I want old diplomacy back

Why do I feel like BERT is a trial balloon for what they'd like to put into Civ 6?
 
KrikkitTwo said:
Actually in BE is your ally is trying to wipe someone out you are at war with them too.

If they are at war with someone and you are protecting them, I would not count that as an ally, at best you are Neutral. (you don't want to take sides you want to protect everyone)
If you want to behave in a Neutral way, you should take a Neutral stance.

You Should be able to use your DiploCapital to help persuade the two to make peace (ie if you pay enough they should be forced into peace..and they should split some of that diplocapital based on War score)

Doing it by blocking their units is just gamey
Click to expand...

yes, but this is also a problem. You may be allied with party A to war against party B who is a mutual enemy, but then party A decide to also declare war on party C, who you are friends with and you are suddenly dragged into war against party C aswell even though you didnt want too and actually wanted to protect them.

I would not say its gamey. I dont usually try to compare a game to real life situations, but one just needs to look at the current syria/iraq/russia/ISSIS/USA/USA backed moderate rebels/turkey/kurds/iran/saudi araibia/israel situation to see that your allies enemy is not always your enemy and there are times you want to protect certain groups from your own allies, even if those groups are potentially your enemy as well.

Your allies still should request your help against an enemy, not just be autmatically dragged into every and any conflict they decide to create, even when its not in your national interests and if they decide to declare war on some one you dont want taken out, you should have other options to protect them with out having to abolish your current alliance ie. blocking their ability to move through your territory.

Being allied with someone does not mean you are automatically going to agree with every conflict they want to get involved in or that you must also get involved in every conflict they want you to.

There are also times when you may want to forge a partner, in attacking someone, who is not a friend of yours, but its beneficial to forge a partnership to take out another larger enemy. this may at times mean you need to give up some cash and resources to entice a faction that you have rocky relations with to get them to team up as a coalition against the bigger threat. this is also something that the BERT system does not give you the option to do as you need to be allied to get someone to declare war on someone, which means a history of being chummy with each other. In civ V system, you always had the option to offer up incentives to not so friendly, even historical enemies, to declare war on someone else.
 
@crossclayton

The middle east is a good example, the US has no 'allies' there.
There are many groups we cooperate with, but just because we are at war with the same people does not make us allies.

BE 'Allies' is beyond almost any relationship the US has. Maybe UK could be described like that.

If you get allies with someone you are going to help them in all their wars, so don't complain about protecting their targets.

As such, what you need is a way to deal with someone you are Cooperating with who is at war with someone else you like. Its simple, shift to Neutral to illustrate your displeasure, or sanctioned if they really annoy you. That way they cant go through your territory

There should be a way to spend DC on beefing up relationship levels
 
KrikkitTwo said:
@crossclayton

The middle east is a good example, the US has no 'allies' there.
There are many groups we cooperate with, but just because we are at war with the same people does not make us allies.

BE 'Allies' is beyond almost any relationship the US has. Maybe UK could be described like that.

If you get allies with someone you are going to help them in all their wars, so don't complain about protecting their targets.

As such, what you need is a way to deal with someone you are Cooperating with who is at war with someone else you like. Its simple, shift to Neutral to illustrate your displeasure, or sanctioned if they really annoy you. That way they cant go through your territory

There should be a way to spend DC on beefing up relationship levels
Click to expand...

Im not sure what you mean by the US has no allies there.

USA is a staunch ally of Saudi Arabia, Israel and through NATO, Turkey. Among other various Arab countries in the region.


Also, no, if the UK was to suddenly declare war on Germany because they were unhappy with there science output, the USA would not automatically declare war on Germany over something so stupid, but at the same time they would not just abandon their alliance with the UK.

