Contents:

I. Assumptions

II. Diplomacy System Options
1) Interior
2) Foreign

III. Option Descriptions
1) Counterintelligence
2) Internal Operations
3) Create Civ
4) Tariffs
5) Treaties
6) Threats & Protests
7) Spying
8) Contact Methodology
9) Voluntary Disclosure

IV. State Relations

V. Era Limitations

VI. Government-Type Limitations

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I. Assumptions:

1) Diplomacy System Options will be affected primarily by the status of State Relations (as defined in section IV). Another important factor is Era. (Probably determined more by research advancements than a pre-determined year. I haven't seen this discussed yet, but I assume we'll do it.) Within each era, the range of available options will be further affected by the Government Type. Government types are determined by Hrafnkell's government model. The Diplomacy model assumes three eras: Ancient, Medieval, Modern.

2) Clash will not use individual "Spy" or "Diplomat" units. The Diplomacy model depends upon the existence of what I'll call "The Chancellery". The chancellery is a government organization, and contains two primary components. A "Foreign Office" and an "Interior Ministry". A sub-component of the Foreign ministry is "Intelligence". One could also look at the chancellery as the entire government and include ministers representing each of the key models: Economy, Military, Social, & Science. (But that's beyond the scope of this discussion!)

3) Effectiveness of these organizations will be DIRECTLY RELATED to budgetary expenditure. A civ which devotes extensive resources to it's Chancellery can expect benefits to accrue in a wide number of areas. The model will allow the player to divide expenditures between the two ministries as he sees fit.

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II. Diplomacy System Options:

1) Interior = Counterintelligence, Internal Operations, Create Civ

2) Foreign = Tariffs on Trade, Treaties, Threats & Protests, Spying, Contact Methodology, Voluntary Disclosure

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III. Option Descriptions:

1) Counterintelligence: Activities directed against foreign operatives within the boundaries of your civ. On an increasing scale of awareness, here's what you can learn and do:

a) Is your civilization an intelligence target?
b) Which countries are responsible?
c) What are they trying to learn?
d) Has one of your characters been bribed?
The first two are very general levels of knowledge. The second two are specific enough that you can take actions of your own:
e) Issue a Protest.
f) Feed false information.

2) Internal Operations: These involve intelligence activities directed toward your own people.

a) Determine Happiness Levels: Clicking a button to determine exact happiness levels is not realistic. Using agents to see what people really think is the usual procedure.
b) Riot Prediction: Solid information on happiness. Ability to predict where riots will start, allowing you to appease the populace or squelch them with the military.
c) New Religion Identification. The earlier you learn that one has either sprung up inside your borders or spread from someplace else, the more options you have in dealing with it. Those specifics are contained in the Social Model.
d) Disseminate Propaganda: Ranges from crude hate mongering to sophisticated "spin doctoring".
e) Characters: Spy on your characters to determine their true capabilities and allegiance.

3) Create a new Civ: As described in Mark's Model

Civilizations with sufficient power in a controlled area can unilaterally create another civ. The created civ has whatever properties the creating civ desires. However, if the foundation of this state is unrealistic it will quickly change radically from the form in which it was created.

4) Tariffs on Trade: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

The player has control over taxes on trade, and can essentially move trade from a free-trade basis to a trade embargo by changing tariffs. In my opinion in would be way too messy to let the player handle tariff levels for every special commodity with every civ. So instead, I propose to let the player just raise or lower the overall tariff level with respect to each other civ. Trade status in the economic model would simply be handled by adding a number to the average tariffs between 0% and, say, 999% to get the tariffs for a given commodity with respect to a particular country. A quick example. I have instituted tariffs of 20% on steel, and 50% on textiles. So a most-favored nation (a + 0% modifier) would get these same numbers. A country I'm having a trade war with (+ 50% modifier) would suffer tariffs of 70% on steel, and 100% on textiles. (Edited 6/16 Note: Non-penalty trade & tariff adjustments are handled in the Economic Model, thus the ability to have different tariffs for each commodity.)

