(1-NS) Resource Trade gated by Active Trade Routes

[Tekamthi]

@Tekamthi Also, how would this impact Peace Treaty deals? Would resources be unable to be given in a Peace Treaty? If not, the current rule is that Peace Treaty deals are unbreakable, if I'm not mistaken.

Good question, strikes me that peace deals should be independent from the gating mechanism. Makes for a nice reward for winning a distant war. Can any other proponents of this idea weigh-in, especially the balance-hawks? Updated OP with this take for now.

In the spirit of putting best case for this idea forward as possible, can I borrow a few brains from community to think on the fine details of this proposal a little further? need to identify any other oversights absent from it, as we still need sponsor here, for those of us that would like to see this implemented. Thanks.

 

[ilteroi]

good idea but very quite complex implementation wise ... not the extra condition on resource trade but the AI logic and the UI for the corner cases. so if anyone wants to sponsor this great but please consider the implications

 

[Tekamthi]

good idea but very quite complex implementation wise ... not the extra condition on resource trade but the AI logic and the UI for the corner cases. so if anyone wants to sponsor this great but please consider the implications

yeah, i imagine this will take some time to refine fully -- that said, and accuse me of over-simplifying if you will, but i speculate that a rudimentary, playable resource-prioritization remains achievable: For example, AI evaluates TR destinations with existing priorities for domestic/foreign/CS --> if AI decides on foreign TR, prioritizes for resource-access routes, then yields. In such an implementation, AI might end up with sub-optimal yields where it favored resource access unnecessarily. A solution to AI yields already exists in VP: just increase difficulty.

Strikes me that the corners can be worked as they're identified by community, provided dev is willing to revisit of course.

 

[nekokon]

Personally I think that's a lot of things to consider even for a human player, as trade route takes a long time to finish and you don't always have extra trade route open for some emergency situation that requires luxury/strategic resource.
Moreover, the main goal of this design is to simulate the real world situation where a country is blocked by hostile force thus unable to continue trading, thus we should be focusing on punishing such trades when conflict broke out rather than gating it even before anything ever happens. That way you only have to teach the AI what not to do once conflict broke out (don't trade with ppl beyond hostile zone), and not what to consider during peace time (1000 more things to think about)

 

[Tekamthi]

thus we should be focusing on punishing such trades when conflict broke out rather than gating it even before anything ever happens.

This could be interesting. Any thoughts on how this could be accomplished? maybe can still put together counter proposal before this round closes. It would be nice to have some kind of mechanism that allows supply routes to be affected via war, in some abstract way, but I'm not married to proposal. I think the reduction in spam that proposal implies is desireable too, though this is not the main goal here, as you noted.

would your opinion be affected if proposal was amended to be only strategics?

 

[Tekamthi]

GameEvents.PlayerCanTradeResourcesWith() LUA hook, allowing modder to override resource trading gating mechanism with custom criteria

@Recursive if proposal fails, can I still request just this piece via congress? or is this just a github thing?

 

[nekokon]

This could be interesting. Any thoughts on how this could be accomplished? maybe can still put together counter proposal before this round closes. It would be nice to have some kind of mechanism that allows supply routes to be affected via war, in some abstract way, but I'm not married to proposal. I think the reduction in spam that proposal implies is desireable too, though this is not the main goal here, as you noted.

would your opinion be affected if proposal was amended to be only strategics?

I can only think of going back to pseudo TR from 2 closest cities between the 2 civs, and with the condition that the trade won't get actually realized until the trade units reached the other city the first time. It means even if the AI constantly spam trade deal after it's broken it won't have any effect if the blockage continues and all trade units got caught, and the AI should also be taught to not bother with that anyway (by not sending a trade deal with a civ beyond hostile zone).
It will have the effect of stopping trade deal and keep it down during war time with minimum effort which is the main design.

 

[Recursive]

@Recursive if proposal fails, can I still request just this piece via congress? or is this just a github thing?

That would be a Github thing.

 

[adan_eslavo]

So, if I understood correctly, it's really complicated thing here, you can trade a resource with another civ only when a trade route is on board between them? Because now, Trade Routes and Resource Deals are totally separate things, that does not have much in common, right?

