FreeOrion

This is the sort of thing i'm trying to solve with the diplomat system.

essentially, the goal of the system is to simplify diplomacy *functionally* to the point where offer-counteroffer-countercounteroffer is no not a valid tactic.

Instead of offering your tech in exchange for a set amount of money, then seeing their response and raising or lowering that amount to maximize profit. . . the option for doing that is gone,

In place the system is simplified to "I have this tech, and i need money" they agree in principle, then you get a bartering result. "they will trade $218 and 73 cents for your tech". It's auto optimized and so you DON'T have to barter, the bartering is automated *and depends on your race pics/status/empire/weather your trustworthy or not/. . .*

In effect the AI is going to have to DO 90% of the work anyway, to find if it wants to accept or reject.

The only difference is that instead of returning a yes or a no, all parties are returned 'A possible treaty [which all AI's WILL accept], which has been optimized for each involved player {to the degree that thier diplomats could manage}.'

Regarding things Krikkitone wants to avoid:

Micromanagement: Nolonger possible solved
Penalty for trying out ideas... : This could or could not be implemented, (my current vision does have a chance for total failure, and negative results for total failure to further suppress micromanagement, but if sufficiently well made this should be redundant. . .)
Exploiting AI: ok, here my system is a bit weaker. . . admitably this system will provide a manner of quantitatively evaluating how ready/willing a AI is to go to war. (and even how economically, militaristic ready a human player is to go to war *since the AI would evaluate at diplomacy time using the AI's reasoning weather the player would be willing unless the player veto's the war request*)
but, I can't easily envision a system where this is easily avoidable, *one could make it a risky endeavor to even ask about going to war, a chance based on the target {and targets allies / friends} spy ratings in both of your empires to learn of the under the table war negotiations, and a very large chance that if you ask empire A if they want to attack empire B, and in the end Don't agree to do so, that Empire A will tell Empire B that you approached them regarding war plans [clearly you didn't agree to a mutual attack . . . so why not win some browny-points with B, since your not going to be attacking them : - D]* That should prevent that sort of abuse to some extent.



What I want to avoid is ever having to wonder if I'm getting the best deal. my diplomats wouldn't just be guides, but would be tools returning a valid final response.

In kirktons example...


I would have that be the final result from the negotiations.
the input to negotiations would be

WANT:
All want peace (red-yellow 25 turn) (blue-yellow Mutual defense) (red-blue 'no time limit')
RED Yellow Blue

Fusion power tech Minerals(deposit)(blue) mars
Money (deposit)(red)
PP(installments)(blue)
Minerals(installments)(red)
HAS TO OFFER:
RED Yellow Blue

Money(Deposit) PP(install)
Mineral(deposit/install) Fusion Power Minerals(install,deposit)
Mars


Other things Might have been on any of the players WANTS lists, but not on another players have list *or veto-ed by both players before sending the diplomats*
Other things may have been on the HAS TO OFFER lists but were not included in the final results because they were not desirable


The goal would be that no player needs to Define how much of anything, (save booleans yes or no to tech yes or no to planets)
Also note that the final results are rather heavily wighted in Yellow's favor, one can assume then that for some internal/ historical/ race pics, reason yellow is diplomatically dominant.

This result would be accepted or rejected by human players (on account of AI's having 'accepted' it via their diplomats)

NOTE, this system DOES limit the variety of Possible treaties to approximately N! (where N is the number of possible clauses/variations), but since N is larger then 25, this is relatively speaking infinity.

Also note that this does somewhat limit human to human players as well, while two people might want to trade 10 pp/turn for 10 food/ turn, the diplomacy AI might return 5 pp for 9 food, or 11 for 8. (personally i think this is a BENEFIT of this system if a human playing against humans chooses a low diplomacy race or history, they should suffer from their low diplomacy EVEN when dealing with fellow humans) [If circumventing this is truly desired it would be possible to include a 'gift' option which is ignored by the calculations]

Lastly regarding 'breaking' treaties; I've always supported a system of semi-automated treaty review, essentially at the end of any given N turns, the treaty is recalculated with the same parameters, and all users are presented with a news point for the turn, *treaty up for Negotiation* which they can then access the treaty, and change parameters, accept, or reject the continuation of the treaty. Treaties broken/renegotiated between re-negotiation times would suffer a penalty to the one who initiates the re-opening of talks(or in breaks suffer political consequences ).


