Diplomacy++

My ideas for more realistic and attractive diplomacy options (than the ones in civ4):

1.) You should be able to make a threat with each diplomatic offer, like a third panel complementing the 2 "you offer" and "we offer". Like "You offer 400 gold", "I offer Literature" and the threat would be smtg like "if you don't accept this... I will declare war". Option to put nothing in "we offer" should be available (as now) and with "you offer" and a nice threat it will make a scary demand (like "give me that resource or I'll take it by myself" ). Some of the possible threats could be:
- I declare war on you
- I stop the following deal(s) with you (and then select some of the current deals (trade, gold per turn, open borders...))
- I pillage your lands
- I burn your cities
- I use nuclear weapons on you

(threats could be combined of course, like "i declare war on you AND I burn your cities")

After making an offer with a threat and the other side refuses it, you have the option to really fulfill the threat (declare war for instance) or to step back and gain negative fear reputation (so further threats will be taken more lightly). List of active threats should be available in some advisor screen.

1.1) The overall fear factor should be implemented among nations (on top of current "like/dislike" attitude). This will affect the decision whether to accept the threat or fight it. Accepting threatening demands will make other nations fear you less.

1.1.1) Espionage should be able to impact both fear and "like/dislike" factors among other nations (you can make espionage efforts to achieve something like civA hate civB and/or civB fear civA (altough you are civC)).

2.) Unilateral (one-way) open borders. This is discussed in many other threads and is a must. Of course, you could still put in both "you offer" and "we offer" the option open borders and get the same result (backward compatibility ).

3.) Alliances - different types.
- Defensive pact (as now)
- offensive against ... (and then select one or more other nations) - this alliance will not trigger war imidiatelly, just put you and your ally on the same side in future negotiations. So in point 1. your threat against nation C will be taken more seriously if you and nation B have offensive alliance against C. But the threats are fulfilled by you and / or B independently, with the impact on the relations between you and B (if you make the threat to go to war and B doesn't follow you - your people like B less).

4.) Wars must be declared by the leaders only and there should be no action that automatically triggers war. Like putting your troops in their territory (without open borders), if they are not strong enough to fight back, they have the option to stay calm and maybe discuss something like "if you dont withdraw your forces - we will stop trading with you", hoping that the war can still be avioded. This way you can pillage the neighbour, enslave his workers, even destroy the cities until he comes up with the courage to do something about it.

5.) With the point 4. being effective you should have another 'preventive' diplomatic option, with 2 threat panels in GUI producing smtg like "if you pillage my lands - I declare war on you". Again, this threat can be fulfilled or not after the condition ("pillage my lands") has been met (with the consequences on your reputation if not). The list of these active "preventive diplomatic options" should be remembered like trades and each could be canceled at any time. When active they should do some damage to the relations between nations and add unhappines (so use them only when you mean it!).

6.) Human player should have the burden of his own people's attitude towards other nations. You can't go to war with a friendly nation without serious revolts in your own country; on the other hand a war to reclaim some cities from the old enemy can even bring happiness. You should be able to influence these attitudes with some spending on propaganda (against some civ or in favor of some civ). The religion, civics and past events (wars, trades...) would have the additional attitude effect on your people. Making reasonable demands before going to war (like some really needed resource for a reasonable amout of gold and a proper threat) and the other side refusing it would make your people like that civ less (and be easier on you when you declare war). But if you just go and attack someone out of boredom (without real goals) - you will have to face the revolts in your own country.

7.) Trading military units. Again, discussed many times before.

8.) An option to make a diplomatic deal be secret can be added (after discovery of some technology).
- for trades it can be beneficial because other nations will not demand "stop trading with my enemy"
- you can make offensive alliance against a nation without damaging your reputation with them until you are prepared for it (and you make alliance because you want your ally to start preparing for hostilities against them)
- if you make a threat this way you lose / gain reputation only with the nation you make the threat to. But if you want all the world to know how serious you are you can leave it public. This can be beneficial for either of the sides (maybe he doesn't want to be emberassed in the whole world for accepting some bad deal).

8.1) Espionage can be used to find out about secret deals between other nations

9.) Option "stop alliance with..." (both defensive and offensive) should be added.

10.) Trading gold over the limits. Player and especially AI should not be limited buy current gold per turn and total amount when making deals. Maybe AI has 10 GPT, but my resource is worth more than that. It is up to him to manage the sliders, lower science or espionage. This will be extremelly important when making threatening demands - "Give me 100 gold per turn or I'll destroy you" and it is up to you to make the money by neglecting science for instance.

