Regional Diplomacy

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Lightbringer
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Post by Lightbringer »

Will it be able to cross reference several items of data? Example: Region A checks local area buildcaps, and decides that the big bully next door is too strong to easily conquer, despite high existent belli levels. Can it check local area Belli levels in relation to the bully? If so, add checking treaties involving the bully. Index high belli towards bully with no or few treaties and offer mutual defense treaties to regions which fit this profile. It would also have to index belli towards itself. It might have to soften up prospective allies.

I guess, before I ramble on forever, I'd need a rough estimate of how many (and what) factors can be involved before any rules can coalesce in my feverish brain.
B) decides to not attack, then what should it do?
I'd have to know if it understands the economic impact of improving it's own build cap, or even if it can build new bases or upgrade them at all. I can come up with a whole encyclopedia of choices and paths for the AI...but I won't have any clue whether the AI will be able to understand or perform them. I can tell you what "I" would do as a step by step process if that would help. I can also dumb down the choices to not pay too much attention to such repercussions as ruining the economy and K.I.S.S. :P

Please respond if y'all want ideas to randomly throw against the wall, perhaps some will stick. (I'm just asking if the wall is coated with teflon.)
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Post by tonystowe »

I want to begin by saying that you guys are doing an outstanding job and that your product is great as I have spent many hours playing SR2010. I certainly have gotten my money’s worth out of this game and by no means are my comments/suggestions anything other than creative criticism. Keep up the good work and I look forward to more games from you all.
I see build cap only as a reference point for potential capability comparison, not necessarily any indicator of a real threat to me. What I mean is that when I consider attacking a country I do the following:
1. First I go into the diplomacy screen and see what military technology it has to trade. This may be a cheat but I have no other manner in determining this information.
2. Second I locate their ground, air, and naval bases and determine their sizes so that I will know “potentially” how many units that country can build at maximum capacity.
3. Next I look at that country’s resources and industry that support unit construction and make plans to quickly eliminate or capture them so that my enemy cannot produce new or repair units as quickly. (I have noticed that even after I completely destroy all resources (oil, coal, etc) and eliminate or capture their Military and Industrial Goods facilities the enemy still builds and repairs faster than I can with three times the facilities and resources)
4. I also look into the current alliances that he may have. (Is it possible to see the relationship between two AI countries?)
5. The interesting part is determining my enemy’s true military threat. Looking at the report screen I can see that he has a military equal to the size of my military. However I am certain that my air force and navy are larger than his, while his ground military is surely larger than mine as the AI loves to build so many unnecessary units - so I really can’t really compare apples to apples. During this part of my research I use all available assets (ground and air radars, etc) to look as deep inside his country as possible to see what units are active. I still have no way to know what is held in reserve and that is a major factor.
6. As I reposition troops I look for his weak points and then make plans to capitalize on them and then use terrain and air/naval support to defend against his counter-attack.
With all of that said, I see the following issues:
1. The AI, and the player, needs a method to determining the real military threat to itself in terms of military power (not potential power) at any given time. This would also have to include being able to better identify when a country mobilizes its reserves. This could be presented in a report from the Military Dept indicating that oil and other resource use for Country “A” have considerably increased showing potential for offensive operations. This would also ease tensions if the reverse occurred.
2. Military reporting in terms of: Country A built 100 units this month of which 40 were combat (tanks, inf, etc), 40 were combat support (artillery, AD, etc), and 20 were unknown. Reporting indicates that 60% were placed in the reserves.
3. Reports indicating large troop movement within a bordering country seem to be missing from this game. The year is 2010, however no reporting is made when large troop concentration exists or is moved around. It would be an improvement, in my opinion, to have the Military or Diplomat Dept report when such events occur.
4. It doesn’t appear that the AI takes real factors into account when it decides to attack. The real factors being:
A. Resource production and stocks of the target country versus its own.
B. Real military capability versus its own. (i.e. it is building T-55’s while I am building M1A1 tanks)
C. The AI doesn’t consider alliances as a combat multiplier. (i.e. Countries A and B together conducting a joint attack against Country C, whose tech is better, is more likely to be successful).
D. The AI doesn’t use all of its military. i.e. Navies are static and never used; amphibious operations are none existent; airborne/air assault operations do not exist.
E. The AI doesn’t understand the use of moving its combat and combat support units together to support their fight.
F. Allied AI countries really do not provide combat support to one another. They simply add their troops to the already growing stack of units – delaying my success. What I am saying is that allied AI countries need operate both independently and together against a common enemy. If AI Country “A” cannot hold back an attacker then ally Country “B” should reinforce “A” along the FLOT. Once their combined efforts have stopped the enemy advance Country “B” should use its combat power to begin defeating the enemy.
Back to diplomacy (sorry for the rant):
Self-preservation needs to be understood so that a country doesn’t sacrifice everything. The AI should have criteria that allows it offer a cease fire or peace (as it never does now) to save itself. These factors should be aware of who attacked who first, because if the AI country was the initial aggressor then it may be less likely to wait too long if it is losing ground. My frustrations with SR2010’s diplomacy comes from the fact that none of the AI’s will commit to a cease fire unless our DipRate is close to 100%. That is insane and completely unheard of because for me to take an AI DipRate from zero to even 75% requires many years of groveling and an unbelievable amount of money and resources. As a player I would rather save all of that and continue fighting. The criteria for a successful cease fire and peace treaty desperately need to be looked into because if you look at the situation on the Korean peninsula you see that a cease fire was attainable, however a peace treaty was not.
Another problem is that I have to go to complete war over a border skirmish that no reporting is offered to outline what happened that would support a war declaration. I know that there is button that I can select to not go to war over border skirmishes, but even then I never receive reports stating when and what skirmishes have occurred and in what intensity. This should be looked into to improve this aspect of the game because continuous skirmishes would give me reason to declare war as I would expect public support to end such events.
I have to get to work! I realize that you keep asking for scenario’s and so forth, but I simply do not understand the programming business enough to give you anything of substance. However I can continue telling you how I look at the AI to make such determinations and I hope that assists you in one manner or another.
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Post by Feltan »

