Late Game CS Influence

[pineappledan]

We had this discussion months ago. That results in a situation where DV civs are actively avoiding diplomacy techs because the older units are better.

You still have to be able to escort your units. it’s not as simple as gold in; influence out.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

We had this discussion months ago. That results in a situation where DV civs are actively avoiding diplomacy techs because the older units are better.

You still have to be able to escort your units. it’s not as simple as gold in; influence out.

I know, but now it isnt really better, cause now I pay more with each era but still have the influence gain from the older era unit. Linking cost and impact would be in my eyes a fair compromise. And higher units would gain faster movement and sight, helping with avoiding enemies and reaching the target faster. If the influence gain per missions/diplomats would be cut down to 30-70, I would say ok, fair. But trying to ally CS with 2000+ influence difference while the statecraft policy give me +1 influence per turn is pretty much crappy.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I'd like to point that the envoy system is not as pointless as it might seems. Currently, the three main improvement I see compared to Vanilla "buy CS with money" are:

1) You have a time delay between using your gold to buy Diplo unit and the moment it takes effect. Making "buying CS just before the vote" less exploitable.

2) Since paper is limiting, you can't just spam diplomatic missions in one turn, as you have to wait for the units to reach their destination before continuing buying units. It gives more time for opponent to react and start spamming diplomatic missions to counter you.

3) What I feel is the most important point here: it makes relationship with nearby CS easier than relationship with CS at the other side of the world.

[Note that if we were on a drawing board to rethink diplomatic units, I would vote for them working as "trade routes" that exchange paper and GPT against influence per turn. But that would be a lot of changes and balances issues involved...]

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I'd like to point that the envoy system is not as pointless as it might seems. Currently, the three main improvement I see compared to Vanilla "buy CS with money" are:

1) You have a time delay between using your gold to buy Diplo unit and the moment it takes effect. Making "buying CS just before the vote" less exploitable.

2) Since paper is limiting, you can't just spam diplomatic missions in one turn, as you have to wait for the units to reach their destination before continuing buying units. It gives more time for opponent to react and start spamming diplomatic missions to counter you.

3) What I feel is the most important point here: it makes relationship with nearby CS easier than relationship with CS at the other side of the world.

[Note that if we were on a drawing board to rethink diplomatic units, I would vote for them working as "trade routes" that exchange paper and GPT against influence per turn. But that would be a lot of changes and balances issues involved...]

1. The total amount of necessary investment is the same. No matter if you spend your whole gold/hammer in one turn or over 20 turns between the sessions. While your total amount of possible investment is limited, the amount of CS you can gain with it is it also.

2. If you send all your diplo units to the CS and are able to beat the enemy, cause you have greater paper/production capabilities, this is for me the same like I would gain the CS cause I have more money than the other. I see no difference, it's only more complicated.

3. I agree, and that's something that should be true.

Your comment at the bottom of the post hits exactly what I was thinking. The mentioned positive sides of the diplo units can be also implemented in the basic vanilla concept:

Buying influence towards a CS isn't instant, it increases the influence over time.
This costs money per turn and consumes paper, as long as the influence increase is happening. How many influence increases you do per CS is unlimited, unless you have enough paper. The cost per turn is influenced by distance from the capital.

 

[Stalker0]

The biggest benefit of the unit approach to me is war. Wars shake things up because suddenly that stream of diplo units you were sending gets interrupted, and you have to find creative ways around that...or its an opportunity for an opponent to capitalize.

G mentioned considering removing or reducing the AI bonus to diplo units, and I think that will help a lot to get the numbers more reasonable.

 

[Gazebo]

We're not stripping CSD out of the mod after 6 years, and any suggestions to do so will be ignored.

G

 

[andersw]

I like how its a lot easier to keep nearby CS on my side.
The most runaway influence I've had was as Austria and Siam, I think from statecraft trade routes and/or several cs quests.
I use very few diplo units, maybe cs influence from quests should be lower or is it statecraft that provides too much?

 

[azum4roll]

Statecraft England is also doing well with allying CS with all her spies rigging elections.

 

[General_Drax]

In my current game got Austria, Siam and England all went for statecraft ... my poor pacific Ethiopia decided to discover the wonder of a massive wormongering campaign authority/fealty/Imperialism.

 

[swapoer]

Wars shake things up because suddenly that stream of diplo units you were sending gets interrupted, and you have to find creative ways around that...or its an opportunity for an opponent to capitalize.

The goal is quite good. But I doubt that there is actually a stream of diplo from players. AI has production bonus, there is no way player can race against ai in diplo production.

 

[Stalker0]

The goal is quite good. But I doubt that there is actually a stream of diplo from players. AI has production bonus, there is no way player can race against ai in diplo production.

You can in emperor for the most part. By immortal it gets really tough