Jingseng

Join Date 09/2008

[1.07][Diplomacy] Diplomacy AI is lobotomized

Ai perceived values are reversed and/or inverted

TL;DR

I have apples. I hate apples. I like oranges.

You have oranges. You hate oranges. You like apples.

real world: we trade apples and orange.

Elemental: My apples are worth 0 to me, and your oranges are worth 50,000, so we can't make a trade.

The diplomacy ai seems to have trouble attaching the correct values to trade/treaty items. Possibly because there are only two values in play: both are ambiguously titled "perceived value".

In reality, for things I have to trade, there is a perceived value TO ME, and a perceived value TO YOU.

Likewise, for your goods, There is a perceived value TO ME, and a perceived value TO YOU.

then human irrationality steps in, we assign a final value, and make a deal (or not). But in elemental, there are no "black box" factors (laudable). So it's just a matter of matching up numbers. But it doesn't make any sense. Consider the following game situations i've encountered:

[Peace Treaty]

I'm kind of tired of kicking umbar's ass around. I'm feeling generous, having just killed three sons, two daughters, and 5 settlements without losing a single unit, and decide to offer peace.

Umbar says, well peace treaty is worth ~50 to you, but 5288 to us. Your offer displeases us.

Wut? Ok, maybe you have a Really Big Hidden Army Back Home (tm), but the situation kinda suggests that peace would be in your interest. But ok.

Next turn - Message from umbar: You've earned our respect. time to take the armies home. (aside: first time I saw this, i didn't realize it was a peace offer).

Wait, i thought you just said you didn't want peace? And what the hell, when i want peace, i have to offer something, but when you want peace, it's just yes or no - no offer of horses, or anything.

[Declaration of war]

Altar thinks I should declare war of yithril. I'm not inclined. And that's that. But If i want altar to declare war on resoln, well that's worth ~3000... and my declaration of war on yithril in exchange would only be worth 800. What?? If it's that disparate, stop asking me to declare war every other turn!!

[Trade Treaty] (starkest example).

Altar thinks we should make a treaty. Ok, i'm all for that.

uh, every treaty on my side is worth less than a hundred, and every treaty on altar's side is over 3000. Let's see, trade treaty... 70 for me, 3276 for altar. Proposal grants me 8.26 gildar per turn, and altar 13.78 gildar per turn.

Altar: You'll have to do better.

...how? by giving you 15 gildar per turn? I'm offering a treaty (a long term trade) that benefits YOU more than it benefits ME. And you expect ME to pay YOU to accept that arrangement? There is no subjective quality involved - there's no black box, it's straight math and number matching. What the hell?

[Dynasty] (machine ai has no gender)

Capitar: so hey, I hear you have a daughter to pim... er, available for marriage. Let's talk."

Ok... you only have daughters too... stop asking to set up a dynasty every other turn when we CAN'T.

While you're overhauling thing ai diplomacy system, it might be nice to insert a semi random variable to each diplomatic encounter... so it becomes less of a straight number matching scenario. I'd imagine people who are more friendly with one another would be more than willing to overlook a few points here and there... and people who hate each other's guts would want strict accounting. Other factors might include Gifts (time since last gift, magnitude of last gift), frequency of diplomatic requests (to discourage people from spamming diplomacy to find a favorable hidden variable round), and so forth.

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have screenshots of the exact diplomacy screens. or at least i think i do - press "prt scr" and there was the characteristic pause.

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Yeah I noticed it too. It's ridiculous. Everyone wants me to declare war on the Altar in my current game. But they aren't at war with them themselves. Hell they haven't even MET them yet according to the faction screen. Everytime I'm asking an AI to go to war with someone I have to offer 300-1000+ of value to them, but they can just freebie ask me. I learned to cheese the system in my favor though. Everytime I'm about to declare war on someone, I talk to a different faction and get them to pay me to go to war with the guy I was going to go to war with anyways. Maybe that's a bug? Or maybe I can just assume that the AI wants me to get rid of his competiton even if it isn't a direct threat? Like a future investment of sorts...

Anyways, the number matching thing has to go imo. There's no sense of bartering or haggling in this game. You're always getting exact 100% "even" trades, or getting ripped off by 1 gildar. Why even make me click the gildar in manually if he'll only accept one number anyways? Seems pointless.

Also is there a way to demand things from the AI? I remember Kraxis threatening to go to war with me unless I donated like 80 gildar to him in my first game [v1.06]. But it doesn't seem like we can do the same.

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I noticed another thing in my current game. I kicked Capitars butt (while his strong army/sov was just standing around) Leaving him without any city (btw he was still reported as stronger military). We went into peace and then i traded 11(!!) diplomatic thingy for 1500 gildar. Because he valued it so much i guess ...

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Well, in theory, a sovereign could take over an unprotected settlement and come back into power - sovereigns are the most powerful unit in the game currently and can easily field a ghost army capable of crushing any 'real' army (summoned minions don't seem to be counted in 'army' power, despite being ridiculously powerful)

but yes, the diplomacy system is uneven... and too strict. And despite all that, it still often doesn't make any sense. I have wargs from a captured settlement that I can't use (despite being able to buy them for heroes) and can't even TRADE AWAY.

