Diplomacy Screen
 

So far I'm loving the game but I do wish they had a diplomacy screen with a few options available to you. I have a hard time knowing who I'm at war with and at times I wish I could present a peace treaty so I wouldn't have to worry about a certain nations while I'm fighting someone else.

Europa Universalis II had a decent diplomacy approach ~ MOO II ~ something along those lines. Having a reputation score also shows who can and can't be trusted.

If nothing else just a screen showing who you are at war with and away of declaring war on a nation or offering tribute to buy you time to build up your forces while you regroup. It would offer a more realistic feel.

Just a thought....

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

That comes up often. Personally Im a big diplomacy-options lover also.

There is alot of diplomacy available in the game but its geared mostly toward humans in multipayer games. It doesnt do much for solo play against the AIs.

You can send the AIs gold, slaves, equipment. It doesnt seem to make them like you but it can have some great strategic uses. Just one example, if I was Ulm and found Marignon AI sitting between me and Ermor. I want to avoid fighting Ermor but if I send anti-undead equipment food equip and gold to Marignon then they can take care of it. And I know I wont have a problem taking Marignon with a bunch of anti-undead weapons I sent them

[ June 09, 2004, 01:22: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

Since it's an all-out-There-Can-Be-Only-One war, I am no longer bothered by the lack of Diplomacy, though it was something I missed in the beginning.

However, since I recently played a four player Hotseat of good old ancient Warlords (the first one), I have to say that the diplomacy model there works really well for There-Can-Be-Only-One wars: The other races (nations) start with a specific likening towards you, which fades gradually over the time, the speed of which is determined by the things you do. Expand too fast? They'll start to fear you. Expand too close towards the cities they laid their eyes on? Only the specific nation you are threatening started to view you with more distrust.

While this would likely include more coding than fun, it is the diplomatic AI model I'd wish for Dominions. Or probably Dominions III. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

I believe instead the Diplomacy should be implemented especially for MP games.

With various level.

No level means, war or indifference. You see the map as it is now.
A level of non aggression treaty-peace allows you to see with precision what's in the bordering provinces of the enemy territory.
A low alliance setting that allow you to share map vision of the banners, or perhaps to share the banner+dominion vision.
A fully alliance set that shares military vision too of your troops and the one of the allied player.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

Some fodder for diplomacy:

Diplomacy Options:

A. Shows status with each nation that you have come in contact with (Peace/Alliance/War/Non Aggression pact/Treaty).

B. Offer Alliances/Peace Treaties for a set amount of time (turns/months/years)

C. Gods can offer provinces/magic research/troops/money to cajole other Gods to join attack or defend borders for a set time.

D. Allied Gods may share map info.

E. Diplomacy Ratings shows how honest Gods are in regards to keeping their word. This rating effects how AI and MP treat you regarding diplomacy.

F. Trading of Individual Spells that have been successful researched in exchange for other spells in an equivalent field of study, or gems or money or troops.

Okay you get the idea.. probably not worth the time to code it....

Other things that would be interesting:

Using money to buy upgrades for your army. So much income would be put into exploring ways to upgrading your nations troops, after so much time and money these troops would use a better armor or weapon.

Having more buildings to construct: One time buildings that can only be built once you have successful research to a certain spell level - much like artifacts. Shipyards, moats, castle upgrades, dungeons, etc.

Sorry getting carried away....

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

The problem is that we already have most of that in multiplayer games. Are you asking for these things so we can have them with the computer AI's in a solo game?

Or for multiplayer games so that the Dominions2 program can define the limits of our options and enforce them?

[ June 09, 2004, 15:31: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Parker has a point there, as usual. MP games should give total control to do anything you want diplomatically as you can pander, coerce and cajole all you want through text messaging. Can you give provinces?

I like the fact that there is limited information about the entities and status surrounding you, who they are at war with, etc, it encourages scouting much like my other love, warcraft 3 in which good scouting is essential.

