Idea: Enforce Pledges to Protect

[Louis XXIV]

One of the new missions is a pledge to protect. This isn't technically part of my idea, but it's worth keeping in mind since there's now an even greater benefit for making such a pledge.

I sometimes think people pledge to protect City-States without too much thought. In turn, I don't think the AI values a pledge by others enough. Here is my idea:

When someone you've pledged to protect is attacked, a pop up will appear. With option 1, you can stop pledge to protect. If you do this, there will be a -20 point relationship penalty with the city-state. Option 2, you declare war with the civ that attacked. Option 3, you ask for ten turns to prepare. During this time, you can attempt to negotiate peace between them or you can give units to the city-state in order to protect them. However, if you fail to join in after 10 turns, you get the same relationship penalty.

With this added incentive to join a war, the AI will factor in the strength of the civ when deciding whether to attack. I'm thinking something like a third the strength of your civ plus the strength of the city-state. You should also be able to bargain to stop protecting a city-state, which the AI should demand rather than just sending you vaguely threatening messages.

 

[apocalypse105]

I like the idea but It should only give 2 options protect you're ctie statea and go to war or break the promisse

 

[Louis XXIV]

The only reason I didn't want to force instant war is because I always liked sending units instead of declaring war and I didn't want to remove that entirely. I also thought brokering peace seemed like a fair compromise.

 

[Gucumatz]

I like the third option as well.

I feel like there should also be a slight influence boost if you are able to prevent/stop the war with diplomacy in the ten turn time period.

 

[CYZ]

You should get influence for enemy units you defeat in their territory I think.

Also, how about not making the influence hit when not declaring war a one-time hit.
For example:

1: Declare War: one-time positive influence hit, but obviously more for defeating enemy units or gifting your own
2: Cancel Pledge: one-time negative influence hit, a big one too.
3: Do not declare war but keep Pledge intact: small diplo hit for every turn you do not DoW

So it'd be less static that way, if you need 3 turns to prepare you can take 3 and if you need 13 you take 13. Though the influence decay will be alot bigger in the second case.

 

[theis81]

A really good idea

 

[Louis XXIV]

CYZ, I considered that and I might go with that instead. The reason I didn't want the relationship hit was because I didn't want to penalize people who supported the CS by sending units. However, how about this:

Stop protecting City-State - -20 relationship points
Declare War on enemy - Whatever the boost is now (I forget)
Maintain pledge but don't declare war - -2 points every turn you don't help the City-State while it's at war (sending a unit will give you a positive boost, but failure to do so will be negative).

 

[CYZ]

CYZ, I considered that and I might go with that instead. The reason I didn't want the relationship hit was because I didn't want to penalize people who supported the CS by sending units. However, how about this:

Stop protecting City-State - -20 relationship points
Declare War on enemy - Whatever the boost is now (I forget)
Maintain pledge but don't declare war - -2 points every turn you don't help the City-State while it's at war (sending a unit will give you a positive boost, but failure to do so will be negative).

Perfect, you can compensate for no DoWing by gifting them units. If you don't give them enough units it will still cost you influence though. This would work fairly well.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Glad we figured this out. Now let's just get Firaxis to implement the idea.

 

[MARDUK80]

Stop protecting City-State - -20 relationship points
Declare War on enemy - Whatever the boost is now (I forget)
Maintain pledge but don't declare war - -2 points every turn you don't help the City-State while it's at war (sending a unit will give you a positive boost, but failure to do so will be negative).

This is a excellent idea!

Glad we figured this out. Now let's just get Firaxis to implement the idea.

:Thumbs up:

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

There should be "Attempt to make Peace" with the attacker, I sucessfully managed to convince Mongolia not to attack City States under my protection (I think). Only after he attacked one city states too much (where the Pernament War kicked in, such an annoyance) I wasn't able to help.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, that's factored in. I agree you should get a relationship boost but as long as you choose option three and can bring peace before the end of the turn, you won't lose anything.

 

[CYZ]

Yup, making peace will mean the influence will stop degrading. You won't get an extra boost for it but that seems fair. Fixing it diplomaticly is either easy or just throwing cash, shouldn't be awarded imo.

 

[Namaspamus]

Totally agree with the principe since a long time.

A possibility: pledging to protect gives say +0.5 influence per turn. If the CS is attacked and you don't go to war, all the other CSs won't take your pledge seriously any more, and you'll only get some + 0.1 influence per turn from it. Now if you declare war (or purchase peace) and successfully defend the CS, all others will take note of it and reward your pledge +1 per turn or something, maybe even ask for it if they feel threatened.

Also we should be able to send an ultimatum to the atttacking leader: "stop your aggression or we're at war".

It's also a case were a "casus belli" system would be nice. No one could call you a warmonger for this kind of war, unless you refuse a fair peace treaty including the end of the aggression. It's already the case more or less with the "you'll pay for this in time", but making it explicit would be better.

 

[awesome]

back to the units part, just to fill in some specifics. if it's a 2 point hit for each turn, then each gifted unit should give at least 2 points, but i don't think it would go as high as 5. maybe 3 at the most.
and i'm not sure on the unit killing bonus. it's a lot harder to kill something than to gift it, so it should definitely be higher, but i'm not sure how high i'd go.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, once you get to the unit killing bonus, you've already declared war, so the penalty no longer exists.

I don't remember how much unit gifting gives you. However, under my proposal, the act of gifting a unit stops the penalty for not declaring war for that turn.

 

[awesome]

oh, i think i gifted a unit to a city-state maybe once, and i didn't pay attention to any differences in influence