Chris: Hiatus from new beta players for a bit (diplomacy), but keep signing up!

[gnosis]

This is interesting stuff and I feel the need to pitch in, even though I haven't played the game yet.

As a mature player that has been playing for 20 years, let me tell you about diplomacy and winning in "software entertainment":

This is only focused in single player games.

1. If there are winners and loosers, even with different victory conditions and goals then it doesn't matter - it's total war. Enter EU: It has a date range and you can decide why you play: become no 1 in score? fulfill historic goals? Paint the globe? take over a continent? See, it's open ended and there is no hardcoded victory screen. That is Good! SANDBOX!!

2. If war is cheap, then all other options are irrelevant. It's the classic old efficiency and optimization problem. If diplomancy can offer benefits faster than war can, then diplomancy it is (this is why everyone at the start of 4x space strategy games trades tech, and why there's also usually an option to disable this). If I have reaped all of the benefits of that route then it's war again, even against my ally if that's where the greatest benefit lies.

3. If the alliance AI is stupid, and it can't come to my defence or help in an attack, then it is meaningless to enter into alliances. The only exception: having an ally as a buffer between the enemy and me, even in that case, I wouldn't send help.

4. You can't create a rich web of diplomatic relations with few factions in a game, From experience you need more than 20 participants. There will always be followers and leaders such is the nature of things. EU has hundreds of nations and creates a tapestry of situations and conditions across the globe.

5. If diplomancy is optional then it won't happen. I consider diplomancy in all firaxis civilization games almost purely optional and just reactionary on the player's part. I don't have much experience with civ 5, played about 20 hours, I just hate that game. Again, in EU you diplo-play before even unpausing the game. It's a seperate activity with it's own resources and you must diplo-play otherwise you're toast and it doesn't compete with the rest of the game.

6. If I can't build tall or wide then it's war on my allies, because that's where growth lies. Improving relations and absorbing allies in my 'organization' should be cheaper than total war and it makes sense.

7. Give me tools to manage the aliance: UI to set goals, military or economic, let me have meaningful discussions with my allies. If we are on an alliance and we talked 100 turns ago then it's not an alliance and I won't bother or care.

8. Diplomancy is much richer than peace,war,trade,alliance: Again drawing from EU: there are marriages, land claims and historicity. There are also contingent conditions: war guarranties, warnings,  embargos, coalitions, religious / political / cultural concerns that are factored in. It's not 1 dimensional.

9. The design choice of introducing large bonuses only when cooperating with others is poor at best. It's game designers dictating play style (hello blizzard!). if my citizens create networks of activity between them I expect them to be equally efficient. it would be silly and artificial to require multiple small external trading partners to keep *any* economy going.

10. The mechanics of war. It's silly to be able to be in a state of war forever. There must be reasons and limmits. EU hit the nail on the head. War exhaustion, casus beli, land attrition, manpower is the right way to go. Moving your units around the map stomping anything for 300+ turns in civilization-type games is absurd. war unhappines is too weak. After you allow this in your game, good luck in making diplomancy have substance..,

Don't look too much in my references to Europa Universalis. I brought it up because you mentioned it as well. It has it's flaws, but it introduced many concepts that must migrate to other games and genres.

I hope I helped.

[Omgaar]

Make sure to put in lots of information. One thing that annoys me is a lack of why the AI does what it does. Distant Worlds is a good example, sometimes I can trade for maps but sometimes I can't. I assume it's due to my relations, but then I am able to offer a map swap (yes, different than a trade. Trade I can offer money or tech, if turned on, instead or demand money if my map is more valuable. Swap is just your maps for mine). Not sure how you plan on doing that kind of stuff, but rather than have it just vanish, you should grey it out and put something in parenthesis or a tooltip while hovering over it. Something as simple as (too low of relations) would be fine. Better than the option being there for X race, but not Y.
Typically your games have a lot of info, so I doubt this is going to be an issue.

Also, everything being in some trade menu would be nice. If I'm more powerful militarily, I should be able to "demand tribute/alliance/tech/whatever" and just put "threaten military action" or something. (that specific thing may be hard to balance. Could be abused) Or if not that it would allow me to sweeten a deal. If I'm weaker and want an alliance I could try adding some money/tech/whatever whereas just "Offer Alliance" may not look very appealing. Goes the other way too, why ally with a weaker player? Some money could be a reason.