When you have bad situation with your neighbours, you cannot start any trade route with them, then you're out of possible resource deals, then you just die? Because if triple Alliance will start a ride on you, you cannot ask for help (strategic resources) from you more distant ally, because you have no TR with him?

That's too complicated and difficult to manage from gameplay point of view. Maybe more realistic, but...

 

[Tekamthi]

I can only think of going back to pseudo TR from 2 closest cities between the 2 civs, and with the condition that the trade won't get actually realized until the trade units reached the other city the first time. It means even if the AI constantly spam trade deal after it's broken it won't have any effect if the blockage continues and all trade units got caught, and the AI should also be taught to not bother with that anyway (by not sending a trade deal with a civ beyond hostile zone).
It will have the effect of stopping trade deal and keep it down during war time with minimum effort which is the main design.

I like this idea, just not sure if it can be implemented without major work. can any dev comment on whether such a "pseudo TR" is reasonably achievable?

 

[Legen]

if last remaining TR between two civs is severed, any existing diplomacy screen resource deal is terminated

There's an exploit in this point. Many trade deals last 50 turns on standard, but trade routes aren't bound to how long your deals last. You can exploit with a trade deals by gaming with trade route duration. For instance:

• Ask another civ to trade their luxury for a WLTKD or City State quest, when your only trade route with them is going to finish next turn or so. Practically a free luxury.
• Similarly, you could easily bribe a civ to go to war with ludicrous gpt offers ("here's 200 gpt and three different luxuries for going to war with this guy") when your only trade route with them is going to end next turn.

Even if the intention isn't to exploit it, you have the issue that your trade routes are likely going to finish trade deals in the middle of it simply because the trade routes rarely last 50 turns. To keep the trade going, you'd need two trade routes at least with different timings between them. There's no guarantee that the other civ will send a trade route to you as well, and there's no real way to coordinate the timings with them. And if you are sending two trade routes of yours to prevent the premature end, you tie multiple trade routes to one trade deal and have to deal with extra micromanagement.

 

[nekokon]

I like this idea, just not sure if it can be implemented without major work. can any dev comment on whether such a "pseudo TR" is reasonably achievable?

Not quite sure the detail but spawning a TR after the deal is agreed and terminating trade deal after that TR is pillaged are probably the easier parts. Hardest part would be detecting when the TR unit reaches the other city (thus activate the benefits of the trade deal) since I haven't seen any function like that anywhere. Can be substituted with a flat 5 turns delay to simplify.

So, if I understood correctly, it's really complicated thing here, you can trade a resource with another civ only when a trade route is on board between them? Because now, Trade Routes and Resource Deals are totally separate things, that does not have much in common, right?

When you have bad situation with your neighbours, you cannot start any trade route with them, then you're out of possible resource deals, then you just die? Because if triple Alliance will start a ride on you, you cannot ask for help (strategic resources) from you more distant ally, because you have no TR with him?

That's too complicated and difficult to manage from gameplay point of view. Maybe more realistic, but...

Exactly what we're trying to simulate here. If you're so bad at diplomacy that you got completely surrounded on all sides and at the same time not strong enough on your own (lacking resource) then you should die pretty easily even against weaker but numerous surrounding enemies. AI will need to stop being a pain with their border conflict malus though. So annoying that malus contributed so much for early wars (thus snowballing into long term permanent aggression).

 

[Tekamthi]

There's an exploit in this point. Many trade deals last 50 turns on standard, but trade routes aren't bound to how long your deals last. You can exploit with a trade deals by gaming with trade route duration. For instance:

• Ask another civ to trade their luxury for a WLTKD or City State quest, when your only trade route with them is going to finish next turn or so. Practically a free luxury.
• Similarly, you could easily bribe a civ to go to war with ludicrous gpt offers ("here's 200 gpt and three different luxuries for going to war with this guy") when your only trade route with them is going to end next turn.

Even if the intention isn't to exploit it, you have the issue that your trade routes are likely going to finish trade deals in the middle of it simply because the trade routes rarely last 50 turns. To keep the trade going, you'd need two trade routes at least with different timings between them. There's no guarantee that the other civ will send a trade route to you as well, and there's no real way to coordinate the timings with them. And if you are sending two trade routes of yours to prevent the premature end, you tie multiple trade routes to one trade deal and have to deal with extra micromanagement.

yes this is good point -- I had considered this but not extensively. I figured valuation of resource could be pro-rated to remaining TR duration; this would probably eliminate most of the concern, as then you'd need 3 full-deal-length's worth of resources to achieve the war bribe scenario above, and this should be just a matter of applying a scalar to existing valuation. It still leaves some wonky corner cases to figure out, perhaps, though I imagine these could be adjusted as well.

On the other hand, the WLKTD and city state quest wouldn't be so easily mitigated -- there has been some discussion about WLTKD changes but i don't know where those are at. Maybe a turn counter on these objectives... ie CS quest wants you to obtain resource for 20 turns, and it counts down each turn you have it. WLTKD could be similar, though i don't know if this is palatable.

Ultimately, most of the issues outlined strike me as solvable through rebalancing, AI adjustments, and further congress proposals, though I agree getting everything ironed out completely won't necessarily be free from some complexities. The added gameplay depth might be worth it if we ever got there, but would be up to devs whether they are willing to make ongoing commitment to this end.

When you have bad situation with your neighbours, you cannot start any trade route with them, then you're out of possible resource deals, then you just die? Because if triple Alliance will start a ride on you, you cannot ask for help (strategic resources) from you more distant ally, because you have no TR with him?

i think this dynamic would be desireable to some here. Added geopolitical element of the gameplay to strategize over. A matter of taste I guess. Note that proposal includes request for an option to disable the TR requirement via advanced setup.

Maybe focus should shift to @nekokon suggestion as we discuss further -- that one would eliminate most of the balance and AI concerns I think, while still adding interesting gameplay element.

 

[usadefcon1]

Exactly what we're trying to simulate here. If you're so bad at diplomacy that you got completely surrounded on all sides and at the same time not strong enough on your own (lacking resource) then you should die pretty easily even against weaker but numerous surrounding enemies.

You only need 3 rules:

1) Is a potential trade route possible? If NO then you cannot trade resources.

2) Do all potential trade routes go through enemy territory? If YES then you cannot trade resources.

3) If a new war starts and all potential trade routes now go through enemy territory, any resource deals are cancelled.

 

[nekokon]

You will need a method to detect whether a TR would pass through an enemy territory (then do it again for all potential TR), which might cost a lot of cpu calculation every single turn due to the fact border can expand anytime, and TR can also change route based on terrain and road/railroad.
Having a pseudo TR only need the calculation once per trade deal to create, and if the TR is pillaged the deal is cut. A lot less calculations.
Can incorporate rule 1 though, to limit resource trade early game where you meet new civ on the other side of the earth and TR can't reach that far yet.

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, and bare in mind that TR from a city to a city on a shortest distance could go through enemy, but on a longer distance could go around (especially for sea routes). Right now we only see shortest TR path, because there is no need for longer ones.

 

[Tekamthi]

Referring to nekokon's pseudo-TR's, I don't think the enemy territory check would be necessary, nor desireable. Its possible to defend a TR that goes through enemy territory, and there always territory ownership changes that would just complicate such a check.

I think we just want a simple cooldown: if the pesudo TR resource route gets pillaged, an x turn cooldown should lock out any new resource deal between affected parties for a short delay.. 10 turns probably

 

[AndreyK]

I don't like this. Resource trading difficult enough already - in early game AI's don't want your resources mostly and then in late game more then half turns hostile. Also if some of your cities want some resources and you can't get it without TR it gets very risky.

 

[Tekamthi]

@nekokon do you wanna put counterproposal with your idea for pseudo-TR? assuming these no-yield TRs are possible to code, its probably a better candidate for implementation

 

[nekokon]

You can directly amend your proposal or make a counter proposal yourself for different options. I don't have a very strong feeling regarding this issue (as in I would support it/try to suggest ideas that make it balanced and fun to play with, but not really try to push it if others don't find it's interesting) so I'll leave it to you.