean, there is no point trying and make friends with AI in this game for this precise reason, because at the end of the day it feels like you're just playing with a dumb AI, basically you are alone VS AI and never a more enjoyable you cooperating with good AI against bad AI.

I personally may be uninstalling after this, because there is just no freaking point in even trying, since the game is rigged. Does anyone else experienced this situation in this game?

weak army then

[Tapak]

There is only one Civilization, that wins though, so you have to expect some backstabs
I mean look at real world, do you really see a difference there when you take a look at the history

[RJJameson]

I have found the civ's behavior in this game to be pretty good. When they denounce you, it is always for a reason. Some possible reasons you might not have considered include:

- They are getting afraid of your growing lead. If you start winning the game, the other civs start getting more wary.
- You have a weak army and they want your land. Again, the denunciation is a rational and historical first step; paint your enemies as evil and manufacture justifications ahead of time for taking what you want.


In my last game as India, I went for a culture victory and spent most of the game with essentially no army (3 units to defend 3 cities; didn't bother upgrading, so I had 2 composite bowmen in the Industrial era). I was friends with 3 people over the course of the game, and did my best to keep it that way so I could get research treaties; Siam, Russia, and America. Siam I was friends with the whole game. They were a small, relatively weak civ. Neither of us threatened the other, and even when I started winning, they picked the same ideology as I did and stuck with me throughout.

Russia was a different story. They had a large army and my culture was starting to overwhelm theirs. Despite having been friends for most of the game, they went straight from friends to denouncing me. I took this as a sign of bad things to come and grabbed the Foreign Legion ideology pick (6 free units). With this new force to defend my lands, things quieted down. Late in the game, Russia actually became friends with me again. So I am convinced that this was merely a sign that they were tempted to exploit my weakness. Remove the weakness, and thereby remove the temptation to stir things up.

America was a much larger civ than I was and could have destroyed me many times over. But they were far away and spent much of the game in on-and-off war with France. With other things to occupy them, they were content to remain friendly with a weaker civ in an isolated position.


Point of all that being: I've never seen a civ behave in a way that I found impossible to decipher. Sure, they're all, more or less, opportunistic jerks. But they're not arbitrary jerks. And I've had some lasting alliances that brought me great satisfaction.


P.S. I had a game a long time ago as Rome where I had 3 lasting alliances, one of which was with a former enemy. Poland was literally covering the world (he was about 3 times the size of the second-place civ, having conquered two very successful rivals). In the face of such immense strength in the atomic era, I and 3 other civs (one of whom had tried to conquer me in the Classical) banded together to try and chip away at his might. Even with the dumb AI, he had such a crushing amount of planes and ships that by game end, I was only just starting to tickle his coasts with my own fleet. I managed to barely eke out a science win, but he had 5/6 of his own spaceship done, so it was a close thing.

[BubblestationCPH]

declerations of friendship, trades and open borders etc is just word.. true friendships are formed after you liberate their cities, or free a cpl of workers

[マルコ]

Originally posted by BubblestationCPH:

true friendships are formed after you liberate their cities, or free a cpl of workers

meh, I don't know about that...as usual Chiana was being a backstabbing jerk toward me always stealing my tech, stealing tiles with luxury resource inside my territory by placing a citadel and denouncing me while I was just ignoring them etc...so I declared war to them (and now I am getting called Oda the Terrible, wtf...) and after conquering their city I've liberated it and returned as the Incan Capital, reviving them (and I am still called Oda the Terrible...).
As you suggested I suspected that would have earned me friendship beyond imagination, instead I made them a very simple request, I don't remember what but I think it was a declaration of friendship or something, and they flat refused...

I need to stress the fact that I freaking REVIVED them...so to me this makes no sense... :\

Don't know if you guys played Distant Worlds: Universe (the best strategy game I've ever played), but there if my memories don't betray me, relationship with AI are way more satisfactory, meaning you end up playing with them like if you're playing with buddies, giving each others spaceship and helping each other, allies actually rushing in to join the fights and help you and stuff like this, there is even a certain point in the game where the ultimate evil try to conquer the galaxy and a super advanced civ asks for you to help and hands down a huge fleet of their ships to you! I was impressed by that! xD

So maybe I just got used to that level of trust and cooperation and I'm just playing this with the wrong expectations in mind :P

[Phoenix3496]

Yeah, I really wish they'd require a reason to denounce for both AI and humans. The entire series has had this problem since denouncing was first introduced. AI just turn against you for no reason. On top of that they can taunt you but you can't taunt them; like how the ♥♥♥♥ do you know the intimate details of my empire?! There's no way to have spies early unless you're playing as Catherine of France

[Ghadaro]

There are several things that can anger a civ and cause them to denounce(I'll miss some so just consider this a rough guide):

Building a wonder they wanted
Competing for a victory condition
Nearing victory
Allying or protecting a city state they desire friendship with
Warmongering (capturing other cities/declaring war)
Having a weak military
Over expansion
Settling near their borders
Buying land near their borders
Stealing land with a great general
Declaring friendship with somebody they dislike
Proposing something they don't like to the world senate
Voting against them
Stealing tech from them
Rigging a city state election of performing a coup against a state they are allied with
Digging artifacts from their territory
Spreading a rival religion in their lands
Amassing troops near their border
Refusing to help them when they ask for free stuff.

The AI also have personality traits that affect how they act and what they value.
Bismark for example is quick to denounce and has a strong focus on city states, gifts and victory conditions, he doesn't care so much about Warmongering though. He also has a high deception score though which means he is likely to act friendly then suddenly turn on you.

Russia was mentioned which is again a civ with a high deception rating so Catherine can act friendly when she is actually preparing to invade, that combines with a particularly high wonder and city state competitiveness as well which can cause a sudden change in attitude if you ally or build something she desired.

[Damsteri]

There is always a reason. Only humans can act without any reason, AI can't. If AI has denounced you, then there has been a trigger that has launched the action. It might not be even visible in the game, but there is a part of code that tiggered the denouncement.

Originally posted by Marcus Aseth:

...and now I am getting called Oda the Terrible, wtf...

It has nothing to do with your actions. Title is decided only based on what was your last social policy or ideology. Terrible is title for Autocracy.

[General Malaise]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

There is always a reason. Only humans can act without any reason, AI can't. If AI has denounced you, then there has been a trigger that has launched the action. It might not be even visible in the game, but there is a part of code that tiggered the denouncement.

Originally posted by Marcus Aseth:

...and now I am getting called Oda the Terrible, wtf...

It has nothing to do with your actions. Title is decided only based on what was your last social policy or ideology. Terrible is title for Autocracy.

Humans don't act without reason at all. Every single thing a human does, is the one he thinks will make him most happy.

AI might denounce you, to keep in good standing with others that don't like you. Kind of like everyone denouncing Russia right now, at leat half the time for no legitimate reason, but Russia seems to have become the new 'Jews'.