Ideas for Changes to the Diplo Style

[The Priest]

Some of the greatest words in the English language.

Written by me! See I'm a genius. Can you write a letter to my mum telling her?

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

Im not a big fan of limiting unit gifting. Why shouldnt a Nation with advanced tech but low production, and nation with High commerce but backwards tech and a nation with high production but low tech be able to cooperate to arm themselves well? The game allows unit gifting, its part of the game, so I need a pretty good reason to ban or limit it.

If the reason is anything like "to stop civs from becoming too powerful" or "to make things easier on the weaker civs" then I'm not a fan of it. As I said before and I will paraphrase Ozzy again, "Good Players rise Poor Players fall" we dont need any extra rules that are designed to prevent this from happening because its just not going to work. NO MATTER WHAT rules we adopt, the better players are going to dominate. So why add rules to try and prevent this?

I will also repeat that we should avoid like the plague, rules that are designed to make human players behave more like the AI. The AI never gifts units, true, but the AI is stupid. Gifting units and cities are one of the most innovative, tactics humans use. People just call it an exploit because the AI doesnt do it so they arent as prepared for it. The AI sucks, humans are awesome, let humans be humans and innovate, and continue to surprise us.

[The Priest]

@Ottoman

I guess most agree with you.

My reason for wanting to limit unit gifting is only because so often it is secret unit gifting.

This wouldn't matter if we were just playing as a straight-forward dog-eat-dog MP. But when people do care about weaker/stronger nations and appropriateness of wars, this can be massively distorting. If people would think it bad and do somethign about it if I invade my smaller neighbour, all I do is gift my army to my weak ally and the invade. Everyone things it is ok - two weak nation fighting it out - but in fact that is not true. Its my army squashing a weak neighbour. I think it is important the people know that that is what is going on. Whether they do anything about it, is a different matter, but it shoudln't be secret. (and lets me honest in real life it could never be secret either!)

So I think we need to stop secret substantial/significant unit gifting. Then back to my argument earlier, that its almost impossible without creatiing all sorts of complicated rules to just stop secret substantial/significant so easier to just stop it all.

Like me wanting to play on quick/normal I'm probably never going to win this one, but that is what lies behind my point.

[Russia (DoE)]

Yeah, the unit gifting must not be limited and most of all - it CANT be limited. How the hell you will know if someone is doing it? And what "punishment" there will be for someone caught of doing it? Why would we limit our possibilities? Then we should ban gifting money, then ban gifting Great Peoples and so on.. But why would we do that? It is perfectly natural. So diplo as only few other things can be.

The AI sucks, humans are awesome, let humans be humans and innovate, and continue to surprise us.

Yeah! People are people! Dont take away their flexibility.

[OzzyKP]

If the reason is anything like "to stop civs from becoming too powerful" or "to make things easier on the weaker civs" then I'm not a fan of it. As I said before and I will paraphrase Ozzy again, "Good Players rise Poor Players fall" we dont need any extra rules that are designed to prevent this from happening because its just not going to work. NO MATTER WHAT rules we adopt, the better players are going to dominate. So why add rules to try and prevent this?

My point at least is not to stop good players from rising or poor players from falling, but to prevent the staticness of it. What I think most people here don't like, myself included, is that one player starts off on top and remains on top till the end of the game. Another starts off at the bottom and remains there till the end of the game. Now this is largely natural and a result of differing skill levels, so I'm not trying to blame anyone for this situation, it is entirely natural. But while it may be natural, it is less fun. And that is the point of this game, to have fun.

If we play a game where the focus is entirely on being the biggest and the most powerful, then inevitably one person (the one on top) will have fun and the rest won't. There will be whining, and accusations of cheating, and quitting, and all sorts of issues.

The point of this whole diplogaming endeavor is to find fun in this game besides dominating all our foes. That is what regular MP is for. Our goal is to find a way for everyone to have fun and enjoy the game, whether they are on top or not. The success of our craft depends on how well we achieve that outcome. My suggestions are always to try and move us in that direction more through natural changes instead of artificial and hard to enforce rules. The diplo voting, the no score mod, the tiers in this game, etc. I think requiring people to switch civs every so often will achieve this goal without needing artificial rules.

For example. One reason we are all so comfortable with gifting armies is that after playing a game for several months we grow comfortable in our alliances and grow to trust our allies. We may be more cautious about significant deals like that if we could switch places with another civ at any time. Perhaps the ally we gave half our army to gets replaced with an enemy. Now what? But instead of being an artificial rule, it instead gives us interesting choices to make. Different factors to consider. And that's fun! Which is the point of these games.

Flexibility is fun. Unpredictability is fun. Change is fun.

[Inca (DoE)]

@ Inca- I think when you say the ships moved too fast "because I can't adequately defend my coast" I think you are missing the point. That's the idea. you arent supposed to be focused on defending your coast to protect you precious score. You are supposed to be focused on writing great diplo stories about what is going on in the game. Worrying about handicapping the game in a way that its easier to protect your coast shows focus on MP-style winning, not Diplo-style winning, dont you agree

Oh, says the guy with no coasts, sure

And you could just focus on stories instead of invading half the world on a whim, too...

You see, I don't agree with this. People must LEARN to play the game. If you didn't realize that the first DoW exhausts the DP, well... now you know. You LEARNED how to play, and you are a more skilled player now because of it. I seem to remember an older version of Civ that allowed you to target a specific nation, like "Germany makes Defensive pact with Vikings AGAINST Turkey. So if Russia attack Germany, the pact wouldnt activate, only if Turkey attacks, but that is not how it works in Civ 4. So that's another part of the problem, and it goes back to Ozzys comments about skill level. It's silly to try to make rules to account for people's lack of skill. All the rules in the world are not going to save them from being dominated. They just need to pick a Superpower to protect them and they will be fine.