5) Treaties: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

a) Treaty Description - Treaties can be formed between any number of states. To keep things simple, treaties that involve more than two states must handle all members of the treaty on equal footing. So, for instance, five civs can participate equally in a mutual-defense pact against another civ, or another alliance. Three civs could participate in a most-favored-nation trade pact. Each treaty can include an unlimited number of clauses (drawn from an as-yet-to-be-determined list).

b) Treaty components (possible clauses) include:
1. Change of basic diplomatic status (peace, war, cold-war etc. A change in status that makes the diplomatic state between two parties more hostile can be undertaken by either party if they have the internal power within their civ to do so. A change in status that is less hostile requires agreement of all parties.) The diplomatic state can be collateralized
2. Cash (either in lump-sum or in an installment plan) or loans
3. Territory transfer (either now, or at some future date)
4. Technology (although, as discussed in the tech model, trade of a technology does not necessarily result in the acquiring civ immediately having that technology available.)
5. Ceding control of military units (usually temporary)
6. Trade status (from most-favored-nation up to embargo)
7. Internal matters, such as treatment of religious or ethnic minorities (this one will be tough)
8. Demilitarized zones
9. Arms reduction treaty elements (FE: "My army will grow to at most 20% more powerful than yours.")
10. Dynastic Marriage (Added 6/16)

c) Treaty Duration - Treaties do not last forever in the real world, nor should they in Clash. The following rules will govern treaty duration. (Added 6/16 - Thanks for reminding me about this, Harun!)

1. Treaties always come up for review whenever there's a change in government type.
2. Non-representative governments experience a "treaty review" every "X" number of turns.
This periodic review represents "Ruler Lifespan", historically the biggest factor behind changes in diplomatic status.(Note: The determining factor for "X" should be entertaining game play, not realism.)
3. A variety of factors will be used to determine the result of the treaty review process. A treaty could be extended, canceled, downgraded, or upgraded. One mechanism would be to "weigh" the interactions between the two states during the life of the treaty. Negative factors would include spying, threats, and protests. Positive factors would be gifts, military aid, similar culture & religion, etc.
4. Surpassing an as-yet-undetermined level of Negative or Positive "points" will cause a treaty to automatically come up for review.
5. Unilateral cancellations are always an option, but carry their own set of risks such as reputation "hits", risking other treaty relationships, etc.

6) Threats & Protests: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

Threats in Clash need to be every bit as nuanced as treaties. The player should be able to make a threat using all the components above. Protests are similar to Threats, except they are based upon actions which the other civ has taken against you. Subjects for Protest include: Treaty violations, military provocations, and Intelligence activities.

7) Spying: Intelligence operations aimed at other civs. There are two types, passive and overt. As a general rule, each civ expects the others to conduct passive spying, so there's little downside. Overt acts carry more severe penalties should one be caught. Penalties include reputation loss (of varying severity), change in treaty status, even internal unrest.

a) Passive:
- Society Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Social Model)
- Government Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Governance Model)
- Economic Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Economic Model)
- Military Details (Awareness, but NOT theft, of another civs Military unit info)
- Research Details (Awareness, but NOT theft, of another civs Research Model info)
b) Overt:
- Theft of non-Military Research info
- Theft of Military Research info (harder and more dangerous)
- Bribery of Cities (Added 6/16)
- Bribery of Units/Armies (Added 6/16)
- Bribery of Characters (risky)
- Assassination (VERY risky)
- Moles (Intelligence Agency penetration)

8) Contact Methodology: Civilizations cannot perform any diplomatic activity unless and until they achieve contact. Until such time as permanent embassies are allowed, each government contact will require the dispatch of an official representative.

a) Emissaries: Permanent embassies are a fairly recent phenomenon (since @1700 AD). Until that time, governments dispatched personal representatives who would visit the court of the foreign ruler and present gifts, demands, treaty options, etc. The clash diplomacy system will rely heavily upon this mechanism until modern times, with an obvious impact on the quality and timeliness of the information it produces. As a ruler, you must make extensive use of emissaries in order to have any idea what is going on around you, and that will cost $$.

b) Embassies: Physical structures located in the capital city of an opposing civ. Requires $$ to open and maintain. Existence of an embassy provides automatic low level intel on happenings in enemy capital (attitudes, troop movements there, anything you could glean from a newspaper)

c) Consulates: Physical structures located in the provinces of an opposing civ. Requires $$ to open and maintain. Requires approval of civ to open these. Usually a sign of good relations. Improves reliability and quantity of low level intel.

