The (failed) VIP group (Gamescom, again)

[stealth_nsk]

1. There is at least one human player in every game and this player is playing for win. I think making AI dumb roleplaying sheeps is a wrong goal. I prefer diplomacy there human players act more historically.

2. Wrong argument about rational AI equals to deathmatch. With a lot of mutually beneficial agreements I'd say both SP and MP will not be a deathmatch.

3. If you start thinking about AI having complex modifiers, not +/-, you'll see what not showing them directly is the best way of implementing the system. But I'd expect some kind of relations history from a foreign adviser - there's nothing against this.

 

[kaltorak]

1. There is at least one human player in every game and this player is playing for win. I think making AI dumb roleplaying sheeps is a wrong goal. I prefer diplomacy there human players act more historically.

2. Wrong argument about rational AI equals to deathmatch. With a lot of mutually beneficial agreements I'd say both SP and MP will not be a deathmatch.

3. If you start thinking about AI having complex modifiers, not +/-, you'll see what not showing them directly is the best way of implementing the system. But I'd expect some kind of relations history from a foreign adviser - there's nothing against this.

Tooootaly disagree.

The AI's are civilizations. A civilization should be much more complex than just trying to win a game. He should have friends, enemies, strategy/diplomacy/goal preferences (which may be better or worse for winning), and such things. Just making them want to win is indeed turning civ into a C&C

 

[stealth_nsk]

The AI's are civilizations. A civilization should be much more complex than just trying to win a game. He should have friends, enemies, strategy/diplomacy/goal preferences (which may be better or worse for winning), and such things. Just making them want to win is indeed turning civ into a C&C

Once again - playing for win is not a deathmatch.

AI will have friends as profitable trade partners and enemies as direct competitors for land and resources. AI will have goals/strategy for their preferred victory conditions and intermediate goals to reach it. There will be diplomacy for making trade and war agreements. All this works with playing for win.

 

[kaltorak]

In a game, why should a civ which only wants to win, not attack another civ, only because it likes it because he did favours, like gifts or helping in a past war? In history, you have real friends, not just "friends while it suits me".

Possibility of backstabbing is nice, and makes it interesting. But replacing diplomacy modifiers by just doing whats best to win, regardless of what happened before, still looks like a deathmatch player and not like a civilization.

But my english is too bad to be able to express it right, just read Ahriman's post a few pages back.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In a game, why should a civ which only wants to win, not attack another civ, only because it likes it because he did favours, like gifts or helping in a past war? In history, you have real friends, not just "friends while it suits me".

It shouldn't. It should not attack if it expects more gifts and help in the future.

Possibility of backstabbing is nice, and makes it interesting. But replacing diplomacy modifiers by just doing whats best to win, regardless of what happened before, still looks like a deathmatch player and not like a civilization.

Wrong understanding. Past history plays its role, but not as +/-. If you betray someone, you are known as traitor. If you always respects your agreements - you are known for it and AI will treat you accordingly.

 

[burleigh]

The possibility of a backstab should be there, but should be punishable- for both you and the AI.

In Europa Universalis, you suffer stability hits if you declare war on a friend. This would be due to unhappy merchants, nobles, politicians, ordinary folks who would have built relationships with long term friends who would be distinctly narked if those relationships break

I guess the equivalent thing I'd like to see in CiV would be a happiness hit if you/the AI declares war on a friend- the closer the friend, the bigger the hit!

 

[Semmel]

Civ is a game. And if the AI is playing role game, the human player will abuse that. Letting the AI do a role play only works if the human player also does a role play.

And I dont think backstabbing your best friends is so uncommon. Lets say there is a God, capable of determining who wins the game of life. The God says:

"In 2050, the world is going to end. The one who pleases me most until then will be ruler of the world. But there are ways to become ruler of the world before that. What ever comes first:
* That nation that launches a space ship to the next star first will be ruler of the world.
* That nation that completes a utopian society will win.
* That nation that conquers or destroys all capitals of other players will win.
* That nation that is voted to be world leader will win.

Make up your mind, I shell be watching you."


What do you think will happen? Would the cold war really turnd out to be cold? Would any nation that devellops a space program be tolerated by the others? Will there be leader elections? Or will the only remaining way in real life be a total, world spanning war?

