What is really new?

[AAshbery76]

What is the single player experience? Is there any diplomacy,trade,Alliances,etc.From reading the AAR's it just seems a game of declare war on everybody,and not a true 4X game like SEIV,MOM,etc.

[DominionsFan]

AAshbery76 said:
What is the single player experience? Is there any diplomacy,trade,Alliances,etc.From reading the AAR's it just seems a game of declare war on everybody,and not a true 4X game like SEIV,MOM,etc.

Singeplayer AI will be much better in Doms 3. Impossible AIs will give you a hard time to win, especially on larger maps. There isn't any diplo functions in Doms 3., however you can set up alliances before the game quite easily. [some very easy modding commands]. That way you can make excellent scenarios.
I think its not a bad thing, that we won't have diplo AI in Dominions 3. I mean take a look at Galciv2. The diplo AI is absolutely exploitable, just like any other diplo AI. [You send money, money and more money and voila they will like you.]

[Twan]

Like in dom2 there will be no diplomacy in SP, it's true. Dominions is more a wargame than most "true" 4X.

But the question here is "what is really new ?" not "what is not new ?".
Of course hundreds of player's expected features won't be in this game, like in any sequel of any game (since MoO 3 ).

[st.patrik]

AAshbery76 said:
What is the single player experience? Is there any diplomacy,trade,Alliances,etc.From reading the AAR's it just seems a game of declare war on everybody,and not a true 4X game like SEIV,MOM,etc.

well you are playing a god, and gods typically want to be worshipped by everyone, so it's hard to get away from the world-domination thing.

[Endoperez]

st.patrik said:

well you are playing a god, and gods typically want to be worshipped by everyone, so it's hard to get away from the world-domination thing.

In other words, there's no diplomacy, but we've gotten used to it. You can, too. The game is very enjoyable even as-is. Also, AI start on passive state, and only become aggressive when they notice that you are weak, or when you attack them. That must be the simplest form of diplomacy ever seen!

One other common explanation is the fact that it'd take too much of the developers' time, "and we all would rather have more content, wouldn't we?"

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
In other words, there's no diplomacy, but we've gotten used to it.

Well if a player is looking for a more challenging game that player can edit the .map file and setup multiple AI opponents as allies, and this permanent alliance lasts the whole game. Otherwise there's no real diplomacy within the game.
A very interesting idea would be if Illwinter was to add a very rare event where two or three AI opponents form a permanent alliance within a game.

Endoperez said:
One other common explanation is the fact that it'd take too much of the developers' time, "and we all would rather have more content, wouldn't we?"

Yes I agree... more content until the Illwinter company expands to 5 or more developers where one developer could focus on the diplomacy. A whole developer is to prevent gamers from finding exploits/weaknesses with the AI diplomacy.

[DominionsFan]

NTJedi said:
Yes I agree... more content until the Illwinter company expands to 5 or more developers where one developer could focus on the diplomacy. A whole developer is to prevent gamers from finding exploits/weaknesses with the AI diplomacy.

I don't think that there is a way to prevent human players to exploit a diplo AI.
The human player can always send gold/resources or whatever to the AI player to make the AI player happy, so the human player can form an alliance easily that way.
[This is absolutely true about Galciv2 for example, or Civ3-4]
This is what happening in all games. Game developers cannot exclude this mechanism. If there wouldn't be something like "sending gifts" the whole diplomacy system would be pointless, hence you couldn't improve the relations with the AI. Well maybe in some special way, like offering some of your troops to a specific AI player when it is at war with an other AI or something like that.

[NTJedi]

DominionsFan said:
I don't think that there is a way to prevent human players to exploit a diplo AI.
The human player can always send gold/resources or whatever to the AI player to raise the relations with him. This is what happening in all games. Game developers cannot exclude this mechanism. If there wouldn't be something like "sending gifts" the whole diplomacy system would be pointless, hence you couldn't improve the relations with the AI. Well maybe in some special way, like offering some of your troops to a specific AI player when it is at war with an other AI or something like that.

Well actually the developers only need to include a formula which evaluates the total value of the gift in comparison to the AI opponents total power/value/attitude. If the gift does not add a worthy percentage increase to the AIs kingdoms power/resources/value then the gift has no value or even possibly viewed as an insult for being so small. The higher the game difficulty the higher the percentage. For example if a small country consisting of 3 islands sent an ambassador to the Mexico and offered a basket of fruit as a gift... the ambassador probably wouldn't even make it past the government guards.

[Sindai]

I'm 100% sure several games already do that. GalCiv certainly does. Developers aren't stupid. If you can come up with a solution in the time it takes to write a forum post you can be sure they thought of it ages ago.

The real problem with diplomatic AI is that it is usually incapable of betrayal. If it is then you have the nontrivial task of making it smart enough to betray the player only when it's logical. If it's not done cleverly and communicated to the user it will only cause players to complain about the AI being "random" and "attacking for no reason."

I think Dominions does fine as a pure wargame. It's not impossible to rationalize diplomatic AI if you change the story just a bit, though. Instead of a single supreme throne the pretenders could just be agreeing to ascend as a pantheon.

[Twan]

Hum as AI diplomacy has always been exploitable in any game having diplomacy IMHO it's useless to waste the time of someone "to prevent players finding exploits with the AI diplomacy". So not the best excuse.
For me the question for Dominions is more : is the SP game so hard that the player needs help from the AIs ?
As strategic AI is far from perfection, a diplomatic system allowing the player to make peace agreements and other deals has not to be made as it would be one more handicap for the AIs.

Now if AIs still works like St Patrik said ("AI only become aggressive when they notice that you are weak, or when you attack them", a good resume of dom2 AI) I think there is a flaw in the "diplomatic part of the strategic AI" that may be easy to correct with good effects on the SP game : make AIs attack not only a weaker player but the strongest one. I think it's very simple to implement : if a pretender is by large first in charts all neighbours should attack him instead of staying passive waiting for their turn. No need to make an alliance system for that, just make all the AIs aggressive against the potential winner once a critical power level is reached (usually by the player).