{The List} - Diplomacy

[Brent]

I'd like my advisor to tell me how generous my offer is. I'd also like my advisor to make suggestions of his own, I could ask for a generous suggestion or otherwise.

[Trifna]

wrylachlan: This is exactly what I proposed, as the quote in your own message says

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
An incentive hmm.... increased trade benefits between the two nations?

You mean like a SMAC-pact ?

[ThePlagueRat]

Paradox inspired diplomacy/trade system:

* I would like to see a system where you could offer to trade resources in specific amounts per turn, and in most cases your offer would be accepted, but the profit you would gain or price you would pay would depend on the relations between the two countries as well as the supply/demand factor. (and perhaps other factors)

* There should be no tech-whoring, but you should be able to trade a chosen amount of research points (RP) so if you are behind, you can eventually catch up if you got a lot of desirable goods and you are nice to people. The reason for this is that tech-whoring makes up an unrealistic and sometimes unbalanced game...

Example:
If the diplo-AI wanna build lotsa destroyers it needs to stockpile some oil, and build a refinery stucture and shipyard. If the friendly diplo-AI is in a naval-oriented mode and in lack of destroyers and oil for some war they wage, their demands for oil would increase on certain scale. Luckily, you have a plenty of oil. They have done more research than you, and they can trade away RP in which they will lose only a percentage of their own research output. You would gain a good amount of RP since they you have good relations, they are in a high demand situation and you choose to trade away quite much oil. So you would in practice get one free tech for the deal...

Of course, then the oil-site would have a specific turn output, that would be stockpiled, used, or sold as you wish. - As it is in Victoria, but they use a common world market separated from the diplomacy section... A game which is as I said, a good inspiration for those who want to create a diplomacy system.

[Fosse]

Well, I really squirm when you talk about trading away research points. I agree that the current tech trades are a bit off (in no small part due to what many of the techs are), but what you suggest sounds sort of bizarre.

It would be like America selling information on advanced weapons to Britian, and forgetting to photocopy the documents before hand. Why would me telling you something make me forget it?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Speaking of advisor...I'd like it if he didn't know everything. If there was a gray area between "They'll accept it!" and "They won't!". I hate it how in most games your told before you even propose whether the AI will accept it or not...For example:



Perhaps it should be a little more random, so that there isn't a border between "They'll accept/They won't accept" but more of a grey area where you MIGHT get a good deal....but is it worth risking relations?

Can you say "annoying as hell"?

What I'd like is a SLIDER for gold and gpt and for the AI to be honest about what it will take. Right now it's just completely POINTLESS MM.

[TechWins]

I updated the list with what I think is nearly all of the ideas posted. It's not completed, yet, but it's better than nothing being there like before.

I'm not going to include any United Nations ideas since there is a whole new list for that in itself.

[polypheus]

Occupied Territory

I do agree with the occupied territory concept also. One reason of course is to improve the bug in MPP. You lose a city to an invader. Then you retake your lost city which activates any MPPs the invader has. This is not how MPPs should work.

But another reason to have this is to prevent the annoying thing where an ALLY conquers a city that you lost to an invader. I've had this happen to me before and it is very annoying. (I've taken advantage of this too but still its stupid). You could of course declare war on your ALLY to recover the city but an occupied status would remedy this situation.

In this case an ALLY could either temporarily occupy the city until peace treaty to determine final recognized status or it could be hard-coded so that any ally that occupies your city that it be turned over to the recognized owner immediately because your ALLY merely liiberated the lands for you.

Another thing is that occupied status allows even fully dead Civs to be sor t still alive underneath the surface. A dead Civ would flee abroad to an ALLY and the territory would be considered occupied despite it being totally taken over. Such occupied territories could be the source of rebellions and even revival.

[ThePlagueRat]

I think polypheus suggestion here is quite similar to Victoria and some other paradox games. And it works just fine! You can claim the occupied provinces in peace deals to get ownership, and there is a % showing your chance of getting what you claim relative to your success in the war.

If you want to totally crush them, you would get ownership under certain conditions if you try to annex them. Then an annex button will be activated when a country is totally occupied, or you can make it a puppet if you have the capital and some other provinces. That's how it works there... total conquest is not easy.

Such a neat system could be used for the cities in Civ4.
So a "lost" civ would not be lost until you or the ally annex it, whomever has taken the capital. Until then, the "lost" civ could make trouble in form of partisans and other annoying stuff...

[polypheus]

Another thing to realize is that this occupation stuff could allow your game to continue on even if every single one of your cities is occupied. You could have the option of continuing (just like the AI) to survive in exile and stage a comeback later. You could be hosted by an ALLY and perhaps have control of rebel units or perhaps setup some kind of alliance to liberate your lands on your behalf.

[ThePlagueRat]

Yes, that might be possible, but as soon as you are annexed after a treaty by the other civs, the allies were incapable of liberating you. Thus, the game is over.

[polypheus]

Well you could do two things. You could make annexation not automatic but contingent on world opinion after, say, the tech "Nationalism" or such. If you had enough allies to veto the annexation, then it stays in the occupied status. This is what happened with the Baltic States when USSR occupied them. Many Western nations refuse to recognize them as legally annexed nor did the UN recognize it as such and they remained

Another is to simply make it so that it is possible to liberate you regardless of annexation.

[ThePlagueRat]

Well, I didn't really get the implication your second alternative. Who would do the liberation and what would happen until then?

Anyway, if the entire civ is occupied, you should gain the benefit of a submissive puppet civ, if you grant them independence!
Thus, information about the original owner should be kept by variables in each city, so that they can cause trouble to the occupier at least until they are made a puppet, or formally become a part of the occupying nation. That could be anything from emigation into other civs, to rebellion gatherings in areas around. The culture flipping thing from Civ3 was just plain stupid, so they should make it right this time!

[CiverDan]

A "Real" UN. This is another area where GalCiv is much better than Civ3. Implement it a bit differently though. Treaties are proposed every so often, those that do not sign on get a rep hit, but dont have to abide by the rule America in the past couple of years in a good example of this.

Make unilaterally attacking another civ in late industrial times or later more damaging to your reputation than in earlier times. As opposed to 150 years ago, attacking another country to gain land in the current day is much less acceptable.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Whats the point of even "barganing" if theres a line of where on one side the AI has a 100% chance of accepting and on the other side it drops to 0.

That's why I asked for the AI to be honest - not to give me something inflated when I ask what it'll take.