17-01-2003 08:25									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix When you create a state, you also get to decide on what treaties will exist between that state and you. That way you can impose favorable tariffs and so on.

That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

	17-01-2003 10:02									#32
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quote: Originally posted by vovansim That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

Well the problem is, most states were borne not by spontaniously saying "okay, you can rule yourself now!", they were generally through wars or slow, gradual process of release of autonomy. There are cases where that did happen (Isreal FE), but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

	17-01-2003 10:05									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Lord God Jinnai Well the problem is, most states were borne not by spontaniously saying "okay, you can rule yourself now!", they were generally through wars or slow, gradual process of release of autonomy. There are cases where that did happen (Isreal FE), but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

That is very true, also. I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work in the first place, so I might be missing some of the original ideas for this feature. Maybe Mark could contribute to this conversation?

	17-01-2003 13:11									#34
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I think Simon's idea is very good.
Israel is an example, but I think you could say Australia and Canada are examples too. Whatever revolution happened there if any (I don't know enough history) could be considered as internal struggles, and the Crown decided to let them become inependant states but they would remain in the Commonwealth, so they would still have commercial ties.

I think in the game, you would create these new civs when they are about to revolt and throw you anyway but you want to save as much as you can. That is basically what the British Empire did with its colonies: Seeing that the U.S.A. had severed all ties, they understood they couldn't keep their colonies as they used to be, but had to let them become independant. Creating the Commonwealth provided them some gains and a more favourable attitude from the ex-colonies.

	17-01-2003 15:39									#35
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quote: Originally posted by vovansim quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix When you create a state, you also get to decide on what treaties will exist between that state and you. That way you can impose favorable tariffs and so on. That is certainly a viable suggestion. In fact, I think that ties in nicely into LGJ's idea of having the civs created by the player play different roles - puppet monarchies, vassals, and such. Though we wouldn't technically divide the new-born nations into these categories, you will pretty much be able to control their place in the world through the treaties you institute when creating the new civs. What does everybody else think about this?

This certainly sounds like the way to go to me. Just to make a distinction. . . You control the specifics of that state AT Inception. After that the standard AI behavior takes over.

If you take a people that utterly hate you and have some chance of surviving while defying you, and you make them an independent vassal state via treaties at the start, they will likely quickly change that position. They will use whatever means possible including diplomatic means with other civs, stratighforward abrogation of the treaty, and any other means that seems likely to succeed.

	18-01-2003 05:15									#36
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare I think Simon's idea is very good. Israel is an example, but I think you could say Australia and Canada are examples too. Whatever revolution happened there if any (I don't know enough history) could be considered as internal struggles, and the Crown decided to let them become inependant states but they would remain in the Commonwealth, so they would still have commercial ties.

I can't say about Australia, but i know Canada wasn't concieved like that. Canada's release was gradual, up until after the end of WW2 in which the British Empire dissolved itself entirely and became the commonwelth.

At first Canada was given control over local province control, then control over all interal affairs, then allowed to make its own treaties, the given dominion status, then finally freed as a seperate country, but allowed to join and leave the British commonwealth freely.

While I think treaties might do for some things, controlling there military directly, which the British Empire was able to do under dominion status, would be beyond treaty aspect because, lets face it, as smart as we make the AI, it can't read your mind.

	18-01-2003 16:48									#37
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LGJ, in my opinion, the process you describe for Canada is too detailed to be included in the game. I would simply model it as providing the Canada province whatever freedoms they need to be happy with my civ and then making a nerw civ out of them after WW2. The loss of most colonies happened relatively peacefully, but the new civs were created by the ex-colonisalists. Look at a map of Africa for example.

	19-01-2003 03:18									#38
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare LGJ, in my opinion, the process you describe for Canada is too detailed to be included in the game.

That is exactly the reason why I was opposed to the idea of classifying the newly created civs programmatically. But I think that with treaties and with the new civs basically operating as any normal AI civ would, you can pretty much achieve the level of realism as you described, LDiCesare.

	19-01-2003 20:18									#39
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Hi Vovan:

To try and get some more eyeballs (and hopefully brains ) on this discussion I've added a Diplomacy Model plug to the bottom of my sig (see below). I hope it can get us a little more attention!