11.) Improved interface: player should have access to his advisors, city screens and map during diplomatic negotations.

The only thing I can see wrong about this whole idea is that it would make diplomacy far too complicated. But maybe with a brand new interface (replacing the current "his stuff--AI portrait--your stuff" interface), it would all seem perfectly natural.

One thing you could have for the brand new interface is implicit trading: not just putting down a deal and having the other side accept or reject, but negotiating one part of a deal at a time. This would facilitate deal revisions.

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An example, where player Ramesses II is dealing with AI Mansa Musa. Bold choices are selections.

Ramesses: (Ask politely for... / Demand...)
Ramesses: (Technology > Paper)
Ramesses: "We would like the technology of Paper from you."

Mansa Musa: "And what will you offer us in return?"

Ramesses: (Nothing / Offer... / Ask what he wants)
Ramesses: "We were hoping you'd give it to us for free."

Mansa Musa: "I'm sorry, but we can't do that. However..."
Mansa Musa: "We can give it to you in exchange for Philosophy and 250 Gold."

Ramesses: (Accept / Offer less / Ask for more / Demand)
Ramesses: (New offer: Philosophy.)
Ramesses: We can give you Philosophy for Paper.

Mansa Musa: "Well... okay."
Mansa Musa: "It's a pleasure doing business with you."

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Another example, where player Montezuma is dealing with AI Mansa Musa. Again, bold choices are selections.

Montezuma: (Ask politely for... / Demand...)
Montezuma: (Technology > Paper)
Montezuma: "We demand you give us the technology of Paper."

Mansa Musa: "Or what?"

Montezuma: (Threaten to... / Never mind.)
Montezuma: (Declare War / Stop Trading With Him)
Montezuma: (Destroy Cities / Destroy Improvements / Capitulate Him / etc.)
Montezuma: "I shall burn your precious civilization to the ground. Your lands shall become barren and withered, and your culture shall become a distant memory."

Mansa Musa: "We will not give in to your threats, you demon."
Mansa Musa: "Now go away!"

Montezuma: (Make good on your threats / Leave)
Montezuma: "Very well. You played with fire, so now you shall be burned!"

I agree with pretty much all of this, which as it's quite a bit more like Civ 3 diplomacy than Civ 4 diplomacy should not surprise anyone; your option 10), for example, was IIRC removed because the AI could not handle it and it was considered an exploit that humans could.

I like the threat idea. Also, with threats, penalties from third parties will not be as harsh. For example, if you threaten to declare war on someone, and they refuse, you will not receive -1 "You declared war on your friend!" penalties with half the world, just civilizations that has very close ties.

Also, I would like to see quantified resources. 1 Cow for 1 Gold is way too linear. Instead, it should be something like 600 bushels of wheat for 100 ingots of Iron. It can then cost something like 20 ingots to make a Swordsman. Also, it would be fun that when you pillaged an improvement that produced this resource, you gained a certain amount, I.E., if you pillage a Silk Plantation, you gain 240 Silk.

Also, it would be better(I think) if basic units, such as Food and Production were quantified. For example, City A produces 50 units of Food per turn, while city B only produces 30 units, however, they both consume 40 units per turn. City A and send 10 units to City B, in exchange for something else, like hammers or commerce, or, if your running Tribalism or State Property, for free.

Onionsoilder said:

Also, it would be better(I think) if basic units, such as Food and Production were quantified. For example, City A produces 50 units of Food per turn, while city B only produces 30 units, however, they both consume 40 units per turn. City A and send 10 units to City B, in exchange for something else, like hammers or commerce, or, if your running Tribalism or State Property, for free.

Click to expand...

But yes, it should be possible to trade more fluid quantities of resources. But to make it easier to trade, when a resource is on the table, you the player should see exactly what effect that amount of resource would have. Let's say 16 Gold creates one happiness, and 53 Wheat creates one health. Rather than try to remember exactly what the conversion formula should be, the table would show how much health you're trading away for how much happiness. So you see 3x next to 159 Wheat, and 3 next to 48 Gold. Makes it easier to see what you're doing.

And yes, I think surplus resources should not stop you from losing health or happiness. That's stupid and unrealistic.

Also, for the diplomacy interface, I think it would be neat if they made the trading table an actual tabletop (which changes appearance with the eras). Then you could drag and drop stuff onto your table. It'd be more visually appealing.