You really need a framework in which to have this discussion. I am not going to go into great detail here. I have done that in the past, without any feedback and knowing if it was helpful or a waste of time.

Bascially, I think a quantitative analysis is needed to answer a couple of questions an AI country should be asking itself:

1. Do I want to attack country X?
CIVREL and DIPREL are prime factors as are current alliances and other diplomatic arrangements for both. Build cap is not an issue, but forces deployed and in reserve should be (and can be easily calculated and expressed as a normalized ratio). Economic disparity and in fact resource disparity can be factors too -- jealousy has caused wars in the past.

2. Could I win if I DOW (and Should I Surrender as well)?
If there is a shared border, the force ratio above should be of prime concern. Other factors could be population, territory size, technology level and economic status. In essence, a small, poor, technically inferior country with a small military will not DOW those countries significantly higher in the pecking order in the absence of a strong alliance. Additionally, similar calculations can help determine when to throw in the towel.

These two questions need to both be positive for a DOW, in effect a logical AND operation. If such a framework is what the developers plan, we can help flesh out details -- otherwise responses are going to be all over the map.

Regards,
Feltan
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Post by red »

No where have I seen you guys seriously mention the AI having an agenda that does not simply attack whatever it can as soon as it can. Your economic model may be nice, but the diplomacy, the AI, all of these things that make single-player meaningful, are entirely absent. There is currently absolutely no diplomatic background, agendas, meaningful actions, etc. and I don't see you doing anything to make the game more interesting in that regard. I mean, whenever you use this word "diplomacy", Legend, you go on about criteria for declarations of war and make no mention of anything else. Diplomacy is not war, and I'm afraid you guys are setting this game up to be a fragfest with complex economics.

(I don't mean to sound mean, but diplomacy--ha haa--is beyond me today.)

If diplomacy were really a major part of the game, shouldn't we be looking at this as "what should regions want, and how should they go about getting that, including, under what conditions we don't know, declaring war?"
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Post by Feltan »

Red,

While I would tend to agree with your assessment for 2010, hope springs eternal for 2020. There is an opportunity for a big improvement n gameplay in this area, and I believe the Goats have said that this is an are they are going to work on.

