Diplomacy - discussion

[the6the]

So should the amount of credits generated by any TR also dependent on the relations? Since receptive is the usual mark for achieving OB, make that the 100% mark, and enraged 0%. Anything above receptive would be give a slight incremental bonus (cordial +10%, enthusiastic +20%, by worshipful they have usually already joined your empire, but 30% otherwise).
Would that make sense?
Would that be difficult to code into the existing formula?

[Iceman]

I've moved this post to a new thread, to promote some separate discussion.

This might also be interesting:

Which threshold should the deterioration of regard have on any agreements? Or is it also a "depends on the race" thing?

There's more discussion about diplomacy here.

[Misfire]

So should the amount of credits generated by any TR also dependent on the relations? Since receptive is the usual mark for achieving OB, make that the 100% mark, and enraged 0%. Anything above receptive would be give a slight incremental bonus (cordial +10%, enthusiastic +20%, by worshipful they have usually already joined your empire, but 30% otherwise).
Would that make sense?
Would that be difficult to code into the existing formula?

Seems that would make sense to me. Better relations should lead to better trade, as long as you bring something worthwhile to the table to trade.

Speaking of diplomacy, Iceman, do you know the difference between regard and effective regard? Ran across that while starting to implement diplomacy in the combat engine and wasn't sure which to use. I was in the middle of something and didn't want to go off on a tangent looking into it.

[the6the]

I propose the following:
Trade routes get modifiers depending on regard between the two factions.
Enraged x 0.0 (the trade route generates no income)
Hostile x 0.2
Icy x 0.4
Uncooperative x 0.6
Neutral x 0.8
Receptive x 1.0 (Trade route normal value)
Cordial x 1.1
Enthusiastic x 1.2
Worshipful x 1.3 (most minor races are already a member by this time)

Receptive is the 100% mark, as it is usually where the OB treaty is signed. If regard drops to a lower level, there are incremental penalties to the amount the trade route generates. The bonuses for Cordial or better are only 10% per level of regard, rather than 20% penalties in the other direction, to prevent abuse. Some factions (i.e. the Feds) have more to gain by this tweak than other races. Although each faction can be played in different ways, this tweak will favor the more Membership inclined type gameplay.
The emphasis here is really the penalties for deteriorating your relationship after signing the OB treaty, not the bonus.
Any thoughts?

[Iceman]

So should the amount of credits generated by any TR also dependent on the relations? Since receptive is the usual mark for achieving OB, make that the 100% mark, and enraged 0%. Anything above receptive would be give a slight incremental bonus (cordial +10%, enthusiastic +20%, by worshipful they have usually already joined your empire, but 30% otherwise).
Would that make sense?
Would that be difficult to code into the existing formula?

Seems that would make sense to me. Better relations should lead to better trade, as long as you bring something worthwhile to the table to trade.

Should not be too hard to code; the output of TRs is already modified by the length of the TR (if it is longer than a given value), BTW, so it's basically just adding another modifier.

Speaking of diplomacy, Iceman, do you know the difference between regard and effective regard? Ran across that while starting to implement diplomacy in the combat engine and wasn't sure which to use. I was in the middle of something and didn't want to go off on a tangent looking into it.

Regard is the meter used to track the current (numeric) value of relations; EffectiveRegard is the corresponding "label" (enum value). Like, if your current Regard is 500, EffetiveRegard is Neutral.

[Iceman]

I propose the following:
Trade routes get modifiers depending on regard between the two factions.
Enraged x 0.0 (the trade route generates no income)
Hostile x 0.2
Icy x 0.4
Uncooperative x 0.6
Neutral x 0.8
Receptive x 1.0 (Trade route normal value)
Cordial x 1.1
Enthusiastic x 1.2
Worshipful x 1.3 (most minor races are already a member by this time)

Receptive is the 100% mark, as it is usually where the OB treaty is signed. If regard drops to a lower level, there are incremental penalties to the amount the trade route generates. The bonuses for Cordial or better are only 10% per level of regard, rather than 20% penalties in the other direction, to prevent abuse. Some factions (i.e. the Feds) have more to gain by this tweak than other races. Although each faction can be played in different ways, this tweak will favor the more Membership inclined type gameplay.
The emphasis here is really the penalties for deteriorating your relationship after signing the OB treaty, not the bonus.
Any thoughts?

Sounds good.
Some of those are probably moot, since TRs will be cancelled when relations drop below - can't recall which level.
Or is your suggestion to not cancel the TR, but instead decrease its output

As a side note, when you cancel a TR, there's a Regard penalty (or is it Trust?), the amount depending on how many turns the TR would still be active for.
Just putting it out there that if you want to cancel a TR because the output is low, it will further hamper relations (but not by much). Can't recall how I implemented it, but this penalty should probably not apply if relations are already bad (Icy and below)

[Iceman]

I propose the following:
Trade routes get modifiers depending on regard between the two factions.

A difficult question:
The way relations are implemented in Supremacy, there are 2 values for Regard in a given relation: how civA sees civB, and how civB sees civA. They might be different. This sometimes is a headache.

