New First Look: Machiavelli

Will he be able to spam diplomatic actions that he knows will be rejected? You get gold for rejection so you might as well make them as unattractive as possible
 
The_goggles_do_nothing said:
Will he be able to spam diplomatic actions that he knows will be rejected? You get gold for rejection so you might as well make them as unattractive as possible
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We aren't sure the "Trades" ie (I give you this for that) are even a thing in Diplomacy (so far you can propose relationships, cultural boosts, etc.)... you get resources through Trade routes (so if you allow Trade routes they can get any of your Resources)
Also there appears to be an anti-spam effect, if you reject someones proposal they can't make it again for an amount of time.
 
stealth_nsk said:
As I understand, there's war support, which is much lower in surprise wars. Not sure if we've seen the effects of low war support, but I assume it's at least lower happiness.
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Penalties may take a variety of different forms. There is cost in terms of Influence, but also potential impact on "Relationship" mentioned in the agendas, and who knows what else.
 
Krikkit1 said:
Agenda is a Bonus/Penalty to a game mechanic (Relationship) not behavior.
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We can argue whether it is does it's job or not, but agendas are a mechanic representation of a leader "personality". Being translated in game terms means it will use game mechanics, but it is supposed to represent what a leader likes and dislikes, and so affects their base view even without counting what you do to them directly.
 
Willie5000 said:
Why? Wouldn’t it be better to use actual leaders and not political philosophers?!?
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I’d rather more political philosophers tbh, they make much more sense to me as immortal leaders of societies than random kings who happened to conquer a place, or charismatic queens, etc. - those figures are less inherently interesting, I’d argue, than ideas on the philosophy and use of power. Political philosophy also strikes me as more stimulating material on which to base leaders’ abilities, as perhaps evident by the discussion in this thread.

Of the two philosophers represented so far, I do wish Confucius had a bit more fleshed out abilities that represented his ideas a bit more, but Machiavelli seems quite interesting indeed.

chaosprophet said:
We can argue whether it is does it's job or not, but agendas are a mechanic representation of a leader "personality". Being translated in game terms means it will use game mechanics, but it is supposed to represent what a leader likes and dislikes, and so affects their base view even without counting what you do to them directly.
Click to expand...
Agendas are meant to give the AI an overall strategy in diplomacy that plays to their strengths/abilities (ideally), not to just give them flavor or some personality quirk. Of course, some are more effective than others in this, but that is why they’re there.

In civ 6 terms, if Monty, Mansa Musa, and Kristina all had the same approach to diplomacy it would hinder all of them in their games and at the same time make for a rather more boring game.

As a side note, I appreciate that Firaxis makes the agendas obvious because firstly, it potentially gives new players a nudge in the direction of how to approach playing a leader, and secondly, most “power gamer” types prefer to have as many game mechanics out in the open as possible. I’m sure there was debate at Firaxis about whether to keep them hidden or not, which probably led to the random hidden agendas of civ 6 (which I’m not much a fan of).
 
Seek said:
I’d rather more political philosophers tbh, they make much more sense to me as immortal leaders of societies than random kings who happened to conquer a place, or charismatic queens, etc. - those figures are less inherently interesting, I’d argue, than ideas on the philosophy and use of power. Political philosophy also strikes me as more stimulating material on which to base leaders’ abilities, as perhaps evident by the discussion in this thread.

Of the two philosophers represented so far, I do wish Confucius had a bit more fleshed out abilities that represented his ideas a bit more, but Machiavelli seems quite interesting indeed.


Agendas are meant to give the AI an overall strategy in diplomacy that plays to their strengths/abilities (ideally), not to just give them flavor or some personality quirk. Of course, some are more effective than others in this, but that is why they’re there.

In civ 6 terms, if Monty, Mansa Musa, and Kristina all had the same approach to diplomacy it would hinder all of them in their games and at the same time make for a rather more boring game.

