Diplomacy

There have been some remarks concerning alliances, but I have a bigger problem: Those alliances don't really mean anything. They are more something as a Non-Agrassion Pacts

So I suggest the following:

1. Everybody starts neutral (= what is called peace now)
=> So you have to declare war before you can attack.

2. Being Ally with someone really means something.
=> If you are being attacked, your allies automatically will be in war with your attacker
=> If you declare war on someone, your allies will be asked:
[ ] Keep Alliance (and declare war on...)
[ ] End Alliance (an become neutral with...)

3. And of course you can still offer peace when your ass is being kicked

Prispeval Tommchen, 03.01.2011 at 09:35

1. Everybody starts neutral (= what is called peace now)
=> So you have to declare war before you can attack.

I like this with 1 exception. Allow guerrilla warfare strategy to attack from peace (immediately declaring war rather than having to wait a turn)

The rest seems reasonable to me.

Tommchen's idea seems reasonable to me. Make every joining player start with peace with every other player, and make players declare who are they going to ally and who are they going to fight with.

This sounds like World War 1. I don't like the idea that i have to declare war on someone bc they r attacking the ally of my ally even if they aren't my ally. Maybe this should be a b4 game option or maybe an internal option to have a secret suicide pact.

Than you shouldn't call it ally, but an Non-Agression Pact. Being someones ally should mean something...

I think Tommchen's idea has some concrete value and I also agree with specter that there should be an option before starting a game to indicate which diplomacy method to use... much like it is now (teams and no diplomacy) but with one other option before game (advanced diplomacy)

So we need a pre-game switch with three options (option would be choosen before the game just like win conditions):
1. all players start at war with everyone
2. all players start at peace with everyone
3. all players start at war with everyone and neither peace nor alliance can be made


everyone will be happy (for a few days)

Lol! Sounds good to me the only thing i can think of (right now) is that with tommechen importance of alliance idea is that the other players shouldn't have the option of knowing if their opponent's alliance is just a stronger non-aggression pact or a one for all deal. For me alliance can vary between i am willing to walk out of the game with you to i am pretty sure you would attack me if we had peace, which in this game is more like a cease fire than peace.

Summary add in game advanced diplomacy that after alliance has been signed can have a super alliance.
P.S. most likely one should actually talk to the person you are signing super alliance with. Some people on here who have offered alliances never talk.

What about making players PAY for making a peace or alliance? if two players are at war and one of them proposes a peace, he has to pay for example 2000 credits (this cash isn't going to any player, it's just vanishing like when paying for troops) and player who accepts allaince has to pay for example 500 credits (or no cost for player who is accepting). Costs of making an alliance would be higher.

To make peace and alliance differ more from each other, we can have some direct differences, because some people see alliance just as another kind of a peace, and other people see alliance as it should be seen and they try to work with their allies. These direct differences could be for example: you can move your units THROUGH cities and lines of defence of your ally, but you can't do that if the player is only at peace with you. You can put your units into the city of your ally to help him defend it from attacking force, and you can't do it with cities of player who is only at peace with you.

Such changes would make people see the real difference between peace and alliance.

Peace should be the same as war, apart from that you can't attack nor see their units.

Alliance should allow you to stack units in your friends cities and able to see their units.



If you break an alliance, it should take 3-5 turns of "peace", before you can go in war with eachother.

I like the idea of knowing when a new turn starts that my ally has a new enemy and that I can choose to go in war with that guy too or just ignore it.

In my opinion the diplomatic have to be a much more weight in the game. At the moment it seams like everyone allys with everyone, but one in his near. mostly its a underranking player, because hes/she is a good victim.
After the first 5-10 rounds there are mostly 2-3 teams, of mostly (also highranked) players, how kick off all newbies.
So we going to the end... alliances gain broken because "sorry not personal" or "you are just to smal" nice... ahhh ok so it ends with a 2vs1 situation... nearly every game
sometimes theres a 1vs1 and suddely a friend or (second acc) of a player apears in your back and try to kill you... ( i think some people know about wich im speaking)

so it would be fine to....


- starting with peace (like someone topside posted)
- hide Alliances by Others ( will give some high tension...)
- New idea: forbid alliances between Player A's Friend, B, and A's Enemy C.
- imply 2 new diplomatic options:

1. Trade Treaty
2. Not-Attack Treaty

to 1.): i had the idea if Player A and B stay in Peace, they could conclude an Trade-treaty, maybe if gives some gain of money (5% of others income) or ->one<- Stradegy skill like maybe 10% afterroll to infantry, so he became some useful boni and maybe he will hold on peace. but to normalize it, its necessary to give tradetreatys a max.count of maybe 2.

