Peace and Attack Treaties need Minimum Time Limits

I agree. Treaties not only should have set minimum durations but there should also be heavy penalties for violating them for all races, much like in Civ.

Bruce

It'd be nice, at least as an option (still have the possibility for open-ended deals like the ones now, though).

Totally agree. I even think tribute should stop when someone breaks a treaty.

And in my last game where the Torians were allied with the Altarians. Every turn I could make peace with the Torians (and get reparations) but then they would say 'Because of our Alliance we have to declare war on you'. I thought that was not very realistic. Either they shouldn't have made peace with me or they should have broken their alliance.

Yeah.. this is silly. If they have an alliance, they should A. not accept your peace treaty (or only when they get something for it ) or B. Break their alliance.

Yes - perhaps your Diplomacy Rating drops if you break a treaty. With it dropping by a greater amount each time you do it again.

It would be good to have a streamlined interface for negotiating a peace with an alliance, and possibly on behalf of an alliance as well.

Mind you, making peace with an alliance should be fairly expensive as all the members of that alliance will likely want a cut. And how might things be distributed? Perhaps tech goes to all, money in proportion to population... planets and starships are trickier as they're far harder to divvy up. Proximity? Divvying up would be easier if it were a matrix -- rows correspond to one alliance, columns correspond to the other, cells in the matrix indicate who gets what, which makes everything very explicit -- but that would require a whole new negotiation screen.

The current situation is fairly bizarre, however; it results in odd situations where you trounce the weakest member of an alliance, then demand an outrageous tribute (such as its entire current treasury of several hundred BC or possibly far more for a hundred turns), then it declares war on *you* to honor its alliance. Perhaps it should have dropped the alliance, perhaps there should be a timeout involved until its military strength recovers (if ever).

Perhaps one thing that could happen is you could be given an option on how long the war or peace would have to last. If the person who is getting goods does not uphold his end of the contract, all technologies, monies, starbases, ships, trade goods, etc. revert to the first player, with perhaps a slight monetary penalty for the person who did not uphold their end.

It might be difficult to code, though.

Clicked twice, sorry.
[Message Edited]

Jeff Desilva,

I have in \ Things you like to see in G.C. expansion set. Post # 238 5/22/03

Anyways, I am glad MANY others feel as I do.

I hope thay put it in the expansion for US.

That might work, but Technologies can't really be given back. Once they know how to do it, they can't really unlearn it without the UP doing an excessivly exhaustive search.

The only other method is the Civ II style of reputation, which may take a while to implement.
[Message Edited]

Whatever was given wasn't being held in escrow, and you shouldn't expect to get it back.

You should expect that the violator has a worsened reputation, however, and that the agreement including related payments is terminated.

You might also argue that the UP should be able to impose sanctions, but it's already bizarrely strong. For instance, why do you need to be in the UP to trade?

'Whatever was given wasn't being held in escrow, and you shouldn't expect to get it back.'

That works with material things, but it fails with technology, like the last suggestion. Influence too, but given it's nature wrt: trades, it's functionally similar.

~SDC~

I completely agree that treaties should have some minimum time limit.

Like make the United Planets enforce them for a year at least.

As it is now, you can extort ridiculous sums on money from the AIs as you continue wiping them out without any delay whatsoever.

(Give me one of your last 2 systems and 1500 B.C....'cause next turn I'm invading).

Not really - Influence points can be just as material as BCs. They may be proxied over to another race, but can be withdrawn in the real world - especially when a treaty is broken.

Of course, the nature of the UP would make it impossible to withdraw the IPs exchanges unless a treaty was broken or war was declared.

I love extorting 2600 BC's and a few planets from someone to give them peace. And then they turn around and attack me again or declare war because I'm waring with an ally. This aspect of the diplomacy is definetly lacking.

~SDC~

I think the only penalties that can be imposed for breaking a treaty would be Diplomacy Rating, withdrawal of trade goods if they were part of the treaty, and possibly downgrading relationships with other races that were above neutral with the race you betrayed. eg - Say I break a treaty with the Yor. They are Warm/Friendly/Close with the Torians - so my relationship with the Torians would drop one notch. If the Yor were Neutral or below with the Torians then my relationship with the Torians would be unaffected. (This is assuming that the AIs grade relationships with each other the same as they do with us).

Don't know how hard it would be to code a Reputation rating in - but the AI does have memory of past events (extortion attempts etc), so maybe it is there in some form already.

Anyway, I hope the Treaty aspect can be ammended in some future update (or the expansion pack) as it is the only aspect of the game that bugs me.

I, for one, really dont like to see treaties and such being enforced by coded time-limits. To me its unrealistic and constraining to do so. If Im honorable, I'll honor a cease fire, if I wanna be a mean jerk I'll break the treaty.

I would think it cool if the AI would hold it against you (ie. not trust you as easily) if you constantly do 180's after signing a treaty, but I really don't like being forced to abide by treaties. Encourage Civs to do so, but dont force them.

I agree. I wasn't asking for enforced treaties as that would limit the game too much. Just would like to see a penalty for breaking a treaty. Diplomatic or Morale hits etc.

A relations penalty would be expensive, Part of why contries keep treaties is that it would affect future treaties an relations. Gradually forcing you out of the united planets might be cool...or not.

There is no honor amongst thieves, or liars. You should be able to break your word. The aliens should be able to break their word. The question is: Is the Galciv UP going to be like the modern day UN (i.e. corrupt and unenforceable), or will it actually be able to penalize any race for breaking its word consistently? You know, kinda like a 3 strikes and you are out of the UP thing. That would be an excellent thing to implement, getting kicked out of the UP. No trade, no relations.

Yeah, no trade would be pretty harsh... I like it!

Well, Maybe you should be allowed to re-enter the UP after a certain amount of time and/or pay them off.

Of course, evil empires could still get some trade without the UP, cause they've got smuggling and the mob. Tying in good/evil with how much the AI believes you could also be interesting

As an alternative, you (or the AI's), should be allowed to negotiate out of a treaty.

For instance, I make the Drengins form Peace with my friends, the Torians. I tell them it has to last 50 turns. If, after 20 turns, they want to go to war with them, let them offer me money and tech to have our agreement be 'nulled', and I'll just look the other way... or I'll say 'no', and they can still break the treaty and take whatever penalties are associated with it.

Obviously, this wouldn't work for somethings, like if I make a treaty with the Drengin not to fight me for 20 turns.. I don't care what they offer me, I won't take something so they can declare war on me.

New idea! Look at this. Cultural influence is how much people look up to your culture and think it's better than their own, right? And Diplomatic skill is your ability to convince people to trust you?

Would people trust you if you broke treaties? And would people look up to your culture if it was led by backstabbing liars? How about giving any player that breaks treaty permanent -5% Influence and Diplomatic penalties. It wouldn't prohibit treaty breaking, but at the same time, it would make it painful to do it frivilously. Also, making joining a war with an ally optional would be critical for this. You would have to be given the option each time, and if you refused, perhaps there would be a penalty toward your alliance, and if you got a certain number of alliance penalties, the treaty would break automatically.