Gwydden wrote:
Historically, being an overly aggressive neighbor has had a tendency to backfire.

There are more pertinent ways to punish excessive expansionism. Make it costly. Make military upkeep become exponentially higher the more units you have and the further away you are from the centre. Make empire approval be almost impossible to manage with rampant expansionism, to the point of constant threat of rebellion (which doesn't exist in Endless games, to their detriment). Make the AI form coalitions against overly aggressive empires, and have them put diplomatic, economic, and military pressure to keep them at bay. That is what limited conquest historically and would be a believable and immersive check to have in the game.



That is how I would like to see excessive militarism be punished. But the losing side being able to force a truce without doing much for it other than having influence and things to offer? I find that cheap, not to mention lacking in believability. Not only is it cheap, but it doesn't really punish expansionism. It merely delays it a bit. I predict that it won't be enough to make other victory conditions that much more viable.



If force truce comes as the result of *active* negotiation with the galactic scene to put diplomatic pressure, I would be the first to support it. Diplomacy needs to be an active and dynamic feature, one that you put effort and thought into, and not just a button you can press.

Hey guys and gals! It's time for Diplomacy!



Hopefully you will enjoy the read!



Rationale

Firstly, Diplomacy is one of the systems of Endless Space 2 that is getting the biggest set of changes from our previous games. There are a couple of large reasons that were the cause of these changes:

• Diplomacy should be a mandatory system. Player should not be able to ignore it
• The Diplomatic system should limit the effectiveness of wars
• Players should have a real sense of teamplay through the diplomatic system
• Diplomacy should reinforce positive relations between empires, but it should also be possible to use this as an offense
• Diplomacy should be equally important to warfare
  
  

The result of this rationale means that we are moving towards ‘gamifying’ Diplomacy a lot more than in our previous titles, which implies more rules and systems for the player to interact with, while still being simple enough to understand!



Diplomatic Relations

Each empire will have a diplomatic status with other empires. This should be familiar with the players experienced with our previous games.

• Unknown: Empires are not aware of each other’s existence
• War: The empires are actively fighting
• Cold War: Default state, empires will defend themselves and fight in neutral territory
• Peace: Will no longer attack each other. Can also sign treaties and trade resources
• Alliance: Will join the empires together in a team that will share relationships with outside empires
  
  

These diplomatic states will be moved between using diplomatic treaties and declarations. Usually players can always declare war at each other, but going to peace or alliance will require certain technologies.







Reputation System

Another thing we wish to emphasize in the game system is how certain diplomatic actions has natural ‘reactions’. For example, being allied and being called in to assist in a war and then declining is a breach of trust.

The reputation system's goal is to take these ‘natural reactions’ and represent as badges that people earn (both positive and negative) that will affect some parameters of Diplomacy. For example, a badge ‘Untrustworthy’ could double the cost of peace and alliance treaties. Or ‘Warmonger’ generally increases the cost of all diplomatic actions.

These will then also be related to how an AI will react to empires.



Alliances

Alliances will function similar to the original Endless Space, whereby signing an Alliance will put the empires into shared relationships with other empires. This time around, the Alliance will be namable and will show up in declarations.

Any member of the Alliance can enact a treaty or declaration that will change the Alliance relations, but each member is free to decline that treaty/declaration and leave the Alliance if they are unhappy with the decision made. If several empires decline, they will automatically form a separate Alliance.

To reduce the ‘conflicts’ generated upon anyone being able to enact any treaty/declaration: Each member can define a sort of ‘VETO’ beforehand. The VETO is setting an ‘Attitude’ toward a non-alliance empire, such as ‘Aggressive’ which will restrict the option of going to peace/alliance with that member or conversely ‘Friendly’ which will restrict going to war with the empire in question.

We hope this will also encourage social play if there are opposing opinions in the Alliance, such as asking people to change their VETO or leaving due to the Alliance restricting their options.