Anyway.. so much for realism in Civ.

Concluding: If you want a historic game, remove all victory conditions and make the game last forever.

 

[vranasm]

It shouldn't. It should not attack if it expects more gifts and help in the future.

This motivation works certainly...for the first 5 thousand years...
Right at the time you launch SS or AIs will see you already built some parts, the only logical choice for every AI is to attack you no matter what in your world (and we can discuss that utopia project, but since not enough is known I will not include it, but If i see someone constructing something I would nuke him out to stone age). And no... no future gifts could make up their mind, because it's nonsense... they will lose if they don't attack.

Now tell me, is this something you really want? Because with that programmed AI you will launch SS only if you dominate the world and technically the game should be already ended with you holding domination, but didn't because you deliberately decided that no no I just want to launch and the world I own just for safety reasons.

If the AI plays competitively then the creators of game could spare themself a lot of trouble with making more victory conditions then just domination.

 

[Tomice]

In Europa Universalis, you suffer stability hits if you declare war on a friend. This would be due to unhappy merchants, nobles, politicians, ordinary folks who would have built relationships with long term friends who would be distinctly narked if those relationships break

I guess the equivalent thing I'd like to see in CiV would be a happiness hit if you/the AI declares war on a friend- the closer the friend, the bigger the hit!

Yes, the public opinion concept is an interesting option. It would be encouraging you to act more like a historic nation rather than making the AI play like a human.

The question is whether this can be implemented in a fun way. You would need means to make a civ, that you hate, also unpopular with your people. You shouldn't be helpless!

 

[V. Soma]

It would be encouraging you to act more like a historic nation rather than making the AI play like a human.

The question is whether this can be implemented in a fun way. You would need means to make a civ, that you hate, also unpopular with your people. You shouldn't be helpless!

This. I. Support.

 

[Calouste]

Yes, the public opinion concept is an interesting option. It would be encouraging you to act more like a historic nation rather than making the AI play like a human.

The question is whether this can be implemented in a fun way. You would need means to make a civ, that you hate, also unpopular with your people. You shouldn't be helpless!

That has never been much of a problem really.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This motivation works certainly...for the first 5 thousand years...
Right at the time you launch SS or AIs will see you already built some parts, the only logical choice for every AI is to attack you no matter what in your world (and we can discuss that utopia project, but since not enough is known I will not include it, but If i see someone constructing something I would nuke him out to stone age). And no... no future gifts could make up their mind, because it's nonsense... they will lose if they don't attack.

That's not correct.

It's rational to attack leader only if you have a plan how to stop the leader and become leader yourself. Otherwise you'll be pushed back in the race. The best behavior is to stay aside while someone else is trying to stop the leader.

But surely, if you're trying to build a spaceship without enough army to defend yourself, you'll be smashed.

 

[Tatran]

Maybe you only should be able to see a player's victory goal through espionage.
The upcoming winner will be a target of all civs with enough espionage points to notice they are losing if they don't react.
Civs with not enough EPs will be left in the dark and won't do anything, but they can be bribed to go to war.

Just an idea, but espionage is not available in civ5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Maybe you only should be able to see a player's victory goal through espionage.

And losing because you didn't know what small civ is building Utopia.

I don't want espionage to be built on top of paranoia. For me it's annoying, but maybe other people see fun here.

 

[City Raider]

IIRC, in civ2 at emperor and deity level when your space ship was the fastest one,
all civs, pact brothers or not, would eventually declare war on you within a few turns.
Only the civs with one, maybe two cities, left would not declare.
Rise of Nations had something similar when you were about to win.

I prefer the ''hell breaks loose'' concept, when someone is about to win, over 30 turns pressing enter for a space win confirmation.

True on civ 2 and that's actually why I'd have slight concerns. Civ 2 has probably been my favorite one so far but it got incredibly frustrating on Diety when you would launch a ship and then get dog piled. Obviously you can prepare for it, just annoying to kinda know it would happen every game.

I actually wouldn't have minded the dog pile if they didn't have the "reputation" function. It didn't take too many games to realize it was meaningless. I'd have perfect reputation with everyone and never start a war, but still know a dog pile was coming. It just gets frustrating.