	19-01-2003 23:11									#40
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Good. Maybe more people will participate now.

	19-01-2003 23:23									#41
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You might want to do the same thing with your sig Vovan. You get around some places on the forum that I don't go! And we can sure use more comments!

	19-01-2003 23:27									#42
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Done, Mark.

Also, as a note of interest: I have added a bunch of suggestions and clarifications to the document, that have been waiting for a while now. See the Log of Changes for more info.

Last edited by vovan on 20-01-2003 at 02:13

	21-01-2003 06:38									#43
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Just wanted to point out that for the convenience of the newcomers to Clash, a new section has replaced the original foreword. The Summary presents all the concepts of the diplomatic model in a distilled fashion, so that the people do not have to read through the whole thing in order to know what's going on.

	22-01-2003 00:45									#44
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OK, guys, you invited comments on having read the abstract only, so you know whom to blame for points being raised that are adequately covered somewhere else, right?

That said, here are some random thoughts:

quote: Originally posted by vovansim Summary There will be no diplomatic units in the game. In other words, the spies and ambassadors will not be trained the same way as military units are.

Glorious. Spying and diplomacy abstracted is one of the few things Civ3 did right - oh, the broke the model over other issues, but the basic notion is right. The player should not need to ever MM individual spy units and missions any more than she should have to painstakingly build every piddling little building in every last city.

quote: The diplomatic options will include: Creating new civilizations Trading with other nations Signing treaties Making demands from other nations Protesting treaty violations Declaring wars

I'm a bit worried by the "protest treaty violations" point. Let's have some treaties being unbreakable w/out decalring a war - for instance, foreign units should not be able to tresspass on my land unless we have an agreeement to that effect, and an AI wanting to send a spearman/settler combo through should have to declare war to do so. No calling the enemy fifteen times each turn to remind them to withdraw their forces.

As for trade, I'd really like that to be abstracted in SMAC faction - we have a trade treaty? great! we both get extra cash then - and not the specific horses for salpeter Civ3 deals, but I guess that depends upon whether you have strategic resources or not. My vote on that, incidentally, would be no.

quote: There will be a variety of treaty types. Each treaty will be composed of one or more clause from the following list: Cash transfers Trade Territorial transfers Technological exchange Immigration policies Treaties will not be restricted to two nations

I'm not sure how you handle ethnicity in this game, but let's just say I hope immigrants eventually become your people, unlike in Civ3, where the prudent course of action is always to starve and kill any foreign national lest they trigger a culture reversal two thousand years later. What would the point of immigration be otherwise? Allow your rivaling civ free labour?

quote: In addition to official business, the game will feature a rich variety of intelligence and counterintelligence options: Gathering demographic information on other countries Stealing maps Stealing research information Bribing units, and inciting revolts in cities and provinces Assassinating characters Planting moles in enemy intelligence agencies And more... The relations between nations will feature an elaborate system of attitudes, and reputations, where almost every action by the player will result in an adjustment of the view of his or her country on the international arena

I don't like having basic information being a spy mission. It's one thing to gather military data and research, but having to run spy missions to find out what somebody has built in their neighbouring cities and how many people live there always struck me as exceedingly silly. If you have it in, I hope it's SMAC fashion - infiltrate the datalinks once and be done with it.

Another thing I hope is properly balanced is the riot/revolution inciting stuff. Pax Imperia is a game that proved what happened if that was even slightly too easy - after a while, the only tactic was spending all your resources toward rebellions, turning the map into a giant flip-flop arcade simulation as plantes switched allegiance continually. Awful, it was.

quote: Not each and every option will be available to the player all the time, however. For further realism, the following limitations will apply to the choice of diplomatic options: Technology - one cannot form sophisticated mutual protection pacts in 2000BC Budget - the less you pay your spies, the less they can sniff out! Government type – it is very hard to pull off genocide if you are a democracy Ideology - goes somewhat along the lines of government type - you cannot do nasty things if you rule a society of pacifists.