Okay, I did go a little off topic there. Back to diplomacy though:

In Civ IV, the A.I. always is asking you to go to war with someone or to stop trading with them, a lose/lose situation(because regardless of what you do, you get a negative diplomacy hit with someone). However, when you ask the A.I. the same thing, they will never accept, even if you're friendly with them, unless you offer then an incentive, like a technology.

In Civ V, when a civilization asks you to stop trading or go to war, they should offer these incentives as well(especially if they're not even Pleased with you). Using the above example:


Ramesses: (Ask politely for... / Demand...)
Ramesses: (Diplomacy > Stop Trading with Montezuma)
Ramesses: "We want you to stop trading with Montezuma."

Mansa Musa: "I'm sorry, but that isn't in our best interests."
Mansa Musa: "Perhaps if you could cover our losses with 120 Dye..."

Ramesses: (Accept / Offer less / Demand)
Ramesses: "We can't do that. Montezuma is a vile person who needs to be stopped"
Ramesses: "We need all of our resources in this war"

Mansa Musa: "Sorry then. It's just not a good business move."

Ramesses said:

Montezuma: (Make good on your threats / Leave)
Montezuma: "Very well. You played with fire, so now you shall be burned!"

Click to expand...

The problem with this last choice is that you can't 'make good on your threats' immediately. It depends on the threat - you can declare war, but destroying cities will be done over the next few turns. That's why I suggested to have a list of active threats in some advisor screen, so you can concentrate on them like on some quest. The severity of destruction of improvements with the threat "I will destroy your improvements" will affect your fear reputation. You destroy 0 - you lose reputation, you destroy 10 - you gain some, you destroy 100 - next time everyone will sh*t their pants when talking to you. Also the timing could be a factor - pillaging in the first few turns after the threat is made will have more effect than doing it later.

Having this list of active threats available - you could cancel them at any time during future negotiations (like trades), and some would be canceled automatically with the signing of peace treaty for instance.

Please people, don't use the R word, "realism/realistic" its a game, I know what you mean but its not a good argument.

Now the topic of diplomacy is incredibly important, Civ4s is its worst feature. I hate it how civs are constantly asking me to to "stop trading with civ z", if I do then I lose respect from them but if I don't then I don't seem to gain much if any. Does anyone know if you do? I haven't checked the equations. Similarly do you gain much from the requesting civ if you do, I don't think its much. I think there should be some kind of penalty for declaring war on a pacifist, even if it was just from particular nations (lets say civs without the aggressive trait, or civs with certain traits). "You declared war on someone who had no interest in hurting anyone, we don't think you are very nice." I currently think the pacifist civic is a bit weak, but this isn't the place for that discussion.

I think the "One leader over 2000 years of history" have to change.
Give us options to marry a princess of another nation to seal some alliances, raise a child or more with random traits and around a 60-80 years a leader dies.
If you have too many sons, it will result in a political instability and maybe civil war, if you don't have any when you die : Civil war and your Most experienced unit disappears and become your new leader, his traits depending on the upgrades he has.

Hmm, in the early game though you would get a new leader every turn until the time frame contracts enough. So perhaps you should suggest every 25 turns or something, or maybe even longer, guess it depends what speed you are playing. As for the children thing, surely it depends what system of government you are operating. I have thought about but it is not what civ is really about is it?

Scilly_guy said:

Hmm, in the early game though you would get a new leader every turn until the time frame contracts enough. So perhaps you should suggest every 25 turns or something, or maybe even longer, guess it depends what speed you are playing. As for the children thing, surely it depends what system of government you are operating. I have thought about but it is not what civ is really about is it?

Click to expand...

Yeah it'll depend on which system of gov you'll have, past tribalism and monarchy marital alliances are forgotten.

Scilly_guy said:

Hmm, in the early game though you would get a new leader every turn until the time frame contracts enough. So perhaps you should suggest every 25 turns or something, or maybe even longer, guess it depends what speed you are playing. As for the children thing, surely it depends what system of government you are operating. I have thought about but it is not what civ is really about is it?

Click to expand...

No, it would be a drastic mistake to put anything like this in. Because you're not really playing the leader, you're playing the entire civilisation.

