"You have grown too powerful for us"

[Fafnir13]

Heh, silly me. Clearly wasn't reading that bit of code correctly. Or, I should say, I was reading that bit of code backwards. I'll change it and see what that does. Thanks.
And now to get back to arguing with you.

To sum it up: It would just spoil the game. Playability is more important than fluf or logic. Such illogical [at first glance] things are unavoidable in games.

Er....the game's over. How does being able to ally up with your closest friends at the end of the game ruin it? It sounds like (please, correct me if I'm wrong) that you're worried about the biggest comps allying up and squishing everyone. Depending on who the biggest guys are, this happens all the time. If the two biggest guys are on friendly terms with one another, they usually end up declaring war on similar people. What difference does it make if they are also sharing tech (AI does this anyways), getting vision from the other guys units (AI seems to know where your stuff is anyways), and automatically declaring peace or war simultaneously instead of a few turns apart (Geography usually keeps their armies from arriving at the same time)? Where in this does the game become spoiled,as you so claim?

A few more tidbits, each an unrelated paragraph:

If you're the small guy and they're all bigger than you, you're either going to have to declare war on them to bring them back down in size anyways. Given the likelihood of vassalization on their part, this means declaring war on a lot of guys at once. It's either that or do your best to get a tower/altar victory. Don't those victories involve lot's of people declaring war on you too? In both scenarios, the dreaded effect of lot's of guys trying to crush you take place.

I have rarely seen an AI skyrocket in power to the level that the effect could even have a chance to kick in. They tend to conquer their corner of the world and perhaps trade angry insults with guys they dislike. End of story. It's the human player who will, whilst in the latter stages of a a conquest victory, cause the effect to trigger. If that player hasn't grabbed feudalism earlier in his campaign, the chance to ally/vassal with those he/she's friendly towards can quickly pass by. After that, the player's only choice is to attack friends and former ally's for no reason other than the game says so. Aren't Civ games supposed to have diplomatic options towards victory?

The game has all sorts of rules and possibilities for managing your relationship to another Civ. FFH2 gives even more options and variety, what with the whole alignment thing. Thematically and strategically, it tends to be better to attack those who don't like and make peaceful trade with the guys who do. This artificial limiter actually encourages the opposite, as the sooner you attack your friends and get them to capitulate, the sooner you can crush the guys who will never like you enough to allow that form of victory.

This change would have zero effect on multiplayer. Players are able to decide for themselves with whom to ally or not, based on their own chances of winning, their own relationship with the other players, and what gives them the most fun out of their game. Somehow, balance never comes into question in that format, even without a series of artificial limiters.

Hrrmm....I think I'll stop there, other than to say that the change itself is very small, has little effect on most of the game, and anyone who know what they are doing could do it in less than 5 minutes. I'm not asking for the world here, just the ability to ally with my AI friends at the end of a good game. Yes, I can do it myself, but I think the Mod would benefit from not having this weird little oddment that makes no sense and only causes games to drag on longer than they should. Heck, if you want to make it pretty and proper, make it into a victory condition unto itself. I know Civ 2 had such a thing, as did Alpha Centauri. You got less points for finishing that way, but at least you could end a game when it was over.
And I'm not the type to play for points anyways.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

wait, seriously you can't vassal some other weak civ cuz you're too powerful for them? that makes no sense at all I guess. I can somehow understand that logic about perm alliances ( "you're eventually going to swallow us, you damn superpower") but vassals? they should be thinking something like "let us live and we'll give you whatever you want, master!"

 

[JeffSteel]

I find myself in agreement with the OP, it stinks not being able to ally with a game long friend for silly balance purposes. If two AI's ally with each other and instantly win, that's fine by me, I never play for high scores anyway. Me thinks I'll be modding the aforementioned file now after following this discussion.
Edit: Never mind, cant seem to find how to compile dll's at the moment, so maybe someone else will....?

 

[Fafnir13]

If two AI's ally with each other and instantly win, that's fine by me, I never play for high scores anyway.