In the end, I have not seen an alternative solution which addresses the two major concerns i brought up specifically.

How else to incorporate diplomacy pics / trade pics into a system where concrete numbers resources are passing between empires?
Two
how to make human to human trade as similar and intuitive, without being overly restrictive as AI trade.

OK, enough, best wishes all,
Robbie

"what would you give me for this"....

I agree it avoids micromanagement, but if we want the AI to avoid being manipulated then

What will you do if the AI asks you this?
AND
What will the AI do when you ask it?

If the AI is Willing to pay up to 100$ for a tech should it Tell you that?
A smart Human player wouldn't... not if they think you will give it to them for 50$.

A smart negotiator gives you the lowest price that they think you will sell it for NOT the highest price they are willing to pay.





As for Diplomat Negotiators.... I think the idea would be good, but the problem is it is hard to get a good valuation of the various things... like what is the PP/turn value of Peace (well that depends on the Military Situation, and the broader diplomatic situation.) Essentially only the Player can determine the relative Value of various things to them.
The problem is if you reveal that information by putting it into an algorithm to generate a Treaty.

Actually, I've looked into the Idea and I think it might be possible
You give everything that you might be interested in Trading a value a "list price" (the minimum sell price and the maximum buy price)
and Treaties are proposed... not By you or the AI but by the GAME (based on what your empires know about the other Empire's condition and how they "Should" value it, not the value listed unless that is more in the Other AIs favor.) Both You and AI players then approve/reject the Treaty seperately.

Treaties would include Everything you said you "Really" wanted (unless what you wanted was more than you could get/the other player had that vetoed) at something that would be fair (unless your desired price higher than the Other players maximum price)
Also the AI would approve those Treaties UNLESS it had a particular plan that you didn't know about (they might not be willing to sell their Weapon tech to you because they are planning on attacking you.. its more valuable to you than even You think it is). Of course the fact that they Or You rejected what the Diplomats thought was a good treaty would figure into new attempts to make a Treaty later.

So..the basic price is
what 'my empire' thinks 'your empire' is willing to sell for [or if it is lower the "list price" I am willing to pay]
Averaged with
what 'your empire' thinks 'my empire' is willing to pay [or if it is higher the "list price" you are willing to sell for]

All calculated

If the basic price is
Less than the seller's "list price"
or
More than the buyer's "list price"

In those cases no deal is possible with that Item,.. that is the Trade off, you could demand a ridiculously high price for something, but if it is much higher than what others Think you should ask... then you might not get a deal. But they will adjust their expectations for the Treaties to be made Next turn. (its essentially like a 'pre rejection')

Then once the "fair value" of all items is established, add in the must haves for each receiver (that the giver allows), and then add in extras (that the giver allows) to get to an equal value on both sides.


I think a key thing is that the Players would NOT propose Treaties.. the Game would propse Treaties and if Both (all) Players it is proposed to accept, then it goes into force.
The players would be telling the 'Diplomatic corps'
1. what is on the table,
2. what they want out of treaties and
3. the minimum sell value/maximum buy value they put on things...
the diplomats would Not use those values to determine the treaty value.. unless those values gave you a Worse price than theri estimate, just to determine what treaties they won't even bother to propose.

Human players could bypass this with Gifts... but if you gave a gift, then it would increase your public diplomacy with the gift recipient.

Diplomacy Pics
IMHO it should not be assumed that there will be diplomacy/trade pics. If the system that best meets our needs doesn't work with these kind of pics, i'm perfectly happy with that.

However the citizen simulation that we're looking at provides the opportunity for different kinds of social pics such as: "Charisma: the citizens of other empires tend to like your species more." So this general area of pics need not be excluded simply because it's not reflected directly in diplomacy.


Helper AIs
Personally i'm fine with the idea of "Helper AIs", such as one that helps you design ships, send out scouts, or in this case, streamlines the process of coming up with a mutually agreeable treaty. However, IMHO the planned existence of a Helper AI should ever excuse making part of the game overly complicated. The game should be readily playable with all Helper AI's turned off. Helper AIs should be considered a convenience for the inexperienced, the rushed, or for those that dislike a particular aspect of the game— but not as the "normal" way to play.