9) Voluntary Disclosure: The same information which intelligence seeks to obtain illegally will have to be provided voluntarily by the partners in every State Relationship beginning with Peace. The level of disclosure should not be subject to negotiation, but rather be treated as an integral part of the treaty. More details are required, but here's an example of military disclosure based on treaty relations (see section IV).

a) Peace: I know exactly how many units he has and vice versa, but no details.
b) Co-Agression: Same as above. If we are at war with the same enemy, we share unit info on those which are in the "War Zone" with that enemy. This zone could be defined as "X" number of hexes from the "front".
c) Cooperation: We share numbers and locations and generic types. Also sharing of "War Zone" unit info (as defined above)
d) Defensive Alliance: Same as Cooperation but includes detailed unit specs for those stationed on a mutual border. (ie between the allies).
e) Offensive Alliance: I have complete details on his military and he on mine, except injury and preparedness data.
f) Same Ruler: I know everything about his military, he just gets total numbers on mine.

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IV. State Relations (More detail to be included later)

Here's a sample list of diplomatic states available between civs. These are not necessarily well thought out. The values associated with each name are modifiers on a -10 to +10 scale that Mark has used in the existing code on the diplomatic system. The numbers generally indicate the "strength" of the relationship between the powers.

Diplomatic State Constants

Vendetta = -10; State Seeks To Annihilate Opponent, And Its People
Total War = -9; Seeks To Destroy Opposing State, But Not People
War = -7;
Limited War = -5; War Whose Aims Are Restricted In Some Way
Cease Fire = -3;
Cold War = -2;
Contact = -1;
Peace = 0;
Co-Agression = 1; States Cooperate To Attack A Third, But With No Other Alliance
Cooperation = 2; A Deep, Peaceful Relationship, With A Long History
Def Alliance = 4; Defensive Alliance
Off Alliance = 8; Very Strong Offensive/Defensive Alliance
Same Ruler = 10; Case Where One Civ Is Completely Ruled By Another

Any diplomatic state that is agreed-upon between two or more parties can be collateralized for any mutually-agreed-upon period of time. For instance, a peace treaty between states might be guaranteed by both to the tune of 1000C over a period of the next 20 turns. Any party that unilaterally breaks the peace gives up the collateral. Whether the collateral becomes the possession of the offended party, or simply disappears is also determined in negotiations. Collateralization is meant to symbolize things like hostage-holding, marriage alliances, and other ways to guarantee treaties where the game does not have sufficient depth to include the particular factor. I think collateral could become standard for treaties, since it ensures that each party will take the treaty seriously. This feature seems to work better in the ancient and medieval world, than in the modern. We'll have to address it as a play balance and realism issue at some point.

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V. Era Limitations (Much more detail needs to be added)

Ancient Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from emissaries, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is limited, and overt acts are restricted to bribery and assasination. Treaties are based upon marriages and hostages.

Medieval Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from emissaries, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is "medium". All overt actions are available except moles. Treaties continue to be based upon marriages and hostages.

Modern Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from embassies, consulates, spies, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is unlimited. All overt actions are available. Treaties are based upon modern factors

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VI. Government-Type Limitations (Much more detail needs to be added)

Monarchy-type Govt Synopsis: Most options are available since reputation is less of a concern. More susceptible to bribery. Not a "trusted" form of government, so higher level treaties aren't available.

Representative Govt Synopsis: Certain actions are very dangerous for a representative government to undertake, since failure could cause the government to collapse. "Home" territory transfers are not an option. Vendetta is not an option.

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Any thoughts or comments, especially in areas which aren't complete, would be greatly appreciated!

your proposal sounds great!

An important concern IMO is the durability of treaties. In Call to Power almost all treaties expire after some turns and for many people that is very annoying. So I think treaties should last as long as the participating civs want them. Perhaps a clause that a treaty cannot be canceled within the first x turns would be useful.

Looks good. A few clarifications and quibbles.

> (Question: If the player can only impose tariff levels on a "Civilization-wide" basis, how does one get to "20% on steel and 50% on textiles"?)

Answer: You can vary the tarriffs/subsidies for each commodity vs MFN (most favored nation). That's how you get "20% on steel and 50% on textiles". You can also set overall tariff levels with each civ you trade with. These might be with Civ A +10% tarrifs, Civ B +50% tarrifs. Then the tariff for each item is just the 'item' tariff + the Civ tariff. So trade with Civ A in the textile area would be taxed at the rate of 60% (= +10% [Civ A] +50% [textiles]).

>War Whose Aims Are Respected In Some Way
War Whose Aims Are *Restricted* In Some Way (darn dictation software)

>Monarchy-type Govt Synopsis: Most options are available since reputation is less of a concern. More susceptible to bribery. Not a "trusted" form of government, so higher level treaties aren't available.

