City State Diplomacy Mod (Updated)

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by V. Soma

So, you can't tell the AI to use the diplo unit to get influence when other player has the CS as allied?
Does the AI have to wait until CS gets out of allied status?

No, but it will be less likely to use the unit if it knows it can't immediately kick the other player out of the ally status. It will either wait for a critical mass of diplo units OR it will move on to greener pastures.

G

[Gazebo]

14.0 is up! Going to bed. Test for me, will ya! And let me know if the fracking AI figures out a way to gift gold. I've cut off every possible means on the XML side, so perhaps the AI is more evil than I thought....

Units are cheaper, so spam away!

[jel]

Is it possible to get a copy of v10?
With the new hotfix, i want to try an old save, but it needs v10 of this mod.

[Malidros]

Wow Gazebo you are a machine! Updates to fix updates that were originally updated fixes. The first 6 months are full of these fixes where the mod community, and game, clash heads, swap ideas..good times.

Thanks for all the dedication, and time. Your Mod gives diplomacy a much needed fix. It is much more natural to have a town dedicated to such ventures...not having to dip my hands into the cash funds, or give away units. Sending an envoy also has minor risks(if not watched) so it's not a free-bie. Again, thank you.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by Gazebo

Scaling wise, there's no way to set a new influence amount for the next level of diplo units (I'm using the merchant 'trade mission' system, which has but one modifier XML). Thus I opted to make the differences movement and price based. I realized that players would avoid new techs because of cost and, admittedly, am at a loss as to how to prevent this. Since the techs the units are tied to (civil service, mathematics, globalization, etc.) are all quite useful in themselves, I hoped that would be enough to make players 'bite the bullet' and jump to the next tier.

Someday I hope to do this, once the DLL is unlocked.

Ok, that's too bad - I was assuming that you were using the gifting system. I understood that you chose the techs wisely, it definitely led to some tough decisions! Perhaps you could scale the movement bonuses more? Or perhaps give the movement through borders promotion to the later units only? Anyway, this issue hardly breaks the mod, I will certainly continue using it!

Originally Posted by Gazebo

Also, awesome job Siam AI. I can't tell the AI what to do in that situation because those are backend calculations. Were they escorted by soldiers or alone? The escort system was causing problems, so I axed it in the latest version (13). If alone, they should be more willing to sail/run/fly/jump across the map to get to

The CS was directly between my empire and theirs, right on both of our borders, and it was the only cultural one on our section of the map, so could be Siam has a high flavor for cultural CS's given their UA. And, yes, they were escorted - using v11.
Keep up the good work!

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by Seek

Ok, that's too bad - I was assuming that you were using the gifting system. I understood that you chose the techs wisely, it definitely led to some tough decisions! Perhaps you could scale the movement bonuses more? Or perhaps give the movement through borders promotion to the later units only? Anyway, this issue hardly breaks the mod, I will certainly continue using it!

The CS was directly between my empire and theirs, right on both of our borders, and it was the only cultural one on our section of the map, so could be Siam has a high flavor for cultural CS's given their UA. And, yes, they were escorted - using v11.
Keep up the good work!

Once the mod is balanced, I will try to make the later units more worthwhile via promotions and movement points. At least, until I can give each unit a special influence modifier.

As far as the Siam thing is concerned, the escort was the problem. The diplo unit wants to go in to the CS, but the escort gets nervous because the AI thinks Neutral CS= negative influence, thus they get stuck in a loop. Should be fixed in v14.

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by jel

Is it possible to get a copy of v10?
With the new hotfix, i want to try an old save, but it needs v10 of this mod.

Unfortunately, I didn't back up versions 4, 7 or 9-11 because they were incremental changes. Sorry.

