I'd totally go for it ;D

It's normally very difficult to create sieges, which is a shame as they could be epic. I usually effectively begin a siege on a capital and end it a turn later because it's a simple matter of easily squashing resistance and moving into the territory. :/

To actually have to fight long and hard for the bloody thing would actually give a sense of achievement at the end. Like the long, painstaking hours of careful planning and complex strategies actually pay off. ;D

Mr. Poireau, you have the right ideas. +1

PE's really shouldn't be a thing, especially the "if you dont attack a PE, you are PE" rule.
Lets look at it like this, if a player did what the German Reich did in WW2, in Warlight. They would be called out as a PE but not everyone declared war on Germany and they weren't forced to either. So the PE rule isn't quite realistic in my opinion.

Indeed. Not just completely unrealistic, but also completely UNNECESSARY.

whatever your opinion is, it looks like everyone has a common ground: Some new features for diplomacy needs to be implemented, at least the name changing like Poireau suggested.

pretty sure all da dummies are the ones who actually waste their time playing stupid diplo games........

I spoke to another player about diplomacy functions I wonder if it could get abused if this was added across the board to all games inclusive of ffa, not just diplo

As a tertiary student of international relations, my passion for the diplomacy game mode stems out of it being as close as possible to an accurate simulation of what we call "liberalism" (tl;dr explanation - countries work together through alliances and institutions to defend themselves against undemocratic hegemonies and only enter into wars to defend each other and to install democratic values). I understand the "hegemony" in this case is the P.E., but my query is whether this alliance system can feasibly be implemented into the game whilst being abuse-free.

Edited 6/18/2016 06:51:36

From my perspective, I don't see how that is superior to just having an in-game Hegemony or coalition.

What do the alliances rules add to your simulation? How do they improve the game? They seem, to me, just to take away strategic options and the subtleties of negotiation, robbing the game of richness.

I think it's more that in the 21st century, alliances are somewhat binding and governments are subject to their own domestic audiences and the legislative branch, so when you do sign an alliance or agreement, you are bound to that to an extent. That "binding" nature of an alliance in my view is enforceable through a diplomacy function. Following from that, it means that an "alliance" can win a game together, rather than having to fight it out to one victor.

Interesting. I'm not sure I agree (there are many game design advantages to a single-victor model, and real-world governments are certainly capable of betrayal - not to mention that most diplomacy games aren't set on 21st-century Earth, which makes this point rather questionable - they tend to be about the downfall of Rome, World War I, or Game of Thrones...). Other than the possibility of an "alliance win", how does this improve the gameplay? (It seems to me that an alliance win can already be handled just fine via a Vote to End.*)

More importantly, we should be talking about gameplay functionality here (does the game work? is it fun?) rather than how "realistic" the rules are. Perhaps you are correct that some modern nations would find it difficult to go to war, but I think that if you went to a real-life leader of a country and explained "announce alliance, then give a turn's warning before attacking" as a rule, they would laugh in your face, not consider that a reasonable simulation of real-world politics. (Not to mention that the actual game of Warlight can hardly be said to resemble real-life war in any sense... realism is not a goal of this game's design, as simple as that.)

However, that reminds me of something: another Warlight player recently hosted a diplomacy game where each nation could announce what kind of government they were running under. A country which was run under a "Totalitarian" regime could attack without warning, but other types of countries could not. This was an interesting experiment! I didn't participate in the game, but I like the implications of being able to announce different governing structures in order to change your function in the game. ("After a recent election, France announces a shift from Communism to Totalitarianism. The Germans are worried.") That's some pretty interesting stuff to think about, and could lead to some fun game modes.


*: If people are worried about points ("I want my points!"), there are easier ways to do that. The simplest way would be to award points to remaining players upon a Vote to End, based on the number of winners and losers - e.g. two players surviving a 40-player FFA would get lots of points, five friends who vote to end after one of them drops out would get almost none. Much less complex than working out a system where an "alliance" can win and share points. (That kind of thing can be abused terribly, simply by creating games and then voting to end - or killing off one player, if necessary, and then voting to end - so an "alliance win" is not a great idea from a game balance perspective. Everyone will just create endless games just for points, and existing games will carry too much incentive to end prematurely. All in all, I think such rules are bound to cause more problems, and I would prefer to see diplomacy-style games where no one scores points as the norm.)

Edited 6/19/2016 06:35:47

Really, alliances should be dynamic. That way the game will always be changing, who has what power, through changes in alliances. I think this is quite advanced Diplomacy play though, and I find a lot of players struggle with it, often jumping to accusations "back-stabbing" and getting upset.

Also wars should not be scorned as much as they are, often I declare war with someone but with no real intention to attack and they sometimes lose their minds over it. There are complex levels to a Diplomacy game that perhaps is more subtle than I realise.

I try really hard to understand why certain players play the way they do, and sometimes I really just can't. Often a player will put all their resources into attacking a player because of some "gruge" when really they should be protecting their troop count. This kind of "suiciding" makes no sense if you're actually playing a game sensibly. But ultimatly I guess it's a lack of understanding. Troop count is often way more important than income, especially in a Diplomacy or FFA game.

I keep thinking about maybe making a stream for RT Diplos (maybe to replace WGL for a mix-up), as I think this could be really interesting to show a lot of the thinking behind a Diplo game that a "normal" player perhaps doesn't see or get. It would be a lot of work though, but if anyone is interested in helping with it then I would love you to PM me :)

PS. forgot to say, but Poir's point about changing the template to create the kind of game you want is a really good one, and is often how I achieve the atmosphere I want in a Diplo I'm hosting. Att/Def rates are a great option, so is clever card use, and base income is also really key in that.

Really, alliances should be dynamic. That way the game will always be changing, who has what power, through changes in alliances. I think this is quite advanced Diplomacy play though, and I find a lot of players struggle with it, often jumping to accusations "back-stabbing" and getting upset.

Precisely! That's it.

Diplomacy play on a high level.

Typed by a highly strategic player.*




*: Sorry, couldn't resist... ;)

@OP, there's a typo in the title... you left out an "is" between diplomacy and for.

i actually laughed out loud at Nitr01's post xD