War Exhaustion & Diplomatic Pressure

War Exhaustion and Diplomatic Pressure are two new systems that are closely related. The goal of these systems are to define who is ‘exerting diplomatic pressure’ on the other side at any given time and put that into a game system that allows the player in game terms to apply that pressure by making ‘demands’.

In short this means each pair of empires have a single bar between each other other that goes from -100 to 100, whereby the winning side will be able to exert demands that cannot be directly refused.

Both of these systems function as trends. That is, through either winning battles or through influence, each empire generates a value, this value is subtracted from each other empire’s value. This generates the trend that computes the the bar position at the end of each turn.







War Exhaustion

A ‘War Exhaustion’ system has been implemented to restrict the length and scope of wars. In terms of lore, this should be considered the populations desire to leave or stay in long wars.

The system works by winning battles and taking systems will push a ‘war exhaustion’ bar that exists between the two empires. On each side of the bar, certain ‘truce thresholds’ exist at which both the winning or losing empire can use ‘demands’ to force truce by either demanding or giving up resources depending on whether the empire is winning or losing.

This system includes the Alliance system, such that all members are considered in a single war exhaustion bar, as well as the resources gained from winning will be split according to each empires contribution to the war.

In short, both sides of the conflict always has an ‘out’ to avoid being completely eliminated in a single war. Several wars will be required for elimination of an empire, which is the desired outcome.



Diplomatic Pressure

Diplomatic system fills the role of the ‘War Exhaustion’ system, but while two empires are not at war. Generating Influence is transformed into ‘Diplomatic Pressure’. This Diplomatic Pressure will push the ‘Pressure bar’ between each pair of empires, whereby the winning side can ‘make demands’.

Note that any ‘accepted treaty’ between two empires will push the bar back towards 0. This is to incentivize players cooperating and making deals as opposed to letting the demands go through. This also naturally means that the empire generating the most pressure naturally has more ‘bargaining power’.

A demand in simple terms is a diplomatic deal generated by the system that allows the ‘losing player’ to choose 1 of 3 options of how to resolve that demand. This would generally be giving up resources (strategics, luxuries, dust, influence, systems, etc.) or responding by declaring war, which will replace Pressure with War Exhaustion.

The demands will increase in strength as the game progresses to make it more and more powerful. The ‘Pressure’ value will be modified by relationships (such as having active peace treaties and allies will increase an empires ‘Pressure’ output) and treaties. But overall it will be an ‘expression’ of Influence generation.

Note that Influence is tied to the happiness of populations as well. Being unhappy will stop influence generation by a large margin.



Premade Teams

So after 2 games of asking for this, we’ve committed to including the premade team feature in the release of the game. Premade teams in general terms is a forced alliance between a group of empires that are allied from the start of the game and cannot break that Alliance. The general treaties involved in Alliance, such as vision sharing and such is also a part of this.

This is a ‘new game’ setting, so it is not a treaty that can be enacted in the middle of a game.

These will have shared victory conditions as well, which will be scaled versions of existing victory conditions. No new ones will be added for this.

We also plan to have a number of additional options to support the feature such as:

• Possibility of sharing the tech tree
• Single empire elimination eliminates entire premade team
• Have home system positions take teams into account
  
  

Hopefully this is what was meant when people asked for premade teams!



That’s it for the Diplomacy. We’re looking forward to hear you feedback. We are aware that we are stepping in the direction of ‘gamifying’ Diplomacy a little more, which can cause immersion issues, but we hope that the system will generate sufficiently interesting gameplay that will make it entirely worth it.

To address the person who will say ‘How will the AI deal with this?’. The fact is, that the more ‘game systems’ are involved, the easier it is to find ‘optimal strategies’ as opposed to 'acting like a human'. We believe that these systems will assist us in making the AI take predictable, non-stupid decisions and not make it worse.





VIP Feedback

Overall it appears the VIPs are generally happy with the direction of limiting duration of wars and using a more 'systemic' approach - but they of course had a lot of concerns ^^



Some confusions about the system

The first confusion was regarding the fact that an empire losing in a war could 'force truce'. Yes, the losing empire can force truce. This led to some concerns about it being frustrating for the attacker.