? Why? When monarchies were among the best govts around I'm sure others would strongly ally w/ them.

> Representative Govt Synopsis: Certain actions are very dangerous for a representative government to undertake, since
failure could cause the government to collapse. "Home" territory transfers are not an option. Vendetta is not an option.

Vendetta should be much harder, but I wouldn't say impossible.

Thanks for reminding me about treaty duration. I've edited the model to incorporate some comments on that subject, although perhaps not in the way you were looking for! The thing to remember is, we are trying to incorporate reality wherever it won't degrade gameplay, and historically treaties have not lasted very long. The changes I've suggested should reward honest and reliable partners, while penalizing the more unscrupulous players.

I'm always interested in good ideas, so could you tell me where your "Intelligence" posting is located? There's a 100 threads out there, you know!

Mark:

"Tariff Question": Changed my question to a "Note" which I hope is accurate!

"Respected": Changed it to "Restricted, LOL! (Do you really use dictation software? No wonder you can post so much stuff!)

"Monarchy Type" Government: I'm thinking of dividing Diplomacy Model governments into only two types for ease of AI implementation. "Representative" on one hand and "Strong Man" on the other. The "less trusted" comment simply means that a change in strong men is more likely to bring about radical shifts in political style than that experienced by representative type governments. As a result, you are more likely to see two democracies bound together by a LONG TERM Offensive Alliance than you would two dictatorships. It HAS happened in history, but the duration tends to be very short. For that reason I'm inclined to restrict them from even trying it.

Vendetta: Not Impossible? OK, can you name any representative government which has waged Annihilation Warfare against a government AND its people? If it has happened, I'm not aware of it.

They're sorta related, but will prob. be different sections of the interface.. but no matter...

I like the idea of no "spy units" marching around the map.. It fits also with the strategic nature of map units.

Yep, I try to use dictation software whenever I'm doing more than a few paragraphs worth since I'm developing a repetitive strain injury assoc with typing. (And I'm a piss-poor typist too, so I actually gain speed with the dictation)

On vendetta in representative government: The Roman Republic committed genocide against numerous Celtic tribes. I'm sure I could come up with other examples. I agree it should be Very hard. But isn't mutual assured destruction potentially a type of vendetta if you go thru with it?

And how is the economy going to work? For instance: to collect taxes, will it be like Civ or like SimCity? IMO SimCity is better.

Sounds good to me too.

Illmuri:

I can see why you can't go Up your diplo scale really fast. Although there are exceptions even there.

But the one that really bugs me is: Why can relations only go down one notch in a turn? FE when Hitler broke the Ribbentropp(sp?)-Molotov pact he went from ally of the USSR to War in less than a day ;-).

Without getting into details, here's a suggestion for how to implement this concept: A sustained intelligence operation should, over time, provide an increased amount of low level intelligence and a greater likelihood of learning "important" information (something akin to stealing A-Bomb secrets). Let's assume that a normal intelligence operation ties $ expended to a % chance of discovering information. Sustained operations would increase that percentage. For example, the 5th straight year of spending 100 credits would give you a 5% chance of success, whereas 100 credits in year one would only give you a 1% chance of success. This may also be a way of handling the "mole" issue.

One other comment. On 8/14 I'll be "disappearing" for two weeks, and owe Mark a "condensed" diplomacy model. If anyone has any thoughts on what that should look like, please feel free to clue me in!

On the spy network effectiveness I like your idea, but think it needs to be more general. What I'd propose is that generic infiltration into a country work like a bank account. You put resources in, and if you don't demand immediate information (make a withdrawl) the power of your network grows a little (perhaps it requires some minimum support to do this). Then when you want to steal the A-bomb plans you can compare your 'balance' to the difficulty of the project and target how much in the way of saved and new resources you want to put into it. The effectiveness of the new ones could even be modified by the previously saved amt used. As in your experienced local operatives can leverage any new resources to a point. Then the mission succeeds or fails, and may or may not take some of your established network (even beyond what you allocated) with it.

On the abbreviated model... I'm not sure we'll get to diplomacy b4 your return anyway. I'm still coding on the military model alpha-1. Most other programmers are unavailable at least for another week. So don't sweat it too much if you don't have something b4 you leave.

I can try and help, a little. Altho this is all still in flux . . .

