10-01-2004 02:22									#31
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker First, in an alliance (lets go back to NATO), if troops from a NATO member conquer a city that was taken from a NATO member in a war after (or during) the creation of NATO, it is immediately returned to the original owner. Second, a civ would be able to withdraw its troops from the alliance (just as it can donate them) so at least it wouldn't LOSE anything.

are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position?

quote: You can choose to withdraw from either alliance (or both).

I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops?

	10-01-2004 07:09									#32
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quote: are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position?

No, alliances aren't just defensive. If a city isn't "reconquered" but rather just "conquered" then it goes into alliance trust. It, like the alliance troops, is managed by the leader of the alliance. However, money from those cities goes into the alliance treasury and can only be used to rushbuy in alliance cities (and only money from the alliance treasury can be used for this, though civs can donate money or gpt to the alliance treasury). I don't think any of the trade in those cities goes to science, but rather to just taxes and luxuries. Units built in those cities are owned by the alliance and supported by the alliance treasury (though they remember what city they were built in, for reasons I'll get to in a moment). No wonders or small wonders can be built in these cities. All of this stuff happens on a seperate turn from the leader's turn - the leader plays out a turn for the alliance and a turn for its own civ.

One of two things can happen to these cities in trusteeship - either they can be distributed amongst the members of the alliance, or they can be used to form a new nation. Remember how a city maintains how much culture of each civ it has? Well, when you create the nation, you choose a "parent civ" (the choice may be limited somehow, and if you choose as a parent civ a civ other than the one with the most citizens in that city, you'll have problems), and the cities get the culture they have of that civ. The civ also gets its own name (like "West Germany" instead of "Germany") and the alliance gets to choose the form of government. They also get to decide whether or not the new civ is part of the alliance. Any units built in those cities are returned to their home city and given to the new civ. The new civ has at a minimum the technology that each of the other alliance members has (though not tech that only some of them have). Oh, and possibly any more cities conquered from the parent civ automatically join the new one (but only maybe).

Oh, I forget to mention, you can set up more than one civ with the same parent civ ("East Germany" and "West Germany").

quote: I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops?

They're automatically withdrawn from the alliance. And no, there wouldn't be a penalty in a situation like that (or a small one).

	10-01-2004 07:23									#33
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I like that idea.

	10-01-2004 14:51									#34
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Thanks Skywalker, that makes sense.

	10-01-2004 20:51									#35
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker quote: are you assuming that alliances are solely defensive in nature? Would an alliance ever make an unprovoked attack? Say to put it in a better strategic position? No, alliances aren't just defensive. If a city isn't "reconquered" but rather just "conquered" then it goes into alliance trust. It, like the alliance troops, is managed by the leader of the alliance. However, money from those cities goes into the alliance treasury and can only be used to rushbuy in alliance cities (and only money from the alliance treasury can be used for this, though civs can donate money or gpt to the alliance treasury). I don't think any of the trade in those cities goes to science, but rather to just taxes and luxuries. Units built in those cities are owned by the alliance and supported by the alliance treasury (though they remember what city they were built in, for reasons I'll get to in a moment). No wonders or small wonders can be built in these cities. All of this stuff happens on a seperate turn from the leader's turn - the leader plays out a turn for the alliance and a turn for its own civ.

Alright, this illustrates the problem I'm talking about :
Say this is a totally linear world for simplicity. There are in a row Civs A,B,C,D,E. BCD are in an alliance which D controls. A and E are in an alliance. A is the stronger of the two. If I'm playing D, I'd be tempted to use the alliance troops to attack E, the weaker civ, and allow A to rampage across civ B. Then after E is out of the way I turn around and help recapture B's cities. End result - B looses a ton of its sovereign troops and a lot of turns of production. E is wiped out. A looses a bunch of troops, and depending on how far it overextended itself some of its cities. The clear winner in that situation is A because it had control of the alliance troops.

Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

quote: quote: I imagine pulling out of an alliance to attack a former alliance member would be a big reputation hit. Not to mention... what happens to your troops? They're automatically withdrawn from the alliance. And no, there wouldn't be a penalty in a situation like that (or a small one).

Withdrawn from the alliance and teleported home, or withdrawn from the alliance and stranded behind what are now essentially enemy lines?

And I'm not sure how you could not get a rep hit for pulling out of an alliance on the eve of war.

	11-01-2004 04:31									#36
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I think that Galactic Civilization's "United Planets". Maybe another place to look at would be Pax Romana (http://forum.antikgames.com/pax-romana/DiplomacyUk.htm), even if it seems it got some bad review at GameSpy.

