What I want to see most in SC2, just 1 thing

[Night]

I'm positive this has been brought up more in other posts, but I wish to go into a little more detail here.

Diplomacy. Plain and simple. Right now your only option is who to declare war on, and maybe how to position your troops so war readiness doesn't rise. It is VERY bland and repetive. There is no way to improve relation's, give/recieve aid, spy or be given intel, any of these factors that make a game like this excellent. What we need is the following, say you can do 1 a turn or 1 every 2 turns depending on how effective they are.

1: Some form of Summit or Talk's in which to raise support from the target country, and if you get it high enough they might join the war on your side, or start aiding you, etc. any number of way's they could help you, beause let's be honest here, all the "neutral" countries during WWII had some back dealing's and such including the U.S. before entering, Switz, etc.

2: Denouncment or some kind of option where you can create tentions between the countries to try and drive them to declaring war on you or justifiying you declaring war on them, this way the world reaction to dec. of war and war readiness is reduced, at the price of having to wait to the situation deveolpes.

3: Request for aid in the form of MPPs or prehaps even volunteer corps. like the one's from the U.S. in China and England before the war offically started with the U.S. The percentage of acceptance goes up with the amount of support you have with that country.

4: Give Aid. I can't count the time's I wished I could send some German MPPs to Italy or some American to England, prehaps with like a 5% loss of the MPPs sent. Just so you can transfer funds between allies and other countries to gain support.

5: Technology partnership or request, in other words you have a larger chance of gaining one of the tech's you already have point's invested in, and it is random if you have more then one tech invested in.

There are many more option's that are a little more indepth but I think a basic Diplomacy engine is a must for SC2, esp. if it is on a larger scale. With all the other countries in the world, it would just make sense to have them effect the game. Historical preferences should be taken into account of course, like Canada shouldn't be able to be convinced to Dec. war on England or the U.S. (Unless what they did was totally out of line and the Axis talked a lot)

[Edwin P.]

Night,

I like the idea of being able to give aid to a country, before it enters the war or after it does too.

Before a neutral is attacked you could give it the equipment for a corps, an army, or an air unit, however, it would take 4 turns for the unit to show up and if the neutral was conquered before then all of these military supplies would be lost (ie captured before men could be trained).

Thus spain could start the war with an extra 2 corps if given the resources to equip them.

You could also create a merchant ship convoy route to ship aid from the US to Russia (during non-winter months) or from the US to Spain (year round. This would take x turns to arrive. Aid from Germany to Italy would take 1 turn to arrive.

[ June 15, 2003, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[disorder]

night said--

Historical preferences should be taken into account of course

do you describe a diplomatic scale which would slide up and down on neutrals with each action. allied waters invaded by "peaceful" nazis, scale goes down(toward uk/russia). uk attacks norway for no apparent reason, scale goes up (toward axis).

though starting historically, this could end up with us declaring war on uk or russia, or not aiding uk at all.

which would be fine with me, but i believe this would not sit well with some others.

how far can you go on assigning diplomacy on this? do you stop at what you believe to be non-historical?

i believe germany had every right to torpedo arms carring, tank carrying u.s. convoys going to uk, but does anybody else?

[Night]

Well my idea of historicaly correct would be along the lines of let's say the U.S. is not going to ally with Germany, Russia won't declare war on the U.S. out of no where, thing's like this that make little sense. A simple system where the thing's you do have an effect on world opinion, depending on what countries sit on what sides of the arguements. For example, if Germany invades Norway and Sweden, Wouldn't most democratic or peace loving nations condem this? On top of that, wouldn't many cut off, refuse, or lessen thier aid to Germany? Prehaps if the actions are so against that particular countries policies, it will aid the allies or join the war.

The current version of SC has something very similar to this, but on a over simplistic level. War readiness goes up/down depending on the actions of ethier the allies or axis, but it only really effects Italy for a very short time, then Russia and the U.S. There are many other world players and powers that would be effected by these things. Currently, if you invade England soon enough Spain might join the Axis, and many other smaller thing's mostly depending on specific actions to get a specific result, What I want is more flexability and randomness to the diplomacy in SC.

Let's face it, politics determined how the second world war was fought, who fought in it, and it's end result, shouldn't the game reflect this?

[disorder]

thanks for the details... i didnt get it the first time.

good ideas.

giving small amounts of aid would be good.

#1 is especially good regarding neutrals giving aid.

[Edwin P.]

Night,

I was thinking of how your concept of Neutrals aiding the allies would be executed, and it could be most interesting;

1. Intelligence from neutral embassies in major power countries (ie Swiss embassy in berlin might provide information on technological reasearch status of Germany).