I believe that the 'Life' object (another stupid name, forgive me!) will contain 'Player' and 'Civ' objects ('Civs' being non-player-controlled players). Both 'Player' and 'Civ' will need to instantiate an 'AI' class/object. This class is likely where the code you are developing will reside.

As far as coding, for most variables there will need to be methods to set/change the var, and a method to return the var {public void setRelationship(Player p, String r), public String getRelationship(Player p)}. And you'll need methods for events that affect the 'AI' object vars

(i.e. public void treatySigned(Player p, Treaty t){ setRelationship(p, "allied"); }.

That kind of stuff.

Jacobo:

I see you've made good progress. I've spent some time looking over what you posted, and everything seems reasonable to me. I have a few suggestions on the negotiations part of the coding, that I'll mention below.

But first, I wanted to suggest one change in the way you name variables. Your names are good and descriptive, but the lack of capitalization inside the variable names makes them sometimes very difficult to read. Also, you, or someone else using the variables may misconstrue what the variable's meaning is. (I have certainly screwed up the meaning of variables that I myself named when returning to coding a particular area after a long period.) One example of the potential confusion can be seen using a variable you have in your write-up, ineffect. Does ineffect mean it is now in effect, or that is ineffective? Reading the comment near the variable definition makes it clear, but sometimes coders (like me ) will just make an assumption about what it means without checking. IMO such naming is a potential source of bugs.

I suggest you use the convention I've been already using in a substantial amount of code I have so far, which is to capitalize the beginning of all words that are internal to the variable or method name. So you would have inEffect. This makes it immediately clear that the meaning of the variable is that something is "in effect", rather than "ineffective". It also makes reading the variable much easier, since you can pick out immediately what the words are. Others like the in_effect style, but I dislike typing all the underscores.

Anyway, on to the negotiations issue. I don't have any deep thoughts to give you right at the moment, except to suggest that you can use the framework for evaluating negotiations that's already present in my diplomacy code. Two or more sides in negotiations would only agree to a treaty if its valuation were better than what they already have. I think going any further in the alpha-1 model is impractical, since to go any further one needs a full-blown diplomacy AI.

Using the valuation methods that I have already included, you would go through a round of negotiations each turn. At the end of a round you would either end up with a treaty agreed-upon, a breakdown in negotiations, or an agreement to negotiate further the next turn.

What does everyone think about the negotiations round concept elaborated in the bold section above? I think it will give a real-world flavor to negotiations, in that especially in ancient times you don't have forever to bargain over the minutae of any treaty. As distance decreases, and communication gets better, the number of rounds available for negotiations between the parties would increase.

Jacobo: if you and others agree with this concept, I propose that we start off with two rounds of negotiations available per turn. Each round would allow an offer by side A, and a counter offer by side B. Once a side has used its two rounds with any possible counter-party, the only message it could send to the other would be that it was willing to continue negotiations next turn, or that it was breaking off negotiations.

The diplomatic state value functions that I was talking about are all in the Diplomacy class. I've included an outline of what one of them does below.

valueOfDiplomaticChange(...)
evaluates how much a change in diplomatic status between us and otherCiv will be
worth. ** will consider changes due to modifications in:
1. offensivePower
2. loss or gain of targets for conquest
3. general benefits of peace for economic and/or military buildup
4. competitive situation vis-a-vis the other civ

I hope this is what you are looking for, if not let me know.

Mark

Now I shall look to the future and begin discusions on other diplomatic topics.

Threats, Protests and Promises oh my!

my view is we have a generic object called action which like clauses is extended to specfics such as changeTariffs,signTreaty, changeTerritory,withDrawTroops,cancelTreaty
,War (took your advice Mark) etc.
and to accsess these you would have a method like this Threaten(action yourAction,civ ToCiv,action ToHaveThisAction)
example Threaten(War,Romans,signTreaty)
would be you threatening the romans with war if they didn't sign some specified treaty.
This is all in my head right now but what do people think of the general idea.

Clauses

We need to think up some more clauses in addition to the ones mentioned above i will give my list. treatyDuration, relationsVeto( for alliances so no seperete peaces), collateral, allowMilitaryToUseTerritory(for bases+alliances) i can't think of more right now, suggestions.

AI

I looked at the diplo Ai code and had no idea what the numbers meant or where they came from could someone help me here

Intelligence

People working on this are going to have to sharpen it up I found the descriptions vague especially in the funding area, if you double funding what kind of effect will that have?

I'm pressed for time, but here are some quick responses...

Negotiations:
Yes the AI can do it, or we can change it if its too much a pain for the player.

