Development Journal: Diplomacy Improvements

Sound excellent, and I am looking forward to the changes down the road as well to further improve the Diplomacy AI.

I had been just thinking yesterday that an ability to attack trespassers without it being a declaration of war was needed, glad to see that Triumph felt the same way!

This sounds excellent! Will the AI improvements and changes affect the existing single player campaign maps within vanilla AoW 3? Or is this just a change to the new campaign and random map generator?

This post made me think of something though – sometimes the AI builds a city like, right next to your current domain border (as in, they actually “steal” domain from you) while you’re trying to take a Heart or something with it. Do they still do this?

Does this mean that AI’s won’t trespass at all any more, or just a lot less because you can kick them out if they do? I think it’d be fun if AI’s can’t get a border agreement and they really want to travel through your domain (because it’s the only way or because circumventing is really far) they’d consider the risks and if the coast is clear they’d still try to do so, but if you have a decent army there that would pose a threat to them they wouldn’t.

The more I learn of the golden realms the more I like it.

Will there be another dev journal before release that tells us more about Defensive City Upgrades. Or patch notes for AI?

Thanx for sharing this dev journal. The game could only get better with this.

Gloweye wrote:

Might that have been because all the independents resulting in that player’s death declared war on me?

Yup that’s the bug, and it’s most certainly because of the indies, Ai must be confused where to apply that -300 or -400 modifier because indies have no leader, so he just sticks it to you, even though you are not the one who declared war…

Interesting, they use a percentage to decide to which player surrender in case AI has lost more cities to different players?

Better a Living Coward than a Dead Hero?

You ever read Terry Pratchett?

I don’t think so. It would require something a bit more complicated than AI surrendering to you. maybe something could be done like Alpha Centauri’s Pact to serve you…(I.E., you stay as another faction, but at that moment, you give up all your money and techs, and you are put in an alliance you cannot break. Also, in the planetary council(Kinda UN-like), your vote is under his control).

Gloweye wrote:

Better a Living Coward than a Dead Hero?

You ever read Terry Pratchett?

I don’t think so. It would require something a bit more complicated than AI surrendering to you. maybe something could be done like Alpha Centauri’s Pact to serve you…(I.E., you stay as another faction, but at that moment, you give up all your money and techs, and you are put in an alliance you cannot break. Also, in the planetary council(Kinda UN-like), your vote is under his control).

I played Civ 4, a vassal could choose to break away from it’s master whenever it’s strength reached a certain point, % of the master’s strength if I remember correctly. However the Master is free to dow on you again to bring you under his control again. I never had it happen to me because AIs weren’t simply good enough.

Finally, improvements to the diplomacy system! I only hope these changes are not cosmetic because the whole system as of now really screams for a substantial overhaul. The changes outlined in the dev. journal sound good, especially the AI being able to surrender – that will surely improve the game-flow. I also like an emphasis on the AI behaviour within the diplomacy system, the AI really needs to assess its options far more reasonably (and it is not only infamous tresspasing as it likes…). I just wish there were more diplomatic options as such – what about time-limited non-aggression pacts, making allies make peace/alliances with other factions, a time-limited truce option, global commercial (resource) agreements etc. I also hope neutral cities get some attention as well to make them a more interesting faction to deal with diplomatically. Let’s see what the devs can come up with next – the changes look promising so far.

This is one of the dev journals I have been looking forward to the most. Sounds like this will immensely improve gameplay in general. I hope that the AIs decisions become more logical and comprehensible with this patch.

Althea wrote:

Back to topic. I want ask something, is alliance issue with AI already being addressed?

Because right now, AI accept alliance too easily, i never say them decline any alliance offer.

Also, i notice in this game, when you’re ally with someone else, when one member of the alliance is declared war by someone, the other member of the alliance doesn’t instantly enter into the same war. Is this intended or just a bug?

Regarding that, maybe a defensive pact option like in Civ series can add more flavor to diplomacy.

Accepting an alliance: This might just be because you’re always the stronger factor. Because if an empire stronger than yours asks you to form an alliance, why would you reject?

Alliance/Peace/War: That’s just how AoW has always worked. Relations are specific to every other player. The difference between an Alliance and Peace is that with an Alliance you can win together with allied victory, and you can see what the other is doing. I suppose that in FFA PvP it also shows more trust that simple peace.