(2-NS) Resource Trade Deals Spawn No-Yield TR

[Tekamthi]

In the course of discussion from last round concerning representation of resource trade on the game map, a possibly worthwhile idea emerged:

Represent resource trade deals completed on the diplomacy screen with a no-yield trade route ("pseudo-TR")

Proposed Implementation:

• Diplomacy screen resource deal gated by potential for TR's: as long as a civ can create a TR to another player, that civ can propose import and/or export resource deal with the other player
• Resource trade deal spawns a pseudo-TR on the shortest route available originating in deal proposer's city/terminating in trade partner's; pseudo-TR does not count towards TR total or for other TR-related checks
• Resource deal's pseudo-TR "belongs" to the proposer of the diplomacy screen trade deal.
• Resource deal's pseudo-TR can be pillaged, resulting in same diplomacy/approach effects as pillaging a normal TR
• Pillaging resource pseudo-TR terminates associated trade deal, and blocks former trade partners from creating new resource trade deal for 10 turns
• Peace Treaty resource deals do not spawn a pseudo-TR
• when trade deal elapses as per current rules, pseudo-TR despawns (regardless of where the associated trade unit is)
• resource deal pseudo-TR can be disabled via advanced setup screen

Intended effect(s):

• improve thematic experience from inter-civ trade, linking what's seen on the map to diplomacy choices
• add additional strategic dynamic to war in which one or both sides are being supplied with external resources

 

[nekokon]

I believe we're still lacking sponsor so there's not much more to discuss. There're new AI adjustments that needed to be done, and it's pretty hard to find a sponsor for this.

• Pillaging resource pseudo-TR is equivalent to declaration of war on both civs involved in the trade
• research agreements, if enabled, spawn a pseudo-TR as per above, however trade partners receive science upon pillage pro-rated for turns completed.

Those are new points ? I don't agree with both.
Pillaging resource TR should only incur diplomatic issue, just like how Morrocco UA (?) works.
Research agreement doesn't involve any constant physical transfer of goods, but more like an one-time scientists swap/group up somewhere. Doesn't make sense to have it terminate-able by anything but the 2 involved sides.

 

[Tekamthi]

On the first point, proposal had to address this one way or another -- chose what struck me to be the easiest implementation that fits with existing AI capabilities. Also lends some stability to these deals, by making their pillaging have significant consequences. Your suggestion implies to me that a new AI consideration towards this diplo penalty might have to be added-in, vs. AI is already-equipped to evaluate whether war is a good idea or not. That said your suggestion would be fine in my books, will let a few more voices chime in here perhaps, before amending. I suppose the alternative would be "route can be pillaged as long as pillager is at war with one of the pseudo-TR civs, and pillage applies diplo malus between both pseudo-TR parties and pillaging civ". In this case, are we saying pillage is blocked entirely on these routes until a war state exists? ie, iirc, unlike a normal TR that can be pillaged by a civ not at war and result in DoW, these pseudo-TR's require a war declared through other DoW mechanism first, right?

On the second point, this was feature of last month's proposal, adjusted for this alternative. The research has to propagate into both civs somehow, and is a "resource" trade deal of sorts, completed via diplo screen in much the same way that material resource deals are; material vs knowledge resources don't seem an important distinction in this sense to me. When research deal first becomes available in-game, their timespan outlasts any individual scientist's lifespan, or at least any individual's career, so it seems doubtful to me these are abstractions of a "one-time scientists swap/group up somewhere." Maybe late-game, I'd agree with this description. Given the spirit of having this proposal address on-map representation of resource-trade-related things, and research agreements representing the trade of knowledge "resources", seems worth including in this proposal in some manner. What if the research agreement piece is disabled by x tech? telecommunications is probably best fit.. so early portion of their availability proceeds as proposed, late-game as you've suggested? Adds some thematic value to the discovery of telecomms as secondary benefit. Thoughts?

 

[nekokon]

Problem with instant DoW vs diplomatic malus is anything with instant DoW is very hard to balance (either too easy to use to get around peace treaty or too hard to use - having to fight multiple enemies the AI just won't touch it, which is the main point of this proposal). Diplomatic malus CAN lead to DoW (which is the same case for Marrocco UA) and is a lot more flexible. And of course, you must be at war with one of the trading civ to pillage it, otherwise it's way too abusable.

The reason I disagree with research agreement TR option is because it does nothing over a long period of time until it's finished, and it's very unfun having all the wait time wasted as a player (and also very abusive if you can time and destroy other's research agreement too). That is I'm assuming research agreement still work the same way and not turned into increasing science per turn. I usually play with it off since it makes peaceful game too strong.

 

[Tekamthi]

Okay both good points -- will hold on any amendments til the discussion develops a little further. I did intend for there to be some pro-rated reward for a research agreement that is ended early, though there'd still be some risk given its paid for up front in its existing state. Upon reflection, I might be persuaded to drop the research agreement piece solely on basis of streamlining the implementation, other factors notwithstanding; merit or not, it just simplifies the dev's task while still accomplishing the bulk of the objective, and this is only an occasionally-used option as you point out.

 

[AndreyK]

I don't like gating resource trading, we have many limitations already. As you compete for victory, many AI's turns hostile since Medieval, then if you have a war you can be blocked from trade completely. So this will be complete and full game-changing mechanic. Also, when following this logic, then what about CS allies - are we going to gate resources gotten from them?

