Fixing Diplomacy and Tech Trading through the United Planets

UP really DOES need an overhaul, it means nearly nothing right now, and I would like the UP to have more..."teeth". Like voting for assisting a losing empire, declaring all-out war against a mutual aggressor, an ability to declare war against the UP and try to conquer it and be the master, and having the UP overall an entity of sorts, not just a bunch of lifeless "rules" that pops up every now and then.

But I'm not sure about your ideas, man. This sounds like something out of a economic empire-building game, which is not exactly right with the way GalCiv 2 is supposed to play....

...the way Galciv 2 is supposed to play?

Stardock obviously wanted the game to be as open ended as possible by providing multiple victory conditions (tech, diplomacy, influence, conquest), and this idea of mine still fits in with that. I don't think it is that radical a change at all.

Currently, diplomacy and bartering are dealt with on the same screen. I believe they should be split to two different screens.

1) Have a UP 'market' screen where you can buy and sell tech and trade goods.

2) Have a UP 'diplomacy' screen where you organise and negotiate all those other non-trade deals that you speak of (war, alliance etc) with any number of parties, either individually or in groups. It might be easier to handle espionage here as well.

But for now I would like to concentrate on (1).

It fixes the potential exploitation of tech-trading for profit, while still giving the player the option to do so.

That sounds very interesting.

Thanks Moiiska. I just hope someone at Stardock sees it. Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed......Gah! Bloody humans and their cultural influence will be the end of my race. Even I, First Jeznob of the Jeznob, am falling victim to their cultural assimilation. I don't even HAVE fingers!

Also, by making the UP central to the game's trade system, there would be a harsh penalty for leaving. You would give up not only your trade income, but also your ability to buy and sell new techs and trade goods.

That sounds harsh but if you think about it, it is reasonable. When you become a rogue state, you are effectively declaring you need NOTHING from the other races and it is only a matter of time before you conquer the rest of them.

Just wanted to say -- I love the idea!

I'm not sure about waging a war against the UP or "controlling" it -- think of the UP like the UN. It's just representatives from all the nations (civilizations) of the world (galaxy) coming together to make common laws (it's obviously more, but that's oversimplification). It has no military force, other than the military force given to it by the supporting nations. If you want to "control" the UP, you would have to defeat the races that are in the UP, so that you ARE the UP.

I would like to 3rd the motion, with 2,345,786 influence points, hopefully that may persuade the developers to look closely at this good idea.

Alot of people recently voted for better diplomacy/politics, giving the UP more power/involvement in the galaxy sounds cool to me.

I play with tech trading off now but I do miss it and would like to see it make a return in a more balanced way.

Evil races should have the ability to 'pull the wool' over the UP, or stretch there patience by breaking some rules because there evil (perhaps a special evil planetary development?) just like how the bad guys do with the UN.

I disagree - particularly as regards the trade goods - I am very particular as to whom I wish to license the use of any goods I develop &/or acquire. Selling it to a central clearinghouse removes any control I have as to who buys what I have researched or otherwise acquired.

SrGalen, I understand what you are saying but think about your last sentence.

"Selling it to a central clearing house removes any control I have as to who buys what I have researched or otherwise acquired."

I contend that it is the first act of selling the technology to an external party, not the clearing house itself, is what removes your control as to who buys what you have researched or otherwise acquired.

Once a piece of technology is out in the public domain there is no controlling who takes advantage of it.

Look at how governments around the world place export controls on sensitive military technologies. Country A knows that once they sell Technology X to Country B, what is to stop Country B from selling it to Country C?

The answer? Nothing.

Well that was the answer before the humans showed up (in the game). The game makes a big song and dance about how the humans upset the 'galactic stagnation' by handing out Hyperdrive like free candy, when in fact the first and most important thing they would have 'sold' would be the idea of copyright and intellectual property law.

It is not a coincidence that the humans lean 'neutral'. Give Hypderdrive only to the 'Good' races and they will do terrible things. You can bet those Torian cockroaches would be pounding on Drengi within a matter of weeks and the rest of the galaxy by the end of the year. Similarly, if you only gave it to the evil races or only the neutral races. Power corrupts.

Sure, the "smart" thing would be to just keep it to yourself and conquer the galaxy but I'm sure at least in the limited philosophical confines of the game that is what constitutes an "evil" race. Think of the Dread Lords.

