Treaty friction is boring

[De-Legro]

The way it is now, either one noble joins the ruler an take on the role of Ambassador or the realm is in big trouble. And kind of takes the right of the player to choose what class he want´s to take.

2- It would be interesting, and bring a more medieval atmosfere, if to become an ambassador, instead of choosing the diplomat sub-class, the ruler could appoint Lords to it. It would be a great honor the ruler to choose Lord A or B instead of other lords, to be Ambassadors.

In Theocracies, priests could take the role of Ambassadors(adding something to the class), after all in Theocracies, priests should have all power.

Rulers already appoint the ambassadors. Since Lords and Priest can both take the diplomat sub class both of these are possible if the realm wants it. In terms of things to do, my Diplomat is currently very busy propping up region stats with his diplomat actions, as well as occasionally working to make a region we wish to TO like us that little bit more.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Priest/Diplomat(Ambassador) is possibly the most kickass class combination. Full skill overlap (Oratory), 16 hour max time (and other Priest benefits) make for a really fast way to 100% Oratory.

[Peri]

For the sake of adding some numbers for the treaty friction, this is the treaty situation of Morek:

North Eastern Free Movement Pact   military   Passage Rights   Libero Empire   2010-06-21   76%   details
Military co-operation with Corsanctum.   military   Defense Pact   Corsanctum   2010-06-14   76%   details
Corsanctum-Xinhaian facilities sharing   economic   Facilities Sharing   Corsanctum   2010-06-14   74%   details
Xinhai-Corsanctum Passage Rights   military   Passage Rights   Corsanctum   2010-11-12   76%   details
Port rights   military   Passage Rights   D'Hara   2010-07-18   66%   details
Open Borders between the brotherly realms   military   Passage Rights   Astrum   2010-09-29   99%   details
Sharing of facilities between the brotherly realms   economic   Facilities Sharing   Astrum   2010-09-29   98%   detail
The Nifel Handshake - Annex I   military   Passage Rights   Summerdale   2011-05-07   24%   details
The Nifel Handshake - Annex II   economic   Facilities Sharing   Summerdale   2011-05-07   24%   details


I receive every turn 5 advices that a treaty needs maintenance. We recently lost one alliance treaty to friction and we'll soon lose two more. Morek has 2 ambassadors and 1 diplomat, that don't want to spend time on treaty friction right now cause they say the effect is more or less negligible for the amount of hours they waste on it.

Perhaps we're doing something wrong and I should whip them into working hard to maintain treaties, but I don't really see how can we do it. If one checks carefully you can see that the treaty with D'Hara has a reasonable friction even if it was signed almost 1 year ago. Conversely treaties with Astrum are really decaying faster, I guess because some of our current regions were looted by Astrum during the war against the Raivan Empire. Should we take care of this by raising sympathy? Perhaps it's a solution, but still I don't possibly see how can one realm maitain steadily the 10 or so treaties one needs with all friendly realms.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Heh, solution: Don't make so many treaties.

[De-Legro]

For the sake of adding some numbers for the treaty friction, this is the treaty situation of Morek:

North Eastern Free Movement Pact   military   Passage Rights   Libero Empire   2010-06-21   76%   details
Military co-operation with Corsanctum.   military   Defense Pact   Corsanctum   2010-06-14   76%   details
Corsanctum-Xinhaian facilities sharing   economic   Facilities Sharing   Corsanctum   2010-06-14   74%   details
Xinhai-Corsanctum Passage Rights   military   Passage Rights   Corsanctum   2010-11-12   76%   details
Port rights   military   Passage Rights   D'Hara   2010-07-18   66%   details
Open Borders between the brotherly realms   military   Passage Rights   Astrum   2010-09-29   99%   details
Sharing of facilities between the brotherly realms   economic   Facilities Sharing   Astrum   2010-09-29   98%   detail
The Nifel Handshake - Annex I   military   Passage Rights   Summerdale   2011-05-07   24%   details
The Nifel Handshake - Annex II   economic   Facilities Sharing   Summerdale   2011-05-07   24%   details


I receive every turn 5 advices that a treaty needs maintenance. We recently lost one alliance treaty to friction and we'll soon lose two more. Morek has 2 ambassadors and 1 diplomat, that don't want to spend time on treaty friction right now cause they say the effect is more or less negligible for the amount of hours they waste on it.

