'Edit King'/Alliances/Negotiation Triggers

[frunobulax]

Under the 'Edit King' menu in cheat mode there are a couple of options that I'm unclear about - and the Civ2 MPGE Manual (Mac) I have doesn't shed much light either...

1. Set Last Contact / Clear All Contact
What exactly do these do ? If all nations start a scenario with cleared contacts are they more likely to be aggressive to one another, or is it simply that they will definitely 'speak' to each other if they meet a unit from another Civ etc... or is this also dependent on their civ profile (Civilized/Aggresive/Neutral etc)

2. Reputation
What is the scale for this.... 0-127 ? How does it divide up. It seems that even a small bit of reputation - say 10 - can have bad consequences.


Other questions...


3. Is there a way to trigger negotiations, as opposed to trigger war !

4.How can one guarantee (or as near as possible guarantee) that two Allied AI-Civs won't immediately ditch their allaince once a scenario has started - as it the case with North America & the European States, in my World War 3 scenario that I'm currently testing.

thanks

Fruno

 

[insurgent]

1. Sets the last time of diplomatic contact. The last contact influences when the civs will be willing to engage in negotiations again.
2. I believe it is 0-100. But yes, even small numbers have serious impact on the game.
3. Nope.
4. You could outrule negotiations between them, thereby making war between them impossible, because an alliance cannot be broken without negotiations. Other ways are to reduce the reputation value and the attitude values.
This part from my upcoming Under Siege scenario in the events file outrules negotiation between the Syrians and Jordanians:
@IF
NEGOTIATION
talker=Syrians
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listener=Jordanians
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
@THEN
@ENDIF

@IF
NEGOTIATION
talker=Jordanians
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listener=Syrians
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
@THEN
@ENDIF

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by frunobulax
4.How can one guarantee (or as near as possible guarantee) that two Allied AI-Civs won't immediately ditch their allaince once a scenario has started - as it the case with North America & the European States, in my World War 3 scenario that I'm currently testing.

I would advice you to set up 'realistic alliances' i.e. alliances that are obviously beneficial to both parties in the game. Make them have techs that the other doesn't have, and if possible, without border issues (i.e. cities overlapping, and as "natural" borders as possible -i.e. mountains, hills, ocean/rivers etc. between them), preferably different continents or a distance apart. A strong mutual enemy or rival in the neighbourhood is also a good way to knit allies together. (the more imminent the threat, the better, i.e. actual troops/cities in their territory).

After doing this, set attitudes and reputations as favourably as possible/desirable, and basically it should work out ok. Personally I don't like the events-fixed alliances, but it might be an option, depending on your premise.

An example from one of my own scenarios was in "Hammer", where the germans and franks repeatedly would ask the small, but wealthy and advanced frisians (placed between the two) to join their alliance vs. their bigger rival on the other side. Of course, this would make the other side attack them at some point, but it was an interesting choice to make. In this case, the alliance thing worked, even though the frisians had borders to the franks as well as the germans.

 

[Henrik]

Setting the last time the negotiated with eachother to somethign very recent might help as well (as AIs don't like to negotiate too often they'll keep the alliance out of pure laziness ).

Other than that, what morten said, if they have a powerfull common enemy they will ally (I see this especially in a Great Nordic War scenario I am playtesting right now, where playing sweden the AI oponents signs all kinds of amazingly historical alliances (basicly everyone is allied against me ))

 

[frunobulax]

Thanks Henrik, Morten & insurgent for all the useful replies...

I went with an events-fixed alliance in the end, between Europe and the USA, as all other attempts failed.

I think the problem I had lies in the fact that there's a 'USAF Base' located in the middle of Germany - to entice the AI-controlled USA over to Europe - and this oevrlaps both Berlin and Stuttgart, which is probably causing diplomatic friction !

Still can't stop the Arabs and Israeli's going to war on turn 2, even though they have perfect reputations/attitude for each other.... and their last contact is turn 1. Oh well...

Anyway, thanks again one and all !

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by insurgent
4. You could outrule negotiations between them, thereby making war between them impossible, because an alliance cannot be broken without negotiations.

There is a catch to this, if you include diplomat-type units. If an international incident is caused by one of these, an AI civ can dissolve the alliance just like that, and possibly declare war. In that case, both civs will be locked in eternal war, because cease fires and peace treaties cannot be signed without negotiations.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by frunobulax
I think the problem I had lies in the fact that there's a 'USAF Base' located in the middle of Germany - to entice the AI-controlled USA over to Europe - and this oevrlaps both Berlin and Stuttgart, which is probably causing diplomatic friction !

Sounds very probable. The AI civ will most likely consider that one city an easy conquest, and keep a first priority in throwing the americans out of their continent once and for all.

 

[frunobulax]

Originally posted by Morten Blaabjerg


There is a catch to this, if you include diplomat-type units. If an international incident is caused by one of these...

Is there a way to disable the 'Steal Technology', 'Plant Nuclear Device' etc options for a diplomat/spy unit - so it can only 'Investigate Cities' ? Maybe this is a way around an international incident being precipitated by the AI.

 

[Henrik]

No there isn't, not for the AI

However a possible solution for the americans being in europe would be to change that tile to ocean, and place a 0 move carrier unit (named airbase or something) there.

Sea units does not trigger negotiations as far as I know, and techinically I don't think that tile would count as part of the continent either in the eyes of the AI.

Maybe a city on ocean could work too...

 

[frunobulax]

Originally posted by Henrik

However a possible solution for the americans being in europe would be to change that tile to ocean, and place a 0 move carrier unit (named airbase or something) there...

That's an interesting idea !!

 

[oryx]

Originally posted by frunobulax

2. Reputation
What is the scale for this.... 0-127 ?

The range is 0 to 7 which correspond to
0 Spotless
1 Excellent
2 Honorable
3 Questionable
4 Dishonorable
5 Poor
6 Despicable
7 Atrocious
These descriptions are in the the labels.txt