For a great diplomatic model

[FastBoy101]

[this was written about Civilization game, but is relevant here]

I made some work about the USA-UK-Japan-China situation before WW2 and it strenghtened my belief that the diplomacy model does not represent what happens in diplomacy. Here are some good basic aspects I saw:
- Pressures
- Influence traffic (including promising to bring the population/officials more on some side!)
- Slowly building up and strenghtening relations
- Pragmatism vs idealism (from public as officials)
- The importance of public opinion (depending on its knowledge), while dealing simultaneously with foreign opinion (anyone can read about Roosevelt preparing for WW2, with reticent public, peace movement on one side while on the other side are distinct British/Chinese/Japanese demands, etc.)
- Exchanging of anything (and NEVER all or nothing exchanges. NEVER except cases so extreme it's all is left.)
- Possibility to pressure on the limits of treaties/agreements/else
- others


Do you believe that I'll bring an incredibly complex model? Completely unfiraxian? Not so. Now let's try to organize this data in a model. Four points:




The four points forming a model
1- Everything can be done in different degrees (international/national influence? embargo? break/make treaty? enforce/go against agreed rules? diplomatic pressures? ressource trading? Even attacks? Each can be done "just a little"-"quite a bit"-"considerably"-"quite alot"-"go for it")
2- Each thing has a price in degrees or money (ressources, influence... including bringing an embargo from "quite alot" to "considerably". Though influence could work as GalCiv, with quantifyable influence rather than degrees)
3- Distinction between official and unofficial (heck... a tiny percentage is really done officially. Even major things in extreme cases: the Japanese invasion of China was done without any side officially at war! Both preferred that, diplomatically or otherwise). Of course, there are popular/diplomatical consequences on doing something officially. Declare war AFTER attacking, and it's like Pearl Harbor!
4- Public/rulers (rulers= US Senate, nobles, ruling elite...) opinion and capacity to influence this factor on a side or another (while foreign scene/intelligence can also influence it). Don't expect public opinion to have the same impact if it is uninformed (TV, Internet...), or if it does not consider as granted to see its ruler obey (democracy...). Even in the time of Crusades, public opinion was there and could bring unrest (based on the image of a pious and courageous leader, etc.).




Implementing this as simply straight-forward
Point one is not hard to manage for a player, since each act that can be done partly has the same options for degrees found for each other pertinent situation (such as my exemple: "just a little"-"quite a bit"-"considerably"-"quite alot"-"go for it, full throttle").

Point two is not hard to manage for a player, as long as it goes on the major points that DO have some serious impact. For example, "making diplomatic pressures" includes lots of stuff (speeches, symbolic acts...) so there's no need to put every single detail that can be included into this. The point is, as usual, to judge what's relevant/interesting enough to be traded, which should include what was important enough to already be in the game, from others' relations to ressources (GalCiv did some great things for this).

Point three is not hard to implement neither, but only if you put it simply. What I'd see as simple: you can do anything mentioned in other points, and you need to click "Do it officially" if you wish to do so. You could even make an official move while not puting it in acts by only ticking the box (which would be to threaten to do it, bluff, or wait to do it to see reactions or else). Easy enough?

Point four is just as other countries, except that instead of affecting foreign affairs, it affects interior affairs.



What it permits
It permits many many things:
A- Easy to use, HARD to master.
B- Depth with only a few levers, and real diplomacy, real trade, real foreign policy.
C- You can push others (public/nations) on one side, on another... etc. It's not at all like when all the options you have are radical and thus usable only in extreme cases.
D- You can push more... more... more... until THEY actually declare war. You? "No oh my good public/friends, THEY are the evil ones" :naughty:
Also, you can push more... more... to bring them closer to where you want.
Use your power to force others to accept things and still shut up. Let them chose between letting their population/policy makers go wild and create a force, or not. Classic case: push stuff popular with your population and yourself on weaker ones, to the price of ONLY bad foreign reputation (and foreign population hatred) since the rulers wont move against you.
E- And most importantly: You actually DO have a game with real diplomacy/politics included! You DO interact with other countries on a more than war/economic basis. This brings soooo much more idealistic/pragmatic endeavours (influencing population...), machiavellism possibilities, realpolitik and plain evil possibilities :bounce:
F- So much more I don't have the time to think about. If you wish, you invent your grand strategies, you create.