 

[Tekamthi]

I don't like gating resource trading, we have many limitations already. As you compete for victory, many AI's turns hostile since Medieval, then if you have a war you can be blocked from trade completely. So this will be complete and full game-changing mechanic. Also, when following this logic, then what about CS allies - are we going to gate resources gotten from them?

Okay, this limitations issue is an understandable concern, particularly vis-a-vis AI, though I infer it is partially tied to last month's proposal, which would have imposed a much stronger "gating" restriction and significant limitation to the status quo resource availability. The "gating" done here is simply to ensure that there is an identifiable TR to represent the deal; its not intended to limit resource availability other than to make this trade-on-the-map concept functional, at least insomuch as we've theorycrafted it thus far. We could modify the proposal to just create a pseudo-TR without any concern for normal TR's at all -- ie resource deal invokes pathfinding function between player A and B's cities and spawns pseudo-TR on whatever path it finds. In such a situation we'd only have gating by the availability of some path between the trade partners -- on typical maps this wouldn't limit anything.

I disagree with the concern that " you can be blocked from trade completely"; until the game is won or lost completely, there are always options in-game to pursue what is necessary for your civ's welfare.

@nekokon this concern raised by @AndreyK concerning "many AI's turns hostile since Medieval" is what I had in mind when I included in proposal "Pillaging resource pseudo-TR is equivalent to declaration of war on both civs involved in the trade". The consequence of a DoW on both trade partners if pseudo-TR is pillaged, should serve to protect this pseudo-TR as it passes through territory that is hostile to one side or the other, at least some of the time. imo this aspect may be important to balance (at least partially) against AndreyK's concern.

As far as CS go, this proposal is concerned only with trade deals completed via diplomacy screen. CS are out-of-scope, unaffected by this proposal.

 

[nekokon]

You're trying to expand too much out of the original goal. The simplified goal of this proposal is to limit civ from trading with another civ when they're surrounded by hostile. That would be meaningless if you put a restriction too strong on pillaging the trade deal.
A DoW is binary, you either get it or you don't, thus it will always be either too strong hostile civ in the middle won't ever touch it (DoW on 2 civ pincering you, really ?) or too weak players can use it to go around peace treaty. It's a lot less flexible than diplomatic penalty which built up gradually until the interfering civ is targeted by both.

 

[ma_kuh]

For consistency, it seems like pillaging a pseudo-TR should work the same as any other TR: AI already decides if pillaging your TR and upsetting a neighbor is worthwhile. Or maybe it always loots it and suffers the consequence, but if that's the case then having it behave that way here also makes sense.

I don't think you mentioned in your proposal, but would the TR spawn from the deal-initiator's city first? Does the trade duration scale based on the TR distance, like regular TRs? Again, for consistency that seems important, but probably out of scope?

 

[Tekamthi]

For consistency, it seems like pillaging a pseudo-TR should work the same as any other TR: AI already decides if pillaging your TR and upsetting a neighbor is worthwhile.

agreed, though I guess in this sense, how this functions depends on who the TR belongs to. As proposed, I've suggested it will belong to both. I could not settle on a way to determine who to assign it to otherwise....

would the TR spawn from the deal-initiator's city first?

Implementing this way, ie deal-proposer "owns" the route, would resolve the above concern, and also effectively bring things back in-line with @nekokon's suggestion re: pillaging a route not necessarily resulting in DoW of the trade partner. Its also somewhat simpler implementation; all said I'm persuaded.

Does the trade duration scale based on the TR distance, like regular TRs?

Good question. Suggestions? I have assumed that deal length would still last just as long, and pseudo-TR would just disappear once its over, no matter where the caravan or cargo ship is at that point. Completing x rounds trips or w/e the current criteria are seems irrelevant to the purpose here.

Proposal amended to assign pseudo-TR ownership to deal-proposer. Also removed RA component to simplify things

 

[ma_kuh]

I think the deal duration should just stay as-is. I can't imagine it would be easy or worthwhile to use nearest cities, then use the trade logic to determine duration, then have AI evaluate based on the number of turns they'll receive the resource, especially since most of the value is probably in triggering a WLTKD to being with. Better to just leave it simple. It's also easier to revert or tweak with other Trade Deal changes in the future.

 

[Tekamthi]

Agreed.

To those that are unsure about supporting the proposal here, would it be more palatable as a strategics-only implementation? Could knock out the various WLTKD concerns with lux trading, that way....

 

[Recursive]

I find it unlikely you're going to find someone to sponsor this. Too complicated, too many interactions with existing mechanics.

 

[Tekamthi]

I find it unlikely you're going to find someone to sponsor this. Too complicated, too many interactions with existing mechanics.

Fair, this was my initial take on this idea as well.

Would it change much if we restricted proposal to strategics only? I'm guessing not enough, though strat-only version of OP is more or less the lightest form of this proposal i can think of that might accomplish objectives.

Any further comments, if any, should probably focus on evolving this idea, or other ways to accomplish some link between active resource trade deals and the game map.

 

[Recursive]

This proposal is designated as high impact (difficult to implement). Two sponsors or a primary developer sponsor are required for it to proceed to the Voting Phase.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal failed due to lack of sponsorship.