FreeOrion

I would regard both Scouts and Colonies as "civilian"
If you don't want them coming through your systems to colonize, then just allow NO ships through... if you won't even let scouts through, then just stay a closed border empire.

The simple armed/unarmed should be enough.

Goodmorning all;



Yes, it should be a viable stratagem, I was simply trying to propose a method of implementation at the pre-sudo-code level If you don't provide a maner by which AI's know when to break treaties they don't, or worse yet they do so randomly.

Some system of measurement will probably be needed, and some system of threshold determination. The measurements and thresholds might not be the same for all races, and all situations.



That was what i was aiming to convey

best wishes
Robbie

Victory or End Game Conditions.

I think it's legit to consider this part of v0.5... at least it's not specifically listed on the roadmap, and seems related to diplomacy. I.E if we don't know what sort of cooperative victories are possible (if any) than it's harder to figure out how exactly alliances and soforth should work.

Here's what's in my head:

1) various game-states cause the game to end.
2) each empire's score is calculated, based on things like exploration, science, population, citizen happiness, the size of the galaxy, the number of turns used, the survival of the empire, level of freedom (vassal states get docked) etc.
3) the empire with the highest score wins. This is not necessarily the same empire which initiated the game-end.


So what makes the game end?

1) Elimination (destruction or enslavement of all opposition)
2) Diplomatic Closing (to be defined)
3) Scientific Closing (you build a time machine and instantly eliminate all opposition)
4) Economic Closing? (hinted at by "Economic Hegemony")
5) Transcendent Closing? (hinted at by "Singularity of Transcendence")
6) Espionage Closing? (possibly added at v.07... not much point defining it now)
7) Exploration Closing? (discover all the Xs)

What's particularly important at this point is what's the difference (if any) between #1 and #2, and can all the other victory types (whatever they are) be shared?

While i'm not interested in personally conquering every single planet in the galaxy (i no longer find it fun after once my power is so great that skill irrelevant), i also am not usually impressed by being "elected president of the galactic council" type victories. There's not much sense of closure, and it seems too easy.

The simplest form of diplomatic closing is everyone is allied with everyone else. If this happens, everyone would get a message like: "An era of peace has dawned on the galaxy. Are you ready to end the game, or do wish to withdraw and try to carve out a bigger piece of the galaxy for yourself?"
Functionally it's about the same as the Moo2 diplomatic victory, without the voting... i.e. if anyone doesn't like the new chosen president, they can declare war, instead of ending the game.

just some thoughts...

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Personally I have never seen a diplomatic victory that works but your proposal dose sound a lot better than some of the arbitrary president of the galactic council victories I've seen. It sounds more like a tie to me than a victory but I'm fine with that.

Perhaps there could be two diplomatic "victories" the one you proposed and another one you get by being a magnificent bastard: using standard-ingame diplomatic agreements to ensure that you have political control over the galaxy, unlike the other diplomatic ending you do get points for winning. If the others don't even realise you've done this: Bonus Points!

A possible example: assume FreeOrion lets players create their own galactic councils with their own rules. The player has two secret vassal states and has cunningly constructed an European Union styled body with what appears to be fair rules and quite a bit of power over its members but only with a firm majority vote; the player convinces the rest of the galaxy to sign up however what they don't realise is that the two secret vassal states means that the player controls enough votes to force through or block any proposition he wants.

First, I like the general Idea.. the Winner is the one with the most points.

Second, I'd have a slightly different list of "game-enders" though

1. No more opponents ( ie destruction, enslavement, or full union with all opponents... Conquest+Diplomacy+Economic+Espionage are Means of reaching this end)

2. Game Breaking Project (any type of device/development where the game could not reasonably accomodate its existence, Time Machine* is good example... although in that case the Project itself should be worth a Vast number of points.. ie catching the snitch in Quiddich... generally getting it means you win) "Scientific" and possibly "Exploration" or "Transcendance" victories fit here.

3. "Out Map interaction" ie Transcendance (of the type where they can come back) OR Intergalactic/dimensional Colonization (unless the game is set to infinitely expand).. the "Exploration" and "Transcendance" Victories can fit here/as well as some "Scientific" versions


*For a time machine I generally favor the one that has to be opened up to the past... so you don't go back in time to before you build it... but future you goes back in time to the point where you built it. (with all the neat new techs)

Considering this, I would hope that we could have direct, "eye to eye" diplomatic negotiations as in MOO 2 instead of a MOO 3 type of a system where the diplomatic suggestions where more like video letters and so it took some time to actually get a response to your suggestion.