Our solution to this is to make the force truce from a losing side something you will really not want to do. That is, if you have other options of getting out of the war, those should all be more valuable. This means the demands will be significantly worse if the loser forces truce and the influence cost of such an action should not be cheap either.



Clarifications on Pressure

There were some concerns that this would favor 'influence' heavy empires. And the fact is, it will. It is intentional from a design perspective, that factions that generate a lot of influence were always supposed to have an easier time outside of wars. However, the mitigating factor is that Pressure is generated based on the ratio of influence between the two empires. This calculation should make it significantly harder to skyrocket ahead. Pressure is also a trend. These two factors means that pressure should flow predictably between empires.



We also had some great feedback on pressure. Either giving pressure generation a separate new-game option or linking it to game difficulty to allow for softer games with less conflict.



Questions about demands

One thing that recurred was the assumption that players would get to choose what to demand. The system decides what the demand entails, which means that using the forced demand/truce options is an action without knowing exactly what you gain from it. The empire receiving the demand will have to choose between 3 system-generated options. However, what is for sure, is that the empire in question will not like you demanding stuff from them ^^



Request for 'genocidal war'

Some players, (I think) primarily for lore reasons felt that the option of having a war without force truces (perhaps even truces entirely) should exist. This is something we will keep an eye on and perhaps have as something that is unlocked later in the game. Though having that would defeat the rationale of wanting to have several wars to eliminate empires with several systems under their control. We will have to monitor this and see if we want this later.



Reputation badges and meta-game tracking

We got some requests for tracking reputation badges and having them carry over between games. This is not something we're looking into yet, though we did throw some ideas around in the thread. Equally there were concerns that tracking these between games would have negative effects on wanting a 'fresh start' as well as being scared of backstabbing in multiplayer for that purpose. However, we will likely have Steam achievements linked to badges.



Tangent on Cravers and Diplomacy

Basically a 1½ page discussion on Craver lore occurred. The takeaway is that it is nice to hear that people care so much! In terms of game systems, Cravers do use the 'diplomacy system' - but they will have traits that will make them interact slightly differently from other factions. No specifics, but their core gameplay does allow the use of Diplomacy, though maybe not always or maybe some parts of it will be restricted.



Premade teams

So this was essentially 'free praise' You guys are so predictable!

We did get some suggestions for additional options on sharing resources and wonder effects. We're looking into this. ^^ Other suggestions are of course appreciated.



Thank you for reading!

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
There are more pertinent ways to punish excessive expansionism. Make it costly. Make military upkeep become exponentially higher the more units you have and the further away you are from the centre. Make empire approval be almost impossible to manage with rampant expansionism, to the point of constant threat of rebellion (which doesn't exist in Endless games, to their detriment). Make the AI form coalitions against overly aggressive empires, and have them put diplomatic, economic, and military pressure to keep them at bay. That is what limited conquest historically and would be a believable and immersive check to have in the game.



That is how I would like to see excessive militarism be punished. But the losing side being able to force a truce without doing much for it other than having influence and things to offer? I find that cheap, not to mention lacking in believability. Not only is it cheap, but it doesn't really punish expansionism. It merely delays it a bit. I predict that it won't be enough to make other victory conditions that much more viable.



If force truce comes as the result of *active* negotiation with the galactic scene to put diplomatic pressure, I would be the first to support it. Diplomacy needs to be an active and dynamic feature, one that you put effort and thought into, and not just a button you can press.

I was agreeing with you xD



There needs to be some sort of significant punishment for rabid expansionism, but a 'force truce' button is not the best way to go, definitely. My concern is a different one. Say empire A declares war on empire B. A is winning and it seems almost certain that in a few more turns B will be eliminated from the game. Now say that I am empire C, and that I am observing all of this from the opposite end of the galaxy. What reason do I have to keep B from being obliterated? Remember, by this point B is about to lose and has probably spent most of its resources trying to keep A at bay. It probably doesn't have much of use to offer and, if I just let it be eliminated, that's one less rival I have to worry about. If I think A is a threat, I can still form a coalition with the other empires if necessary; I can have the militarist party dominate the Senate, start investing in military technologies, and build ships like crazy. I don't need to save B to do any of that. So why would I?