Perhaps we're doing something wrong and I should whip them into working hard to maintain treaties, but I don't really see how can we do it. If one checks carefully you can see that the treaty with D'Hara has a reasonable friction even if it was signed almost 1 year ago. Conversely treaties with Astrum are really decaying faster, I guess because some of our current regions were looted by Astrum during the war against the Raivan Empire. Should we take care of this by raising sympathy? Perhaps it's a solution, but still I don't possibly see how can one realm maitain steadily the 10 or so treaties one needs with all friendly realms.

I though part of the whole point of the system was to ensure that you would have fewer treaties and fewer truly friendly realms. It is suppose to prevent large alliances, like the SA alliance that formed for the war, from being able to EASILY exist.

[Naidraug]

Rulers already appoint the ambassadors. Since Lords and Priest can both take the diplomat sub class both of these are possible if the realm wants it. In terms of things to do, my Diplomat is currently very busy propping up region stats with his diplomat actions, as well as occasionally working to make a region we wish to TO like us that little bit more.

Yes, but what I am saying is:

Don´t have a Diplomat subclass, leave the subclass open only for lords and in the case of theocracies priests. or leave it open fro anyone (think how fun it would be to have an infiltrator as ambassador).

Doing this you open the cards a little more, create a even better medieval atmosfere and increase the RP factor also.

A realm could send a warrior/cavalier/hero to a realm as ambassador to force the realm to accept a treaty of go to war, or send a courtier to find more peacefull terms...

The ruler could chose ANYONE from the realm to be Ambassador and part of the diplomacy, a good indication for a sucessor...

During a war, a marshal or even the general could be asigned as ambassadors to discuss surrender terms with the other realm.


Leaving the way it is, when you have to take a diplomat subclass narrow things down and makes it hard for small realms, and gives only few options to players...

[Bedwyr]

Well, the person drafting the treaty doesn't have to be the person doing the negotiation (you could assign a diplomat as an aide to the Cavalier you send to talk), but I still tend to agree.  Making a subclass necessary for a realm to function is a bit of a problem (although every Priest should be a diplomat, and every realm should have at least one Priest...)

[Chenier]

Heh, solution: Don't make so many treaties.

So we have two contradictory roles: on one hand, we want to give people more to do, and on the other, the thing we want to make them do is something we want less of?

Putting so much emphasis on game-generated treaties is stupid. Realms will be friends or will be foes, regardless of what the game says. As people abandoned allies in the past, they will be able to just as much in the future. Just as realms created new friendships overnight in the past, they will just as much in the future. Even if it takes 5 months to get all the stupid paperwork done.

The big alliances weren't caused by the fact that diplomacy is static unless one party changes its mind. That big AT alliance was, you know, because some guy got all of his buds in the top spots of the world? Want to tell me how treaty friction will change anything to such a scenario?

BM is a game of *interaction*. Treaty friction's sole purpose is to *discourage* interaction. It's lame, and I'll just continue using wiki treaties and ignoring IG treaties as I do now if that's how it's going to be, and I suspect others will too, since the actual game mechanics of said treaties are very rarely required for anything.

[De-Legro]

So we have two contradictory roles: on one hand, we want to give people more to do, and on the other, the thing we want to make them do is something we want less of?

Putting so much emphasis on game-generated treaties is stupid. Realms will be friends or will be foes, regardless of what the game says. As people abandoned allies in the past, they will be able to just as much in the future. Just as realms created new friendships overnight in the past, they will just as much in the future. Even if it takes 5 months to get all the stupid paperwork done.

The big alliances weren't caused by the fact that diplomacy is static unless one party changes its mind. That big AT alliance was, you know, because some guy got all of his buds in the top spots of the world? Want to tell me how treaty friction will change anything to such a scenario?

BM is a game of *interaction*. Treaty friction's sole purpose is to *discourage* interaction. It's lame, and I'll just continue using wiki treaties and ignoring IG treaties as I do now if that's how it's going to be, and I suspect others will too, since the actual game mechanics of said treaties are very rarely required for anything.

It is my understanding that you can have as many unofficial allies and such as you want. The treaties I think they are trying to limit are things like passage rights or repair rights that are game mechanic related. I supposed it is to prevent a large alliance all using the closest realm as a repair based for pursuing a war. I would be far happy if there was no automatic treaty friction, and that friction was only applied by diplomats. The more treaties a realm has, the bigger the effect diplomatic friction would have, and as a consequence actions again friction would have reduced effect.

Also my feeling is that they want more interaction in terms of quality, IE much more frequent and in depth interaction between 1 or two realms, rather then more interaction in terms of quantity.

