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Old August 2, 2000, 03:20   #1
Evil Capitalist
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Levels of diplomacy
I don't know if anyone has suggested this before, sorry if they have.

There is more than one level of war- from the little colonial wars to world wars. Similarly there are diffrent levels of peace.

Wars

Territorial conflict- Wars over little areas of territory, such as the Falklands. No trade penalties (trade goes via a different route). So long as the war doesn't spread the computer will only fight in the area attacked. Caused by an attack on a city of less than size 5 or an isolated fort. No unhappiness effects in republics or democracies.

Border war- war for aquisition of a certain bit of territory, like the war of 1812. Enemy will attack anywhere and all trade via land is stopped. Caused by an attack on a city equal or above size 5, 2 or more below 5, or a fortress near a city or a major war on an ally. Normal unhappiness effects.

Major war- war fought to damage a nation as well as take territory or to take large areas of territory, such as the Franco-Prussian war. Caused by an attack on a city of size 10 or above, or 3 or more cities of below that. It allows small air raids- no effects on industry or population, just reduces happiness. No trade.

Total war- war aimed at the total destrution of the enemy, as WW2. Obviously no trade, caused by an attack on a size 20 or higher city, or half your cities (if greater than 5). Allows nuclear attacks, and obliteration bombing- hits industry and population, but strengthens moral (blitz spirit). No unhappiness effect for troops away (propaganda).

Peacekeeping- intervention by 'good' nations. Only available to the owner of the UN and their allies. Half unhappiness effects, and must be coupled with sanctions. If units are lost there is an empire wide unhappiness effect.

You or the computer can raise war levels, to make the war more intense. You can only raise war to one level above that the rules would allow (so the Falklands can't turn into Britain nuking Argentina). Although you can escalate the conflict, you may not decrease the level. This system allows the computer to prioritise the wars it is fighting, and sort out its prodution accordingly. At the start of the game only border wars are possible, the rest being developed by technology.

Peace

Cold war- Trade almost stopped, nations will not cooperate, may try serious espionage.

Detente- Trade reduced, nations will cooperate, and serious espionage is limited. Exploration after 20 turns.

Ceasefire- As no contact. Exploration after 10 turns.

Recognition- Borders recognised, opens up other treaties. Exploration shared after 5 turns.

Cooperation- Trade bonus, can participate in joint research. Exploration shared after 2 turn lag.

Alliance- Can't attack one another, can travel through opponant's cities, help repair units. Ally respects borders when you arn't at war. If ally is declared war apon you must declare war on attacker. If ally is attacker, there is no obligation. Trade bonus. All exploration shared.

Coalition- As alliance, fellow members can station troops in your territory. If one is at war at border level or above, all are at war. All negotiations are carried out together. Research is carried out together and shared. Trade bonus. No diplomatic actions against one another. You can see inside all cities in the coalition.

You need to research to get Cold War, detente, or coalition.

Any comments below.
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Old August 2, 2000, 04:42   #2
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It is true that their are many levels of war but is this not covered by attitude toward another country, for example if you hate each other or not, it is true this needs to be added to, as does the whole diplomacy part pof the game, but catering for so many levels of war is not a good idea.

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Old August 2, 2000, 05:04   #3
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Evil Capitalist, your idea sounds interesting .

First trouble come to my mind is AI will be poor to detect when to start a war escalation.

If you attack just one city at time, you can gain a huge advantage before AI switch on the upper level of the conflict, if the AI is peaceful, or simply it will go crazy after you touch any of its fortress.

The second trouble is that your model IMHO works better on a different timescale. Actually CIV wars are long affair, if you consider how many years pass every early turns. Passing thru 12 steps from peace to total war and back will become tiresome and really take hundreds of years.

I haven't understood your escalating limit
quote:


You can only raise war to one level above that the rules would allow (so the Falklands can't turn into Britain nuking Argentina). Although you can escalate the conflict, you may not decrease the level.



If you meet your "level conditions" you must escalate to that level, IMHO.

Decreasing level should mainly be a diplomatic affair, still we can assume that if a Civ conquer back its own cities that can clean up some mess, so going back to "pre-conflict" borders should reduce the war level too, if the attacked Civ doesn't grow a "Vengeance mood" after some bloody battles.

I see that your model favour early war (small cities, falls off your level condition) or against ICS players, but that's not necessary bad for me as hybrid player

That said, your idea has good points, so I would like to see it more developed.

May be we can merge Territorial conflict and Border war, as they are quite similar (on Civ model), the same I suggest for Detente and Ceasefire.

