Diplomacy

[rhammer640]

i left a message for gazebo over on the CSD thread seeing if he wanted to join the discussion over here and to see if he would be interested in helping/had any good ideas to add to those above.

 

[Gazebo]

Agree this sounds great. You should talk to Gazebo - he hasn't done much with the mod recently, but I'm pretty sure he's open to more ideas like these. (IIRC, he also doesn't have much lua experience so he may need a hand with these kind of changes.)

EDIT - btw, Sneaks, did you get my PM?

Don't despair, I'm still here! CSD has reached its XML-based maximum in terms of changes, so I am just waiting patiently for code.

You are correct, Seek – I haven't worked with LUA in a very long time, and am terribly rusty. I would need some assistance if we were to flesh out the end-game mechanic (something I am highly interested in doing, mind you).

I have no problem with Thal integrating CSD into his mod, even if that means disabling/removing aspects of the vanilla version of CSD. Just let me know what you want to change so I can see the result (and possibly change vanilla). I created CSD for everyone, and have no feeling of 'ownership' – it is 'open-source' in the loosest meaning of term. Just let me know what you are doing with it (no bank robberies, please).

There does seem to be a bit of misinformation circulating in this thread concerning CSD, however. While I did disable the 'Kill City-State' quest, I did not disable the AIs desire to conquer city-states. In fact, there is usually a wave of DOWs and conquests starting around 1850 in most games with CSD enabled. The difference is that the AI is more selective about which CSs is conquers (it targets CSs that are strategically significant to its neighbors) as opposed to random CSs.

IMO, CSD doesn't add tedium– I wanted to avoid this as much as possible (thus the reasoning behind diplo units giving 55 influence– 2 diplo units= alliance for some time).

Finally, the AI is terribly (annoyingly) good at CSD– they kick my ass late-game on the higher difficulty settings. They do have a few flaws, however: they cannot do a diplo mission while embarked (even though humans can) and they sometimes 'forget' about a diplo unit and leave him wandering about for 15-20 turns. Eventually they will use it, but they can be slow sometimes. I've never been able to figure out why this happens, as it is completely unpredictable. Oh and they have a bad habit of kamikaze-ing units right past barb camps in the early game and getting them captured.

Thanks for considering CSD, guys– it took quite some time to create, test and polish.

-Gazebo

 

[Thalassicus]

I would strongly recommend against adding a requirement where you have to physically move diplomat units around to the Balance mod.

It would also be something that the AI would do an utterly terrible job of handling. The AI is bad enough about getting CS allies as it is. *Please* don't make it harder for them.

It's based on the Great Merchant code so the AI handles it fantastically well. I've been using CSD for some time now and it makes the game a lot more fun.

However, my decision to include a mod in TBC is based on one simple rule:

• Can the mod be installed separately from TBC and work okay?

If "yes" I don't include the mod. If they are not separately compatible (typically only user interface mods), and I feel the mod is necessary for proper CiV gameplay, I include it. CSD is completely independently compatible... for now at least.

This is why I've highly recommended the specialized barbarian units mod since like... October... but never included it in TBC. It's easier for people to customize the stuff they want to use this way.

 

[Txurce]

It's based on the Great Merchant code so the AI handles it fantastically well. I've been using CSD for some time now and it makes the game a lot more fun.

However, my decision to include a mod in TBC is based on one simple rule:

• Can the mod be installed separately from TBC and work okay?

If "yes" I don't include the mod. If they are not separately compatible (typically only user interface mods), and I feel the mod is necessary for proper CiV gameplay, I include it. CSD is completely independently compatible... for now at least.

This is why I've highly recommended the specialized barbarian units mod since like... October... but never included it in TBC. It's easier for people to customize the stuff they want to use this way.

So in effect it could be optimized to work with TBC, then recommended like WWGD?

 

[SlightlyMad]

Well if Thal says it's good then it's going in my next game

 

[rhammer640]

@Thal

What do you think about trying to implement a points system for diplomatic victory? Obviously its not worth discussing further if you don't like/cant implement the concept. If gazebo was willing to work on the code with assistance it wouldn't take up all your coding time.

