Ideas on Military Diplomacy and Alliances

[Camikaze]

How much you can demand should depend on how seriously you are beating them, though.

I mean, if they have one city left and you have a massive empire, them doing research at your beck and call makes sense to me as a thing they would do if the alternative is you exterminating them.

This is a point that is necessary to make slightly unrealistic. You can't apply the realistic 'stay alive at any cost', because otherwise it would be open to serious exploitation. Game balance demands a limit to which the AI will give in to your outlandish demands, no matter how much you are pummelling them.

It would also work to have diplomatic effects on third parties if you enforce an overly harsh set of conditions on a defeated enemy.

Definitely.

 

[rysmiel]

This is a point that is necessary to make slightly unrealistic. You can't apply the realistic 'stay alive at any cost'

Why not ?

because otherwise it would be open to serious exploitation. Game balance demands a limit to which the AI will give in to your outlandish demands, no matter how much you are pummelling them.

What are you counting as "exploitation", here ? There being advantages to having a defeated AI working largely at your command, over the dmage they would take from you conquering them, seems a perfectly reasonable thing to include in the game to me.

 

[Camikaze]

Why not ?

What are you counting as "exploitation", here ? There being advantages to having a defeated AI working largely at your command, over the dmage they would take from you conquering them, seems a perfectly reasonable thing to include in the game to me.

One of the major reasons I haven't mentioned as to the necessity of not having this ability to gain unlimited spoils of war is that it would greatly increase the power of warfare. Say, for instance, you play a game in which you have a very powerful army but pretty bad levels of research. You attack the weaker research leader, and just as you are about to go in for the kill, you get peace for all of their gold, all of their gold per turn and all of their technologies, making you the equal tech leader with money to burn on turning up the research slider. So, basically, the ability to do this would mean that having a powerful army would be all that is required to wipe the floor with your opponents.

Additionally, if you are conquering a large empire that just so happens to be weaker than you, and is on the verge of collapse, then a quick surrender for all cities bar the opposition capital (as would be the case in an utter rout) would mean that conquest would be really, really easy, negating all the detrimental impacts of war, like loss of units, war weariness, economic deterioration, etc. So, again, it would only make warfare a more powerful aspect of the game. Which I know is something that you wouldn't like.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be advantages to having a subordinate AI, but they need to be limited, or the above will happen.

 

[Argetnyx]

We need a mixture, one of you wants very limited options, the other wants open options; we need enough restrictions to keep people from exploiting them too much, but we don't want so much that it isn't any fun to win a war anymore.

 

[EMT]

Personally, I think that you should be able to negotiate your entry into wars and for canceling trade agreements. For example, ask for techs in exchange for your military assistance in a war or for canceling trade deals. We should also be able to ask for a resource for a set amount of turns in exchange for something(cannot go to war within 75% of the time this agreement is in place). There should also be another form of alliance. A dynastic alliance(mixing of the genetics between two leader's houses to create a united heir/dual rule over country(ies). I've always thought it weird how we can't pull insane European politics.

 

[Camikaze]

We need a mixture, one of you wants very limited options, the other wants open options; we need enough restrictions to keep people from exploiting them too much, but we don't want so much that it isn't any fun to win a war anymore.

I thought both rysmiel and I were of the very strong view that options should be as open as possible. We just have different definitions of 'possible'.

 

[rysmiel]

One of the major reasons I haven't mentioned as to the necessity of not having this ability to gain unlimited spoils of war is that it would greatly increase the power of warfare. Say, for instance, you play a game in which you have a very powerful army but pretty bad levels of research. You attack the weaker research leader, and just as you are about to go in for the kill, you get peace for all of their gold, all of their gold per turn and all of their technologies, making you the equal tech leader with money to burn on turning up the research slider. So, basically, the ability to do this would mean that having a powerful army would be all that is required to wipe the floor with your opponents.

Thing is, if they are that far ahead in research, their troops should be stronger than yours, and, well, I am in favour of exponential increase in troop strength as tech increases, so the notion of having a "very powerful army" but being behind in tech does not really work.

So, again, it would only make warfare a more powerful aspect of the game. Which I know is something that you wouldn't like.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be advantages to having a subordinate AI, but they need to be limited, or the above will happen.

I'm all for limiting the circumstances in which one can demand much, but not for limiting what one can demand; and really, whatever one demands from a civ who have one city left, their ability to provide anything on an ongoing basis is kind of small, no ?

 

[Camikaze]

Thing is, if they are that far ahead in research, their troops should be stronger than yours, and, well, I am in favour of exponential increase in troop strength as tech increases, so the notion of having a "very powerful army" but being behind in tech does not really work.

I'm all for limiting the circumstances in which one can demand much, but not for limiting what one can demand; and really, whatever one demands from a civ who have one city left, their ability to provide anything on an ongoing basis is kind of small, no ?

One of my last games was as Rome on Prince and a Continents map, with 3-4 civs per continent. My strategy revolved around running my sliders at 0%, at which I was still in deficit, after wiping out 2 of the other 3 civs on the continent, before moving onto sporadically war with the other civ (Hatshepsut) in order to fulfil my tech needs. This was quite exploitative, it seemed to me. I would declare war, and with my huge swathes of praets, perhaps take one city, and surround another, forcing Hatty to give me three or four techs for peace each time. Even when she was down to 1 city, she was way ahead of me in research, and so I could just have continued on the same path without anything to stop me. I always left her capital with one unit defending it, so that she would never ever be able to repel my attacks if I did decide to destroy her, and meaning that even with all the technological advantage in the game, she wouldn't have been as powerful. So, through an early rush, I had established a situation in which I could completely neglect research, and over and over again annihilate my enemies who were in a position in which they could pose no threat, basically stealing many techs from them. I don't think I researched any techs in between Iron Working/Alphabet and Scientific Method myself. This is the stage at which even with her capital completely besieged, Hatty would not give over anymore techs for peace. I thought that it was a rather odd decision to make, but realised that it must be the case. I could exploit my early military advantage for the whole game in order to gain all technologies without researching any of them. In other words, the sword was mightier than the pen. The game had to have this refusal to hand over more techs, or I would continue on for the remainder of the game in a state of almost perpetual warfare (broken up by 10 turn peace treaties), gaining every single tech soon after it had first been discovered.

 

[techathon]

Iv posted this before on a diffrent fourm, so if you think youve seen this before you have...

I always thought that armies on civ should have a number of troops in an army, like lets say you have an option to build 100 swordsman in possibly like 10 turns, and each one might have 5 strength so possibly they could have 500 strength total plus bonuses. All the units could do this and strength would be bigger, but this allows for supplies and disease and causalities. They could possibly recruit more troops at cities or gain some as slaves after they take over. This makes combat more real with causalities and disease weakening them... the 100 might turn to 95 after a lack of supplies, then 5 more abandon for that reason so there would be 90. The 90 then go to a city and are able to recruit 30 more solders and pick up supplies. They then join an army of 50 and now they have 170. They can attack an enemy city and take it over and suffer possibly like 90 causalities. They get more supplies and slaves (workers) come to work your land.

This can hinder SoD, b/c of the supplies and add more realism to the game.

 

[Camikaze]

IMO, that's a bit too much of a change to the unit system. I like it how it is, but just with various tweaks here and there.