Then make sure there's ample reason to choose those governments anyway. The crazy Civ2 system of halting a campaing in the middle of burning war because the senate felt it was time for peace is not a good model to emulate. Civ3 war weariness is better, but still lacks some refinement.

	22-01-2003 01:20									#45
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quote: I don't like having basic information being a spy mission. It's one thing to gather military data and research, but having to run spy missions to find out what somebody has built in their neighbouring cities and how many people live there always struck me as exceedingly silly. If you have it in, I hope it's SMAC fashion - infiltrate the datalinks once and be done with it.

Moomin, there are both passive and active information gathering, so most of the trivial stuff should be passive and require no management from the player.

quote: I'm a bit worried by the "protest treaty violations" point. Let's have some treaties being unbreakable w/out decalring a war - for instance, foreign units should not be able to tresspass on my land unless we have an agreeement to that effect, and an AI wanting to send a spearman/settler combo through should have to declare war to do so. No calling the enemy fifteen times each turn to remind them to withdraw their forces.

I agree that border trespassing means war, and should mean war. That way the ai wouldn't be a pain moving units near you saying "we're peaceful". However, protesting violation of a treaty like making war with another nation that I am allied to is something I would like to be able to do. Maybe I'd rather threaten than join forces. Maybe I can let my ally fall in exchange of something from the attacker's part (e.g. Italy prevented one Anschluss but not the second one, and thereafter they were quite friendly with the Germans).

	22-01-2003 07:43									#46
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Thanks for the thoughts Moomin. It Is useful for us to hear opinions of people even if they haven't read the model, as I think you've just demonstrated!

I think where we're going is pretty much in line with your comments. And yes, ethnicities and their allegiances are going to evolve in Clash, and you won't generally get those problems you mention in civ. Genocide will be possible, but Not encouraged by the rules .

Of course if you treat an ethnicity abominably they might well rise up after even hundreds of years since you've basically barred them from assimilation. BTW, you can negotiate internally with the govt power blocks what the ethnic and religious discrimination is in your civ, so there is another interesting set of decisions for the player. Do they spend political capital making society more egalitarian, or on other things. Check out the Govt model if you're interested. . .

	22-01-2003 10:05									#47
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Thanks for the comments, moomin.

Laurent and Mark here have pretty much answered your concerns, though I would still like to add a small point of clarification.

You are correct that one should not have to start a spy mission to find out the very basic information about other nations. Something I didn't mention in the summary, is that intelligence options are divided into active and passive. The basic information-gathering is classified as passive intelligence activity (well, that might be a bad phrase - passive activity, but for the lack of a better one...). It will work sort of like the basic stuff in civ3, where you could gain some information on other civs by establishing embassies in their capitals, some more just by planting the spies in their capitals, and them even more by actually ordering spy missions. The same idea will apply here.

	24-01-2003 03:58									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson BTW, you can negotiate internally with the govt power blocks what the ethnic and religious discrimination is in your civ, so there is another interesting set of decisions for the player. Do they spend political capital making society more egalitarian, or on other things.

How very new age sensitive. I take it this is modern assimilation. Back in the barbaric era, I'd very much like to "assimilate" by putting the men to the sword and getting the women all knocked up. So long as the resulting pop growth counts as mine. This, after all, is how most assimilation was done up to like a hundered years ago or so.

quote: Check out the Govt model if you're interested. . .

Ha! Giv'em a finger and they'll grab the whole hand!

	24-01-2003 11:51									#49
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quote: How very new age sensitive. I take it this is modern assimilation. Back in the barbaric era, I'd very much like to "assimilate" by putting the men to the sword and getting the women all knocked up. So long as the resulting pop growth counts as mine. This, after all, is how most assimilation was done up to like a hundered years ago or so.

I disagree. This technique was used by the saxons and Angles in England, and by the displaced celts in Brittanny, but that was very uncommon. You had to displace a whole population in order for that to be feasible. Current English aren't Norsemen descendants, they are a mix of Saxons and Norsemen. The assimilation wasn't easy, but it did occur. Greeks call themselves romioi (romans), so they were quite well assimilated by the Romans without being slaughtered.
However, what you suggest is one way to assimilate peope in fact (plus cut the tongue of women so they can no longer speak their old tongue and you've changed Armorica into Brittanny).

