No more selling Diplomatic Favor

[Minou]

A simple suggestion: eliminate trading of DF. The latest patch reduced the AI value of DF because they were paying too much gold but apparently it is still possible to abuse the system by buying it from one AI and selling it to another AI for more than you paid.

But really why can DF be bought and sold at all? From an immersion standpoint it really makes no sense at all. You earn favor with other Civ by performing “good” actions like making promises or contributing to emergencies. That you can “sell” goodwill makes no sense from an immersion standpoint. It’s like my neighbors house was on fire and I put it out, so everyone likes me. But then, my richer neighbor gives me some gold to buy that goodwill and everyone likes him instead of me?

I don’t really care too much about the diplomatic victory impacts themselves because I find that system incredibly tedious, but for the sake of making the game more realistic and fixing a persistent trade bug why not just ban DF trades?

 

[Abaxial]

Think of it as corrupt politicians, compromising material, that sort of thing.

 

[Linklite]

I think from the immersion standpoint, it's a case of buying favours, rather than favour per se. So for example, if I'm giving you DP, the real life explanation is that I'm introducing you to diplomats, getting your diplomats invited to important events feast, etc. Getting your diplomats into meetings, recommending you, and doing all kinds of things to give you a better image among the other Civs.

If course, this isn't free, it costs me diplomatic capital. If I recommend you, they may well listen to me this time, but if I keep doing it, they'll stop giving me as much credit. Of course, how much I can get away with depends on our relationship, credibility among allies, etc.

This is all represented in a meta measurement that's called Diplomatic Favour.

That's how I think of it, anyway.

 

[UWHabs]

I think from the immersion standpoint, it's a case of buying favours, rather than favour per se. So for example, if I'm giving you DP, the real life explanation is that I'm introducing you to diplomats, getting your diplomats invited to important events feast, etc. Getting your diplomats into meetings, recommending you, and doing all kinds of things to give you a better image among the other Civs.

If course, this isn't free, it costs me diplomatic capital. If I recommend you, they may well listen to me this time, but if I keep doing it, they'll stop giving me as much credit. Of course, how much I can get away with depends on our relationship, credibility among allies, etc.

This is all represented in a meta measurement that's called Diplomatic Favour.

That's how I think of it, anyway.

Yeah, I mean it's all an abstraction of the system anyways.

Perhaps a simple change should be that you can only buy/sell favour from civs you're friends with. That would at least limit it a little bit, and if you're currently running negative favour per turn due to conquest and carbon, you need at least one friend to offload those credits on if you want to profit.

 

[Minou]

Well, I think that it makes sense that if you give resources or do something helpful to a specific AI, they like you more (as in +3 relationship when you give Open Borders). But giving gold to one specific AI to buy DF essentially makes the whole world "like" you more, in the sense of controlling votes. That just strikes me as off. If I give Hungary 1000g, sure they should love me, but England and France shouldn't care.

That's from an immersion standpoint, but more practically this would close on of the gold loopholes of buying for X and re-selling for X+Y.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I would like to quote a suggestion I posted elsewhere:

"I wish Diplo Favor can be unsellable but bribe-able, as a special currency for bribing AI to do things for you (rather than tell them not to do things), like how bribes work in Civ5 - bribe them to vote, to go to war, etc. It is Diplomatic Favor after all. (But that requires a complete reworking of a core mechanism and I don't see it happen in the current development cycle.)"

 

[The googles do nothing]

The two problem with df trading, all leader screen trading in fact, is that it's instant and predictable. If you had to offer additional gold out of your coffers (or resources) for each trade route in exchange for diplomatic favor each time a route is completed. Getting oil from a trade route in exchange for diplomatic favors seems very realistic to me.

 

[jasper]

Think of it as corrupt politicians, compromising material, that sort of thing.

/thread

 

[iammaxhailme]

Selling diplomatic favors is extremely realistic and proven by history imo

 

[Galvatron]

corrupt politicians

Redundant.

Selling diplomatic favors is extremely realistic and proven by history imo

Not just that, but entire government systems are created around influence trading. Monarchism, manorialism, and feudalism are the legitimisation of favour as a governmental system; you literally get agreements signed for personal benefit, like marriage or holdings.

#iamthestate

 

[Lily_Lancer]

There shall be some viscosity, as shifting attitude is quite a difficult thing.

For example, when you buy diplo favors, for every 2 diplo favors, you only get 1 favor, the other favor is used for transmissing that favor from that civ to you. So when you sell diplo favors.

And the diplo favor selling system shall not be designed that every single favor is sellable, instead, like actions of asking for promises, voting etc. The diplo favor shall be piecewise. So you trade diplo favor in pieces. For every piece, the seller spends 20 diplo favors while the receiver gets 10 favors. Things like asking for promises cost 2 pieces of diplo favors.

 

[BrotherInJah]

DF is influence on international stage, and by selling it to you I promise to represent your interest (in game you're doing this with your hands) for exchange of goods.