As some of the original designers would have said, if something is so unexciting that we expect the the player to hand it off to an AI most of the time, why is it even in the game?


Not all Options are good
While diplomacy is one of the aspects i care a lot about, i don't necessarily equate devising a fun and robust diplomatic system with devising one with most diplomatic options.

For instance: the idea of a treaty that promises X amount of resources, every turn for X turns— this one probably is more trouble than it is worth.
You can't guarantee that you'll have X amount for X turns, so what happens when you have a short-fall? Or what happens if things get tight and to fulfill that treaty a planet must starve, or a vitally important project must stagnate? They player would need to be reminded somehow how much of his resources were promised to various other empires, and he would want a way to decide what goes where if things get tight. Unless there's a simple, elegant way to do all this that doesn't occur to me we are better off skipping this kind of treaty.

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Diplomatic Effects
I've created a wiki page that lists possible Diplomatic Effects. I've used the wiki format because i expect to revise the list multiple times, and it can be tedious to keep reposting revised material in a forum context.

Diplomatic effects are the concrete results of treaties and diplomatic declarations. I tend think our list of diplomatic statuses (war, alliance, cease-fire) should be built up backwards from the list of diplomatic effects.

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I like all of those except the "Negative Declarations" of
"I will attack...

Those are our Strategies

They should probably just be
"I will attack you"
[unless we have "Rules of War" ie
I will attack your Ships but not planets...
or Ships + Planets...
or I will not deny using Spy actions .. terrorism.. against you
or I will slaughter your population
[what Strategy the person uses, ie when they will be willing to "Call off" the war depends on the player's decision.. rather than an "Agreement"

As for the X% per turn... That seems less reasonable than the total amount per turn.. In either case an amount is missing, and if there is a shortfall... you broke the Treaty (perhaps "auto-renegotiation" happens in that case)

Re: "I will fight until planet(s) X are returned to me"

I wanted to explore the idea of limited war. It may be an unnecessary complication, but as you can see from the 2 "neutral" declarations i'm interested in seeing if the continuum between "war" and "peace" can be divided into various intermediate, but concrete and easily understandable states.

It would be nice to be declare war in a more limited way than announcing your plans to exterminate the entire civilization. At the very least the "neutral" declarations allow you to defend your borders without initiating war.



Huh?
How can there be a shortfall? If Red is promised 20% of Brown's minerals per turn as tribute, that's a promise that can always be kept, no matter how many minerals Brown acquires. Its better to devise treaties that can't accidentally be broken. Assigning blame in such situations is an unnecessary difficulty.

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That could be broken down into separate clauses for ammo and fuel.


If your planets need 90 food, you produce 100 and are giving away 20%, you'd have a shortfall of 10 food. Presumably it's not so much of an issue with other resources.

I do question the definition of 20% though... Is this 20% of the total empire production, or 20% of the amount produced that is resource-connected to the capitol / the traded-with empire? If you agree to trade 20% of your total production, but half of that total is on one remote mega-farm planet, the rest of your empire would be in trouble.

20% is also rather ... dependent on other factors and hard to place a value on, since it obviously depends on the empire's production, and can thus be manipulated to reduce the amount sent by reducing the sender's production of that resource. It might be better to go to the effort to include clauses in treaties for what happens if the treaty is broken. This would then cover resource-trading agreements that are broken, as well as various other treaties that could be broken.

Edit: Also, perhaps "Diplomatic Effects" should be "Diplomatic Clauses"? I'd like to avoid mixing terminology with tech, building, special, etc. "Effects".

Actually, if we can have a Renegotiation for a treaty, then breaking it accidentally shouldn't be a problem... if for some reason you Won't be able to live up to Treaty obligations (stuff / turn, or you Negotiated two mutually exclusive Defensive Pacts, etc.) [not that you already Broke them, ie I bombed your planet let's renegotiate the Peace Treaty now]

That allows you the ability to try and provide something else instead of Breaking the Treaty (sorry I don't have 15 minerals/turn to give you for 5 food/turn to me any more,
Because I only have 10 minerals per turn to give you,
Essentially I negotiate a NEW Treaty that is You give ME 5 mineral/turn (the difference) and whatever else is needed to make that treaty work is added in...
That Treaty is then combined with the Old Treaty... Essentially adjusting it to whatever is sustainable in the new situation.

