Civ IV Diplomacy

Basics

Diplomacy is the means by which the player in Civ IV can interact with other factions, negotiate trade agreements, trade technology, build alliances and gain suppoprt for a war. The mechanics are similar to those used in Civ III: things you can trade are displayed on the right of the screen, and items you may ask for in return lie on the left.

Any ongoing deal may be canceled after 10 turns without a declaration of war. An ongoing item, such as money per turn, may not be traded for an immediate item, such as a city.

Whom to attack during democracy, when and how

When your civilization has become a democracy, declaring war on a nonagressive competitor can be very costly in terms of discontent citizens. Instead of bribing your citizens with luxuries and entertainers to keep them content, you can try to offer money to a third competitor to declare war against the nonagressive competitor. Your citizens will never find out and remain happy at a much lower cost.

If you are the strongest civilization you should do this: Bribe as many civilizations as possible to attack the weakest competitor (let's call him John). When John's army is weakened, he still has a lot of valuable land and cities you can take. That is worth the cost of temporary discontent. The new land and its undefended cities will become permanent assets compared to the discontent that is only temporary.

If a civilization threatens your position as number one in terms of military power, you should bribe the other competitors to attack the threatening civilization instead of bribing them to attack the weakest competitor. When you become number one, you start bribing the other civilizations to declare war against the weakest competitor. Repeat this process until you have assimilated all the other civilizations one by one.

Trading

This is the list of things, to my knowledge, one can trade in a diplomacy screen. During War, a cease fire or peace treaty may be offered.

Potential Trade Items

Gold, lump sum.
Gold per turn
World map
Open Boarders Agreement
Defense Pact
Permanent alliance
Technology
Resources
Cities
'Make peace with'
'Declare War on'
'Stop Trading With'
Adopt (civics)
Convert (religion)

Gold

Requires: Currency This can either be in the form of a one off payment, or a series of payments. The lump sum offered or demanded cannot exceed the total available to that civilisation at that time. This prevents you from actually bankrupting anyone. Likewise, Gold Per Turn cannot exceed the faction’s current net gain per turn.

World Map

Requires: Paper

Etc. (watch this space)

Modifiers

These are very important. Your interactions with other civilisations, as well as your civics, juxtaposition and religion can affect their opinion of you. This is measured with modifiers. Positive modifiers make them like you more, negative ones make them dislike you.