Diplomacy and Trading
 

Hi all,

I've been playing D2 and D3 for a while, mostly SP games due to time restrain. I am somewhat disappointed to see the lack of diplomacy and trading features in the game. The MP game provides send message/gold/gems features thus creating a extremely flexible diplomatic way to play the game, presumably allowing players to trade, negotiate peace offerings, trade, and forge/fake alliances (though I'm unsure if this is common among the MP players). But in SP game, the negotiation between nations is almost non-exist, if set to normal, the AI would simply attack all neutral provinces before declare war on you. The other two AI aggressiveness level don't leave much space of imaginations either. Personally I would love to see basic diplomacy features in the game (or at least the SP game), for example non-aggression pact/defensive alliance etc... I appreciate the idea of this game being 'destroy all infidels', and adding such feature will make game design considerably more difficult. But the lack of cunning diplomacy and the treacherous deceptions behind warfare would make an epic conflict seem unrealistic and dull. I would love to see game designers bringing a systematic and flexible diplomatic system to the next dominion game. The MP diplomacy can remain unchanged, but more options would be nonetheless very welcome.

Another feature I (and a few other strategy game fans) would love to see is a flexible trading system. For example, if two nations are at peace, they are free to trade with one another, via trade routes (which would cost time and gold to set up)between provinces (much like galactic civilization games), the longer the route is, the more income it generates. Such feature would bring considerable more in-depth strategic thinkings: e.g. Pangaea might wish to use their stealth troops to sabotage enemies' trading routes, or hampering trading by capturing key trading provinces. Trading would, of course, only take place between connected friendly provinces, or via sea, or maybe by a new spell that creates trading routes via the sky!

I love the deep pondering that D2 and D3 have brought me in the past two years, and the addition of the diplomacy and trading features would make this already complex game more exciting and challenging. The players must now considering his economic strength/diplomatic advantages more carefully, thus bringing more pondering into the game. In addition, imo it would potentially make the dominion victory method a more practicable way of winning.

just my 2cents.

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

The thematic reason for the lack of diplomacy is the fact that your not just another nation, your a 'non believing' nation who is denouncing the other nations god. The real reason is probably coding difficulty and possible abuse without a top-notch system.

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

I can't imagine any coding difficulty implementing a functional diplomatic system, as well as a trading system too... Time consuming? yes. Difficult? Nah...

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

Traditionally, strategy games always had abusable diplomacy system. Either AI was always getting a bad deals or it was offering deals to human player at such horrible rates that no sane person would accept them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I guess Illwinter decided to sidestep this problem by not even trying to implement such feature

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

As i strongly think more options are always a good thing, an option allowing or not in a SP game the diplomacy, alliance and trading possibility with the AI would be a fantastic addition to the game in my opinion.
It would even lead into another victory condition, allied victory (in the case of the game storyline, maybe that could translate into the birth of a pantheon instead of a single pretendant accessing godhood)

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

I've always loved diplomacy and trading in Strategy games and think this would be an awsome additon to an already wonderful game. How about it Illwinter???

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

Diplomacy is a *misfeature* for a game like dom's.

In MP it is useless, since diplomacy is completely taken care of by players sending messages/items to each other.

In SP it suffers two very big problems: first it is unthematical. This is a "there can only be one" game. How can there be diplomacy between warring gods? Second, as people have observed already, coding the AI to tackle diplomacy is very difficult and easily abusable. Even more so with the strategic depth of dom's.

Oh, and for the record, I have only played SP until now.

Best regards

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

There is some programming territory also. Dom is not suited well for storing information and checking it over many turns. Setting up tracking for such would allow many things. Diplomacy, waypoints, repeat action for X turns, forge X of certain equipment, etc etc. But I tihnk it would take a level of change that speaks more of Dominions 4 than anything that we might get soon.

We could see some things though. In solo games Ive been known to create anti-undead items and send them to nations who are living near Ermor to hold them back. I know that the weapons wont help that nation much against me when I finally get to them. It might already be in the game that the AI thinkis abit better of you if you send gifts. If it isnt the it seems like that could be put in rather easily.

Also since the game already allows the AIs to ally with each other I wouldnt mind if it also allowed ally with human players. Even if it was something that had to be setup at the beginning of the game. It would allow for some interesting scenarios.

Re: Diplomacy and Trading
 

As for thematic problem, the aim of a warfare is usually achieved through combined political and military means, a cunning diplomat can be more deadly than ten thousand swords. The Romance of Three Kingdoms (classic Chinese literature), Hannibal's conquest of Rome, Medieval European Warfare, or even Lord of Rings are all excellent examples why diplomacy is crucial to warfare - even when the scenario is 'there can only be one' (Romance of three kingdoms for exaple). The fact is, in war, short-term alliances are often forged to achieve a common goal before two nations turn against each other, that's what is making war such a thrilling topic. I fear as a war game, Dom is only a battle simulator if diplomacy has been left out.

I would like to point out that I appreciate the coding difficulty, however this is not a valid excuse not to add new features to the game. True the AI diplomacy will be easily abusable, however this can be easily tackled by adding a 'Disable Diplomacy/Trading' option in the option menu. The MP game provides a diplomacy that is quite flexible, but nonetheless there are thing players can't do/ too freely to do and is therefore improvable. Hence, an extremely simple diplomatic system should work wonders in a complex game like Dom.

D3 is an excellent game, it is massively improved compared to D2, but it often stike me as a giant patch for the previouse game. It's a shame a good game like this is often regarded 'indie' title. Many players would love to see a new game with new features, I believe diplomacy will not a 'misfeature' of this game, on the contrary, I believe adding such basic features would win a broader audience for the game.

Sucker-punching the AI...
 

It's already fairly easy to bamboozle the AI with bad gifts -- for instance, Bane Venom Charms or Lycanthropos Amulets, as the AI has a tendency to put these items on its pretender or HoFers. BVC in particular diseases both troops and population, making it a cheap double-whammy, and since it's not cursed the risk of blowback from picking it up is greatly reduced.

It might also take some doing to have it realize who's the likely suspect nailing it with anonymous magical attacks, thus breaking any "treaty".