Diplomacy

[The End Is Nigh]

I think too much focus is being given to the strategic-military aspect of the game, the result being that diplomacy is neglected.

I strongly believe that the diplomatic aspect of the game should be completely overhauled and become an equally important factor alongside war as a means towards achieving the objective.

The possibilities are endless.

1. Building the United Nations should allow every 5 (or more or less) turns to propose resolutions (rather than have to wait when the game decides to give you that option). Defying a resolution to end a war should lead to peaceenforcement actions (everyone declares war).

2. Trade Embargoes need to return.

3. Only the five (or less depending on map size and number of civs) largest civs (depending on culture, wealth, etc) should have the right to defy a resolution - which would mean it would not pass if one of them said no.

4. Other civs should also be able to defy a resolution, meaning that although it would be accepted by everyone else and passed, they would not implement it.

5. The Five largest civs should be able to declare war (peacekeeping) unanimously on a smaller civ that defied a resolution.

6. Defensive pacts should be expanded to offer military benefits (i.e. XP points) to the members.

7. Economic pacts should be included in the game that would offer wealth-trade benefits to their members for an annual fee.

8. Cultural pacts should also be included that would offer culture points to participants for an annual fee.

9. Neutrality should be an option - meaning you would not participate in any pact and receive a penalty on military units - but no one would be able to attack you.

10. You should be able to tell what you think of your opponents (choise of settings such as annoyed, pleased, friendly and cautious).

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[dot]

lurker's comment: I'll be lurking!

 

[Ukilamiback]

2. Trade Embargoes need to return.

10. You should be able to tell what you think of your opponents (choise of settings such as annoyed, pleased, friendly and cautious).

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2. Yes.

10. One of my many wishes for since forever.

I was reading a week ago or so about a mod component by Afforess http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330881

that's a diplomacy idea that is great.

 

[mtxdevil]

Where in the world do you get the idea that they're not paying attention to diplomacy?

 

[weltraeumer]

keep it real, everybody gives a about what un says, except it fits their purpose... we still live in a world of opportunistic and false pigs.

UN is basically a nice improvement (in real and ingame) but difficult to deal with.
In Civilization I don´t want to give any souvernity up to a majority. I don´t want to be forced to declare war, to stop trading to change civics or anything. I have to live with the penalty of doing so of course.
The options available in Civ4 are all, except the nucluar ban, pretty lame. everyone makes peace with this civ, everyone changes to this civic, this one gives this city back to the owner,...
Civilization is a game of war, the UNs job is to keep peace, it acutally doesn´t really fit into the game concept.... so the question is, how can the UN support war by pretending to keep peace?
maybe instead of every 5 turns or whatever someone, the chairholder, can suggest a petition, everyone should be able to bring in petitions whenever he wants:
for example, you get attacked, you bring in an urgent call for a peace debate. If it passes, everyone (or better everyone who supported your call) declares war on the aggressor as long as he is at war with you. you and your allies get + relation, the non supporters and the aggressor get + relation, and those two parties get - relation on each other.

some of your suggestions sound pretty good, but when to use? what´s the reason for casting a trade embargo on someone? just because you can? or because he is in some sort of slavery system? not respecting woman? moral and ethic questions would be seen through the eyes of the enlightenment only.

I agree about the extension of defensive pacts... maybe you can give a percentage of hammers to the other civ, or yes xp points, no bad idea, knowledge of troop location,...

about those economic pacts... sounds good, but what is it?? wealth trade benefits for an annual fee??

Neutrality sounds good either, I can imagine a relation bonus with the other civs, but of course there is no safe haven, they can and will attack you if you´re too weak, or just don´t like you.

about 10... don´t get it, what´s the point in telling others you like this one and are annoyed with this... they know your relation with the others (+/- 20)

 

[Herrhals]

Civilization is a game of war,

absolutely not.

I can win without engaging in a single war, and that's awesome.
I hate the war system in cIV, it totally blows, therefore I choose to do very little warring. If I want a great war game, I will play Total War or Rise of Nations.

 

[NA00]

I like the ideas. Diplomacy has always been my favorite part of Civs. I rarely am very militaristic in any of the Civ games.

I really like the idea about defying the UN, I find it disappointing in CivIV that there is no option for this.

 

[youknowwhatitis]

You can defy in BtS

 

[thungrim]

Ever since Civ3, I'm satisfied as long as the you can enforce your borders and endure more than a single turn of war weariness.

Otherwise, I'm a fan of any and all expansions to diplomatic features.

One thing I've always lamented in practically all games featuring diplomacy is that the pass fail for any proposal seems so one dimensional. Not being a game designer, I have no idea what alternative I'd suggest.

 

[Afforess]

Another point often ignored is the role that Embassies play. Embassies are crucial for any kind of advanced diplomatic treaties. Seperating out the different kinds of Border agreements would be a good idea too. The vanilla Open Borders in Civ4 is pretty strange, there isn't very many cases where countries allow military units to roam unrestricted in their land. Perhaps a trade agreement would be nice too.

