Seems like these two ideas are getting quite a lot of backing already. I hope they are seriously considered. This Diplomatic Capital thing really gives the game a new interesting aspect to it. Before this I wasn't interested in the diplomatic tree in the slightest, to be honest.

For MP we could use DC to affect the "Perceived Value" of items. Based on whatever Formula works best, the more DC you have, the better prices you can ask for Trade goods. Not quite sure how PV's are generated currently but tying them to DC seems a natural linkage.

If a Tech cost 100 Gildars base, having a DC value of 50 would then make the "Perceived Value" then be 125 Gildars.

I do not like the idea of "Forcing" anything on anyone, especially if it is me who would be "forced" to do something. "Forcing" is, at its core, simply, Sour game play.

 

 

Diplomatic Capital as a currency to be traded is great and a step in the right direction, but I agree with all the other posters saying that it needs 'concrete' i.e. practical value. The system described in the OP is more of a gimmick - it only has value because the AI is programmed to think it has value - it's a pretty bead you can trade to the native americans for new york just because they don't grasp the actual value of what they're trading (yeah I know that legend is untrue, it's just an example most people are familiar with, accurate or not). And there's nothing wrong with having a resource that can be used to manipulate AIs, but why not give it practical value so it can manipulate humans just as well?

This is not just for multiplayer (although the applications in MP are obvious), it'd be great for singleplayer because an AI with more DC than the human could use it to manipulate/bribe/influence the human just as humans will be using it to manipulate AIs - if only that DC had a concrete value to the human. This doesn't take any drastic change, once DC is made a tradeable resource like gildar and metal ore, all you have to do is let NPC champions accept DC instead of gildar to 'buy' them, or maybe assassin or explorer kits that add DC cost to a unit, or special abilities (i.e. make an inspiring speech to your people, cause unrest for enemies, etc) that cost DC to use. There are tons of such ideas in this thread and the old one, just add a few of them to give DC value to the human as well, and then it'll be more than just an AI-manipulation gimmick - it'll be something that AIs and humans can trade freely between each other and use to manipulate each other just like gildar and ore, because it has practical value to everyone.

As many have pointed out, diplomacy in TBSes is usually little more than a singleplayer gimmick for manipulating AIs, with little influence on the human and no use in MP - and I'd hardly be disappointed if Elemental followed that example, the diplomacy would be no worse than most other TBSes out there, and the game would still be better in other ways. But it doesn't have to be that way - wouldn't it be great if Elemental broke the mold here and gave diplomacy equal meaning to humans as well as AIs, just as the game is breaking new ground in so many other ways?

Exactly, being able to force a peace for a short while would be really good to at least give the game a fighting chance against the dominance of conquest victories in MP.

Hmm, that's another good idea.  How to make it work.

DC can be used in a DC screen to influence other civs.  You can spend influence on yourself, or use some of it against other civs.

 

Having lots of DC comparatively spent against you will mean

 

: penalties to all trades (you get less in the trade)  You get a trade inefficiency that doesn't go away, even on gifts.

: diplo hits from AI leaders

: heroes cost more DC/gold to join your cause, or may outright refuse

: prestige penalties, resulting in population growing more slowly.

: if events are put into the game, chance of some bad events (for an expansion, events like in GC2, but done in the style of EU3 or FFH2 , would be nice)

 

Allow this in addition to some hard uses for diplomacy (getting neutrals to join you peacefully, intelligent monsters on your side perhaps, heroes, forcing peace) and I think you got a winner for using diplomacy, and I think all this stuff would be AI useable on the human as well.

 

Can you write an AI that ignores diplomatic capital (either trading it away, or ignoring the relative values of things as weighted by the diplomatic capital), that does better as a result?

If so, it is broken.

 

I think that would depend onhow the AI becomes a tougher negotiator. If it does so simply by making the human overpay then I don't think it's "better". It's just "harder". Being hard for the sake of being hard isn't better than being a pushover, imo.  If it does it by being aware of its own situation and the situation of the potential trading partner and makes an intelligent decision based on that information, then yes, I'd say that's better AI.

Sometimes, it might be better just to be "easy" if it gets you something you direly need. Like the AI needs to raise an army so it needs metal to produce the knights it wants. Being a tough negotiator might seem good...until you walk away with none of the metal you need to raise that army.

 

I haven't read the whole thread, but I don't understand why some people are so chagrined that diplomatic capital will have no use in human only multiplayer game.

