Treaty friction is boring

[vonGenf]

I am playing an ambassador on Dwilight, and we now have to do treaty maintenance.

The general mechanics works well, and I understand the rationale.

However, maintaining treaties is one seriously boring activity.

Basically, for those who aren't playing ambassadors, you figure out that some treaty is "38 % degraded". If it reaches 100%, the treaty gets cancelled. So you have have a button that says "maintain treaty". You click it, spend 12 hours, and now the treaty is only "32% degraded". That's it.

What it means is that realms will have to tie up people in place in order for them to perform some activity that involves no RP, no battle and no obvious increase in stats that your realm-mates could see.

I do have an idea on how to change it such that it gets more fun, but retains the basic meaning of the mechanic. The treaty maintenance rate could much slowed, but it could be made that to maintain a treaty, two ambassadors involved would have to actually meet. This would foster interaction, rather than encourage people to stay in the capital and turn into button-clickers, but it would maintain the idea that unattended treaties do degrade.

It would not work for one way treaties, but I see no reason why these would degrade: you should be at war for as long as you want to be.

[Telrunya]

When you maintain a Treaty, you talk to your own minor Nobility and convince them the Treaty is a good thing. In that context, one-way Treaties should also degrade as Minor Nobility becomes weary and questions the need of for example War. Nonetheless, with several Treaties per Realm if you have a full-fledged Alliance or complete War, this could possibly take a lot of 'wasted' time to maintain.

However I do not know if there any special workings for Friction (Does friction rise quicker if there are no signs of them being used?). I'm looking at Friction in DoA at the moment and the one-way Treaties seem to barely degrade (4%), which means it's no problem maintaining them. The two-way Treaties are now at 15%-30%, which isn't too bad either. The War has been ongoing for a while after all. In that light, except for some work every once in a while, it shouldn't waste too much of your time.

That said, is anything stopping us from just letting the Treaties degrade and remaking them afterwards? Except it not being in the spirit of the system then. That should be a lot less trouble then maintaining them (Send an Ambassador to the other Realm once in a while). Probably should be something in place to stop that or Friction is pretty useless.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It appears rather to be based on sympathies, you know, the stuff you get when you talk to locals as a diplomat. Adventurers can do that too I think.

For example, if your people hate a realm and you have an alliance with them, that treaty might increase in friction fairly quickly. On the other hand, a declaration of war might not increase in friction for a long time, if at all. I imagine the converse would be true as well.

[vonGenf]

It appears rather to be based on sympathies, you know, the stuff you get when you talk to locals as a diplomat. Adventurers can do that too I think.

For example, if your people hate a realm and you have an alliance with them, that treaty might increase in friction fairly quickly. On the other hand, a declaration of war might not increase in friction for a long time, if at all. I imagine the converse would be true as well.

That would make a lot of sense.

However, I am not really complaining on a justification basis. I understand why it would work that way. My argument is that it makes for poor gameplay.

[vonGenf]

However I do not know if there any special workings for Friction (Does friction rise quicker if there are no signs of them being used?). I'm looking at Friction in DoA at the moment and the one-way Treaties seem to barely degrade (4%), which means it's no problem maintaining them. The two-way Treaties are now at 15%-30%, which isn't too bad either. The War has been ongoing for a while after all. In that light, except for some work every once in a while, it shouldn't waste too much of your time.

My realm has 8 treaties that I care about which are more than 25% degraded. That's a lot. Basically, I could do this full time.

Maybe that's a lot of treaties, alright, but it doesn't excuse that the mechanic is boring. It would be possible to perform the same mechanic in a way that is conductive to interactions.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It was a feature that was added recently. So...who actually asked for it in the first place?

However, there is a fix, as diplomats, and priests, can alter sympathies, as well as courtiers to an extent. Actually, a lot of things can alter them, but diplomats just specialize in it. Now before we talk about how boring it is, this is hardly a new type of mechanic. Surveying administration is nothing to be excited about either, nor is preaching to gain a following. However, at high oratory, priests can mess with regions a lot. The same actually goes for diplomats, to a lesser extent for the most part.

[Indirik]

Treaty friction was designed into the system from the start. It has only recently been actually implemented. The purpose is partly to make realms think about how many treaties they really need. Is it worth signing that alliance with the realm on the other side of the island where your troops will never actually meet? This may help encourage the break up of some of the big alliance blocks. The rate of increase and effects of maintenance may need some balancing. That's why this is all being previewed.

