Suggestions to Improve Diplomacy

from GalCiv3 Forums

This is NOT a post about introducing new mechanics ( like espionage) or radically redesigning the system, or listing bugs the devs already know about, but rather to inject some common sense into the process (and close some exploits) using existing game structure.

 Why Fix Diplomacy?

 3 reasons:

 1) Draginol's first post in the Wish List thread on Steam from 9 months ago, listing "major diplomacy updates".  While it's been tweaked in the right direction, it still needs this 'major update'. 

 2) There's a lot of exploits in its current form, and depending on which players you ask, it is too harsh and warlike, or too easy to get diplomatic victories.  This makes for a less enjoyable game experience at both ends of the spectrum.

 3) Diplomacy affects every player, at every level, in every game.  Even if not using it as a victory strategy in itself, it is still an aspect of the game that every player uses to some degree.

 Overall Changes

 1) Widen the Diplomatic number scale from its current +/-10 to something like +/-50.   Getting into many unwanted wars or getting alliance victories both happen too quickly.  Newer players won't get inundated by multiple wars early on and will have time to decide how/if they want to change that course.  All players will have more time to decide how they want their games to play out.  Those that choose to research diplomacy techs and buildings can go that route.  Those that want to build ships instead can do that too.  It's about giving players choices they don't have now. (where it's pretty much invest in diplomacy early or get ganged up on early because you didn't)

 2) Exploration Treaties should NOT give automatic contact with undiscovered races.  This is an exploit in speed alliance victories.

 3) Give players the same 'remove your starbase' option the Ai gets now.  Implement it the same as the 'remove your ships' request that exists now with refusal, penalties, etc.

 4) Paying people to declare war (player or Ai) needs an overhaul.  The Ai offers 10% of its treasury or 1 tech to the human, but demands 3000 credits value of stuff  in trade when players ask them.  That's not fair or balanced.  The Ai should be able to offer anything that the human player can, in combination.  If empire A wants to pay empire B to go to war with empire C, base costs (3000 cred or whatever)  should be affected by the following:

             i) Diplomatic relations between A and B, and between B and C

            ii) Personality traits and behaviour preferences of B and C

            iii) Military power of B vs C

 

 5) When asking for peace, the Ai can ask at no cost, but the human player has to pay through the nose (usually).  This is not fair or balanced.  Peace talks should work the same both ways, factoring in all the trade changes mentioned in the rest of this post. 

 6) Trade resource value should be affected by the personality traits and civilization preferences. Synthetic races should value trade resources that give + to growth or food a value of 0, since they aren't affected by those metrics.

 7) Prices for mineable resources should scale based on how many the Ai currently has, and if the Ai weapons tech corresponds to that resource.  I'd suggest 5 as a cutoff number before the scaling starts, because all resources can be used planetarily, but the dropoff after should be fairly steep.  This cuts down on the fleecing of Ai for tech and cash.  Some tweaking may need to happen to get the Ai to build Elerium Shields, but they seem to do ok building the other resource buildings and ships with proto weapons.

 8) Synthetic races should assign a value of 0 to all tech relating to growth or food, since they aren't affected by those metrics.

 9) Tech trading value should be modified by a race's personality traits and civilization preferences.  For example, the Drengin have a high value on military, but low on culture, so they should be willing to pay more for military tech and less for culture tech.  Conversely, they will assign a higher value on military tech, since they will not want to trade away their advantages easily.

 10) Tech trading value should be modified by the diplomatic relations and ideological differences between the 2 parties. (if it's not already, not sure about that, besides the military tech changes made in 1.6).  For example, if you are a Malevolent empire asking a Benevolent one for weapons tech, that should cost more.  If the other empire hates you, they're going to charge you more for everything.  I realize ideology factors into diplomatic relations, but it should have its own modifier aside from that as well.

 11)  The diplomatic bonus for structures such as embassies and diplomatic starbase outposts should be cut in half.  It's too easy to spam these and make everyone like you early on.  Good relations, like bad ones, should develop over time, not 10 turns.

 12) Treaties and alliances should work the same as 'Alliance' does now.  You need a certain level of diplomatic relations to offer it.  I'd add that there should be a minimum time spent at that level, or better before it can be offered.  Clarify what the effects of those are in game.  Make the Ai actually research them more, and offer them in game.  In over 1000 of play, I've *never* had an Ai offer me any kind of treaty or alliance beyond non-aggression pacts. 

 13) Trade Embargo should be used by the Ai.  Trade is important for wealth for everyone, and embargoes would be an important tool in hampering an empire's finances.  It's price should be determined by all the same variables as in #4 above. For example, Entrepreneur races should charge huge amounts for that, since it nullifies one of their best advantages.

 14) Have the Ai put more priority on forming alliances.  Since the Ai has little ability to grow it's empire in any meaningful way, by end game it's just a domino effect for the human player to mop up a bunch of tiny (by comparison) empires.  Now, on the other hand, if they allied for survival.... :)

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

6) Trade resource value should be affected by the personality traits and civilization preferences. Synthetic races should value trade resources that give + to growth or food a value of 0, since they aren't affected by those metrics.