No such mechanism should be in place! Why the hell should the ratio of my diplomatic capital to their diplomatic capital affect anything when it comes to me making a deal with them? The only reason anything like diplomatic capital has a use even in single-player is because diplomacy is generally a very weak spot of AIs. You can't argue with an AI, or convince it. Often enough you can't even threaten the AI. Even with diplomatic capital, those core problems are still there; diplomatic capital is merely a mechanism that somewhat evens out the huge gulf between people and AI when it comes to inter-player interaction.

In human games, that's irrelevant. I can TALK to the people I'm dealing with. Being able to have an actual dialogue with another human being renders such a mechanism irrelevant. If something like me having less diplomatic capital than another player forces me to pay more in trades even though I know the human at the other end would pay much more for it, I'd be pretty annoyed. 

I agree with you on the trading part, but you really should read the whole thread, since there is a lot more ideas being circulated than just a trade tax. One such idea is forcing a peace treaty upon a player.

Since forming an alliance with all kingdoms is one of the victory conditions and no human player in their right mind would just hand over a victory voluntarily, it would be useful to be able to force a diplomatic victory if you have enough diplomatic capital and are a powerful enough military force.

I've done that quite often myself in games to make sure my most hated enemy didn't win even knowing I wasn't going too either. You can even use the minor factions in GalCiv 2 almost the same way.

 

I'm sorry, but this is so metagamey it's ridiculous. If I want to break a peace treaty then I don't want the game forcing me not to attack. I'm an evil overlord. If my units are parked by your capitol and I place the order to attack, any advisor that tells me no is going to get fed to the fungus monster in my castle larder. You know what's OOC? That I am a cruel, manipulative despot who has been kicking your tail for fifty-seven turns and I have a sudden ten turn period of nothing, because you recruited this guy to stop me:

 

It was stupid when Civ did it, it would be stupid if Elemental did it. Want things to stay IC, give "my character" motivation. Buy my friendship? Sure. Demonstrate your military superiority? Sure. Apologise for taking my "magic fairy unicorn grove" and give it back? Okay, and ten gildar for every unit I lost beating you in the meantime.

Force me to enter a stupid trade agreement with you? Not unless you've researched "Mind control near omnipotent magical godking". If you're getting "rushed", either buy them off, become their vassal, or fortify your cities better, don't kill the suspension of disbelief by bringing in absurd metagame concepts - like nobody ever broke a ceasefire before, and who the hell's going to enforce the ceasefire anyway? You run the nation, you are the boss.

 

The ultimate problem with the other key thing going around - using diplomacy revenue to "trick" your enemy is that it will invariably enrage them into attacking you, that's anti-diplomacy and again, it's fairly meta.

There's a perfectly good reason to make diplomatic capitol into a multiplier for any resource (you're very good traders and diplomats after all, and traders get better deals from suppliers and from customers both), and use DC to amplify any material you trade to someone else  - Such as 50 DC = 50g, or, 1 Adamantium, with a cap on DC investment of up to doubling your input - You can give someone 100g, 50 of which is DC, but you can't send someone 3 Adamantium, 100 of which is DC (instead it would be 50 DC and 2 adamantium). Obviously tech can vary this, but

There's the worry that this gives an advantage to your opponents, and this is exactly right (and how diplomacy generally works), but at the same time, they're giving more to you in exchange, and all you're giving up is otherwise useless DC (only good for evil assassins, spies and marketting gurus. Two canny traders might spend their turns exchanging materials with each other, both giving out barely anything but DC whilst both sides get rich, and neither side gets angry at the other for failing to deliver, bossing them around or somehow making them "lose".

 

Which brings me to meta-problem #3 - the "win condition" where you win by democracy.

So.... Evil Overlord Sauron is overrunning the lands, his orc army stretches as far as the eye can see. He's about to crush Eisengaard or wherever, sealing his dominion over middle earth and - oh dear, he lost. Two hobbits added their votes against him at the mount doom polling booth - he lost by 1 vote. If only one of his orcs had remembered to register!

He bows down and offers fealty to his new lord and master.... Bilbo Baggins. The hobbits rule Middle Earth.

The assumption that democracy works is only valid when every side is willing to abide by the result. Sauron doesn't give two beans what the hobbits have decided, he has absolute power over his own side and until someone kills him by dumping his ring in the nearest hot springs he isn't about to congratulate you on a good game and offer you a hot cuppa.

