posted May 22, 1999 15:03                

I've read your postings and now I will tell what I think you want in DIPLOMACY of Civ III. If I have misunderstood of forgotten something feel free to correct my mistake.

I have tried to make a systematical way of representing things, but everything is so mixed that it's difficult. So please have patience and if you know a better way tell it to me.

(This is over six pages on my MS word, so hope you have the strength to read it )

1 Levels of meetings
In several postings it has been suggested that we need a three-level meeting system for discussions between players.

1.1 Meeting between A and B
This is the normal meeting were things can bee discussed freely. Here should exist most freedom. Something like SMAC, but more options. (I will come to options later)

1.2 A pact meeting
Something likes NATO and EU meetings. Discussion is still quite free.

1.2.1 Forms of pacts

I like Midlance's idea of three types of pacts, military, economic and research. (Have I forgotten something?)
Can there be combinations of these?

1.2.2 How to form a pact?
This is still a little open. So I give one solution now. Players A and B meet and decide to form a pact. This can then grow later. (Like it?)

1.2.2.1 How can a pact grow?
- C summons the pact and requests membership
- C asks A to join the pact and A summons the pact for approval of C
- The pact decides to ask C to join

1.2.2.2 How can one leave a pact?
Should it just as simple as leaving?
Or should there be somethig?

1.2.2.3 Can a member of a pact be expelled?
This has happened in real life, ex. South Africa was expelled from British Commonwealth. For what reasons can one be expelled from a pact? Can it be temporarily?

1.2.3 Who can form a pact?
Can a pact exist between different political/economic/religious systems?

1.2.3.1 What happens if a player changes his system?
- Automatically rejected
- A voting is conducted
- Nothing happens until someone summons a meeting about it. (I like this one. Less micromanagment)

1.2.4 Can players form pacts from the beginning?

1.2.5 Agendas for a pact
1.2.5.1 Declaring war as a pact
(My suggestion) Many small countries can make a good response to a big aggressive country if working together.

1.2.5.2 Having a common foreign policy
A pact can decide that Ex. They are against pollution/pollutioners.

1.2.5.3 What is there that a pact shall not be able to talk about?
(My opinion) To make these three systems balanced, I think there should be something that can only be discussed in "privacy".
What is your opinion?

1.3 UN-meeting
A summoning of all players to vote for an agenda, like in SMAC. Here only one thing can be suggested and voted for.

1.3.1 Veto

It has been suggested that UN is to be a wonder of the world (WoW), with builder having the veto-right. So no meetings with all players are to exist before UN is built.

(I personally don't like the idea of builder being only with veto. Currently there are five countries with veto right in UN, so why should there be only one in the game? I suggest that builder is a permanent member and then there is an election for another player to have veto for XX turns. Election every XX turn or sooner if player dies. This way we get closer to real life.)

1.3.2 Agendas

At least same as in SMAC, any more?
Suggested so far:
- Peacekeeping forces
- Ultimatums for peace
- Penalizing a player for something he did

1.3.3 Shall the membership cost?
There has been this idea, but I am confused about this. This requires more discussion.

2. War
There has been discussion about what happens if a democratic land attacks another player who is democratic. OK this is good, but what about the rest? We need more discussion here.

2.1 Declaring war
We seem to believe that the regime must influence on a player's ability to declare war.

2.1.1 Demanding for patience
And computer always knows how much money I've got. Gimme a shotgun, I hate it.
More modifiers here are needed.
- If the demander is poor, he should satisfy with less.
- There should be an uncertainty in his knowing about my fundings.
- The ability to demand for multiple things would also be good. (Goes for response too)

2.1.2 Giving an reason for war
One could try to settle the own people and/or other countries by giving a reason for declaring war. (Ex. Religious war, Defending own race)

2.1.3 Earlier happenings
Should this influence the reaction of people?
I say yea. Ex. In late 1939 Russia attacked Finland. War ended next spring in peace, but many Finns were angry. Finland lost a lot of its land. So Finland joined Germany and attacked Russia. Rest is history. But there weren't too much complaints about joining the second war in Finland at that time.

2.2 Wartime
One thing is clear, in war there shall be no co-operation between countries.

2.2.1 Asking for help
It happens to often in Civ II and SMAC that when you join a war, the asking side makes peace and leaves you with an unwanted war.
Some ideas have been suggested:
- When A and B make a peace treaty, it affects you too.
- You can become a supporter of some form. (Money, units etc.)
- If you join A, he agrees to wage war for a certain time.

2.3 Peace negations
Classical A and B make peace.
UN or a third can negotiate

2.3.1 Surrender
- Definite surrendering, ending the game for loosing side
- Making peace by giving one or more cities/tech's or buying peace
- Making peace by giving shield and/or research points

We need more discussion on war, so please help me.

