At present we can drag the entire world into war with us through alliance chains and joint wars, but I think we really ought to have the option to broker peace between two AI civs who are at war. For one thing it's realistic (peace is often brokered by a neutral third party rather than directly between the two belligerents), and for another it would be nice to have an option for resolving conflicts between two civs you're on good terms with. For example, in my last game I had alliances with Jadwiga and Phillip, but they were at war with each other, which was straining our relationship. It would have been handy to have been able to negotiate an end to their war.
Mediating a Settlement
- Thread starter Zaarin
- Start date
SupremacyKing2
Deity
Yeah, I would love to see this feature implemented. I seem to remember that SMAC had a similar feature where you could request that a faction make peace with another faction. It was quite handy.
I think Civ5 did too, but from my recollection the AI would rarely accept it.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Adding this to the Diplomacy Options might also open up some new Leader Options/Uniques. I believe Civ VI's Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Prize for brokering an end to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.
On the other hand, Germany tried bringing Rumania and Hungary into the 'Axis' in 1941 against the Soviet Union, and discovered the two countries hated each other so much they couldn't put their troops next to each other - they'd shoot at each other in preference to at the Enemy!
So, we could have options to broker peace between Civs and among/between City States and Civs as well, with 'Diplomatic Points' or maybe 'anti-Warmonger' points for succeeding or (much lesser amounts) for even attempting to bring the belligerents to the table.
I wholly support this idea.
It was frustrating in my last game when I had to watch as two AI civs banded together and crushed my ally on the other continent, while I had no troops nearby to help. I didn't have the option to try to talk peace, and felt quite powerless. There is so much focus on different kinds of wars in this game, so it would be nice to balance it out a little with more options of peace, and improving upon the diplomacy with the AI at the same time.
It was frustrating in my last game when I had to watch as two AI civs banded together and crushed my ally on the other continent, while I had no troops nearby to help. I didn't have the option to try to talk peace, and felt quite powerless. There is so much focus on different kinds of wars in this game, so it would be nice to balance it out a little with more options of peace, and improving upon the diplomacy with the AI at the same time.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Been thinking about possible options and 'variations' on this theme...
1. Straightforward: Party No. 3 acts Diplomatically to bring Parties Nos 1 and 2 to an agreement that stops their war. Parties 1 and 2 could be Civs OR City States.
2. Party No. 3 Threatens either or both Parties Nos 1 and 2 that it will join a war against either or both of them if they don't stop fighting - "Big Stick" diplomacy at its finest.
3. Party No 3 tells all other Civs that X Continent or X collection of City States is Off Limits: any settlement on or war against will mean war with No. 3 - see Monroe Doctrine, although the 'teeth' behind it was more the Royal Navy than the adolescent United States.
4. A Collection of Parties agrees to jump on anyone that starts a war, or starts a war on their Continent. Here I'm not only thinking of the modern United Nations Charter, but, for instance, the Congress of Vienna in the early 19th Century where all the Big States of Europe basically said Everything Will Remain The Way It Is Right Now - or else. Since that included not adopting certain Social Policies like Liberalism, this could open up a wide range of Diplomatic Possibilities.
5. A variant on No. 4 above, everybody following the same Religion or Government or set of Civics agrees to not fight each other but 'gang up' on anybody who attacks any of them. In the Modern, Atomic and later Eras, that could be something like the 'Triple Entente' of WWI, the 'Axis' of WWII, or the NATO or Warsaw Pact agreements of the late Atomic/Information Eras, but earlier, something like the 'Peace of God' of the Medieval Era, although it was pretty poorly enforced or followed.
1. Straightforward: Party No. 3 acts Diplomatically to bring Parties Nos 1 and 2 to an agreement that stops their war. Parties 1 and 2 could be Civs OR City States.
2. Party No. 3 Threatens either or both Parties Nos 1 and 2 that it will join a war against either or both of them if they don't stop fighting - "Big Stick" diplomacy at its finest.
3. Party No 3 tells all other Civs that X Continent or X collection of City States is Off Limits: any settlement on or war against will mean war with No. 3 - see Monroe Doctrine, although the 'teeth' behind it was more the Royal Navy than the adolescent United States.
