Diplomacy and War, TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!!!

[UnnOblivious]

First, this is not just a rant, but includes logical suggestions for the next civ, or for a patch.

I've been playing game after game now on the Emperor difficulty. Monarch wasn't challenging in most games. The Emperor level, for me, is fairly easy to win in a peaceful setting of economic and reseach, but when you start to throw in half the world wanting to kill you no matter what you do, it becomes totally ridiculous.

No matter how i change the settings around, unless i limit the game to less than 10 AI civs, i keep getting into situations of war with too many players. Each game no matter how i manage diplomacy, I seem to get in a situation where around half the world hates me. And inevitably they go to war with me. Every game i play I have at least two people who are in good diplomatic standing declare war on me. Civs will march half way around the world to go to war. What happened to Logistics? What happens to history? in the middle ages even the crusades lost large percentages of their armies to logistics and disease. Most kingdoms, nations and such up until the last two centuries have had little reason to fight nations half way around the world. Empires like that of the Mongols and Romans collapsed over time because of the difficulty in managing such large areas (mostly due to a lack of communication and transport technology which allows large nations like the U.S., Russia, China today).

Fixes needed:
1. There needs to be a greater threshold for Civs to go to war.
2. Limits on armies logistics. (there is the cost for units outside your border, but this is a flat cost, it needs to increase as units get farther from supplies)
3. Civs need much more incentive to go to war with nations farther away. It makes sense for them to invade bordering civs, but not ones half way around the world.
4. The distance to capitol maintenance should be more exponential than linear and should be decreased as technologies come along like railroads, radio, flight, etc.
5. Diplomacy should be limited also by how close a civ is to you. If a civ is half way around the world, it should be more difficult or have some kind of time delay between interactions as communications took time to travel.

Lets have some more realistic balance rather than war crazed ridiculousness that has ruined my civ experience. I like war, just not a 1000 year long World War.

 

[UnnOblivious]

Another thing, There seems to be a bug where simultaneously 10 civs will declare war on me simultaneously, Even if they are diplomatically friendly. Its rare, but i've had a couple games where this has happened. All I have to say is... WTF?!?!

 

[Shekwan]

I think that bug is to do with colonies, or summat.

 

[Navarre]

Apocalyptic palace most probably (the "declare war on infidels" resolution), or your enemy bribing everyone and their dog to attack you. That happens, and if you have some dogpiling-happy civs around, you'll get dogpiled indeed. You can do it too, and it will give you some much needed positive modifiers (relations fair and forthright, mutual struggle).

 

[buffalo6542]

5. Diplomacy should be limited also by how close a civ is to you. If a civ is half way around the world, it should be more difficult or have some kind of time delay between interactions as communications took time to travel.

As radio and things like those become avaliable, the time for communication should decrease

 

[UnnOblivious]

Well, I only get in a game every few weeks, maybe i'm missing some skills and maybe I should go more on the offensive rather than trying to sit back and do full out eco. I also love realism and maybe I expect things to be a little more realistic than possible.

 

[Scilly_guy]

Aye I would like to see better logistics for troops out side of your borders. Like sending a scout off at the start of the game, he can reach the other side of the world and still be sending back information. And what ever happened to "An army marches on its stomach!" Make it possible to buy supplies off friendly civs, and have some friendly native farmers that will provide some free food (because they're scared of you). Make pillaging a farm or a village about getting food as well as money. Allow lone woodsman units to live off the land, perhaps a few units in woodland, less on plains and no one can survive for long in the dessert, add a dessert promotion so units can survive for longer. Give units a morale penalty if they are away from home for long periods.

 

[Spitefire]

What could be tried with the logistics thing is setting up an equation so tha units cost more money to support the farther from your borders thay are, with that in mind you could also add a military aid pact diplo option so that the added costs for units away from home is reduced a little when in or near the land of the player you have the military aid pact with.

The result would be that if anyone attacks someone else half a world away without lots of preperation thay might lose alot of there economy and military just getting there.
Just an idea to consider.

 

[Scilly_guy]

I don't mind the increased maintenace for distance idea but I would like something a bit more complicated, or at least the option for something that I can get involved with.

 

[Jaca]

1. Introduce "morale" and have a morale penalty the farther the units are from the homeland. Low morale would deduce strength.

2. Introduce suffering damage due to foreign terrain, something I would borrow from the "Final Frontier" mod. Desert, jungle, tundra and ice tiles would give, if not in your cultural borders, a % of damage each turn you end in it. That would kind of make natural channels -- unless you want to take risks -- for units to go through. It would alos mean you could better estimate where the troops would come into the lands and concentrate parts of your own troops there rather then fighting all over the lands.

3. Better logistics as suggested by Scilly-guy looks good to me too. No real ideas here.

Jaca

 

[Scilly_guy]

Definetly morale!

Making jungle and dessert give damage might work, but promotions should counteract it, like woodsman, and some new ones for the other types of terrain. Something should be done about looking after your troops certainly.

 

[Sonereal]

Yeah, you should have to train your army to fight in the desert or risk problems when invading a desert nation.

I don't think a nation should declare on a nation across the globe either, doesn't make sense. Even though at some point, distance shouldn't matter.

Morale should increase for each improvement pillage and unit destroyed, and HUGE morale boost when caputuring cities and/or razing them.

Imagine a civ that uses a tactical nuke on a stack of your units, than your whole army should have a decrease in morale, but if a nuke hits one of your cities, than your armies should be thrown into a rage over it.