Poll: what makes a good diplomacy system?

[Ahriman]

Do people think its more important to have an AI that tries to "win", or to have an AI that feels like a real country?

See discussions in this thread. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=362151

 

[Che Guava]

Well, obviously I think an AI would have to want to 'win' to make for an interesting game, but if you have a variety of ways to victory (diplmatic, cultural etc) with different leaders having a propensity for different strategies, then civs will start acting like real empires more. I think this probably goes in line with making a 'domination' victory more costly and difficult.

 

[Ahriman]

Che, you didn't address the central question. Do you support AI's playing to win as far as basically ignoring diplomatic modifiers and attacking close allies?

 

[Che Guava]

If it gets them closer to victory: yes.

Realpolitik should be the ultimate motivation, as in 'real life'.

 

[Ahriman]

Can you name some real life cases where countries have attacked their close allies?

 

[Che Guava]

Well, just off the top of my head, Italy was in an alliance with Germany/Austria until it decided to switch sides during WWI


But in general, I think alliances are generally forged when empires either (a) fear someone else more than their 'friend' or (b) have nothing to gain through conflict. If neither of these conditions apply, an ally becomes a potential target...

 

[Thyrwyn]

I chose the first option. The key word being "unlikely".

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree with Thyrwyn-the key word is UNLIKELY, not NEVER. I want good relations with the AI to matter, for the most part, but I don't want it to be a strait jacket for the AI's behaviour. Occasionally I want the AI to attack me-even if we're friends-if it otherwise makes sense to do so. For example, if I leave a bunch of frontier cities-with ample resources-undefended, then I'd be foolish not to expect an AI civ to exploit that weakness if doing so makes it stronger-even if we've been close friends in the past. Of course I wouldn't expect it to happen often, just enough to keep the game interesting.

Aussie.

 

[Dale]

Can you name some real life cases where countries have attacked their close allies?

- Yugoslavia was in the Tripartite Alliance till Germany invaded it in WW2.
- UK tried to destroy the French Mediterranean fleet in July 1940.
- Not a true alliance, but a very strong political agreement, we all know how the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact went for USSR.
- The trigger of the Peloponnesean War was a war between Megara and Corinth, both member states of the Spartan alliance.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Can you name some real life cases where countries have attacked their close allies?

It is an irrelevant question. Civ (IV at least) has no meaningful correlation to "ally". There is no way to enter into an "alliance" with another civ - barring permanent alliances which renders the whole "back stabbing" thing impossible. 'Cause, you know, they're permanent.

"Open Borders" + "Friendly" does not an ally make.

Defensive pacts come too late in the game, really. But since you can't attack your pact-mate, that's not relevant, either. . .

Of course, none of this really applies to Civ 5, because we have no idea what kinds of treaties/pacts/agreements/alliances will be available.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

My view is

1. The AI should be designed to Win. period.

2. The GAME should be designed so that Players (whether AI or human) that are trying to win will tend to behave like 'real countries' (not attacking their allies, attacking those that attack their friends, attacking those that they have social disagreements with, etc.)


Basically, AI needs to be deleted from those options

Diplomacy is better if Players where you have very good relations are unlikely to attack you
Diplomacy is better if Players play to win, including attacking their close allies

I would vote for both.

#2 needs to be applied to the AI (by changing the AI so that it is totally ruthless)
#1 needs to be applied to Humans (by changing the game so that attacking your ally has some problems)

 

[Aldor]

AI should behave "realistic", that is relations should matter, but if the AI sees a target that it has a need for (say, oil in a border city, and they have none), then they should go for it.

Most of all however, I think AIs should (have to) play by the same rules as the human does. In Civ4 for example, AIs need less positive diplo modifiers to be friendly to each other, they don't get negative modifiers that a human does. They can DEMAND (for example war participation), while the player has to bribe them.

If the points above get improved in Civ5, I will be happy.

 

[formless blob]

The AI exist for one reason only: To make the game interesting for the player. So if playing to win means teching up in some remote corner, then no, the AI should not play to win.

So what makes the AI interesting? For me the AI needs to roleplay, as it makes the world seem more alive, and less like an abstract board game. But then, as a second priority it should play to win, as this poses an interesting challenge for the player to overcome.

If you want a harder game, with roleplaying AI, crank up the difficulty level!

 

[Ahriman]

The AI exist for one reason only: To make the game interesting for the player.

So what makes the AI interesting? For me the AI needs to roleplay, as it makes the world seem more alive

If you want a harder game, with roleplaying AI, crank up the difficulty level!