Diplomacy in these types of games, like Master of Orion, is simply a prelude to destroying everyone, so why beat around the bush? In DOM 2, the computer is either attacking you with everything it can or it's coexisting until you attack it or it decides when to attack. There's no discussion, no bull**** complaining that you built up a 'relationship' with the AI MEKLARS just to have them break all treaties and attack for seemingly no reason on turn 354. Granted, Emperor of the Fading Suns has a sweet diplomacy module to it and even Master of Orion 3 (shudder) had some reasons to team up permanently with an AI, but for most games it's 'hello leave me alone until I'm ready to crush you.'

It's like when I go and talk to a smoking bird at a rave and say "What's your name?" what it really means is "let's get it on." They know it, I know it, they know I know it and I know they know I know that they know I know it.

Make sense?

One issue is that dealing with Ermor in SP games can be difficult because the AI's don't register them as more of a threat than all the others, instead, they just get rolled over.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

There are work-arounds in multiplayer games for
1) alliances and peace treaties
2) sharing map info
3) trading to get spells cast (you cant trade spells)
4) trading commanders and troops
5) combining attacks
6) move thru an allys territory
7) offer a losing ally "sanctuary"
8) (probably more, feel free to ask)

For SoloPlay with the AI's, diplomacy is much more limited.
A) You can send gold, slaves, equip which can be helpful and strategic. It doesnt make them like you but it can help nation A beat nation B. Handy if nation B is one that you have problems with, and nation A will be no problem for you later.
B) You can ally with AI's but only by setting it up at the beginning of the game, and it only sets up a "no attack each other" arrangment.
C) Of course, like most diplomacy arrangments you can abuse the diplomact options that already are in the game (messaging stuff to them) by sending things to an AI that the stupid AI would be better off refusing.
D) With alittle bit of strategic planning you can arrange for 2 AI neighbors to go to war with each other (another common diplomatic tactic).

The developers have said they were interested in increasing the SP Diplo options but other things have to be higher on the wishlist

[ June 09, 2004, 15:59: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

Thanks for the info - I've only played single player games so I was speaking from my limited experience. I'm looking forward to MP games but wanted to get the basics down before I started playing against other people.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have never found smokers attractive.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have never found smokers attractive. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Smoking as in so hot she's smouldering I believe.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

Ah, the allure of Abysian ladies. *g*

On a more serious note, regarding SP diplomacy the AI has enough of a problem handling double-edged gifts (Lycantropos amulets, Rods of the Leper King, Bane Venom Charms, Eyes of Aiming, that sort of thing) and not reacting when getting anonymously mauled via magic, or reacting to the presence of assassins/spies that adding more options might be just cruel.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have never found smokers attractive. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree, it's a terrible thing to see a saucy bint pull out a faggot from her purse and puff away in filth. I do like the hotties in the old tyme movies that smoke a lot. Bergman, Kelly, that lot, but it doesn't translate well in real life, sort of like the walking and smoking thing. Sure James Dean did it, but it's still effeminant for a man in real life.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

One thing that would really help to keep track of the diplomacy in MP games would be if the Messages sent / received were exported and saved to a text file.

That way, you could at least look at the text file and see who you'd made agreements with, see whether you've been backstabbed, and know if you were supposed to stay out of certain provinces, etc.

In particular, with a lot of MP games going on at once, it can be -very- difficult to keep track of these diplomatic issues, even with copious notebooks / text files.

Saving the Messages /events automatically would be trivial to implement, if not fun, and would save a -lot- of players a lot of time and effort.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

OK Im going to bring this thread back from the dead so we can discuss this subject again instead of hijacking the praise-this-game thread.

Hmmm I should add the "search for sites in allies territory" to the list.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

OK part of this thread seems borked by the import to the new forum software so I will repost the part that made me bring it forward.....