If the lone scores of the combining AI's would not win a time victory by themselves, they would not be high enough to trigger the limiter anyways. Meaning that, as the game stands, AI's can ally late game and steal a time victory. So, even for those who are worried about "balance" of scores need not worry about this change upsetting anything.
I, like you, never play for scores either. I'd much rather laugh in evil fashion as my armies of darkness consume the world. My score usually gets pretty high from that, but it's just a side effect.

 

[EmptyWolf]

It would be awesome if the next version of Snarko's options mod has room for an option to disable the "You have grown too powerful for us" limiter.

 

[xilr]

The reverse has always annoyed me too. You can have +10 relations with a guy, trade routes and everything.... but once his military is exactly n% bigger than yours, he auto-declares war because he can..... Seems a bit unrealistic for every civ (good, evil or otherwise) to stab a great friend/trading partner in the back just because they can...

 

[zup]

Yeah. Russia has not invaded Finland as far as I know. They could do it today, WW2 we had Germans to help us. Finland is not allied and I seriously doubt Nato or USA would risk a war with Russia to come save our asses.

 

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Why don't you add a victory condition "Conquest victory" for the people who really want to fight until they conquered anything. But usually, the super conquest is just annoying because you've already won a long time before you've really beaten everyone. All the great classics had mechanics to avoid this annoying situation. Master of Magic had the Spell of Mastery, Civ has/had the space flight, Master of Orion 2 the galactic council and the Antharens, and usually those victory conditions can be switched off for people who don't like it.
I think it's okay if a good nation doesn't ally with an evil nation and vice versa, but it shouldn't be a problem with civs with the same alignment and religion. I think GalCiv2 has a about five different victory conditions which can all be disabled if you don't like them (except conquest of course).

Besides that, I can finish a game of Orion2, Dominions 3, Master of Magic in half of a day, while you almost have to take a week off for a game of Civ and/or FFH2. Therefore the argument of the player shouldn't win too fast/easily sounds a bit 'odd' to me. Besides that, a diplomatic victory condition shouldn't be a problem for a civ game...

 

[Blackmantle]

@ ArkhanTheBlack:
And FFH 2 has altar, cultural and ToM (Tower of Mastery. On a side note: The similarities in name with the one from Master of Magic are not all random ).
All 3 reachable without having to go through this annoying situation (save perhaps on duel-size maps, but there conquest shouldn't be all that a hard goal to reach.) and save for cultural also available on a fly. (20 or 30 Turns for ToM is no long time really + 10 to finish the final one via rushing. All you need to do for this is to set the slider to all out Gold and civic-buying or going Undercouncil with slave trade and erecting it via the lives of zounds of slaves.)

Given, Altar doesn't work for the evil ones. (But a switch to non-evil isn't soo hard usually to wrap up a game save for Hyborem which has an easier time to go conquest via his free obsidian gates.)
Altar sounds hard to get, but is no real problem whatsoever thanks to theocracy in mid-lategame.

Cultural plays out someway in lieu to a diplomatic one (needs quite some setup, is harder to reach with everyone hating you and you profit a lot if you enter the overcouncil early.).
It only seems unreachable if you don't use the setup needed (which is early acess to liberty via Overcouncil and many temples + good relations to most other civs...).
Still not the best choice for "wrapping up a game".

The standard one (being in some sort of "UN" and getting elected to win by everyone) just doesn't fit the setting (and would by far be to easy to reach really. Getting everyone on your council to be friendly can be really easy in FFH 2, as is getting most players to join your council). Go overcouncil+CoE (in my experience, best setup for an reliable cultural victory) whould be an easy auto-win then... Likely the CoE-Part isn't even needed to accomplish that but makes it easier by far. There are so many sources of things that improve relations here it whould just be to much.)

Also religious can serve as such on smaller maps (small and below) if you play right... (On Duel-maps that might be the best/easiest way to wrap up a game "on a fly" so it is worth listing as a 4th non-conquest/domination option.)

ToM works fine for me for wrapping up games i have grown bored with. And it really doesn't last long. (+ you can also go guilds and get a few greath engineers to even speed it up further.)