2. Intelligence on movement of troops near their borders.

3. Right to operate air units in and out of their country ( if detected - say 20% - other side could demand that transfer facilities be stopped, at least for a while with likelihood of stopping threat linked to military forces close by; ie Span would listen to threat by Germany but not by Russia, Turkey would listen to threats by Russia and Germany, but not by UK, Italy, or USA).

[Night]

Edwin, those are all very good ideas. There are plenty of options and possible way's of executing it.

[Edwin P.]

Here's one way to implement diplomacy in SC2:

D6. Diplomacy

Diplomacy chits cost 50MPP to influence a friendly leaning country and 75MPP otherwise.

Each diplomacy chit assigned to a country increases the result of your diplomacy effect roll by 4%. You can make one diplomacy roll per country per turn where you have a positive number of diplomacy chits. The net effect of diplomacy is your countries investment less the investment of the opposing force. (Allied 2 Chits minus Axis 1 Chit = +1 Allied or +4%).

Each diplomacy effect roll uses up 1 or 2 diplomacy chits (90%/10%) assigned to that country. Thus if you make a roll when you have 3 chits assigned to a country, you might end up with 1 or 2 chits after the roll is made, regardless of whether your roll was effective. This reflects the use of political capital capital to affect the outcome.

Procedure:

Each turn a player can assign Diplomacy Chits to a neutral country(s) OR roll for a diplomacy effect(s). You can not assign a chit and roll for diplomacy effect in the same turn. Thus your opponent has a chance to counter any diplomacy investment that you make. You need at least a +1 chit balance to roll for a diplomacy effect.

German Leaning Countries – Turkey, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania

Allied Leaning Countries – Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Norway

Neutrals – Iraq, Sweden, Switzerland

Diplomacy Effect Table:

01-40: No Effect

41-60: Cancel pre-existing diplomatic agreement with other powers. (see below)

61-70: Government shares intelligence on troop movements within 2 hexes of national border.

71-80: Will accept military assistance (i.e. you finance the building of neutral units in that country at half price – you provide the equipment, they provide the manpower)

81-90: Will serve as a source of supply for friendly troops within 4 hexes of national border (i.e. Turkey may supply German troops attacking Iraq without entering the war as a German ally)

91-99: Will allow prepositioning & repair of troops in their country and naval ships to transit their ports (ie Spain will allow UK to station 3 UK armies in their country to deter German invasion)

00+: Will ally with major power

[ June 17, 2003, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[JerseyJohn]

Night and Edwin

Plenty of good ideas being tossed about.

We had a lot of discussion along these lines several months back. I've listed the related links below and hope they'll be of some use and enjoyment.

Ideas Regarding Diplomacy and Inter-nation Economic Relations -- These entries are closely tied to related topics posted by Shaka of Carthage and Kurt88.

*Topic of Suggestions for Diplomacy and Economic Ideas.

*Neutrals as Economic Factors in SC.

[ June 17, 2003, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Edwin P.]

Jersey John

Thanks for the links, they are most interesting with the varied approaches that they present.

[Liam]

Aside from Diplomacy!

During the War, early German aggression cost them their few trading abilities... Worsened with the entrance of more Neutrals. Perhaps pushing back before the Invasion of Poland giving Germany a possible couple of turns to re-allocate it's research rather than the assigned research. <sorta standing for pre-war Research or just give her a one time economic boost with mixed risks> This might make a random tech increase give the game some added dimensions and a similar a chance for the Allies if the Germans decide to do this...forced tech purchases rather MPP earnings...

Shipping: As well as giving the Brits an increasing MPP shipment per turn, with mega-increases for any invasion of Spain-Sweden-Switzerland prematurely. Blocking the Germans from wanting to turn all of Europe Grey at once keeping slight bit more balance before Russia Pops in and making Sea Lion a bit more realistic as far as being an extremely difficult task. Cutting the Free French down to a realistic level<doing away with that gamey option> forcing a more real war scene early then a quick Neutral-Hopping attitude towards the whole game for Axis. Maybe a cautious Hitler who collected himself could be more dangerous following his Admirals advice preserving the German fleet better with a tech boost in Subs tech 3 or 4 by early '40<really being the equivelant of more subs and slighty more refined>

[ June 19, 2003, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

[KDG]

I think that any aid given to neutrals should be lost if that neutral is never invaded.

Example:

Allies think Spain is going to be invaded sometime in the next year, so they give 2 corps for their defense. Axis leaves Spain alone for the rest of the game, Corps are lost to the Allies.

Additionally if Spain is invaded by the Allies, then both donated units are lost.

[ June 20, 2003, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: KDG ]

[JerseyJohn]

Edwin

Glad they were of use.

KDG

"Never" is a bit vague.

[Night]

Prehaps there should be some kind of interest or exchange deduction of about 5%. So if you give a neutral 100 MPPs let's say, they really only get 95. Something along these lines would make picking and choosing who to aid more important then just throwing money around.