[Suggestion] [Gameplay] - Improving Diplomacy Tech Tree

from Elemental Forums

One of the best things I have found in the current version of Elemental is the Diplomacy techs that allow you to recruit fantastic creatures.  To me this adds huge levels of depth to the game and a fantasy army looks best with many types of creatures within it.  The current selection is interesting, but I think can be expanded to make it both deeper and more fun.

Rather than having one tech unlock one type of creature from a resource, I think new tech's should be available to unlock new kinds of units from your existing ally resources.  This will force players to chose to upgrade the ally resources you have, or to try and find new ones.  The more advanced units would be unlocked by correspondingly higher level techs.  This will allow the Diplomacy tree to get deeper and closer to the idea of "infinite research", give it a much better strategic viability versus the other tech trees, is relatively cheap to implement, and will contribute to armies not all being clones of the same units.

Some examples:

Empire

Darkling: As exists (Green)

Darkling Witchdoctors: Gives every unit in the army +1 heath regeneration. (Yellow)

Darkling Shamans: Gives every unit in the army +1 mana regen. (Red)

Spitting Umberdroths: Has a short ranged poison attack (Yellow again)

Umberdroth Alpha: Much faster / stronger / tougher (Red, max of 1 in a unit)

Kingdoms

Spiders: Black Widow (same)

Web Spinners: Less powerful, has ability to stun enemies for 2 turns (Yellow)

Huntsman spiders: Can leap 4 spaces once per battle, stronger, high poison attack. (Red)

Anyone else have ideas on unit types for the existing allies?  Other types of allies you would like to see be available?

 

 

 

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Having had a look around the forums, I found a few threads devoted to improving the Diplomacy Tree; I thought I would go ahead and try to create a meta-post for those interested in the topic.  NOTE: I have tried to keep these restricted to post-release stuff focused on concrete changes.  If you think yours is missing, just reply with a link.

Other Possible Diplomatic Techs:

This thread has an interesting discussion of other possible techs, including a variant of my suggestion for techs to unlock further units from Ally resources. 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/393400

IMHO the best ideas from that discussion are:

1) To create a propaganda branch that allows you to increase your prestige / moral, or to lower the prestige / moral of other factions.

2) To add an espionage branch that allows for creating spy units, stealing resources, etc.

3) To give a building that would enable election style victory.  Maybe a Council of Magi, that has the power to select a Supreme Channeler?

Link to a thought about what a spy unit might look like:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/389378

I also like the idea of having a tech to enable map trading, hat tip to:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/394235

And potentially having another type of treaty for Open Borders.  The lack of something like this feels like a major oversight to me, as it closes off large areas of the map if you are surrounded by allies.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/395388

Diplomacy and the AI:

Here are two posts that I think nicely lay out some of the problems the AI is currently having with Diplomacy.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/393020

https://forums.elementalgame.com/393770

 

Interesting Diplomacy Concepts

I think the idea of competitive auctions between kingdoms could be very interesting, and add lots of flavor "Come on come all and bid of the Lich Kings Crown!  I can't wear it so I am going to sell it!"  Gaining access to such auctions could potentially be a Diplomacy tech, maybe associated with an Auction House improvement you would build in a city.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382363

I like the concept of Diplomatic pressure, although balancing implementation seems hard at first glance.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382346

 

Other ideas on how to improve Diplomacy?