	11-01-2004 07:17									#37
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quote: Alright, this illustrates the problem I'm talking about : Say this is a totally linear world for simplicity. There are in a row Civs A,B,C,D,E. BCD are in an alliance which D controls. A and E are in an alliance. A is the stronger of the two. If I'm playing D, I'd be tempted to use the alliance troops to attack E, the weaker civ, and allow A to rampage across civ B. Then after E is out of the way I turn around and help recapture B's cities. End result - B looses a ton of its sovereign troops and a lot of turns of production. E is wiped out. A looses a bunch of troops, and depending on how far it overextended itself some of its cities. The clear winner in that situation is A because it had control of the alliance troops. Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

B loses nothing if it decides to simply withdraw its troops. It is in no worse a position than before the alliance.

quote: Letting the alliance be controlled by the AI is a better solution IMHO because its goals are specifically alliance goals. In the situation above, the alliance troops would go where needed and some of them would help civ B.

The AI would be too stupid to understand the intricacies of the goals. At least give the player a chance here.

	11-01-2004 10:17									#38
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker The AI would be too stupid to understand the intricacies of the goals. At least give the player a chance here.

If you think the AI is too stupid to understand the goals, what makes you think a civ AI would be able to understand when its units were being used against it by the player who controls the alliance? In the example above B could withdraw its troops. But that would be dependant upon the Civ AI realizing the trap it was being led into in time to do something about it. I think the chance of a civ AI understanding that is much lower than an alliance AI being able to execute certain basic goals.

	12-01-2004 00:39									#39
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It would withdraw its troops if it needed them, whether or not they were being used "correctly".

	12-01-2004 19:41									#40
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker It would withdraw its troops if it needed them, whether or not they were being used "correctly".

No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch.

The only way to get around this would be to have the civ AI understand when its troops are being used in a way which is not in its best interest, which would allow it to pull troops out of the alliance BEFORE it got too late. My point is that I think coding the civ AI to understand the dynamics of that type of situation is an order of magnitude harder than implementing an alliance AI.

Let me ask you to play devil's advocate with yourself. I'd be willing to bet you could think of a ton of different situations in which you could screw over your allie's AI with a player controlled alliance.

	13-01-2004 06:03									#41
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quote: No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch.

I think I forgot to mention it, or you missed it - the units are automatically transport back to the capital, or the nearest city.

	13-01-2004 09:20									#42
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quote: Originally posted by skywalker quote: No offense, but I don't think you're really following my example. If there are 2 alliances, one of which the player controls, and those two alliances are at peace, why would a civ pull its troops out of the alliance? But as the player, I could station a majority of the alliance's troops along MY border with the other alliance. If I then used the alliance troops to declare war on the other alliance, my AI controlled civ partners would be screwed, because their troops are in MY territory. Even if they immediately pulled their troops out of the alliance to defend their territory, they would have to deal with the logistics of getting their troops from my territory back home to defend, during which time they could loose a city or 2 or a bunch. I think I forgot to mention it, or you missed it - the units are automatically transport back to the capital, or the nearest city.

Which could still be a problem if the capital or nearest city is not near the front. Additionally you create an MP problem where two human's in an alliance could massively abuse the teleport.

	18-04-2004 20:21									#43
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UN must be something in the terms of MOO3 and GalCiv. But the civs must be free to (ask for) entering the UN whenever they want and also leave when they feel it doesn´t serve their interests.

	19-04-2004 11:30									#44
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OK, this is how I'd like to see the UN work:

1) Have a Security Council and General Assembly.

2) Entry to Security Council has same criteria as in Civ3! Entry to General Assembly is by invitation from Security Council Members.

3) Only Security Council Members have voting rights-except in the case of ties-in which case ALL members vote!

4) Aside from voting rights, only Security Council members may invite or expel General Assembly members (with the support of a voting majority, of course)!

5) UN membership boosts your international Reputation, as well as allowing you the ability to 'Petition' the UN.

6) A petition can include asking for War Declarations, Embargoes, Peace enforcement (and peace-keeping), resource/unit bans, and multilateral treaties-to name a few.

7) After you have petitioned the UN, but before a vote, you can go to each council member and offer what you think it will take to get a positive vote! Once a vote is taken, the result is final until you next make a petition-which must wait a turn!

8) The 'owner' of the UN gets a veto power, and also recieves a portion of each members GDP-which would be used for both maintaining the building and any operational peacekeepers.