4. A Collection of Parties agrees to jump on anyone that starts a war, or starts a war on their Continent. Here I'm not only thinking of the modern United Nations Charter, but, for instance, the Congress of Vienna in the early 19th Century where all the Big States of Europe basically said Everything Will Remain The Way It Is Right Now - or else. Since that included not adopting certain Social Policies like Liberalism, this could open up a wide range of Diplomatic Possibilities.
5. A variant on No. 4 above, everybody following the same Religion or Government or set of Civics agrees to not fight each other but 'gang up' on anybody who attacks any of them. In the Modern, Atomic and later Eras, that could be something like the 'Triple Entente' of WWI, the 'Axis' of WWII, or the NATO or Warsaw Pact agreements of the late Atomic/Information Eras, but earlier, something like the 'Peace of God' of the Medieval Era, although it was pretty poorly enforced or followed.
Great ideas all around. #3-5 in particular could add a lot of depth and excitement to diplomacy. Unfortunately, given the AIs track record with keeping diplomatic promises, I wonder how the game would actually handle it--i.e., it could lead to a state of perpetual Crusade/Napoleonic War/World War X. 
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Great ideas all around. #3-5 in particular could add a lot of depth and excitement to diplomacy. Unfortunately, given the AIs track record with keeping diplomatic promises, I wonder how the game would actually handle it--i.e., it could lead to a state of perpetual Crusade/Napoleonic War/World War X.
A possibility would be that Breaking an Agreement should carry penalties applicable to any kind of future agreement: including Trades for resources or any kind of defensive alliance/partnership. That would also do away with the Diplomatic Absurdities we get now where an AI Cv denounces me and then 3 turns later offers to Trade with me for a Resource.
That should make it possible to program the AI so that joining a Joint War against a friend who has Resources you want would carry too many Negative Modifiers to contemplate - unlike now, where Civ VI Diplomacy is, essentially, a series of Random Acts where consequent reactions be a almost no relation to the original acts, and so might as well be ignored..
Bechhold
King
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 725
The AI can barely handle emergencies now throw in Diplomacy another shoddy pillar of the game where instead of two leaders (One Ai, and the Player) there would have to be three or more.
Wish it would be implemented though. But the AI has to be several times better than what it is now.
Wish it would be implemented though. But the AI has to be several times better than what it is now.
That would be my concern as well for the sort of complex diplomacy Boris describes, but I think "joint peace" could work just like "joint war" does now.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
That the Designers would have to work on the AI is a given, but given that the AI behavior now reflects some of the behavior proposed, it's not an impossible task: we aren't asking the AI t do anything new, like have a constant strategy or tactics, but some of what the AI is doing now:
For Nos 1 and 2 above, Peace between A and B is weighted as to it Desirability: they share the continent with the AI, their War disrupts some Agenda of the AI, etc. Then it's a question of numbers: we already have numerical scores for Military and Population, so AI have a military stronger than them, I can threaten. AI have not, I use 'Diplomacy'
Nos 3, 4 and 5 above are all based on an-already-defined-in-game Mechanisms: shared Religion, Continent, Government, Policies - we have Agendas depending on them already, so the 'Diplomatic Option' becomes an extension, in some cases, of the Agenda. In other cases, assign a 'weight' to factors: how important is Shared Religion, Continent, Government, adjacent to near-adjacent Borders, etc.
Agree completely that the AI behavior needs to Improve, but This Behavior can be reduced to numbers already in the game in one form or the other, and it seems to me if it can be reduced to numbers it can be programmed - IF the company sees sufficient gain in customer sales and customer satisfaction (resales) to be had from the investment in Programmer Time.
Lord Lakely
Idea Fountain
You could achieve this by splitting respect (how much a leader inately likes you due to your non-diplomatic gameplay) and trust (how much a leader likes you based on how you've treated them and thier allies). Trust determines how willing an AI is to sign a deal, while respect determines the strength of the deal (AIs which don't respect you offer worse deals). It would also tie in well with the diplomatic agenda system, since it provides more complex relationships. (e.g.: if you backstab an ally for profit, you lose the respect of Tomyris and the trust of Poundmaker but gain the respect of Cyrus and the trust of Cathérine de Medici)