In a certain sense, i can understand certain discrepancies - if you know a rival faction is growing in power, you'd want them eliminated before you even met them. But it seems like there is far too much value being attached to that.

IIRC, it's been a 'problem' in Sins of a Solar Empire (prior SD sim game) that AI factions can make demands, but you cannot. I think part of the problem is simply the AI is not intelligent enough - there's no heuristic to letting the AI decide to cough up or reject (which is true of everything, including trades - hence the number matching). There really does need to be a semi-random variable (a simple dice roll) that affects leeway in accepting or rejecting trades of like value. And the ability to influence trades in your favor - perhaps THAT is what the diplomacy tech tree should be about. How much research does it take to develop the concept of Alliances, declarations of war, and so forth (or burning down a captured city you don't want because it will level up when population reaches 0)

It seems as though the AI doesn't particularly engage in treaty-making with other factions either, with the possible exception of pimping out kids. Neutral settlements are great, as a treaty-making gildar-mine. But Altar crushed one out of hand - one that I had several treaties with.

So 1) what the hell was altar thinking, not exploiting this 'resource'

2) what the hell, I can't tell off Altar for destroying a revenue source I was taking advantage of?

3) wouldn't attacking an indirect ally be a declaration of war? (although to help the player with this, it'd be nice to have the minor factions on the foreign relations menu, and to have a screen/section of the kingdom report list various treaties and relationships)

All in all, it feels as if the diplomacy system is... 'unpolished' at best. And as I result, more and more I find I ignore that aspect of the game completely - both by choice, and because I can't do anything with that side of the game ANY way.

It'd be like playing SimCity and having your citizens angry about the lack of roads and tax rate, even though you have roads connecting all city blocks and a tax rate of 0. What the hell else can you do?

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Back with a more in depth analysis.

In the current game, I am the empire of Resoln. I have personally crushed Capitar, Altar, and Iyana. All of the minor factions have been destroyed. Only Kraxis and Magnar remain, and both are at war with me, as they have been since around turn 75.

it is currently turn 344. I control the bulk of the map ; Kraxis is/was to my north. Magnar is to the north east of Kraxis. I have most recently conquered 5 Kraxis settlements in a row, razing 3 of them and retaining 2. I have annihilated, with no losses, every single Kraxis unitI have encountered. My army centers around 6 chanelers - my sovereign, sovereign's spouse, first born daughter, second born daughter, and 2 imbued champions. Each group has a combat rating no lower than 500. The highest enemy combat rating I have encountered thus far was 416.

medium map, normal difficulty, normal pacing, Spell of making and quest of mastery disabled.

The empire of resoln is currently:

Total income: 172.0 (167 buildings, 5 units)

Total expenses: 67.0 (64 wages, 3 admin costs)

1 Air, 1 fire, 1 water shard

Variables

Notables: World lv4, Resoln lv2

Npc: World lv5, resoln lv1

Resoln Quest lv3

Resoln reputation lv150.2

Stats

Settlements: 13

Population: 2767

Food: 27

Metal: 1188

Power rating: 841

net income: 105.0

Materials: 612

Crystal: 0

Tech levels

imperium 7

sorcery 8

conquest 16

domination 3

cooperation 11

Let's compare

The Empire of Kraxis

Total income: 4.6

Total expenses: 5.8

0 shards

Reputation lv6.9

Settlements: 3

Population: 409

Food: 0

Metal: 1752

Power rating: 36

Net income: -1.2

Materials: 3288

Crystal: 178

Relations

+1 - my military is weaker than yours

-2 - we are at war

+5 - you are dominating me

+1 - we have the same allegiance

+1 - your diplomatic capital impresses us

0 - you've killed a large number of my offspring (You'd think that would count for something, but apparently only the spouse does)

Peace treaty: 841 vs. 360 - given the disparity between our power, I'd have imagined the numbers to be less 'close' than they are, given how they are normally something like 841 vs. 2660.

The Empire of Magnar

Total income 89.7 (all buildings)

Total expenses 79.6 (all wages) (odd, where are HIS admin costs?)

1 shard of water

reputation lv99.3

Settlements: 7

Population: 2004

Food: 0

Metal: 282

Power rating 767

Net income: 10.1

Materials: 4063

Crystal: 933

Relations

-2 - we are at war

+1 - we have the same allegiance

+3 - we are enthralled by your diplomatic capital

Peace treaty: 841 vs. 7670

My sphere of influence directly borders magnar's. I've also killed one daughter and one hired champion of magnar, along with quite a few troops.

But uh... seriously? Given the disparity of our net incomes, map control, proximity, reputations, power ratings, shard control, and what would otherwise be favorable relations, peace treaty is stacked AGAINST me 1:9?

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Minor update -

Turn 348

it has been two turns since all of Kraxis was conquered. Of Magnar's 7 settlements, 2 are completely surrounded by my area of influence. My sovereign's 'Vigilant Minion' summon just single handedly destroyed a magnar army rated at 411 in the first turn. Of my 6 combat groups, 2 are garrisoning former Kraxis settlements as forward bases. The other 4 are moving into position along the magnar border.

Peace treaty: 871 vs. 7850

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