Another in-depth feature I've given thought to is Alliances. It would be awesome if we could have complex alliances, with multiple factions, and inter-alliance voting for offensive war declarations. There are a lot of possibilities there.

I do agree Diplomacy has been completely neglected. It was one of the first things I modded in my Civ4 mod (check out Advanced Diplomacy!), and it will be again in Civ5.

 

[pi-r8]

10. You should be able to tell what you think of your opponents (choise of settings such as annoyed, pleased, friendly and cautious).

...

Wouldn't you want to just tell everyone that you're friendly to them? I imagine that telling people you don't like them would be kind of a bad idea.

 

[Afforess]

Wouldn't you want to just tell everyone that you're friendly to them? I imagine that telling people you don't like them would be kind of a bad idea.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of situations?

 

[chongli]

Whatever they do with diplomacy, I just hope they make it far more difficult to exploit.

In the current (and past) Civ games, the opposing Civs leak far too much useful strategic information for free. This really saddens me, as the AIs really need every bit of help they can get against a vastly superior human opponent.

Giving all this information away is practically akin to a poker AI showing everyone its hand.

 

[Afforess]

Whatever they do with diplomacy, I just hope they make it far more difficult to exploit.

In the current (and past) Civ games, the opposing Civs leak far too much useful strategic information for free. This really saddens me, as the AIs really need every bit of help they can get against a vastly superior human opponent.

Giving all this information away is practically akin to a poker AI showing everyone its hand.

I agree. The Whole "We Have Too Much On Our Hands Right Now" business was poorly planned.

Also, if you had ever seen the code for the trade offers for the AI, you would have cringed. The AI asked for technologies pretty much randomly. Open Borders is valued as a trade asset; the AI completely ignores the exploration part of it, and there are other various absurdities too...

 

[phungus420]

I'll wager a donut diplomacy will be much more in depth and stratigic in Civ5. We already know they are adding research packs for instance. But it goes beyond that, besides the press release which states a focus on diplomacy, we can look at Warlords and BtS see the failed vassal system and it's apparent what the concept was Firaxis was trying to get at with it (though it wasn't implemented correctly, so it feels off). It's a good bet the civ5 devs have put in alot of effort to fix this feature in BtS, and doing so would require a whole hosts of game mechanic tweaks. What I'm saying is I can't imagine they'd just cut the concept of Vassals without rebuilding something that had a similar role but actually worked.

 

[chongli]

I agree. The Whole "We Have Too Much On Our Hands Right Now" business was poorly planned.

Also, if you had ever seen the code for the trade offers for the AI, you would have cringed. The AI asked for technologies pretty much randomly. Open Borders is valued as a trade asset; the AI completely ignores the exploration part of it, and there are other various absurdities too...

Well, if what we've been reading is to be believed, the AI Civs will have long-term goals as part of some kind of plan to win the game. Attempting to acquire technologies and resources critical to reaching these goals should be their number one priority. Diplomacy is a very powerful tool, one that the AIs would do well to exploit to further these ends.

Where things start to get very complicated is when you combine the need for secrecy with the ability to demand/request key technologies/resources. How do the AIs accomplish this without tipping their hands? Conversely, how do the AIs make use of information their rivals might leak to them in order to block them from reaching their goals?

The more I think about it, the more my head begins to spin!

 

[NA00]

It is going to be incredbly difficult, if not impossible, to get an ai to understand all the dynamics of diplomacy and foreign relations. We are basically asking a computer to be able to make the decisions that people, with our already unpredictable natures, to make. I think CivV will be a definite improvement, it is just mind-boggling to think of all the complexities of diplomacy that we are wanting the ai to simulate.

 

[chongli]

It is going to be incredbly difficult, if not impossible, to get an ai to understand all the dynamics of diplomacy and foreign relations. We are basically asking a computer to be able to make the decisions that people, with our already unpredictable natures, to make. I think CivV will be a definite improvement, it is just mind-boggling to think of all the complexities of diplomacy that we are wanting the ai to simulate.

Yeah, but I think the game can do itself a few favours just by making the AI generally tight-lipped and standoffish as a rule.

 

[Gamemaster77]

What about the ability for war to not automatically be declared when attacked. A pop-up would show up saying "retailiate with war?" or something along those lines. The only time war is immediatly declared is when a Civilication formlly declares war on you. There would be a war or peace meter on each nation giving a percentge on how much they want to go to war with them. For example, constently having AI pass through your territory will make them want war. Long and unsuccesfull war campaigns make them want peace. If you attack people while the pecent is less than fifty bad things will happen. Citizens will get made and eventually Anarchy will develop. The drasticness of the effect of war or peace could change with governents.

 

[David7]

I'm not sure If this would work well, but I wish the AI wouldn't ever absolutely refuse to see you when they are mad.