Suggestion: dice-roll diplomacy and tech trading

[zukodark]

Perhaps it would feel a lot less mechanical if the diplomats actually were people with different traits and such, so different diplomats gets bonuses to the acceptance of certain diplomatic actions? Like one could be better at improving relations, while another is valuable as he can easier form alliances? (Not a higher chance, but a bonus to the positives)

 

[Krajzen]

Dice roll diplomacy and espionage was the worst cancer of eu3...
Reduces the entire system to either frustrating randomness or save scumming.

 

[ahhheygao]

As for back and forth negotiations, what always ends up happening in Endless/Civs/TW's "attitude & terms" negotiations is that happy merchant players (such as myself) would try to extract the maximum amount of gold/benefits in each deal and basically sit there adjusting monies amount incrementally until finally the AI caves; I would much rather prefer the AI just state exactly what they want and willing to give up in the first place and save myself the time.

 

[AKicebear]

Lots of great replies here guys. Perhaps its more productive to open this thread up a bit, and instead of discussing only probability in diplomacy, simply discuss diplomacy issues/suggestions. I'll attempt to summarize some of the key points so far:

• Probability - nearly universal aversion to unknown outcomes from diplomatic proposals. I find this attitude perplexing, given so much of the game is about responding to factors out of the players' control, but so be it
• Frustration - mechanism to reduce high frequency diplomacy, although this doesn't work in a deterministic system where all outcomes are known before, since you would never propose a deal that will fail. Given that, I think the time investment suggestion below accomplishes something similar in a deterministic system
• Variation in valuation - AIs with differing priorities should value tech differently [assuming tech trading is possible at all], or certain territory, etc. Perhaps is this is already the case (and players don't realize it) it could be communicated via a special adviser that suggests known arbitrage trades...
• Information awareness
  • Counter party inventory - in trades I can only see what I can offer plus what I know the counter party can offer, e.g. tech/territory I've seen in a battle or spied on already
  • Counter party attitudes - while diplomatic outcomes may remain deterministic, the exact amount of detail you have on their attitude should depend on spying/earlier diplomacy/relations, rather than be provided for free across the entire universe of counter parties. As you gather more intel you gain more details about why they will reject or accept a deal.
  • Etc...
• Time investment to complete a deal
  • Alliances - instead of day-1 offer, day-2 accept/implement, there would be a time required for your diplomat to hammer out details, similar to coring a province in EU4. Time required could scale inversely with the strength of your relationship (how much you exceed the "yes" threshold). Additionally, and not necessarily, once a alliance is agreed upon there may be a grace period (e.g. 1 year) of implementation where the alliance might be shakier - this would be to prevent the 'day-3 delcare war on entire region' phenomenon common in most games.
  • Technology - after finalizing a tech deal (which could also require diplomatic time), there is a amount of time required to actually implement the tech into your economy - this could be based on the strength of your scientists. It would be less than the time to research it yourself, but also wouldn't be a 'day-2 ready to build' situation as is typical in most 4Xs. Main point is to make trading a bit more challenging and reduce the "collect them all in 1 turn" trend of most 4X tech trading.
  • Etc...
• Events influencing relationships - as a replacement for probability in a diplomatic request

I think these are all nice ideas, but particularly like the time investment and information awareness ones.

Other suggestions?

 

[MWSampson]

At first I thought this idea was awful.

But it's not as bad as I thought if instead of outright failing it worked like sieges in EU4. Your diplomat initially has no chance of success (or low chance) depending on the difficulty of the request.
But if you have an alliance (artillery) then you have higher chance.
A good diplomat improves the chance.

Every month you have a die roll which is modified to give:
"Diplomatic outrage" -2 to future rolls (occurs with a 1)
"Minor faux pas" -1 to future rolls (occurs with 2-3)
"No change" 0 (4-9)
"Found common ground" +1 to future rolls (10-12)
"Met half way" +2 to future rolls (13-15)
"Diplomatic breakthrough" +3 to future rolls (16)

This is a system we already use for sieges, a system that produces some frustration, but because it's automated is relatively minor.
If you give the whole thing no chance of absolute failure in the talks - but it can take another few months - then it produces a limit on the resource of diplomacy, but without the frustration of waiting until you can interact again. (I'd prefer this to arbitrary travel times limiting the use of resources)

For different actions the difficulty might be low or high. An alliance might have a year of negotiating. A ceasefire might require a week (with the peace treaty another month or two). Not all randomness is bad, but I'd rather the randomness didn't feel arbitrary - and at the very least, when it does, allows me to not feel the process is unnecessarily labour intensive.