The humanity of 2225 chose instead the path of the Arnor. By giving it to everybody, both the scumbags and the saints, they said, "Ok we may open pandoras box - unleashing genocidal war on an unimaginable galactic, or even universal scale - but if we don't, such an outcome is inevitable anyway. Our only hope [and this is where that diplomacy bonus kicks in] is if we learn to cooperate and put aside our differences."

Naive, maybe. Logical, I think so. Neutrals do get NLC's after all.

However, once you hand out the free hyperdrive the last thing you want to do is sit back and watch the fireworks. No, what you need to do is set up institutions that enable this whole 'cooperation' thing, so that over time the various races come to value each others unique differences and abilities.

Under this system, even the 'vile' Yor and the 'cruel' Drengin dare not brazenly flaunt another race's copyright on a particular technology because the reaction would be a swift expulsion from the United Planets and thus the loss of access to ALL future technology developments that all the other law-abiding races make available to each other. The short term payoff would need to be HUGE (ie game-winning) to offset the long term advantage of technology cooperation that all the other races would continue to enjoy.

In conclusion, I believe this idea of a UP 'market' screen neatly fits into the background of the game and has gameplay merit, without being that radical a change.

Hmmmm. That was a very long, geeky post.

I must have either a research bonus or a social penalty.

Great idea. There is a lot of potential here. I love the idea about implementing tech trading here instead of just turning it off.

Why can't the UP have a military like the UN does today? Granted that military is made up of other countries military, but it could be used similarly...

For the UP to exist, all the civs contribute a percentage of their income to allow the UP to function and build up a military that can be used when a civ is being horribly abused or ganged up upon by other civs. Think of it as a galactic police force that enforces the resolutions made or one that helps those who are truly in need.

While this is only an idea, this version of the UP would make game play more interesting. It would be nice to actually go against resolutions which would result with a realistic penalty. A fine for a minor disobedience, being thrown out of the UP for a serious crime, and lastly the UP warring against you with their own military if you do something inexcusable. They could even call upon others to help in the war. This would be a better punishment than losing all your trade routes if you decide to leave.

If civs were performing crimes against other civs or disobeying resolutions, an emergency meeting could occur where votes would be taken deciding what needed to be done to stop whatever was happening. Think of the politics that could be used in this.

I contend that it is the first act of selling the technology to an external party, not the clearing house itself, is what removes your control as to who buys what you have researched or otherwise acquired.

General techs, yes - Trade goods, no

Unless there is a civ that hasn't gotten a general tech and I wish for them to have it.

Hmm perhaps I have got side-tracked. My goal is to think up an idea that negates the exploitation of tech trading. But I now see that the idea needs further development so as not to reduce a player's control of their trading strategy. I agree that if the player wants to pump a particular civ (like an ally) with techs and trade goods to the exclusion of others, they should be able to do so.

Some of these simple ideas could be implemented along with the 'market' screen:

1) On the 'market' screen, when you select one of your available trade goods you would be able to select who is allowed to buy it.

Or

2) The prices of available techs/trade goods could also reflect the quality of your relationship with the copyright holder. They would get progressively more expensive the more your relationship deteriorates. A race that you are at war with or hostile to would not be able to buy your wares, while a team member or ally could pick them up quite cheaply (mate's rates). A consequence of this would be that neutral races with their NLC's and mostly neutral relationships would get the most cash from tech trading. Personally, I think this makes sense as research is a neutrals main strength.

3) In the diplomacy screen instead of a bartering system like now, change it to a gift/bribes only system. If you give something (planet/tech/money/trade good/ship/starbase) to another race you get nothing in return other than a possible lift in relations or some strategic advantage.

Some combination of those ideas and the market screen would go along way to improving tech trading I think.

I think I understand where you're going. I have noticed that there is a reasonably large (or at least vocal) faction of players that think tech trading makes the game too easy.

My operational concept is that tech trading is just an overlap area covering functional aspects of my economic strategy and my diplomatic/warfare strategy.

Where some of the exploitation can occur is that the AI is constrained to honor the relative values of the diplomacy and other relationship scores of the active races, where the human player is free to to say "Are you NUTS?" to a deal even if it is "fair" according to the current relationship factors. I'm not sure how you fix (and I use the term advisedly) this unless you make the AI much more sensitive to untrustworthy or just plain inconsistant actions on the part of the human player, adjust the relationship factors accordingly, and use a non-linear adjustment to the "willingness" factor to trade at favorable terms.