Let's say that I own a van Gogh which I think is hideous and let's further suppose that I am not the kind of person who wants to have something just to have it, whether or not I actually like, want, or care about it. I get no "benefit" out of this painting (I don't like it at all) and so by your reasoning should place a value of zero upon this painting (or possibly even a negative value, as you could argue that since I regard it as hideous then it's actually detrimental to me in some manner). Should I just give it away to whoever asks for it? Or should I, recognizing that there are people with different tastes, try to sell it despite, by your reasoning, putting no value on the painting? The value of a commodity is not determined solely by the value placed upon it by the owner but also by what others will pay to acquire that commodity; Monsatium Deposits and Artocarpus Viriles have value to synthetic empires not for the direct benefits to their empires but rather for what the non-synthetic empires are willing to pay to acquire them, especially once multiple non-synthetic empires are in contact with the synthetic empire(s) and so can both try to trade for it.

I would also add that there is a value in holding onto something that has no tangible benefits for your faction when that something provides tangible benefits to another faction. If I'm playing as the Yor Collective, it is not necessarily to my advantage to trade away Monsatium Deposits and Artocarpus Viriles, because any non-synthetic faction I trade those to is likely going to get some benefit out of them, and like it or not I'm competing with them. Similarly, even though I don't get any benefit out of them when playing as the Yor Collective or a synthetic custom faction, it is not necessarily a bad idea for me to purchase Monsatium Deposits and Artocarpus Viriles from other factions because purchasing them denies those resources to non-synthetic factions. Denying those resources to non-synthetic empires weakens them (or at least prevents them from growing stronger); if it doesn't cost me too much to do so, there is little reason why I should not purchase them since my goal is, presumably, to defeat my competition and anything that weakens them is therefore a good thing as long as the cost isn't too high.


8) Synthetic races should assign a value of 0 to all tech relating to growth or food, since they aren't affected by those metrics.

The way tech trading works in this game, you're essentially trading slot unlocks rather than techs. Say I'm the Terran Alliance and you're the Drengin Empire. If I have a tech with a generic name of SampleTech in my tech tree and you have a tech with the same generic name in your tech tree, then if I have developed version of SampleTech and you have not, you can trade with me to unlock your version of SampleTech - even if it does something completely different from what my version of SampleTech does, or if the flavor text indicates that the way that the techs work is completely different for the two empires.

You can easily see a minor side-effect of this in the diplomacy window when trading techs with factions which name their versions in a way that you don't - the techs you can offer are named not the way they're named in your faction's tech tree but rather how they're named in your trading partner's tech tree. This is why the Terran Alliance can sell Labor Exploitation to the Drengin Empire despite no such tech existing in the Terran Alliance's tech tree. It's also why factions cannot acquire certain techs which do not appear in their tech tree - no faction using the Yor tech tree, for example, can trade for most of the farming and population growth techs, whether or not the faction is synthetic, and no faction which uses a standard tech tree other than the Yor tech tree can acquire the various enhanced assembly projects and synthetic population cap bonuses. Likewise, even were the Thalan Hive techs tradable, no faction which did not have techs with the same generic name in their tree would be able to acquire those techs from the Thalan.

A consequence of this is that it does not make sense for synthetic factions using an appropriate tech tree to place a value of 0 on all techs relating to food and 'natural' population growth; if the synthetic faction's tech tree includes those techs and the synthetic faction's tech tree is appropriate for a synthetic faction, those techs are doing something which works for a synthetic faction. Even if the synthetic faction is a custom faction which uses a tree which isn't entirely appropriate for a synthetic faction (due to having food and 'natural' population growth techs rather than synthetic population cap and assembly techs), there is still some value for the faction in developing those techs if it can then trade them off to its neighbors (or even in trading for those techs, if it can then trade those techs to other neighbors).

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Regarding #6:

Both your points are well taken, and I agree with the logic behind both.  

In your Van Gogh example, I agree that trading a resource that you got for free makes sense, because you are getting something for nothing.  The key word there is 'free'.  If those resources exist on planets you colonize, sure, why not trade them away.  Something for nothing.  But, as you said yourself, there is value in denying these resources to others as well... 

Your followup example is the opposite side of that coin.  You are trading resources you know you can use yourself, like say cash, for resources you know you can't just to deny the other side their use.  That's not free.  The only way that works is if what you give up to get those resources is deemed by you to be of less long term value than the impact of denial of resources has on the other side.  That's a judgement call humans can make but the Ai can't, because it has no sense of future, only now.

In both those cases, you're making a speculative trade, making decisions on how you think the denial or trade of those resources will affect the game in the longer term.  Humans can assign a speculative value, and a future value to things that the Ai just can't.  It just goes on current value math.  As humans we can say ' I'll trade this to you now, and even though you can;t use it, you can trade it to someone else later'.  But the Ai just sits on it and it ends up being an exploit.


Regarding #8:

You're absolutely right.  I had not considered tech trading from a 'slot unlock' to move up the tech tree aspect.

 

Regarding Both:

I was going at from more of an in-game character perspective (and to close the exploit) than a purely economics one, but after reading your comments I'd agree that my suggestions may be the wrong way to go.  I'm not sure what the right way to handle it would be, but that's why the Stardock devs get paid the big bucks :)

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