I'll also double what the guy above me said, some type of war weariness might help if you're trying to avoid constant war or allow the other races to last a bit longer. It forced me to end wars in Distant Worlds before I completely defeated enemies, allowing them time to build back up.

[kasnavada]

About war weariness, I'd rather have it tied to the wounded / killed mechanic if possible. But that does sound rather hard to balance.

[x4000]

Thanks for all the feedback, folks -- whether you played this game or not is irrelevant, I love hearing your thoughts.  I've read everything and am processing it all as part of the work that I'm doing.  I don't really have any larger comment at this time, but you've all been heard and made impacts to various degrees.  If you have more, feel free to keep it coming!

[DominusDev]

About war weariness, I'd rather have it tied to the wounded / killed mechanic if possible. But that does sound rather hard to balance.

I think there needs to basically be two things that change war weariness. Casualties need to increase it a good bit, but it should also go up in general from just being at war. Except for the Burlust. Those guys shouldn't have it increase as fast, and it shouldn't go up over time. That would be hard to balance though.

[Trafalgar]

War weariness seems like a rather modern human concept to me. Just looking at a brief glance of human history:

In World War II, I don't recall seeing particularly much of it, as propaganda was used to help to convince people of the rightness and importance of their nation's cause, or the monstrousness of their enemies, or both (and casualties weren't necessarily reported, while enemy losses may have been exaggerated). Europe was thoroughly wrecked by the time Germany surrendered, Berlin had been split between invading armies from two directions, and Hitler had shot himself in the head. Japan didn't surrender until it got nuked. Twice. (But there is controversy over whether they may have been debating surrendering and got nuked, or nuked again, because they weren't quick enough, or something)

You could try to point to war weariness as a factor in World War I, but IIRC it was the running out of able bodied young men that forced the end of the war, and America entering late with fresh manpower that tipped the scales to one side.

Going back farther, throughout much of human history there have been rulers who were believed to rule by divine right or something similar, were believed to be servants of the Gods, or Gods themselves.

The thing is, most of this doesn't necessarily seem applicable to all the alien races, or robot races.

Hell, for all we know, the Burlusts and Thoraxians might have peace weariness.

[Jerebaldo1]

War weariness seems like a rather modern human concept to me. Just looking at a brief glance of human history:
...

That's a good point. It may be beneficial for both causus belli and war/peace weariness to be formally abstracted into resources that diplomatic events govern. Clicking on either value could bring up summary windows that explain the breakdown of the two axes, perhaps limited by how much the player knows about each other race.

[Captain Jack]

Hell, for all we know, the Burlusts and Thoraxians might have peace weariness.

This is actually an excellent point, and one that I think was supposed to be in the game. The Burlurst were supposed to have penalties for not being at war, but I don't know how it's being handled under the current international incident and saucer system. Maybe a system where you have to kill something (building, rogue, minor faction) every few turns or you get hit by tiered penalties based on how long it's been since you last did it, modified by SP and certain buildings.

I will disagree about war weariness though. It's always been part of the human condition, but only representative governments are susceptible to it. We actually know that the Athenian democracy and pre-Caesar Rome had issues with civil unrest because of unpopular and too long wars. Since the player character for all the races is a Benevolent Dictator for Eternal Life, I'd suggest it should only be an issue with races that are genetically or socially programmed towards collectivism. The Peltians and Skylaxians would feel it, the Krolin and Fenyn not so much.

On the flipside, you have the Burlurst and their peace fatigue, and the Boarines with rage momentum from TLF. The longer the latter are at war the more bonuses they should get (up to a point, hello balancing nightmare), and the longer the former are at peace the more penalties they should pick up.

Can't comment on the Thoraxians myself, given their alien nature and the special role they play on Planet.

[P3X-639]

Sure the idea of war weariness may be a bit artifical, but I think it is sort of needed. In theory it'd be nice to have something like manpower that'd force you to stop fighting, but that doesn't really work in SBR. Population is fairly irrelevent since you aren't drafting citizens into an army. In theory, all you need is a hundred people or less to man the buildings. Further more, population growth is to high for that to be limiting factor with only a few birthing centers. Sure, you could rebalance everything population wise in order to make it so population is the limiting factor in stopping you from being always at war, or you could just go with something more reasonable.

