Declarations of Friendship

Thalassicus · Aug 13, 2011

It's recently been suggested to move the research bonus from DoFs to another location. Here's some goals I have:

Prevent runaway games.
The goals for the three playstyles are met.
Build effects into existing mechanisms.
Give Declarations of Friendship a tangible benefit.

Tying in combined-research RAs with declarations of friendship met these goals, so if we move the effects, what are alternatives to achieve the goals?

For #4 Sneaks has suggested:

Sneaks said:
Large concepts for interesting Diplomacy:

Dof = Alliance mindset

The CS Sharing
Every minor CS gives Friends level bonuses to allies of their major Ally.

Joint Military Ops
10% combat strength boost when in an Ally's territory.

DoF = Cooperative markets

Open Borders
Open borders during a DoF gives 10% of the trade income total of the two civs as a bonus income source.

Cultural Diffusion
X culture per turn during DoF

albie_123 said:
I think the ideas in Sneaks post are great, especially because they then give rewards from open borders that you may or may not want to give to your Ally.

I'm not sure which I prefer, but 'Join Military Ops' seems a little useless in my opinion - I very rarely find myself fighting in an ally's territory.

Sneaks · Aug 13, 2011

albie_123 said:
I think the ideas in Sneaks post are great, especially because they then give rewards from open borders that you may or may not want to give to your Ally.

I'm not sure which I prefer, but 'Join Military Ops' seems a little useless in my opinion - I very rarely find myself fighting in an ally's territory.

The purpose behind Joint Military Ops is twofold. If your friend gets attacked, you can help out with a bit more gusto. If you get attacked, and you can get your ally in on the action, suddenly his forces are exactly the kind of oomph that can help turn the tables.

albie_123 · Aug 13, 2011

Ah, I completely forgot about that second point - which is a valuable bonus if your military is behind.

I think the most important thing about diplomacy is that all diplomatic actions should have repurcussions depending on other actions in play, which in this case, is open borders.

In my opinion, it's not just DoF's and RA's that need a look at - it's every possible diplomatic action. I may be unpopular with this opinion, but I feel the new RA format gave diplomacy that little bit more flair, making relationships slightly more important than raw gold factors.

Txurce · Aug 13, 2011

Some version of Sneaks' suggestions (and Seek's earlier) seem to adequately address the desire for a pay-off to DoF's. (They're also pretty imaginative. My preference is definitely the Cooperative Markets.) The payoff shouldn't be any bigger than this, in my opinion, because DoF's aren't sufficiently within our control.

But all of this is the B-side of the conversation. The A-side is getting rid of the DoF mechanism for RA's. Given that we created an entire (and controversial) cultural approach so warmongers could get more culture, I'd think that warmongers' science should be even less penalized. eazyseeker suggested buffing the science given by the RA per turn, then returning to the vanilla RA signing... and wouldn't that be the essence of it?

How this affects Korea (which is what led me to bring up RA's) can be left for later!

albie_123 · Aug 13, 2011

If eazyseeker's idea can be implemented, I'm definitely in favour of that system.

I would also think that, to give warmongerers a slight deficit in science (Which in my opinion is uncessary in the first place), it may be an idea to increase the science given slightly when a DoF is in effect - as a warmongerer is much less likely to get a DoF.

Maniac · Aug 13, 2011

Where would the research bonus move to?? What's wrong with the current implementation? :confused:

I don't think CS sharing is a good idea, as it is useless if you're already friends with all CSes. Plus then the bonus would be too small. In order to gain a declaration of friendship with someone, you often need to denounce the same people. The reward for denouncing someone needs to be sizeable enough, or you'd never do it.

Malachi256 · Aug 13, 2011

I don't think you need a 10% "joint military" benefit.

What should be provided is upgrade capabilities in friendly territory, and shared sight. It's ridiculous that a friend that I'm helping in war can't spot for my artillery, for example.

Of course, this runs into problems of ridiculous turn times... /sigh Which leads to the need for better combat animation options... "Slow combat for my units, quick combat for others," etc.