In terms of how friction would stop the large alliances, it only really has an effect for things like war I guess. A large alliance generally needs multiple passage rights/ repair rights treaties, which will require significant dedication to maintain. Without them the military effectiveness of the alliance should be questionable, but I'm not sure that it will have a massive effect as things stand.

[Chenier]

It is my understanding that you can have as many unofficial allies and such as you want. The treaties I think they are trying to limit are things like passage rights or repair rights that are game mechanic related. I supposed it is to prevent a large alliance all using the closest realm as a repair based for pursuing a war. I would be far happy if there was no automatic treaty friction, and that friction was only applied by diplomats. The more treaties a realm has, the bigger the effect diplomatic friction would have, and as a consequence actions again friction would have reduced effect.

Also my feeling is that they want more interaction in terms of quality, IE much more frequent and in depth interaction between 1 or two realms, rather then more interaction in terms of quantity.

In terms of how friction would stop the large alliances, it only really has an effect for things like war I guess. A large alliance generally needs multiple passage rights/ repair rights treaties, which will require significant dedication to maintain. Without them the military effectiveness of the alliance should be questionable, but I'm not sure that it will have a massive effect as things stand.

Except you never really need to use the facilities of 10 realms at the same time. Just sign an unofficial treaty with them all, and only bother to sign/maintain it officially when it's of any use. Same benefits as having one with 10 realms for 99% of the cases.

[De-Legro]

Except you never really need to use the facilities of 10 realms at the same time. Just sign an unofficial treaty with them all, and only bother to sign/maintain it officially when it's of any use. Same benefits as having one with 10 realms for 99% of the cases.

Yes but the realm everyone is using for repairs needs to have a treaty with everyone that wants to perform repairs in their realm, as well as the accompanying rights of passage. They then either need to maintain them all themselves or rely on the treaty partners to do it. Once you also have the treates required for military co-operation in the field, you are looking at significant treaties

Then imagine that you have 1 or 2 rogue diplomats somewhere in the alliance. They can speak against the treaty, which generates a message but does nothing to identify who is committing the act. They might easily be able to quickly destroy treaties given the accumulated friction effect.

[Indirik]

Heh, solution: Don't make so many treaties.

That's certainly one option. But it's a very poor one.

The problem is that on order to do almost anything, you need to have a treaty to do it.

Oh look, your neighbor has a starving city, and you want to cash in by selling some food at highway robbery level prices. Well, we better send some right over!

• Want to send a caravan of food to your neighbor? Sign a trade agreement treaty!
• Well, I'll just send a trader instead. Better sign a passage rights treaty so the traders guards wont' get attacked by the other realm's soldiers.
• Well, I'll just send him without troops. Better sign an open borders so he doesn't just get arrested when traveling alone.

What's that, your other neighbor has some monsters that need to be vanquished, and your troops are growing bored?

• Better sign a passage rights treaty so we're allowed to move our troops through their lands.
• And while we're at it, looks like we need a peace treaty so our troops don't attack each other. Or wait, is that covered by a Passage Rights? Not sure, better sign both. Oh, and while we're at it, a mutual defense treaty to make sure our troops actually fight together.
• Oh crud, Sir Kepler's infantry got wiped out in the battle. Better sign an open borders so he doesn't get arrested on his way home while traveling alone.
• Accumulated some heavy equipment damage and want to repair before you come home, because there's a monster group that wandered into one of your own border regions along the way? Better sign a Facilities Sharing treaty, too.

These are not unreasonable scenarios for peaceful relations with your neighbors. Anything you want to do requires a treaty. Unless you want to be a hermit realm and just sit within your own borders, ignoring the world. Peaceful relations with two bordering realms could easily suck up 8 to 10 treaties. Now contemplate going to war with one of them against a third realm. Tack on some facilities sharing treaties, a war declaration, maybe even a free-form to formalize the arrangement, and you can easily hit 14-15 treaties without even stretching.

Don't get me wrong, I like the new treaty types. The ability to control your relations to such a fine degree is very nice. But it is turning out that the amount of work required to maintain even a modest network of treaties among a small number of realms is quite burdensome. That's why I proposed some form of automated treaty maintenance, where treaties that are actually being used are either not subject to treaty friction, or accumulate friction at a much slower rate. That way the treaties that are used stay in pace, and the "fluff" treaties that are signed only as diplomatic ploys but never get used need actual maintenance by a player to keep in place.

[Peri]

I though part of the whole point of the system was to ensure that you would have fewer treaties and fewer truly friendly realms. It is suppose to prevent large alliances, like the SA alliance that formed for the war, from being able to EASILY exist.