But then again this is all sort of missing a point. A lot of what Chris has said in interviews/podcasts in the past has been that he didn't want arbitrary WE ARE AT WAR or WE ARE NOT AT WAR in SBR. War Weariness is a mechanic that's part of forcing two factions into peace outside of total destruction (something needed in games where war is a binary ON/OFF). It's there so France doesn't just have one 163 year (which you could translate into a 238 turn) war of extermination against Spain, but rather making it so you beat up Spain, take some of their land, and then both sides have time to take a breather and make moves and alliances for the next fight. Factions sort of already do this. The Zenith and the Spire get in a fight because their leaders don't like each other. That fighting last for a bit and then ends.

So on this topic, we should just start from the begining: Should there be a negative modifier to the Player for constantly being at war.

*Edit: Apologies if this came off as brusk. Typed it out with a bit of a headache.

[kasnavada]

War weariness seems like a rather modern human concept to me. Just looking at a brief glance of human history:

In World War II, I don't recall seeing particularly much of it, as propaganda was used to help to convince people of the rightness and importance of their nation's cause, or the monstrousness of their enemies, or both (and casualties weren't necessarily reported, while enemy losses may have been exaggerated).

I see it the other way, propaganda was here because war weariness existed.

[FallingStar]

Just a few wandering thoughts I had while reading this topic

The only games I find diplomacy to be really interesting are grand strategy style titles (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Distant Worlds) where there is an ebb and flow of alliances of lots and lots of factions. Basically where it seems like the diplomacy tells a story of its own. Those games tend to feel built to focus on diplomacy from the ground up.  Which really isn't where most games are, or need to be to be interesting in other ways.  Not every system has to be deep, and in a lot of games, as a player, I don't want to spend much time in diplomacy since it feels removed from the action and just busywork that has to be done, like fiddling with tax sliders from time to time.

I think the standard 4x diplomacy Civ/ MOO style is okay for what it does.  My biggest gripe is often the snap changes of friend to enemy, or systems that have diplomatic reputations for the player.  Diplomatic reputation is always aggravating.  Raise it by honoring your agreements so you can make allies or deals more easily, but then when you've built it up it doesn't matter since everyone has to hate you as you grow in power to make the game challenging, even if you've honored every agreement and everyone trusts you implicitly.  Too bad, you're winning.  Time for war.

The issue seems to be that in a game context the player is pretty much always using diplomacy in an exploitative fashion.  To gain an ally to fight for you (your ally is your shock troops and of course the player takes all the winnings for themselves)  or to keep the most threatening looking AI from attacking the player (when it would be most beneficial for the AI to do so).  And the player is better than the AI at long term planning like that, so by the time your AI ally really likes you, the player has already hurt that AI's ability to win the game or be competitive.

One interesting idea I've seen more of lately is the idea of setting up targets and offering bounties for pirates or other AI players to attack.  Sort of like in Distant Worlds, or in Sins of a Solar empire.  In a game context that sort of thing seems like a more pure form of diplomacy.  You're interacting with a faction, but the player has to give up more value if they want the AI to do their bidding, rather than just getting the right treaty.

Theorycraft wise, I could see a diplomacy system more built on that concept, where you didn't offer any specific treaties to anyone, but just set up general missions to any AI that wanted to take them.  For resource trades or attacks on targets, or research, the normal 4x things you'd want from an ally.  Sort of a 4x help wanted ad.  Then if one race is taking a lot of your offers up, you'd have a de facto non aggression treaty with them, since the AI wouldn't want to cut off its funding, and you wouldn't want to hurt your helper.

Still, anything that seems to wander too far from the expected model of MOO style 4x diplomacy might not be too wise.  Looking at Star Ruler 2, that game had some really really interesting twists on how the economy and diplomacy and such worked . .but it seems that it confused people and made reviewers spend all their time on mechanics rather than gameplay, to the detriment of the game and its sales.  A shame.

[TheVampire100]

I really hated the diplomacy part of Civilication. That was AWEFUL.
In every game the same. After some turnsone of the leader pips up and want something from you. Of course he offers nothing or less as you in return. And this happens all the time, every leader shows up fromt ime tp time but only because he needs something from you. "Oh, I'm our of money." "Oh, I need that resource." "Oh, my back itches."
But don't think you can have something from them, because then they get pissed. If you need something they don't think about helping you out.
And this is something which I never liked about the game and I don't want to see in SBR.
Of course a leader will mainly first think about his nation and then about others. But that doesn't mean that he wants ti rip you off every time he sees you. If you are on good terms with a leader he should act like it and not be the same greedy shit like from the beginning. It really doesn't matter what you did for them and to them, their attitude is always the same. Except if you don't give it to them, they will try to steal it.