In fact getting to such a victory is by far easier than getting to spaceships/cultural in vanilla. At least in my experience.


@ xilr: To my knowledge that should just be done by a rare few AIs (those with highly agressive AIs taken from vanilla. I guess Hyborem, Feryl, Chardaron, Tasunke and perhaps other evil ones might do so). Anyone else needed to have plans to attack before they go friendly with you. (That's how the AI is set up.)
Friendly-AI shouldn't start an attack-plan. Secondhand knowledge. But i am sure to have read this explained somewhere around here.

So if such a thing happened to you, either you are dealing with a civ which really likes backstabbing by lore (which should really be ok, think Hyborem. Do you really think that going huggy with them should appeas them?), or they wanted to attack you all along.

 

[xilr]

Heh Arendel Phaedra just did it to me in the last game. I had +10 and trade routes... but she grew very big and powerful and wanted a taste of my butt.

 

[Blackmantle]

And you have been friendly with her from the start?
(again: After attack plan is started, relations shouldn't matter that much even if they turn friendly... Those seem to sometimes take quite a lot of time. Or what was written in the forums is wrong...)

 

[Fafnir13]

Just in case anyone was curious, I managed to amass vampires, archmages, and the like alone her borders in such number that, on the turn I declared war, I took out about 5 cities (small borders). She cast her frikking annoying in the late game world spell, but what I'd done the turn previous was enough to get her to capitulate. Thank goodness....

So...back on track-ish/reitereting my perspective...
I've been a good friend to her the entire game, gave her tech, joined her council, waged her wars, but the game doesn't allow us to join as one nation under Junil because I've played it too well. Had to break character and stomp her butt, at which point there are no blocks to keep her from joining up in a binding fashion which also lets me take whatever resources I want.
Ah well...

 

[Keeper_GFA]

It would be nice sometimes if the AI could play to win a little more rather than playing to make you lose. If you're not #1 or 2 on the scoreboard, winning as a vassal to the actual winner should be more preferable than getting stomped and then being forced to capitulate.

There's a similar mechanic involved with trading as well. It absolutely hate it when an (otherwise friendly) AI will beg for tech from me, when he has tech to trade but is just unwilling to trade it. Even worse, when you refuse a beggar AI you often get a "You refused to help us" diplomatic penalty. This happens a lot on the higher levels where it is (rightfully) impossible to out-tech the AI. Don't be begging when you could be buying. Especially when your relations are Pleased/Friendly. Any trade would be better than nothing. And complaining because I didn't give you something you could afford to buy? Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!!!

Ok, rant over.

And isn't it a little weird that you can demand resources from vassals but not tech?

 

[das]

And isn't it a little weird that you can demand resources from vassals but not tech?

Yes, it is, and somewhat annoying as well when they don't even want to trade. The Amurites "don't like me enough" to trade tech but don't mind giving away their national magic resources despite having no reserves to fall back upon.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

It would be nice sometimes if the AI could play to win a little more rather than playing to make you lose. If you're not #1 or 2 on the scoreboard, winning as a vassal to the actual winner should be more preferable than getting stomped and then being forced to capitulate.


And isn't it a little weird that you can demand resources from vassals but not tech?

it is really weird, and I agree 100% that the AI should try harder to win as an ally/vassal instead than just being a pain in the butt for the player

 

[onedreamer]

However others play it in a more role play type, were 'winning the game' is just a way to end this current game and not the main focus. The main focus may be building the finest cities with as many wonders as possible in the whole of Erebus, or having the largest empire and most vassals.

In this case the game provides such players with an easy to find and click "quit" button to end the game. There is no need to make the AI vulnerable and exploitable just because a niche of players would like to end their games when they think the game is over.

 

[Gelvan]

even though I appreciate the idea of removing "you've grown to powerful for us", I actually have a game, where I am Allied with Decius(Calabim) - together we've got 2000 score points (1200 and 800) while the others have only 200-500 score points each. The reason was, that I played Malakim and beelined for Honor; I suppose early on it's easier to achieve a permanent alliance. (playing flexible difficulty with noble start and perfect world). in this game the Barbarian were never a problem for the human player , thanks to the many islands. 2 AI got wiped out though. Now that Decius is an ally he gives me all his resources and fights every war with me. I think this game is already won.

