Suggestion for Peace Negotiation

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by wrylachlan


But having three-way (or more) bargaining would allow you to bargain towards contiguous cities. If you and your allies have just defeated germany and the cities you have captured are scattered in-between the ones britain captured, it would be nice to be able to easily trade so that you now control a group of cities that is all together.

Yeah, but you can do city-swapping later, can't you?

[dunk]

I like the splitting up of captured territory... good idea wrylachan.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Yeah, but you can do city-swapping later, can't you?

Yes you can do city swapping later, but the AI is notoriously unwilling to swap cities.

Also if you've just taken down a civ of say 45 cities between you and your allies, thats a lot of city swapping. Doing it in the trade screen would involve writing down the names of the cities on a piece of paper, or maybe printing out screen shots, then doing some trades, then based on what they were willing to trade going back to the map to see where you are. It would be a seriously tedious process if the allie actually traded cities which is not at all guaranteed.

I think it would be much more elegant (though probably more difficult to code) to have a screen with a mini-map of the territory in question and the ability to see what's on the table and what that does to the borders. Also you would need to program into the AI some preference for contiguous cities. The AI would also need to understand that if a resource is outside a cities border, that that city will have the resource in a very few turns and value that city higher even though the resource isn't inside the borders now.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by wrylachlan


Yes you can do city swapping later, but the AI is notoriously unwilling to swap cities.

Also if you've just taken down a civ of say 45 cities between you and your allies, thats a lot of city swapping. Doing it in the trade screen would involve writing down the names of the cities on a piece of paper, or maybe printing out screen shots, then doing some trades, then based on what they were willing to trade going back to the map to see where you are. It would be a seriously tedious process if the allie actually traded cities which is not at all guaranteed.

I think it would be much more elegant (though probably more difficult to code) to have a screen with a mini-map of the territory in question and the ability to see what's on the table and what that does to the borders. Also you would need to program into the AI some preference for contiguous cities. The AI would also need to understand that if a resource is outside a cities border, that that city will have the resource in a very few turns and value that city higher even though the resource isn't inside the borders now.

Some very good ideas. The problem I see is what about dealing with an ineffective ally? Say I got Civ X to join me in a war against evil Civ Y. However, I do the lion's share of the war and capture the cities by myself, with little help from X. Then, going into that 3-way peace deal, unless I give X stuff (and they'd probably want a lot) then they'd refuse to make peace with Y, hence effectively vetoing my peace. Then I'm forced to do the same thing that happens now, which is p*ss off X to make peace with Y!

[Deornwulf]

EU has an excellent model for alliances. One nation is considered the leader of the alliance and has the power to make peace settlements for all members of the alliance. (I have been often screwed out of hard won territory by this factor.) There should be some way of implementing this in Civ3

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Some very good ideas. The problem I see is what about dealing with an ineffective ally? Say I got Civ X to join me in a war against evil Civ Y. However, I do the lion's share of the war and capture the cities by myself, with little help from X. Then, going into that 3-way peace deal, unless I give X stuff (and they'd probably want a lot) then they'd refuse to make peace with Y, hence effectively vetoing my peace. Then I'm forced to do the same thing that happens now, which is p*ss off X to make peace with Y!

I see this as two stages:

1. Make Peace
You make peace individually, but it works like this -
- You do your peace negotiations.
- Tour ally is immediately informed that you have made peace.
- Your ally can decide if he wants to make peace or not.
- If an ally decides to continue a war after his ally makes peace he takes an attitude hit with the other civs.
- If your ally decides to make peace he finishes his own negotiations and together you proceed to stage 2

2. Divide the spoils
This is only available to Military Allies who declare peace on the same turn. This is the screen with the mini-map that allows you to trade around captured cities and adjust your borders correctly. Essentially this would work exactly the same as trading currently works, except that you could see what you are doing in terms of the map, and it would allow three and four-way trading. Also during this screen, and this screen only, the AI would heavily favor trading cities to achieve contiguous borders.

I think the defeated civ should also be in this screen with the option of giving up some of its random outlying cities stranded by the war in exchange for cities close to its capital.