(really wish i had more time to learn how to code so i could help, lol)

 

[Thalassicus]

@Txurce
Basically, I think citystate diplomacy already is optimized to work with TBC... not out of any extra effort on the part of either modder, just because CSD is data edits that are unrelated to the stuff I'm doing. I don't know of any potential issues, and have played with it for a while now.


@rhammer640
I don't even know if a points system is possible to be honest. I haven't looked at the voting system, because in-depth research into game mechanics like that usually takes a few hours and I haven't had the need to do so for anything yet. I think it's closely related enough to Gazebo's work it'd be appropriate for him to have the first shot at it.

 

[Gazebo]

@Txurce
Basically, I think citystate diplomacy already is optimized to work with TBC... not out of any extra effort on the part of either modder, just because CSD is data edits that are unrelated to the stuff I'm doing. I don't know of any potential issues, and have played with it for a while now.


@rhammer640
I don't even know if a points system is possible to be honest. I haven't looked at the voting system, because in-depth research into game mechanics like that usually takes a few hours and I haven't had the need to do so for anything yet. I think it's closely related enough to Gazebo's work it'd be appropriate for him to have the first shot at it.

I am not in a position job-wise to do extensive modding at this point. Plus, I imagine we would quickly hit a brick wall in terms of code limitations. Ultimately, I think UN overhauls may have to wait until after they give us access to the core game files. I tried for days to get the UN to do anything other than vote on Diplo Victory, however most XML strings are inactive or disabled. Yay.

CSD is a deceptively simple mod (just units, buildings and a few AI tweaks), so it should work fine as a standalone along with Thal's balance mods. The only problem is, are you (Thal) going to tailor your diplo balance mod to match the demands of CSD, or are you going to stick with your previous model? The added costs/time of CSD might warrant a slight re-buffing of CSs to increase their appeal. Your call. Perhaps we should make a CSD-Diplo Balance combo that is an optional version?

G

 

[Txurce]

The added costs/time of CSD might warrant a slight re-buffing of CSs to increase their appeal.

This was my earlier point.

 

[Thalassicus]

Ahh okay... I'm not sure about that one way or another. It's difficult to really gauge how much any particular strategy is used by people, since only a relatively small amount visit the threads regularly.

 

[doktorstick]

If you want to make diplomatic victory harder, then I think the solution is to make the AI compete much more vigorously for city states in the late game, when the UN is built, or when one player has lots of them as allies.
And potentially to introduce a system so you can only make 1 city-state influence purchase per turn.

No need for creating an entirely new mechanic through physical on-map unit.

They way you do that is have the AI with the most gold, buy favor for the cheapest CS a few turns before the UN vote, and then declare war on everyone. No one could do anything to take the needed votes away.

War with everyone
UN victory.
Awesome.

 

[Ahriman]

They way you do that is have the AI with the most gold, buy favor for the cheapest CS a few turns before the UN vote

You did notice where I said 1-city-state influence purchase per turn, right?
So you couldnt' buy them all out on the same turn, and if you started buying one per turn, then all the other players could also buy them back from you, and you have a furious bidding war.

So you don't have to have "the most" gold, you have to have more gold than everyone else combined.

If you have enough wealth that you can buy out CS and no-one can stop you, or that you can exhaust the treasury of every other player and still buy them, then you are so far ahead economically that you deserve to win. You're going to win anyway, so why not get it over with?

AIs that have a ton of gold *should* leverage that into power. The fact that they don't is a weakness, not a feature.

 

[doktorstick]

I didn't see it, but it doesn't matter.

The same principle applies. Once you gather enough CSes to win, declare war on everyone and effectively lock out everyone from bribing CSes.

My post was more about the irony of it. You can declare war with everyone, and it guarantees your victory.

 

[Ahriman]

I didn't see it, but it doesn't matter.

The same principle applies. Once you gather enough CSes to win, declare war on everyone and effectively lock out everyone from bribing CSes.

Of course it matters, and the same principle doesn't apply. The main point of the mechanic change is to make is so that its hard to get enough CSs to win, because the more you acquire, the harder it gets to hold them, because everyone else starts bidding harder.
The existing method doesn't work in part because you can buy victory in a single turn, and no-one can stop you no matter how much gold they have.
My mechanic would shift this into a bidding war, where the gold other people had *did* matter, because they would start bidding against you.

