Diplomacy, limited wars, etc...

[Barnacle Bill]

The past week or so, I've been looking at the web site & forum for a game that has some great ideas about how to model diplomacy, limited wars, lots of "neutrals", etc... It isn't a science fiction game, but still lots of ideas there that could be applied in SE4. I got turned onto it by a review in the same issue of "PC Gamer" that reviewed SE4. Coincidentally, this other game has loads of things in text files, only one guy programs it and supports it with lots of patches, and there is an active modder community and friendly relatively flame-free forum. Very similar to SE4 in many ways, except the setting is the expansion of various European powers 1492-1792. Also coincidentally, the same guy did both reviews, really said nothing bad about either game, but gave both games an 80% rating (I guess he doesn't get the attraction for deep grand strategy games without a lot of graphic glitz). Unfortunately, you can't get this game in the US until later this month, but it has been out in Europe for a very long time.

I won't describe it in detail, if you want to see for yourself go to http://www.europa-universalis.com.

As far as ideas for SE4, just capturing a province does not mean you get to keep it. To get peace, you have to negociate a peace treaty and there is a limit to how much territory you can take in one bite (based on how bad you are beating the other side). Most stuff you capture has to be given back at the end of the war (to keep one province you might have to capture several). There are costs in internal stability and money to get into or stay in wars, so you can't just stay at war forever and keep gobbling provinces. There are lots of interlocking alliances as well, so you can't just beat up on one country by itself very easily. I really can't describe it all, but my mind is full of ways the same concepts might be applied in SE4. Of course, to make this work in SE4 you'd have to create severe difficulties in just nuking planets to death instead of invading - like the ideas we've discussed for making it impossible to kill the Last few by bombardment, severe diplomatic penalties for genocide, maybe even internal stability penalties for genocide, as we've talked in other topics.

[Tenryu]

Bill,

Add another to the wish list. I'd love to see ground combat a wee bit more 'tactical' too.

[Seawolf]

Guys,

Tactial combat would make the game alot longer to play and is beyond the scope of the game currently.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Armageddon]

Seawolf-

That may be true, but whats wrong with wishing? Considering that this game is SUPPOSED to be long and detailed, what would be the problem with adding additional depth?

Your right that it would be hard to implement, but there are lots of modders out there...who knows? Someone might get ambitious!

As a member of the Army, I can only identify with all of the space-navy stuff to a small extent...I for one would like to see these big 4X games give the groundsloggers like myself their due.



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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

[Tenryu]

Seawolf, LOL!!!! We are NEVER satisfied! That is why an aweful lot of us are Modding, don't ya know.


grumble grumble 'beyond the scope' bah humbug!

[raynor]

I'm with Seawolf. I think the focus should be on other areas and leave troop combat alone--other than fixing the bugs in it.

[rdouglass]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
I agree with Barnacle Bill. I would like to see some "ground rules" , for lack of a better term, for conquest and diplomacy.
If you conquor a planet it should take some time to come over to your side.....

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I agree completely with upgrading / revamping the diplomacy models, but as to the conquering and planets "coming over" I have different experiences. They don't go so easily for me...

I'm currently playing a large game, low tech, max AI, low bonus, high dif and have forced the first AI I encountered to surrender by turn 70. Once they surrendered, all conquered planets instantly rioted. I abandoned at least 1 planet per rioting system and put my own colony and pop on said planet (Jubiliant) and Emergency built Urban Pac Center III's and Med Lab III's (increases happines for Organic Tech) and have a fleet of at least 5 Attack ships in each and every system that is rioting. I do not have any troops (I don't use 'em often) but do have many troops "inherited" during acquisition of said empire on numerous conquered planets.

It is now approx. turn 105 (35 turns later) and there is still more than 80% of planets rioting. All of my original population is Jub or Happy but the surrendering pop is all Rioting or Angry. The thing that get's me is the surrendering empire was a bunch of wussy "peaceful politicians". Shouldn't they roll over and play dead???

[Nitram Draw]

I agree with Barnacle Bill. I would like to see some "ground rules" , for lack of a better term, for conquest and diplomacy.
If you conquor a planet it should take some time to come over to your side. Maybe leaving troops/ships would speed the process.
I also would like top see some rules concerning surrender.
You can stay at war forever without penalty. This does not make sense.
In this game you can surrender and then one turn later attack the same player. There is no benefit to accepting a surrender if you are winning the war.
There should be some way of placing terms are binding on a surrender.
There also should be guidelines for subjection and protectorate.
I think some of this is to be addressed in the next patch. I hope so.

[comisar]

Well , I have played Europa-Universalis for more then a year one. I have modded it quite a lot in EU and I know a whole lot about it. I am new to SEIV, but both games are very similar, very detailed, deep and stategic with global scope.
I have to say that the diplomacy in SEIV from what I have seen so far is really lucking.
In addition to what Barnacle Bill mentions EU also holds a "Bad Boy" rating for each nation (there can be 200+ nations is any one time) That value increases as your empire become bigger and bigger, it will really jump if you competely take over another nation) If you bad boy value is the highest in a game you can eventually be expeced to be attacked by everyone! That value only decrases with time, so unless you want to fight everyone at once you have to control your aggresion.
If addition to bad boy there is stability setting. It goes from -3 to 3. Stability effects revolt risks, productuctivity and things like that. If you attack a nation without a cause your stability goes down. If you break an allience or any other aggrement with another nation it goes down. If you declare war on a nation with whom you have good relations with or nation that pays you tribute (vassal) stability goes down a lot. If you attack some nation with same religion as you the stability goes down. And stability of -3 is bad as you are not as productive and have to fight rebellions all the time + rebelious provinces do not pay taxes or give you any income.
Stability increases with time.
So what is a cause to war? For example if your ally get attacked you can choose not to help out but the ally with get a cause to go to war with you. There are many other things that are considered a cause to war, like you can state that you are protecting nation X and if anyone attacks that nation you have a cause of war againt that country, you can also claim to be defender of your religion and if any nation attacks a nation with your religius you get causes to war against them, etc.

[Captain Kwok]

Nitram Draw,

Long time no see.

I really don't want to see ground combat expanded much more. I would rather see a better diplomatic model that takes into consideration unethical behaviour like glassing planets, using biological weapons, etc. Also, make it harder to buy off the AI and have them actually follow through on there threats or at least help be better allies.