Red items

[dguichar]

As a related topic with Promotions'waste, related on that it might be hard or close to impossible to do the modification i'll propose.

Now, AI civs can mark red some/all items in the trading table to announce they're not available. What if human could do the same? I don't want to trade writing so i mark it red, and the computer never comes asking me for it and therefore staying away from forced hits on reputation.

 

[4lexander]

My very compliments to you for the idea.

It's something it should have been present in original game.

Why the AIs has the option to lock some items and human players don't, leading straight to unbalance in diplomatic stats (not mention the annoying repeting "No" to the same questions again) ?

 

[dguichar]

Thank you for your compliments, though i think they are hardly deserved. It's just common sense.

Anyway, any modder/moddess there to evaluate if this is actually possible or it's hard coded?

 

[Asaf]

It should be possible in the DLL.
In CvPlayer.cpp you have CvPlayer::getTradeDenial(), which can return a denial type. NO_DENIAL means the item won't be red. All other types mean it would be red with different reasons.

This function calls other functions for different types of trade (tech, civic, maps etc.). In most of them you have:

	if (isHuman())
	{
		return NO_DENIAL;
	}

So in order to do what you ask, you need to keep for each possible trade item and each rival (yes, this is decided on a per-rival basis) a 'denial' flag (and probably save it as part of the player class), use this value to modify the above return value, save/load it to the saved game file, and you need UI for editing this. All in all - quite a lot of work.

Personally I think this idea is not needed in the game, and that there are no balance issues in this regard. The AI simply evaluates this every time, and this feature's only use is to save the human player from trying dozens of different trades which will never happen.

And managing this for each opponent is simply too much work for the player. It's not like you have so many offers from the AI players (how many? 2-3 a turn max?) that it's worth micro managing it, or losing the control for each trade offer.

It seems that what you want is a way to bypass bad reputation when you deny a request. I'm sure there are simpler ways (simply mod out this reputation hit, for one).

But if you still want it - the above is the way to start it.

 

[dguichar]

AI's can choose to not take a reputation hit by marking red, the items they don't want to trade at all.

It's a matter of balance. If AI's can, why not human? AI must follow the same rules, remove red items from them or add the possibility to human and everything will be fine.

Thank you for the code idea.

 

[4lexander]

If AI's can, why not human? AI must follow the same rules, remove red items from them or add the possibility to human and everything will be fine.

 

[Asaf]

But as I said, you can simply remove this reputation hit (in which ever cases you want), which should be fairly easy.
I think you're trying to solve a problem with a solution which creates much bigger problems (not only of development, but mainly of playability), when there's a much simpler solution.
But again - whatever suits you.

 

[4lexander]

Which would these playability issues?

The gameplay can only get improved in terms of easy of use, depth, immediate management of diplomacy etc.

Vice versa, a tout-court elimination of the negative reputation hint will be a trouble.


Beside the simple fact it would be an elimination of a feature that adds depth to the game,

while the proposed solution is an addition, rather than an elimination, wich already is a pro,

yours would eliminate this in any situation, not only those items intended to be marked as "red".


In fact, you would only mark as red some of the items, not all of them, being open for proposals on the rest, with results depending on the counter part offer.

In these cases you are supposed to get that malus if you reject their offer, but not in those matter you choose to lock as AI can do.

As said, If the AI(s) can do it, why human player(s) can not?

 

[Asaf]

If you like the idea it's perfectly fine. Just don't forget that the AI decides about its red items per rival (possibly per team). Meaning that you might be willing to give a certain tech to one opponent, but not to another. So if you really want balance - the player has to manage that.

Let's just agree not to agree.

 

[4lexander]

That's the intent, I suppose.

To lock certain items from trading in a particular moment/case etc.

I even think it would be fun to mess with it if it could be done all via ingame menu. A nice addition to diplomacy depth IMO

 

[dguichar]

Well, well.. it seems the idea is getting in the mood.

Certainly, i initially thought about "making rules the same for both AI and human"; but this whole point of "adds a new depth in trading decisions" it's much better.

 

[4lexander]

Well, well.. it seems the idea is getting in the mood.

Certainly, i initially thought about "making rules the same for both AI and human"; but this whole point of "adds a new depth in trading decisions" it's much better.

Thanks