I do like the dea of giving credit to AI allies if you win. Maybe that could have been implemented in your score. IE if you win you get bonus points for every AI Ally you have. That way maybe the best way to the highest score isn't how fast you can conquer the world or get a domination win, but how many Allies you can have while building a spaceship or culture win. Obviously the AI would still be trying to win peacefully as well.
Maybe after a prolonged period (100, 200 turns??) of peace with an AI the human player is forced into a non aggression pact or are prompted to further improve relations or take a diplo hit if you decline it. It should be much harder to sneak attack friends once you get to the modern era. Even a delay of 10 turns (where you can't declare war) after cancelling open boarders with friendly nations would help. At least this would show a gradual decline in relations. And give the player 10 turns to prepare for a war or put them on notice that the AI (or human player) is up to something.

You could obviously still sneak attack nations with maybe avg or bad relations. Its just the friendly nations where it would be harder to turn on them so quickly just cause they might win.

 

[cccv]

The debate seems to have looped so I'm going to ignore the old stuff. As for the new stuff being mentioned--

1. I also think it would be cool to get some kind of honorable mention victory if you've been allies with the winner for a notable length of time.

2. I think it's only common sense that unhappiness and war weariness should increase if you declare war on someone you have positive relations with. It always bugged me in civ that I could act like a madman and my people weren't any less cool with it than if I'd declared war on someone who had been making blatant threats toward me for years. People in the US were unhappy with the Iraq war, but think about how much more "WTH is your problem, Bush?" they'd be if G.W. had said "We're declaring war on England! They've been our allies for a long time, but they just have it too good over there, damn it!" Of course there should be a difference between those situations in the game, and it's not like it'd be hard to implement it. And when espionage is reintroduced into the game it should definitely be an option to spread propaganda in order to decrease that unhappiness hit if you really want to play as a madman.

 

[Dunkah]

Does anyone know if the space race involves resources? Do you need Aluminum, Iron or Uranium to build any of the SS parts?

What if simply ending a deal where the AI is trading you that extra Uranium you need to finish that last piece of the Life Support Pod is the best way for the AI who is Friendly to you to prevent you from winning?

Should the freindly AI do that?

 

[burleigh]

Yes, the public opinion concept is an interesting option. It would be encouraging you to act more like a historic nation rather than making the AI play like a human.

The question is whether this can be implemented in a fun way. You would need means to make a civ, that you hate, also unpopular with your people. You shouldn't be helpless!

The way I see it it's not a civ you hate, it's a civ you've loved and cuddled that you want to stomp on now to stop it winning. Presumably cutting trade links/open borders/ etc would spoil the relationship a bit to prepare your people for war, but war with what is basically a friend should still be unpopular

Provided you get a warning of the likely effects BEFORE you declared war you could factor it into your plans .... & that would be the fun bit... to risk or not to risk, that is the question.....

All good possibilities, some of which may even be implemented by a modder far cleverer than I am

I've just realised I've been a member of civfanatics for 8 years & this is only my 20th post. Pathetic, huh!

 

[imperialman]

The debate seems to have looped so I'm going to ignore the old stuff. As for the new stuff being mentioned--

1. I also think it would be cool to get some kind of honorable mention victory if you've been allies with the winner for a notable length of time.

2. I think it's only common sense that unhappiness and war weariness should increase if you declare war on someone you have positive relations with. It always bugged me in civ that I could act like a madman and my people weren't any less cool with it than if I'd declared war on someone who had been making blatant threats toward me for years. People in the US were unhappy with the Iraq war, but think about how much more "WTH is your problem, Bush?" they'd be if G.W. had said "We're declaring war on England! They've been our allies for a long time, but they just have it too good over there, damn it!" Of course there should be a difference between those situations in the game, and it's not like it'd be hard to implement it. And when espionage is reintroduced into the game it should definitely be an option to spread propaganda in order to decrease that unhappiness hit if you really want to play as a madman.

I'm gonna be that guy and say that you mean the UK, not England

 

[Tatran]

The discussion is mainly about how the AI should stop the human player from winning.
But how does the human player avoid a space/utopia loss? Espionage is gone.
Capturing the AI capital?