Seek · Aug 13, 2011

I like the cooperative markets idea, though instead of incentivizing Open Borders (which the AI may not understand) I would suggest that the dof simply provides automatic OB (with the resulting OB gold benefit already in place in the mod). It could help with military aggression as one could passively assist in defense by staging "UN"-type operations - making walls of units to block the aggressor.

I like Malachi256's sight idea also, but as he noted it could be tiresome for those who play with animations on.

Zaldron · Aug 13, 2011

Txurce said:
But all of this is the B-side of the conversation. The A-side is getting rid of the DoF mechanism for RA's. Given that we created an entire (and controversial) cultural approach so warmongers could get more culture, I'd think that warmongers' science should be even less penalized. eazyseeker suggested buffing the science given by the RA per turn, then returning to the vanilla RA signing... and wouldn't that be the essence of it?

I'm sure I'm misreading this, but vanilla RAs are already significantly more powerful than VEM ones, so I'm not sure why we'd want to both buff them and return to that mechanism.

In vanilla if I (mostly, to avoid full kill penalty) take out two civs, I can still get RAs with the remaining five and most likely won't even have to worry about them being broken because the AI will be scared of my now monster army being supported by three civs.

In VEM if I take out those two civs I'm likely to never see an RA again (except possibly if someone hated one of the civs I took out) because of the DoF requirement. I don't see a problem with not getting RAs in that situation since my empire is vastly bigger than a peaceful empire. If you don't need a DoF for RAs I'll have three times the internal research AND RAs with everyone else and I'll run away with the game easily.

Sneaks · Aug 13, 2011

Zaldron said:
I'm sure I'm misreading this, but vanilla RAs are already significantly more powerful than VEM ones, so I'm not sure why we'd want to both buff them and return to that mechanism.

In vanilla if I (mostly, to avoid full kill penalty) take out two civs, I can still get RAs with the remaining five and most likely won't even have to worry about them being broken because the AI will be scared of my now monster army being supported by three civs.

In VEM if I take out those two civs I'm likely to never see an RA again (except possibly if someone hated one of the civs I took out) because of the DoF requirement. I don't see a problem with not getting RAs in that situation since my empire is vastly bigger than a peaceful empire. If you don't need a DoF for RAs I'll have three times the internal research AND RAs with everyone else and I'll run away with the game easily.

The issue with RAs in this mod that I currently have is an issue of choice, and the number of substantive diplomatic decisions I can make.

In vanilla I can:

Sign an RA with the purpose of weakening an economy of a civ I want to invade; as can the AI.
Make a DoF with a neighbor to ensure a safer border, but refuse them RAs to try to stymie their tech threat.
Have RAs with nations I am neutrally situated with, with whom I do not want a DoF due to diplomatic repercussions.

In VEM it is all or nothing. If you want a DoF, you automatically boost the AI's research. If you want an RA, you have to convince them to DoF, which is extremely difficult/impossible at higher levels.

Txurce · Aug 13, 2011

Seek said:
I like the cooperative markets idea, though instead of incentivizing Open Borders (which the AI may not understand) I would suggest that the dof simply provides automatic OB (with the resulting OB gold benefit already in place in the mod). It could help with military aggression as one could passively assist in defense by staging "UN"-type operations - making walls of units to block the aggressor.

This works fine for me as an addition... but wouldn't the AI's traditional zeal for OB provide all the incentive needed? That struck me as the clever part of that suggestion - the AI always wants OB, unless they hate your guts.

Zaldron said:
I'm sure I'm misreading this, but vanilla RAs are already significantly more powerful than VEM ones, so I'm not sure why we'd want to both buff them and return to that mechanism.

If you don't need a DoF for RAs I'll have three times the internal research AND RAs with everyone else and I'll run away with the game easily.

I meant that the present VEM beaker amount (5% combined) be buffed to an appropriate level.

Sneaks said:
The issue with RAs in this mod that I currently have is an issue of choice, and the number of substantive diplomatic decisions I can make.

In VEM it is all or nothing. If you want a DoF, you automatically boost the AI's research. If you want an RA, you have to convince them to DoF, which is extremely difficult/impossible at higher levels.

Playing Hotseat a few times since the patch (and one SP game with Korea) is what reminded me of how much more enjoyable the choice in the vanilla RA mechanism is, and made me want to find a way to bring it back to VEM.

When playing Conquest, I almost never have a DoF... but in my Korea game, I was frustrated by a near-total absence of DoF's despite my peaceful play (and unthreatening score) all the way until I became powerful via defensive conquest (when everyone wanted to be my friend!). Maybe that was threading the needle, but I don't think so. Leaving it up to the AI's vagaries is not my idea of a good time.

eazyseeker · Aug 13, 2011

In my opinion warmongers are penalized enough already; making it impossible for them to sign DoF (essentially RA in VEM) is just a (bad) icing on the cake.

I thusly would love to buff that 5% to an appropriate value per turn, and make it cost gold to sign RAs again (but no DoF requirement).

mitsho · Aug 13, 2011

Would it be possible to link the RA-strength to the number of remaining civs in the game? So that each time you conquer one civ, the RA for the remaining ones grows better. So to say an anti-snowballing measure...

bwoww78 · Aug 13, 2011

i've got to ask as someone here might already know, but is there a way to provide a turn count on friendships? i typically use VEM plus CivWillard and InfoAddict, but always find that i'm in the dark about how many turns are left in the DoFs i have up. if this is something that i could request as a part of another (VEM recommended mod) or VEM itself, that'd be great. I can usually guess based on the Open Borders agreements i have, but knowing exactly how many turns the DoF lasts would be sweet!
Thanks in advance for any direction you can provide here...

Txurce · Aug 13, 2011

bwoww78 said:
i've got to ask as someone here might already know, but is there a way to provide a turn count on friendships? i typically use VEM plus CivWillard and InfoAddict, but always find that i'm in the dark about how many turns are left in the DoFs i have up. if this is something that i could request as a part of another (VEM recommended mod) or VEM itself, that'd be great. I can usually guess based on the Open Borders agreements i have, but knowing exactly how many turns the DoF lasts would be sweet!
Thanks in advance for any direction you can provide here...

I was going to ask about this the other day. It's technically not a "deal," so it doesn't show up on that list.

bwoww78 · Aug 13, 2011

yea, for all of the amazing ways this mod (and others) enhance the ability of the player to plan and get past whatever UI inefficiencies persist, this is the one thing that seems left out since DoF expiration (rightfully) came out in a patch. makes me wish i actually had modding skills to contribute with...

eazyseeker · Aug 14, 2011

mitsho said:
Would it be possible to link the RA-strength to the number of remaining civs in the game? So that each time you conquer one civ, the RA for the remaining ones grows better. So to say an anti-snowballing measure...

Quite a good idea there

In vanilla, as I see it now, the more civilizations -> the more RAs -> the more science. I think that this could be corrected in VEM; I'm too lazy to make up a formula, however I'd love to see this.

Maniac · Aug 14, 2011

That's opposite to the goal of rewarding peaceful play.

Jorlem · Aug 14, 2011

eazyseeker said:
Quite a good idea there

In vanilla, as I see it now, the more civilizations -> the more RAs -> the more science. I think that this could be corrected in VEM; I'm too lazy to make up a formula, however I'd love to see this.

Maybe something along the lines of this?

(Default RA value) x ([# of initial civs]/[#of current civs])

Edit:
I think part of the basic assumption here is that if you've wiped out a bunch of civs, the ones that are left won't be too eager to sign a RA with you. Instead, they'll sign RAs with each other, and their tech would hopefully outpace yours.

Maniac · Aug 14, 2011

Not sure if that's true. In my experience AIs are very eager to sign Research Agreements, even if you have rather bad relations.

That's why I prefer the science bonus would stay with DoFs, which the AI is less eager to sign.

To gain the most research agreements, because you don't need to be friends to sign them, it's best to stay neutral on the diplomatic front and never denounce anyway.

On the other hand, in order for the AI to offer you a DoF, you need relationship modifiers like having fought or denounced the same players. This forces you to be more active in diplomacy and take sides, yes, even come to the defense of a weak player who you have a DoF with and who's being attacked by a third party.

Without the science bonus of DoF, I'd have stayed neutral in the hopes of signing a RA with the agressor. The weaker player probably wouldn't have had enough gold to sign a research agreement anyway.

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