And I hope they do! I ginned up a mod based on WWIII. While I was able to meet many personal objectives to include real-world OB's, I was totally unable to overcome the poor diplomatic model of the base game despite numerous modifications to base belli and at-start diplomatic arrangements. It seemed no matter what I did, China and the US were international bad-boys whom everyone would target. In the end, the mod was unsatisfactory because of it.

I have read before that this is a "wargame" and hence the objective was to get regions fighting. While we all understand that 2010/2020 are indeed wargames, the prospect of a robust diplomatic model will only add to that experience, not subtract from it. So, I will remain cautiously optimistic about this area, and hope the Goats deliver a different diplomatic experience in 2020.

Regards,
Feltan
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Post by Legend »

Red, although the title of this topic is "Regional Diplomacy", I think the thread started with a discussion about war. I quickly checked the first post and that is what I understood was being discussed. I may use the word diplomacy and then discuss DOW... but it's a starting point. I do hope to take the discussion further.

From the first post I understood, some actions on the part of the AI were expected and for 2020 we started talking about ways to enhance AI actions.

Currently most people may agree that a DOW is the AI answer for any situation. I have discussed before many ways to stretch this out before the AI pushes the big button.

As for bigger picture items such as agendas and not attacking as soon as the AI can, I have discussed this. I've detailed that right now the AI decides when it can attack, and then through the use of very few variables declares war. To quickly recap... I am working on a way to distinguish between when the AI "can" attack, and when it "should" attack. The main difference comes down to the resulting consequences that could arise. Obviously if the AI attacked a region with 10% belli, like we do often during test games, the result would be chaos for that AI region. So, generally it waits until it has a high cause to attack, and then it does plan coordinated war declarations. In many ways the AI stops there.

On one hand the AI should at times attack with low belli, and at other times it should not attack when it has high belli. Further to this, I am working on a series of rules where the AI prepares for war to one degree or another. Step 1. The AI determines that it wants to attack a region. Step 2. In what ways can it prepare?

Step 1 - should I attack a region???
- how many allies and enemies do I have now?
- what are the threat levels of regions around me?
- how many border regions do I have?
- is the region in question a border region or is their passage through an ally region.
- if there is passage through a neutral region - can I get transit treaties?
- compare regions?
- how many are allied and at war with the target region


Step 2 - I have my target, let's prepare...
- increase military wages --> which will increase unit efficiency
- deploy troops
- position troops
- communicate with allies and other regions
- get transit treaties
- determine if I can get help to attack
- determine if I can get other forms of help through diplomatic trade

These items in the above steps are only a few of the things we are working into the DOW model...

Now to expand on this... the premise is that the world is going to do some fighting. Regions don't like each other etc. Of course you then have agendas of AI regions. Without mentioning too many of those details... you could have a region who will not want to ever declare war unless every single criteria is met to make conditions perfect. Other regions may have their agendas tied to expansion part of which may include declaring war and shortly determining if the war effort was successful and offer peace to allow the smaller weaker region to survive. (don't do this if playing against George our lead programmer). Beyond attacking other regions the AI has to determine a defensive strategy in case they are attacked.

While conducting activities that lead to building up defenses as required or building up an offense as desired, the AI will also conduct other forms of diplomacy. We have also touched on many planned improvements to this part of the game. The AI should elicit offers. And the player may even be able to communicate to the AI that they wish to see more offers. More ongoing trades will strengthen relationships between regions too.

As for other desires... beyond being a "fragfest", I think the bigger picture leads us to further discuss other victory conditions - other than "Complete Victory". Otherwise we are back to DOW... if victory is complete, war is inevitable.

Current Victory Conditions
Complete Victory
Unification Votes
Victory Hex (escort command unit to target hex)
Capture the leader - kill the command vehicle
Time duration games
- survive so long
- get to a hex by a certain date.


Are there other victory conditions that people wish to see?
One suggestion is a diplomatic victory of alliance forming...
Another relates to the border and setting up a form of border creep.
Specific Goal - reach a desired technology level
Specific Goal - acquire 5 alliances
Specific Goal - watch relations and prevent anyone from declaring war on you for 2 game years...etc.
Specific Goal - etc

Perhaps by adding to the types of victory it would allow more styles of gameplay.