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Old August 2, 2000, 06:25   #4
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Sorry, I didn't make myself that clear. The escalation would be compulsory if you met the conditions. The computer could make these attacks to escalate the level, raising the tension. The point about detente and ceasefire is good, I just thought it might be more accurate to stick it in.

The reason for territorial war is to show colonial conflicts over small areas of land or border disputes (Kashmir for example) where there is no serious offensive.

The reason for the different war levels would be to allow the computer (and novice player) to realise their priorities. Also it could prevent the player from spraying nuclear weapons everywhere and getting peace.
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Old September 17, 2000, 15:19   #5
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I think that there should be greater shades of diplomacy, but not in degrees of war really. I think that it should be like how the U.S. entered WWI. Civilizations at peace should be allowed to attack neutral shipping going to an enemy civ (i.e. blockades and such). This will upset the neutral civ and may lead to a formal declaration of war.

There have been many situations like this such as the Quasi-War between France and the U.S. in 1800. No formal declaration, just capturing ships. And there should be other ways to tick off other civs beyond trade interference. Maybe every warship could have "impressment" capabilities during Peace Time in which it can force another ship to be brought to your sides. You take a lot of risks with this since it could cause war.

Also, there have been times in history where a country has attacked another, but it has not led to a declaration of war. Usually minor incidents. Normally, it could, but sometimes it doesn't. So there should be a level of neutrality where units are fair game, and only the opposing civ's attitude will determine whether they declare war. Maybe (presuming there are borders) it would be possible to go passed the borders without automatic declaration of war. Then the civs have a chance to either make war or retreat.

Finally, there is something to be said for different degrees of war. The AI, as we all know, is particularly dumb. It inadequately protects cities or regions that are the main focus of attack. With scaling of wars to different regions, it would make the AI somewhat less suseptable to our attacks because they would automatically begin building up that region.
 
Old September 17, 2000, 16:40   #6
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Sorry Hannibal3, I disagree about your view of
quote:


I think that it should be like how the U.S. entered WWI. Civilizations at peace should be allowed to attack neutral shipping going to an enemy civ (i.e. blockades and such). This will upset the neutral civ and may lead to a formal declaration of war.



I suggest you to add some depth to the real war reason: minor incident are simply focus to gain people support to the war. Real reasons where about economic interest, balance of power, colonies, etc.

That's not to criticize you (who am I to do this? ), but to suggest to use another set of variables to "compute" AI war declaration approach.

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Old September 17, 2000, 21:05   #7
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Gee. These bumps are really effective at breathing life into (presumed) dead subjects.

[Home of comments when I read the two new ideas posted above]

-d.c.
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Old September 17, 2000, 21:57   #8
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Well, Adm.Naismith, I think we may be on the same page here. What I was saying about the shipping, is that a country will become more aggressive if they are losing money by not being allowed to freely trade. The United States up until WWII had been very strong on this point, and it shows in the matters leading to WWI and in its Open Door policy regarding China.

My point is that I think there should be a level of diplomacy ( a neutrality like in Age of Empires) where attacking another civ's military units and merchants will not automatically put the two at a state of war. A happy civ could over look aggressive events, whereas a weary one will not. Its like with spies only it would include overt attacks as well.

I think that instead, repeated events or a quest for dominance should prompt a civilization to declare war. Any civ aching for conquest could use a minor incident create a massive war.

And I think that the farther away from the capital, the less severe the crime of attacking another civ should be. For example, the French and British were fighting in North America WAY before the Seven Years' War. The reason they never declared war was because it was a bunch of fur traders duking it out in the backwoods. Or what about Spain and England in the 1500s? They raided each others colonial ports, but there was no official war. Why? Because it was "Pirates" that were responsible for it.

So you see this is what I want. A war that is not a war. And then it can be upgraded to an official war that involves a small scale issue. This kind of war will be fought in the proximity of the final incident in the pre-war. The closer to the capital, the greater the scope of the war. The closer to the main territory, the more intensely the AI fights. And if an enemy attacks an ally at their core, than its all out war against the enemy.

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Old September 18, 2000, 00:57   #9
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Bump.
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Old September 18, 2000, 03:32   #10
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I agree with:
quote:

...there should be greater shades of diplomacy, but not in degrees of war really...