And that leads again to OOC versus IC. Even the most benevolent leader might simply hate the guy who got elected and fight against them, and nobody in multiplayer could bear to see anyone but themself, or their own teammate, in the position of El Presidenté, I certainly couldn't in single player, since my ego is apparently big enough to run an entire nation through benevolent dictatorship.

This position isn't a victory in any sense - nothing changes. You have one guy calling himself king over everybody, every other notion is simultaneously still doing whatever they were already doing - presumably something to do with the Anvil of Making, or whatever.

The only possible way even an "IC" enforced victory could happen would be if the ruler is removed to a position that they can no longer rule their nation. If the system follows MoM's Spell of Return type activity, this means either imprisoning them without their spellbooks on some tropical resort/dungeon (depending on your alignment), murdering them hard enough for it to stick (conquering all their towns or make them revolt, then kill the ruler), replace the ruler with a puppet ruler of your own, or gain absolute mastery over the land with a Macguffin which actively allows you to instantly remove any capacity for your opponents to oppose you anymore (such as omnipotence enough to lock them out of achieving a similar level of omnipotence). The only other possibility is if your opponent chooses to surrender - and this isn't something you can force them to do, only something you can "encourage".

If you decide to ignore the peace, you're basically signaling your intent to conquer everyone/shatter the balance of power.  That should have real, severe consequences.  Another factor is when you get bigger, you'll get more DC just from being bigger.  You can't turtle and win on DC- you just won't be big enough.

 

It should be allowed to break a forced peace, but at a massive relations hit with everybody, the AIs would also be much more likely to use the influence to hamper your reputation as well.  I see it as like badboy in the EU series.  The AI should do it at times also on intelligent if they view the player as really tasty, or think that the turn wait is enough to allow them to be resisted.

 

Other replies to your concerns.

 

A diplo victory is only doable by the player.  No player would let an AI win a diplo victory.  I do think that option should be removed outright.  Diplomacy is an instrument that can be used to get everyone to dogpile the evil Overlord, including neutral heroes.

 

The thing is, under the system I'm suggesting, there are no "tricks"  you don't know who is hurting your reputation (you can make a good guess, esp if someone has a bunch of DC, which right there is a limiter to the strat)  Your bad reputation is hurting you by making you have to give out more in trade, because people are stealing from you, swindling you, resisting taxes, etc.

 

I think what you're suggesting would eliminate the purpose of diplomacy, and then why have it?

A lot of potential in the diplomacy domain and lots of good ideas here.

I’ll make some comments/suggestions/old games analogies, hoping it can be useful to someone though not very coherent. (Thanks to people for their quotes!).

Sorry if it’s very long but as a non-native English writer I like to illustrate my text with quotes to relate with what others think.

 

But first a general comment:

My enemy?

I took your quote but there have been a few others like that these days saying “why would a nation accept to be destroyed in Diplomatic Victory?” or things like “by allying with him, you’ll just hand him a diplomatic victory”. IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN (and the more I read other posters the more I wonder if I’m not mistaken), it has little sense. Since Diplomatic Victory here doesn’t mean “Elect me as supreme ruler” but “all allied kingdoms win”, I believe that THE ALLIANCE WINS, not one player but all those who allied together. The idea of an AI winning a diplo victory alone seems (?) impossibleThus, if Diplomatic Victory is enabled, an alliance with another faction (AI or player) can be fully trustful. Of course, people wanting competitive games would not enable this victory condition and so wouldn’t be subject to this problem: they’ll know that the alliance will eventually come to an end and that the time of reckoning will happen for there can be only one!

 

And now to the diplomatic system. In fact, I see two distinct domains: the Diplomacy Technology Tree and the techs and abilities it will provide, and the concept of Diplomatic Capital, how it works and what it enables.

DIPLOMACY TECH TREE:

There were a lot of good ideas to make this tech tree as competitive as the other ones.

Though I never played Europa Universalis 3 (only 1 and 2, and I’ll talk about it later), I see what you mean and find it fine. That could be fairly high in the tech tree and you could have to make a choice between a few options excluding one another. Some other ideas for these:

-      Gunboat diplomacy: you can use some blackmail without hurting diplomatic capital, getting some same advantage as an evil ruler but keeping getting seen as a rightful one (Our cause is just…Means to an end…)

-      Manifest destiny: you won’t have population backlash when attacking factions of same allegiance (sort of getting Casus Belli against everybody).

