Suggestion: Tired to repeatly build diplomat unit again and again in late games

[Terrrrr]

Vox Populi is the best mod I've ever played for the Civ, however,

In late game, you have to repeatly build at least 5~10 diplomat unit to maintain allies with a citystate, build/move/press diplomat mission button.

I know this is the way how CSD mod works, but I'm wondering is there any way to minimize these actions, like "convert city production into influnce to a specific citystate" or "automate diplomate unit to a CS via EUI"?

Thanks!

 

[CppMaster]

Vox Populi is the best mod I've ever played for the Civ, however,

In late game, you have to repeatly build at least 5~10 diplomat unit to maintain allies with a citystate, build/move/press diplomat mission button.

I know this is the way how CSD mod works, but I'm wondering is there any way to minimize these actions, like "convert city production into influnce to a specific citystate" or "automate diplomate unit to a CS via EUI"?

Thanks!

No, you can't automate it.
Moreover, converting production into influence would be very different than current mechanic, because you'd gain influence every turn instead of once per diplomatic unit. Also there would be no risk of losing diplomatic units while they travel and Paper resource wouldn't be used.

 

[andersw]

Vox Populi is the best mod I've ever played for the Civ, however,

In late game, you have to repeatly build at least 5~10 diplomat unit to maintain allies with a citystate, build/move/press diplomat mission button.

I know this is the way how CSD mod works, but I'm wondering is there any way to minimize these actions, like "convert city production into influnce to a specific citystate" or "automate diplomate unit to a CS via EUI"?

Thanks!

Try use them in conjuction with quests and gifting units and with some citystates I feel it's not worth the effort.

 

[bigcat88]

Just play for Greece or Austria. Or any other civ with statecraft policy and trade route to CS.
P.S.: In last version there maybe an error(I am not sure, but it is a bit too big) in CS influence decay calculations, so we need just wait for a fix.

 

[tu_79]

I don't produce that many diplomats. I use mostly quests and spies for influence. Ideologies usually give extra influence for late game. Add some spheres of influence too. And great diplomats for delegates. I may purchase a few diplomats just before a session to get some timed alliances, and a few in mid game to make world wide friends.

 

[hr_oskar]

I'm guessing the intent of the CSD design choice to have diplomatic units was to impose geography on the CS influence battle. That is, by having units produced by cities that must move over to the city states, then distance starts to matter as well as the potential for enemy intervention on the way.

I appreciate this thinking but still have to agree that it can get tedious. It won't be changed for core VP, but I really think the diplomatic units should have used trade route mechanics instead of being like missionaries / great merchants. Then you'd have established a "diplomatic route" with a nearby CS, fire and forget for the next 30-ish turns. Geography would still have mattered and the potential for enemy intervention would have been there too.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I'm guessing the intent of the CSD design choice to have diplomatic units was to impose geography on the CS influence battle.

That, plus a delay. Except for city state nearby, if someone steal you the alliance, you can't immediatly strike back since you actually need to move the diplomat accros the world. It makes turn order less relevant (it is still relevant, but far less than in vanilla system where the last player could buy every CS the turn before the world congress)

 

[Gazebo]

Diplo units can be automated. Make em, automate em, move on.

G

 

[CppMaster]

Diplo units can be automated. Make em, automate em, move on.

G

How does it work? Do they go first to a CS that need the least points to the next level of diplomacy (friend, allied)?

 

[Gazebo]

How does it work? Do they go first to a CS that need the least points to the next level of diplomacy (friend, allied)?

Uses the AI logic. Looks at proximity, active quests, closest CS to ally with the unit, potential danger, etc.

G

 

[RAuer2]

I can't find the parts of your post which explain what elements of CSD you do not like or why.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I personally have no problem with city-diplomacy as is. I find it to be really fun and dynamic. But I'm curious, for those of you who don't like CSD, how would you change it and what would you add to it?

 

[Deadstarre]

and they say I am not good at light criticism =) CSD is G's baby. I dont find his implementation perfect (numbers need tweaking) but the idea is sound, it beats vanilla for certain, and the gameplay is definitely interesting. I've never seen someone float a better idea than the basic system it uses.

 

[Gazebo]

That's a good question and I don't have a good answer for it. Vanilla Civ's system was... just silly. CSD's is tedious and frustrating to the point that I simply never want to engage with it. When I was playing Siam, it felt I pretty much had to have diplomatic units on the move at all times and it seemed like I was constantly on the verge of losing at least one ally every turn... and none of the AIs were even competing for them at that point. I've enjoyed Austria so far, but she pretty much bypasses the entire 'diplomatic unit' system, so that really only makes my case a little better to my mind. When I've played the non-diplomatic civs, every attempt I've made to maintain even a single useful ally has always been so easily thwarted by the AI that it stopped feeling worth the attempt.

I suppose if I had to voice, making the entire system play more like Austria does would probably feel better to me. You can invest time and energy into focusing on CS alliances without the micro of diplo units, and it ends up feeling more like a core game mechanic rather than the somewhat tacked-on feeling it has (to me) at the moment.

I'm not easily offended - if that was the case, I wouldn't have endured for so long on this project. In any case, "making the entire system play more like Austria" is profoundly vague (and sounds like you just plain want the old gold-for-influence model back). That or you'd prefer Civ 6's 'oh hey let me click this button and poof! I'm allied...wasn't that rewarding?' mechanic. For both, the issue you have to avoid is over-abstraction: if there's no geopolitics, diplomacy becomes a spreadsheet.

