Pledge to Protect

[Barathor]

I believe the current form of Pledge to Protect (via the tweak from the latest big patch) is just a temporary, quick fix to address balance issues. Hopefully, the next patch has already come up with a much better form of PtP, and if not, hopefully the Firaxians see this thread and it influences them!

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Current Pledge to Protect:

1) Benefit is minor: +5 resting point.

2) If you're already well above the resting point, nothing is really gained from PtP (until your influence plummets). So, essentially, it discourages you from "protecting" city-states that you're already friends and allies with, or that you're actively completing requests for, which seems backwards.

3) Consequences are minor and fleeting if you stand up to the bully: +5 opinion weight for 10 turns (higher is bad for opinion weight).

4) Not enough discouragement to spam it. You start to gain the benefit each turn before you even have to perform any "protecting", then you just wait for any opportunities to arise through passively/actively fulfilling requests to add influence on top of the resting point. If bullying occurs, you either bail for a minor influence hit (which will recover if below the resting point or zero) or you protect it for a minor, temporary diplomacy hit with the bully (usually the latter is chosen).

5) You're not really "protecting" the city-states. It's just a potentially empty promise, since you can bail out the moment another civ bullies the city-state. Also, one would assume that the PtP would at least deter other civs from bullying your city-state, especially if you're powerful and/or you're friendly with the potential bully, but that's not the case!

It's simply a single, small modifier, with a constant value, which can easily be trumped in a couple ways. On a Standard map, if the bully is at least 11 tiles from the city-state, your PtP means nothing (on Huge, the distance is 20 tiles). Also, with regards to bullying gold, if the bully has already successfully done so to the city-state, then your PtP means nothing again.

6) Bullies neither consider the power of the protecting civ nor the relationship it has with the major civ.

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New Pledge to Protect:

1) No more resting point boost (There are plenty of other things which do that already). Instead, you pledge to protect a city-state so that you gain new opportunities to gain even more lump sums of influence by standing up to bullies.

This creates another source to gain influence with city-states, outside of requests, great merchant abilities, and such. You also benefit from it if you're already above the resting point, so it encourages you to "protect" your friends (so that maybe you can become allies) and allies (so that you can continue to keep them as an ally).

2) If a civ bullies a city-state you've pledged to protect:

a) Give a Warning to Bully: gain +20 influence points with the city-state and +10 opinion weight for 20 turns with the civ (was +5 for 10 turns; again, higher numbers are bad).​

b) Forgive the Bully: PtP ends and receive -20 influence with the city-state (existing value). You can't PtP this city-state again for 20 turns (existing amount).​

3) If a civ is Friendly with a civ or player that's protecting the target city-state, it won't bully it.

This helps avoid PtP being a mechanic which deteriorates relationships with civs and only hurts diplomacy overall. If AI civs consider the relationship they have with the protector (which makes sense), then players can safely protect city-states from non-friendly civs, without worrying about having to hurt their relationship with a friendly civ that is close to the protected city-state.

4) You’re committed to at least 20 turns of protection if you pledge, not just 10.

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I think these little tweaks and additions could go a long way towards improving the Pledge to Protect feature. Also, they’re simple to implement and not too far off from the original concept.

There are other additional options to implement with this, such as bigger choices to make when a civ is at war with your protected city-state, or AI civs taking the power of other civs into consideration when deciding whether to bully or not, but both would also introduce more issues that would need to be addressed and would need a lot more refinement, so I left these out.

Do you guys agree with these simple, modified rules? Would you be satisfied with PtP if they were implemented, or do you think it needs to be expanded upon more?

 

[brewgod]

With similar concerns...I can't believe how much it cost to keep bribing the City States. I just picked up BNW via the current sale at 66% off and so perhaps it's not as much ..don't know yet. The extra happiness, food, faith, luxury items are really nice to have but to keep CS as Ally status ... damn it's expensive.

Any thoughts would be nice pro or con to maintain ally with CS. Also...you should get more points when you have a huge army and a CS is surrounded by many large cities of another Civ and you PTP. I think at times...what's the point.

Thanks

Brew God

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[EK834]

) Benefit is minor: +5 resting point.

2) If you're already well above the resting point, nothing is really gained from PtP (until your influence plummets). So, essentially, it discourages you from "protecting" city-states that you're already friends and allies with, or that you're actively completing requests for, which seems backwards.

