Royal Interventions [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

I replaced the old concept (in the Spoiler) by this new "light weight" one.
(It is going to be just another DLL-Diplomacy dialogue to add a bit of flavour.)

Outdated concept:

Spoiler :

Hi guys,

it has always felt strang to me that a European King just sits around idle while his colonies are conquered by another Colonial Player.
So with this feature I intend to change this.

Generals:

This is not an AI only feature.
(Meaning it is also going to happen for the Human Player.)

Most likely this will be implemented as Game Option "Royal Interventions".
(So whoever does not like it can deactivate it in the settings for a new game.)

The Intervention Troops are not free goodies, they come at a price.
(Accepting Intervention troops will increase tax rate.)

Also the Human Player will get a Diplomacy Dialogue to accept or refuse the Intervention Troops.
(Which will most likely also offer to pay an amount of gold directly instead of a tax increase.)

So what is going to happen:

The Intervention Counter:
(Only active for Wars between 2 Colonial Players - none of this will happen during peace times.)

• Every time another Colonial Player destroys a Unit of Colonial Player the Intervention Counter of its King (of the attacked Colonial Player that lost a Unit) will go up by 1 point
• Every time another Colonial Player conquers a City of a Colonial Player the Intervention Counter of its King (of the attacked Colonial Player that lost a City will go up by 10 points
• If the Colonial Player is at War with another Colonial Player that has more than twice as many Cities, the Intervention Counter of its King will also increase by 2 points every turn
• A peace declaration between the 2 Colonial Players will reduce the Intervention Counter of their Kings by 10 points (not always set it to 0), so in the next war it will most likely already be filled a bit
• Whenever the Intervention Counter is reset, it can of course also be filled again
• The Intervention Counter can never drop below 0

Sending Intervention Troops:
(Only active for Wars between 2 Colonial Players - none of this will happen during peace times.)

• If the Intervention Counter will be used by a "randomized algorith with threshold" to determine if the King will offer to send Intervention troops to defend his colonies
• The higher the Intervention Counter the more likely the King will send Intervention troops next turn and the more Intervention troops he will send
• Human Player will get a Diplomacy Dialogue and can accept or refuse the Intervention troops
• The King's Intervention troops come at a price though: Tax Rate increase or flat gold payment
• The King's Intervention troops will be spawned (in a ship) at the closest Europe Plot (Ocean) to its colonies
• When the King sends Intervention troops his Intervention Counter is reset to 0

The Intervention Counter threshold and the base amount of Intervention troops will be configurable in XML.
(They will depend on Difficulties in Handicap.xml)

The kind of troops the King will send as well as tax increase or gold amount for accepting will be configured in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.
(Just so it is configurable without hardcoding.)

---------

Remarks:

• The Royal Interventions troops will be spawned as Colonial Units and controlled by the Colonial Player. The King Players will not directly control them because this would require heavy efforts for coding. (Kings are not programmed to be a player in the Colonies before WOI.)
• All the Royal Intervention troops a player has got he will keep. They will not be removed after the war since he payed for them. (Either in gold or as a tax increase.)
• Of course messages will inform whenever Intervention troops are sent by a King, so you should not be totally surprised.
• Since the Royal Intervention Troosp will be spawned on a Europe Plot (Ocean), you can try to sink their ships before they can land to reinforce the Colonial Player's Cities.
• It is again chance based (random algorithm with thresholds), so the longer a War is going the more likely it is that Royal Intervention forces arrive. Also meaning that if you are fast enough to end the War, you might not have to face the Royal Intervention troops.
• Since the Intervention Counter is not totally reset to 0 at Declaration of Peace, the previous Wars increase the chances of Intervention Troops from the King being sent.

---------

Summary:

This feature will spice up Colonial Wars by additional Intervention troops from their Kings.
In general Colonial Wars should get longer and more bloody.

This feature heavily favours the loosing side (the one losing more Units and Cities).
But the feature will also work for the Human player (if he also loses Units and Cities).

 

[Nenos]

I like the idea and I like to see it as an Option like the training by natives.
Colonial Wars are exploited too easy? I win every third blind game at the difficulty revolutionary. But the only exploit I figuired out is to move out the enemy force by using ships. Hints are welcome ^^

 

[lethiel]

Hm not sure. Wont this give too much 'deus ex machina' where all that matters for the game is what units the different Kings send to the new world and units produced with guns, blades and horses in the colonies will become insignificant in comparison?
And can't it be abused heavily?: 'Here stupid AI please destroy my newly founded size one settlement and my scout/ dragoon so my intervention counter can go up and I can get a bunch of European reinforcements.

Note: I think making too many things a game option could course some confusion to what is actually the 'real game' - especially if playing multiplayer.

 

[raystuttgart]

Just bumping "ACCEPTED" old concepts so they get further up in the queue again.

 

[raystuttgart]

Bumping this again, because I want to have this further in the list of threads.
(I increased its priority on my todo-list.)

