I was thinking about how TBS games vs. real-world diplomacy works.
One example, in TBS games, you give troops to an ally.
In real life, you don't do this.
In real life you have a war, and you ask your allys for help - Then send troops, and when the "war" is over, they go back home.
Why don't TBS' work this way?
I was thinking it would make the game much more interesting if you could through diplimacy negotiate this type of thing.
You can already say "Help me out!" and then you go and move your troops and help the guy out.
But what if your to busy, but don't want to lose your allience?
Can you, rather then give him your troops, loan the troops to him?
Through negotiation say "I'll loan you 50 soldiers for 30 turns, and I'll handle the supplies, for XX resources in return".
And speaking of supplies, this can be negotiated as well.
Meaning, if I'm loaning you troops, I'll pay the food and expenses, as a nice host country would do.
But maybe you're pretty demanding, or my economy can't keep up, what about I loan you the troops, and you pay the upkeep while they are loaned?
This could be negotiated. We negoatiate who pays the upkeep.
This creates obvious incentives to keep your aliances, as suddenly your army can be cut in half if you piss someone off.
Whats more, it creates room for more back-room deals. Say someone is kicking your ass, but through spying you realize 50% of his army is the other guys.
You offer the other guy a large lump sum of money to break off the alliance, and if he agrees - The guys army is now cut in half, in the front lines, facing your now much larger army.
On the same token, speaking about more real-world.
Where do troops eat?
Sometimes the host countries covers, other times the troops survive off the local economy.
What about the same thing in elemental, food supply lines?
How about we can negotiate a "supply lines" treaty?
So if my troops are walking through your land, we negotiate the supply lines. Maybe because we are such good friends you pay for the food for my troops, so we negotiate that you pay for it.
Maybe you were forced into a cease fire, so rather then you pay, you charge me double the normal cost of food. Of course I can elect not to pay, but then you can add in things like distance_from_home + supply_line_cost .. The futher you are from home, the more it costs to get supplies. So it might be cheaper to pay the double fee to the local regent?
