Diplomacy - Atrocities

Harel · January 31, 2000, 21:41

Hey all!

In effort to further enhance the effect of my new summary, and improve the condition of the diplomacy section ( which all will agree, probably one of the most vital section in the upcoming CIV III ), I launch several dedicated threads that will deal with every specific element of the diplomacy.
Since the summary is so large ( and sometime hard to understand and track after ), you will find it easier to follow all the different options you have and suggest them here.
The information here is an abstract of the summary, and shows in a different format.

Atrocities

The atrocities list shows all the possible "crimes" that can be commited. If you have another idea on what should be considered an atrocity, even a minor one, send it over! For better explantion on atrocities and how the AI deals with them, read the entire summary.

1. taking over a city ( if done without harming the people, then it's not a major atrocity )

2. Spy inside land

3. Espionage ( low level )

4. Framing

5. Breaking cease-fire

6. Polluting ( pollution appears on map )

7. Blocking city exit points

8. Destroying tile improvemnts

9. Create a fortress or city near borders ( pushing them )

10. Use of military units against citizens ( to reduce unrest )

11. An opressive despotic rule ( too many taxs )

12. Steal: money, resource, units, or any other thing.

13. Bribing city.

14. A significant military build-up.

15. Owning slaves

16. Raiding a city

17. Espionage ( high level, stealing tech )

18. Terroize ( destroying a building, financing terrorists, etc. )

19. Using forbidden weapons on military units

20. Bombarding city

21. Sieging city ( putting units inside city radii )

22. Destroying a civilian unit

23. Raiding a trade route

24. Breaking peace ( by declaring war )

25. Major pollution: oil leak, nuclear weapon test

26. Brain wash: like SMAC.

27. Occupying another nation city.

28. Attacking a helpless enemy: if one side of a war clearly out-pass his enemy by numbers, size and technology, it's really is a masscare. He should be stopped.

29. Sacking a city

30. Pillaging cities

31. Raise city

32. Poison city

33. Using forbidden weapons on civilain units.

34. Attacking a diplomat

35. Killing a leader

36. Destroying a trade route

37. Nuking a city

38. Exterminate a city

39 Use forbidden weapons on city

40 Declaring genocide

41 Plant a virus

Looking foward to hearing from you!

Theben · February 1, 2000, 03:05

Was it necessary to create so many different threads?

Atahualpa · February 1, 2000, 06:22

I wouldnt consider #11 as atrocity, do other nations really care how much tax someone puts on his/her people?

Ata

pkokko · February 1, 2000, 07:07

I think this has been mentioned in a previous thread, but here we go:

Should there really be a preset list of actions that _are_ atrocities? Like Atahualpa said: Do other nations really care?

However, your list is good. But what I would like, is that these were only _possibly_ atrocities. What is and what is not should be decided in the game play. Not all worlds need to end up the same. One implementation could be that each civilization chooses from the list a set of actions that it considers to be crimes. The atrocities set could also be modified later. Civilizations do evolve. The AIs could base their selections on their personalities and their form of government.

The atrocities set could then affect the diplomatic play:

Babylonians: "The French have launched an unprovoked attack against us! Help!"

Mongols: "Yes? Is there a problem? Should we actually care?"

Romans: "An outrage! We will send help immediately!"

And, of course, The Ruler is not the same as The People. If Lincoln of the American Democracy decides to check the "Slavery is an atrocity" option it might be that not everyone of his people agrees...

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petri.kokko@hut.fi

Harel · February 1, 2000, 08:54

Some responses:

Theben: Well, atleast now i get some response back from the people, so i guess it was a good move...

Atahualpa: I used taxs to describe how the civ world shows a ruler that cares not about it's people. One can say, that a nation that has a despotic rule, has an enourmous tax rate and no luxries, is equal, game-world, to our world where a ruler treats it's people harshly. CTP has labor pay to show that. And yes, other nations, mainly democracy, so care about another nation which people are suffering.

pkokko: it's exactrly in the suggestions! If you would notice, this thread is only an extract of the entire summary ( check out the thread summary, 2.21 ). Check out the summary in section 8.2, and 8.3, where the rules of an evoulation of the world rules of conduct is shown.

