RFE: no trading

[TwoBits]

Remember, the Nazis and Soviets were "allies" (or at least had a non-aggression pact) once upon a time. They carved up Poland together, and even traded things like oil and weapons (= gems and magic items).

Just goes to show that even so-called "natural enemies" can make temporary bargains.

[DrPraetorious]

I think, in fact, that it is healthy and natural for people to gang up on weaker or stronger opponents. As the Hitler-Stalin example illustrates, this is the sort of thing different religions, even if they completely hate one another by dogma, would do for their own self interest.

The problem I have, so far, is with non-agression pacts. Players of dom3 have read too much game theory, or are too honest, or whatever, and are TOO TRUSTWORTHY.

As yet, I have never had the terms of a NAP betrayed - I've had wars after a NAP expired, but even those are rare. I feel kinda silly complaining about this, but the fact that everyone keeps their word makes non-agression pacts too attractive.

Maybe I just haven't played MP with a diverse enough crowd - but in ferion, for example (www.ferion.com), people trech (or bend the words of a non-binding treaty) all the time. Of course, ferion has built in, game mechanical, binding treaties - so these agreements are between alliances (i.e. alliance 1 and 2 agree to attack alliance 3 until it is dead, but alliance 2 attacks alliance 1 slightly before alliance 3 is finished off.)

To this end, I think game mechanical support for alliances, NAP etc. might almost be preferable, as players might then feel free to trech on non-binding gentleman's agreements etc. But this opens up an entire diplomatic can of worms that might ruin the (highly attractive) simplicity of dom3 politics, so I think it's probably more trouble than it's worth (coding difficulty aside.)

Anyhoo - if you have a gentleman's agreement to not communicate out of game, and if all in-game messages are suspended, that ought to be sufficient. You'll still get an occasional pre-arranged cheater, but approaching your neighbor and offering a NAP (if it is forbidden to do so) is probably enough of a risk that people wouldn't do it.

[Teraswaerto]

Lying and misinformation in in-game diplomacy is one thing, but breaking an explicitly stated pact is something I don't see myself doing, because reputation as someone who can't be trusted to honor agreements will carry over to other games.

Same goes for cheating in trade, etc. If I was trying to just win one specific game and never play Dom3 again, then treachery and such would certainly come in to play at some point, especially since people tend to expect pacts to be honored.

[PhilD]

I was going to suggest making it possible to turn off item/gem sending as well as private messages, and then using anonymous TCP play, to really prevent private communications - allowing "send to all" messages for very limited coordination.

But then I remembered, it's a pretty standard thing in modern cryptography to be able to exchange private information on a public channel without prior agreement on a secret - in other words, the "sent to all" messages could be used to exchange private messages between players (all the other players could do would be to know that some player sent a private message; they wouldn't even know who it was for). So, you'd have to also take out public messages.

Still, a PBEM game with no diplomacy outside of the in-game messages would be fun - that would mean back-and-forth negociations would take two turns, so coordinating things would be a real challenge.

[Folket]

PhilD, what you are saying make no sense.

The receiver must have the key for the encryption, so there has to be a prior agrement.

[Maltrease]

I've also thought the idea of a no-diplomacy game would be a lot of fun. And to the Doctors point I've never seen someone betray a NAP pact, many people make a point that they have never betrayed one and bring it outside of the current Dominions game and tie it directly to themselves or Avatar.

I'll even say that due to a couple of my informal alliances or "gestures of friendship" being betrayed (and destroying my chances of winning a game) I've resorted to formally defined NAP pacts.

I actually dislike the ganging up on a leader approach particularly with the incredibly easy way to discover the leader by looking at the graphs.

While I see Gandalf�s point of disliking the "my strategy can beat yours"... I feel there is a large desire by many people to have exactly that.

Why not create a scenarios where players can test there skill against each other purely with the game mechanics instead of it being decided (mostly) by who took the time to communicate and create diplomatic arrangements with the other players.

The current way games are played is great and it�s a TON of fun! However, there is certainly nothing wrong with alternate forms of play (no diplomacy) or creating scenarios where player skill (strategy and tactics purely within the game) can be objectively tested against others.

Another mode of play that would be fun, eliminates the �don�t get to strong� problem and keeps the social play is to play team games. Break the players into two teams and the first team to eliminate the other wins (shared among all players on the team).

[solo]

HoneyBadger said:
I think it would be really valuable to hear the Devs' personal feelings on the subject and what their vision of the game's background as relates to alliances and trading is.

I think the developers intended diplomacy to be a part of the MP game, since sending messages and trading gems, gold and magic items are possible.

I don't find myself using these options at all SP games against the AI, so am somewhat puzzled by players who have concluded that using diplomacy and trade in MP play is not thematic.

I don't believe that adding restrictions and limiting player choices is the way to improve the gameplay.

Players who prefer to play games without diplomacy and trade already have the option of playing duels, where they can pit their skills against those of another human opponent.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not down on the strategy-vs-strategy games. They just arent my cup of tea so Im not motivated to try and figure out how to make them better.

But I have done SOME thinking on blind-man games. It has a draw to it. Personally I will defend the impressions of "Gandalf Parker", the virtual persona, more than my desire to win a game. Im a trusted ally and I want that to continue from game to game. But there are times when I wish I could join a game anonymously and play as an *******.

Maybe down the road when Ive figured out how to do better alliance games, I will put some time into putting up some blind-man games. And maybe even some enforcable no-alliance games.

[Agrajag]

Gandalf, just don't forget that the blind-man games will likely draw the attention of similar people (ie, those that feel like being *******s), so those games could get a little more "crazy" then you'd expect

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I think that some people are professionally and openly *******s so they already have that personae to protect becuase its expected of them. At least, we did have them in Dom2.

So an anonymous game might have two results. Only the "Im kinda new at this ******* stuff" people would play, OR we would see the publickly known *******s joining the game to secretly try their hands at being helpful loyal allies without besmirching their known identity.
Either way it would be fun.