So, the question is, should income for each civ be different, if relations are different
- If so, which value should be used for each civ (civA should be affected by how civA sees civB, or the how civB sees civA)
- If not, which value should be used

In terms of output, in Supremacy it doesn't matter who initiated the TR, IIRC - so that empire to empire trades are not exploitable.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Some of those are probably moot, since TRs will be cancelled when relations drop below - can't recall which level.
Or is your suggestion to not cancel the TR, but instead decrease its output

Might depend on the situation. In BotF even an 'Enraged' AI maintains treaties/trade routes if the collaboration increases the strategical odds of surviving(other enemies/wars, low score/economy needs the extra trade income, current treaty parter too powerful without other allies).
But below a certain regard value they decline demands (credits/territory) even in exposed/dependent situations.

[the6the]

My suggestion is not to cancel the TR, but lower the output. If someone wants to cancel the TR because of 0 income, they probably don't care about further hampering the relationship anyway. The trust issue is something else though..

I recently cancelled a single trade route out of many that I have with the Klingons to see the effect. Regard went down from Cordial to receptive between the two empires, which was as I expected, but the biggest surprise for me was that trust went down across the board for all empires and minors, by at least 2 bars. Was that supposed to happen? - try it with the save I sent you last. It actually makes sense though, however brutal the effect.

If this Trust across the board penalty is intentional, and applies to Enraged situations, perhaps the trade route should be automatically cancelled when regard hits Enraged. But I would keep the Hostile at x0.2.

In regards to the difficult civA - civB question:
If someone knew the formula of how the TR amount is generated, and if it is how civB sees civA, that could be a problem -
To avoid civA being able to exploit the TR amount for an insight into the civB's regard to civA (and vice versa), I'd vote to keep the logic as simple as possible, and make it how civA sees civB.

[Iceman]

The trust issue is something else though..

Was that supposed to happen? - try it with the save I sent you last. It actually makes sense though, however brutal the effect.

If this Trust across the board penalty is intentional, and applies to Enraged situations, perhaps the trade route should be automatically cancelled when regard hits Enraged. But I would keep the Hostile at x0.2.

It is intentional, yes. I'll edit this post after dinner with a more detailed reply, just letting you know that I read it. Been very busy lately, sorry for taking so long to get back to you...



After dinner edit:

but the biggest surprise for me was that trust went down across the board for all empires and minors, by at least 2 bars. Was that supposed to happen? - try it with the save I sent you last. It actually makes sense though, however brutal the effect.

The rationale behind this is that if you do not hold up to your agreements, everyone you know will trust you less.
Except for Deceptive minors that are members of your empire, which will trust you more - but now that I think about it, they shouldn't *trust* you more, they should probably *like* you more instead (and the Cardassians too )
And Mercantile members should also, instead of trusting you *much* less, like you (just) less (any other member civs just don't care)

BTW, there was a nasty bug that potentially could distort the amount of Trust that was actually decreased, so thanks for pointing this issue out
We should test it again after the fix to see how it goes. If you find it to still be too much, we can scale it back. The base value is the output of the TR (in credits) BTW, doubled for Isolationist minors and Mercantile members.

If this Trust across the board penalty is intentional, and applies to Enraged situations, perhaps the trade route should be automatically cancelled when regard hits Enraged.

The Trust modifier is only applied when you *intentionally* cancel the TR; there is no penalty when the TR is cancelled automatically. Just a clarification.

[Iceman]

Some of those are probably moot, since TRs will be cancelled when relations drop below - can't recall which level.
Or is your suggestion to not cancel the TR, but instead decrease its output

Might depend on the situation. In BotF even an 'Enraged' AI maintains treaties/trade routes if the collaboration increases the strategical odds of surviving(other enemies/wars, low score/economy needs the extra trade income, current treaty parter too powerful without other allies).
But below a certain regard value they decline demands (credits/territory) even in exposed/dependent situations.

Thanks for your always really useful insight, this will go into my ToDo file for future improvements; when we get the AI to think/act more globally/strategically.

[Iceman]

As a side note, when you cancel a TR, there's a Regard penalty (or is it Trust?), the amount depending on how many turns the TR would still be active for.

This (the highlighted part) is actually not true (my bad). It's probably something I intended to do.

[the6the]

Yep, I totally get why the Trust has to go down, and I think it's great that it works so well.. seems as though it may be even a little too well:)
You see, it was just one of many TRs I had with the Klingons. perhaps cancelling a single TR between empires (in cases when you have multiple TR's - like 5 or even 10) could be treated differently on the global scale than when you cancel the only TR (or one of very few - like 4 or less) you have with any civ.
But then again, we'll test the fix, and it might be fine after that.
The more I think of it, the more I love how the Trust bar. Awesome idea to implement it, and now I know it works well too B)

[Iceman]

That's actually an interesting idea. We could compare the output of the TR being cancelled with the total output of TRs you have with the civ (which for minor civs is always 100%) and affect Trust accordingly

Trust should play a more important role in the future, namely having a say in acceptance of treaties (instead of just Regard - which should "simply" make them available to be signed), and other stuff.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

We could compare the output of the TR being cancelled with the total output of TRs you have with the civ

In BotF it's check for a +/- change of sum of total population of sender systems to this recipient.
Credit output of incoming trade routes works like a credit gift each turn. Recipient effect based on sum of total population of sender systems.
Even The AI will change/cancel trade routes for bigger systems to maximize own trade route income.
So yes, canceling and adding a better route should not be punished since recipient benefits from this.