[[((EDIT1: Big Pro: Players in Africa or other poor Continents gain more money, because they often play imperialist/guerillia, and some richer players would be happy about some useful lovely boni) a win-win situation.))]]

to 2.) at second i would like to say something about "NAT's" but much isnt to say, Player A want to attack Player B but want to know before he starts if Player C behind him stay neutral... -> NAT

i think the new combination could be

a) War
b) Peace
c) Trade / NAT
d) Alliance

General:
- Trade/Nat and Alliance will be conclude for a selectable Count of Turns ... 5,10,15,.... so if you want to hold on treatys there comes a news... "...your XXX-treaty ends in two turns"
- in these time there's no way to break them
-EXCEPT: A player Declares War to a Alliance Partner, or the other way around...
- A clear line : means: Before you could make a Alliance you need Peace,Trade/Nat... in the combination -> no instant-alliance-spam
-> a minimum time duration between two treatys by yourself to the same player. maybe 2 turns


hope you understand my ideas... want to know what you thinking about it.


greatz Nora

Citiraj:

In my opinion the diplomatic have to be a much more weight in the game. At the moment it seams like everyone allys with everyone, but one in his near. mostly its a underranking player, because hes/she is a good victim.
After the first 5-10 rounds there are mostly 2-3 teams, of mostly (also highranked) players, how kick off all newbies.
So we going to the end... alliances gain broken because "sorry not personal" or "you are just to smal" nice... ahhh ok so it ends with a 2vs1 situation... nearly every game
sometimes theres a 1vs1 and suddely a friend or (second acc) of a player apears in your back and try to kill you... ( i think some people know about wich im speaking)

Well personally you shouldn't make an alliance with someone if you are going to break it in the end. Unless your ally doesn't even help, then it would be the better choice.

But I kind of agree on this, it's quite low to ask a friend to join to kill someone off. (Or to take the capital right away, which is very annoying and a low tactic used by many...)

Citiraj:

so it would be fine to....


- starting with peace (like someone topside posted)

That's nice, it will prevent you from taking over someones capital in 1 turn. Still, this is a war game and therefore peace should be able to get terminated the same turn you wish to attack IMO. It quite sucks if you forget to turn off peace and have to wait one turn, which is vital sometimes.

Citiraj:

- hide Alliances by Others ( will give some high tension...)

No, not a good idea. I want to see who allied who, to create a such balanced game possible. I have to agree it would add some tension to the game though.

Perhaps able to see once you are their ally or when you have scouted him and his friend? (Sort of like fog of war)

Citiraj:

- New idea: forbid alliances between Player A's Friend, B, and A's Enemy C.

I think forbidding it would be kind of harsh. Instead, you should get a pop up saying your friend is in war with this person, "do you wish to continue"

And your friend will see you allied their enemy

Citiraj:

- imply 2 new diplomatic options:

1. Trade Treaty
2. Not-Attack Treaty

I think this is too much for diplomatic stuff. It's still a war game.

Citiraj:

to 1.): i had the idea if Player A and B stay in Peace, they could conclude an Trade-treaty, maybe if gives some gain of money (5% of others income) or ->one<- Stradegy skill like maybe 10% afterroll to infantry, so he became some useful boni and maybe he will hold on peace. but to normalize it, its necessary to give tradetreatys a max.count of maybe 2.

Nor do I like getting bonusses. I think you are already quite rich if you have some allies, do they have to become even stronger? Those without allies would be in a disadvantage.

Citiraj:

[[((EDIT1: Big Pro: Players in Africa or other poor Continents gain more money, because they often play imperialist/guerillia, and some richer players would be happy about some useful lovely boni) a win-win situation.))]]

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Citiraj:

to 2.) at second i would like to say something about "NAT's" but much isnt to say, Player A want to attack Player B but want to know before he starts if Player C behind him stay neutral... -> NAT

Meh...

Citiraj:

- A clear line : means: Before you could make a Alliance you need Peace,Trade/Nat... in the combination -> no instant-alliance-spam

If everyone starts at peace, I agree.



My suggestion:

War proposals:

You are player A.

"Player B wishes to wage war against Player C. Player B has asked you if you wish to join him into his conquest. Do you wish to wage war against Player C? OK. NO!"