Theben · February 1, 2000, 11:55

As long as no one else thinks your plan is great and copies it; then we'll have to work out a compromise.

Atahualpa · February 1, 2000, 15:15

quote:

Atahualpa: I used taxs to describe how the civ world shows a ruler that cares not about it's people. One can say, that a nation that has a despotic rule, has an enourmous tax rate and no luxries, is equal, game-world, to our world where a ruler treats it's people harshly. CTP has labor pay to show that. And yes, other nations, mainly democracy, so care about another nation which people are suffering.

Democracy, sure. Show me that Democracy. 100,000 of Hutus and Tutsis dead, nobody cared. Lots of children suffering and starving in the third world - Democracies dump food into the sea, cause of overproduction. Democracy gives a **** about how people in other countries are treated. (well, not really a ****, but I think you are overvalueing dem. its not soo good; its intention and idea is good, but as always, humans have ****ed it up).

I like pkokko's idea. In OUR world we consider these points atrocities. Maybe if there was a tiny change in history we wouldnt see some points as atrocities, while points we call "normal" nowadays we would consider atrocities, if you get my point.

ATa

Harel · February 3, 2000, 14:04

To Atahualpa and NoviceCEO:

I am NOT disputing this. But like I said before, this is the list of all POSSIBLE atrocities. I also told pkokko that the rules of conduct and treatment to atrocities is evolving.
In OUR world maybe such behaviour is less important and accepted, but in another one all democracies might hate, complain and wage war on nations without any respect for human lives.

The list of atrocities is all the POSSIBLE crimes, and we all agree it's a crime... the fact that our goverements don't think so doesn't change that.
Why don't you, instead of bringing valid but not important to this forum thought, suggests new ideas for atrocities?

NoviceCEO · February 4, 2000, 01:38

quote:

Originally posted by Atahualpa on 02-01-2000 02:15 PM
Democracy, sure. Show me that Democracy. 100,000 of Hutus and Tutsis dead, nobody cared. Lots of children suffering and starving in the third world - Democracies dump food into the sea, cause of overproduction. Democracy gives a **** about how people in other countries are treated. (well, not really a ****, but I think you are overvalueing dem. its not soo good; its intention and idea is good, but as always, humans have ****ed it up).

ATa

Good thoughts Ata. Think for example, USA, they say our orange causes disease and people die of hunger here in Brazil, or France, they protect their rural production.

We live in a hipocrit (if that's the word) world.

February 4, 2000, 04:24

This one might go under #26-Brain wash ..not sure..

But forbidding a certain/or all religions could be one?

pkokko · February 4, 2000, 07:10

>I am NOT disputing this. But like I said before, this is the list of
>all POSSIBLE atrocities. I also told pkokko that the rules of
>conduct and treatment to atrocities is evolving.

Sorry about that. I read your earlier summary (which BTW was truly an impressive job!) and sure enough, there "my" suggestions already were. The penalty of entering a discussion late, I guess...

Possible atrocities is the way to go, but I think we are still missing a great variety of them: possible atrocities that we as real persons don't count as crimes but that might be in some other timeline. So, here we go:

- A government by the people, i.e. in Civ2 terms: Republic, Communism, and Democracy. (It is contrary to the Divine Order or just Insane Anarchy)

- A certain religion or ethnicity if those are implemented. (Too bad this has plagued OTL, too...)

- Making war without honor, e.g. without declaring it first, attacking cities, attacking non-military units, etc.

- Trading in illegal commodities, i.e. one or more commodities are considered harmful, taboo, holy, etc.

- Building a city on a certain terrain, e.g. "The Tree Spirits are angered!"

- Immoral society, i.e. too much luxuries.

February 4, 2000, 12:52

I presume what the game considers an atrocity will change over time, and what state you are already in with the other nations.

