The revised Diplomacy Model

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks for the thoughts Moomin. It Is useful for us to hear opinions of people even if they haven't read the model, as I think you've just demonstrated!

I think where we're going is pretty much in line with your comments. And yes, ethnicities and their allegiances are going to evolve in Clash, and you won't generally get those problems you mention in civ. Genocide will be possible, but Not encouraged by the rules .

Of course if you treat an ethnicity abominably they might well rise up after even hundreds of years since you've basically barred them from assimilation. BTW, you can negotiate internally with the govt power blocks what the ethnic and religious discrimination is in your civ, so there is another interesting set of decisions for the player. Do they spend political capital making society more egalitarian, or on other things. Check out the Govt model if you're interested. . .

[vovan]

Thanks for the comments, moomin.

Laurent and Mark here have pretty much answered your concerns, though I would still like to add a small point of clarification.

You are correct that one should not have to start a spy mission to find out the very basic information about other nations. Something I didn't mention in the summary, is that intelligence options are divided into active and passive. The basic information-gathering is classified as passive intelligence activity (well, that might be a bad phrase - passive activity, but for the lack of a better one...). It will work sort of like the basic stuff in civ3, where you could gain some information on other civs by establishing embassies in their capitals, some more just by planting the spies in their capitals, and them even more by actually ordering spy missions. The same idea will apply here.

[moomin]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
BTW, you can negotiate internally with the govt power blocks what the ethnic and religious discrimination is in your civ, so there is another interesting set of decisions for the player. Do they spend political capital making society more egalitarian, or on other things.

How very new age sensitive. I take it this is modern assimilation. Back in the barbaric era, I'd very much like to "assimilate" by putting the men to the sword and getting the women all knocked up. So long as the resulting pop growth counts as mine. This, after all, is how most assimilation was done up to like a hundered years ago or so.

Check out the Govt model if you're interested. . .

Ha! Giv'em a finger and they'll grab the whole hand!

[LDiCesare]

How very new age sensitive. I take it this is modern assimilation. Back in the barbaric era, I'd very much like to "assimilate" by putting the men to the sword and getting the women all knocked up. So long as the resulting pop growth counts as mine. This, after all, is how most assimilation was done up to like a hundered years ago or so.

I disagree. This technique was used by the saxons and Angles in England, and by the displaced celts in Brittanny, but that was very uncommon. You had to displace a whole population in order for that to be feasible. Current English aren't Norsemen descendants, they are a mix of Saxons and Norsemen. The assimilation wasn't easy, but it did occur. Greeks call themselves romioi (romans), so they were quite well assimilated by the Romans without being slaughtered.
However, what you suggest is one way to assimilate peope in fact (plus cut the tongue of women so they can no longer speak their old tongue and you've changed Armorica into Brittanny).

[Simon Loverix]

For clarification: will there be a difference between the official diplomatic status and the actual? For example, when emperor X raids king Y, but king Y keeps the peace officially, because there is a trade clausule in the peace treaty.
In other words, is there an unbreakable link between treaties an the actual situation? Are treaties broken automatically when the conditions are violated, or does the damaged party have to break it?

[vovan]

Originally posted by Simon Loverix
In other words, is there an unbreakable link between treaties an the actual situation? Are treaties broken automatically when the conditions are violated, or does the damaged party have to break it?

It will depend on the treaty. For instance, if one nation invades another, then the trade agreements are automatically declared void and war is declared. So, in that respect there is a link.

However, if a less important treaty is violated, such as for instance a gold-per-turn transfer, or a trade treaty, the nation that is hurt by the violation might either issue a protest and request compensation, or, if the attitude is bad, just break the treaty. So, it depends on the attitude and reputation, and maybe some other factors whether a treaty that is violated will be broken, or kept, plus a protest.

[Richard Bruns]

I have a quick question about the "No Contact" status. Is it possible for Civ A to be aware of the existence of Civ B, but for Civ B to be unaware of the existence of Civ A? I can think of some cool scenario possibilities if one civ can use espionage and other covert operations on a civ that is unaware of its existence.

[Simon Loverix]

So two civs can be either at war or at peace, with the latter offering the possibility of more treaties.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Richard Bruns
Is it possible for Civ A to be aware of the existence of Civ B, but for Civ B to be unaware of the existence of Civ A?

Sorry to ruin your idea for a cool scenario, but no, it is impossible for one civ to know about the existance of another, but not vice versa. Every diplomatic status is a "two-way" road, meaning that the fact that civA is, say in war with civB implies the reverse. Same with no contact.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Simon Loverix
So two civs can be either at war or at peace, with the latter offering the possibility of more treaties.

Yes. This concept is a little tricky. You see, there will be two distinct "peace"s. There is peace, as in diplomatic status, and there is peace as in treaty. The diplomatic status of peace pretty much only means that there is no war. However, the treaty peace implies that there is an explicitly signed treaty between the two (or more!) nations that says "we will not attack each other".