In general, I can see a number of possible effects from actually Breaking a Treaty Deliberately

1. Significant lost of "Trustworthiness"/Allegiance ie value on your 'long term' promises as compared to immediate promises (both to AI players and to Planetary citizens)
For human players, reflect the State of the Treaty when first made, and when it is Broken

2. If you Break a Treaty with saomeone you are forced to renegotiate ALL your Treaties with them (including Peace).

Actually perhaps there shouldn't be "Treaties" handled seperately... you simply have 1 Treaty with each other Player (and some multilateral ones) that Treaty states all the things you are giving, and all the things They are giving.
This means that any individual Negotiation is actually a Renegotiation... you are modifying your current Treaty.

So to totally Break a Treaty, you are starting from Scratch... ie If they Don't accept your suggested New Treaty then there is no Peace, there is only War until new Treaty is negotiated



As for Limited v. Total War

I think that might be all better put in the Positive side
ie restate all of them as
"I will NOT attack...

"I will not attack you in my systems (Open Borders)
"I will not attack you in Neutral systems
"I will not attack you in Your systems
"I will not attack your planets
"I will not attack your surrendering troops
"I will not attack your unarmed civilians
"I will not kill every last thinking being on your planets

So that way you can have "rules of war"
........................................
"I will attack..." seems like it would be better equipped to [Third Party]

"I will attack [Third Party] fleets in my systems"

Although that it might be better stated as
"[Third party] will not get [Clause A/planet B/Tech C, etc.] from me until/unless they give [Clause Y/planet X/Tech Z*] to you"

* This could be useful becase it could include things They don't have (I won't give [Red] [Peace] until they give ['Long list of planets'] to you) That would mean if Red HAS any of "Your planets", I can't give them peace But if Blue, Green, and Yellow Have some of "Your Planets", I can still make peace with Red (and with Blue, Green, and Yellow for that matter.. The treaty was only to stop Red.).. It also means as soon as Red Takes one of "Your Planets" they lose "Peace" with Me, unless they immediately give it to you.

Third Party could be Specific OR it could be Generic


It also means that You could be at War with Red and I wouldn't care until "Your core Planets" got attacked.
.........................................


It is definitely more complicated, especially because it is a clause with clauses within it (for simplicity we might say that it can only be Simple Clauses ... ie the first list)


And a few other Diplomatic Clauses
"I will do/stop doing [X] domestically
(I will stop annihilating Psilons, I Will annihilate Psilons, I will have Free Elections, I will have some limit on Military Equipment, Not Focus on Research, Focus on Minerals, etc.)

This is unique since it is not really given TO my empire from yours (although it may make my people happier about dealing with you)

I don't see why anyone would want to make that distinction. However a distinction between military and non-military ships might be useful.



Good point. Therefore, tribute should probably be limited to money, which as i understand it, is un-hindered by blockades. Providing all new techs could be considered another form of tribute which is again, not something which can be inadvertently broken.

Please note, i'm not considering tribute as something that would be in a treaty between roughly equal powers. It's the kind of clause that is in a conditional surrender as an alternative to annihilation.



Why? It would be silly if an empire purposefully breaks the core of a treaty, but then feels bound by the "if the treaty is broken..." clauses.

And as mentioned, i don't see the point in including treaties that can be accidentally broken. How is the AI supposed to figure out if it was really an accident? If we really need to include long term trade treaties, it could be done something like this:

Empire A will trade up to N excess minerals with Empire B for excess food at an exchange rate of 1 mineral to 1.5 food, for N number of turns.

It's foolproof. The player doesn't have to worry about it again, until it expires, or unless he wants to break it on purpose. A player can make such a treaty without worrying that he's going to starve his own people.



"Effect" may not be the idea term. But i am explicitly not talking about "diplomatic clauses". I expect many of the smallest elements of a diplomatic treaty ("clauses") to contain more than one of these "effects".

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The reason I think we need multi-turn resource Trade Treaties is from the nature of the FO economy.