-      Protector of Life (or Death): you can enter war without penalty against any faction attacking a faction of your allegiance even if you’re not allied with. Think about: "If an attempt were made to change the situation by force in such a way as to threaten Polish independence, that would inevitably start a general conflagration in which this country would be involved."

A lot of posters have come with putting espionage units in the Diplo tech tree. That would be a good way to “give it teeth”: those actions remember me of those of the probe teams in Alpha centauri and it was a good alternative to be at the same time a builder (a turtle) making lots of cash, having just a minimal defensive military but able to wreak havoc on an enemy with just a few of those teams.  So, yeah, make the tech tree enable them by giving a building Like, say, the Spying School, and different tech along the tree would give more powerful actions. Most simple would be “Steal maps” and you could have a map of your opponent at the time. Then something like “Infiltrate diplomatic circles” would let you know in real time all agreements between this opponent and someone else. Then all the other nasty stuffs…

(   Note to Frogboy: We need some diplomatic graphic like the one in Galactic Civilizations where there were the 5 blasons and lines of colors binding them to indicate war or trade treaty or alliance. Of course, it’s impossible for 32-player MP so you could put the limit at 8 factions. It’s a very useful tool.)

I wouldn’t spend Diplomatic Capital to make actions, rather Gildars, but we could nevertheless tie Diplomatic Capital to it by making it assume the role of the “Probe level” in Alpha Centauri: the highest the Diplo-Capital, the more chances you have the spy succeeds (because he finds people willing to help his cause) and the less money it takes (people would be more motivated by ideology). That would be another reason to keep Diplo-Capital high.

 

Other thing out of the tech tree can be this “knowledge of others” thing. Like here on Earth, the good diplomat is the one knowing the culture of his interlocutor, how he thinks, what he likes and dislikes. Some powers are/were very successful in diplomacy and even colonization/vassalization because they were respectful and curious of the other’s ways. Some other powers are/were just…blunt! That could be mirrored by getting some ‘Cultural Institut’ out of the tech tree that would help in diplomacy (like the diplo techs in GalCiv).

Another concept that could be imported from Europa Universalis 2 (from now referred to as EU2) is the use of diplomats. According to your religion and some historical conditions, you could get more or less diplomats/year and every attempt at diplomacy consumed one. If you had none and were at war, you couldn’t make a peace offer: only wait for your next diplomat or wait till the enemy makes his own offer.  Thus you had to be able to gauge what you wanted with what you could get:

-      I’m in war. Do I demand 1 province for sure as tribute or do I try to demand 2 and risk 4 more months of war while my population has already begun to rebel somewhere?

-      Am I in enough good terms with this kingdom to propose them a royal marriage?

-      Do I use my diplomats now for some treaties or do I keep them for launching that war I’m preparing for?

In a medieval world without phone and emails, it has some sense. So there could be another diplo-tech enabling the building of a Diplomat Academy, allowing you to get more of them. But you wouldn’t be able to spam the enemy with peace offers anymore.

In EU2, the diplomats were abstracted. But to give you the sense that each diplomatic talk was like sending some emissary in mission, you had to wait one month after you sent an offer to a nation before you could try again. So, between that and the finite number, you wouldn’t be able to spam the enemy with peace offers anymore, especially if you’re at the brink and each turn counts.

 

DIPLOMATIC CAPITAL

That will be more complex…

First thing, I don’t like the idea that it’s just another resource and could be converted to gildars. For me, it can be much much more than.

1)      Why get DC?
I see Diplomatic capital (DC) as being treated in the same manner as Essence (while being a totally different thing). We are told that either essence can be spent to gain immediate advantage or it can be accumulated by the sovereign to make it more powerful: I see DC as following the same path. It could be spent to “force peace” or other such actions  but one should be able to play a very different game by accumulating it. What do I mean? I’m referring to the exact rationale Frogboy  told us years ago for Galactic Civilizations (Off-topic: I played it out the box, it gave me days and days of fun and I didn’t get leprosy!) and that was the difference between Evil and Good in the game. We had a lot of random events to determine our standing and most of the time the choice was between choosing Evil and getting a clear advantage (a better planet, ships improvements, some tech, money) or choosing Good and don’t getting anything particular (even sometimes losing quality). People then asked why would someone choose the Good options systematically since it would put them at a disadvantage. What would it bring? The Great Frog explained: you could be the powerful evil Yor Empire but you would be practically alone during the game; even if you were allied to the Drengin, you couldn’t trust them and they wouldn’t trust you since, hey, you’re evil! You could be betrayed, or not, but there weren’t trust or gifts or whatever. On the other hand, being Good means that your Good allies will always stay by your side, will help you, you can count on them and the sum of all parts is worth it. (some analogy with WWII: one could say that Allied countries coordinated their actions closely while Axis ones were doing what they wanted on their own and more often than not put their foot in the mouth of the others). Accumulating DC would help you immensely with trade, treaties, alliances, agreements with minors. One could turtle AND use diplomacy to become powerful. Of course, there will always be some war to wage against someone; I can’t see DC alone forcing a diplomatic victory against factions of different allegiance.