It was a 3 realm alliance (astrum corsanctum morek). Does not sound particularly big. Also, those treaties are the few needed to allow morek soldiers to cross astrum corsanctum and summerdale peacefully (and vice versa) and repair there. For every ally you have, you must include a passage rights open border and shared facilities. 2 allies all in one alliance alone give 7 treaties. Perhaps in the average situation on other islands one does not have so many passage rights issued, since armies don't really go around so much, I can agree on that, but still as Indirik said you easily reach around 10 treaties quickly. Or perhaps I didn't understand how treaties work and alliance by itself includes all the others.

I guess that there is already something like that but could be nice to create multiple treaties if friction is not tuned. One signature for multiple effects. Less fine grained control, but less troubles from friction.

Consider that I signed way less treaties than I need in Morek. Perhaps that was the aim but what's the point in allowing people to fine tune their realm when they can't anyway keep such fine tuning for a decent amount of time?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

With the talk about how awesome bandit realms would be with their lawlessness, apparently a lot of people actually want more order. I wonder which is it?

[Chenier]

Yes but the realm everyone is using for repairs needs to have a treaty with everyone that wants to perform repairs in their realm, as well as the accompanying rights of passage. They then either need to maintain them all themselves or rely on the treaty partners to do it. Once you also have the treates required for military co-operation in the field, you are looking at significant treaties

Then imagine that you have 1 or 2 rogue diplomats somewhere in the alliance. They can speak against the treaty, which generates a message but does nothing to identify who is committing the act. They might easily be able to quickly destroy treaties given the accumulated friction effect.

The war is likely not to last long enough to friction to really matter, and that target realm is where everyone passes by anyways so renewing it would not be the slightest problem. In this case, friction is made useless because of the ease of replacement granted by the context. And in most cases, there are few alliance members on the same front, even in the case of gang bangs. If half the alliance strikes from the west, the other from the east, than both factions don't need any formal game treaty to effectively carry out their alliance. And the closer they come to needing one, the more convenient it becomes to travel to that realm to sign a treaty, because it means you are both operating in the same area.

That's certainly one option. But it's a very poor one.

The problem is that on order to do almost anything, you need to have a treaty to do it.

Oh look, your neighbor has a starving city, and you want to cash in by selling some food at highway robbery level prices. Well, we better send some right over!

• Want to send a caravan of food to your neighbor? Sign a trade agreement treaty!
• Well, I'll just send a trader instead. Better sign a passage rights treaty so the traders guards wont' get attacked by the other realm's soldiers.
• Well, I'll just send him without troops. Better sign an open borders so he doesn't just get arrested when traveling alone.

What's that, your other neighbor has some monsters that need to be vanquished, and your troops are growing bored?

• Better sign a passage rights treaty so we're allowed to move our troops through their lands.
• And while we're at it, looks like we need a peace treaty so our troops don't attack each other. Or wait, is that covered by a Passage Rights? Not sure, better sign both. Oh, and while we're at it, a mutual defense treaty to make sure our troops actually fight together.
• Oh crud, Sir Kepler's infantry got wiped out in the battle. Better sign an open borders so he doesn't get arrested on his way home while traveling alone.
• Accumulated some heavy equipment damage and want to repair before you come home, because there's a monster group that wandered into one of your own border regions along the way? Better sign a Facilities Sharing treaty, too.

These are not unreasonable scenarios for peaceful relations with your neighbors. Anything you want to do requires a treaty. Unless you want to be a hermit realm and just sit within your own borders, ignoring the world. Peaceful relations with two bordering realms could easily suck up 8 to 10 treaties. Now contemplate going to war with one of them against a third realm. Tack on some facilities sharing treaties, a war declaration, maybe even a free-form to formalize the arrangement, and you can easily hit 14-15 treaties without even stretching.

Don't get me wrong, I like the new treaty types. The ability to control your relations to such a fine degree is very nice. But it is turning out that the amount of work required to maintain even a modest network of treaties among a small number of realms is quite burdensome. That's why I proposed some form of automated treaty maintenance, where treaties that are actually being used are either not subject to treaty friction, or accumulate friction at a much slower rate. That way the treaties that are used stay in pace, and the "fluff" treaties that are signed only as diplomatic ploys but never get used need actual maintenance by a player to keep in place.

That seems to be the spirit of the mechanic: to encourage everyone to live isolated in his own realm because of how impractical inter-realm relations are to become. Treaty friction at its best.