Ambassador Unit

[crossclayton]

I had an idea for a unit, dunno if its been done or not but any way. I was thinking that you could have an Ambassador Unit that works much like a spy and uses your espionage points to performs its role.

It would not be invisible like a spy though but can enter other civs borders even if you dont have an open border agreement. It could possibly have a few spy abilities like assassination or others, but if caught in the act, is way worse than catching a spy, but has more of a chance getting away with it.

The main purpose of this unit would be its unique ability in diplomacy. Send it to a civs capital and have it hold a seminar where it attempts to become friendlier with the civ. This would minus 1 red point from the civs attitude towards you. The succession rate is rather low, so it may take many attempts before a red negative point is actually disposed of.

E.g.
So you might have been on and off at war with a particular civ, but it is no longer viable for you to keep being its enemy and you would like a more permanent peace with them and eventually friendship, but you now have -20 for all the times you declared war and -7 for all the times you declared war on their friends. The AI is never gonna forget this! So you send in an ambassador and slowly but surely you can build up your friendship with them again and get back to a neutral standing with them.

The unit would use the espionage points that spies use and would be limited to 1 national unit, be relatively expensive and cost a lot of production to make. This would prevent you from creating world war 5 and then just spamming ambassador units until everyone likes you again. The unit does not give you green positive points towards the civ, it simply reduces the red negative points until it has none left, at that point you can no longer hold seminars with that civ until it has another red minus point towards you.

 

[Afforess]

I had an idea for a unit, dunno if its been done or not but any way. I was thinking that you could have an Ambassador Unit that works much like a spy and uses your espionage points to performs its role.

It would not be invisible like a spy though but can enter other civs borders even if you dont have an open border agreement.

I don't know about this part, going through without open borders. Usually, the other nation has to accept your ambassadors in real life before they will be allowed in. However, there could be a new spy option "Spread Propaganda" Which works towards your diplomacy for the city. It would work as a function of population. So, if that city was size 10, and the empire was a total of 100 population, 10% of the nation would have heard your propaganda. For every 10% of the population you spread propaganda, you would get a +1 "Our people are infatuated with your culture."

 

[crossclayton]

I don't know about this part, going through without open borders. Usually, the other nation has to accept your ambassadors in real life before they will be allowed in. However, there could be a new spy option "Spread Propaganda" Which works towards your diplomacy for the city. It would work as a function of population. So, if that city was size 10, and the empire was a total of 100 population, 10% of the nation would have heard your propaganda. For every 10% of the population you spread propaganda, you would get a +1 "Our people are infatuated with your culture."

I dont think that is entirely true. Countries do not have to have open borders or even like each other to take part in diplomatic negotiations. If a nation does not like you to the point where they wont open their borders to you. You as a leader would send ambassadors to try and come to an agreement. This could lead to countries accepting an open border agreement. They would also be used when tension between two nations is at boiling point and war is highly likely to break out. Holding talks to ease the tension would be the job of the ambassador unit.

This unit is not about trying to make an opponent like you, it is about stopping a nation from disliking you, bringing back to a nuetral standing, from here you would have to make friends by trade, agreements, sharing tech etc alliance.

Spreading propaganda would lead to the enemy nations leaders getting more angry at you for trying to get there people on your side.

The part of it being calculated like spy missions, would simulate whether or not your negotiations worked on that country. The espionage points(in regard to the ambassador unit) would simulate how well your unit is at speeches in ratio to how easy an opponent nation is to accepting that speech. The more points you have would show your nations negotiating skills towards that nation, understanding of there culture, ways of life etc. meaning a higher chance of success. Their points in ratio to your own would simulate their negotiating skills compared to yours and if and how manipulated they are to accepting your good nature to initiate talks with them and if they believe you are actually being truthful.

Things such as religion, civics, friends and enemies would also be a contributing factor to success or failure in talks. There would even be the slight chance(once again depending on espionage ratio) that your talks have failed and simply insulted the enemy nation, causing a more negative impact.

I thought to if the unit uses the spy points, it would save having to come up with an entire new diplomatic point system. Plus, diplomats\ambassadors wat ever name the unit gets in the end, could also be given orders to spy and perform some spy missions, like spreading culture or unhappiness and would have a higher success rating as they would not have to flee the scene and just act normal when a bomb goes off however, if caught, it would mean much sterner negative responses from the enemy nation because you have used a unit of trust and peace as a tool of war.

