Thoughts on Diplomacy between players/nations

Each world will contain thousands of provinces to conquer, and thus hundreds of players in each world. So far the only interaction really spoken of between players is war. But war is really something that might not at all be a casual situation. With hundreds of players all fighting for survival it will be essential and so very much needed to form alliances and treaties of mutual protection with other players to ensure your own survival.

In most strategy games which go deeper than say, something as red alert, and become more like civilization or galciv. Diplomacy is very important and often in my opinion far too lacking. Because, what diplomatic options do we have in a game like Galciv. Not much, and by far not enough in my opinion. Simply the option to declare war, make peace, sign an alliance and the option to trade/give several sorts of things as money and resources. But for that game it might just be enough, there are in general not hundreds of races/players in that game. Or any game like that.

In situations where there are hundreds of different faction, like real life for example, there are an infinite number of diplomatic options to choose. Far to much to name. And a peace treaty is far more complicated than simply agreeing to not attack each other any more.

I feel we also need a nearly infinite number of diplomatic options to take with a game as Society. Now simply arranging things through chat channels doesn't really work. There would be no way to enforce diplomatics upon players and it would be terribly difficult to set up an interesting diplomatic situation.

What was on my thought was something as a "proposal creator" something you could make completely custom proposals with by putting in or leaving out elements and things so you could create your own customised proposal that would suit the situation you're in. Now this doesn't have to be a more complicated interface or whatever than in galciv/civ iv/or whatever. Just give it more options. And give something as a peace proposal more depth. By not making a button to insert a peace proposal. But several options so you can put together your own peace proposal just like you want it.

If we have something as this. We can take another step to create "regional" and "world" politics. In Galciv we have a UP council. Which gives a nice but not so very deep twist to the game. In a game like society, A large alliance of nations say, 10-20 (in a world of hundreds) could create their own council or region to protect mutual interests in protecting themselves from enemies and to protect internal interests of the nations in a region. Powerful alliances and regions could be formed that way. Also, if a world get's more developed and older a World Council might be erected in which every single nation may participate

This will also increase the say the player has in creating the world. Players will themselves define where the regions of a world lay. Players will be able to create their own laws inside a world.

Again, just a few of my thoughts how great the game of Society can become.
6,298 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
Chat is enough to create deals just provided you have complex options, such as give 10% of all swords produced for 5 days to player X.

The fact that the other player just may screw you shouldn't be deved out, instead players should find their way around it, reputation based systems, viliante justice, etc.
Reply #2 Top
There will be atleast 10-20 players around you all making diplomatic deals with you. If this would be done all by chat you WILL get confused. You don't have to dev out "lying" it could be a simple option when creating/accepting a diplomatic proposal. And than the system could calculate reputation based on your actions.
Reply #3 Top
Well, since it is against other humans, not computers, reputation doesn't need to be calculated. It will naturally occur...I enter into an agreement with someone and they don't keep it...I tell others that I am in communication with...they either have or have not had their own dealings with said individual...I have either been honest in my dealings with them or not...based on that they will make their decision on the general trust worthyness of the people. Granted we might want somewhere in game where we can record notes about who and why we might trust or not trust other players.

Proplem with a calculated reputation, is that having an idea of how it is calculated, I can monitor other peoples reputations and based on fluxuations get a general idea of agreements and negotions that they are taking part in. And that is something that I should have to use espionage to accomplish.
Reply #4 Top
True, you shouldnt be able to see a player's reputation based on actions you don't know or haven't heard of. But the computer might calculate and remember a reputation by the actions you do know of. And if by espionage or another way you find out about certain other, not so fair dealings, the computer might recalculate the reputation with your nation or you might decrease the other player's reputation with your nation
Reply #5 Top

ThijsK : have you ever heard of private chat chanells? a seprate window for each deal, not too confiseing, and if you can't remember them all, take notes or something. Diplomacy like in Civ 4 is ok when you're talking to AI's, but when I'm talking to another human I'd be hugely disapointed if I couldn't trade 100 sheep for blueprints for a self sustaning mine/smelter/farm/house. Or offer an allience to anyone who proves their worth by takeing over a certain terrotory with a maximum of 100 troops.

And reputation should NOT be calculated by the computer, thats just serously stupid.
Reply #6 Top
Perhaps, instead of reputation, you could use a 'Diplomacy Log' that would show all the diplomatic moves the players had recently made (though not the specifics of a deal - you would need a certain amount of espionage to find what Player A gave, traded, or took from Player B).