Doesn't the AI have enough problems already? Do we really want the AI to pay gold for something worth strictly nothing?
Well, conceptually it should work the same way it does for a player, in that one AI having more DC should deter other AI's from declaring war on them (since it is a positive relation modifier). I could also envision a gold-poor AI trading DC for resources. But I doubt either of those things is actually happening in 1.09e.
What I'd like to see in the future is DC operating as a sort of 'super diplomacy', where for a certain number of DC points you (or the AI) can force a diplomatic action: say for 500 DC you can force a trade treaty they would otherwise reject, or for 1000 DC you can force a peacy treaty. This idea of 'forcing' the diplomacy would make DC different than just another form of gold, and would model the actual ideal of diplomatic leverage better, I believe. The key is seperating the DC out of the equivalent exchange formulas and making diplomatic actions have a flat cost in terms of DC.
It's for giving the early Diplotech rush players an advantage over late diplotech players. That way it ensures the AI will always divy favor points to the former over the latter as long as nobody does anything stupid.
For example, lets say you researched diplomacy 1-5 early game. The AI in return would note what a silver tongued devil you are. You then proceed to pimp out the hypnotized AI at your leisure. But player 2 gets the same diplotechs (neutralizing yours) and already has a bigger lead because he researched civ improvement techs immediately. Under these circumstances you'd have little incentive to start research under the diplomacy tree. The diplocapital resource solves this by rewarding the player with an advantage over late comers.
exploiting the AI.
Frogboy himself said he "wouldn't lose any sleep over" DC being useless with/against humans.
You can use it instead of money to buy stuff from the AI like crystal. It should be used also to effect AI relations, the lower the diplomatic capital the higher the chance the AI declares war. This should also be tied with game turn (the further into the game, the more capital you need & larger the chance any AI declares war), thus this could be one way to make the AIs stronger (by having them "gang up" on the human player).
Anything that can improve the AI would be welcome.
Uh...? Should I rephrase it? "gold or chrystals... or anything" even worse!
At the moment I kill any AI unit I see, so it's only useful to get stuff from the AI they wouldn't normally give me... In exchange for something that has no value for me because for that to be valuable I should be threatened by the AI but I am not.
Generally, I agree, although I don't think the verb "to force" is correct. Force is a subset of diplomacy, so the next 'level' up needs to use a verb like "to persuade," or perhaps something more vague like "to secure."
Language quibbles aside, the general idea of DC seems like a sign the devs are trying to make the game reflect the fact that history depends on more than what faction/nation/sovereign has the most bad-ass weapons at a given moment. What I'd like to see in the future for DC is some input based on player behavior (reputation, karma, whatever you want to call it). The AIs should really be able to look at each other and the human player in terms of their values.
Are you suggesting there be some sort of feature than disables "useless vs. human players" techs and structures? Then in player only games such would be disabled entirely so not even humans can use them on minor AI factions?
I am a big fan of 'reputation' as an AI concept. The notion that a faction builds up a lot of troops... then suddenly stabs his neighbor in the back who has only been nice to him the whole game should cause other players not to trust the player in question.
Not sure about 'karma' though since it suggests to me that it influences random chance. "you're a ruthless tyrant so this bad random event is more likely to hit you" does not really appeal to me unless 'luck' and other related stuff sits as a very apparent and adjustable stat.
Random events aren't in my thinking on this theme at all; the wording-vagueness point was about Stardock's design vagueness, if anything. What I've always hoped to see is a diplo framework where your faction's view of a given action by another faction would include things like whether your faction valued loyalty over victory.
What is Diplomatic Capital concept for? Not much currently.
What could it be for? A lot!
From Frogboy's own words:
and many of us gave detailed descriptions for it as a vital component of the game.
Again, here is the official thread about it:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/389218/page/1/#replies
In my eyes, it was one of the most promising ones. Perhaps quoting it here will give it more visibility.
I still think the simplest way to make DC work is to give it concrete (practical) value for both humans and AIs. Right now it's a gimmick that only has value because the AI is forced to think it has value - and don't get me wrong, I like this gimmick (the idea of it, anyway, if not the implementation); it's already more elaborate than many games' diplomacy systems, but it could be better. I feel like I'm exploiting the AI if I ever trade him DC, because the AI is giving away real practical resources for something that has absolutely no use, the AI just happens to be suffering under the delusion that it's good for something.
So.. why not make it good for something? The thread Mandelik links to had many great ideas for this, just to recap:
-Ability to "buy" champions with DC instead of gold.
