Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post here your feedback and thoughts about the upcoming Diplomacy update.

Moderator: Pocus

Southern Hunter
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Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Southern Hunter »

1. Cooperating countries sometimes suggest deals. All well and good. Sometimes they suggest I send them troops (like Elephants) and in exchange, they give me stuff. I presume and it appears that I don't ACTUALLY have to build the elephants and send them. Which means I am actually just getting free stuff?! Most of the deals are much more balanced, but it seems the only cost here is that this country (perhaps far off) gets some of my unique troops.

2. When I invade a country, and then look at the peace options, the balance is not quite right i think. They are very slow to give up regions and provinces, which generally leads me to continue my attack until they can be made to completely surrender. It would be different if there was a lot of pressure to end the war (war weariness, loss of prestige, war threats, other aggressors), but at least in my recent games, that has not been the case. Therefore, every war is a war of annihilation, which is fine, but I suspect that the nice new diplomacy options were to encourage more limited wars, and slower growth of empires. As it is, they speed it up, as a capitulation actually means you get MORE land than before, including bits of their country that you have not reached.

3. The amount of war score required to turn them into a client is also very high. It just never seems like a particularly good option, given I could continue and take their land.
choppinlt
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by choppinlt »

Southern Hunter, I concur 100% in your remarks

1. I havn't determined if it costs me anything to provide them my provincial troops, though i will go back and re-read the forum on this and do more trials.

2. and 3. are the same issue in my POV. Bottom line is the thresholds for acceptance don't seem quite right atm. The offers seem to be lagging the situation. If my standing combat power that is within striking distance of the victim is significantly higher, then the victim needs to come to the bargaining table with a nice offer (or accept a reasonable offer). For instance in a quick trial run in the early game I took the region I wanted on Turn 1, and smashed their army (in 1 battle). Turn 2 I besieged their capital region. They wouldn't cede the single region despite the fact they were on the verge of extinction.
choppinlt
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by choppinlt »

Overall I would like to express my delight on the overall concepts of this patch. This is how I would imagine diplomacy should work in a game like Empires. :D This appears to be a perfect fit, and I appreciate all the team's additional work and listening to your audience!

Now to some business:
I think there should be some controls/limitations on Transactions and Terms. For instance, the Picts can make an immediate transaction with the Antigonids for Clician archers. Frankly any sort of resource swapping (money, MP, troops, metal) seems like it should be restricted for factions outside of trade range.

A Peace Term suggestion would be "Exile General". Does your enemy have a young 2-2 general who has made your life difficult, well exile him as a peace term!

Great work and implementation!!
poesel71
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by poesel71 »

As I understand 1) it costs you the normal build costs (money, men, material) + 75 gold for shipping & packaging. :)
This is way I suggested to add this data to the swap screen so that you can compare better.

What I would like to know is if you build provincial units this way does that count against the % increase for these units?
Pocus
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Pocus »

Thanks for your feedback!

I'll make some notes on the perceived too high costs of some clauses and the necessity of a more pressing peace. I feel it will be hard to come with numbers that work all the time though!

The tooltip in the units clause should speak about a fee of 75 money paid by the giver. Also the giver don't have to actually build the units, he should only be able to do so.
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choppinlt
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by choppinlt »

Pocus wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:45 am I'll make some notes on the perceived too high costs of some clauses and the necessity of a more pressing peace. I feel it will be hard to come with numbers that work all the time though!
Thank you, definitely understand about the numbers not always working.
bs_grom
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by bs_grom »

The cost of all regions we control should not be equal to the regions we have not control. I understand that the value of the developed province is greater than the less developed but ...
often in unresolved conflicts, but not only in those where someone is already controlling the region, the losing parties decide to surrender such regions according to the principle that the enemy already has him, we have no strength to recover it, so this is not a great concession .
In wars with small countries it is hard to get war scores to require a province as a tribute
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Pocus »

The cost to demand a region will be significantly reduced in the next update.
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Fizou
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Fizou »

Southern Hunter wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 3:17 am
2. When I invade a country, and then look at the peace options, the balance is not quite right i think. They are very slow to give up regions and provinces, which generally leads me to continue my attack until they can be made to completely surrender. It would be different if there was a lot of pressure to end the war (war weariness, loss of prestige, war threats, other aggressors), but at least in my recent games, that has not been the case. Therefore, every war is a war of annihilation, which is fine, but I suspect that the nice new diplomacy options were to encourage more limited wars, and slower growth of empires. As it is, they speed it up, as a capitulation actually means you get MORE land than before, including bits of their country that you have not reached.
I really like where this game is going and have been enjoying this beta update. I just wanted to chip in with my 5 cents as well and co sign the above. I have been fighting a long war with the opposing nation suffering heavily, losing many regions and battles (their army and navy is pretty much non existing at this point) , still the war score IMHO is not really in proportion to the cost of ceding regions. One option that I thought of might be to have ceding regions at a reduced cost and have them come with an objective marker from the opposing nation as an additional option.
Pocus
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Pocus »

I'm also adding up an effect for war exhaustion in the next mini update.
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bs_grom
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by bs_grom »

My thoughts on the diplomacy system.
it seems that the current warscore system giving points for captured provinces and winning battles is more useful for wars with large countries where we have the chance to fight several or many battles and conquer a lot of provinces. (I think because I haven't fought against a great country yet) .
In the war against a small country, e.g. Senones, there will be one maximum of two battles and the capture of one region or total occupation of the state.
For a small country like Senones, one lost battle and the annihilation of one army has a much more serious consequence than one battle, even if it was larger and more units died in it for a large country. Similarly, the loss of one region for Senones is a loss of 50% of the country and for example Antigonides is nothing serious even if the region was richer. (although I think a rich region should be valued higher than a poor one).
Can add to the Warscore system the existing system in force for peace. In which the relationship of the warring parties' strength, war exhaustion and the international situation of the warring parties in general are taken into account.
I'm sorry for my english :oops:
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Pocus »

We are revising the overall costs for regions, it will be significantly lower in the next update.