Mandrakia said:

I think the "One leader over 2000 years of history" have to change.
Give us options to marry a princess of another nation to seal some alliances, raise a child or more with random traits and around a 60-80 years a leader dies.
If you have too many sons, it will result in a political instability and maybe civil war, if you don't have any when you die : Civil war and your Most experienced unit disappears and become your new leader, his traits depending on the upgrades he has.

Click to expand...

Or make a random event. (The civ you are playing needs to have 2 or more leader choices)

Your leader has died/been assassinated/resigned. Choose a new leader.

We currently lack the most important positive diplomatic modifier:

"You are so damn overwhelmingly strong that while we hate you for your warmongering, declarations of war on our friends, enslaving and eradication of free people, we still are completely obedient and ready to do whatever you wish."

Absolutely realistic. I mean, what's the point in NOT opening borders with someone who have 9x your power rating? He may just as well vassalize via capitulation you in a few turns, both of you know it.

Zomgmeister said:

We currently lack the most important positive diplomatic modifier:

"You are so damn overwhelmingly strong that while we hate you for your warmongering, declarations of war on our friends, enslaving and eradication of free people, we still are completely obedient and ready to do whatever you wish."

Absolutely realistic. I mean, what's the point in NOT opening borders with someone who have 9x your power rating? He may just as well vassalize via capitulation you in a few turns, both of you know it.

Click to expand...

Or, better yet, opinions should work on two axes: Respect, which is based on how much influence you exert over them, or how much more powerful you are; and Trust, which is how dependable they find you to be in trading and gifting.

On this table, least respectful attitudes are to the left, most respectful attitudes are to the right, most trusting attitudes are higher up, and least trusting attitudes are lower down. Some cells are blank; this means I haven't thought of a name for that particular attitude, and you are free to add your own.


EDIT: Anybody know how to make a working table?

Nice!

Semi-fixed it for you.

Syntax: Some Empire is [something] with/of Other Empire.



I like this stuff very much. Simple yet effective. Probably going to use it someday.

Zomgmeister said:

Nice!

Semi-fixed it for you.
I like this stuff very much. Simple yet effective. Probably going to use it someday.

Click to expand...

I like that a lot.

When I've thought about this, I've kind of wanted a "respect" axis that was based on how your civ was doing generally (or relative to everyone else) and a "trust" axis that was based on your interaction with the specific cvilisation in question; because it seems to me that if I have been more or less getting on neutrally with neighbouring civilisation A, and A goes to war with B, and B makes a deal with me to come into the war and take A by surprise and I follow through on that deal as agreed, A and B should have very different takes on how much they can trust me thereafter.

I think for the 4th column, the labels should be "Loyal", "Content", "Cautious", "Nervous", and "Shaken".

Ramesses said:

"Shaken".

Click to expand...

Not stirred?



I love your idea about the bargaining table interface !

The 2 dimensional attitude system from Ramesses/Zomgmeister will be a good representation in a more developed diplomacy system as proposed in the OP, and elsewhere (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=316857, post #3). It also covers attitudes which are present in the current Civ IV BtS. Like when you contact a leader a few times for a fruitless trade proposal, his attitude to you drops. So he gets 'frustrated', his attitude in de attitude tabel could go from "Cautious" to "Frustrated".

Two more diplo options I propose are

Trading Information: knowledge gathered by a spy, or unit movements you see happening when other civilisations are doing their turn. I am working a game where Frederick, my neighbour, asked me to join a war he was doing with Alexander and a few others. I was not prepared to go to war with him, but was not against helping him a little. When I noticed a stack of Greeks marching outside my empire towards Germany I could have warned him when this option would have been available:
William: "Heed my warning, I noticed troops of your enemy moving towards you, my good Frederick".
Fred: "Thanks William, we owe you one"

Dynastic marriage: probably discussed before on this forum. An easy implementation would be the marriage alliance where sons and daughters of two leaders are married off to one another. Every now and then a prince or princess is born in the Palace ("Hurray, hurray a we love the king day"). When the rascal is about 8 years old and the little damsel is 6, their royal fathers (mothers) contact each other and determine that what is good for their empire's must be good for their offspring . Hoppa, a nice animation (or graphic) on the royal wedding and the attitude of, say, Victoria towards,say, Shaka, is improved by 1 or 2 points....
All under consideration of the relevant government Civic and current attitude of course. Dynastic diplomacy makes no sence under Universal Suffrage, and an annoyed Victoria will not deal a prince with a cautious Shaka. And religion will also be a factor in this diplo option.
These royal marriages where/are used since the dawn of history in RL.