Some Diplomacy thoughts and suggestions

[franciscus]

First of all, congratulations to Pocus for a great game. After a few rough starts as Syracuse (maybe one of the toughest nations to play, sandwiched between Carthage and Rome) and Epirus, I am having a blast playing a long campaign (reaching turn 200) as Rhodus in normal difficulty. A great game moment was when mighty Rome came knocking with her brutal legions. I thought I was done for - when a few turns later Rome was engulfed in a series of destructive civil wars that allowed me to survive and even fight back. Great !

I think the Culture vs Decadence game mechanic, tied with loyalty, as well as the legacy concept are some of the finest design decisions in grand strategy gaming I have seen, and are able to simulate amazingly well the rise and fall of civilisations in the Ancient era. And I think these mechanisms can also be used to improve the biggest “flaw” IMHO of the game as it is now: Diplomacy.

I would like to make the following observations/suggestions (some have probably already been debated before, and I know Pocus is working on this aspect of the game):

1. The first and foremost issue is region control. We should have a better way to resolve armed conflicts that do not imply conquering or losing regions if we are not playing a raiding nation. The current stopgap in patch 1.03 is really not enoughWhen we capture a region we should have a choice to integrate it in our nation, give it to an ally or leave it (with or no pillage). Each of these choices, besides the obvious territorial consequences, should have some effect in terms of CDR and/or legacy. For example. giving a previously owned region to an ally or client state would give not only a relationship bonus but maybe a decrease in decadence. Not taking a region that is not of our ethnical group could give a culture bonus, etc.

2. The alliances are very one sided. Case in point, in my game as Rhodus I have full alliances with the Ptolomeys and Bithynia. These alliances have in fact been militarily useful to me. Once or twice stationed allies enemies in my lands repelled insurgents invasions. But I can do absolutely nothing to help my allies and apparently without any penalties. Ptolomeys are fighting Palmyrene, Natenes, Nubia; I tired of being part of those wars and signed separate peaces with my ally enemies, with no penalty (on the contrary, I reduced my war weariness). And of course when I decide to help an ally, if I successfully attack one of his enemies, I end up becoming owner of some region that I have no interest whatsoever. I would propose that some incentive should exist to help an ally; maybe a decadence increase whenever an ally loses a battle or region, bigger if he loses his capital; maybe a legacy increase if an ally wins a war; and of course an option to give conquered regions to our ally.
Other options of helping an ally, like giving it money during a war could also have some benefit, maybe in CDR or legacy

3. A way to steer somewhat an ally behaviour would be interesting. Maybe something like in CK2. We could suggest to an ally to be defensive, or offensive, and in this case to preferably target my enemies regions or armies.

4. Money should maybe be used more directly in diplomatic transactions. Offering money could perhaps improve chances of signing a peace deal, or getting a favourable response to an alliance request.

Cheers

(PS: How to build the Colossus as Rhodus ? I keep getting the message that I need to be besieged first. Never have been besieged, so…I have read also that it can be built also the “normal” way, but it never has appeared as an option, even after multiple reshuffles…)

[Hendricus]

Winning a battle and demanding war compensation instead of taking control comes to mind as a diplomatic tool to punish those raiders and avoid taking regions you do not want.

[Pocus]

Thanks for the good words, Franciscus, much appreciated, as also it comes from a gamer who has extensive experience and joy in older AGEOD games as AJE. So if you appreciate the newest AGEOD title, it means we succeeded in our "transformation"

About what you say. I would say that almost everything you spoke about is either considered seriously for the diplomacy update, or is something we would like to add further down the road. But this will take a few months for such big novelties to be in, officially.
As you said, 1.03 provided a kind of stopgap measure with the 'abandon region' feature. 1.04 will add another one, perhaps even more useful, something about being able to attack without conquering! And Abandon region will be much cheaper to do. We feel the system is robust and consistent enough that this can be done without watering down the current system.

I'll not comment on the specific points you made because this might give too much info about what we plan and under which delay (and people become grumpy if we miss a planned schedule, even by one week!). But we feel that Empires will evolve over late 2019 and 2020 to something even better and more complete that it is currently

[Pocus]

About the Colossus, be sure to have a road and 6 purple buildings, it should be in your list in this case.

The special procedure for Rhodus involves either being besieged or getting hold on a copper import.