Australia is an ally of the USA , yet we were still asked by the USA to come and help in Syria, and for a while we declined. Then after a period of time we agreed and the USA accepted. We did not just automatically jump into the conflict just because the USA did.

i dont understand why you feel it is necessary that open borders and auto war declaration NEEDS to be part of an alliance. If it was implemented in game that you COULD have the choice, and you feel so strongly about it, then by all means, continue to open your borders with everyone you ally with and declare war with everyone your allies do, for others like me who see a strategic advantage in situations where i dont want to give open borders to an ally but still remained allied with them, or not go to war with every single faction my ally wants to and still maintain my alliance because we are engaged in other conflicts with mutual enemies, then what is the harm in giving me that choice??
 
Your using the common sense term of ally.

In Civ BE that is Cooperating, (Open Borders, Share strategic resouces-Saudi Arabia, Israel, UK, etc. check) Likely to help defend them...most of the time

Civ BE allied really doesn't exist on Earth, maybe Wales and England.

What you are looking for is more of a mutual defense pact, That Might be good (anyone that declares war on you, must declare war on us as well...maybe we declare war on anyone attacking your original capital.

CivBE's 'mutual defense pacts' (Cooperation) aren't ironclad, they are just more likely to help defend you.
If you want mutual defense though, open borders should be part of the deal.

If you don't want them warmongering through you Don't cooperate, stay neutral.



The big advantage in tying those together in big bundles is that the relationship can be assesed and manipulated as one number.
This makes it much easier to have a mechanics based diplomacy for BOTH human and AI players.
Old diplomacy has the problem that the AI plays according to rules, the human doesn't.
The intro of DiploCapital, War Score, and Trait based Respect (as broken as they currently are) opens up the possibility for the relationship between two players too be something both sides manipulate. Much easier to do if Open borders is the Automatic cost of strategic trade routes and better agreements.

Now you can agree/disagree with what levels certain things should take place at, but the bundling principle is the right one...if you want our trade routes our military bbases are included
 
Pros of new diplomacy system:
-more frequent contact and deals
-leaders won't hate you for warring with their enemies
-you can see how much another leader is hated before deciding to have positive relations
-you can see yourself
-personal perks

Cons:
-literally everything else

They should've just merged it with the old system.
 
KrikkitTwo said:
Your using the common sense term of ally.

In Civ BE that is Cooperating, (Open Borders, Share strategic resouces-Saudi Arabia, Israel, UK, etc. check) Likely to help defend them...most of the time

Civ BE allied really doesn't exist on Earth, maybe Wales and England.

What you are looking for is more of a mutual defense pact, That Might be good (anyone that declares war on you, must declare war on us as well...maybe we declare war on anyone attacking your original capital.

CivBE's 'mutual defense pacts' (Cooperation) aren't ironclad, they are just more likely to help defend you.
If you want mutual defense though, open borders should be part of the deal.

If you don't want them warmongering through you Don't cooperate, stay neutral.



The big advantage in tying those together in big bundles is that the relationship can be assesed and manipulated as one number.
This makes it much easier to have a mechanics based diplomacy for BOTH human and AI players.
Old diplomacy has the problem that the AI plays according to rules, the human doesn't.
The intro of DiploCapital, War Score, and Trait based Respect (as broken as they currently are) opens up the possibility for the relationship between two players too be something both sides manipulate. Much easier to do if Open borders is the Automatic cost of strategic trade routes and better agreements.

Now you can agree/disagree with what levels certain things should take place at, but the bundling principle is the right one...if you want our trade routes our military bbases are included
Click to expand...

And that is what irks me.

I do not have the option to say, for example:

"Oh hello neighbour on my east, we dont get along but i can see that you also do not get along with my neighbour to the west, who i also do not like."

"Oh, you would like to declare war on them and move your troops through my territory to get to them?"

"Ok , tell you what, even though we have sanctioned relations, i will allow you to move through my borders, because in the bigger picture, it is beneficial that you both blow each other up"

"....oh wait, i cant open my borders with you because we are not in a co-operative status and to get there i would need to boost our relationship, but in doing so i piss off my actual friends and it will take a while for me to get enough diplo points and expand my orbital control so that we can get to co-op status."