There are two types of reasons why I would prefer the MOO 2 type of a system over the MOO 3 type of a system, game play and general playing experience.

Now what comes to the game play reasons, if we are going to have complicated treaties that might simultaneously deal with many aspects of the game and if there will be need to refine these treaties during the negotiations it would at least in my opinion be much simpler to do so when you are in direct diplomatic contact. This way once you have send your proposal to the other party you will get their response immediately and so you don`t have to wait for it for a couple of turns and possibly even forget about what were your goals in this particular negotiation. And if the diplomatic negotiations are very slow there is a risk that some parts of your complicated treaty suggestion aren`t anymore up to date, because the galactic situation has changed, and this again could mean even more treaty reshaping.

As for the general playing experience, a direct eye to eye diplomatic negotiation with a representative of an alien species could hopefully offer the player a unique change to observe the behaviour of a "living" (moving) member of this species during the negotiations. And so as I already mentioned in the "preliminary thoughts about diplomacy" thread it could offer an aquarium like experience. Also at least I like the idea that I ,as a galactic emperor, am so important that the empire wishing to contact me will actually send a live representative or at least a live video/holo image of a representative instead of a cold pre-recorded video message.

Also, there might of course be other possible solutions for the diplomatic negotiations than those used in MOO 2 or 3.

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THe problems are that an offer-counteroffer system is open to manipulation of the AI AND micromanagement, you might be able to eliminate the micromanagement of manipulating the AI, but you only do that by making the AI more easily manipulatable.

This is why I propose no Offer/counter offer.. instead, Offers are generated by the game.. if both sides accept then it becomes active.

Goodmorning all, (I'll be posting a lot to day, just got back from a buisness trip, sorry for the flood)



The only problem i see with the game generating offers is that it leaves very little room for the more complex organic offers some people have been discussing. The game itself can't possibly foresee all the secondary clauses you might want to add. Since secondary clauses seams to be a largish part of what many people are discussing, there would need to be some way of re-injecting user involvement into the way that the game generates offers on it's own.

Otherwise the idea is good and significantly reduces the ability to manipulate, but it at the same time reduces the variability and responsive nature of the treaties themselves.


One more thought, if treaties are proposed by the game, what is left for empire negotiations?? what motivations do we have to enter the diplomacy screen?

and one last thought, Doesn't this qualify as having the game play itself for the user? I thought we were trying to avoid implementing things where the game itself did things like this on behalf of the user, on the grounds that if it's annoying enough to prefer to have the game do it for us it' s probably not the right model in the first place.

anyway, I think it is a good idea, but it might do with a lot of further thinking.

Best wishes Robbie Price.

On the Topic of Game closings; (I'm trying to keep ideas seperated into seperate posts, to keep things readable, hopefully this will be better then posting one mega gigantic post which hurts to read)

I would just like to include a note for victories which don't end the game;

For example transcendence; There is no particular reason why having one empire transcend should end the game for the others. All the planets owned by that race become unpopulated *perhaps even keeping their buildings* massive late game planet grab.

or Exploration victory; Gives you stacks of points, so you'll be 'victorious', but doesn't mean you'll survive the next great war. >:- D. *kind of like getting a huge honor posthumously*

Just something to keep in mind,

Price

Regarding the Tit for Tat component of the discussion;

Nobodies responded, but re-reading i feel i should make one quick point.

The method I'm proposing is just an extension to the i believe basic underlining principle that anything you do with one empire effects your relations with all other empires.

One of the ways to measure this is by measuring how much each side of a treaty stands to gain by breaking it's word, Knowing that breaking it's word will soil it's image with other empires.

If we implement a system were each empire has a different amount of 'gain' it must stand to win by breaking a treaty, all we need to do is add a modifier that says 'If they broke a treaty then others will be less upset with us if we break out treaty with them(proportional to the importance of each treaty involved)'

Ok i think i am done in this thread.

Sorry for the triple post, I just felt that including all three in one post would be too long to be easily navigable. Therefor harder to respond to with ideas.

Price.