Just pressing a button and A has to call a truce is cheap, sure. But without that, you need something plausible that will compel any number of third parties to decide to intervene in B's favor. One more issue, although a lesser one, is that you have to make sure A has a motivation to bend to the demands of these third parties. For that, C needs to be able to say "unless you call a truce, D, E, and I will form and alliance with B and declare war on/impose a trade embargo on/break diplomatic ties with/exert pressure on you" or some other serious enough threat.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
What does "winning a war" mean? How will that be defined, with regards to war exhaustion? Is the number of battles won a real indicator? What if your empire has 2 fleets while the enemy has 20. Sure, your empire might have won 5 battles, but there are still 15 fleets active and you only have 2. Will winning small battles against scouts or weak fleets going to matter, when the enemy's main and upgraded fleets are in a position to strike your undefended capital? How will the AI gauge all that?

The conquest of 3 undeveloped systems cannot be considered as equal to the conquest of the break basket or main production centre. Will the AI understand that?

I *like* that it's measuring actual success and not something simple like military power differential. The AI will already be making decisions on going to war based on these sort of numbers. The diplomacy of war, truces and capitulation should only care about the actual result. Who cares if the enemy has X fleets to your y fleets? Results in the fight should be what matters.

Gwydden wrote:
I was agreeing with you xD



There needs to be some sort of significant punishment for rabid expansionism, but a 'force truce' button is not the best way to go, definitely. My concern is a different one. Say empire A declares war on empire B. A is winning and it seems almost certain that in a few more turns B will be eliminated from the game. Now say that I am empire C, and that I am observing all of this from the opposite end of the galaxy. What reason do I have to keep B from being obliterated? Remember, by this point B is about to lose and has probably spent most of its resources trying to keep A at bay. It probably doesn't have much of use to offer and, if I just let it be eliminated, that's one less rival I have to worry about. If I think A is a threat, I can still form a coalition with the other empires if necessary; I can have the militarist party dominate the Senate, start investing in military technologies, and build ships like crazy. I don't need to save B to do any of that. So why would I?





Just pressing a button and A has to call a truce is cheap, sure. But without that, you need something plausible that will force any number of third parties to decide to intervene in B's favor. One more issue, although a lesser one, is that you have to make sure A has a motivation to bend to the demands of these third parties. For that, C needs to be able to say "unless you call a truce, D, E, and I will form and alliance with B and declare war on/impose a trade embargo on/break diplomatic ties with/exert pressure on you" or some other serious enough threat.

You're saying B is completly focusing on trying to keep A at bay. You also say that A is a potential threat. So you have every reason there is to keep B alive. They're no threat in any area to you while they keep A busy. Not just that, but if they get eliminated, a gets even stronger. So the way I see it you really have every reason there is to keep B alive.



I agree with your second point though. Having actual threats, from trade embargos of different kinds to coalition containment wars, rather than force peace buttons would be really neat and make the diplomacy system much better.

Gwydden wrote:
I don't need to save B to do any of that. So why would I?

Imagine this scenario, if the negotiation mechanic is implemented when calling for a truce.



Empire A is beating empire B. Empire B asks other empires to intervene in its favour, to stop the war. When it does so, it can negotiate with them separately to gain their support. During these negotiations, it can offer things to them. Resources, trade, techs, pacts that give bonuses (if they are in the game), dust, heroes...etc. In the meantime, Empire A can make similar negotiations. It will be to Empires C to decide whether it's worth it to support empire B or empire A.



Now if I was Empire C, and I am concerned by Empire A, I would support empire B, slow Empire A down, give financial support to Empire B so they can bolster themselves, so that Empire A has a constant thorn in its back while I keep busy at building a more effective coalition.



The point though is that empire B will have to work to impose a truce on empire A, as opposed to just pressing a button.