Not saying CSD is perfect, but it's the best geopolitical model we can do through civ. So, as such, not changing it.

Also this line:

>it felt I pretty much had to have diplomatic units on the move at all times and it seemed like I was constantly on the verge of losing at least one ally every turn... and none of the AIs were even competing for them at that point

Is self-conflicting. If you were constantly losing CSs...but you weren't competing with anyone...then stop hitting yourself?

G

 

[tu_79]

Anyways, one suggestion I read in this post (from Deadstarre?), making diplomatic units move the same as military units, I really like. This makes geopolitics more important. If you want control on some CS in far away lands you have to settle somewhere near. Now that paper is limited, you cannot just produce units non stop and send them continuously. With fewer paper, only 2-3 diplomatic units can be working at the same time, if you add a longer travel, then positioning cities become more strategic.

By the way, I've just seen Netherlands making a bold move: He sent diplomatics to every CS in the map for 20 turns, allied almost every CS out there, and then declared war to me. That was soul crushing!

 

[CppMaster]

Anyways, one suggestion I read in this post (from Deadstarre?), making diplomatic units move the same as military units, I really like.

What do you mean? So they have reduced movement points or that cannot move to other territory without Open Borders?
I don't like the former, because they should be more mobile than military units, like missionaries.
About the latter, how about if you could move to a territory without Open Borders, but then you gradually lose influence strength, like missionaries?

 

[tu_79]

What do you mean? So they have reduced movement points or that cannot move to other territory without Open Borders?
I don't like the former, because they should be more mobile than military units, like missionaries.
About the latter, how about if you could move to a territory without Open Borders, but then you gradually lose influence strength, like missionaries?

I mean moving faster than warriors but slower than missionaries. 3 movement?

Your proposal would make the use of diplomatic units even easier. I prefer them to be used tactically: making friends when no useful quests are available, turning alliances just before a WC session.

 

[Vortok]

My concern has generally been more about how night and day the difference is between Statescraft Diplo and non-Statescraft Diplo. That and full Statescraft trivializes most other influence sources. Influence decay of ~1 a turn when you can easily drop several hundred influence also makes most other methods (quests, unit gifts, etc) nigh pointless as a way to compete. One of my first games had me get close to 1k influence on a CS due to multiple barbarian hordes - a cool way to get lot of influence, if lucky - and several hundred on other CSs to ensure they'd be hard to lose (and then accidentally won via Culture). Granted, unit gifts have actual military uses if a CS is next to somebody you plan to fight, but it's more about a single Diplo unit trivializing the base Friend/Ally numbers/metrics and two will generally supplant any civ that hasn't also been dumping Diplo units into it.

I like the tree. It's certainly the one that I feel most comfortable using and I like how it (and the Diplo system) ties various elements of the game together. WC votes are more worthwhile, too, even when pursuing other victories. It's just that Statescraft feels almost mandatory if there's a need to compete against a civ (that is using it) to maintain even two-three CS allies (which seems reasonable to me for even a non-Diplo focus). Two or more diplo focused civs and it can get hard to hold even one CS without devoting excessive amounts of resources to it.

 

[tu_79]

My concern has generally been more about how night and day the difference is between Statescraft Diplo and non-Statescraft Diplo. That and full Statescraft trivializes most other influence sources. Influence decay of ~1 a turn when you can easily drop several hundred influence also makes most other methods (quests, unit gifts, etc) nigh pointless as a way to compete. One of my first games had me get close to 1k influence on a CS due to multiple barbarian hordes - a cool way to get lot of influence, if lucky - and several hundred on other CSs to ensure they'd be hard to lose (and then accidentally won via Culture). Granted, unit gifts have actual military uses if a CS is next to somebody you plan to fight, but it's more about a single Diplo unit trivializing the base Friend/Ally numbers/metrics and two will generally supplant any civ that hasn't also been dumping Diplo units into it.

I like the tree. It's certainly the one that I feel most comfortable using and I like how it (and the Diplo system) ties various elements of the game together. WC votes are more worthwhile, too, even when pursuing other victories. It's just that Statescraft feels almost mandatory if there's a need to compete against a civ (that is using it) to maintain even two-three CS allies (which seems reasonable to me for even a non-Diplo focus). Two or more diplo focused civs and it can get hard to hold even one CS without devoting excessive amounts of resources to it.

My last game had Greece, Austria and Netherlands. Guess who made a bold movement to ally every city state in the world? Netherlands. The joy only lasted for 40 turns. I was passing open CS on every Netherlands stronghold and both Austria and Greece were recovering their nearest CS.

Short story, it's possible to get alliances if you focus on it.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Not saying CSD is perfect, but it's the best geopolitical model we can do through civ.

This is hypothetical because I think it's cool, not because I want to change something, buuut

I've always thought that the trade-route system was a good model for a diplomacy system. Diplomacy units would path back and forth, giving influence every time they reach the city state, and you can cancel them at will. If the city state declares war on you for whatever reason, Friendly city states ignore these units in war-time and allow you to keep gaining influence, neutral CS's terminate the route, and hostile CS's 'pillage' it. They can be pillaged by barbarians and foreign civs, but at some influence cost with the city state and (of course) angering the Diplo unit's owner.

When I discovered CSD, even before CP, I used it because it was really, really close to this hypothetical system.