{The List} United Nations

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
First, in an alliance (lets go back to NATO), if troops from a NATO member conquer a city that was taken from a NATO member in a war after (or during) the creation of NATO, it is immediately returned to the original owner. Second, a civ would be able to withdraw its troops from the alliance (just as it can donate them) so at least it wouldn't LOSE anything.

are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position?

You can choose to withdraw from either alliance (or both).

I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops?

[Kuciwalker]

are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position?

No, alliances aren't just defensive. If a city isn't "reconquered" but rather just "conquered" then it goes into alliance trust. It, like the alliance troops, is managed by the leader of the alliance. However, money from those cities goes into the alliance treasury and can only be used to rushbuy in alliance cities (and only money from the alliance treasury can be used for this, though civs can donate money or gpt to the alliance treasury). I don't think any of the trade in those cities goes to science, but rather to just taxes and luxuries. Units built in those cities are owned by the alliance and supported by the alliance treasury (though they remember what city they were built in, for reasons I'll get to in a moment). No wonders or small wonders can be built in these cities. All of this stuff happens on a seperate turn from the leader's turn - the leader plays out a turn for the alliance and a turn for its own civ.

One of two things can happen to these cities in trusteeship - either they can be distributed amongst the members of the alliance, or they can be used to form a new nation. Remember how a city maintains how much culture of each civ it has? Well, when you create the nation, you choose a "parent civ" (the choice may be limited somehow, and if you choose as a parent civ a civ other than the one with the most citizens in that city, you'll have problems), and the cities get the culture they have of that civ. The civ also gets its own name (like "West Germany" instead of "Germany") and the alliance gets to choose the form of government. They also get to decide whether or not the new civ is part of the alliance. Any units built in those cities are returned to their home city and given to the new civ. The new civ has at a minimum the technology that each of the other alliance members has (though not tech that only some of them have). Oh, and possibly any more cities conquered from the parent civ automatically join the new one (but only maybe).

Oh, I forget to mention, you can set up more than one civ with the same parent civ ("East Germany" and "West Germany").

I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops?

They're automatically withdrawn from the alliance. And no, there wouldn't be a penalty in a situation like that (or a small one).

[POTUS]

I like that idea.

[Paddy]

Thanks Skywalker, that makes sense.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position?

No, alliances aren't just defensive. If a city isn't "reconquered" but rather just "conquered" then it goes into alliance trust. It, like the alliance troops, is managed by the leader of the alliance. However, money from those cities goes into the alliance treasury and can only be used to rushbuy in alliance cities (and only money from the alliance treasury can be used for this, though civs can donate money or gpt to the alliance treasury). I don't think any of the trade in those cities goes to science, but rather to just taxes and luxuries. Units built in those cities are owned by the alliance and supported by the alliance treasury (though they remember what city they were built in, for reasons I'll get to in a moment). No wonders or small wonders can be built in these cities. All of this stuff happens on a seperate turn from the leader's turn - the leader plays out a turn for the alliance and a turn for its own civ.

Alright, this illustrates the problem I'm talking about:
Say this is a totally linear world for simplicity. There are in a row Civs A,B,C,D,E. BCD are in an alliance which D controls. A and E are in an alliance. A is the stronger of the two. If I'm playing D, I'd be tempted to use the alliance troops to attack E, the weaker civ, and allow A to rampage across civ B. Then after E is out of the way I turn around and help recapture B's cities. End result - B looses a ton of its sovereign troops and a lot of turns of production. E is wiped out. A looses a bunch of troops, and depending on how far it overextended itself some of its cities. The clear winner in that situation is A because it had control of the alliance troops.

Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops?

They're automatically withdrawn from the alliance. And no, there wouldn't be a penalty in a situation like that (or a small one).

Withdrawn from the alliance and teleported home, or withdrawn from the alliance and stranded behind what are now essentially enemy lines?

And I'm not sure how you could not get a rep hit for pulling out of an alliance on the eve of war.

[Trifna]

I think that Galactic Civilization's "United Planets". Maybe another place to look at would be Pax Romana (http://forum.antikgames.com/pax-romana/DiplomacyUk.htm), even if it seems it got some bad review at GameSpy.

[Kuciwalker]

Alright, this illustrates the problem I'm talking about :
Say this is a totally linear world for simplicity. There are in a row Civs A,B,C,D,E. BCD are in an alliance which D controls. A and E are in an alliance. A is the stronger of the two. If I'm playing D, I'd be tempted to use the alliance troops to attack E, the weaker civ, and allow A to rampage across civ B. Then after E is out of the way I turn around and help recapture B's cities. End result - B looses a ton of its sovereign troops and a lot of turns of production. E is wiped out. A looses a bunch of troops, and depending on how far it overextended itself some of its cities. The clear winner in that situation is A because it had control of the alliance troops.

Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

B loses nothing if it decides to simply withdraw its troops. It is in no worse a position than before the alliance.

Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

The AI would be too stupid to understand the intricacies of the goals. At least give the player a chance here.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
The AI would be too stupid to understand the intricacies of the goals. At least give the player a chance here.

If you think the AI is too stupid to understand the goals, what makes you think a civ AI would be able to understand when its units were being used against it by the player who controls the alliance? In the example above B could withdraw its troops. But that would be dependant upon the Civ AI realizing the trap it was being led into in time to do something about it. I think the chance of a civ AI understanding that is much lower than an alliance AI being able to execute certain basic goals.

[Kuciwalker]

It would withdraw its troops if it needed them, whether or not they were being used "correctly".

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
It would withdraw its troops if it needed them, whether or not they were being used "correctly".

No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch.

The only way to get around this would be to have the civ AI understand when its troops are being used in a way which is not in its best interest, which would allow it to pull troops out of the alliance BEFORE it got too late. My point is that I think coding the civ AI to understand the dynamics of that type of situation is an order of magnitude harder than implementing an alliance AI.

Let me ask you to play devil's advocate with yourself. I'd be willing to bet you could think of a ton of different situations in which you could screw over your allie's AI with a player controlled alliance.

[Kuciwalker]

No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch.

I think I forgot to mention it, or you missed it - the units are automatically transport back to the capital, or the nearest city.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch.

I think I forgot to mention it, or you missed it - the units are automatically transport back to the capital, or the nearest city.

Which could still be a problem if the capital or nearest city is not near the front. Additionally you create an MP problem where two human's in an alliance could massively abuse the teleport.

[OliverFA]

UN must be something in the terms of MOO3 and GalCiv. But the civs must be free to (ask for) entering the UN whenever they want and also leave when they feel it doesn´t serve their interests.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, this is how I'd like to see the UN work:

1) Have a Security Council and General Assembly.

2) Entry to Security Council has same criteria as in Civ3! Entry to General Assembly is by invitation from Security Council Members.

3) Only Security Council Members have voting rights-except in the case of ties-in which case ALL members vote!

4) Aside from voting rights, only Security Council members may invite or expel General Assembly members (with the support of a voting majority, of course)!

5) UN membership boosts your international Reputation, as well as allowing you the ability to 'Petition' the UN.

6) A petition can include asking for War Declarations, Embargoes, Peace enforcement (and peace-keeping), resource/unit bans, and multilateral treaties-to name a few.

7) After you have petitioned the UN, but before a vote, you can go to each council member and offer what you think it will take to get a positive vote! Once a vote is taken, the result is final until you next make a petition-which must wait a turn!

8) The 'owner' of the UN gets a veto power, and also recieves a portion of each members GDP-which would be used for both maintaining the building and any operational peacekeepers.

9) Owning the UN also decreases War Weariness OR, if the Senate makes a comeback, gives the same bonus as it did in Civ2!

10) If a peace-keeping operation is voted for, then the UN Wonder will produce a number of 'Peacekeeper' units based on the number of Civs in the UN. The owning player can deploy these units to any city that they see fit!

11) peace-keepers would be a high-defense, low attack unit with average mobility (about move:2 in the current system). They can be moved around by the player who owns the UN, but they are 'Neutral' and would have some kind of neutral colour (or a UN flag IF they decide to introduce flags to the game!)

12) If a peace-keeper unit is attacked, the attacking civ takes a major Rep-hit amongst UN member civs and, if a member of the UN, could be expelled!!

13) A civ can refuse to honour a demand from the UN-especially if they are not themselves IN the UN, but doing so can also harm reputation, and even expulsion from the UN if you ARE a member.

14) Lastly, as a member of the UN, you can refuse to pay your dues-but again at the risk of expulsion. Only Security Council members are exempt from expulsion in this fashion. In fact security council members can only be expelled by either attacking peace-keepers OR by failing to meet the original criteria for membership!

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I hope you like the ideas I've presented!

The_Aussie_Lurker.

[grap1705]

Too bad the poll is closed, I would have voted to strengthen the majority asking for large to radical changes.

But I like the UN concept. Those who don't like the diplomatic victory condition can simply uncheck that possibility when they start their new game. Remember? It's part of the options with the choice of civilization. I don't like the space race? I uncheck it. Simple, isn't it? No need to deprive others of the UN.

Because I think the UN concept should be very much developped so as to be able to have both country to country diplomacy, and an international community diplomacy, with all kind of capacities that others have developped extensively.

But UN is not a vital feature of the game. And so many other features are so much more crucial to making a Civ4 worthy of its legacy (which Civ3 wasn't) that it shouldn't have priority. But no reason to forget it either!