EDIT: and it's even better if empires can impose sanctions on overly aggressive empires, definitely.

Sezneg wrote:
I *like* that it's measuring actual success and not something simple like military power differential. The AI will already be making decisions on going to war based on these sort of numbers. The diplomacy of war, truces and capitulation should only care about the actual result. Who cares if the enemy has X fleets to your y fleets? Results in the fight should be what matters.

How do you quantify these results?



Say I am Empire A, you're B. I have destroyed 3 of your fleets (representing 25% of your military) in 3 battles, and have taken 3 of your systems. But, you've destroyed my most powerful fleet, which represented half my military power, and have taken my main production system.



Who is winning? Empire A that won 3 battles and have taken 3 systems? Or empire B that won one decisive battle and have taken a critical system?



Taking all the factors I have listed into consideration is much closer to actual results, than number of battles won or number of ships destroyed. The AI may take these factors into account before declaring war, but it needs to reassess them during the war to actually monitor results accurately.

Sinnaj63 wrote:
You're saying B is completly focusing on trying to keep A at bay. You also say that A is a potential threat. So you have every reason there is to keep B alive. They're no threat in any area to you while they keep A busy. Not just that, but if they get eliminated, a gets even stronger. So the way I see it you really have every reason there is to keep B alive.

B cannot keep A busy if it's losing. And if you force A into a truce, B still won't be a serious threat to it for a while and A will be free to turn its attention elsewhere.



What you're saying might be logical in theory, but from what I've seen it rarely turns out that way in 4x multiplayer games. In practice, the game turns into a military FFA where everyone is happy to see the others go. The AI is not a good reference as it tends to play sub-optimally.

Empire A is beating empire B. Empire B asks other empires to intervene in its favour, to stop the war. When it does so, it can negotiate with them separately to gain their support. During these negotiations, it can offer things to them. Resources, trade, techs, pacts that give bonuses (if they are in the game), dust, heroes...etc. In the meantime, Empire A can make similar negotiations. It will be to Empires C to decide whether it's worth it to support empire B or empire A.

Problem is, if B wants to force a truce with A that means B is in pretty bad shape. A is bound to have a lot more to offer. This might be solved if B was able to offer promises or sign treaties in exchange for the help of other empires, and if it was severely penalized for breaking them afterwards.

EDIT: and it's even better if empires can impose sanctions on overly aggressive empires, definitely.

I think part of the problem these games tend to have that favor a militaristic approach is that no matter what you end up better off the less players you're up against. You want to get a military victory? Each player that gets eliminated brings you a little closer to victory. You want a peaceful one? That's less competition for you.



I think there should be something to balance this out, something that would motivate peaceful players to keep as many other empires in the game as possible for as long as they can. Basically, the other victories should be much, much easier to get the more people you have in the game. This would also mean that aggressive players would be reducing the chances of winning of peaceful players the more empires they took out, which in turn means peaceful players will do their damnest to restrain aggressive ones.

Gwydden wrote:


This might be solved if B was able to offer promises or sign treaties in exchange for the help of other empires, and if it was severely penalized for breaking them afterwards.

That's why I think pacts and treaties would be a good addition, and would be interesting to implement in a setting as diverse and asymmetrical as Endless Space.



That's something that Sins of a Solar Empire and Beyond Earth: Rising Tide did well (although the diplomacy is general in both cases is meh). In SoaSE, I many times found myself protecting weaker empires and keeping them alive because the value I get from pacts is superior to conquering them or letting them die. In Rising Tide, there is incentive to keep empires alive as well, at least for most of the game.

Gwydden wrote:
B cannot keep A busy if it's losing. And if you force A into a truce, B still won't be a serious threat to it for a while and A will be free to turn its attention elsewhere.



What you're saying might be logical in theory, but from what I've seen it rarely turns out that way in 4x multiplayer games. In practice, the game turns into a military FFA where everyone is happy to see the others go. The AI is not a good reference as it tends to play sub-optimally.