There are work-arounds in multiplayer games for
1) alliances and peace treaties
2) sharing map info
3) trading to get spells cast (you cant trade spells)
4) trading commanders and troops
5) combining attacks
6) move thru an allys territory
7) offer a losing ally "sanctuary"
8) (probably more, feel free to ask)

For SoloPlay with the AI's, diplomacy is much more limited.
A) You can send gold, slaves, equip which can be helpful and strategic. It doesnt make them like you but it can help nation A beat nation B. Handy if nation B is one that you have problems with, and nation A will be no problem for you later.
B) You can ally with AI's but only by setting it up at the beginning of the game, and it only sets up a "no attack each other" arrangment.
C) Of course, like most diplomacy arrangments you can abuse the diplomact options that already are in the game (messaging stuff to them) by sending things to an AI that the stupid AI would be better off refusing.
D) With alittle bit of strategic planning you can arrange for 2 AI neighbors to go to war with each other (another common diplomatic tactic).

The developers have said they were interested in increasing the SP Diplo options but other things have to be higher on the wishlist

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

I'm all about adding diplomacy. Since we are all doing it anyway (unless its explicitly forbidden by house rules of that game), it would be nice to have in-game support for it.

But to include many of the above proposals would require a substantial amount of work on the part of the devs. Combined attacks in particular could be a pain. Sharing map info and moving through "friendly" provinces could also be a pain, depending on how they are implemented.

Personally, I'd be happy with just a proper list of diplomatic Messages that you've sent that turn (possibly with an exported history, as Cainehill suggested). And a list of who you are at war with/way to formally declare war/peace would be really helpful. Neither of those should pose too big a problem, technically.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

Sharing map info is easier done by screen capture and email than it is by adding it to the game.

Multiple attacks arent all that far off except that you have to attack taking turns. Thats not so unusual since I have trouble picturing many of these nations being willing to share a battle field or spoils of combat.

There are already a number of ways to move thru an allies territory. The easiest are some of the prime abilitys of certain nations (sneaking armies of Man, Ulm black-forest, Vanheim, Pangaea) which provides them with bonuses in an alliance.

There are other methods such as mass-transport spells. In some games we maintained a corridor which we did not pay for defense on since both of us would "take" the provinces back and forth as we moved thru them.

But for alot of traffic and high defense consider using a castle at a major crossroad. My army enters the province "taking" it but simply pushing your army inside the castle. I move on and you take retake the province. Its like a nice drawbridge effect.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

how exactly does one go about trading troops? Are you talking about setting up staged battles and use of charm/hellblind heart/enslave ? Because all those require significant preparation for a good chance of success.

I find the inability to trade troops thematic. You cant simply tell a believer to suddenly believe in another god. Thats not the way belief works.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

That'd be handy especially for remote, spell-based searching - the classic Arco-Ulm alliance, with Arco casting Akashics for Ulm. And less tricky than recoding the game to allow actually "friendly" movement by allies.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

But what I mean by "adding it to the list" is to add it to the list of things that people already do in the game. Most of the diplomacy/ally screen things are already being done by creative play which I like much more than adding a menu to the game for it.

In your Arco-Ulm arrangment.. an Arco scout follows behind the Ulm army. When Ulm takes a province and moves on then the Arco scout takes the province, Arco cases akashics as the scout moves on. Another scout or a researve army is following behind that to retake the searched province.

Its actually much easier to do when a nation has sneaking mages.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

There are alot of ways to accomplish it but yes it usually involves some sort of charming spell. In one game I was in I maintained an empty province near the capital that I could send a mage to so that the other guy could windride him out. In another I had my mages do transport spells dropping them into the trap-provinces. In yet another game we maintained border provinces that could be used to trade units.

One we meant to try but never got it setup before the game ended was when I had taken a really negative magic scale. I was supposed to send a sneak unit into his territory and "take" a province near his castle. He was going to make mages and walk them into it so I could do a binding spell. The big advantage was that I would have a lab full of mages that would be operating inside his majorly plus-magic scale.

Again I say that I think supporting creative play is more fun than offering menus of set choices like "ally shares everything" button.

Re: Diplomacy Screen
 

I have. Ive offered a "sanctuary" province behind my lines so that an ally had a protected place to send his god and recover. He sent a sneaking unit to take it, built his castle, and a lab. Transported important units there. Later in the game I gave him a more front-line target which he took in order to begin expanding again.

One of the few things I WOULD like to see is the ability to delete defence on a province. I can destroy buildings but not defense. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif