Rising Tide War Score Mechanic

Alright, I have noticed that the team at Firaxis has introduced another new mechanic into diplomacy and good old military conquest. The war score mechanic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN933GLlUB0&feature=youtu.be&t=1h20m36s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gajS_xAwP4g&feature=youtu.be&t=10m5s

Apparently, the developers said that they are going to let the demands the player and the computer can make when suing for peace dependent on the war score between the two factions.So what do we think about this (besides the fact somebody at Firaxis is a fan of EUIV )?

I really like. I feel like it is a good way to represent things like unconditional surrender where the winning side can impose harsh penalties on the losing side like we saw in WW1.

From what we see in the videos, the mechanic is not quite finished yet. I am hoping that the AI will be much more likely to accept peace when it is losing badly. I hope to see a situation like in WW2 where one side has been crushed so badly that it must accept peace at a huge cost. I think this new mechanic shows promise to do this, it is just a question of how well the AI will be programmed to understand this new mechanic that is the sticky point.

It would really go well with the vassal state/ colony mechanic from Civ IV. I am sick of controlling 24 cities near the end game.

At the very least, the warscore mechanic should make it easier to see what actually influences the scores, adding more clarity to the whole peace mechanic.

...maybe I'll finally know why AIs refuse to make peace even when I could just overpower their military (disregarding the dual DOW bug, ofc).

I really like this! Less of the crappy negotiating system present in past Civ games.

Here's another one showing an AI getting dominated in Quill's latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxFkyra4qM&t=6m3s

Though, personally, I think I would rather see a cleaner meter or something. A graphical representation rather than numerical (and renamed to War Rating or something instead of War Score).

Right now, it seems like it's the difference between the two, so one of them will always be zero. Sure, it makes it very easy to see that difference (which is most important), but it just doesn't feel right the way it's presented. If it's a score, both should have their actual score listed.

Perhaps, if they stick with the numerical difference to represent things, it should just be a single number, with the zero score removed. It's green if you're winning (along with the text saying who is leading) and red if you're not. If it's fairly even, it'll be cyan, but still note which leader has slightly more below it.

Also, I remember Quill talking about how it makes it a little difficult to snipe capitals or to simply conquer a few cities and end it without gaining any more. You have less control over your conquering.

I somewhat agree with that, but I also think once we're accustomed to the new system, we'll expect that we might get some extra cities during wars and we can't just snipe things.

Though, what I'm most excited for is when the AI "hopefully" stomps us and we can't squirm out of it unless we hand over more cities to them, or whatever else Firaxis decides to automatically include in war spoils.

I think it's an awesome idea - the biggest bonus to that system is that the AI on higher levels should no longer feel like it's "winning" the war and demand insane amounts of stuff just because it can produce its units faster than you can kill them. Especially situations where you don't WANT to counter-attack and take enemy cities should no longer end in a this weird "There can be no piece, because my demands are insane."-situation.

Not entirely sure about the implementation though. In Quills Playthrough it looks rather... inflexible.

In the LPs I've seen I think the AI's score was zero because they literally haven't even killed any of the player's units at the times the score screen was shown. I also agree that forcing the concessions based on score is a bad implementation. Allowing certain amounts of demands based on the score differential I think would be better.

Heres my idea:
Set a metric of 1 score is worth 1 energy. So if at the end of the war you have 100 points and your opponent has 50 points you can demand up to 50 energy as the end of war concession. Demanding cities would need some kind of calculation based on population. I'd say 50 + 20 per population or something similar. So a population 1 city would require you be 70 points ahead to demand it (numbers are ad hoc and intended as an example).

I don't know the details behind the current scoring but I'd base it all on the strength of defeated units and cities. I'd start at points for defeating units at 1/10 the defeated unit's strength. Cities I would put at a flat amount plus a bonus for the cities combat strength so population and defensive buildings are taken into account and of course a additional bonus for taking their capital.

Finally if we build up a simply overwhelming score we can demand they become a subservient state. You gain vision of their entire territory. Diplomatic agreements with them no longer will have a maintenance cost (the initial cost should stay). They will owe a constant energy per turn and once every say 10 or 20 turns you can demand they hand over a unit. They will remain subservient for a long set amount of time but it shouldn't be permanent. I'd say 150 turns at normal speed as an initial guess at a balanced amount (subject to actual testing of course).

I'm reserving judgment on this until I can get my hands on it, I think this has a lot of potential to give a bit more definition to the peace treaty process which would be great, on the flip side if it is not flexible enough then it has the risk of being quite stilted and sticking you with an option you wouldn't want. Here's hoping they get that balance right.

bite said:

I'm reserving judgment on this until I can get my hands on it, I think this has a lot of potential to give a bit more definition to the peace treaty process which would be great, on the flip side if it is not flexible enough then it has the risk of being quite stilted and sticking you with an option you wouldn't want. Here's hoping they get that balance right.

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And that's especially true when you consider that Rising Tide will not even have the option to trade cities to someone else.

I just hope that it will enable you to stop a permanent war with the neighboring superpower on the higher difficulties. The AI will lose dozens of units on my defensive city but demand my empire for peace. They have 3x my cities but lose 3x my units since the start of the war.

I wonder if it's really something new or if it now just shows us behind-the-scenes calculations that have been going on since Civ 5 vanilla. I also hope that you'll be able to negotiate for something else than one of their poorly placed and underdeveloped cities.

Well, I think BERT is implenting ideas that could have been made into Civ VI if Firaxis want to, but they implement it now.

Civ VI needs to be very groundbreaking.

Anyone fears this mecanic could be much abused ?

From what i saw, lost units are taken into account. So, declaring war on an AI, simply ambushing its units (not like it's that difficult to do) on neutral ground would be an easy way to get a high war score and get a nice juicy peace agreement.

In CIV V it can be done as well but AIs seems less encline to give stuff when you dont actually threaten their land.

cazaderonus said:

Anyone fears this mecanic could be much abused ?

From what i saw, lost units are taken into account. So, declaring war on an AI, simply ambushing its units (not like it's that difficult to do) on neutral ground would be an easy way to get a high war score and get a nice juicy peace agreement.

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I doubt this would work. In one of the LPs, we saw the human player actually take an AI city with no loses, his war score was like 80 to 0 and it was still a white peace where he got nothing so simply killing a few AI units and suing for peace probably won't get you anything.

I actually think this mechanic will be better because it will prevent the player from taking advantage of the AI. In civ5 and vanilla BE, if you are doing well, the AI will be willing to give away the store in exchange for peace, so you can accept, backstab, accept, backstab and pretty much take the whole empire away from the AI.

It could be just clear representation of current 9 level of peace thing, or a really creative one.

We'll have to wait.

aguliondew said:

I just hope that it will enable you to stop a permanent war with the neighboring superpower on the higher difficulties. The AI will lose dozens of units on my defensive city but demand my empire for peace. They have 3x my cities but lose 3x my units since the start of the war.

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Finding you unbreakable is not the same as finding the war to be too costly, or unworthy.

I may be greatly disappointed by this system. Apart from standardizing the extent of damages and contrition, negotiating terms and choosing when to offer is precisely one great fun of a 4X. It is essentially creative and expressive, so I am super bummed if it constrains multiplayer.

I'm A-okay with just making the A.I.s consistent and personal, though.

Maybe the key to this war score thing will be, it is calculated in the background, but actually used or ignored based on conditions, like, if you take a city, then, boof, go suck on that, the AI will say. You already took your due. But where you raid and besiege and prove a nuisance, the foe buys you off. So economically, it's reasoning to prevent greater damages to itself, (and you profit in multiple ways) but the war score gives the AI hard limits to being an idiot about it.

If it constrained multiplayer, you'd see people complain more about Europa Universalis.

The same principle applies there.

This looks awesome and has almost single-handedly revived my interest in the Civ series. Steal more from Paradox games, please.

As many others in here (and in [Rising Tide] So, where's the actual diplomacy ? , but seems that thread is moving to other topic,), I am worried about the lack of flexibility/bargain capability of the new diplomatic systems.

It is nice, as the new features: agreements, traits, war score seem to have strong potential, but I miss in them the negotiation factor of the current system: it seems it is just "buying" what is available, and with a limited amount of things (diplomatic capital only, I fear).

For war score, I need to have flexibility to define peace terms: as said, maybe I do not need that city... then ¿can't I be generous? (and maybe get a benefit in terms of respect or diplomatic capital that does not hurt the losing side). ¿can't I ask for other options? (no, the misplaced city just right next to my border is uninteresting to me, but that small colony you founded were I was going to expand to get firaxite... that's the one I want)... I hope they can implement at least three/four spoils of war options to choose from.

And for bargaining... I hoped diplo capital to be a new type of currency to balance treaties, so if I am asking for a close call, I can spend some diplomatic capital to show I really want it, and to justify my stance vs a rejecting civ will change. Or if I am making a long-term treaty, I can just "lock" part of my diplomatic capital in it as a proof of good will -meaning that I will lose that diplomatic capital if I backstab, but I will recover it (maybe with some interest), if I keep the agreement until it ends.

For sure they are testing new things in the expansión, and it is a plus, but it just seems they are keeping it still quite conservative by taking out (and not merging) with the old system.

Gort said:

This looks awesome and has almost single-handedly revived my interest in the Civ series. Steal more from Paradox games, please.

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I feel you. Paradox, Amplitude, by all means steal the hell out of all their ideas.

Seriously, go nuts. Whatever it takes. I want to play BE as it's meant to be played.

And if that means incorporating the best out of the competition, the more the merrier.

Josephias said:

As many others in here (and in [Rising Tide] So, where's the actual diplomacy ? , but seems that thread is moving to other topic,), I am worried about the lack of flexibility/bargain capability of the new diplomatic systems.

It is nice, as the new features: agreements, traits, war score seem to have strong potential, but I miss in them the negotiation factor of the current system: it seems it is just "buying" what is available, and with a limited amount of things (diplomatic capital only, I fear).

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It's certainly a legitimate concern, and one that I hope will be addressed either in this expansion or the next.