Problem is, if B wants to force a truce with A that means B is in pretty bad shape. A is bound to have a lot more to offer. This might be solved if B was able to offer promises or sign treaties in exchange for the help of other empires, and if it was severely penalized for breaking them afterwards.







I think part of the problem these games tend to have that favor a militaristic approach is that no matter what you end up better off the less players you're up against. You want to get a military victory? Each player that gets eliminated brings you a little closer to victory. You want a peaceful one? That's less competition for you.



I think there should be something to balance this out, something that would motivate peaceful players to keep as many other empires in the game as possible for as long as they can. Basically, the other victories should be much, much easier to get the more people you have in the game. This would also mean that aggressive players would be reducing the chances of winning of peaceful players the more empires they took out, which in turn means peaceful players will do their damnest to restrain aggressive ones.

I mean it really depends on the situation. If B lost because their economy is worse or their best systems got captured than that won't change though they'll if they stay there still be an annoyance to A, potentially redirecting forces, and they'd also represent systems A didn't conquer. And it could also be that B is losing because their meager military, maybe including their hero, were destroyed because they mobilized to late but they still have most or enough of their economic base avaible would they focus on war for once.



And you have to remember that A is the threat. B isn't. So C wants to hinder A and help B.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
That's why I think pacts and treaties would be a good addition, and would be interesting to implement in a setting as diverse and asymmetrical as Endless Space.



That's something that Sins of a Solar Empire and Beyond Earth: Rising Tide did well (although the diplomacy is general in both cases is meh). In SoaSE, I many times found myself protecting weaker empires and keeping them alive because the value I get from pacts is superior to conquering them or letting them die. In Rising Tide, there is incentive to keep empires alive as well, at least for most of the game.

Interesting idea. Maybe it could be tied to populations? As in, a treaty with another empire gets you a percentage of said empires' population bonuses even if you don't have those populations yourself? For example, we know Sophons give a 100% bonus, so assuming empire B was made up of Sophons, they could grant you part of their science bonus in exchange for your help? I'd argue they would have to sacrifice that percentage of the bonus from their own pool, which would make it an unappealing item to trade except on desperate situations like being about to lose the game.

Gwydden wrote:
Interesting idea. Maybe it could be tied to populations? As in, a treaty with another empire gets you a percentage of said empires' population bonuses even if you don't have those populations yourself? For example, we know Sophons give a 100% bonus, so assuming empire B was made up of Sophons, they could grant you part of their science bonus in exchange for your help? I'd argue they would have to sacrifice that percentage of the bonus from their own pool, which would make it an unappealing item to trade except on desperate situations like being about to lose the game.

FIDSI bonuses can be a good start, but I think we can go beyond that and give more interesting bonuses. Things like +5 cap fleet size, a unique fleet module, +1 movement to all fleets, one random free tech unlocked every 10 turns, faster Endless wonders excavation, the ability to clone one hero...etc.

Love it!

Brace yourselves, pressure is coming

I think there should be another side to the military tree. Expansion disapproval should stay as it is for the taking of neutral and other players outposts. What should be added is Conquest disapproval for the taking and loss of owned systems. Where you can mitigate this by researching and building an improvement that has a high upkeep and can only be built in systems that have 100% owner ship and has to be bought with dust on systems that don't have 100% ownership. So Team A take one of Team B's Systems, for team A to not gain any disapproval from this on their empire and the diplomatic community they would have to buy the "propaganda center" on the same turn they conquered the system. They could also buy it on subsequent turns but the disapproval keeps increasing until it is done, or the math flat lines. For Team B to not gain any disapproval from Team A taking their territory, would have to have a "propaganda center" built on the connecting systems so their empire's populous doesn't know about it.

Sceptical at first, but I'm all for this stuff, looks really neat.



Unclear on Alliances though - If starting in an alliance gives you shared victory conditions, could we also have shared victory conditions for 'flexible' Alliances?

I like the idea of a few empires meeting, forming relations, and eventually working symbiotically toward a combined victory. If you can do this with the Starting Alliance option,

couldn't you just give all alliances shared victory conditions? Regardless of when they were enacted.