	27-01-2003 21:50									#50
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For clarification: will there be a difference between the official diplomatic status and the actual? For example, when emperor X raids king Y, but king Y keeps the peace officially, because there is a trade clausule in the peace treaty.
In other words, is there an unbreakable link between treaties an the actual situation? Are treaties broken automatically when the conditions are violated, or does the damaged party have to break it?

	27-01-2003 22:15									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix In other words, is there an unbreakable link between treaties an the actual situation? Are treaties broken automatically when the conditions are violated, or does the damaged party have to break it?

It will depend on the treaty. For instance, if one nation invades another, then the trade agreements are automatically declared void and war is declared. So, in that respect there is a link.

However, if a less important treaty is violated, such as for instance a gold-per-turn transfer, or a trade treaty, the nation that is hurt by the violation might either issue a protest and request compensation, or, if the attitude is bad, just break the treaty. So, it depends on the attitude and reputation, and maybe some other factors whether a treaty that is violated will be broken, or kept, plus a protest.

	28-01-2003 15:32									#52
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I have a quick question about the "No Contact" status. Is it possible for Civ A to be aware of the existence of Civ B, but for Civ B to be unaware of the existence of Civ A? I can think of some cool scenario possibilities if one civ can use espionage and other covert operations on a civ that is unaware of its existence.

	28-01-2003 21:31									#53
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So two civs can be either at war or at peace, with the latter offering the possibility of more treaties.

	28-01-2003 21:46									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns Is it possible for Civ A to be aware of the existence of Civ B, but for Civ B to be unaware of the existence of Civ A?

Sorry to ruin your idea for a cool scenario, but no, it is impossible for one civ to know about the existance of another, but not vice versa. Every diplomatic status is a "two-way" road, meaning that the fact that civA is, say in war with civB implies the reverse. Same with no contact.

	28-01-2003 21:56									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix So two civs can be either at war or at peace, with the latter offering the possibility of more treaties.

Yes. This concept is a little tricky. You see, there will be two distinct "peace"s. There is peace, as in diplomatic status, and there is peace as in treaty. The diplomatic status of peace pretty much only means that there is no war. However, the treaty peace implies that there is an explicitly signed treaty between the two (or more!) nations that says "we will not attack each other".

The reason for this distinction lies in the way I designed the diplomatic model (code-wise), but it also has some interesting implications. Let us say civA is in war with civB. At some point in time, civB decides that it has had enough and sues for peace. To create peace, they need to sign a treaty (this is where the code design comes in. It is important that there be a peace treaty. Well, actually, a peace clause of a possibly larger treaty, to be precise). Like every treaty, the peace treaty has a certain duration. (Well, there will be also single-trun treaties, like lump-sum monetary transfers, which cannot due to their nature have a duration, but let us not concern ourselves with that, for simplicity's sake.) After the treaty is signed, the two nations have both the diplomatic status of peace, and an explicit treaty. While the treaty is in action, if one of the civs attacks the other, it will suffer significant reputation damages. Now, after some time, the treaty expires. Notice that even though there is no explicit treaty, the diplomatic status is still peace. It does not revert automatically to war, since there has been no military provocation. However, now, if one of those civs decides to attack, they will not suffer any significant reputation damages (well, their tyranny rating or something might become worse, but their trustworthiness won't suffer). Thus, this kind of peace is more fragile.

EDIT: Grrr... Not once have I gotten the word trustworthiness spelled correctly on the first try.

	29-01-2003 16:04									#56
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So the non-treaty kind of peace is more like a cease-fire. Maybe you could change the name, in order to avoid confusion?

	30-01-2003 07:48									#57
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Hi, I haven't commented too much in the past, but I like what I see here.

I like the idea of not having diplomatic units. One of the things I hated the most in other Civilization-type games was creating and moving what I thought were unnecessary trade and diplomacy units like caravans and Probe Teams (in Alpha Centauri).

But I think that you should be able to make deals to trade and supply specific resources. For example, many countries in our non-video game world import crucial minerals and substances like diamonds and oil, or even food. I'd like to be able to do that in a game.