Citiraj:

Well personally you shouldn't make an alliance with someone if you are going to break it in the end. Unless your ally doesn't even help, then it would be the better choice.

But I kind of agree on this, it's quite low to ask a friend to join to kill someone off. (Or to take the capital right away, which is very annoying and a low tactic used by many...)

but thats the way nearly everyone practice, atm an alliance means : "ok lets be friends, we dont attacking each other and maybe we help... but we dont know whats happend in future..."

Citiraj:

Still, this is a war game and therefore peace should be able to get terminated the same turn you wish to attack IMO. It quite sucks if you forget to turn off peace and have to wait one turn, which is vital sometimes.

i dont think afterwind is a war-based game, and in my opionion afterwind needs some "big pros" to be better like other war-based games.
its like nearly everything, easy, things are nice for a moment but going boring after a while.

Citiraj:

Citiraj:

- New idea: forbid alliances between Player A's Friend, B, and A's Enemy C.

I think forbidding it would be kind of harsh. Instead, you should get a pop up saying your friend is in war with this person, "do you wish to continue"
And your friend will see you allied their enemy

also good idea

some other odea, but hard to realize i think (for programmers):

- we add some "factor" [sympathy of your People]:

-> everyone starts with maybe 75% or 100% nearly
- if you allied with someone and help him in war, this factor will raise
-> if you dont help your friend, brake alliance or offers his enemy an alliance this factor will fall down
-> how lower it is, the much it lesser the income you gain by your citys, and some "freedom fighters" will spawn in your citys and capture them...
so the people revolt against you.

this will maybe better than forbid some treatys, but you often have to look for your sympathy

Citiraj:

It's still a war game.

since you could win, with allies its just more than a wargame.
- other idea: for every broken alliance half of your sp's gone.

Citiraj:

- A clear line : means: Before you could make a Alliance you need Peace,Trade/Nat... in the combination -> no instant-alliance-spam

If everyone starts at peace, I agree.

Citiraj:

My suggestion:

War proposals:

You are player A.

"Player B wishes to wage war against Player C. Player B has asked you if you wish to join him into his conquest. Do you wish to wage war against Player C? OK. NO!"

Pro - some Roleplayelements would be great

At the moment we're thinking to charge increasing amounts of money for each alliance after your first one - this should limit the number of throw-away alliances and underline the seriousness of making a commitment. Another idea was to charge money for breaking an alliance, but we're still undecided about this one.

We're probably not going to introduce more diplomatic states - 3 should suffice. In general I see the tendency to overcomplicate things in player suggestions - one of our goals is to keep the game simple, while enhancing the gameplay.

Peace being the default state is possible, but I don't see how it's going to change anything, really.

Starting at peace could prevent spawn kills.

Prispeval specter, 14.01.2011 at 17:52

Starting at peace could prevent spawn kills.

agreed! You should have to declare war - though I still think guerrilla warfare should not have to wait that extra turn...

Prispeval specter, 14.01.2011 at 17:52

Starting at peace could prevent spawn kills.

Good point. Originally, the default state was peace. We changed it to war to make the game more dynamic.

Perhaps you could include an option to randomize starting diplomatic relations between players, this wouldn't really be any great option but some people would be happy about it

Prispeval Tommchen, 03.01.2011 at 09:35

Being Ally with someone really means something.
=> If you are being attacked, your allies automatically will be in war with your attacker
=> If you declare war on someone, your allies will be asked:
[ ] Keep Alliance (and declare also war on...)
[ ] End Alliance (and your status changes in "in peace with...")

What happend with this idea?

Agree with alliances acting as a single diplomatic unit. Also to increase the usefulness of the 'peace' state, it should be changed to 'truce'. When you propose a 'truce' you must also set a number of turns for wich the players/alliances won't be able to attack each other. Also stacking on allied cities should be allowed.

Prispeval Tommchen, 16.01.2011 at 15:10

Prispeval Tommchen, 03.01.2011 at 09:35

Being Ally with someone really means something.
=> If you are being attacked, your allies automatically will be in war with your attacker
=> If you declare war on someone, your allies will be asked:
[ ] Keep Alliance (and declare also war on...)
[ ] End Alliance (and your status changes in "in peace with...")

What happend with this idea?

Definitely no automatic state change. Not sure if bothering your allies with the alliance breaking options also worth it. If you in alliance with one player and also with someone he's at war with, that's something you have to deal privately between the 3 of you.