There shouldn't be new states of WAR, but rather new states of diplomacy, so here is a perfect opportunity to promote my counter-diplomatic model:

quote:


An example of diplomatic states could be (* denotes uncommon):

No Contact

Hostile States:
No Diplomatic Relations
War
*Truce (ie don't fight for 2 turns)
Temporary Cease-Fire (don't fight for 16 turns like in civ2)
*Permanent Cease-Fire (eg Koreas)

Peaceful States:
Peace (eg US and Malaysia)
*Permanent Peace (as in US and say, Australia)
Alliance
*Full Alliance (must help each other, auto share techs, can use each other's cities, aiports, aircraft carriers, cannot be broken without huge loss of reputation). eg NATO, or the Commonwealth idea I mention in my colonies thread.



I think the most important and versatile one would be "no diplomatic relations", 'cause it'll allow the various "unofficial wars" examples given above.

Feel free to debate/add extra states.

(From http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001564.html and http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001517.html.)
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Old September 18, 2000, 08:52   #11
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Hannibal3, I understand better your proposal, now; and I'm happy to see I simply misundertood your previous post.

I suppose that we already have some sort of "civ mood" at work with Civ2 and SMAC, but it should be enhanced a lot.

I'm not sure that distance is so relevant: look how angry UK reacted to Argentina attack to Malvinas/Falkland islands, as far as they are from London. Strategical point to control Antartica and Credibility as a main power played some parts.
Probably also "Civizen" attitude must be considered a lot more than simple Leader attitude, but that's another thread.

Ultrasonix, call it more state of war or more state of diplomacy, in some way it still resemble me like that Shakespear "a rose with another name..."

I can agree with yours many diplomatic level (but I suppose we should add a "cold war" level, where Diplomatic relations are bitter, still they exist), but we should define better how diplomacy can escalate from a level to another (and fall back, too).

Of course it should be some model that really helps AI, because it needs any available hints to make the whole thing working.

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Old September 18, 2000, 19:10   #12
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Ok, maybe proximity is not really a key point in the scale of the war. It was only a suggestion to give the AI something simple to work on. I know there's more to it, but I don't think the computer is smart enough to do all of that. But in defense of the proximity idea, in the case of the Falklands, Britain couldn't have cared less about the Falklands if they hadn't been in trouble at that time. It was a diversion from domestic problems. Again, like I said, a civilization looking for war, can use those small incidents to cause war regardless of where in the world they are.

But to appease those that disagree, a threat to a region with heavy rare resources should trigger a much more violent response. Also a more developed area regardless of where in the world it is. So, I think that proximity, resources, and level of development should determine the level of attention the AI gives it.

Also, I think we are confusing diplomatic stance with attitude. I mean, Peace Treaty, Cease fire, and War really are the only states two countries can have with one another. Alliance has varying degrees whether it is for war, economic, etc. I just think that attacking other civ's units, cities, trade routes, etc. shouldn't mean an automatic state of war.

And we should get a kind of "The ____ have attacked our Battleship, shall we declare war?" It works like the espionage incidents. Sometimes they are overlooked and sometimes not.

I've also been thinking about the territorial wars... These should not spread. The reason is that almost ALWAYS wars go DOWN not UP. In other words, Britain and France declare war on each other for whatever reason, then it goes to the colonies not the other way around... Only in the Seven Years' War, did a colonial conflict moved across the Atlantic.

I don't think its feasable or suggestable to have specific rules for each degree of war. War is war. If nothing else, it should only restrict where the AI puts its attention, or how much attention they even give. For example, if WWI had been averted, the eventual conflict would have appeared in the African colonies. France and Germany COULD have attacked each other's homelands, but probably WOULD NOT have to any real degree. So it should not be so official as to what we can and can not do.


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Old September 19, 2000, 10:37   #13
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Good points, Hannibal3.
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Old October 24, 2000, 22:32   #14
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Bump.

There's been a lot of new threads started lately, but I feel that the most important aspect of improvement in Civ3 is probably diplomacy (along with AI). If they can improve just these two things, that'll probably be enough.



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Old October 25, 2000, 17:50   #15
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I thought I would just bring up a new matter of diplomacy. And I would tie it in with my rather long-winded posts at Revolutions.

I think that civilizations should be able to recognize new player governments, or recognize rebellious governments against the other player. Whenever a country switches governments it has to be legitimized by a another civilization through the signing of a peace treaty. The civilization can refuse, and can attack as long as it recognizes the rebels as the legimate government.

The other option is to recognize rebels seeking independnece as a civilization. You can break the back of an enemy and get a new ally at the same time. It does make relations with the other civilization much more hostile, and I think this should be another important affecter of relations.

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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

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Dom Pedro II - 2nd and last Emperor of the Empire of Brazil (1831 - 1889).
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