"So i guess to bad for me, what a shame, I could have allowed you to both weaken each others military, allowing me to take advantage of the situation soon after."

Or example 2:

"Oh hi northern ally, we are great friends and have an alliance to fight the great threat from the east, our diplomatic agreements are boosted nicely which is allowing my empire to flourish. If i did not have our current boosted agreements, I would not have a healthy empire."

"...oh you declared war on my southern neighbor...and now I am at war with them automatically, even though i was in a co-op status with them and also getting nice bonuses from my agreement with them."

I guess I have no choice...either I am forced to attack them, or defend against them to maintain our boosted agreements, or I must downgrade our alliance to neutral and lose my bonuses from you, even though your AI probably wont even understand that I downgraded to show my annoyance at declaring war on my southern neighbor.

"..I wish i had the option to maintain the alliance, yet stop you from moving through my borders, I also wish i had the question posed to me before hand to ask if i was willing to go to war against my southern neighbor, where i would have told you..whoa..no..hold on...im cool with them, so im not interested in going to war with them."

"This may have also had an effect on your choice to go to war with them and we could continue to focus on our war with our actual enemy to the east. To bad i cant seem to use common sense to micro manage my complex diplomatic situation and have been limited to setting, all encompassing, 4 types of relationship status's."

or example 3:

:Hi neighbour to the south, we hate each other, but i see that we both also hate my neighbour to the west, tell you what....how about i give you some cash and a few resources as a bribe to team up with me temporarily and declare war on them, once we have dealt with the western neighbor we can go back to dealing with each other?"

"oh..nope...wait, i dont have control over offering you my resources or cash in exchange for this little deal because some magical relationship system wont let me and i dont have control over my resources becasue they are automatically part of my trade routes with co-op sttaus mates. :("
 
Bribe to declare war is a system the AI can't use. Same as bribe for Open Borders.

If you want to weaken neighbors, you (3rd party) should be able to spend diplocapital to worsen their relationship.

That is how you should play them off each other.

If you want to help them weaken each other through open borders, pick a side and cooperate with them.

I do agree the system lacks some of the tools (like being able to spend capital to raise/lower relationships directly) but the basics of the system are good.

Currently, look at cooperative as what most people would call "allies"
Allies is only for crazy warmongers now.
I'd personally make allied 'defensive war only' ie you must declare war on all of us. (Make it closer to our understanding of alliances)
And then add a higher more permanent level (United) for offensive war. (Both sides would share All the same diplo statuses, and the AI would defer to the human in matters of War and Peace, and Victory would be shared)

The new system avoids the negotiating table and that is good, the more one mechanically creates agreements the better.
 
KrikkitTwo said:
Bribe to declare war is a system the AI can't use. Same as bribe for Open Borders.

If you want to weaken neighbors, you (3rd party) should be able to spend diplocapital to worsen their relationship.

That is how you should play them off each other.

If you want to help them weaken each other through open borders, pick a side and cooperate with them.

I do agree the system lacks some of the tools (like being able to spend capital to raise/lower relationships directly) but the basics of the system are good.

Currently, look at cooperative as what most people would call "allies"
Allies is only for crazy warmongers now.
I'd personally make allied 'defensive war only' ie you must declare war on all of us. (Make it closer to our understanding of alliances)
And then add a higher more permanent level (United) for offensive war. (Both sides would share All the same diplo statuses, and the AI would defer to the human in matters of War and Peace, and Victory would be shared)

The new system avoids the negotiating table and that is good, the more one mechanically creates agreements the better.
Click to expand...

No, im sorry, but that is not diplomacy. Having diplomacy dictated by some intangible currency in the form of diplo points is not negotiation. Being restricted in what we can and cant make agreements with/on is just that, a restriction.