In SBR I would like to see, that leaders will offer help to you without having to ask for every little thing you need. if a leader that has a high opinion from youz sees your needs, he should offer help.
"I see you have high pollution on your buildings. Let me take care of it before this gets out of hands."
"I saw that the Burlusts are mean again to you. Let me lend you some firepower."
"You forget to flush on the toilet. Nevermind, I'm here to help you out."

Stuff like this. Of course every race has different reasons to do so and not every race does it. The Acutians have of course only one thing in mind: Money.
"Hey buddy, looks like you have some money problems. We could let you some, let's say for 100% interest?"
Evucks will probably offer help before you decide to show up and take what you need.
Skylaxians are the typical honorable guys like always, if you are in the need of something they will come and help you out (as long as you are on good terms with them) and want nothing in return.

Of course they will also come to you if they need something for themself. Money, resources, market items or military power in war times.
On the other hand, I don't want to get distracted all the time by a leader picture that pops up because it want something from me. That was something that annoyed me in Civ pretty fast, you couldn't just do your stuff without oat least one of the leaders bumping in.
So instead of forcing the leaders onto the player there should be a notification "Leader X wants something from you". You have multiple turns to answer the leader. If you ignore him, his attitude towards you lowers (or do you like getting ignored?).

[Traveller]

Something Jerith said about chats, and stuff like wanting no mans' lands, gave me ideas for something I'd love to see mechanically in game diplomacy.  So other races can have diplomatic modifiers like "you settled too close to me, -4" or "you support my rival, -2".  It would be nice to be able to broadcast your own modifiers and have the AI take them into account.  Maybe I don't have any interest in expanding my western border, but there's one little spot to the east that I really, really want... I'd like to be able to tell the world "if you settle HERE, I'll be angry."  "If you attack these guys, I will like/dislike you, but I'm not going to give you anything for it."  "I don't trust anyone who moves forces near my border."  "I want this city of yours, and that's why I'm going to war; I'm not out to hurt you in any other way."

I'm not sure how to keep people from gaming the system, but to some extent I think the system wants to be gamed.  If you change your stances too frequently it could be a real PITA to the people you're diplomatic with... "Oh you're about to settle there?  No that's mine!  Oh you're about to settle somewhere else?  No that one is mine instead, maybe you should go back to the first place", rinse, repeat.  So maybe limit how many different stances you can present at once, and limit how frequently you can change them.  It seems reasonable to have like five main foreign policies at a time, easy to keep track of, easy to glance at someone else and see what they care about.

Of course it also seems fun if you can make claims and argue about the words themselves.  "You say you want that land?  Well, I say I want it too, and so we're going to be at odds even before the first settlers show up."  See who backs down.  Make claims into bargaining chips: "These guys gave me money, so I'm supporting their claim to this land."  "You say I shouldn't move forces near your border?  Well, I say you should take that back, or I'm going to stop saying I want those other guys to stay neutral."  Thinking to the Paradox games, I guess something like those games would make these stances desirable to hold by giving a casus belli if someone violates your firmly held beliefs.  It's fun and themey too, because you can look at what your neighbors are doing and specifically pick your stances to make them look as offensive as possible.  Maybe get a reputation for doing that, which makes your future declarations hold less sway...

I haven't been in any betas yet so I don't know how much of that would even apply to SBR, but mostly I keep wishing that games I've played let me declare my claims to an area before I settle it...

[Zebeast46]

Something Jerith said about chats, and stuff like wanting no mans' lands, gave me ideas for something I'd love to see mechanically in game diplomacy.  So other races can have diplomatic modifiers like "you settled too close to me, -4" or "you support my rival, -2".  It would be nice to be able to broadcast your own modifiers and have the AI take them into account.  Maybe I don't have any interest in expanding my western border, but there's one little spot to the east that I really, really want... I'd like to be able to tell the world "if you settle HERE, I'll be angry."  "If you attack these guys, I will like/dislike you, but I'm not going to give you anything for it."  "I don't trust anyone who moves forces near my border."  "I want this city of yours, and that's why I'm going to war; I'm not out to hurt you in any other way."