Plus another great person could come into play-The Great Diplomat- he could be used to completely remove all negative attitude towards you from one enemy nation in one go.

And a little off topic but still in the realm of diplomacy, you should get a positive point for brokering peace between warring nations. The parties involved in the war and friends of those involved should receive a positive point towards you for trying to bring peace to the world.

 

[Afforess]

I dont think that is entirely true. Countries do not have to have open borders or even like each other to take part in diplomatic negotiations. If a nation does not like you to the point where they wont open their borders to you. You as a leader would send ambassadors to try and come to an agreement. This could lead to countries accepting an open border agreement. They would also be used when tension between two nations is at boiling point and war is highly likely to break out. Holding talks to ease the tension would be the job of the ambassador unit.

Valid point. However, I think that spies should then be given an option that appears if an enemy ambassador is in your city, "Assassinate Ambassador." If it is successful, the ambassador dies. If it is successful, but the spy gets caught in the act, you get a diplomatic penalty with the other nation.

This unit is not about trying to make an opponent like you, it is about stopping a nation from disliking you, bringing back to a nuetral standing, from here you would have to make friends by trade, agreements, sharing tech etc alliance.

I'm afraid I can't make an existing diplomatic penalty fade away. I can add a new diplomatic bonus, that cancels it out, like "You've made positive diplomatic overtures", but I can not remove or lessen an existing effect.

Spreading propaganda would lead to the enemy nations leaders getting more angry at you for trying to get there people on your side.

It depends on how you spin it. If it's a friend, or a large segment of the population agrees with the other nation, you could have a revolt on your hands for cracking down on it. Otherwise, your probably right.

The part of it being calculated like spy missions, would simulate whether or not your negotiations worked on that country. The espionage points(in regard to the ambassador unit) would simulate how well your unit is at speeches in ratio to how easy an opponent nation is to accepting that speech. The more points you have would show your nations negotiating skills towards that nation, understanding of there culture, ways of life etc. meaning a higher chance of success. Their points in ratio to your own would simulate their negotiating skills compared to yours and if and how manipulated they are to accepting your good nature to initiate talks with them and if they believe you are actually being truthful.

How does a nation determine truthfulness or not? After all, every player is trying to "win" the game, so technically speaking, every player would be just using it as a tool, or lying.

Things such as religion, civics, friends and enemies would also be a contributing factor to success or failure in talks. There would even be the slight chance(once again depending on espionage ratio) that your talks have failed and simply insulted the enemy nation, causing a more negative impact.

I thought to if the unit uses the spy points, it would save having to come up with an entire new diplomatic point system. Plus, diplomats\ambassadors wat ever name the unit gets in the end, could also be given orders to spy and perform some spy missions, like spreading culture or unhappiness and would have a higher success rating as they would not have to flee the scene and just act normal when a bomb goes off however, if caught, it would mean much sterner negative responses from the enemy nation because you have used a unit of trust and peace as a tool of war.

Plus another great person could come into play-The Great Diplomat- he could be used to completely remove all negative attitude towards you from one enemy nation in one go.

And a little off topic but still in the realm of diplomacy, you should get a positive point for brokering peace between warring nations. The parties involved in the war and friends of those involved should receive a positive point towards you for trying to bring peace to the world.

The basic premise here is a good idea. I, however, would need to learn how to add a new action button (The things units can do, like fortify, are called "Action buttons") and a bunch of SDK changes. When the dust settles from RoM's 2.8 release, and we can agree on a set system, I may look into it.

 

[winthrowe]

This sounds kinda like the diplomat stuff in White Lies, Black Ops. maybe a source of inspiration/code? I've started a quick game waiting for 2.8, and it has some cool stuff along this kind of line. plus terrorists! maybe I should wander over to the modmod request thread and ask someone to merge the whole thing..

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Someone created a Great Diplomat unit which did some of these things so that may be a a good place to start from or get ideas from.