G

[V. Soma]

Just for information:
I think I will be able only on the weekend (maybe from Friday),
so dear G., you have the time to polish this gem (for me)

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by V. Soma

Just for information:
I think I will be able only on the weekend (maybe from Friday),
so dear G., you have the time to polish this gem (for me)

Ha! I'll be running simulations all night while I grade papers, so any nagging bugs (if there are any) should be sorted out by then. Hopefully it is polished by now- I had no idea the rabbit hole I was entering when I decided a few weeks back to add a diplomat unit to the game. I should know better than to attempt to add historical realism to a simulation....

To quote from Professor Farnsworth: "Oh, a lesson in history from mister I'm-my-own-grandpa!"

[WickedSick37]

I only see v13 in the mod browser. I can't install it either. Anyone know what's wrong?

Edit: Really love this mod by the way ^^. This way to get influence seems more realistic and makes for more fun gameplay =)

Edit2: Managed to install v13 after removing everything in the "cache"-folder. Still no sign of v14 though?

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by WickedSick37

I only see v13 in the mod browser. I can't install it either. Anyone know what's wrong?

Edit: Really love this mod by the way ^^. This way to get influence seems more realistic and makes for more fun gameplay =)

Edit2: Managed to install v13 after removing everything in the "cache"-folder. Still no sign of v14 though?

v14 is not on modbrowser yet - d/l the one on the first page of this thread. Its the most recent.

I try to only post new ones on the MB when I have to because it is a PITA. If all is clear on the v14, I will post it tomorrow or Friday.

Glad to hear that you like it! I'm a fan.

G

[Ymir9]

Hey Gazebo,

I tried version 14 with my little test map and got the same problem with cheating AI.
I then entered the three globalDefines definitions you gave me in your earlier post into Influence.xml and that seemed to solve the problem. Instead of buying alliances the AI bought up tiles instead, and no alliances were made.

Hope that helps.

[heinous_hat]

Originally Posted by Ymir9

Hey Gazebo,

I tried version 14 with my little test map and got the same problem with cheating AI.
I then entered the three globalDefines definitions you gave me in your earlier post into Influence.xml and that seemed to solve the problem. Instead of buying alliances the AI bought up tiles instead, and no alliances were made.

Hope that helps.

Gazebo, haven't had a chance to test in game yet, but I can confirm what ymir9 is saying. Searched all files in v14 for those minor_gold_gift globals and they aren't there. Is that the method you went with? I had added those to v13 yesterday but thought I'd hold off playing through to see what you came up with regarding gold spending and diplomat suicides, etc.

edit: Ah, I see you are indeed doing something different in influence.xml (zeroed thresholds etc)

edit2: Played a bit with v14 on a small map, 2 civs and 4 CS using the tuner. Gave the AI 50000 and all ancient techs. Autoplayed 25 turns. He managed to ally with a CS which was off on an island despite not having Embarkation (Optics). I went through rather quickly. Either the AI is gifting or completing missions for influence. I'll try again and keep an eye out for missions as that may be a possibility.

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by heinous_hat

Gazebo, haven't had a chance to test in game yet, but I can confirm what ymir9 is saying. Searched all files in v14 for those minor_gold_gift globals and they aren't there. Is that the method you went with? I had added those to v13 yesterday but thought I'd hold off playing through to see what you came up with regarding gold spending and diplomat suicides, etc.

edit: Ah, I see you are indeed doing something different in influence.xml (zeroed thresholds etc)

edit2: Played a bit with v14 on a small map, 2 civs and 4 CS using the tuner. Gave the AI 50000 and all ancient techs. Autoplayed 25 turns. He managed to ally with a CS which was off on an island despite not having Embarkation (Optics). I went through rather quickly. Either the AI is gifting or completing missions for influence. I'll try again and keep an eye out for missions as that may be a possibility.

Oops, I moved the new XML file with the gold gift stuff to the 'Suleiman's Trait' Mod while doing some mass editing and forgot to move it back.

Thanks for catching this guys - I will reupload the fixed version now.

It was 2AM and I was tired.