3. Interaction
There shall be several possible interactions between players. They can be working together on military, commercial and/or research. The possibilities depends on the relations between countries. Please read the posting by midlace.

3.1 Military interaction
3.1.1 Lending units

Player A can loan some units to B for some time.
Questions for discussion:
a) If A lends a unit with technology that B doesn't own, what happens?
b) How many units can be loaned and for how long?
c) If B uses units against C, is it considered as a declaration of war between A and C?
d) If B uses units against C, can C declare war on A with no penalties. (Penalties discussed later)

3.1.2 Using others ground
Players A and B can allow units to move in others territory.
Questions for discussion:
a) Will A:s units defend B:s cities automatically when C attacks? If yes, does it lead to war between A and C. Will C suffer from penalties by doing this?

3.1.3 Combining forces
Players can combine forces for a common goal

3.2 Commercial
There are to be several layers of commercial between countries.

- Embargo
No trade between players. (War means always embargo.)

- Protectionism
Limited trade

- Normal trade
Some limits exist

- Free trade
No limits between players

I like this idea. Embargo is embargo, but the rest I wonder?
So how shall this be?
- One needs a certain tech for normal trade and another for free.
- Between different economic systems there can only be some forms

3.3 Research
Same as previous, but I have one more idea.

3.3.1 A common goal
How about the possibility to combine forces for a common goal.
Ex. Player A has nuclear technology. Players B, who can begin the research on nuclear technology, asks C and D, who may or may not have the possibility to research nuclear tech now, to join him. Then B, C and D research is summoned together (maybe a small penalty is subtracted or there is a gain [< 1] for summoned research points) making research much faster and they all get that tech.
Questions for discussion:
- Shall this be possible?
- If player C is missing a tech in between, does he get it for free?
- Do C and D join at once or after they have finished there previous one?

4 Trade
Multiple trades.
I give tech A and 150 gold for tech B, etc.

5. Way of talking
Personnel responses according to nation and used government.

6 Domestic politics
Ok, this is important too.
One should be able to affect own people. (I have to ask for more suggestions here. You can give more money to luxury already, what more?)

7 Reputation
One is to have a reputation with all players. This could be used as the modifier for people's response when declaring war on somebody.

7.1 Atrocities (THX Ecce Homo)
Some kinds of acts should reduce a civ's reputation. As before, we have sneak attacks, diplomatic scandals and diplomatic betrayal (when you declare war against the Greeks because the English tell you to).
In a more complicated game, more acts should be declared Atrocities, for instance usage of ABC weapons, genocide or refusing to aid a minor civ in an emergency.
In the ancient age however, a feared leader was also a respected leader. Throughout history, the world has turned more critical to violent acts. So, concentration camps might not be an atrocity until the Geneva Convention Wonder, for instance.

7.2 Repairing reputation (THX Ecce Homo)
In contrary to Civ 2, reputation should heal through time, though slowly. Certain Wonders would also improve it. (Not the Eiffel Tower - Hitler wasn't more respected after the capture of Paris!)

(My idea) How about improving your reputation, by giving/lending units for UN, to be used in peacekeeping operations.

8 Size does matter don't it?
Well not in earlier games. A one-city nation declares war on you, when I have tens of cities. Argh!

9 Others
- Possibility to use a third party to make connection
- Possibility to buy a single country out. (In SMAC one can only buy all at once.)

If you read this, you made it!
Now it is your time to give me more response.

---------------------------------------------
Thread master for DIPLOMACY:
Jeje2

posted May 22, 1999 15:22                

7.1 ATROCITIES
Some kinds of acts should reduce a civ's reputation. As before, we have sneak attacks, diplomatic scandals and diplomatic betrayal (when you declare war against the Greeks because the English tell you to).

In a more complicated game, more acts should be declared Atrocities, for instance usage of ABC weapons, genocide or refusing to aid a minor civ in an emergency.

In the ancient age however, a feared leader was also a respected leader. Throughout history, the world has turned more critical to violent acts. So, concentration camps might not be an atrocity until the Geneva Convention Wonder, for instance.

7.2 REPAIRING REPUTATION
In contrary to Civ 2, reputation should heal through time, though slowly. Certain Wonders would also improve it. (Not the Eiffel Tower - Hitler wasn't more respected after the capture of Paris!)

posted May 22, 1999 20:00                

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

posted May 22, 1999 20:49                

Wonder? Why not? But I don't like the idea of a physical structure in a city for either. If the UN HQ were destroyed, would the UN cease to exist? No.. they'd just build a new HQ.

posted May 23, 1999 13:30             

Veto
I think this should depend on how many civs there are, because if there are 30 then it would be a lot harder to get a vote to override a veto, but if there are only 7 then it would be easier since there are less countries to bride.