As for what you say specifically, small countries will often be more approachable because of extra modifiers from their small size or small army, did you check them in the peace treaty chance? In particular you can settle more easily peace with countries who have only their capital. Now, the next update will also favor war exhaustion, so it should be even easier if the war cripple a country.
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bs_grom
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by bs_grom »

I have no objections about the chances of peace because these were big but the enemy had two own regions, one lost but in the peace treaty there was no real chance that he would give it away and I had to destroy it.
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by jack54 »

I agree with most of the observations above... would also like to see the ability to add clauses to sweeten the deal. As it is now "Peace Treaties may only include clauses which benefit the winning side, based on war supply". I might be willing to give up some metal or money to get them to cede the region I'm demanding thus ending the war.

Thanks
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Fizou »

Pocus wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2019 10:34 am We are revising the overall costs for regions, it will be significantly lower in the next update.

As for what you say specifically, small countries will often be more approachable because of extra modifiers from their small size or small army, did you check them in the peace treaty chance? In particular you can settle more easily peace with countries who have only their capital. Now, the next update will also favor war exhaustion, so it should be even easier if the war cripple a country.
Great news!

I also wanted to mention that when I settled peace and had an army that was not in a border region, but rather in the heart of the enemy land, it got stuck there. It showed a movement path back to friendly territory but with a time of 99 turns. Units in border regions or regions next to the sea would get evacuated.
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by jimwinsor »

I did a livestream of the diplomacy beta today, as Judea. You can see the video here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/525397514

Basically it echos what others here have said, it's tough to gain regions, even those you've occupied, as part of a peace deal. I was a bit surprised there was no war score discount for claiming regions you have under occupation. Under the old peace system, we would have gotten these basically for free. Makes me think these regions should be zero warscore ... but then a boost to your basic peace chance should you opt to give them back?

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about including metal and manpower in deals under the new system. Under the old system, unused metal and manpower was pretty useless and got stockpiled, until you got the chance to convert them to cash via Merchants and Patricians. Now, however, they will have great value diplomatically (at least to the AI). I feel that that the AI is going to get suckered in abusive deals with these as trading commodities. On top of that, it is sort of non-immersive; I can't think of any deals back then that were sealed with wagon loads of iron ingots, or transfers of citizens of military age.

Just to test this potential abusiveness out, offstream I was able to get Rome on turn 1 to offer Syracuse a trade, of metal plus manpower for client statehood. It worked, and Carthage now had to come through Rome to get Syracuse. A pretty powerful play for just some metal and manpower.
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Kriegsspieler »

I have several responses to the diplomacy system, but before getting to that, let me just say how truly wonderful this game is. I haven't played a game in years -- and trust me, I've been playing computer games since we had 64-bit processors -- that offers so many intricate and challenging ways of playing. Well done! :D

Ok, now about the revised diplomacy system. First, yes, do reduce the costs of getting provinces in peace treaties, but please, not too much. If regions are made too cheap, it will become too easy to blob the world. I like it that this game is not that easy.

Second, as the previous poster noted, manpower and metal are already present in superabundance, so the only reason to include them in peace treaties is to snooker the AI. So I never do. If the game should change in a future version to make metal and manpower more precious, then their role in diplomacy could be revisited. Right now, though, money is the only thing I care about. That's why the only trade deals I even look at are those that offer a good amount of money for the specialty units I am sending.

Third, speaking of those offered deals, would it be possible to put a cooldown timer on deals coming from factions I don't want to trade with? I feel that I get pestered by little one-region micro-factions virtually every turn. I can sense their desperation, but it's annoying to click through them. How about making it so a country is required to wait 5 or 7 years after a refusal before trying again?
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Pocus »

Thanks for the praises, always appreciated and that's the fuel for the team to stay very motivated :D

I have noted all your remarks and will rebalance things when I'm finished with my vacation :wink:
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Jagger2002
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Jagger2002 »

Second, as the previous poster noted, manpower and metal are already present in superabundance
It really depends on the nation you are playing. For example, Ptolomies are short of both manpower and metal. Just had a major long term war with Maurya in which limitations in both manpower and metal put an end to my maximum expansion of my land forces. Metal restricts expansion of heavy infantry... and ships if I remember correctly.
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Re: Comments on peace treaties and other deals

Post by Demetrios_of_Messene »

Happy New Year to all !

Congratulations for taking the game to the right direction! Some comments from my side:

1. Region cost is too high, as already mentioned. A decrease or another mechanic (e.g. auto change ownership after 20 turns or so of continuous occupation and still at war) would be welcome.

2. I am not sure if the AI vs AI can make peace. In my game, Macedonia and Antigonids seem to have been continuously fighting for more than 150 turns now.

3. Playing as Tarentum I have made a nice cluster of Client States, some of which gift their regions to me without any transaction proposal. Please make this happen only inside a transaction proposal, so that we can ignore it. Otherwise it can become tedious to "trade" (for nothing) the regions back every so often. In particular, Lusitani keep gifting me regions every other turn and it has become frustrating for me to have to babysit this exchange back and forth.

4. I have encountered small nations willing to give up all their regions for a monetary exchange (after I boosted relations with gifts). I actually like it, because I can tidy up my borders nicely, but I do not know if this works as intended for small nations to exchange their existence for money.
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