My post was more about the irony of it. You can declare war with everyone, and it guarantees your victory.

If you have enough city states and can prevent any of them from being conquered, then that still applies to basically every mechanic being discussed here.
Having CS alliances happen through a physical unit you move to them doesn't stop you from getting enough and using war to lock out other players.
So the point is, you can make it harder to acquire sufficient CS allies to win, through changes like mine. Thats the only way to make this victory condition tougher.

 

[juckie]

Regarding diplomacy, or more specific, city states, I don't like it being another factor using production. I do like the idea that instead of bribing you could also send in a diplomat.

But what I would love the most is a better quest system.
More diversity amongst quests and more quests (asked/given).

Researching a specific tech, providing them with a military unit, finding natural wonders.


Diplomatic victory could also require you not being at war with any of the major civs. Or at least not more than 20% of them. This would make it a bit more of a challenge.
Can you add requirements to a victory condition anyway??

 

[SlightlyMad]

of the major civs. Or at least not more than 20% of them. This would make it a bit more of a challenge.
Can you add requirements to a victory condition anyway??

In a perfect world, the AI would actually be able to try to prevent you from winning. If this were the case, this condition would be impossible since the AI could just DoW to stop you. This would also make a diplo victory impossible in MP.

 

[Sneaks]

Sometime after I finish my current projects (updating CCMAT II, creating a custom Lua that identifies DLCs and creates fires mod Actions, finishing modularized InfoCorner, and figuring out how to add unit classes) I will start delving into victory conditions and their exact level of modability.

 

[Thalassicus]

The second one shouldn't be too hard, in theory at least... I do it by checking if some variable set by the DLC is nil. I have no clue how to check if a DLC exists from the xlm/sql side of things though, which can result in game crashes.

 

[Gazebo]

Regarding diplomacy, or more specific, city states, I don't like it being another factor using production. I do like the idea that instead of bribing you could also send in a diplomat.

But what I would love the most is a better quest system.
More diversity amongst quests and more quests (asked/given).

Researching a specific tech, providing them with a military unit, finding natural wonders.


Diplomatic victory could also require you not being at war with any of the major civs. Or at least not more than 20% of them. This would make it a bit more of a challenge.
Can you add requirements to a victory condition anyway??

So far as I know, adding new quests is impossible for now. Correct me if I'm wrong. We are limited to tweaking what the game has already made available, with some caveats and exceptions.
G

 

[Sneaks]

The second one shouldn't be too hard, in theory at least... I do it by checking if some variable set by the DLC is nil. I have no clue how to check if a DLC exists from the xlm/sql side of things though, which can result in game crashes.

I have the code for the XML portion. Right now it is just a matter of finding the right point to insert it so it runs, because it needs to be early enough for database updates, but late enough that it triggers at a point after the mod is activated.

Game.CheckDLC = {};
Game.CheckDLC.Babylon = false;
Game.CheckDLC.Spain = false;
Game.CheckDLC.Inca = false;
Game.CheckDLC.Polynesia  = false;

if GameInfo.Civilizations["CIVILIZATION_BABYLON"] then
	Modding.PerformActions("OnBabylon");
	Game.CheckDLC.Babylon = true;
	print("Babylon DLC Mods Loaded");
else
	print("Babylon DLC Mods Not Loaded");
end

if GameInfo.Civilizations["CIVILIZATION_SPAIN"] then
	Modding.PerformActions("OnSpain");
	Game.CheckDLC.Spain = true;
	print("Spain DLC Mods Loaded");
else
	print("Spain DLC Mods Not Loaded");
end

if GameInfo.Civilizations["CIVILIZATION_INCA"] then
	Modding.PerformActions("OnInca");
	Game.CheckDLC.Inca = true;
	print("Inca DLC Mods Loaded");
else
	print("Inca DLC Mods Not Loaded");
end

if GameInfo.Civilizations["CIVILIZATION_POLYNESIA"] then
	Modding.PerformActions("OnPolynesia");
	Game.CheckDLC.Polynesia = true;
	print("Polynesia DLC Mods Loaded");
else
	print("Polynesia DLC Mods Not Loaded");
end