Other
I don't think you would have to buy a country out, but that two smaller countries can merge if they face a common enemy who will kill them both if they don't or if they have had a longstanding pact.

posted May 23, 1999 15:23                

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Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

posted May 24, 1999 12:45                

------------------
Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

posted May 25, 1999 11:31             

cease-fire
Peace Treaty
Alliance

Now, where does, Pact, Unity and UN fit in this? May I propose:

posted May 26, 1999 08:54                

If you have a city improvement like internet-backbone, that scaled according to the number of cities connected(like +10% research per city connected), but by default only was connected to your own cities. There could be a diplomatic option to link two nations nets together, this would be much more concrete than just a research treaty, but do exactly the same(And make research treaties obsolete). The Internet would then just be a number of countries nets interconnected, which coincidently is what it is in the real world.

posted May 26, 1999 10:13                

Obviously, we can't force the human player into making decisions.

posted May 29, 1999 11:26                

I sometimes change my style of play. I may start a game as a millitaristic leader, but settle down into a peaceful state if I am having good relations with my neighbors.

posted May 31, 1999 22:38                

Here are my opinions for diplomacy:

Protectorate: A status that could be forced upon another civilization after a war, or through peacful negotations. Under this agreement the other civilization remains independant, but gives the stronger nation aprt of it's gold, and any technologies it discovers hat the other has not. Forthermroe the main nation ould demand vertian forgien policies of the protectorate, such as to declare war, make peace, and many other things. Likewise they must ask permission to go to war and to carry on foreign relations. For the larger nation they would need to go to war to protect the protectorate if it was threatened, or suffer MAJOR diplomatic penalities. A protectorate is NOT a permenant thing, and they could decide to becoem the protectorate of another nation should they not be happy, or they could be bartered off to another nation as part of a peace treaty. Your civilization could become a protectorate for a time as well, and break out of it later.

Pact: More or less what everyone else has been saying. An allaince of 3 or more nations which would act together. If one nation is decalred war one, war would be declared by all other nations. Other things would come up to a vote. Also asking for aid from a pact member would be much better recieved than askign for aid from a non-member. However, you MIGHT be drug into a needless war, or forced to givem oeny to a cause you don't agree in. Still the advantages would be great

Alliance:same as in Civ2, more or less

Peace treat:same as in Civ2. NOt a temporary thing

Partition: this would be a temporary alliance. Two or mroe parties would pick another nation, and decalre war on them. They would then draw out boarders for after the partrition ash taken place. When goals have been completed these boarders come into affect. If you have taken a city to help an ally, but you did not agree to that city, it is given to the nation it belonged to in the agreement. There would, most likely, be a set time to accomplish your goals.

Reinstatment: This happens when a civilization, for one reason or another, recreated an old nation, or created a new one out of cities. For instance, if The Zulus have destroyed the French Civilization, but you, the Celts, have had an allaince with the French, you could declare war on the Zulu, and, when it is over with, create a new French nation. Or, you could create a new nation inside your own boarders if there as been a good deal of rebellion, and clammering there. This would also allow for the creation of buffer states inbetween Empires, which is always a good thing.

land trade: This would be the agreement to sell cities, or territory, to another civilization. If you have four cities on a continent with 2 larger Empires, and are unable to defend them well as you are in a major war with a power on your main continent, you might choose to sell these lands to one of those other nations for a price. Likewise they could sell territories to you for a price.

Colonies: I'm not sure if this would really fit here, but I still believe that you should have the option to build colonies. These colonies would produce more money, but would ahve a greater chance of rebellion. If they rebell there is a chance they will form their own nation and bring other colonies with them. If you conquer another civilization you can opt to make it a colony, and not a full fledged part of the Empire. You could, at a later date, grant these colonies freedom, for a nice reputation boost, or ,for a price, make thme part of the Empire.

posted June 03, 1999 14:48             

Cartagia the Great - I like your ideas, but why should there be a diplomatic cost if I declare independance? Maybe that cost would depend on how each civ views the civ I just declared independance from?

posted June 04, 1999 11:22                

I can't remember if CivII let you transfer control of cities, but I know that SMAC could.

Consider the following situation. The canadians are in a pact (Allies) with the dutch during WWII. At the end of the war, they march in and liberate holland. Super, right? No.. instead they say "Sorry folks.. you're our newest province now. Do as we say!" Think the dutch would have liked that?

However, in Civ and SMAC, freeing a city/colony of an ally makes it yours, forever, with no repercussions. I think that if you liberate the city of an ally, they should immediately contact you and ask to have it back. Refusing to do so would not be an atrocity, but would do nothing good for relations. If the situation is very grim, they might ask you to look after it for x turns (about 5 at most, I'd think), the ask for it back again.

