DESIGN: New Diplomanager

[Maquiladora]

Yeah, I found it pretty tedious at first, but now I do it all in photoshop beforehand, so I don't have to keep going into the game to test it.

I think before we (or just I) start thinking about how the leader should look (and what format and size it should be), we should finalise how the rest of the window will look. This way we won't have to resize 140 leaders when it's finished.

The general idea seems to be for a bargaining table. So you have two sides, you on the left, your opponent on the right, and in the (bottom) middle the "table".

This table is split in two vertically, and on each side the elements of the deal are added.

On the left side of the window all the possible elements you can offer (map, gold, reduce pollution etc), and on the right side all the possible elements you can request from your opponent (again map, gold etc), most probably the same as everything you can offer. The treaties (cease fire, military pact etc) should be in a separate area at the bottom of each side.

When you add an offer, you click on an element on the left (listbox or whatever) and it's only added to your left side of the table.

To add a request you click on your opponent's side on the right, and then it's added to their right side of the table.

Adding an offer or request will remove it from the side it was clicked, so you can't offer or request the same thing twice.

When you add a treaty (either by clicking your left or opponents right side, on the treaty name), the same treaty is removed from the other side and added to both sides of the table.

Then you click "send". If the proposal is accepted you get a nice message. If the proposal is refused, you get a less nice message, and perhaps a hint at how far it was from being accepted. Finally if your offer is close to being reasonable for the AI, you might get a counter-proposal.

For the moment I'm not concerned with how the underlying formula works, but I'll just try to get it set up like above.

[EPW]

Sounds like civ4

[Maquiladora]

Is there a reason why the text in some list boxes is not bold anymore, as it was in the original game?

I find this text quite hard to read sometimes, especially when it's over a detailed parchment on the diplomacy window. For the moment I made it bold again only in the diplomacy proposal window, and also italic to look like handwriting on the parchment. But there are other listboxes that still have thin text, and I'd like to revert these back to bold again if it's just a style change.

[Ekmek]

I'm not sure on the bold thing. I never messed with it. I always found the font too small.

As for resizing leaders - PSp 9.0 has a batch process so it wouldn't be too hard to resize.

[Protra3211]

Nice feature!Hope its added to the next playtest.The diplo picture is clear and I like the added color to give contrast.

[Maquiladora]

Nice feature!Hope its added to the next playtest.The diplo picture is clear and I like the added color to give contrast.

If you mean the bright green, that's just to show how big the diplomat/leader picture can be. I won't be changing any of those pictures until diplomacy itself is finished.

[Maquiladora]

Right now we're at the stage where the actual diplomacy workings need to be changed, that is we can't really make anymore interface changes without the diplomacy working the same way underneath.

At the moment diplomacy works like this:

There are 5 stages:

0) set tone
1) proposal (request, offer, suggest treaty)
2) exchange (request, offer, suggest treaty)
3) response (accept, reject, counter, threaten)
4) threaten

Since only single item requests, offers or exchanges can be made, a first step might be to allow more items added in the proposal and exchange stages. I have no idea how all this works yet though so I'll have to check. Unless someone has a better idea?

[Ekmek]

I didnt get into that code - but to some degree the interface forces certain things into specific boxes. i tried to remove that with no luck. but i was terrible at interface changes

[Maquiladora]

I didnt get into that code - but to some degree the interface forces certain things into specific boxes. i tried to remove that with no luck. but i was terrible at interface changes

I was thinking of using list boxes to hold each item that can be traded in a proposal/exchange, and you click an item it adds it to the table. There is an example of such a list box in the scenario editor when you give an advance, and maybe other examples. Anyway getting the system in place looks like it will be the (relatively) easy part.

The hard part will be getting the AI to understand and use it. I don't think I can do that part.

Anyway for now I'm concentrating on doing more easy things.