diplomacy

from Elemental Forums

I miss meaningful diplomacy. I just don't feel like it has much influence in this game. I want to buy off my opponents, give them gold/spells/influence/etc and make them my friends. Then go to war together, or (better) get them to go to war by themselves. If they get mad and declared war on me I could regain their good graces with a pile of gold or call in some favors and have the other factions aid my cause. Some games even let you devise war plans together: you attack here, I'll attack there. I feel all of this is lacking in Elemental. The guts are there, the core mechanics like the "how much I like you" scale and the different treaties and the varying values of trading. But I think too much of it is "preordained;" I meet an opponent on turn 10 and there are already half a dozen items on the scale, most of which I cannot change with my behavior, no matter how much stuff I give them.

Bottom line: I want to manipulate my enemies, play games of intrigue, work them against each other. Right now diplomacy feels like something you watch but cannot influence.

Anyone with me? Or should I take Kraxis my next game and try harder?

5,523 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree that diplomacy could be more fleshed out and meaningful, but I expect that will happen with time and people playing it and making suggestions.  I think AI in general is next on the list at the moment - the changes in 1.3 will need to be unified to the rest of the game before the end of 1.3 beta, so that the AI can get more cities off the ground and stay competitive for longer.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I totally agree to your points, Brainjuggler!

Diplomacy needs a great overhaul.

 

Frogboy wrote in following thread, that the developers perhaps will care about diplomacy in patch 1.5.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/447256/page/1/#3385966

"Next up for Fallen Enchantress

We have some stuff in the works but it’ll be awhile before we’re ready to announce it.  Fallen Enchantress will continue to go forward with meaningful updates that we’re funding with the DLC purchases.  The DLC system turns out to be a good system as players are able to get more optional content which in turn lets us keep adding new features to the game itself.

v1.4 will probably focus on some UI and performance related items and v1.5 will (I hope) be the big diplomacy update. "

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree.  I think that creating a list of realistic items that could be added to diplomacy would be helpful here.

My suggestions:

  1. Allow mixing of different things to trade.  For instance, trading Knowledge for Treaties.  
  2. Allow map trading.
  3. Map Treaty:  As those you have this treaty with explore more territory, you get to see it, and vice versa.  So it's like a continuous map trade.
  4. Show in the event log how actions you have taken affect other factions' opinions of you.  For instance, if you declare war on someone.  People who like that faction will hate you for it, while people who hate that faction will like you for it.  Or, if you wipe out a faction, other factions will be less likely to go to war with you for a while, and more likely to offer peace.  Maybe even decisions you make in quests.  For instance, the quest where the angry mob is attacking the priests of Pariden.  Certainly Pariden would like you better if you sided with the priests.
  5. The ability to form a limited-duration pact with one faction against another, where you both go to war with that faction, and you cannot go to war with each other until that faction is destroyed or the pact ends.  Pacts cannot be cancelled manually.
  6. When you buy something from another faction's shop, that faction should get an amount of the purchase price based on their tax rate.
  7. Describe somewhere what an Economic treaty does.  Nobody seems to really know.  It doesn't seem to do much.
  8. Rite of Passage Treaty:  Allows factions' units to pass through each others borders without getting kicked out, but also without the promise of not going to war.

That said, this thread doesn't really belong in "Support".

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

You need to go to other games for that, like Europa Universalis series, or Crusader Kings.