Saying that the AI cant do this and cant do that, thats why this system is needed is just a cop out and sounds like excuses to keep a flawed, non entertaining sliding number mechanic in a game that feels like im playing a maths game and not engaging in diplomatic conversation.

Good god, watching the AI declare war and make peace over and over and over because someone has low science out put or low colony count is utter ridiculous and the AI is more predictable then ever, now that i can see all the math out in the fore front.

Whats the point in even telling me I have pending diplo messages when i know what they want, a damn agreement, it cant be anything else and obviously im going to accept it cos i want to fill my diplo point basket up as much and fast as possible. May as well just make the AI get the agreement automatically with out needing me to say "yeah duh, take the agreement" They made everything else happen in auto pilot mode, may aswell just add this to the list.

I have just got to turn 450 in a marathon, Apollo, massive Terran, 12 sponsor game.

It is the most boring civ experience i have ever had. Everything is just a numbers game which is not even hidden behind layers of graghics, gameplay and dialogue options. Just numbers.

It was embarrassing to watch the AI interact with myself and each other. No personality, just straight calculations based off traits and agreements.

I have been a Civ fanboy for pretty much all my life. Civ is my favorite franchise of all time, but i have tried and tried to like these design choices, but this current game is just ridiculous, has brought out the flaws into the spotlight and has finally made me admit that this is trash.

Instead of giving us a new number to manipulate, they should have fleshed out the Civ V system, made it more engaging and interactive and coded the damn AI to play better. Instead its just another train wreck of a game with awkward designs to the point where most of the acclaim the game is getting is people trying to look past the flaws because we all wanted this expansion to elevate BE into a civ game worthy of its title, but it failed.

Tip to win appollo games. dont make agreements, just hoard your diplo points, max out your traits and build 4 boats, 2 subs 2 range ships and for land, 3 melee, 2 range 2 city attack. Go to your tech web, unlock the basic troops, then click the filter and choose which affinity you want, then just continue to choose the quickest tech that follows your affinity. Dont attack any aliens, send your explorer out to farm pods and expeditions.

Mean while watch the AI attack aliens, no explorers for them, constantly. Be stuck in an eternal mathematical loop of war and peace with each other, leaving you to just drop city after city with the units i said earlier.

After a few cities everyone will love you, except for maybe that one or 2 AI that have the trait for respecting health level, but there other traits will inevitably outweigh and they will love you anyway. Dont make an alliance, god forbid you will just get swept up in the math loop war and peace as well.

God i hope none of this crap gets into civ 6.
 
Gorb said:
The CiV system was based on some intangible form of currency weighted against invisible behaviours you couldn't understand or predict.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but is hidden behind dialogue options and characters, just like every video game, mathematics under a UI of entertainment.

And sorry, but the Civ V system is very easy to understand and once you understand it, it makes logical sense in the actions that occur between civs. Its not perfect, but it it was the closest to simulating actual conversations and politics with world leaders.

If they had spent time fleshing it out and tweaking it rather than just throwing it all to the wind and saying screw it, sliding number mechanic, they may have improved and expanded it.
 
What is logical, makes sense, and is understandable, in video games specifically, is down a lot down to personal mileage. Your experience isn't necessarily the same as anyone elses'. There can be correlation, of course.

BE's new diplomacy has dialogue options and characters. You just don't rate them.

Your criticism is that you're trading currency. My point is that criticism is true of CiV and probably every single gameplay-affecting system in the history of video games.
 
The problem is the CivV system isn't diplomacy either.

The new system has Major problems
-Respect isn't properly balanced
-Human players don't have Respect
-Offensive war allies is bad with the AI
-Players can't spend diplo capital to raise/lower their relationship level
-Players can't spend diplo capital to raise/lower other player's relationship levels
-war score doesn't force peace treaties
-cant choose cities in peace treaty
-war score isn't properly balanced
-players can refuse to accept agreements when they are not sanctioning the other civ
-affinity is not a big enough factor in maintaining relationships.
-no means of communicating to another player what you want them to do
-no means of other players getting reliable rewards/punished for listening to you.
-more

But the basics of reducing imaginary "negotiation" in favor of the possibility of 2 way manipulation is a step in the right direction
 
SupremacyKing2 said:
Isn't that what the "change relationship" button already does where the player clicks on the relationship they want to upgrade or downgrade to and it costs diplo capital?
Click to expand...