	08-04-2003 06:20									#58
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I did a search for ‘United Nations’ and came up with surprisingly little information on how ya’ll plan to implement this. Though this is understandable since it is a purely modern element and the game thus far has not been expanded beyond the ancient ages.

I understand Clash will feature multi-nation treaties, and while the UN could be a wonder, it is much more than a simple treaty between many nations. What I will lay out below is my proposal for how the UN should work in Clash. I’d like to hear comments and suggestions on this.

There will be a window, separate from the diplomacy window to handle the UN. There will be a scroll bar in the window so all nations of the UN can be shown. Each nation will be listed by name with an expected vote and an actual vote column next to its name. At the top of the window will be a tree, similar to what is seen in the diplomacy GUI thread, with many of the same options and more.

A proposal is formed at the top of the screen by selecting clauses from the tree; this proposal can also be given a name. Once the proposal is formed the ‘End Proposal’ button, just below the tree is hit and the expected vote column next to each nation will then show a ‘yes, no, abstain, or veto’ depending on how the nation is expected to vote (the player must have an embassy with the nation for the expected vote to show, if he doesn’t then nothing is displayed). If a nation is expected to veto the proposal (or if there are too many ‘no’ votes), the player can click on that nation’s name in the list; this will open the diplomacy screen with that nation, where the player can proceed to negotiate for a ‘yes’ vote (This ‘vote yes to proposal’ clause will then be automatically added when the diplomacy screen is entered this way, and otherwise not be available in the diplomacy screen). Once the proposal is expected to pass vote, the ‘Vote Now’ button is hit, and all actual votes are shown (regardless of if there is an embassy or not), thus allowing one nation to shaft another by voting opposite of what they said they would, though there would be a trustworthiness hit to this.

I think this approach to the UN would work wonderfully. Clauses can include many of those in regular diplomacy as well as giving veto power or stripping it (though if the UN is a wonder, the nation that builds it gets automatic veto power, which can be stripped however), and possibly more. Some clauses from regular diplomacy should not be available such as ‘dynastic marriage’.

The UN could also double as an international monetary fund, thus allowing nations to donate some portion of their taxes to the UN which can be used through the UN to help nations that have experienced natural disasters or civil wars, etc.

	08-04-2003 23:06									#59
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and what about other such orgs or altenatives - the League of NAtions? NATO? the EU? Comintern? ASEAN? NAFTA?

i suppose i'm thinking of a whole game from 4000bc to 21st centurey, not just scenarios.

but what if nations want to withdraw, or form an alternative supernational group?

	09-04-2003 09:39									#60
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Hello, Cmonkey, and yellowdaddy,

I would be the person currently in charge of the Diplomatic Model, though I haven't commented much on it lately. Any ways...

These are some curious ideas. I kind of like the way you describe a UN system there, C, but daddy here also raises an important concern. If we have the UN as you describe, then how do we deal with the other, alternative alliances? While it is true that in the real world the United Nations is the strongest alliance, I feel that we need to give the player a choice. In other words, let them do whatever they want with the diplomacy system. Yet, at the same time, we don't want to dive too deep to fast, and go over the board with the ambitions. And also, IMO an overabundance of options might actually hurt the game.

Thus, in my opinion, we need to make a choice here: either have multinational treaties, or have a single organization for the nations (aka UN).

I, personally, favour the former.

Let me, however, go into slightly more depth about how I envision multi-national treaties working, so that you would maybe see that even without the UN per se, the player will still have a good deal of functionality you describe.

First of all, let me clarify the inner working of the treaty system a little bit. When two nations make a treaty, they put up certain clauses on the table, each of which has a certain weight. When the player hits the propose deal button, the weight of all clause on either side of the table are calculated. Essentially, if the the weight of the clauses the AI is giving up is less than or equal to the clauses the player is giving up, the deal will be made. Note, however, that each of the clauses does not have a constant weight. It depends largely on the political, and economic situation, as well as the history of the relationships between the nations involved. Let me illustrate this with an example.

