The revised Diplomacy Model

[vovan]

Originally posted by Simon Loverix
When you create a state, you also get to decide on what treaties will exist between that state and you. That way you can impose favorable tariffs and so on.

That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by vovansim
That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

Well the problem is, most states were borne not by spontaniously saying "okay, you can rule yourself now!", they were generally through wars or slow, gradual process of release of autonomy. There are cases where that did happen (Isreal FE), but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Lord God Jinnai
Well the problem is, most states were borne not by spontaniously saying "okay, you can rule yourself now!", they were generally through wars or slow, gradual process of release of autonomy. There are cases where that did happen (Isreal FE), but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

That is very true, also. I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work in the first place, so I might be missing some of the original ideas for this feature. Maybe Mark could contribute to this conversation?

[LDiCesare]

I think Simon's idea is very good.
Israel is an example, but I think you could say Australia and Canada are examples too. Whatever revolution happened there if any (I don't know enough history) could be considered as internal struggles, and the Crown decided to let them become inependant states but they would remain in the Commonwealth, so they would still have commercial ties.

I think in the game, you would create these new civs when they are about to revolt and throw you anyway but you want to save as much as you can. That is basically what the British Empire did with its colonies: Seeing that the U.S.A. had severed all ties, they understood they couldn't keep their colonies as they used to be, but had to let them become independant. Creating the Commonwealth provided them some gains and a more favourable attitude from the ex-colonies.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by vovansim

Originally posted by Simon Loverix
When you create a state, you also get to decide on what treaties will exist between that state and you. That way you can impose favorable tariffs and so on.

That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

This certainly sounds like the way to go to me. Just to make a distinction. . . You control the specifics of that state AT Inception. After that the standard AI behavior takes over.

If you take a people that utterly hate you and have some chance of surviving while defying you, and you make them an independent vassal state via treaties at the start, they will likely quickly change that position. They will use whatever means possible including diplomatic means with other civs, stratighforward abrogation of the treaty, and any other means that seems likely to succeed.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I think Simon's idea is very good.
Israel is an example, but I think you could say Australia and Canada are examples too. Whatever revolution happened there if any (I don't know enough history) could be considered as internal struggles, and the Crown decided to let them become inependant states but they would remain in the Commonwealth, so they would still have commercial ties.

I can't say about Australia, but i know Canada wasn't concieved like that. Canada's release was gradual, up until after the end of WW2 in which the British Empire dissolved itself entirely and became the commonwelth.

At first Canada was given control over local province control, then control over all interal affairs, then allowed to make its own treaties, the given dominion status, then finally freed as a seperate country, but allowed to join and leave the British commonwealth freely.

While I think treaties might do for some things, controlling there military directly, which the British Empire was able to do under dominion status, would be beyond treaty aspect because, lets face it, as smart as we make the AI, it can't read your mind.

[LDiCesare]

LGJ, in my opinion, the process you describe for Canada is too detailed to be included in the game. I would simply model it as providing the Canada province whatever freedoms they need to be happy with my civ and then making a nerw civ out of them after WW2. The loss of most colonies happened relatively peacefully, but the new civs were created by the ex-colonisalists. Look at a map of Africa for example.

[vovan]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
LGJ, in my opinion, the process you describe for Canada is too detailed to be included in the game.

That is exactly the reason why I was opposed to the idea of classifying the newly created civs programmatically. But I think that with treaties and with the new civs basically operating as any normal AI civ would, you can pretty much achieve the level of realism as you described, LDiCesare.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Vovan:

To try and get some more eyeballs (and hopefully brains ) on this discussion I've added a Diplomacy Model plug to the bottom of my sig (see below). I hope it can get us a little more attention!

[vovan]

Good. Maybe more people will participate now.

[Mark_Everson]

You might want to do the same thing with your sig Vovan. You get around some places on the forum that I don't go! And we can sure use more comments!

[vovan]

Done, Mark.

Also, as a note of interest: I have added a bunch of suggestions and clarifications to the document, that have been waiting for a while now. See the Log of Changes for more info.

[vovan]

Just wanted to point out that for the convenience of the newcomers to Clash, a new section has replaced the original foreword. The Summary presents all the concepts of the diplomatic model in a distilled fashion, so that the people do not have to read through the whole thing in order to know what's going on.

[moomin]

Re: The revised Diplomacy Model

OK, guys, you invited comments on having read the abstract only, so you know whom to blame for points being raised that are adequately covered somewhere else, right?

That said, here are some random thoughts:

Originally posted by vovansim
Summary