9) Owning the UN also decreases War Weariness OR, if the Senate makes a comeback, gives the same bonus as it did in Civ2!

10) If a peace-keeping operation is voted for, then the UN Wonder will produce a number of 'Peacekeeper' units based on the number of Civs in the UN. The owning player can deploy these units to any city that they see fit!

11) peace-keepers would be a high-defense, low attack unit with average mobility (about move:2 in the current system). They can be moved around by the player who owns the UN, but they are 'Neutral' and would have some kind of neutral colour (or a UN flag IF they decide to introduce flags to the game!)

12) If a peace-keeper unit is attacked, the attacking civ takes a major Rep-hit amongst UN member civs and, if a member of the UN, could be expelled!!

13) A civ can refuse to honour a demand from the UN-especially if they are not themselves IN the UN, but doing so can also harm reputation, and even expulsion from the UN if you ARE a member.

14) Lastly, as a member of the UN, you can refuse to pay your dues-but again at the risk of expulsion. Only Security Council members are exempt from expulsion in this fashion. In fact security council members can only be expelled by either attacking peace-keepers OR by failing to meet the original criteria for membership!

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I hope you like the ideas I've presented!

The_Aussie_Lurker.

	12-05-2004 19:47									#45
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Too bad the poll is closed, I would have voted to strengthen the majority asking for large to radical changes.

But I like the UN concept. Those who don't like the diplomatic victory condition can simply uncheck that possibility when they start their new game. Remember? It's part of the options with the choice of civilization. I don't like the space race? I uncheck it. Simple, isn't it? No need to deprive others of the UN.

Because I think the UN concept should be very much developped so as to be able to have both country to country diplomacy, and an international community diplomacy, with all kind of capacities that others have developped extensively.

But UN is not a vital feature of the game. And so many other features are so much more crucial to making a Civ4 worthy of its legacy (which Civ3 wasn't) that it shouldn't have priority. But no reason to forget it either!

	13-05-2004 09:36									#46
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quote: Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker OK, this is how I'd like to see the UN work: 1) Have a Security Council and General Assembly. 2) Entry to Security Council has same criteria as in Civ3! Entry to General Assembly is by invitation from Security Council Members. 3) Only Security Council Members have voting rights-except in the case of ties-in which case ALL members vote! 4) Aside from voting rights, only Security Council members may invite or expel General Assembly members (with the support of a voting majority, of course)! 5) UN membership boosts your international Reputation, as well as allowing you the ability to 'Petition' the UN. 6) A petition can include asking for War Declarations, Embargoes, Peace enforcement (and peace-keeping), resource/unit bans, and multilateral treaties-to name a few. 7) After you have petitioned the UN, but before a vote, you can go to each council member and offer what you think it will take to get a positive vote! Once a vote is taken, the result is final until you next make a petition-which must wait a turn! 8) The 'owner' of the UN gets a veto power, and also recieves a portion of each members GDP-which would be used for both maintaining the building and any operational peacekeepers. 9) Owning the UN also decreases War Weariness OR, if the Senate makes a comeback, gives the same bonus as it did in Civ2! 10) If a peace-keeping operation is voted for, then the UN Wonder will produce a number of 'Peacekeeper' units based on the number of Civs in the UN. The owning player can deploy these units to any city that they see fit! 11) peace-keepers would be a high-defense, low attack unit with average mobility (about move:2 in the current system). They can be moved around by the player who owns the UN, but they are 'Neutral' and would have some kind of neutral colour (or a UN flag IF they decide to introduce flags to the game!) 12) If a peace-keeper unit is attacked, the attacking civ takes a major Rep-hit amongst UN member civs and, if a member of the UN, could be expelled!! 13) A civ can refuse to honour a demand from the UN-especially if they are not themselves IN the UN, but doing so can also harm reputation, and even expulsion from the UN if you ARE a member. 14) Lastly, as a member of the UN, you can refuse to pay your dues-but again at the risk of expulsion. Only Security Council members are exempt from expulsion in this fashion. In fact security council members can only be expelled by either attacking peace-keepers OR by failing to meet the original criteria for membership! Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I hope you like the ideas I've presented! The_Aussie_Lurker.

hi ,


, a nation should be able to have covert ops , spy missions against them , ..... resisting civilians or guerrilla's without taking a rep hit , ....

have a nice day

	01-06-2004 10:25									#47
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My personal thought, and this is (quite clearly) just me would stem from a certian book I read...I'd like the UN to be structured so that getting elected head of it gave you perhaps some influence. However, this should be a group that you can withdraw from(at an extreme disadvantage to your international reputation). Also, make it like the Planetary Council in SMAC...I liked that. Though perhaps an interesting twist would be that, if a nation stepped out of line(think peacekeeping here, ladies and gentlemen), someone would have to be chosen, by a 2/3 vote, to lead the military forces...perhaps throw in some dues as well, to finance buying off loans of troops...(sees ways to sneak money off from the general funds...mwuhahah)

I do like the idea of voting within alliances, but that should be part of the alliance later on...and should be an optable term to it. Then again, I like voting...

	01-06-2004 11:04									#48
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I like the proposals by Aussie...nice ones. What I'm aiming for, and I don't think this is a stretch, is for the UN to work as something of a world-wide alliance, a la today, but with any peacekeeping forces placed under the command of one player/country, chosen by vote. I like the ability to pull out, and I agree that it should have some, to understate considerably, bad PR effects. Nations not complying with UN requests/demands...depending on the level/type of demand, fine them, expel them, declare war on them. And no, I don't think the owner of the UN should be guaranteed either the position of SecGen(or the equivalent) or the position of military commander. I like voting for these positions seperately...largest member nations can compete(I'd say top third or quarter of the players; top two works great if you have seven nations, but with the bent toward sixteen to thirty-two, I think the field needs to be opened more, perhaps with a runoff, just to prevent a total blockout, especially in an MP game in this style.). And I think some propositions should require a 2/3 vote, but these would be the more extreme ones.

Give the military head funding from the UN, which gets funding(in return for protection and the right to present petitions) from its member states(and which can accumulate funds). The head of the UN gets a quasi-veto power(it takes 2/3 or 3/4 vote to override, depending on the proposition) but not necessarily the military command(of course, you could get both, but be prepared to share the wealth...).

	17-12-2004 00:46									#49
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UN:

Peacekeepers are a good concept and they should have the freedom to use roads and rails anywhere ... or treat all squares as road.
As stated, they should be neutral AI controlled units with e.g. 4/10/2.

Global embargo and other sanctions are OK.

The Treaty Organisation concept:

How about making it like normal mutual protection pacts / military alliances but with multiple civs, freedom of movement on other civs' territory and a permission to enter the same square (even a city) which another civ in alliance already occupies?

The treaty would still be formed first and after that civs would join it. And in diplomacy screen there would read like 'Russia (Warsaw pact)' so one wouldn't start a world war by accident...

	17-12-2004 10:37									#50
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One point: The UN shouldn't have sole power over anything. For example, in smac/x I hate it where I have the enabling tech and none of the others does, but I have to go through the council to use raise solar shade option. I should be able to do it on my own, just that doing so without the explicit approval of the others is an act of war if each nation decides that my actions were malcious in intent (using the raise/lower option when there is no global warming/cooling event for instance).

	21-12-2004 05:19									#51
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Just tossing ideas around...anyone should be able to try for SecGen, as opposed to the top-two model. If there's no majority, then the top two do a runoff (this shouldn't be complicated to control). I can think of a situation where the top two powers in a 16-nation or 32-nation game are not very powerful overall, and are universally hated as well. Another option would be to allow anyone to compete for SecGen, and just turn it into a game of offering concessions (money, tech) to get the job (or make them two options, with the player allowed to choose between them at the game's startup). The thing is, in a game with only seven players (like SMAC), only having the top two compete made sense. But in a case where you have lots of countries potentially jockeying for power, it makes sense (at least to me) to make it a little more open (especially on the upper levels). Besides, selling votes in an election could give smaller countries a potential boost.

	09-01-2005 11:55									#52
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I think kuciwalker's idea is great except that the Alliances could be like Mini-U.N.'s with the possibility of a civilization building an alliance that is so strong and so global that it could become's that game's U.N. (that way, rather then being called the "U.N." it could be called whatever the civilization wanted to call it. so if the world was filled with just middleastern civs, it could be called allah's jihad or something and that would be the U.N. of that game), or, perhaps, there is not large alliance and no U.N. like alliance forms.

Also, these alliances could be formed however the builder of the alliance wanted to form it. So, in one allliance, troops devoted just to the alliance could be controlled by the secretary general (for lack of a better "alliance leader" name) while in another alliance they could be controlled by a third party AI that is sort of like an indepedent coucil elected and directed by the alliance. Also, alliances could be made for a certain purposes, so, there could be a NAFRTA allaince that governs only economic treaties among member civs while a NATO like alliance could direct military things.