 

[crossclayton]

Valid point. However, I think that spies should then be given an option that appears if an enemy ambassador is in your city, "Assassinate Ambassador." If it is successful, the ambassador dies. If it is successful, but the spy gets caught in the act, you get a diplomatic penalty with the other nation.

Yeah, i like that, giving the spy a larger role. I personally find that i do not use the spy very much, usually just for counter espionage and if i wanna muck around a bit.

 

[crossclayton]

How does a nation determine truthfulness or not? After all, every player is trying to "win" the game, so technically speaking, every player would be just using it as a tool, or lying.
.

Well that depends on how you are trying to win the game. If you are trying to conquer the world, then yes you would be using your unit as a tool of manipulation to stay cool with nations until the time suited you to strike at them or used to keep the friends of the nation you declared war on happy with you. But, if you are trying to win religiously and want a nation who you have battled centuries ago to like you enough to convert, or if you are going for diplomatic victory, or want them to become a vassal but they still have that -3 cos you declared war on their friend 900 years ago, or you want to become friendlier so trade can open between you or wanting to trade techs.

What i meant by "truthfulness" is more how sincere your ambassador sounds when he is giving his speech. Like when Obama gave his speech to the muslim nations in Cairo. He had a very sincere sounding speech and it would have removed some slight negative attitude some nations had against america, but not every muslim nation would have accepted his speech and just seen it as america doing their normal thing when a new president comes into play, so the speech would not have worked and in other cases it may have just insulted certain nations, they would have seen it as america just trying to manipulate, so it would have just pissed them off more(terrorist groups). So if Obama was your ambassador unit, his ability to hold talks is represented by the espionage ratio of the nation you are holding talks with.

(please note...i do not know the details of other nations in our world in relation to Obamas speech and was simply using the above as an example of what i am trying to represent in RoM by way of this proposed unit. So please dont have a go at me or anything for mentioning it)

 

[Afforess]

Valid point. However, I think that spies should then be given an option that appears if an enemy ambassador is in your city, "Assassinate Ambassador." If it is successful, the ambassador dies. If it is successful, but the spy gets caught in the act, you get a diplomatic penalty with the other nation.

Yeah, i like that, giving the spy a larger role. I personally find that i do not use the spy very much, usually just for counter espionage and if i wanna muck around a bit.

Well that depends on how you are trying to win the game. If you are trying to conquer the world, then yes you would be using your unit as a tool of manipulation to stay cool with nations until the time suited you to strike at them or used to keep the friends of the nation you declared war on happy with you. But, if you are trying to win religiously and want a nation who you have battled centuries ago to like you enough to convert, or if you are going for diplomatic victory, or want them to become a vassal but they still have that -3 cos you declared war on their friend 900 years ago, or you want to become friendlier so trade can open between you or wanting to trade techs.

Realistic Diplomacy already solves this problem. Even the worst offenses are forgotten after 200 turns.

What i meant by "truthfulness" is more how sincere your ambassador sounds when he is giving his speech. Like when Obama gave his speech to the muslim nations in Cairo. He had a very sincere sounding speech and it would have removed some slight negative attitude some nations had against america, but not every muslim nation would have accepted his speech and just seen it as america doing their normal thing when a new president comes into play, so the speech would not have worked and in other cases it may have just insulted certain nations, they would have seen it as america just trying to manipulate, so it would have just pissed them off more(terrorist groups). So if Obama was your ambassador unit, his ability to hold talks is represented by the espionage ratio of the nation you are holding talks with.

Okay, then we should call it "sincerity" then. I understand your example. However the problem here is that the real world and the Civ "world" deviate from set goals. The US's long term goals don't include any form of "victory" or world conquest. In Civ, you need to defeat the enemy. The goals here clash.

 

[crossclayton]

Realistic Diplomacy already solves this problem. Even the worst offenses are forgotten after 200 turns.


Okay, then we should call it "sincerity" then. I understand your example. However the problem here is that the real world and the Civ "world" deviate from set goals. The US's long term goals don't include any form of "victory" or world conquest. In Civ, you need to defeat the enemy. The goals here clash.

Yes i realise this, i was just trying to give an idea of what i am talking about and how holding diplomatic talks are used. I understand that the real world is a lot more complex and that the US is not trying to take over the world.

