ShadowWarrior
Aug 02, 2004, 09:02 PM
A lot of time, AI do stupid things for stupid reason or no reason at all. AI for example often build mines where there should be irrigations, or offer technologies at an exorbitant price. They are also not exactly known for relability, meaning they tend to break promises. In another word, AI are not very predictable nor reliable.
Toward finding a solution to the problem of reliability, I suggest a new concept to be incorporated into the diplomacy feature of the game. This concept is "relationships". I have to admit that I do not have the exact detail worked out. But basically it has the following principles.
Good relationships means higher reliability. If my relationship with country X is cozy and warm, I can expect the AI to stick to his part of the promise.
I should be given the option of "paying" the AI into doing something with initial down payment followed by final payment when AI completes his part of the bargain. For example, if I want to form military alliance with country X against country Y, I will pay country X certain lump sum of gold, and promise to give X certain technologies after the war against country Y is over. But whether or not I will actually give him the technology depends on whether or not X actually contributed significantly to the war effort.
Relationship is a function of government type, success of previous cooperations, and previous interactions. For example, two countries that are both democratic will tend to have better relationships given other things being equal. If in a previous round of cooperation, then cooperation had an unhappy ending, relationship will get bad. For example, continuing the example in my previos paragraph, I decide not to give the promised tech to country X after the war, then this cooperation had a bad ending, so relationship will cool off. Interactions in the form of trading of tech or resources will improve relationships.
Lastly, it is possible to try to influence the relationships between two countries in my favor. I can for example pay the spies to spread rumors about country X so that country Y will like X less than before. There is of course always the risk of getting caught.
I can also decide to pay a higher price than country Y for certain strategic resource from country X. This will encourage country X to break off the sell contract with country Y and sell the resource to me. Then I can sell that resource to country Y at a lower cost than country Y was purchasing from X before. This will improve my relationship with country Y AND X, while making Y and X dislike each other more. Why would my relationship with both countries improve? Because I am now interacting with both countries through trading, while both countries are not trading with each other anymore, so their relationships stagnates, and perhaps even decline in the future.
One last thing. It is important to program the game so that relationship will actually have some kind of impact on this game, in the form of securing AI rival's cooperation and reliability, so that we players will be willing to go through the trouble of conspiring in the dark to break one country's relationship with the other. I think this will really add an interesting twist to the diplomacy aspect of the game.
Toward finding a solution to the problem of reliability, I suggest a new concept to be incorporated into the diplomacy feature of the game. This concept is "relationships". I have to admit that I do not have the exact detail worked out. But basically it has the following principles.
Good relationships means higher reliability. If my relationship with country X is cozy and warm, I can expect the AI to stick to his part of the promise.
I should be given the option of "paying" the AI into doing something with initial down payment followed by final payment when AI completes his part of the bargain. For example, if I want to form military alliance with country X against country Y, I will pay country X certain lump sum of gold, and promise to give X certain technologies after the war against country Y is over. But whether or not I will actually give him the technology depends on whether or not X actually contributed significantly to the war effort.
Relationship is a function of government type, success of previous cooperations, and previous interactions. For example, two countries that are both democratic will tend to have better relationships given other things being equal. If in a previous round of cooperation, then cooperation had an unhappy ending, relationship will get bad. For example, continuing the example in my previos paragraph, I decide not to give the promised tech to country X after the war, then this cooperation had a bad ending, so relationship will cool off. Interactions in the form of trading of tech or resources will improve relationships.
Lastly, it is possible to try to influence the relationships between two countries in my favor. I can for example pay the spies to spread rumors about country X so that country Y will like X less than before. There is of course always the risk of getting caught.
I can also decide to pay a higher price than country Y for certain strategic resource from country X. This will encourage country X to break off the sell contract with country Y and sell the resource to me. Then I can sell that resource to country Y at a lower cost than country Y was purchasing from X before. This will improve my relationship with country Y AND X, while making Y and X dislike each other more. Why would my relationship with both countries improve? Because I am now interacting with both countries through trading, while both countries are not trading with each other anymore, so their relationships stagnates, and perhaps even decline in the future.
One last thing. It is important to program the game so that relationship will actually have some kind of impact on this game, in the form of securing AI rival's cooperation and reliability, so that we players will be willing to go through the trouble of conspiring in the dark to break one country's relationship with the other. I think this will really add an interesting twist to the diplomacy aspect of the game.