Harel · February 11, 2000, 19:39

And away we bump...

Hanuman · February 11, 2000, 20:32

quote:

Originally posted by Atahualpa on 02-01-2000 02:15 PM
Lots of children suffering and starving in the third world - Democracies dump food into the sea, cause of overproduction.

This might seem trivial or irrelevant, and I guess it is sort of off-topic, but may I beg pardon for pointing out that this is fallacious. The theory of overproduction is false. Say's Law, which says that "supply creates demand," is correct. Thus the market will always clear if you let it. In other words, the food that was (is) dumped could be sold at a lower price instead (since as supply increases, price falls). That it isn't sold is not necessarily characteristic of democracy--it's just the way things have turned out (so far). The government pays farmers to dump, and that's why they do it--not because they just can't stop producing. It is possible to have a democracy in which the government doesn't do this, but again, "overproduction" is not an inherent problem of democracy, just a false theory that unfortunately has long been acted on--with, as you point out, harmful effects on the world at large (though of course certain farmers benefit).

[This message has been edited by Hanuman (edited February 11, 2000).]

Harel · February 19, 2000, 05:54

Bump...

DarkCloud · November 25, 2000, 19:36

New Atrocity-

Using an enemies civilians as test patients to speed research.

and instead of killing a leader : Assassinating a leader (New Spy Option)

Also in different ages there should be different atrocities; Harel, now that you are back can you seperate them into ages Such as-

Ancient
-
Razing A Village
Pillaging a village

Modern
-
Killing a village's populace wantonly
Nuking a village
Razing a village

UltraSonix · November 27, 2000, 10:29

quote:

atrocity - an extremely wicked or cruel act, esp. one involving physical violence or injury.

A lot of the original "atrocities" didn't seem particularly "wicked" to me...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary... (And no, koalas don't usually speak!)

DarkCloud · November 27, 2000, 20:20

Occupying another nations city wouldn't really be an atrocity (not even against that nation) unless you killed the populace, etc.

Tiberius · November 28, 2000, 03:53

Harel I don't understand something (please excuse me if the answer is in the summary, I didn't read it):

Why are you calling all these actions atrocities? Some of them (espionage, blocking city exit points), I'd call only hostile action, but not atrocity/crime.

Some atrocites should also affect your reputation only among certain civs. Actions like bombarding city, destroying a civilian unit, poison city should affect your reputation only in peacefull, "democratic" civs, not in despotic ones, while others like nuking a city, exterminate a city, genocide, plant a virus should affect your reputation among all civs (sorry again if it's already in the summary).

Also, how can you make the difference between taking over a city with or without harming the people? I mean, can I decide to harm people or not? I usually just occupy the city

Tiberius · November 28, 2000, 04:06

I like DarkCloud's idea, to separate atrocities on ages, because certain actions that we call now "crime" weren't considered atrocities in ancient or middle ages (destroying tile improvements, create a fortress or city near borders, an opressive despotic rule,
a significant military build-up, owning slaves and so on).

But DarkCloud, nuking a village ??!!

N35t0r · November 28, 2000, 11:34

the slave-owning is relative...

Crustacian · November 28, 2000, 16:58

To my folk it it an atrocity to even have a spy or diplomat on my continent!!

Once in a game one player raized anothers capital city including the several wonders lost with it. It was a very huge battle going back and forth til finally it was gone. The defender exclaimed how atrocious it was only to hear the uncaring coldhearted reply "then you should not have defended it so heavily!

The whole known world was outraged by this act

Harel · November 28, 2000, 17:29

Tiberius, you will need to read the entire diplomacy summary for the explantion...

About "hostile actions": this relates to the idea of "the rules of war". This idea says that each game will develop a different codes of honor and conduct. In one game sieging a city might be a common practice, and in the other, a total atrocity. Therefor, I complied all the possible hostile actions.

And about treating the people: this relates to yet another idea where you decide to occupy/raise/enslave/pillage the city.