-Other neutral units that can only be influenced with DC - i.e. go to a Troll camp or a Dragon nest and buy units with DC. Flavorwise, think of it as using your influence to persuade some of them to join you.
-Unit enhancements that cost DC - say an assassin's kit with a DC cost you can add to custom units. Flavorwise, think of it as using your influence to get special training for your units.
-Abilities that cost DC: say your sovereign can make an inspiring speech to your people, this propaganda loses you influence with other nations (costs DC) but raises your own nation's population growth or somesuch.
-And I'll just add the excellent suggestions in this thread, to be able to persuade other nations to enter trade agreements or peace treaties (or even to marry their children to yours, if dynasties ever get any real purpose) by spending DC.
Suffice to say, there are many ways you could add practical value to DC, and all of a sudden it'd not only have a practical use for that poor AI sap you traded it to for real resources, but even humans would have a use for DC. Can you imagine the AI using diplomacy to manipulate humans for a change? This could happen if DC had a concrete value that even humans could make use of.
Buy Heroes ? Give it a value?
But guys listen to yourselves! This thing is NOTHING it is a concept that has no realistic parallel with anything!! t's supposed to be a sort of prestige, or charisma... But those are things you cannot use to buy stuff, especially heroes, since after you "spend" prestige to buy a hero you end up with an extra hero and therefore you should have even more prestige then you had before!!
It's this sort of dumb concepts that made this game sink from the beginning. I would say get rid of all that doesn't work and start from there!
If the concept of "spending" DC offends you, you could rework it so that it's not lost when used - a given champion might join anyone with over 200 DC, for example, without the DC being lost. An ability might have a minimum DC requirement but consume no DC when used, just give it a cooldown - and so on.
I'm not picky about the exact mechanics of it, I'm just saying that DC should have some practical use so that humans have a reason to want it other than manipulating the AI, and so that the AI can do something with it when we trade it to him for "real" resources.
By the way, in your own words, you say it's supposed to be a sort of prestige, or charisma - well charisma and prestige both have practical uses to the human that don't rely on AIs being suckers I'm just saying DC should follow that model, it should be good for something, whatever that may be.
I agree right now there is no point to DC.
In terms of spending DC on actions, perhaps then just assigning DC values to various diplomatic options that are unavailable by any other method. For instance, right now, we have open borders or closed borders. Instead of putting in many more types of treaties for different situations (I only want to pass through for 10 turns or I only want your borders open and not mine), perhaps these sorts of smaller diplomatic actions cost DC.
So for instance, when I try to move a unit through neutral territory without an Open Borders treaty, either I take a relationship hit OR I pay a per-turn-per-unit cost (scaling with the unit power) in DC or something of that nature.
Other things could be the expansion of influence - you could spend DC to grab a square (staking a claim essentially). In fact, perhaps this could be used for the idea of outposts that players want (grabbing resources but not wanting to drop an entire city on it). You spend DC (and a continual DC income) to stake a claim and produce a small bubble of influence.
Oh, an abstract concept to give a value to things? ...Comon dude, that's called MONEY and it's already in the game.
Fine, then it's charisma and it's already in the game... But here we are talking about something that can only buy favors from the AI during diplomatic exchanges. It serves nothing else! IT IS "EXPLOIT" MONEY, the AI craves it and it does nothing with it.
Maybe for min/max kill-'em-all types, but there's definitely already value for snapping turtlers because a DC advantage can help keep a belligerent neighbor off your back.
As for spending DC, I'm a complexity fan, so I'd like to see it usable for both deals that affirm and increase diplomatic dominance (probably best implemented as a DC-based bonus for trades not involving DC) as well as deals that let you burn a share of your global diplo status so you can gain an asset or agreement (trading away DC rather than using it as 'leverage' and keeping it).
How about allow DC to be used to force diplomatic agreement? With the DC cost being a function how favorable the AI would see the deal and the relative military strength of the players involved.
DC as a resource, as it is now, needs balancing. I totally agree there, but I like the concept of it as "political money".
Sure you can buy "real" resources with it, spend them and make armies and such. But as your DC goes down and thiers goes up, your diplomatic relation goes down, limiting your diplomatic options, and even causing war. This is a real consequence of having a DC "gap" with other (AI) realms, so DC has a value for you AND them.
Sorry I've edited my reply I misunderstood what the post was about. I agree Diplomatic capital is a strange abstraction that makes it easy to exploit the AI and I can't see why they have it in the diplomacy system in the way they do.
diplomatic capital sould not be general or something you spend. It should be how popular you are with the nation in question based on your past actions towards them (and a bonus from buildings/skills that help in this area) and it shouldn't be spent but rather used to bias the AI's williness to listen to any proposal automaticly.