This is a good summary of how I feel. I am interested but surprised that many people would not be bothered if someone who they spend the whole game focusing positive diplomacy on (in Civ4 terms, adopting their civics and religion when asked, giving them gifts when asked, not attacking their friends, joining their wars when asked etc.) suddenly turned around and attacked them.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I am interested but surprised that many people would not be bothered if someone who they spend the whole game focusing positive diplomacy on (in Civ4 terms, adopting their civics and religion when asked, giving them gifts when asked, not attacking their friends, joining their wars when asked etc.) suddenly turned around and attacked them.

....and what about you, Ahriman? If an AI Civ spent the entire game doing all that you describe towards you, but you saw an opportunity to advance yourself in the game, would the actions of the AI Civ dissuade you from backstabbing them? If the answer is no, then what you're basically saying is that the AI should be *hobbled* by preventing it from doing what you yourself would do. This has been the thrust of your argument from the get-go, that the AI should be severely limited-nay strait jacketed-in its diplomacy when compared to you, the human player.
Focusing positive diplomacy on an AI civ should make an attack from them almost an impossibility-but it shouldn't make you immune to that Civ exploiting strategic weakness on your part-if doing so improves its own situation. Of course, if some of Krikkitone's suggestions regarding happiness impacts were implemented (you know, the ones you dislike so much) then there would be serious internal consequences to this backstabbing-no matter if it was performed by an AI civ or a human player!

Aussie.

 

[LegionSteve]

The AI exist for one reason only: To make the game interesting for the player. So if playing to win means teching up in some remote corner, then no, the AI should not play to win.

So what makes the AI interesting? For me the AI needs to roleplay, as it makes the world seem more alive, and less like an abstract board game. But then, as a second priority it should play to win, as this poses an interesting challenge for the player to overcome.

If you want a harder game, with roleplaying AI, crank up the difficulty level!

I agree with this too. A good example of how NOT to do diplomacy was M2TW. The AI factions would often try to launch a suprise attack on you, no matter how friendly they were. For me, this effectively removed diplomacy from the game - the options were there in the interface, but didn't do anything useful. I wouldn't like CIV 5 to go down that route, and I'm pretty sure it won't.

 

[Ahriman]

This has been the thrust of your argument from the get-go, that the AI should be severely limited-nay strait jacketed-in its diplomacy when compared to you, the human player.

I have acknowledged from the very beginning that the only way to make diplomacy strategically interesting is in a way where there is a fundamental asymmetry between the human and the AI.

The AIs can still use diplomacy with each other (if AI A makes AI B a good friend, then B will not attack A), but cannot do it with the human player, because the human player has agency and must always be allowed to choose when they declare war, on whom, whether its in their interest or not.

The human player is inherently different to an AI player; the game is designed to be fun for the human player, not for the AI players.

In general, we don't want mechanics that treat the AI differently from the human, but there are exceptions.

A good example of how NOT to do diplomacy was M2TW. The AI factions would often try to launch a suprise attack on you, no matter how friendly they were. For me, this effectively removed diplomacy from the game - the options were there in the interface, but didn't do anything useful.

Precisely. Making the diplomatic modifiers unimportant in determining war declarations effectively removes diplomacy from the game.

Of course, if some of Krikkitone's suggestions regarding happiness impacts were implemented (you know, the ones you dislike so much) then there would be serious internal consequences to this backstabbing-no matter if it was performed by an AI civ or a human player!

Yes, this is true, but this system leads to all kinds of other weird incentives and implications, like using my foreign policy to try to change the preferences of my home population.

 

[V. Soma]

Let me just throw in some "idea":

As we know, human player can do whatever irregular (s)he wants as "diplomacy".

How about making the rules of civ that when I, the human player do a surprising attack or whatever illogical move in diplomacy on a - say - friendly AI, then I get some "penalty", like my people revolt, do worse in making war industry - it all also depending on "civics" and on the personality of the leader I play.

 

[eireksten]

How about making the rules of civ that when I, the human player do a surprising attack or whatever illogical move in diplomacy on a - say - friendly AI, then I get some "penalty", like my people revolt, do worse in making war industry - it all also depending on "civics" and on the personality of the leader I play.

That's basically Krikkitone's suggestion, only he went all specific and in-depth on it. I like this idea that diplomatic actions incur penalties/bonuses to your civilization in some way. If this is boosted based on inter-civilization relations, I believe we could have an interesting diplomacy mechanic that even works for both the AI and for MP.

On-topic: I don't consider the first two options in the poll mutually exclusive, so I chose the fourth one.

 

[Chalks]

I dislike the idea of the AI "playing to win". I don't think it's the AI's place to all be bidding for victory, for me, they are there to flesh out the world in which I am playing. When I play a Half-Life 2, I don't want a Combine Soldier to try to run around the levels killing all the bad guys to complete the mission before I do. It's my story, not the AI's.

The "goal" of the AI should be to provide an enjoyable challenge for the player.

I do like the idea of in game modifiers to encourage human players to make real world logical diplomatic decisions since this would blur the line between "playing to win" and logical diplomatic actions.