This could create wars for diplomatic reasons, and not just for conquest. In Civ, even the "good guys" are conquerers, no matter who wins the war.

posted June 08, 1999 11:35                

One major point from the Neuremberg trials was that initiating a war of agression is not only a war crime, but the worst possible crime. In Civ, however, it is not only acceptable, but encouraged!

Could this be implemented, as a treaty, perhaps? Suddenly, if passed, starting a war without reasons (I don't know what reasons could be.. diplomatic, certainly) would become an atrocity. Could dramatically change the end game. If you're the warmonger type, you'd want to do all you could to stop this from getting passed.

Speaking of this, what would be a valid diplomatic reason the start a war? Spying, probably. WWI was triggered (not started by.. it would have started eventually regardless, most likely) by an assasination.. could we have random diplomatic events?

posted June 08, 1999 21:26                

Well, I believe that sneak attacks should be allowed early in the game. Back during the time of the Roman EM
mpire, sneak attacks were looked down upon, could lower your reputation, but were seen as a good stratigic option as well. LAter in the game over, the Genevea Convention outlawed sneak attacks along with war against civilians and secret alliances. This brings in a few ideas:

First of all, perhapse there should be a Genevea Convention type situation in the game where laws are passed to regualte war fare. Until then certain things would be allowed, but afterwards, doing them would be a MAJOR case of dipolmatic lese majesty.

Also when you sign an allaince you should have the option, for a certian amount of money, to keep the alliance secret. this price would be justified by the amount of resources you have to divert to keep this alliance secret from all. the bennifits would be that diplomacy would be carried on as if no one knew of it, and the alliance did not exist. This might allow you to goad people into wars, and have yo ally crush them, or other sneaky manuvers. However an enemy spy could disocver this allaince and make it public knoledge. In doing so it would waste the moeny you spent , as well as give you a diplomatic penalty with the other nations.

Likewise attacking refugees(units that would pop up along with partisans) would be accepted early in the game, as well as settlers, but would be make illegal later in the game, for a major diplomatic penalty. If my other idea of having ethniticity play a part in the game, any hampering with hem, alter in the game, would be a dipomatic no-no as well

i also like the idea of pirating. In Civ:CTP pirating is allowed, but actually gaisn you nothing in return ,except cutting supplies for other nations. I must prefer the way that Colonization dealt with the situation, and you gaiend money from the venture, as well as hurt your enemy. I believe that a similiar thing must be used in this game. Piraty would, eventually, be outlawed later in the game, but would be a pwoerful force for a long time. After all, who doens't want to paly the pirating civilziation

posted June 10, 1999 21:08                

Since I'm in South Korea, and love the topic, I'll just interject:

A few years ago, a North Korean commando team infiltrated the South on their way to the Blue House (the South's White House). Before they were all eventually killed, the North Korean commandos managed to kill 33 South Koreans. North Korea also blew up a South Korean airliner in 1987/88 (?) killing some 130 innocent people, mainly men returning home to their families from doing construction work in the Middle East. On another occasion, the North ignited a bomb that killed most of South Korea's key government officials in the early 70's (o.k, not recent, but still). They did this in an attempt to kill President Park, but he arrived late. And as of like three months ago, the North drove one of their spy submarines right along the South's coast until they were hunted down--at which point they killed themselves inside the boat, only to see the North Korean government call it an evil trick to make them look bad.

Probably the closest all this came to another war was in the early 80's (sorry if my dates are a bit off) when North Korea soldiers along the DMZ killed two U.S. soldiers because they were ordering the trimming of a tree! They killed them with axes. Thus, Operations Paul Bunyan began, which saw aircraft carriers, Stealth Bombers flying overhead, the entire armed forces in Korea put on War alert, and so forth. The U.S. was ABSOLUTELY prepared to go to war that day if the North attacked even one of their team. Thank God nothing happened.

Behind all this, of course, is the constant worry that North Korea is building nuclear weapons--which in 1993 one of their lead 'diplomats' said could fill Seoul with a 'sea of fire.' I could go on and on. Infiltration tunnels, all the propaganda (on both sides), the famines and lack of Commnist funding that is pushing the North into a corner, etc.

Clinton once called North/South Korea, in particular the DMZ, 'the scariest place on the Earth.' While not true (I've visited the DMZ twice, and it's eerily peaceful, full of rare species of fish and birds and over 1,000,000 landmines), it most certainly would be true if one of these infinite 'little' incidents finally activiates the tripwire of war.

So, MUCH has happened, but thanks to good diplomacy , WW3 has thus far been avoided.