Well the game would generate its proposals based on input you were giving
ie I want X.... [things I want to get in the diplomatic proposals]
I will take Y.... [things that I don't particularly want, but are things I'm willing to take]
I will give Z........ [list of things I am willing to give up]

For resources those have a minimum to get and a maximum to give. ie I will give up a maximum of 3 minerals /turn (at x value /mineral) and I want at least 5 food/turn (at x value/food).

for each put a
Max I'm willing to pay to get it
OR
Minimum I'm willing to give it up for
(depending on if you will be giving or getting it)

so you would be setting the limits of what you would accept or reject

For 'Third party' type treaties, if you put them in your 'wish list' they would probably get proposed to the other person anyways (unless the other player specifically allowed or forbade them)



Here you don't, not in terms of proposing a treaty to another player and waiting for their replay. Because the computer can't handle negotiating with the player, without the computer
1. acting like a human/user unfriendly computer and therefore a potentially annoying jerk/subject to micromanagement
OR
2. acting like a user friendly computer and therefore easily manipulatable




Well this is my thought, looking at a simple negotiation. I have a large Mineral Surplus and another player has a Tech that I want.

Assume I am Willing to pay 100 Minerals for it
Assume the other player is willing to give it up for 10 Minerals (since they lose nothing)

If I offer the other player 15 Minerals, should they take it?
What if they counter offer wanting 80 Minerals? should I take that
That depends on what the other player Thinks they can get out of me.

Now the process of bid-counterbid is complicated if I feel I know how much they want for it minimum, and they know how much I am willing to give for it.

If they think I will pay 120 for it, why should offer 100. If I think they will give it up for 5, why should I offer 10.

Basically, it comes down to

Worse Deal v. No deal at all
(they try and get me to raise my price by threatening not to sell it to them, hoping I won't call their bluff, because they want it... unless they Really don't want it at those prices)

Essentially each side is trying to threaten to not make the deal in an attempt to get the other side to offer more

This 'waiting/bluffing game' should not
1. be played out within a single turn by the players (since that would make turns too long and result in an annoying AI)
2. Be automated for the AI-AI and Not the AI-Human or Human-Human

The way I see this is not so much automating as simplifying. After all in FO's economy there are only two things you can set on most planets, the rest is "automated". But it is automated by a simple mechanism.

From a player's perspecive in my system you immediately get "the best deal you can get" this turn every turn for everything that is in your wish list for which a deal is possible. If you reject the deal, then the deal next turn will be better (unless the other side also rejected it in which case it may be worse/better/the same/ or just not offered) But to try and make the deal better you gave it up for a turn.

As far as I understand your idea, I think spot several problems:

- first of all, you're trying to reduce micro-management, but in your system you'll have to tune a lot of parameters, set minima and maxima, input what you're willing to give and so on, amounting up to several times the work you'd have in a offer/counteroffer system, just to ensure the proposed treaty will be as intended. This looks somewhat like micro-management to me.

- the values of items in a proposal cannot be determined accurately. For example what an amount of 100 minerals is worth to you varies fundamentaly not only with things the proposal mechanism can see like the amount of minerals you already own, the amount you're producing and so on but also with things the mechanism cannot see (or in case of the AI should not see), like if you are planning a new big project, or want to conquer an enemy mining planet soon, and so on. So the proposed exchange will be most likely in favour of one side and thus will be rejected by the other. And even if you were able to measure the exact worth of everything to form an even proposal, it would then allow you to draw conclusions on facts about the other side you wouldn't know without it, because the important part of bluffing in diplomacy is simply missing.

-lastly, such a system is hard to program. Even if you were able to devise exact rules there will be millions of possible proposals to compare which will take some processing time and there can be hundreds of proposals which are of equal fairness to the mechanism so it just picks one at random, but which make an enourmous difference to you. There will without doubt some severe tradeoffs in implementing all this which then can be exploited by the player which is exactly the thing that shouldn't happen.