The reason for this distinction lies in the way I designed the diplomatic model (code-wise), but it also has some interesting implications. Let us say civA is in war with civB. At some point in time, civB decides that it has had enough and sues for peace. To create peace, they need to sign a treaty (this is where the code design comes in. It is important that there be a peace treaty. Well, actually, a peace clause of a possibly larger treaty, to be precise). Like every treaty, the peace treaty has a certain duration. (Well, there will be also single-trun treaties, like lump-sum monetary transfers, which cannot due to their nature have a duration, but let us not concern ourselves with that, for simplicity's sake.) After the treaty is signed, the two nations have both the diplomatic status of peace, and an explicit treaty. While the treaty is in action, if one of the civs attacks the other, it will suffer significant reputation damages. Now, after some time, the treaty expires. Notice that even though there is no explicit treaty, the diplomatic status is still peace. It does not revert automatically to war, since there has been no military provocation. However, now, if one of those civs decides to attack, they will not suffer any significant reputation damages (well, their tyranny rating or something might become worse, but their trustworthiness won't suffer). Thus, this kind of peace is more fragile.

EDIT: Grrr... Not once have I gotten the word trustworthiness spelled correctly on the first try.

[Simon Loverix]

So the non-treaty kind of peace is more like a cease-fire. Maybe you could change the name, in order to avoid confusion?

[Mr. President]

Hi, I haven't commented too much in the past, but I like what I see here.

I like the idea of not having diplomatic units. One of the things I hated the most in other Civilization-type games was creating and moving what I thought were unnecessary trade and diplomacy units like caravans and Probe Teams (in Alpha Centauri).

But I think that you should be able to make deals to trade and supply specific resources. For example, many countries in our non-video game world import crucial minerals and substances like diamonds and oil, or even food. I'd like to be able to do that in a game.

[Cmonkey]

The United Nations in Clash

I did a search for ‘United Nations’ and came up with surprisingly little information on how ya’ll plan to implement this. Though this is understandable since it is a purely modern element and the game thus far has not been expanded beyond the ancient ages.

I understand Clash will feature multi-nation treaties, and while the UN could be a wonder, it is much more than a simple treaty between many nations. What I will lay out below is my proposal for how the UN should work in Clash. I’d like to hear comments and suggestions on this.

There will be a window, separate from the diplomacy window to handle the UN. There will be a scroll bar in the window so all nations of the UN can be shown. Each nation will be listed by name with an expected vote and an actual vote column next to its name. At the top of the window will be a tree, similar to what is seen in the diplomacy GUI thread, with many of the same options and more.

A proposal is formed at the top of the screen by selecting clauses from the tree; this proposal can also be given a name. Once the proposal is formed the ‘End Proposal’ button, just below the tree is hit and the expected vote column next to each nation will then show a ‘yes, no, abstain, or veto’ depending on how the nation is expected to vote (the player must have an embassy with the nation for the expected vote to show, if he doesn’t then nothing is displayed). If a nation is expected to veto the proposal (or if there are too many ‘no’ votes), the player can click on that nation’s name in the list; this will open the diplomacy screen with that nation, where the player can proceed to negotiate for a ‘yes’ vote (This ‘vote yes to proposal’ clause will then be automatically added when the diplomacy screen is entered this way, and otherwise not be available in the diplomacy screen). Once the proposal is expected to pass vote, the ‘Vote Now’ button is hit, and all actual votes are shown (regardless of if there is an embassy or not), thus allowing one nation to shaft another by voting opposite of what they said they would, though there would be a trustworthiness hit to this.

I think this approach to the UN would work wonderfully. Clauses can include many of those in regular diplomacy as well as giving veto power or stripping it (though if the UN is a wonder, the nation that builds it gets automatic veto power, which can be stripped however), and possibly more. Some clauses from regular diplomacy should not be available such as ‘dynastic marriage’.

The UN could also double as an international monetary fund, thus allowing nations to donate some portion of their taxes to the UN which can be used through the UN to help nations that have experienced natural disasters or civil wars, etc.

[yellowdaddy]

and what about other such orgs or altenatives - the League of NAtions? NATO? the EU? Comintern? ASEAN? NAFTA?

i suppose i'm thinking of a whole game from 4000bc to 21st centurey, not just scenarios.

but what if nations want to withdraw, or form an alternative supernational group?

[vovan]

Hello, Cmonkey, and yellowdaddy,

I would be the person currently in charge of the Diplomatic Model, though I haven't commented much on it lately. Any ways...

These are some curious ideas. I kind of like the way you describe a UN system there, C, but daddy here also raises an important concern. If we have the UN as you describe, then how do we deal with the other, alternative alliances? While it is true that in the real world the United Nations is the strongest alliance, I feel that we need to give the player a choice. In other words, let them do whatever they want with the diplomacy system. Yet, at the same time, we don't want to dive too deep to fast, and go over the board with the ambitions. And also, IMO an overabundance of options might actually hurt the game.