 

[Victoria]

I promise to represent your interest

Sure, but when that favour is re-sold it becomes less real, Iran sells favour to Russia who sells favour to America who sells favour to Israel. Israel now has Iran owing them favours?
I tell a friend I owe them a favour, they then pass this on to someone else? I think not!
This could only be stopped if favours had an originator attached and they could only be sold once like luxuries - while reselling luxes happens in the real world more than reselling favours.

I can now buy everyone favour early for peanuts, and I mean everyones, for very little gold. This has some side effects like they cannot ask for promises and helps a dipvic a lot. (no-one else has any favours so I do not have to spend a lot to win)
It was a great idea but is causing so many side issues (like implementing -5DF for each capital taken) that it would just be a damn site easier not to bother with trading DF.

 

[SharTeel]

If a system is abusable, no one is forcing you to abuse it. It's like winning religious victory by gifting cities.

 

[slavaskii]

The realism of this game went out the window a long time ago, and the introduction of Secret Societies (which I refuse to play with) solidified that even more.

That being said, Diplomatic Favor is an unusual mechanic, but it's probably the best option considering the state of the World Congress. Think of it this way: you want jade banned, but you don't have enough resources to get this done yourself. You then ask for favor from other civs - those that are your allies will be more easily convinced (charging less for their favor), while those that are your adversaries won't part with their favor that quickly. It is an exchange, and theoretically you could just sell your favor elsewhere for 'profit', but the entire design of favor was to generate it for the exclusive use of the World Congress.

The better solution, in my opinion, is to make the favor you purchased unsellable to other AIs. You can still sell the ones you generate yourself (there's ample 'real-world' situations to justify this), but you shouldn't be able to become a black-market diplo dealer.

 

[BrotherInJah]

Sure, but when that favour is re-sold it becomes less real, Iran sells favour to Russia who sells favour to America who sells favour to Israel. Israel now has Iran owing them favours?
I tell a friend I owe them a favour, they then pass this on to someone else? I think not!
This could only be stopped if favours had an originator attached and they could only be sold once like luxuries - while reselling luxes happens in the real world more than reselling favours.

I can now buy everyone favour early for peanuts, and I mean everyones, for very little gold. This has some side effects like they cannot ask for promises and helps a dipvic a lot. (no-one else has any favours so I do not have to spend a lot to win)
It was a great idea but is causing so many side issues (like implementing -5DF for each capital taken) that it would just be a damn site easier not to bother with trading DF.

It's a chain transaction, I promise you, you promise to someone else. So in real life they go back to you and you come to me.. that is one of mechanism to work pretty well in terms of realism..

 

[Pietato]

Everyone is rushing to literally buy favour in the Pacific right now, so the system in civ 6 is actually very accurate.

e.g China buys favour in the Pacific. China then shops around its increased diplomatic pull.

The problem is the implementation of it, and the flawed world congress.

 

[RealHuhn]

I know it has already been mentioned but a picture says more than a thousand words. So basically 100 diplo favour for 45 gold. Is this the best they can do? *sigh*

 

[Galvatron]

Sure, but when that favour is re-sold it becomes less real, Iran sells favour to Russia who sells favour to America who sells favour to Israel. Israel now has Iran owing them favours?
I tell a friend I owe them a favour, they then pass this on to someone else? I think not!
This could only be stopped if favours had an originator attached and they could only be sold once like luxuries - while reselling luxes happens in the real world more than reselling favours.

Well, I don't think this is unreasonable in the slightest. Using a continuation of your example with only one layer of abstraction, of which can be up to at least three:

0. You don't mention where the favour comes from let's assume it's from suzerainty. Venice is a trade city state that owes fealty to Iran (Persia), part of this fealty includes protection from abroad and military contracts. When a national corporation is incorporated for Venice's newly discovered oil, they turn to their suzerain to negotiate contracts to buy and distribute the oil, which is done through oligarchs in Persia. The favour is created to represent the control Iran has over a new development.
1. Persia to Russia: Persia decides it doesn't need the favour, but it does need money. In exchange for favourable trade deals elsewhere, Persia agrees to base its new corporate headquarters and operations in Russia, giving them control over the company.
2. Russia to America: America has interest in the region, and to secure influence offers to buy the entire supply of oil from the company, and negotiates a generous contract that gives them leverage.
3. America to Phoenicia: Because of an alliance, America has an interest in securing peace for Phoenicia to continue it's access to trade in the region, and Phoenicia has just siezed a city state. They contact Phoenicia's embassy to let them know that to ensure stability they will use their existing trade deals as leverage to ensure that conflict is avoided, effectively transferring the influence to Phoenicia.

Again: that's a single layer of abstraction; we're assuming the favour didn't change forms, like getting a specific guy elected, inserting a spy, setting up a consulting firm etc.; and assuming the influence was transferred along a line rather than exchanging different favours for other favours, it was all for money rather than exchanging money, then territorial influence, then an alliance, then mineral rights etc..

 

[Ansive]

I just know that I'm making a killing out of trading away my diplo favor.
It seems broken how much gold I can get in the early game just by being suzerain of a few city states.

Sweden is still paying like 10 gold per favor. It doesn't seem to matter how much of it they already have.
And then they blow it all on useless votes in the next World Congress session.

I feel like civs should pay less for it in the early game. Or nothing if they already have too much of it.