I'm not sure how to keep people from gaming the system, but to some extent I think the system wants to be gamed.  If you change your stances too frequently it could be a real PITA to the people you're diplomatic with... "Oh you're about to settle there?  No that's mine!  Oh you're about to settle somewhere else?  No that one is mine instead, maybe you should go back to the first place", rinse, repeat.  So maybe limit how many different stances you can present at once, and limit how frequently you can change them.  It seems reasonable to have like five main foreign policies at a time, easy to keep track of, easy to glance at someone else and see what they care about.

Of course it also seems fun if you can make claims and argue about the words themselves.  "You say you want that land?  Well, I say I want it too, and so we're going to be at odds even before the first settlers show up."  See who backs down.  Make claims into bargaining chips: "These guys gave me money, so I'm supporting their claim to this land."  "You say I shouldn't move forces near your border?  Well, I say you should take that back, or I'm going to stop saying I want those other guys to stay neutral."  Thinking to the Paradox games, I guess something like those games would make these stances desirable to hold by giving a casus belli if someone violates your firmly held beliefs.  It's fun and themey too, because you can look at what your neighbors are doing and specifically pick your stances to make them look as offensive as possible.  Maybe get a reputation for doing that, which makes your future declarations hold less sway...

I haven't been in any betas yet so I don't know how much of that would even apply to SBR, but mostly I keep wishing that games I've played let me declare my claims to an area before I settle it...

Seconded, like this idea alot.

[Peons]

Welp, first off, BETA ME ANYWAY, but here's my take on diplomatic stuffs.

1. People will always try to find a way to game 4X AI Diplomacy, it's really what it's there for. Maybe have a bit of unpredictably depending on the race in question.

2. AI's almost never handle territorial dealings strategically well, I'd definitely make it hard to gain any kind of ground via diplomacy unless you feel really comfortable with how your AI evaluates the land. (e.g. player grabs the land mainly so he has an invasion point of said AI, so he asks for a piece of land that the AI might consider garbage right near his territory).

3. If AI's can initiate diplomatic contact, limit how often they pop up at the global level (e.g. if Race #1 just contacted them, Race #2 shouldn't pester you on the next turn). You can have multiple leaders contact you on the same turn, and war declarations can still happen anytime and should still popup since they are important.

4. "The 4X Diplomacy Point System", seems almost every 4X with diplomacy has a way to show the player how many points their offer is worth and how much the AI's stuff is worth. Get rid of this. Make offers generalized and actually require negotiation. You should only have a general idea of what the AI's civ values (e.g. they have a shortage of food, you have lots, so it shows up as a shiny green dot as something potentially valuable).

When you make an offer to the AI, you shouldn't get them all angry unless the offer is outright ridiculous (e.g. give me your city and i'll give you 1 unit of food, even though you need 50 to survive this turn). The AI should evaluate the offer then counter-offer with something that is high for them, and you can risk lowering their offer and making them mad from there. As long as your counter offer isn't too much in your favor again the AI should evaluate and re-counteroffer if it's still not good, if your counter offer is the same or still really bad then they get mad.

5. AI's should become suspicious of large military buildups on their border (and be equally sensitive to doing this themselves). Even as allies an AI should expect SOME military presence on the borders, but if it starts getting abnormally large they should suspect an invasion (with the exception of allies close enough to have both mutual defense and mutual war targets).

6. Some other posts have been made to this effect, but I feel you need to be able to tell the AI's your general stances on some things. When the game starts you'll get to set your initial policies (Don't like people that border me, those with bigger military forces worry me, size difference bugs me) and also place tokens down where you feel you'll be expanding, so the AI's know to either stay away or to contest you immediately.

After the initial policy/territory setting, you can change them at will but to prevent rapid changing of policies and gaming the AI, when you change your stance it will take a few turns to take full effect, and during that time your old policies begin to decay as well.

7. AI Should remember wars and how well or bad they went as a factor in their wardecs. Also the player shouldn't be penalized on future diplomatic deals with an AI if the AI was the one that initiated war.

8. Diplomatic reputation should be a factor, the AI's should track if a player tends to honor or break any deals they make, but the player being known for honoring their deals should never be a major honeypot factor for the AI to prevent gaming the system. If the player is known to break deals though the upfront payment should drastically increase to compensate for any long term deal the player may make with an AI until this improves.

Well this is all I've got for now