Thus, in my opinion, we need to make a choice here: either have multinational treaties, or have a single organization for the nations (aka UN).

I, personally, favour the former.

Let me, however, go into slightly more depth about how I envision multi-national treaties working, so that you would maybe see that even without the UN per se, the player will still have a good deal of functionality you describe.

First of all, let me clarify the inner working of the treaty system a little bit. When two nations make a treaty, they put up certain clauses on the table, each of which has a certain weight. When the player hits the propose deal button, the weight of all clause on either side of the table are calculated. Essentially, if the the weight of the clauses the AI is giving up is less than or equal to the clauses the player is giving up, the deal will be made. Note, however, that each of the clauses does not have a constant weight. It depends largely on the political, and economic situation, as well as the history of the relationships between the nations involved. Let me illustrate this with an example.

Suppose we have three nations: the Romans, the Carthaginians, and, say, the Greeks. Now, the Romans are in war with both other nations. They have been successful on one front, but not the other: the Greeks are on their knees, while the war with the Carthaginians has pretty much grinded to a halt with neither side winning any cities. Now, suppose, the Romans are tired of war, and propose peace to both nations. Obviously, peace will have much more "weight" for the Greeks, who are almost destroyed, than to the Carthaginians, who not only successfully stopped the invasion, but maybe even sent a couple armies over to the other side. Thus, maybe, the Greeks will even be willing to give up some technology, and pay annual tribute just to drive off the Romans, while the Carthaginians, who feel they aren't loosing, might actually demand something for peace.

In other words, for peace, such factors as relative military strength of the two countries matters. A nation would be more willing to sign peace with a stronger country than with an equal or weaker one.

Then, there is also the consideration of reputation. Suppose, the Romans are known to be treacherous, and have broken peace a number of times without any apparent reason. Then, the Carthaginians, who aren't loosing might be weary of signing peace again, worried that it would be broken.

Yet that's not all, either. The personal attitude of one nation towards another will play a role in the weight of clauses. Suppose, the omans had attacked the Carthaginians on a regular basis, but only attacked the Greeks at the beginning of this last war. Then the former would be even less willing to sign the treaty simply due to the personal animosity. (There will be, by the way 13 levels of attitude so that should give you enough diversity, from having another nation worship you as a god, all the way to having them proclaim you a devil incarnate.)

But that is not to say that the same consideration will go into the weight of every clause. For money-transfer clauses, for instance, trustworthiness of the recipient might not have as much weight as, say, their economic strength, or competence (will they use the money well, or just squander it).

As you can see, I put a fair amout of thought into how the treaties will be evaluated, and came up with a fairly intricate system of relationships for now.

Now, why am I talking about all this? Well, hopefully, I have given you some taste of two-party treaties, so now we are ready to get to the multi-national treaties.

The same rules apply to them: that is, each nation would want to gain more than it is giving up. Yet, the same rules as I stated above for two-nation treaties, apply here. That is, the reputation of each member of the treaty, personal attitudes between the members, and their relative military, economic and scientific strengths count. (In different proportions, depending on what kind of treaty we are signing.) Thus, the stronger, historically more honest, nations might be able to initiate huge military alliances, while the weaklings might have to work on their economy or maybe give up some of that cash they've been saving for the lean times to join the big boys. Even though there is no (in the current model) UN per se, you would still have the same diplomatic freedom as you describe there.

Suppose, you propose some deal, and one of the nations doesn't like it (you would know which one), you can then contact that nation personally, and try to figure out why that is, exactly. Maybe they don't like you too much. Then, you can give them a gift or two and with the new-found friend go and pass that military alliance against the Ottomans you always wanted.

Also, I think it would be quite possible to be able to add new clauses to already existing multi-national treaties (though probably not the two-nation ones). That way, you can essentially call up that mutual-protection coalition of yours, and say: "Hey, let's trade techs, everybody!" Or: "Okay, nobody sell oil to the nasty Japanese." Or whatever. Thus, we give the player the flexibility (what if he doesn't want to have an alliance called UN. What if he wants to call it his own name?), and at the same time, provide the same degree of diplomatic freedom as your description proposes.

Now, some ideas that I did get from your posts, Cmonkey, and yellowdaddy:

1) We should be able to give names to multi-national treaties. It's a piece of cake to implement. (though not high up the priority list, so don't expect that in the first incarnation of the diplomatic model. )

2) I like the idea for the graphical interface for the UN you described there, and in fact, I am thinking it would work for any multinational treaty. Like you probably saw in the Diplomatic GUI thread, I had problems coming up with the design for one, as what I already have is only fit for single-nation treaties. Multi-national treaties being a whole new beast, it is probably a good idea to define a whole new window for it, eh? However, right now, I am trying to fix some of the buggy bugs and weed out some of the graphical interface problems I am having. So, don't expect any multinational treaties in the first release of the diplomatic model, either... But comments and ideas are always very welcome. Keep them coming folks, and know, that I am still following this thread, and reading all of the comments, even though sometimes I might not have the time to respond right away.