Suppose we have three nations: the Romans, the Carthaginians, and, say, the Greeks. Now, the Romans are in war with both other nations. They have been successful on one front, but not the other: the Greeks are on their knees, while the war with the Carthaginians has pretty much grinded to a halt with neither side winning any cities. Now, suppose, the Romans are tired of war, and propose peace to both nations. Obviously, peace will have much more "weight" for the Greeks, who are almost destroyed, than to the Carthaginians, who not only successfully stopped the invasion, but maybe even sent a couple armies over to the other side. Thus, maybe, the Greeks will even be willing to give up some technology, and pay annual tribute just to drive off the Romans, while the Carthaginians, who feel they aren't loosing, might actually demand something for peace.

In other words, for peace, such factors as relative military strength of the two countries matters. A nation would be more willing to sign peace with a stronger country than with an equal or weaker one.

Then, there is also the consideration of reputation. Suppose, the Romans are known to be treacherous, and have broken peace a number of times without any apparent reason. Then, the Carthaginians, who aren't loosing might be weary of signing peace again, worried that it would be broken.

Yet that's not all, either. The personal attitude of one nation towards another will play a role in the weight of clauses. Suppose, the omans had attacked the Carthaginians on a regular basis, but only attacked the Greeks at the beginning of this last war. Then the former would be even less willing to sign the treaty simply due to the personal animosity. (There will be, by the way 13 levels of attitude so that should give you enough diversity, from having another nation worship you as a god, all the way to having them proclaim you a devil incarnate.)

But that is not to say that the same consideration will go into the weight of every clause. For money-transfer clauses, for instance, trustworthiness of the recipient might not have as much weight as, say, their economic strength, or competence (will they use the money well, or just squander it).

As you can see, I put a fair amout of thought into how the treaties will be evaluated, and came up with a fairly intricate system of relationships for now.

Now, why am I talking about all this? Well, hopefully, I have given you some taste of two-party treaties, so now we are ready to get to the multi-national treaties.

The same rules apply to them: that is, each nation would want to gain more than it is giving up. Yet, the same rules as I stated above for two-nation treaties, apply here. That is, the reputation of each member of the treaty, personal attitudes between the members, and their relative military, economic and scientific strengths count. (In different proportions, depending on what kind of treaty we are signing.) Thus, the stronger, historically more honest, nations might be able to initiate huge military alliances, while the weaklings might have to work on their economy or maybe give up some of that cash they've been saving for the lean times to join the big boys. Even though there is no (in the current model) UN per se, you would still have the same diplomatic freedom as you describe there.

Suppose, you propose some deal, and one of the nations doesn't like it (you would know which one), you can then contact that nation personally, and try to figure out why that is, exactly. Maybe they don't like you too much. Then, you can give them a gift or two and with the new-found friend go and pass that military alliance against the Ottomans you always wanted.

Also, I think it would be quite possible to be able to add new clauses to already existing multi-national treaties (though probably not the two-nation ones). That way, you can essentially call up that mutual-protection coalition of yours, and say: "Hey, let's trade techs, everybody!" Or: "Okay, nobody sell oil to the nasty Japanese." Or whatever. Thus, we give the player the flexibility (what if he doesn't want to have an alliance called UN. What if he wants to call it his own name?), and at the same time, provide the same degree of diplomatic freedom as your description proposes.

Now, some ideas that I did get from your posts, Cmonkey, and yellowdaddy:

1) We should be able to give names to multi-national treaties. It's a piece of cake to implement. (though not high up the priority list, so don't expect that in the first incarnation of the diplomatic model. )

2) I like the idea for the graphical interface for the UN you described there, and in fact, I am thinking it would work for any multinational treaty. Like you probably saw in the Diplomatic GUI thread, I had problems coming up with the design for one, as what I already have is only fit for single-nation treaties. Multi-national treaties being a whole new beast, it is probably a good idea to define a whole new window for it, eh? However, right now, I am trying to fix some of the buggy bugs and weed out some of the graphical interface problems I am having. So, don't expect any multinational treaties in the first release of the diplomatic model, either... But comments and ideas are always very welcome. Keep them coming folks, and know, that I am still following this thread, and reading all of the comments, even though sometimes I might not have the time to respond right away.