That's the problem. By the human this should be used almost only in synergy with a friendship or alliance with the CS. It's then that the benefit isn't insignificant. It stretches your alliance by many several turns. It's as a long term measure it's worth it: you can save a substantial amount of gold if you PtP all your CS allies. You're stepping on the toes of other Civs by meddling within their spheres of influence, so there's a risk if you want to keep very good relations. Then this should be used only for CS right around you - within your own sphere of influence - and which are less likely to be bullied (or you will see the bullies coming with units and can step in) and which are directly in your sphere of influence. PtP CS in the middle of another continent unless you're allied to it is asking for trouble.

This helps avoid PtP being a mechanic which deteriorates relationships with civs and only hurts diplomacy overall. If AI civs consider the relationship they have with the protector (which makes sense), then players can safely protect city-states from non-friendly civs, without worrying about having to hurt their relationship with a friendly civ that is close to the protected city-state.

I get where you're going, but I don't think I agree the player should be able to "safely" protect anything. The AI needs such things to offer a bit of challengem and the game's diplo is already way too simple, with too little events that can upset your plans: don't DoF aggressive Civs, don't denounce unless it's a chain, don't sign DP, don't give OB... it's all a little too simple.

I think the AI is presently too keen to PtP (while I have no proof, I suspect it PtP despite being at the resting point of influence with a CS, ie: it's not put 1 gold or fulfilled any quest for it and thus shouldn't PtP for nothing), but I still don't dislike the mechanism. It spices things up and the game doesn't have enough causes of minor conflicts (as it would if for e.g. players could struggle over control of specific tiles rather than the umbrella of "coveting lands", or if we could react diplomatically to military build ups etc.) such as it is.

I like how the AI reacts badly to a PtP to a CS near it. It's how it should be. Think Russia/Cuba and USA there. Think UK/HK/China etc. You mention that a Civ shouldn't bully the CS protected by an ally... Well, an ally shouldn't PtP a city-state in the middle of an ally's territory either. The US isn't going to protect CS the UK considers virtual colonies. When the King of France signed PtP (defensive pacts) with Italian city-states, the Duke of Milan or the Hapsburg Emperor hardly applauded even though it was at peace/friendly with France. The Emperor rather considered those CS to be in his sphere of influence and France was meddling. And it has lead to wars at times.

It's not a gratuitous act to PtP a small entity that a larger power considers within its sphere of influence, it's an aggressive diplomatic move, and it's meddling. When you do that, you go against the interests of your ally the major Civ, and it resents you for it (and comes to you to tell you that you're competing over the same CS, you've been warned... if you don't revoke the pledge, you know the risk). It's normal that an AI might decide to overlook your PtP and dare you to take action. You're allies, it calculates the consequences won't be too bad, you won't give up your alliance with a major power for a CS - and you make the same calculation when you decide to bully or to PtP a CS next to an ally. You meddled by your PtP in the first place, the AI is simply reminding you it did consider that CS to be in its territory. Small conflicts/disagreements between otherwise friendly/allied nations add a bit of spice to the game.

I like the "intricacies" it brings: eg: you have to be careful when you DoW a Civ, because its immediate neighbor is your declared friend and may very well be protecting a nearby CS allied with your target. You have to be extra careful with DP, because you might find yourself declaring war automatically on CS under the protection of your allies, and that will be bad.

I really don't think it would be a good thing to remove the possibility the AI will bully its nearby CS even though one of its major ally is protecting them. The human player who want to avoid that should revoke the PtP to a CS when the major power nearby is/becomes their ally, unless you care more for the alliance with the CS and will risk the negative modifier for your meddling (competing over the same CS) and the one you'll get if your ally decide to test your will and bully the CS.

 

[Galgus]

This makes a lot of sense, as it would make protecting more about a long-term CS alliance with diplomatic consequences and less about an easy +5 influence.

 

[eternaldude]

I believe the current form of Pledge to Protect (via the tweak from the latest big patch) is just a temporary, quick fix to address balance issues. Hopefully, the next patch has already come up with a much better form of PtP, and if not, hopefully the Firaxians see this thread and it influences them!

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Current Pledge to Protect:

1) Benefit is minor: +5 resting point.

I disagree with the change from +10 to +5 and want to change it back. What file is it in and what line is it on? Knowing how these things have worked historically, I'm almost positive the actual files will not use any game language, but instead will use terminology unfamiliar, thus making it impossible to find the proper field to edit.

It is the only thing I want to change in the whole entire game. It was perfect. I'm about to uninstall and reinstall and stay at version 1.03.18

I disagree with +5 and think it should go back to +10 because I think that in exchange for having to constantly damage my relations with the Zulu, I deserve permanent friendship when combined with that one patronage social policy that adds +20 to the rest rate

Of course that lets other players be permanent friends but I don't care, I just want to change this one thing and I can't find the file and nowhere in the forums do I see a mention of how to do this or where to find the value or the file or the field in the file!