From my point of view there is nothing wrong with an offer/counteroffer system if it is implemented right. A simple version would be that each turn you're allowed to make an offer and the other side can accept or make a counter-offer which is shown to you in the next turn, where you have the same desicion to accept or change your offer and so on. (alternatively there can be 2 rounds of offer/counteroffer each turn, or something like that) If you want to find the exact point where the AI accepts you will have to wait several turns, which you usally don't have because you aren't interested in having the deal several dozen turns in the future just because you can save 10 lousy minerals. There is even the possibility of the AI getting annoyed if your new offer isn't much of a difference to the old one or if the negotiations are taking to long (keeping a grudge against you for some time after this, so that you cannot restart the negotiation where you left), just like in real life. Take an example:
Turn 1: You want a maximum of 75 (don't ask me of what), so you offer 50. The AI looks at your proposal calculates that it wants 70 minumum, so it proposes 100.
Turn 2: If you bid to low the AI gets annoyed and stops negotiating, if you get high enough it will accept (or possibly propose more because you are giving in so quickly), but in both cases you don't know exactly when, so lets say you bid 65. The AI in turn counteroffers 85.
Turn 3: You get the new offer, don't accept it but you will have to make an offer above 70 to not be considered cheap, so you offer 72 and the AI settles for this.
I think this example looked a bit better in my head but I hope it still got to the point.

Well the key points are that the maxima and minima would all be in relation to some fixed possibly non existent good (I'd assume Money if it wasn't)

The way a Treaty would be assembled is,
1st the 'trade value' would be determined for all relevant goods
2nd treaties would be constructed with an equal 'value' on each side

A key features would be
1. you would not have to set Maxima and Minima.. thats just a way to "pre reject" treaties
2. the 'trade value' would basically be determined by empire condition and other actual rejections you would make. (so you can't get a Better deal by raising the the minimum you would accept... just No deal... lowering the minimum won't get you a better deal.. just an actual offered deal)



The point is they Can't be determined

The way It would be calculated is
What Player 1's empire knows about Player 2's empire is used to calculate Value 1
What Player 2's empire knows about Player 1's empire is used to calculate Value 2

some average of Values 1+2 is used

So If I (player 1) Really want minerals because of something player 2 doesn't know (either my plans or facts about my empire player 2 doesn't have access to then player 2 won't charge me more because they don't know.

If I want to make sure I get more Minerals, I increase the maximum I will pay for them (and accept relatively tough deals)
If I (as player 2) think player 1 really wants more Minerals (just a hunch because of what I think his plans are) I increase the minimum I will charge him for them... stopping a deal from forming.





The key thing here is that it only makes deals for things that are on your "wish list" or your "must sell" and only give away things you are willing to give away.. probably not too many items on either side.

It would offer Several different Treaties each turn.



Well if this system is in place the fact would be that any offer made is final (no "suggestions".. and they accept, then you say... I don't really want it)

The final problem is the combinations... you may not know everything the AI has... also they may reject your deal because it is for something they don't want to giveup.

Krikkitone

Having read your suggestion, it seams functionally identical to mine.

You propose to some body, not the opposing empire itself, what you want to get out of a treaty and what your willing to give. Some point later on,(for me that same turn, for you next turn) a optimized/balanced treaty midway between the two is constructed. You then accept or reject this treaty.

The differences being.



With your system,
-> rejecting a treaty makes it so that next time the treaty will be more in your favour, but the other side might reject it.
->If they reject the treaty it will be more in theirs, and if both of you do, everybody gives up and goes home.
-> you have some limited number of rejects per turn.
-> the bartering is spead out over muliple turns, and semi-automated, which is to say, you reject a treaty, and it improves in your favour, till you think they will reject it, and you accept.

My system
-> most or all components of the negotiations are completed in one turn.
-> the amount of bartering you can do is highly limited (If you offer mineral for tech, and it comes back 100 min for your tech, there is nothing you can do to change this. except if you fundamentally change the nature of the treaty by adding new clauses)
-> my system assumes that both sides have fraught some long protracted bidding war, 112 for the tech, no 97, ok 111, no 98. . . . off site, so that user doesn't have to. The price listed at the end is the highest/lowest/*best* possible given the political playing field at the time, the clauses requested, and both/*all* sides diplomatic ability.
-> my system takes into account diplomatic ability, yours may, but it's not stated explicately

Both systems have;
-> user never input exact figgures *except binary/semi-binary figurers* this clause/tech/planet/war . .. yes/no/maybe. Except min/max's in your case, my min-maxs were internally calculated with the only user input being weather to focus or shy away from including that resource.
-> An external body, and an semi-automated system.
-> AI-AI interactions are identical to AI-Human, Human-Human interactions.

