Diplomacy options?

[Anguille]

What will the options be?

- trade

- research

- non-aggression

- alliance

- gift (money, ships, planets, tech, attack to another species, peace with other species, medical supply)

- request (same as above)

- Exchange (money, ships, planets and tech)



or will there be something else?

thanks

[RobHuntingdon]

Well... that's a cool idea. But I think more they would ask for a loan, or something, and you could help them out if you wished. 'They ask for money, do we have money to spare? Yes, loan money, no, appologize and maybe offer other form of support.' Simpler and easier to code than 'if at war, and if we like this guy, and if they need money, offer to buy stuff we don't need at higher price than normal'.
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[sokonokofdok]

[NifluumHaloom]

[Ravana]

True guys. My interpretation is of an economy that has production "items" - something which harkens back to the comments we made about securing natural resources in space. I'd find that far more satisfying than having an undefined trade value stat.

Imagine the steel, POL and food difficulties Germany faced during WWII, and the desire to capture the Caucus and Ukraine regions in the Eastern Front campaign.

Translate that into ship construction which has to take into account consumables for production. Metals, laminates, optical computer components and so on, all go to make your Penchant Class frigate. Unfortunately, you've had your most valuable mining satellites captured in a daring (but not unprovoked) raid by the Kuntari Republic. Now try repulsing an aggressive fleet without any ships of your own!

This way we can trade genuine military materials to our allies, and stop production of our enemy's assets. Which is far better to my mind then a donation of currency to our friends passing for economic interaction.

[Zaimat]

The points you guys bring up are all good ones. And like a lot of things the possibilities are 'endless'.

But it is possible to generalize to keep it simple without taking away much and leave it to the imagination of the player which can work wonders.

For example instead of saying the UX empire is supplying a loan/a trade or a discounted purchase of F16s, aegis equipped destroyers, 5000 hellfire munitions or 5 kilotons of radioactive material for making bombs you can just say UX empire is supplying arms and weapon components to the Kuntari republic at the cost of 100000 credits and for 2 turns UX empire industry production will be cut in half as they supply it. [edited]
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[Ravana]

[Zaimat]

Most certainly selling arms or providing much needed supplies will be possible to other empires in dire need. Of course there will be risks in entering in such ventures...[edited]
_________________
Horizon - Lead Designer

[RobHuntingdon]

Hmm. You have tweaked my interest for sure. What do you mean 'risks'? Will some of the supplies have a chance of being intercepted by the enemy? Will this affect your relations with whomever they are fighting? Are there other possibilities?
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Zaimat]

Keeping in mind that we are just setting the basic foundations at this point in time...

Helping by supplying arms will certainly have a negative impact with whomever they are at conflict with. Whether they will do anything or not well depends on other factors (such as if they are in a position to do anything immediate like make threats, apply diplomatic pressure or simply show their displeasure and bide their time).

As for supplies being intercepted by enemies, this would fall in the list of possibilities that given time (or a future version) we would like to add. I'm pushing for a preliminary version in a non-interactive manner (easyer to do) but would prefer a method where you actually see the transport 'train' which can be intercepted and ambushed.
[edited]
_________________
Horizon - Lead Designer

[Ravana]

[Zaimat]

We are trying to get in as many features as possible before we start beta-testing at which point everything we wanted but couldn't do will have to be for add-ons or a sequel otherwise it would never end and that time is fast-approaching so the window is small.

We don't like making promises and not being able to deliver so you understand why I'm non-commital on things we haven't already implemented to some degree and seen the results.

Horizon is very ambitious in design and in many ways a different approach at the TBS genre we think offers even in it's foundations a lot of new experiences to the player in many things never been done before. We don't want to delay the game anymore than required and get it out asap and than I'm sure with all the feedback from players we will have a lot of suggestions on a possible sequel or add-on. Our goal is to make what we are implementing as solid and enjoyable as possible.

As much as anyone I want to see a supply 'train' and be able to launch a couple of torpedoes and see it go down in flames. As for the flying under 'neutral colors' or hiring non-military or a merchant fleet to deliver the goods. Semantics.. How about delivering them in secret and hope they don't find out about it!
_________________
Horizon - Lead Designer

[Ravana]

[RobHuntingdon]

I noted something about your post Zaimat, and I almost didn't say anything because I don't want it taken the wrong way. But given my penchant for learning from the mistakes of MOO3, I finally decided to speak.

The comment was 'before we start beta-testing'. I'm sure you got plenty of PMs or emails from people volunteering to be beta testers already. I won't add to the list. But I would like to offer a tiny bit of advice.

I hope that you will choose to:

A) make it a large group. The more people, the more weird system configs, the better. This also ties in with C.

B) not make it a stupid random drawing. MOO3's contest I think was one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of. Pick people for skills. Pick people who have experience beta testing games. Pick people who are programmers, even if they have little or no game testing XP. Pick yourself -- don't let the dice pick.

C) not be overly secretive. Of course they will have to sign NDAs. Duh. But please don't waste weeks of time creating unique betas for each person so you can tell who leaked harvester info. If there's some info that you really want to keep secret that badly, then leave it out of everybody's betas, period, and only test that in house.

Later.
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Ravana]

Trading is an integral part of (galactic) warfare. It should most certainly be included - and I expect it will be.

Will you be ablel to buy goods that you don't need or would buy at a cheaper price normally, just to bolster your ally's economy whilst they are at war? Now there's a thought...

[RobHuntingdon]

Of course it would. You can still 'sell' or trade with the AI. Assuming they'd want any of the 'gahrbahj' that you are capable of producing...

But you might want to buy some of their units. And they might have a need for some quick cash.
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[NifluumHaloom]

Ok, as you probably won't have multiplayer support trading units made not much sense.

[JosEPh]

Being able to Demand an opposing Races Surrender. Already mentioned this once but thought It is worth repeating.

[Zaimat]

We are reviewing the diplomacy options currently implemented so I'll come back to this next week..
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[Ravana]

How about "Impose Trade Sanctions"? That way, you could utilise the advantage of being in a coalition, alliance etcetera, without resorting to military intervention.