#Added Diplomacy

23 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

coral onyx
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I am coming at this from some frustration from another game that butchered their own diplomacy system from previous iterations of their franchise... but AOW4 isn't a bad diplomacy system. It's a solid "It's Alright." from me. However, I think it could be better with a bit more... intricacy. Here are some ways I think it could be improved.

  1. Inter-player random events. We already have an amazing event system and one that works on improving relations with Ai factions, so why not create more inter-player random events that let us cozy up to particular individual rulers!

  2. Arbitration deals. Allow us to make deals with Ai to peace out or forgive grievances and such on behalf of each other. Always frustrating when you get along with two Ai and they hate each others guts and then inevitably you have to pick a side rather then being able to be a mediator between the two.

  3. Envoy units. A special unit that can be attacked by Empire Units outside of war (Unless you have defensive pact and above.) These units will passively increase relations with a faction in whosever borders they reside in. They have an ability which makes them immune to being attacked at all for 1 turn called Diplomatic Immunity.

  4. Research and Trade Treaties. Simple deals that cost some sort of upkeep. I.E. A trade treaty might cost 20 gold per turn but give each side +10% gold income. Research might do something similar, costing a flat knowledge amount but either offering a 10% bonus to overall knowledge, or giving a decreased knowledge cost on research the other empire might already know.

  5. Finally, I come to what I call... "Tome Pacts". This is a nice lil unique mechanic I like to think of my own creation. Each Tome should come with what I call, a Pact. This Pact is a special agreement you can make.. (Cont. below cause I'm running out of characters)

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Basically its like a trade negotiation thing where you can offer a "Pact of X" being related to the Tomes you have. These can grant various bonuses if the pact is accepted to both factions.

For example.. These pacts could grant the other faction access to an ability/spell from a Tome they haven't researched, but you have. Or they could get a small bonus to something related to that tome, like a Pact of the Flame (Pyromancy Tome) might increase all fire damage by +1 for both factions involved in the pact.

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These can either be permanent pacts or you could set upkeep parameters for them and treat them like regular trade negotiations you might do for say... Magic Materials

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Like "Hey I'll give you this Pact of the Flame, but in exchange you give me 10 Gold per turn, with this deal being Unlimited Turn Duration or 10 Turn duration, or whatever."

ADDITION 6. Targeted events. It's an idea I had recently and one that I got reminded of from another, old Turn based strategy game. Basically we already have a targeted 'event' in the form of denounce, but why not add more events we can spend resources on? Things like, sending compliments and insults of our own! But lets go a bit further, if possible, and have actual events. Like requesting a quest from another faction, or fulfilling a special request, leading to all manner of events that might improve our relations or even grant us rewards by interacting with the Ai rulers and other player rulers even! This idea builds a little on 1., by giving us the ability to manually trigger inter-player events by spending resources to do so!

ornate coral
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I love the idea of tome pacts!

coral onyx
# ornate coral I love the idea of tome pacts!

Lil bit inspired from Sins of Solar Empire 1. They had pacts you could make with other empires that were race specific, but you could get nice buffs that scaled up in power with your relations. I.E. being on slightly good relations would be like a pact of armor which increased armor by 1.0 or something, which was nice but not game breaking, but then if you grinded out reputation and became devoted allies you could get like a Pact of Fleet Supply and get like 400 extra fleet supply which was like 50 more overall ships lol. Pretty nice stuff.

So not entirely my own creation in terms of Tome Pacts but inspired from another source admittedly.

nocturne prawn
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Some of this seems pretty straightforward and I am fully on board for that

coral onyx
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Added an idea with 6.

coral onyx
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Seems a good deal of people like this idea

coral onyx
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17 and counting... :3

coral onyx
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C'mon folks, the devs do read these suggestions! Any thoughts and ideas you'd like to add to this? Any discussion of what you might want out of extended diplomacy options?

Perhaps even delving into subterfuge mechanics as well which could even work into grievances and such!

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Imagine fabricating grievances between two factions!

high bane
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I'd rather not have even more random events. Maybe a "talk to ruler" interaction that starts a random event. I would also like a "do not settle within 2 provinces of eachother's borders" treaty. But I'm kinda nervous about changing anything. The game's diplomacy is not exactly good, but it is also not utterly effed up, which is what I have come to expect from strategy games. So I'm kinda happy with the current mediocre system.

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I would love the hell out of a real trade system though, with trade routes and all, but that doesn't seem to be in the game's focus.

coral onyx
coral onyx
# high bane I would love the hell out of a real trade system though, with trade routes and a...

As for Trading... I had a thought that maybe you could create a special 'caravan' type unit with guards that would automatically travel between designated cities giving a small amount of money and relations increase with whoever it was trading in between. You can even reinforce it with stronger guards, but if it gets attacked, the attacker gets a good chunk of money from killing it.

left spear
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I wouldn't mind a volunteers pact that allows you to send units from the rally of liege to a beneficiary of the pact. Units sent would be under their full control, with the sender agreeing to pay the upkeep while also retaining the ability to disband them if the cost at any point becomes too great.

In exchange, each batch of units sent is a grievance against the sender on the part of anyone the receiver is at war with.

native sigil
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Tome pacts is so good

nocturne prawn
crisp junco
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I would love to see the diplomacy expanded upon, so this gets an upvote from me

coral onyx
timid rose
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I like the idea of actually sending units to other rulers to do trade/diplomacy and the like. At the moment I don't actually interact with the other rules, our scouts stumble upon each other, they decide to like me for some reason, we work towards a defensice treaty, they try to pull me into all their wars and I keep putting bounties on cities that they accepts and then give up on later. In the end I just do my own thing and we rarely impact each other in any way. The only thing the AI rulers seem to do is love pulling you into wars and then not helping.

I also don't get why if I put a bounty on a small city right by my allies capital, they will accept it, send forces, and then somehow lose and give up on it, while if an opposing ruler declares war, they will run across the entire map and somehow take a random city. I just feel like managing the AI is a ton more work than it rewards in the end and should be fixed in some way.