Am i correct in my understanding of the differences and similarities between our two proposed methods? Am i missing anything?


M_K, your proposed system, other then putting in by hand the values, how is this different?

regarding the question of value of items;
My system would have an input parameter beside each proposed resource for trade. the parameter would essentially be the user telling the body how much (s)he values the resources, outside of the current supply demand curves, it would be (I want this much more then my demand suggest, a little more then my demand suggest, less then my demand suggest or a lot less then). that would modify the internal price for that resource appropriately.
The number of weights being limited to 4 to limit the bartering. Since it is by the system assumed everything will be optimized by the off screen drama.

Regarding the difficulty to program;
If the program is given a limited number of clauses to possibly include, and a limited number of resources to trade, the optimization is not in fact too difficult. Step one, agree on non-resource clauses, any non vetoed clause is included, pretty much. Step two, calc any bias in the treaty as stands, input diplomacy ability information. Step three calc cost for resources. (for simplicities sake we could assume this to be linear, but there is no REAL need for it to be so unrealistic, even a 2nd year economic major can give you the supply/demand non-linear price relationship equations. they aren't too hard, or to hard to program). Final Solve a minimization/maximization equation with a goal value, and n parameter/equation pairs (where n is the number of raw resources involved).

I could set up excel to solve this sort of thing in less then half an hour(the final max/min equation that is), and you wouldn't have time to blink between changing the parameters and getting the results. well ok you might be able to blink, but you wouldn't notices the process time.

I think the point Krikkitone and myself are trying to avoid to a greater or lesser extent is being able to find the AI's acceptance point. If you can find the acceptance point you can manipulate that information. Granted one can argue that both our systems give you that information automatically, both return the best possible treaty you could hope to achieve that turn. In which case, it's probably best that it be automatic rather then requiring micromanagement. But I think as long as the transform from demands on both sides to final result is well implemented that the macro-gaming diplomatic spying/manipulation can be kept minimal. Or at least less relevant then in-game normal spy methods.

ok, i'm done :- D

Salut a tous.

Robbie.

Robbie, I agree ours are similar (As a matter of fact it was your proposal that gave me the idea for mine)
A few points to clarify on mine

1. you would only get 1 reject /turn.. the treaty that was proposed is the only treaty that can be gotten this turn

2. The only use to the values you put in would simply be prerejecting (so there is no point to saying... I want 100 for it, when you would sell it for only 50) whether you have 100 or 50 in there the value will be the same... just if you have 100 and the value comes back 70, then that item cannot be part of any deal.


Mine is also assuming there is a long protracted over 1 turn bidding war... the question is then whether it is acceptable or not to both sides. If not, then it is rejected and another bidding war has to start

The issue I had with yours (leading me to design my own) was player Honesty with their values
If I want to sell something, I want the best Deal, so if saying
"I wont take it for less than 100" gives me a better price than
"I wont take it for less than 50"
without a risk of no deal
Then The player wants to put a value in as high as they think will make a deal.

Why would I not put "High Value" on everything I want to sell and "Low Value" on everything I want to buy?
Unless that risks no deal... in which case it is simply prerejecting a deal.

In my method if you want a good price you have to be willing to wait for it... If you really want Laser Tech this turn you will pay a worse price for it than if you held out (up to a certain point) Essentially the deals would get Better and better until they stopped showing up because now the Other side prerejects them.



RP is right about the reason for our plans, in Civ 3+4 theere was a more(in civ3) or less (in Civ4) complex way to find the AIs rejection point. (useful because when the AI is preparing to go to war they will reject going to war with someone else)

This lets me think that if we actually want barter systems
1. You can't ask any player (through the diplomacy system) "what it wants" if you suggest a deal, that means you only send a deal that you have already accepted, if they accept it, the deal comes in force.

2. Limited number of proposals made per turn, probably 1 proposal made per turn and one counter offer.

3. To simplfy this you should have some metric/advisor that helps you know if, based on what your empire knows about theirs, this seems like a deal that is good for them (likely to accept) or bad for them (likely to reject/counter offer).
The above is easy since it can simply be modeled after the AI we design (just an AI that has to deal with limited knowledge about the "empire" it is making a "decision" for). Also the AIs themselves will need them to make a decent proposal.