Edit: I added the thresholds both as a failsafe and to keep the AI from continually trying to gift gold even if they can't/shouldn't. The problem I kept encountering was with game performance- a few of the AIs kept making gifts of gold (zero) worth zero influence (1,000s of them, it seems), thus causing the game to slow to a halt. Combined, the gold gift=zero and the thresholds should keep them from allocating gold to diplomacy and from endlessly trying to ally via gifts of gold.

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by Ymir9

Hey Gazebo,

I tried version 14 with my little test map and got the same problem with cheating AI.
I then entered the three globalDefines definitions you gave me in your earlier post into Influence.xml and that seemed to solve the problem. Instead of buying alliances the AI bought up tiles instead, and no alliances were made.

Hope that helps.

The new v14 is up with the defines I left out by accident. You guys are a great help!

Ideally, somewhere between 50-75% of the CSs in the game should be allied to a civ by around 1500-1700, and around 75% of CSs should survive to the end of the game.

For comparison's sake, only 30% of CSs ally by 1500 in vanilla Civ5, and less than 40% survive to the end of the game.

These are rough estimates, but should hold true on a normal map (islands and archipelago are a different story- the AI are much less efficient on these maps because the AI is hydrophobic at times).

[heinous_hat]

Originally Posted by Gazebo

Edit: I added the thresholds both as a failsafe and to keep the AI from continually trying to gift gold even if they can't/shouldn't. The problem I kept encountering was with game performance- a few of the AIs kept making gifts of gold (zero) worth zero influence (1,000s of them, it seems), thus causing the game to slow to a halt. Combined, the gold gift=zero and the thresholds should keep them from allocating gold to diplomacy and from endlessly trying to ally via gifts of gold.

I was thinking that might be an issue with the gifting mechanism still working but effectively shooting blanks. OK, I'll go again when the update posts.

BTW the AI really does seem biased towards buying tiles when it has oodles of gold, as you had mentioned.

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by Kanin

Thanks for speedy response! What I was trying to say is that the city states had normal quests asking for greater engineers and greater merchants, but they spawned units added by your mod, such as healers and diplomats. I tried to find a way to stop the city states to spawn healers/diplomats but could not find any tag with a label that clearly had this function. I speculated that if there was any method of changing this, it would possible be to not use the SPECIALUNIT_PEOPLE tag.

Kanin,
I looked into this as well and, unfortunately, the AI needs that tag in order to know how to use the trade mission AI mechanic. I'll need to look for a way to tell the AI which units the CSs can or cannot build.

[Gazebo]

Originally Posted by heinous_hat

I was thinking that might be an issue with the gifting mechanism still working but effectively shooting blanks. OK, I'll go again when the update posts.

BTW the AI really does seem biased towards buying tiles when it has oodles of gold, as you had mentioned.

Yeah, I tried adding in a few new 'priority' tags for gold (for HAPPINESS_BUILDINGS, GOLD_BUILDINGS, etc.) but they didn't seem to have an impact. Fearing the wrath of the computer gods, I removed those tags until I know that they do, in fact work.

Oh and quick request: in my modding frenzy last night, I seem to have accidentally cut a large portion out of my GlobalAIDefines.xml file. If anyone might could send me the original one, I would appreciate it!

[heinous_hat]

check email

[Gazebo]

Well, now that v14 is out, its time to think about v15. What would you guys like to see happen in the next version? Some things (i.e. scaled influence) can't happen because of coding limitations, but I'm open to other suggestions.

How about new unit icons for each of the diplomatic units? Perhaps I could use historical artwork of famous diplomats for each new unit?

For example:

Messenger: Phidippides (the guy that ran to Marathon during the Persian Wars)

Envoy: (Bayeux Tapestry messenger)

Emissary: (Lorenzo de Medici)

Diplomat: (Castlereagh)

Ambassador: (Henry Kissinger)

Let me know what you think!
G