[egamma]

Also, some realms may want to get out of a treaty without breaking it. They will have the option to increase friction. It's only fair that the other side have the option to decrease it.

[vonGenf]

Treaty friction was designed into the system from the start. It has only recently been actually implemented. The purpose is partly to make realms think about how many treaties they really need. Is it worth signing that alliance with the realm on the other side of the island where your troops will never actually meet? This may help encourage the break up of some of the big alliance blocks. The rate of increase and effects of maintenance may need some balancing. That's why this is all being previewed.

Like I said, I understand the reason for friction.

If anything, I am arguing for maintenance to be more difficult than now. If two ambassadors have to meet to maintain a treaty, then it is a huge disincentive to sign treaties with faraway realms that you never visit, but it is easy if you actually do send troops there regularly.

It's not the balance that is wrong. It's that the actions implemented to maintain that balance are not fun.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

If you don't like it, then don't be a diplomat. There's nothing saying that every class has to be interesting for every player, only that every player gets to be whatever class they desire. If sitting in the capital maintaining treaties every turn and sending messages, drafting treaties, etc, does not appeal to your particular playstyle, then play a different class that does.

[LilWolf]

However, maintaining treaties is one seriously boring activity.

That it is.

I do have an idea on how to change it such that it gets more fun, but retains the basic meaning of the mechanic. The treaty maintenance rate could much slowed, but it could be made that to maintain a treaty, two ambassadors involved would have to actually meet. This would foster interaction, rather than encourage people to stay in the capital and turn into button-clickers, but it would maintain the idea that unattended treaties do degrade.

If you have to meet in person to maintain the treaty that's some serious burden and you'd need to travel a lot. It'd probably become easier to just let the treaty degrade away and sign a new one each time you meet. Heck, that's probably what's going to happen with a lot of mutually agreed treaties even with the current setup.

[Fury]

This is an artificially induced mechanism that isn't logical. Treaties are agreements that can either last forever, expire, get cancelled or be ignored. Agreements are not tangible things that can degrade (except the paper on which it's signed).

If the purpose for this is to promote or reduce a justification for acts of war (casus belli) through the mood of the populace then relations would be a better idea. Relations are tangible in the sense that it can be observed in people's attitudes, feelings, etc. Relations between realms can improve or degrade. The people can either start to demand war or peace and if denied, region stats could drop or revolts could occur.

The current idea that treaties need to be maintained jars the senses.

[egamma]

This is an artificially induced mechanism that isn't logical. Treaties are agreements that can either last forever, expire, get cancelled or be ignored. Agreements are not tangible things that can degrade (except the paper on which it's signed).

If the purpose for this is to promote or reduce a justification for acts of war (casus belli) through the mood of the populace then relations would be a better idea. Relations are tangible in the sense that it can be observed in people's attitudes, feelings, etc. Relations between realms can improve or degrade. The people can either start to demand war or peace and if denied, region stats could drop or revolts could occur.

The current idea that treaties need to be maintained jars the senses.

I think the idea is that treaties can be overcome, gradually, through red tape.

RL example: Free trade agreement is signed. Yay, we can trade freely! Of course, the Consumer Protection Agency wants the childrens toys inspected for lead. And of course, the company doing the importing should pay for the inspection, right? And then we need to scan the containers for nuclear weapons, so let's tack on a $50 "security charge" to every container, to pay for the guy to run the scanning equipment. Pretty soon, the 'free' trade agreement is costing companies in the other country more than they would have paid under the tariff system that was in place previously. Treaty is, for all practical purposes, destroyed.

[vonGenf]

I think the idea is that treaties can be overcome, gradually, through red tape.

RL example: Free trade agreement is signed. Yay, we can trade freely! Of course, the Consumer Protection Agency wants the childrens toys inspected for lead. And of course, the company doing the importing should pay for the inspection, right? And then we need to scan the containers for nuclear weapons, so let's tack on a $50 "security charge" to every container, to pay for the guy to run the scanning equipment. Pretty soon, the 'free' trade agreement is costing companies in the other country more than they would have paid under the tariff system that was in place previously. Treaty is, for all practical purposes, destroyed.

Yes, I agree with the idea of degrading treaties too. It's just the mechanism of it that I would like to be changed, not the underlying idea.

[Alistair]

When you think of ambassadors historically, you'd think of someone who is constantly discussing political matters with equals, right? Maybe a seperate system should be made for ambassadors where they actively have to discuss and agree upon matters to maintain the treaties and relations or something, to create a bigger difference between courtiers and ambassadors.