Yes, but you can't do it for third parties, and the AI doesn't do it to you that way.
 
Its a shame that you cant quite quite grasp what Im trying to get across.

Diplomacy should not be handled by manipulating numbers and exchanging points. That does not simulate diplomacy. That simulates exchanging numbers.

The simulation of diplomacy is supposed to be dialogue and negotiation.

The best way we can simulate human behavior in a game, is to apply a mathematical system that is overlaid with dialogue and character which acts as the UI for the math.

We use a mathematical skeleton because we lack the skill to program actual intelligence, so we must fall back on using a mathematical system to simulate the AI choices and its reaction to the interfacing player.

BERT has done away with bothering to provide a simulated diplomatic experience and instead just puts the math right out in the open, under the guise of a dynamic, interactive experience, when if you look at it, you are not interacting with a character or engaging in a diplomatic situation, you are simply manipulating numbers that are out in the open and easy to predict. At the same time removing our ability to micro manage our decisions.

Removing choice is never a good thing no matter how you try to justify it.

On top of that, the math is always sliding up and down depending on ridiculous factors...colony counts, trade route counts, orbital coverage, culture , health, science, energy. No one would wage war on some one because of their science out put or orbital coverage for crying out loud. Its a joke to see mentally , interstellar travelling leaders with all this great political back story and origins, act like a bunch of psychos, declaring war and peace over stupid things like that.

Jeez, they have the smarts and technology to seed the human race across the stars and fight native aliens, discover ancient alien ruins and guide the evolutionary path of the human race, but then declare war on each other because his energy reserves are low. come on!

Back on Earth ion civ v, primitive AI factions didnt even go to war because of those stupid reasons. They went to war based on available land, tactical resources and luxury resources, the spreading of religion, breaking of promises, public condemnations or not backing them in condeming another, becoming friends with their enemies, putting forward world congress policies that conflicted with their interest. Actual coalitions would form and natural alliances based on mutual interests would begin to shape, not the forced alliance crap that BERT has.

I always played massive maps with 22 civs on TSL world map mods and the amount of times i would be surprised by the alliances the AI would create against other AI civs would amaze me and actually made sense. Sometimes I would wonder why others whined about it to be honest, i assumed it was because of the lack of understanding, of how the friendship declaration and condemnation system worked, that many players initially had.

Yes, Civ V and every other game uses math systems in the same way but the player interfaces the math through a dialogue UI. Supported with an avatar, back story and simulated personality.

Imagine if the dialogue choices in RPG's when your trying to persuade or intimidate an NPC, provided you with the math on the screen. It would break the illusion that you are having a conversation with a character, and you would see that you wont succeed in trying to persuade them because the math wont add up.
 
crossclayton said:
Its a shame that you cant quite quite grasp what Im trying to get across.

Diplomacy should not be handled by manipulating numbers and exchanging points. That does not simulate diplomacy. That simulates exchanging numbers.

The simulation of diplomacy is supposed to be dialogue and negotiation.
Click to expand...

I get that you prefer the more conversational style of diplomacy like SMAC did.

One issue is transparency. The reason RT puts the numbers in front of us, is to help the player see why the AI is reacting in a certain way. Conversation and negotiation is fine if the player knows something about the AI personality, otherwise the AI comes across as schizo like it does in civ5.

And I would argue that diplomacy is also about relationships. So making special agreements with another side and seeing your respect rise and your relationship improves to cooperation is diplomacy too. And that is what RT's simulates really well.
 
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