My operational concept is that tech trading is just an overlap area covering functional aspects of my economic strategy and my diplomatic/warfare strategy.

I agree with this, or at least this is what I hope tech trading can become. Simply the means to further some other strategy.

However at the moment, it really can be abused, and it does make the game too easy.

Where some of the exploitation can occur is that the AI is constrained to honor the relative values of the diplomacy and other relationship scores of the active races, where the human player is free to to say "Are you NUTS?" to a deal even if it is "fair" according to the current relationship factors.

I agree with this, but also look at it from the other direction. The AI is unable to say "ARE you NUTS?" to what looks on paper to be a good deal. For instance, say I am trying to negotiate for a technology from an AI player. The AI will input the value of the tech, the quality of our relationship etc but it is unable to judge how much it is worth to me. I however know that tech is worth a lot more because I can either sell it, or use it to trade for even more techs from other races. In other words, the playing field is no longer level. The player has an information advantage over the AI and is able to turn that into a practical benefit.

I'm not sure how you fix (and I use the term advisedly) this unless you make the AI much more sensitive to untrustworthy or just plain inconsistant actions on the part of the human player, adjust the relationship factors accordingly, and use a non-linear adjustment to the "willingness" factor to trade at favorable terms.

In other words, make the AI act more like a human? I would love this to be possible but remember that this "solution to tech trading" idea is subject to competing demands on Stardock's scarce time and money. Instead of boosting the AI to negate the player's informational advantage, it would probably be both easier and cheaper to devise a way such that the player is unable to derive benefit from it.

I have noticed that there is a reasonably large (or at least vocal) faction of players that think tech trading makes the game too easy.

Canaries in the mine-shaft. If exploited to its fullest extent, tech trading is like giving the human player a 200+% bonus to research, military, social production and economics. A game played on 'tough' with 'intelligent' AIs and tech trading on, is the equivalent of dropping a 'suicidal' level race in amongst them.

Admirably, the developers have constantly stated one of their goals is to make the AI competitive without resorting to 'cheating' bonuses; pitting the AI's strategies versus the player's. Currently however, with tech trading on, the player need not rely solely on strategy and the AI is at a huge disadvantage.

Implementing the 'market' screen, and thus removing arbitrage opportunities, is an efficient solution to this problem.

If anyone at Stardock has read this I would greatly appreciate some feedback, however brief.

I believe in this idea, but there is also no point flogging a dead horse.

.....

There I go again with those stupid Terran cliches!

1) I have no idea what/who 'horse' is.
2) I don't know what it means to 'flog' one of these creatures but I suspect it has something to do with some sick human-beast reproduction ritual.

Hmm.

Note to self: Direct intelligence operatives to capture both a citizen of the Terran Alliance, and one of these 'horse' creatures, and observe the ensuing 'flogging'.

P.S. Bring popcorn.

i think its a semi good idea. I would LOVE it with trade goods with a royalties plan (ie, pay per year of use) with an option to boycot empires from buying your trade goods.

With tech it should be more limited. It should really be limited to low end tech.

Alternatively, how about a UP notion that is voted for that forbids triangle trading...

Hey taltamir, you've given me a great idea!

Instead of a 'market' screen which would be a bit of work and require recoding for the AI, how about this:

The player(human or AI) can only sell techs that they have researched themselves.

Or in other words, you can't sell a tech that you have either bought or stolen from another race.

It is simple, but it would work!

Yeah all that would need to happen would be to give technologies an extra binary variable.

A tech is set to 0 when it either:
- has not been researched
- has been bought from another race
- has been stolen through espionage/planet invasion

It is set to 1 only when it has been properly researched.

And only those techs set to 1 can appear in the diplomacy window to trade with.

The effect of this, is that you can no longer make a profit by buying a tech from another race and then selling it off to the rest of them. Also, in a sense tech trading will become more like research trading, which is what it should be.

This is probably the easiest way to negate triangular arbitrage, while still allowing some tech trading to occur!

It would also have the side effect of introducing some "fog of war" as to what tech the AIs have available to them, since ones they traded for would not show up, either.

Not that this is an endorsement......