1. Resources are not interchangable, (Except though diplomacy)
2. Some Resources are not Stockpilable

Because of # 1 if I want Food, I can't rely on Minerals or Money
Because of #2 if I want Industry, I can't take it in a lump sum

Since We Will have Ongoing Treaties (assuming there will be some type of peace treaties that last more than 1 turn)

We need to have a way to change them without "Breaking them"

The alternative is to make it like Civ 4 where Ongoing Treaties and "One-time" treaties can't be combined... so you don't have to worry about breaking them... an "Ongoing Treaty" is just a repeated One-Turn Treaty

Because we will have a Way of Changing them without Breaking Them, then that can be applied to a Resource/turn not being able to be met.

OR you could Change it Just because you Wanted to (the other party has to agree of course In EITHER Case, and if there is Nothing you can give them instead of what you can't anymore then the Treaty is Broken)

Especially if "revising" Treaties is common, then I see nothing wrong with multi-turn agreements. If your "Diplomatic Agreements" are going to cause Starvation/Mineral Shortage/Monetary Collapse/Inability to Maintain an Operational Fleet, etc.
THEN you would get a notice that you might want to Renegotiate or Break the Treaty
Once it is literally more than you have, you would be Forced to Renegotiate or Break the Treaty

Whether you Break a Treaty because you "Can't" or because you "Don't Want to" give something any more, the result is the same... You are threatened with War unless you negotiate new treaties with that Empire. And your "Credit Rating" takes a nose dive... everyone will demand everything up front from you from then on.


If an Enemy Empire imposes a 100 food/turn Tribute on your people, then I think that is also Totally valid... What do you want, Death by Starvation or Bombing? (not a fun choice but a valid one for a losing empire) [If you are lucky you can renegotiate the deal so that instead of 100 food/turn they just get your empire.]

Now the idea of X% of Output as Tribute might be Valid, but it is hard to evaluate... X% of your output now is a different value than X% of your Output Later.

As long as there is a decent defintion for military and non-military, and enough of both to make the distinction useful, then yeah, that would probably be better.


Have such severely limited possible transfers of resources seems rather ... unfortunate. There'd be no way for empires with lots of extra mineral, industry or food to pay tribute, and the only useful thing you could get from tribute would be trade... This solution seems worse than the problem.


"what happens if the treaty is broken" was poor choice of words. The point was that there could be clauses built into treaties that specificy how one empire can end the treaty. Using such a clause wouldn't actually be breaking the treaty (as in not abiding by agreement).

If we're going to have any sort of trade where one player gives something up front and gets payments over time, we'll need some way to deal with inability or unwillingness to pay. This doesn't have to always mean war though... If you don't pay your mortgage, the bank will take your house, not your life.

We could not bother putting any clauses about how to deal with non-payment into treaties where one player agrees to pay another over time, and just deal with non-payment when it happens. One player would inform the other that they aren't going to pay as agreed, and then the lender would have the option of accepting alternate payment, declaring war, or just taking the loss. In the latter case, the lender would be unwilling to agree to any future deals where the lender gives something up-front for payments over time; only turn-by-turn deals, or deals where the former lendee is now the lender would be accepted.

Another quirk to consider is making payment over time less specific about the payment schedule. You'd be able to agree to pay X amount by turn Y, with no details about how much on which turns would be paid before that. If on or before turn Y you pay up, you're done. If you haven't paid X by turn Y, one option in the ensuing negotiation would be to double the remaining amount due and add another Z turns to the payment. It could also be possible to agree to convert a fixed per turn payment schedule into a nonspecific payment schedule or vice versa.


Perhaps we shouldn't have any concept of accident or inability vs. choice to pay, but instead just worry about whether payments are made or not. The consequences in either case would be the same.


That works for voluntary treaties, but we should still have some capacity to agree to a fixed transfer amount when under duress.

A few points,
1. Unless Alternate payment is made the "Trust" will be broken (whether the lender takes the loss or goes to war in either case the lendee didn't pay) also the Trust should be broken by Everyone, No one should trust the Lendee again.

2. The pay X by turn Y sounds interesting, but hard to evaluate, especially because of the "non stockpilable" resources of Research and Production, if I get 10,000 PP over 50 Turns that is probably better for me than 10,000 PP all at once because I probably can't use 10,000 PP all at once.

Also when Transferring Resources, one that seems interesting is the transfer of Research Points... I see how it Might be done similar to the others. ie Your Scientisats work for us, research what we tell them to and can't tell you their findings, but Research points, like the tech they make, seem like a good option for a Non Zero-sum game, ie I can Take some of your research without actually Taking it.