 

[historix69]

• Every time another Colonial Player conquers a City of a Colonial Player the Intervention Counter of its King (of the attacked Colonial Player that lost a City will go up by 10 points

Cities may range in population size between 1 and ca 100. Imho a flat cost of 10 points for loosing a settlement does not distinguish enough between the impact of loosing a major city and the neglectable loss of a size 1 outpost.

Will AI-only conflicts also generate interventions, e.g. if AI A attacks AI B?

 

[raystuttgart]

@historix69
The concept above is just a rough game design draft.
Once I start working on it, the implementation details will change anyways.

Will AI-only conflicts also generate interventions, e.g. if AI A attacks AI B?

Yes an AI vs AI war would also be considered. It is generally about Colonial Wars.
(There is nothing in the concept that says "only war with Human".)

 

[raystuttgart]

I am going to implement a different version of this as DLL-Diplomacy Dialogue with the King.
(It is going to be much more light weight than the original proposal but also leaving more choice to the Player.)

To simplify:
If you are at war with another European Colony, there is a random chance that your King will contact you and ask if you need help.
(Of course this will happen for AI as well, same chances same rule. AI will always accept if the military strength of oponent is higher.)

He will offer you:

A random Royal Ship and 2 random Royal Troops for a according (but discounted) gold price.
(Of course there is an algorithm with some logic behind it. But each offer could be a bit different.)

You may be lucky and he might offer a "Man-O-War".
He might however also just offer a "Royal Frigate" or a "Royal-Troop-Galleon".

Of course the less valuable the Units, the less gold they will cost.
(The gold price in the dialogue will be calculated accordingly.)

----

Simple Choices:

1. Accept, pay the gold and get the Royal Ship and the Royal Troops he offers. (Only visible if you have the gold.)
2. Accept a hefty tax increase (e.g. 5%) instead if you do not want to pay in gold. (Also fall back for AI.)
3. Refuse any help and handle the situation alone. (+1 Attitude)

----

Conditions:
1) Only for Wars with other Colonies, not being in Revolution of course.
2) Positive or at least neutral relations to your king. - Not worse than "CAUTIOUS".
3) As always: MIN_TURN, TIMER, BASE CHANCE, ... usual settings for the algorithm.

--------

Comment on balancing:
I will balance in a way that it should normally only happen once or twice a game.
Of course all balancing will be changeable in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml.

Comment on gameplay:
It will be just another "flavour DLL-Diplo-Event" and not a major feature.
Kings will send troops to Colonial Wars from time to time and not just sit back watching their colonies get slaugthered.

Comment on AI:
Supporting AI when attacked is kind of the main reason I wanted to have it, so of course it will also use this.
AI will always accept and either pay in gold if it has it or accept the tax increase.

Comment on effort:
It is pretty much just another DLL-Diplo-Event and thus requires about 4 hours effort max.
(It is quite similar to other DLL-Diplo-Events already implemented. Nothing risky.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, this one is now also implemented.
It turned out to be a pretty simple (random algorithm based) DLL-Diplo-Event.

Basically once in a while the King will offer you support in form of Troops if you are currently at war with another Colony.
(There are a few other conditions like e.g. timers, random chances, ... and such.)

For Human Player the Dialogue only triggers if he could theoretically afford to pay the gold.
(The AI may also get it without the gold and then opt for the tax increase.)

The Units you get are currently not randomized, because I was afraid of players not liking it.
According to the current XML balancing you will get:

1) Royal Frigate
2) Royal Line Infantery
3) Royal Dragoon

The dialogue basically offers 3 choices:

A) Accept and pay in Gold (and simply pay as the dialogue tells it)
B) Accept and "pay" via tax increase instead (and get a tax increase of 5%)
C) Tellt the King you need no support (and get an Attitude Bonus for your King)

About Prices:

If the King likes you he may give you a discount.
(Max discount is up to 50%. Which would require +10 AttitudeValue in current balancing.)

About AI:

AI will use this as well.
If it has the gold, it will opt for Option A, if not it will always chose Option B.

About Gameplay:

So do not be surprised if you will meet Royal Troops from time to time when fighting Colonial AIs.
Instead of letting his Colonies being overrun, King now at least offers troops. (Even though not for free.)

About Balancing:

This is balanced to happen maybe once or twice a game.
So do not worry about spamming of Royal Troops in the Colonies.

Balancing in XML:

Spoiler :

    <!-- ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS -->
    <Define>
        <DefineName>TIMER_ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>50</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>BASE_CHANCE_ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>100</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_GOLD_PRICE</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>3000</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_PERCENT_GOLD_PRICE_CHANGE_PER_ATTITUDE_POINT</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_TAX_INCREASE</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_ATTITUDE_IMPROVEMENT</DefineName>
        <iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_SHIP</DefineName>
        <DefineTextVal>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_FRIGATE</DefineTextVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_LAND_UNIT_1</DefineName>
        <DefineTextVal>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_LINE_INFANTRY</DefineTextVal>
    </Define>
    <Define>
        <DefineName>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_INTERVENTIONS_LAND_UNIT_2</DefineName>
        <DefineTextVal>UNITCLASS_ROYAL_DRAGOON</DefineTextVal>
    </Define>

Images:

Spoiler :