 

2)      How to get DC?
I don’t like the idea of getting DC from rare resources on the map. It’s neither gold nor metal nor wood, it’s something intangible: reputation, respect…

Respect, you can’t find or buy it, you must earn it. I propose the following:
- you can get some DC by some random events (ala GalCiv) or quest options
- any action adding stability gives you DC: royal marriage, treaties, alliances
- any action decreasing stability takes you DC: breaking a treaty, going to war without justification (Casus Belli in EU2), blackmailing (you can get what you want but lose DC) Ha ha! It’s not in today’s world and it never was. Of course Saddam Hussein or Kim Il Sung could launch a war without fearing rebellion but what about their international image? THAT is also DC. A war without Casus belli or justification (allegiance, ethnicity, emergency of Master Quest finish…) makes you a maverick in the eyes of others; they think “When he’s finished with annexing Capitar, will it be my turn? Better arm myself and refuse to help him by agreeing to trade, better ally with the other guy who’s trustful, he’ll help us”
- you get +1DC by turn when you’re at peace, 0 when you’re in one (or more) war you didn’t start (you have the Right with you) and -1DC when you’re in one (or more) war that you started (aggression).Exactly! And the DC scale wouldn’t start at zero but could of course go well into the negative if you’re really bad: Yes ! If you’re going negative, then the less DC you have (or the more negative to say it differently) the more frightful you become. Of course you can't ask that trades and agreements last long but at least you can get them…if you have an army to threaten the guy you’re talking to.

 

3)      How is DC useful?
Out of the occasions to use it forcefully or to see it spent while launching a war, how would DC be useful to someone who would keep it jealously? For that, I’d like the notion of DC to encompass a few other concepts:

a) Prestige. It makes sense that for every, say, 100DC you can get a positive modifier (negative if negative DC) to your cities’ Prestige. (if your nation is at peace and has treaties, people are more willing to come and settle than if you’re at war and me and my children can be drafted to go to every war or be murdered by a foreign army).

Now, that mechanism should be adjusted for Empires since most are not human and could not share human values and I can't see the population of Trogs going to Capitar…

Charisma. Again, if you’re a rightful ruler and don’t betray your neighbors, you could get a modifier to your Sovereign’s charisma. Champions and leaders are more willing to work for you than for the evil-doers from James Bond movies who would throw them to sharks when their job is done!

c) Stability (taken from EU2).

In a nutshell, it’s also what says the EU2 manual. A better stability (from -3 to +3):
- gives you more taxes from your provinces
- reduces the risk of rebellion, particularly during the war exhaustion when a war drags on and on
- has less chances to make others attack you thinking you’re feeble.
And stability works the same way as I described DC above: you attack a country of the same religion (allegiance here, one could say)? -1 stability. Attack without Casus Belli? -2 stability. Attack someone you have a royal marriage or very good relations? -1 stability.  That helps preventing the über-cheese of allying with someone just to be able to better stab him in the back. You betray a friend, you pay a heavy price! If you dishonor an alliance by refusing to go to war? -1 stability.

 
d) Bad Boy rating (also from EU2).  It’s somehow related to the same foreign policy events of stability but more focused on how threatening you are for the others. So we have again war without Casus belli and annexing provinces or (even worse) entire nations without having claims on their lands. When the BB rating reaches some limit, other nations and alliances start to attack you in chain to bring you down, perhaps not by brute force but by exhausting your country, forcing rebellions and forcing you to peace at bad conditions.

That would be my vision for Diplomatic capital: it helps Prestige, it helps Charisma, it encompasses Stability and Bad Boy rating and thus you’d like it to be high if you want to play turtle or puppet master. And you just don’t care if you want to play Sauron and destroy your enemies one by one with “an army worthy of Mordor!”

 

A little long but I hope some ideas can be useful to someone.