I am trying to state clearly what I am trying to get this Ambassador unit to simulate, as closely as it can in the RoM world. The goal of the Cairo speech was to lessen tension, this would also be a role of the Ambassador unit aswell, lessening tension with an enemy that you never really intended to go to war with yet certain circumstances in the game have created a high level of negativity between the two of you.

I understand about realistic diplomacy, i really like it, but 200 turns is a long time and when I am playing on a huge world map, with 28 starting civs at eternal speed and on immortal setting, a lot of things happen in those 200 turns. I find by the time i get to the medieval era, everyone is angry at everyone and wars just keep breaking out.

Also, are you sure it is 200 turns? does the length of the game change this in anyway, just asking cos i began a new game on the settings above and started war near the very beginning on spain (i was rome) i then made peace asap and kept watch on there negativity and of france's who had negativity towards me cos i declared war on their friend. It was well over 200 turns yet they still maintained there negative points against me. I had by this time made friends with them, so i was up more in green points, but there negative ones were still there, thats why i came up with this idea.

They did forget minor things rather quickly, but not decalring war or declared war on friends.

 

[crossclayton]

[QUOTE
Okay, then we should call it "sincerity" then. I understand your example. However the problem here is that the real world and the Civ "world" deviate from set goals. The US's long term goals don't include any form of "victory" or world conquest. In Civ, you need to defeat the enemy. The goals here clash.[/QUOTE]

Well it really depends on how you like to play your civ game. You dont just set out to defeat your enemy. You can if you want, but there are multiple vicotry conditions that require a bit more than just wiping every1 out.

 

[Afforess]

Yes i realise this, i was just trying to give an idea of what i am talking about and how holding diplomatic talks are used. I understand that the real world is a lot more complex and that the US is not trying to take over the world.

I am trying to state clearly what I am trying to get this Ambassador unit to simulate, as closely as it can in the RoM world. The goal of the Cairo speech was to lessen tension, this would also be a role of the Ambassador unit aswell, lessening tension with an enemy that you never really intended to go to war with yet certain circumstances in the game have created a high level of negativity between the two of you.

I understand about realistic diplomacy, i really like it, but 200 turns is a long time and when I am playing on a huge world map, with 28 starting civs at eternal speed and on immortal setting, a lot of things happen in those 200 turns. I find by the time i get to the medieval era, everyone is angry at everyone and wars just keep breaking out.

Also, are you sure it is 200 turns? does the length of the game change this in anyway, just asking cos i began a new game on the settings above and started war near the very beginning on spain (i was rome) i then made peace asap and kept watch on there negativity and of france's who had negativity towards me cos i declared war on their friend. It was well over 200 turns yet they still maintained there negative points against me. I had by this time made friends with them, so i was up more in green points, but there negative ones were still there, thats why i came up with this idea.

They did forget minor things rather quickly, but not decalring war or declared war on friends.

No, you're right. I looked up how the function really works in the SDK. For forgetting a past war declaration, my XML value is 75. That means every turn, the game rolls a random number, between 0 and 75. If it turns out to be 0, the AI forgets the event. Any other number, and it remembers it.

It's a binomial distribution, so in 200 turns, you have a 92.3% chance that the AI will have forgotten.

 

[Supercheese]

I looked up how the function really works in the SDK. For forgetting a past war declaration, my XML value is 75. That means every turn, the game rolls a random number, between 0 and 75. If it turns out to be 0, the AI forgets the event. Any other number, and it remembers it.

So, wait, that sounds like that means there is a small chance the AI will forget on the very next turn after making peace, no? Or even during the war?
That doesn't sound right...

 

[Afforess]

So, wait, that sounds like that means there is a small chance the AI will forget on the very next turn after making peace, no? Or even during the war?
That doesn't sound right...

Yes. That's how it works, I just checked in the SDK.