 

[aitaituo]

This is a system we already use for sieges, a system that produces some frustration, but because it's automated is relatively minor.
If you give the whole thing no chance of absolute failure in the talks - but it can take another few months - then it produces a limit on the resource of diplomacy, but without the frustration of waiting until you can interact again. (I'd prefer this to arbitrary travel times limiting the use of resources)

The thing is that requires the EU diplomats as a limited resource constraint for it to be anything more than a randomized length of time before any diplomatic action is complete.

 

[MWSampson]

Yes. Absolutely. It's one of my favourite features of EU4, the resource of diplomats being non-infinite and having to choose between their uses.
With the named scientific character system it wouldn't seem too out of place to have named diplomats with skill sets. Heck, I would also think it amusing to have to send captains a la Star Trek.

EDIT: I've not seen diplomats discussed in any Dev Diaries so I might have missed something about this.

 

[AKicebear]

@MWSampson I like that idea a lot - curious how other aficionados feel about it.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

The diplomacy-as-siege idea is pretty intriguing. Two possible issues: First, there are probably some circumstances where you have no chance of succeeding given current conditions. They just hate you, you don't have enough of a diplomatic bonus to ever get to yes, even with maximum die rolls, unless underlying conditions change.

Second, how does this work when the *player* is the one being besieged? Are you forced to make an agreement you don't like? Or can you turn down a successful agreement (or approve one that hasn't reached success) at some sort of cost?

 

[inspiratieloos]

What if instead you make the used time dependent on how generous your offer is? You can offer a one-credit-less-and-they'd-refuse deal and it'll be accepted, but it's going to take your diplomat years to actually get it through, while if you just offer a deal that's clearly beneficial to the other it's going to be done in weeks/days.

If Paradox make the AI any good at placing the value of things in context depending on the situation they could make it evaluate both it's own benefit and what it thinks your benefit will be.
If it's a very beneficial deal for both sides they'll jump on it and your diplomat is off to their next negotiation the following day, if it's only marginally beneficial to them they might take a lot of convincing, especially if they think you could offer them a lot more while still coming out ahead yourself.

When making the deal you'd see a value for the AI's benefit and what they perceive your benefit to be, probably with some modifier for how much they like you, as long as their own benefit is greater than 0 the deal is acceptable and how long it takes depends on the ratio of their benefit/your benefit.

 

[AKicebear]

Second, how does this work when the *player* is the one being besieged? Are you forced to make an agreement you don't like? Or can you turn down a successful agreement (or approve one that hasn't reached success) at some sort of cost?

These are very interesting ideas - it certainly would help level the playing field between the human and AI (the latter which is never quite up to snuff in abusing its own systems). It would also shift a players agency/choice from turning down/accepting deals to actually sabotaging/developing the relationship in the first place in order to impact those 'besieged' chances.

 

[MWSampson]

So while siege is the idea that's brought to mind, I did think about your questions while writing.

I don't think anything should be diplomatically impossible. If you make the opportunity cost sufficiently high then it means people won't go for an option. E.g. "Request Cardassians join The Federation" - the process for this wouldn't be just a 5 year stint, however. This would mean 15-20 years of long negotiations, perhaps. 15-20 years which could be better spent doing something else, like improving your relations first.
I agree with inspi (I think I met you through MS? [I'm Max]) about the idea of benefit being a determiner in length of negotiation.

At first I thought this would be a good way to specifically limit player to AI interactions, but I'm not a fan of features that don't work the same for everyone. In particular, though, I think the player being forced into decisions they might not make themselves would be fascinating. After all, you're the spirit of the country and there are plenty of events that demonstrate things beyond your control.
Loss of stability for rejecting ambassadors - or perhaps even the cost of your own ambassador to stop such negotiations could be interesting. Though at what point would the AI use a strict reject for that to be fair?