Thoughts?
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Post by red »

You can make the criteria for declaring war complex, but the fact that it will always happen, with your diplomatic efforts being important only to choose an opportune time, will create a predictable, boring game. Nothing has changed--it still appears that with this model diplomacy is useful for nothing but determining when to make declarations of war.

Those alternative victory conditions would be more interesting, but you can't just tack them onto this diplomacy system. How could you include non-war victory conditions while having a model that makes war all but impossible? Look at unification votes in SR2010--those scenarios almost always descend into war, and when they don't it's not because of intelligent diplomacy but rather high starting conditions or exploit-like bribing.
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Post by Balthagor »

red wrote:...it still appears that with this model diplomacy is useful for nothing but determining when to make declarations of war.
My question to you would be, what else should diplomacy be useful for? Prior to Legend's new victory condition suggestions, no one has suggested other uses beyond open ended indefinite play with no real victory conditions (something that may be possible for the sandbox mode but doesn't really fit a campaign mode.)
red wrote:...Those alternative victory conditions would be more interesting, but you can't just tack them onto this diplomacy system...
By this, do you mean the existing 2010 model or what Dax is proposing for SR2020? The only aspect of a new model he is responding to in this thread is declarations of war (much of the focus of tonystowes original post). I don't think we've been guilty of tacking things on in SR2010's model (well, maybe satellites, but I'd say that was just not thought through enough...)

I think Dax is on the right track when he mentions victory conditions. If the AI knows it is a player with a goal to win and the victory condition is complete why should it not expend all its resources in the war machine? Does not the very victory condition cause what you describe as boring and predictable?

I think wars are inevitable. Look at the real world and you'll find plenty of proof of thi. I believe that if friction causes war and we intend to included elements that cause friction (which we do, btw) then the purpose of diplomacy is to reduce friction. Whether you are reducing it to delay war until you are ready or you are reducing it because your "victory condition", either self imposed or part of the game mechanics, is to have peace with a region by a certain date, your goal with that tool is the same.
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Post by tkobo »

I really want the ability to diplomatically absorb other regions thru player (including AI)created unification like votes.
Its been talked about a few times now, and its what i really want the most as far as diplo improvements.
This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
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Post by Feltan »

Balthagor wrote: ...I think wars are inevitable. Look at the real world and you'll find plenty of proof of thi. I believe that if friction causes war and we intend to included elements that cause friction (which we do, btw) then the purpose of diplomacy is to reduce friction. Whether you are reducing it to delay war until you are ready or you are reducing it because your "victory condition", either self imposed or part of the game mechanics, is to have peace with a region by a certain date, your goal with that tool is the same.
Mechanics aside, I think this high level argument may be the cause of some of the "friction" you are seeing in this thread. If diplomacy is merely a mechanism to bring nations/regions into conflict, I believe the diplomatic model will fail to meet its full potential. Rather, I think the question to ask is: "can the diplomatic model produce real-world results?" Not all the time, and not necessarily what is expected in every situation; however, if a nation/region (say, China) cannot avoid war NO MATTER WHAT action they take -- you really haven't advanced the diplomatic model.

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Feltan
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Post by red »

Balthagor wrote:My question to you would be, what else should diplomacy be useful for?
No US government, even in a time of major crisis, would throw troops at Canada without making some very real effort at diplomacy, right? You might expect someone to say, "look how close our people are--wouldn't it be better to join together the governments than get bloody over this?" There you have a reasonable case for unifiying two regions instead of resorting to war. And a North America scenario would also have the US player responsible for "unifying" its region with Cuba and Mexico. I can well imagine Cuba being invaded, and being incorporated as conquered territory. Mexico? Never--probably economic agreements and a reduction in borders and impediments to travel/residence until you have a kind of North American Union. With that, the US would have unified North America by joining one region outright, conquering another, and becoming another's benefactor until the people agree to join. Now wasn't that a nice, productive, challenging scenario?

The player's goal should be to unify the map, period--how they do that should be up to them, with anything possible, circumstances permitting. That's how I thought SR2010 would be, very open-ended and "do what you like, you have all the tools of a state at your disposal." Obviously it wasn't, the game was all war.