Here's that section:

Spoiler :

	for (iI = 0; iI < MAX_PLAYERS; iI++)
	{
		if (GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).isAlive())
		{
			for (iJ = 0; iJ < NUM_MEMORY_TYPES; iJ++)
			{
				if (AI_getMemoryCount(((PlayerTypes)iI), ((MemoryTypes)iJ)) > 0)
				{
					if (GC.getLeaderHeadInfo(getPersonalityType()).getMemoryDecayRand(iJ) > 0)
					{
						if (GC.getGameINLINE().getSorenRandNum(GC.getLeaderHeadInfo(getPersonalityType()).getMemoryDecayRand(iJ), "Memory Decay") == 0)
						{
							AI_changeMemoryCount(((PlayerTypes)iI), ((MemoryTypes)iJ), -1);
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

 

[Supercheese]

Yes. That's how it works, I just checked in the SDK.

Well, dang. That doesn't seem like the best of systems to me, but I suppose based on probability it ends up producing the desired results most of the time...

 

[Afforess]

Well, dang. That doesn't seem like the best of systems to me, but I suppose based on probability it ends up producing the desired results most of the time...

If it didn't have some random chance, then it would be too predictable, and that's worse than just having it be random. At least we can set the denominator.

 

[crossclayton]

No, you're right. I looked up how the function really works in the SDK. For forgetting a past war declaration, my XML value is 75. That means every turn, the game rolls a random number, between 0 and 75. If it turns out to be 0, the AI forgets the event. Any other number, and it remembers it.

It's a binomial distribution, so in 200 turns, you have a 92.3% chance that the AI will have forgotten.

So does this mean that every turn there is a 1 in 76 chance that the AI will forget?

Does the AI forget all of the negative points associated with war declaration, or just 1 point at a time?

Is this the same for points associated with "you declared war on my friend"?

Is there a way you can simply make the AI forget say... 1 negative point associated with war (on friend or on enemy) like every 50 turns of peace you maintain, instead of it being a percentile chance it will forget?

Kind of like the way your peace treaties finish after 10 turns. That way i would kind of know that if i keep up the peace with a certain civ, i can slowly get back to a nuetral standing with them.

 

[Afforess]

So does this mean that every turn there is a 1 in 76 chance that the AI will forget?

Yes, that's what I based my percentage on.

Does the AI forget all of the negative points associated with war declaration, or just 1 point at a time?

One point at a time.

Is this the same for points associated with "you declared war on my friend"?

No, it does a separate check for that, if you play with RD, it's 50, so a 1/51 chance, each turn.

Is there a way you can simply make the AI forget say... 1 negative point associated with war (on friend or on enemy) like every 50 turns of peace you maintain, instead of it being a percentile chance it will forget?

If it was that predictable, it would be very exploitable. I could just capture a few key cities, wait 50 turns, and vote myself Secretary General.

 

[Afforess]

Also, I may go back through Realistic Diplomacy, and see if I can't get values I like better. I originally made it back when I didn't understand C++, or the SDK.

 

[crossclayton]

If it was that predictable, it would be very exploitable. I could just capture a few key cities, wait 50 turns, and vote myself Secretary General.

Im not sure what you mean here. As when i declare war against civ (A), i get a -3 which hangs around after peace is declared and i usually get a -1 from any friends of civ (A).

Now i may have declared peace simply to rearm my army, and once ready again i go to war again. This then jumps up Civ (A) to a -6 against me which hangs around after peace is declared again, after i have achieved my objective, might have been to take a city that i considered to be on land i was going to settle in but they may have beat me to it.

I never actually intended in wiping them from the earth, just wanted land i had planned on getting.

Now i have a -6 from Civ(A) and a -2 from any of Civ(A)'s friends.

I now would like to actually be friends and perhaps later form a nice relationship with them. So if it removed 1 red point every 50 turns,as long as i maintain peace with them i would know that it will take 300 turns to get back to a neutral standing with them, as long as i maintain peace with them. Then once time has healed the wounds of past conflicts i could begin constructing a friendship with Civ(A) through agreements ,trade etc.

There have been times in really big long games that i have Civs with -30 attitude. Having a 1 in 76 chance they will forget 1 negative point is kind of useless, but if i had an idea of how long it would take for them to get over it, i could play my cards right and let time heal these wounds aswell.

If i had an ambassador unit, i could put time and money into holding talks with Civ(A) to try and help with the situation. It would be a slow process but one that would have a beneficial outcome for all the time and money spent. This way the diplomacy could still stay on a percentile chance, but with enough effort, you could use the Ambassador Unit to Help move things along.