Also if Treaties are Generated for the Player, then the 1 excess food for each 1.5 excess minerals for 20 turns can easily be for
10 food/turn for 15 minerals/turn for 20 turns with a new treaty modification popping up whenever things are getting low.

Side note, It might be good to have a maximum value of say 50 turns on any ongoing treaty (including peace... if you want to maintain peace then you keep extending it to the maximum time)

That way you can Declare War and still be seen as not breaking any Treaties. (ie you Always have a 50 turn "out" which seems like plenty of time for someone to prepare [although probably more like 40 turns when they realized you weren't going to "re max it"]
You would have the concept of an "Honorable" War.

I'd also simplify it by saying that the number of turns on an item is fixed by the item
ie I can give you 20 $/turn for 10 turns OR I can give you 5 $/turn for 35 turns but I can't do Both at once (If I want to change one deal for the Other I have tyo have a Treaty that cancels the remaining turns on one and offers the other in return.)

I really don't think non-stockpile-able resources should be tradable in any situation. It defeats part of the purpose of making them non-stockpile-able.


I also don't like the idea of treaties needing frequent and unpredictable "re-negotiations." A predictable expiration date is acceptable. Empires purposefully breaking treaties is fine.

But having a diplomatic process which encourages treaties that will frequently be accidentally broken is just annoying. If i made a treaty it's because i wanted things that way. I don't think many players will want to continually revise the same treaty. If that's the way multi-turn trade treaties must be, then i'm for forgetting the whole thing, and sticking with one-time trade transactions, or a galactic auction where you can make your excess available for whoever wants it.

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How so...?

I'd make research not tradable, because we will presumably have tech trading which accomplishes the same thing in a more interesting way (ie. particular techs being traded).

I don't see a reason to not trade industry... An empire could find a niche selling access to its massive industrial capacity, without worrying about other empires stockpiling (as with minerals) and thereby eliminating their dependence on bought resources.

Which specific suggestion is this referring to?

I don't see any reason to impose a limit on treaties after which they must be renegotiated. Peace treaties signed willingly would generally be indefinite, with no set expiry date or minimum duration, and could be withdrawn from at any time unilaterally. Conversely, if a treaty was forced or paid for, it would probably have a set duration, after which it would expire.

Also, we should clarify: Resources are food, minerals, industry, trade and research. Production points are not a resource; they are made from resources by an empire.

Well I would want to see
1. Trade in Production Points (not Just Industry... perhaps not Industry at all, since Industry without minerals is Wasted... If you have excess Minerals and someone else has Excess Industry you can give them Minerals for Production Points... which have a value of 1 Industry+1 Mineral)..
A Production Point Always has value (you can always build more shipyards if you can't build more ships)
A Mineral Always has value (because you can save it for later when you have more Industry)

2. Trade in Research Points (both Transferred and "Copied")
[again they Always have Value]

The only alternative in both cases is
1. Trade of the Ships (and other things) that PP build
2. Trade of the Tech Research Produces

The problem is 1+2 is those Ships/Techs must have Already been produced to be Traded, setting it up for long term (ie I want a Mega Doomstar, but no one has one, although they all have a high PP output... or I want Phased Shields, but noone is researching it because I'm the only one that wants it.) isn't viable.

Now possibly the idea of I want X by Y (build me a Mega Doom star within 20 turns) is there but that sounds very complicated as a diplomatic valuation.


Revisions to your Treaty (singular) with another player would not need to be all that common, only when you could no longer supply what they wanted.

I also see no reason why you would worry about "Forced Renegotiation" being common... I don't expect the Average FO player to be as stupid as the average home buyer, nor to I expect the Treaties to be as complicated as the average mortgage.

If you are making 120 Minerals/turn and have 100 Industry, then I don't expect you to sell 20 Minerals/turn indefinitely (unless you are developing mining worlds or changing Focuses to mining and away from Industry) you might change it for 10 turns if you have a decent Surplus

If a Player manages their economy at the bare edge of expectations, then they should be forced to constantly renegotiate Treaties involving that Economy. But Most Players would probably maintain some type of a cushion. (Actually, Food already incorporates this, if you have food production between 1 and 4 times your population, then you have a variable response)