I would think you're of a different opinion on whether unifying should be possible like that. No, a human would never agree with it. Got me there, George :P. But, no one wants to play single against a jerk AI that plays the game like just a game. They want a game that they can be immersed in, and that means having the AI behave like a state. Behaving like a state means it needs to accept that there are times when losing its sovereignity is better than having its people die. No human playing a game would accept that, I know, but AI can't behave like gamers if you want an engaging singleplayer game.

(There have been suggestions such as tkobo's and I know I've made some, but they were in a fair number of threads and over time, so I can understand if it didn't make an impression.)
Balthagor wrote:By this, do you mean the existing 2010 model or what Dax is proposing for SR2020?
I don't see how they really differ in their scope, and the scope is what gets me.
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Problem with Diplomacy

Post by Ghost Warrior »

I also had a problem with diplomacy on the first game and hope that on the second game to resolve the problem.
I play with Germany and defensive not to be conquerer. The first country to attack me was Poland by no reason and had to strike back and take his entire country. Just before the war another country declared war on me and in under 2 game years I had most of Europe by defending myself. I don't understand when I had the most powerful army in Europe and so much territory, a tiny country like Bulgaria would attack my by no reason and they knew it is suicide, and even had war on four fronts. I even payed lots of money and resources to those tiny countries just to make peace but they refused my offers. Then I had the felling that the AI hates me because I am a player :-( and the only option to make peace with them is to destroy the AI
I'm new on this forum and hope that this problems to be resolved, and also want not to rush to release the game to have less bugs.
Regards, Ghost
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Re: Problem with Diplomacy

Post by Balthagor »

Ghost Warrior wrote:I also had a problem with diplomacy...I play with Germany and defensive not to be conquerer...AI hates me because...
Welcome to the forum,

I think this is less what we're discussing above although some of the suggested changes would help your situation. You did take the strongest region in that map, if they AIs have any hope of winning that they need to attack you and try and take you out. Of course having do this sort of action in a more coordinated way and giving you better feedback on why you're getting attacked is already on our wishlist.

And the Poland thing, I think the storyline tells you that Poland don't like you from the start.
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Post by Balthagor »

In response to Red, Feltan and Tkobo,

Reading each of your posts I see some common elements in what you're asking for and I tend to like what your suggesting, but I'm also the one always pushing for non-military victory conditions. I'm going to pull back from the conversation for a while because as red recognized, as much as Legend or I might agree with some of this stuff, decisions on the "scope of diplomacy" need to get past David and George as well. I think I'll try and take the information here and draft some notes to be discussed with them. If I get some solid feedback from them I'll bring it back here and add a new post. Some of the key elements I'll bring to their attention are;

- ability to absorb/gain control of another region without having to declare war (mini-unifications through treaties or other means).
- As red mentioned; "The player's goal should be to unify the map, period"
- consider making the AI "behave like a state" and not be as aware of being a player in a game. (perhaps as an option or an aspect of the difficulty level).
- If diplomacy is a tool to counter the effect of friction, do we allow it to be countered to such an extent as to permanently forestall war?
- Consider to what level AI regions should be susceptible to coercion. (Join me or die)

We'll see what reaction we get from these comments...
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Post by tonystowe »

For what it is worth, thanks for everyone's input. After re-reading my original post I have to agree that it was war-leaning; however, I want to clarify that I am far more interested in a more expanded diplomatic suite with this game. I continue to note that before a DoW and during hostilities there really isn't a way to have a sustained, successful diplomatic venture with any AI nation. Yes, I have won a threatened peace treaty, only for it to dissipate in short time; and yes I have given the AI every single resource and money I have had and eventually gain a peace treaty - which dissipated in short time. The end result was always back to war. In my current game as South Africa in the African game it is the year 2036 - only the first two years of the game were peaceful! I have tried many, many, MANY times to bring peace to the continent to no avail. I have even pulled my troops back to South Africa and offered to give their land back to them and they declined. I suppose my point is:

1. There is no escalation to war (that I can see).
2. There certainly isn't a viable end to any war.
3. The AI, even through treaties, will always see destruction as the only answer.
4.
5.
6.

I must get to work.

Tony
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