Personally, I was well aware of those rules before the Turks clued me in via PM. I don't know why, I thought it was common knowledge. But the point is that it's fully realistic for nations to sign DPs and the game mechanics don't allow for such DPs to exist (nor for more special case ones). I don't see why we can't have DPs in the game, but we need to do it outside of game mechanics. I am for exploiting little game things like that if you can in a typical MP game, of course, but that's not the point of diplo, and there's no reason to not have DPs.

[Inca (DoE)]

The diplo mod we're using ni G&H allows only for workers/siege trading via diplo screen. That might be a good rule: only siege/workers can be traded. Makes sense, as whole divisions of soldiers aren't going to be traded often IRL (especially not multiple divisions). You can still outfit someone else's army with new guns (upgrading), but sending them actual armies isn't realistic perhaps. Sending them just the siege equipment is better, and trading workers, well, why not?

I think that would make a good compromise: only siege can be sold, and all upgrades must be marked as such ("Macemen (Inca maces)").

[Producing nations can still build research/gold, and although it's not as good as straight teching with libraries, etc, it's not terrible either. No-production nations will need to, I don't know, work the diplomacy a lot harder to keep from getting slaughtered, which is also realistic.]

[Calanthian]

The diplo mod we're using in G&H allows only for workers/siege trading via diplo screen.

Actually I am not sure IF the game host (Donald23) marked that option at game start..

[Inca (DoE)]

eh, not the biggest loss I guess. Still, it's a good idea (and the AI doesn't use it very well in SP, so it's best disabled there).

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

@ Inca- C'Mon. All of my cities except two are Coastal. In fact, I daresay I have MORE coastal cities, less non-coastal cities, and overall a WAAAAAY more exposed and vunerable empire than you do, so gimme a break I'm vunerable from land sea and air. You only have the sea to worry about.

As for tweaks how about
1. No score Mod
2. Turn off Razing
3. A simple rule of No capturing cities from Nations with X (probably 4-8) cities or less.

I think that would solve most of the problems of despairing and quitting.

[Inca (DoE)]

Your coastal cities don't count as they're surrounded totally by coast tiles, not infinite ocean tiles. Huge difference.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

Your coastal cities don't count as they're surrounded totally by coast tiles, not infinite ocean tiles. Huge difference.

OK I agree there is a difference. I disagree that the fact that I have 3 types of vunerability in all my ciities while you only have 1 type of vunerability doesnt count.

[The Priest]

To carry on the conversation:

1. On unit gifting I missed out the other main point. As well as the secretness twistiing out assessment of the reasonability and approrpriate response to wars, the other point - more in keeping with where this thread started - is as Ozzy hinted at. Unit gifting makes alliances stick together - it gives a massive premium on dependable alliances of the sort which neve happen in rl over thousands of years and which stultify the game, and many people would feel bad about attaching a neighbour with soliders they gifted you, so the alliances become more permanent still. Stoping unit gifting woudl be one component of the more free and flexible game some of us like the sound of. Others don't - not a problem, but if we really want to challenge hte existance of almost permanent big blocks, as this thread was about - I think it would be a key element.

2. @Ottoman I don't think you can say 'you can't take cities off someone with 4-8. Two reasons. First it allows people to do silly chokes if they know you can't attack them. Unprotected fourth city put down right on your border miles from their land, with the governor sticking out his tongue at you saying 'na na you can't capture me'. Second, if you are a small country your own real way of getting bigger is by hitting other small countries. We want to allow that. We want a system where larger states keep out when small countries fight since that is a key way for small countries to grow and to enjoy. So I agree with the sentiment but I don't think a simple rule like that can work.

[Russia (DoE)]

I don't think you can say 'you can't take cities off someone with 4-8. Two reasons. First it allows people to do silly chokes if they know you can't attack them.

Yeah, that is exactly what happened with France and Venetii in the beginning of DoE - France put it with the clear knowledge that half the cities cant be taken.

[Inca (DoE)]

Ottomans, I'm being slightly facetious or something like that. I wouldn't trade positions willingly

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

Ottomans, I'm being slightly facetious or something like that. I wouldn't trade positions willingly

I know. No worries In fact I was getting ready to shoot this gag back at you...

And you could just focus on stories instead of invading half the world on a whim, too...

Oh, says the guy who started with a whole continent all to himself

[Inca (DoE)]

Eh, there were barbs...

[St Jon]

I personally see no problems in Unit Gifting, more accurately selling, as it is part of the way the 'real' World works. I certainly believe that temporary unit gifting for upgrade purposes is not only realistic but beneficial to both the parties involved and the game as a whole. You don't want to see your weaker ally out-gunned as well as out-numbered and the best you can do to help them is by evening the odds a bit.

@Ottoman. I have to agree with Priest here on the 'they're too weak to take a City off' theory. Your neighbour may only have 5-6 Cities but they can still be a real and continuous threat. To give a relatively weak power carte blanche to act as they choose because the rules say they are too small to be hit is rather silly. If they can be a perpetual nuisance to you then I see nothing wrong or against the Diplo ethos to stop you reducing them from 6 Cities to 5 with the very real, and legitimate, message given that 5 will become 4 unless they cease and desist aggressive and antagonistic actions against you. Diplo ethics and the ideals of 'measured' war cannot surely be taken as meaning that a small Civ can engage in any form of action they choose without fear of retribution?

[Inca (DoE)]

I don't know. How many countries have sold actual soldiers to others in large amounts? Arms, yes, but that's what upgrading is for!