Prispeval anao, 16.01.2011 at 21:21

Agree with alliances acting as a single diplomatic unit. Also to increase the usefulness of the 'peace' state, it should be changed to 'truce'. When you propose a 'truce' you must also set a number of turns for wich the players/alliances won't be able to attack each other. Also stacking on allied cities should be allowed.

Setting the number of turns is a good idea, we'll see what can be done about it. Stacking on allied cities is difficult technically - currently units of different players are automatically moved to the side when they are on top of each other. If we don't do that, all sorts of things become rather awkward, starting with how to display an army of 2 (or more!) different players, what to do if they stop being allies and so on.

Quick thoughts on how to resolve issues with double stack.

If seen by the player who controlled the city they only see their units in the number displayed on the city. But on the add units menu there would be a list at the bottom of the other players units. Likewise in the mouse hovering over option it would show your troops then his with same info.

The other player in the city would see it like wise but the city color would be in the other persons color and the numbers in said players color. The information tabs would work in reverse of above.

Aka orange has 5 infantry in greens city. They would see a green city with an orange 5.

The one with the most troops in the city would control it

an outside player looking at the city would see the sum of the armies but the colors of the city would be normal it would however show the distribution if one was close enough (point of this is to not allow out of range information gathering.)

This probably is a nightmare for the programmers and color blind people so if anyone has a better solution let's hear it.

If two people who are allied but decide not to be any more. I think the best solution is that the person who controls the city kicks the other one out (in the same direction they entered) when they move to the peace stage.

Just a quick question, say any of this is actually implemented. What's to stop two players from simply going "hey, dude, let's not attack eachother" "ok", and just leaving it at that? This is why wasting time on alliances is, as I said, a waste of time. Nothing you do will change anything because no ammount of penalties or changes will make players fight if they don't want to. They don't need a game mechanic to simply not attack one another. So yeah, how do you guys propose we force players to fight instead of simply honoring verbal agreements, since all this nonsense will just make verbal agreements the new alliance system.

Verbal alliances are fair part of the game, not knowing if your ally is feeding the hand that eats you is part of what makes this interesting. We just propose there be a few extra perks to having an alliance with someone but limiting the number of people u can have the alliance with.

The other main thing with verbal alliances is that they can be forgotten very quickly. Like "oops that was your capital/main stack of tanks that i just destroyed"

any way one thing i would purpose to change is that we disallow allies to cross defense lines its rather annoying to have an ally double cross you but before the do they move their army inside your d lines around your capital. The other side of this would if your opponent timed it right it would give him a chance to rush through the same hole in your defenses.

Also if people really didnt like the alliace spam is to discover a way to win while fighting everyone else.

Make alliances like marriages. You have to pay money to the person you're breaking up with at a certain percentage.

But again, Specter, if you make alliances worthless (which is this topic's goal), then verbal agreements and the Peace option will simply be the new alliance. If they wanna ally in the first place they wont just go "oops, I killed your tanks" because obviously they'd be attacked. If they were going to do that they wouldn't have allied anyways. I just don't see the point in changing alliances and imposing retarded restrictions when all that will do is make alliances worthless. They're fine as is, if people wanna go all neutral with the world, let them.

I don't get why you guys feel the need to try and ruin other peoples games because that's exactly what you're doing with this thread. If you don't like alliance spamming, don't do it, but that doesn't give you the right to tell other people how they should and shouldn't play.

There should be a limit to the number of alliances a person can make, relative to the total number of people in that game. (1/3rd of the total)
For example, if there is 6 people in a game, you can only ally with 2 people. If you are in a game of 15, you can ally with 5 people.
Peace is not limited. This fixes the issue of someone allying with too many people, but since peace takes only one turn to break and prevents you from seeing other's unit counts, as well as where stealths are, it shouldn't really be limited.
Backstabbing will most likely never be "fixed", because it is something people just do all the time. (Especially to me!)

Http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=127

Didn't really see the trouble with alliances.

It has been said : you can't do nothing if two players are doing a "stealth alliance", aka "peace and private messages".

Alliances are only usefull for one thing : attacking the same player.

Now I have to agree, some players tend to send alliances all around, and it can be anoying.But you have the choice to accept them or not.( and to trust/backstab them or not)

On the "peace status for all", I didn't play the game when it was on, but it seems to me that you loose some dynamism, perhaps could it be an option to choose in games.