As a side note, I appreciate that Firaxis makes the agendas obvious because firstly, it potentially gives new players a nudge in the direction of how to approach playing a leader, and secondly, most “power gamer” types prefer to have as many game mechanics out in the open as possible. I’m sure there was debate at Firaxis about whether to keep them hidden or not, which probably led to the random hidden agendas of civ 6 (which I’m not much a fan of).
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If the Agendas are going to give them a strategy, then that's what it should be, a behavior modifier

AI Augustus will tend to invest Influence in increasing the Relationship with those with few Towns, and tend to invest Influence in lowering the Relationship with many Towns
AI Machiavelli will tend to invest Influence in improving the Relationship with those at war with civs other than him.

Instead they just give the civ bonuses for doing that (instead of making Gandhi spend more production on nukes, they just give him the nukes for free... which would be fine if the human player got that benefit as well)
 
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Krikkit1 said:
If the Agendas are going to give them a strategy, then that's what it should be, a behavior modifier

AI Augustus will tend to invest Influence in increasing the Relationship with those with few Towns, and tend to invest Influence in lowering the Relationship with many Towns
AI Machiavelli will tend to invest Influence in improving the Relationship with those at war with civs other than him.

Instead they just give the civ bonuses for doing that (instead of making Gandhi spend more production on nukes, they just give him the nukes for free... which would be fine if the human player got that benefit as well)
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this whole augustus/machiavelli debate does make me a bit sad that we have two leaders from the same small peninsula and that there’s large swaths of the world with no leaders, and some with no leaders OR civs
 
Machiavelli was also present in the Assassin's Creed games, as an Assassin. And he was a great writer in Civ6.
 
Now we can see the levying ability more clearly. According to the latest shorts video of Civ youtube, "Levy Unit" action is not like with Civ 6. We can select one military unit per this action from CS, and take it permanently.

Now I'll consider that Machiavelli is building their own national army and substituting CS mercenary. It sounds fine, and good gameplay feature suited with his influence bonus.
 
Yeah, I do like that it's just one unit. Getting the whole army like in Civ 6 was a bit much. Not all those units were worth getting, and it left your city-state ally denuded of any protection.
 
gdr_willter said:
"Levy Unit" action is not like with Civ 6. We can select one military unit per this action from CS, and take it permanently.
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Another mechanic partially borrowed / developed independently with Humankind. In HK, independent people units that wandered the map could, depending on the people and your relationship with them, be hired as mercenaries. The core defence units of the independent people, though, stayed in place at home, it was only "adventurers" wandering the map that could be hired. Although as I recall you only hired them for a set number of turns, so if they become yours permanently in Civ 7, that's a difference from HK.
 
Eagle Pursuit said:
Yeah, I do like that it's just one unit. Getting the whole army like in Civ 6 was a bit much. Not all those units were worth getting, and it left your city-state ally denuded of any protection.
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And now we can give them units to protect themselves, like what we could in Civ 5. But more thankfully, it seems it works not by giving them an actual unit from my troops, but by providing chances to get it from their settlement.
 
gdr_willter said:
And now we can give them units to protect themselves, like what we could in Civ 5. But more thankfully, it seems it works not by giving them an actual unit from my troops, but by providing chances to get it from their settlement.
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It was sad that you could only give land and naval units to city-states in Civ 5. I wanted so badly to wait for the runaway to attack a city-state then give that city-state nukes to defend itself.
 
Eagle Pursuit said:
It was sad that you could only give land and naval units to city-states in Civ 5. I wanted so badly to wait for the runaway to attack a city-state then give that city-state nukes to defend itself.
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Oh, that's definitely "Self-defense" indeed :D
 
Eagle Pursuit said:
It was sad that you could only give land and naval units to city-states in Civ 5. I wanted so badly to wait for the runaway to attack a city-state then give that city-state nukes to defend itself.
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Some people just want to watch the world burn. :D
 
Machiavelli is going to be the leader that backstabs you to steal your Treasure Fleets
 
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