You don't need an uber realistic system in which the game wolrd rotates around a sun, generating realistic day/night cycles, which at the same time shape a realistic Turn cycle to play in, which determines too how long take buildings to get built or kids to become mature (Champions), realistic weather patterns... Neither you need an hyper realistic system in which you have to control the things that your citiizens eat or drink (or the soldiers, or monsters...), the impact of their situation in Maxwell's pyramid, the zodiac sign, microbiologial menaces, complex ecosystems, tectonic plates that move/evolve during the game...*
It's a matter of abstraction. Diplomatic Capital? Diplomatic Capital is influence**. You use your "influence" to INFLUENCE things/events/people to do/obtain what you want. It doesn't matter the interface in which you use that "influence", the same as it doesn't matter how long in human&earth time a turn lasts. The more "influence" you have (obtained by any means and representing whatever), the more the enemies respect/fear you and becomes easier to obtain better deals from them (sometimes giving away some of it). If someone has ever played Yihad/Vampire:TS, he should understand better what Diplomatic Capital [should be/is] about.
We just need more uses for it. And extra ways to obtain it (quest rewards for example).
* yes, I know that some of you are wetting your pants thinking about being able to have all that
** in land, over groups...
The thing that puzzles me sometimes is how the AI values things. For example we are at war and the AI has one city left to my 10 and an army of rubbish units that are out numbered by 10 to one by my force approaching his final city. I offer peace instead and he seems to think a peace treaty is of much more value to me than him.....how did it work that one out I can wipe him out by sneezing yet he thinks I need peace more than he does.
It's distinctly different from charisma in how you acquire it, however - where charisma is something your sovereign personally has and can gain more of by levelling, DC is something your kingdom as a whole accumulates based on research and buildings. I think this part of DC is already working well, and nicely distinguishes it from charisma; it's possible to have a charismatic leader of a nation with a bad reputation and little diplomatic influence, and vice versa, as it should be.
But we agree on the part about DC being exploitive money that the AI does nothing with; that needs to change. The problem with DC is not how you gain it but how you use it - and that's where I think it should be more like charisma, in that it should have practical effects tied to the whole "reputation/diplomacy" theme.
Charisma is for people, it's a concept that exists. What you are calling DC should in fact be the "charisma" of the country, which in fact could be simplified as the sum of the city prestiges.
You don't need a new concept and call it with a wacko name like "diplomatic capital" which means nothing because it's so abstract and weird that doesn't even have a name... And guess why... because it does not exists!
In certain games you don't need realism at all, but this is a simulation of a fantasy empire, so if you start doing abstractions like that I am not sure if you can control where you go... and YES is is EXACTLY influence!! Exactly as I said (actually I called it prestige), we can describe influence (or prestige) as the charisma of the empire. In other word a sovreign utilizes his charisma to get champions on his side, while the country useds its charisma (influence) to get citizens. In neither case it is something you can buy or sell! (That would be great fellow computers geeks but charisma just ain't for sale so you gotta wash your socks and walk out in the sun sometimes!)
That's something like the anti-proof in the pudding when it comes to GC2 diplo mechanics, and apparently Elemental so far. Mostly, your behavior as a human player has little-to-no obvious influence on the AIs' opinions of you. But grinding an opponent nearly into the dust does seem to make them behave like they have a proper grudge against you.
The DC = alt currency = bad is a flawed argument because the same can be said about every other resource. That's, after all, what they are. A standard of quantity. You spend food to get population. You spend units to beaet other units. Every system ultimately boils down to "I pay this opportunity cost for that opportunity advantage". And yes, most things are about exploiting the AI (though not nearly so openly).
However, what your underlying argument seems to be is that DC is -too- much like pure currency in that it has little flavor and meaning. That is, as a game mechanic, it's so vaguely defined that any inherent value is lost. Moreover, that DC so openly manipulates the AI takes away a sense of achievement; that it feels less like you've outwitted someone or achieved some crafty goal and more as of you paid off the AI. That, I believe, is valid. That is what we're trying to determine and provide answers for. Should DC be a pure currency? Or should it be changed to something else? We have to allow for one of basic principles of Elemental which is diplomacy and we have to allow for systems to build upon some sort of diplomatic game mechanic. As it is now, diplomacy is exceptionally lackluster.
If the idea of an alternative currency doesn't appeal to you, then perhaps changing diplomatic capital from a resource into (at least with 1.1) a supplier of specialists. As with the above ideas, it would be used for things not available through other means. For instance, a spy unit or an embassy building that opens up additional diplomatic options.
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