 

[Fafnir13]

In this case the game provides such players with an easy to find and click "quit" button to end the game.

No, when you click "quit" you lose. Hardly the ending anyone wants for several hours investment.

There is no need to make the AI vulnerable and exploitable just because a niche of players would like to end their games when they think the game is over.

Vulnerable and exploitable? Pardon me, but when you have twice as much power as the rest of the world combined is there really anything the AI can do at this point but make for pretty scenery? Allowing late game alliances regardless of power will only hasten a predetermined end, not break the game in any possible fashion.
Also, let's not forget that normal methods for blocking vassalization are still in place. If you wage a bloody war across the world to gain your power other nations are going to often be less then pleased with you. Other Civs might have grown powerful enough before you to get their own vassals who will not be able to choose to go to your side. Those Civs with vassals will probably say that they are "doing fine on their own" if asked to vassalize (not sure of the prereq's there).

To reiterate, the change would only effects late game where you've already won. It does not help the player achieve a winning position early on.
What's the problem here?

 

[onedreamer]

No, when you click "quit" you lose. Hardly the ending anyone wants for several hours investment.

You are a bit confused on what you quote man. The guy I quoted in short said: some players play to achieve a victory, but others play for roleplay, and should be able to end the game when they think they have achieved their "victory conditions". My answer was: well then just quit and consider the game won.
I actually agree with him on this and think your statement is very subjective: I have quit a lot of games considering them won because going on would simply be a boring thing to do and the outcome was already certain, and since I do play to enjoy my time and not to waste it in order to have a final number displayed in the hall of fame, I do not loose when I quit if I don't think I did.
What the guy was proposing though was to make the AI vulnerable to easily exploitable (by human players) strategies just to provide the players with a fast-win option.

Vulnerable and exploitable? Pardon me, but when you have twice as much power as the rest of the world combined is there really anything the AI can do at this point but make for pretty scenery? Allowing late game alliances regardless of power will only hasten a predetermined end, not break the game in any possible fashion.

I will pardon you only because you probably didn't play Civ3, so I will pass out on the exploitability of the AI when you introduce too complicated, or better explained "realistic" diplomacy. But you also miss the fact that most civs can win FFH2 or plain Civ with more than just power (eg: Altar of Luonnotar, Culture, Spaceship, etc).

To reiterate, the change would only effects late game where you've already won. It does not help the player achieve a winning position early on.
What's the problem here?

and what would ensure this ?

 

[Fafnir13]

You are a bit confused on what you quote man. The guy I quoted in short said: some players play to achieve a victory, but others play for roleplay, and should be able to end the game when they think they have achieved their "victory conditions". My answer was: well then just quit and consider the game won.

My bad on that. My eyes have a bad tendency to skim over quotes sometimes.

I will pardon you only because you probably didn't play Civ3, so I will pass out on the exploitability of the AI when you introduce too complicated, or better explained "realistic" diplomacy.

For the record, I did play Civ 3 a good bit, but not as much as I played Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri. Not that I was ever very good at them.

But you also miss the fact that most civs can win FFH2 or plain Civ with more than just power (eg: Altar of Luonnotar, Culture, Spaceship, etc).

Note that none of the other victory conditions have an artificial block in place. That is what I'm objecting to, not that other victory conditions are difficult for certain Civs or anything like that.

and what would ensure this ?

Well, let's just go over it step by step. There is a limiter that says, "When the player has half as much power as the rest of the world combined, AI's can not vassalize or make permanent alliances with them regardless of anything and everything else."
What this ultimately does is penalize the player for succeeding. If I had a lower score in the game that I keep mentioning, I could have allied with Ethne and called it good. It was only because I had done so well steamrolling with my vampire army that I could not end the game with an alliance.
That is why I propose removing the block. Players should not have a limited window in which they can make alliances and vassals.