Diplomacy - Loaned troops, supply lines, etc

from Elemental Forums

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?

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Just for historical accuracy, we occasionally do see countries lend each other troops.  For example, we had a hefty contingent of Korean troops fighting with the US in Vietnam, Turkish and other NATO troops in Korea, US troops attached to British forces at Dieppe (before enough US troops were sent overseas to qualify for US command), and so forth.

That aside, I like your ideas.  :)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Adding an optional timer to military asset transfers sounds like something that will put off quick game lovers and/or picky coders. I'd have fun playing with it, but I'm not a typical game customer. But your idea reminds me of something I think lots of TBS player types might really enjoy: AIs allies that can coordinate with you during a war.

Rather than essentially leasing military assets from or sending them out on contract to allies, I want to be able to do something like agree with an ally that we both need to send X units (all, nearest, ...) to attack Army A or besiege City B and see them follow through or acknowledge that the alliance is broken.

What about the same thing in elemental, food supply lines?

How about we can negotiate a "supply lines" treaty?
End of quote

This bit seems so clearly reasonable that I can hardly imagine the game shipping without it. But then I'm still not quite over seeing Camp 1 dismissed in the wake of the Great Econ Thread. And I'm in denial about how hard it might be to train the AIs to trade well in even a moderately complex toy economy.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

 But then I'm still not quite over seeing Camp 1 dismissed in the wake of the Great Econ Thread.
End of quote

I'm not either.. :'(  but I was happy to see in the latest journal entry that modders will be able to put it in. I don't think we need to worry, someone will mod this into the game we wanted ^_^  lol

Overall, love the idea, Lion. Don't think we'll see it in the vanilla game, but I'm gonna try and learn to mod between now and August/September and, if not, hopefully someone who can is thinking the same thing as you stated here |-)  

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Modding is where I was hoping to take it further, especially with quests.

Tie in the ability to loan troops to quests?

 

Here is one quest I see -

 

You see a Dragon land a short ways away from your town, scaring the heck out of your people. But oddly, it doesn't seem aggresive, just .. Distressed?

 

So you go out to talk to it - Figuring if it wanted to it could level your town anyways, may as well send a troop to see what it wants.

 

The dragon talks, explains that it lives in a cave a short ways away (in an allies land just over the hill), and says that bandits came into its cave. Normally it would just have lunch and call it a day, except the dragon chased them deeper into the cave (the dragon likes to "play with its food", it explains). Except, chased them down the wrong path, they ran into its nest. Low and behold, they hid behind its egg. Her egg. When they realized this they threatened the dragon, in anger and dispair the waiting mother fled, trying to figure out what to do. She just happened to land near your town, but she has no ill-will twords you, so doesn't attack. Shes smart enough to realize they are just bandits.

 

Long story short, you negotiate with her. She agrees to join your army, should you agree to keep her nest, and egg safe. However, its in your allies land. Now you can just walk troops on over, raid some random cave and call it day. Leave a guy there for protection, have a nice day.

The trick is she only stays so long as her cave is protected. No protection, shes gone.

No alliance, no guy allowed near the cave, no protection, the dragon goes.

 

So the quest is, you get a dragon, and your only able to keep the dragon so long as you keep your aliance.

This also makes things like spies more interesting. To the computer AI, your army depends on your ally, so to attack you it might go after the ally, with either money, or to attack the town. The AI would in essence think that town "supplies" the dragon troop, so it might not be horribly complex to let others exploit such things.

 

For a human player, easy - Just shows up from your spies greasing a whole lot of pockets.

 

If we have spies, tie this in with the spy report. "Dragon - Depends on town XXX from ally YYY".

Adds a little more interesting twists ..

 

I mainly do C, perl and lua programming ..

I haven't touched python in a few years, so curious what the modding allows :)

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

We have to remember that this game takes place in a fantasy realm. And the tech level we are dealing with is probably from Antiquity, to Medieval. I would think that during those times a kingdom, city state, empire, etc, would prefer to lend mercenaries to another kingdom, not there own troops.I'm not apposed to sending an army of mine to help the ai fight a war, but I'm not going to put my men under AI control. I would be willing to send them Mercs though. (In medieval and Rome total war my friends always regard how they would not want to be a merc in my army. Being a merc means being atleast 10-30 yards ahead of the rest of my army, usually to take arrows or to soften the enemy before my army engages) I don't give a crap about the lives of soom mercs, but assuming manpower is an actual resource (like it should be) I will care about loosing valuable fighting men because the AI is careless with them.

 

A good example is Crusader Kings, in CK you get an event every now and then in which an AI ally will buy mercenaries and send them to aid you. And you can do the same.