some thoughts on Diplomacy

from Sins Forums

I've played a few games of diplomacy now and I really like the changes. The whole game seems to move alot faster with the new speed settings and the diplomatic victory is like a time limit of sorts. There were a few things that bothered me though, so I have some ideas:

1) instead of/in addition to the diplomatic point speed setting, why not let people decide the max diplomacy points needed for victory? I say this because I have had some matches where I push to get my ultimate pact used, and I win before I have enough relations with that faction. if i change the speed setting, that only makes it take longer to get to the same scenario. So, if I could set the victory points, I could actually use these awesome pact bonuses to do some damage. Before a diplomatic victory. also the fastest setting for diplomatic points seems a tad to fast.

2) The mini-underground and pirate UI was a good idea, so why not have some way to see who has the most diplomatic points and exactly how close they are to diplomatic victory without having to go to the relations page?

3) how bout a way to link from the relations page directly to the diplomatic page and vice versa? I will often be looking at the relations page, decide I want to try to do something about my relation with a faction and so go to the diplomatic page. you can get some very basic info from the diplomatic page, but a link directly to the other page would be slick and help alot.

4) some way to see what the heck your relations are like while crafting a mission. It tells you what the requirement is, but not your status, which only means numerous clicking and switching.

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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

These all seem to be pretty common-sense additions that hopefully wouldn't make an unnecessary timesink for the team, so I'd agree with all of them except #2... but that's for my own selfish reasons. ;)

I'm still of the mind that the relationship and diplomacy system is actually a bit too telling... I'm hoping that somewhere in the distant future, an option is added to enable/disable a sort of 'fog of war' on the stats. I don't know of too many reasonable approaches as to why I know how everyone feels about everyone, or how well they're doing in the diplomatic sense. But, since that's really neither here nor there, I don't see the harm in a small briefing below the mini-market display and perhaps an extra interface button poking in below the faction portraits for a quicklink to their diplomatic options.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I see your point. But the intention of such a UI element is to at a glance let you know how close the game is to ending. Whether or not the exact number of points is displayed is irrelevent. could be a progress bar like the pirate raid bar.

i asked for that because i had this one match where i lost and was quite shocked because i had just triumphed from a long intense battle against another player. I thought i had plenty of time and was in prime position to win. If i had known he was so close, i would have withdrawn to focus more on stopping that guy. Arguably I should have paid more attention, and next game i did. However, it got ridiculous quite fast opening that relations page so often. so a UI that would only tell you how close someone was about to winning in a glance would save alot of headaches.

As far as realism goes in this regard.... I dont really understand the diplomatic victory on a realistic level, but I could easily see someone able to 'spy' on diplomatic leverage or have some sense of who is in the stronger position at the negotiating table.

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