Threats, Protests and Promises... and Clauses:
Sounds reasonable to me.

Current Diplomatic AI:
Well this is tough to go thru quickly. The main idea is to use the relative military power of potential opponents compared to the civ who's AI it is. Relative military power comes from absolute military power modified by diplomatic state of all adjacent civs. So ones we're at peace with tie up little of our potential power (in military units) while those we are at war with can tie up a lot. Of course the power needed for a potential adversary depends on its power, which depends on Its diplomatic relations... I'll try to write up something more helpful later

Intelligence:
Yeah, its vague so far... Just put in your best guesses for how to do it reasonably, and let the group know what they are, and we can discuss it.

Lookin' good so far

1) Coding: My coding skills are effectively non-existent, so I won't be of much help in this area.

2) Model Concepts: About half are mine, and most of the rest are Mark's. I can help you out here.

3) Interface: I'm quite interested in what you've done in this area. Feel free to use me as a sounding board.

1. Change of basic diplomatic status. There are 13 Diplomatic State constants (section IV) to choose from, but lets limit the Alpha to five. (War, Cease Fire, Contact, Peace, and Off Alliance). By definition, a treaty implies an improvement in relations, and this requires both parties to agree. Relations may be worsened unilaterally (and are usually the result of a provocation by one of the parties)

2. A request or offer of cash

3. A gift or trade of territory

4. A gift or trade of technology

We can omit items 5 thru 10 for now.

I looked at some of your earlier posts, and this looks pretty similar to your own ideas for the alpha.

One of your posts questions the relationship between Funding and Intelligence. First, lets note that in the pre-modern eras, there are really two types: Intelligence from merchants and emissaries (procurement of info which is contained in the Social, Economic, and Governmental models) and that employed by the military (information on size and location of enemy armies and bribing of cities). Allocating $$ to your intelligence budget simulates payments to foreigners (and even your own merchants) in order to "loosen their tongues". Obviously, the more $$ you devote to this purpose, the more info you garner. The civilian info should be random (ie. your collection method is passive, so you only learn what someone happens to know). Military intelligence should be different, involving one-time expenditures to achieve specific goals. Example: $25 buys guards at one gate for a 25% chance of success while $100 buys guards at all 4 gates for a 100% chance of success. Likewise, $10 gets one villager to tell you "there's a big army out there somewhere" while $100 incentivizes every hunter in the province to report in with exact details on the size and location of the enemy army.

On the other hand, sending an emissary with fistfuls of cash to purchase the allegiance of an enemy provincial governor is clearly a feature of the Diplomatic model. Coding it may be a bit complicated, since variables would include size of province, distance from enemy capital, type of government, presence of enemy forces, religion, social conditions, etc.

1)if A and B have a treaty and A violates it what can B do?
-A can do anything it wants to The only thing that violating a treaty does is lose any collateral the offending party had at stake, and has it known that they've broken a treaty.

2)if A and B have a peace treaty and A wants to declare war on B does A have to cancel the treaty first or can A declare war and thus cancel the treaty?
-I'd say the attack is a de-facto declaration of war.

3)on negotiations assuming we use some like what Mark suggested should A and B both come up with treaties and both offer counter offers and then decide either whose is best, end negotiiations or agree to meet next turn.
Or should A offer a treaty to B and B can return a counter offer and if A doesn't accept B can either accept original treaty, end negotiations or continue negotiations next turn.
-I'll leave this one up to Kull since I've already registered my preference. Either way could work fine.

4)I hope to implement multiparty treaties eventually but they offer some major difficulties especially in how to negotiate them. Any ideas?
-I think you just need to go around the negotiations a lot just as in the real world.

for tribute if the A pays B one time for X dollars, and A has a dollars and B has b dollars then aiValue(A)=-X/a*100 and aiValue(B)=X/b*100,(with caps of +/-100?)
for annual tribute, with A paying B X dollars per turn and A and B bringing in a and b dollars a turn then aiValue(A)=-X/a*100 and aiValue(B)=X/b*100
All i'm asking is if this is a resonable way to calculate the aiValue of a tribute clause?

I will also need formulas for territory and tech but don't know enough to figure them out.

Your guesses for a first shot at tribute sounds pretty good to me. I think the one problem is in the lump-sum payment. IMO the comparison value should be Either the treasury OR something like 10 turn's income. That is to stop really weird deals from happening when a big power happens to have a low treasury for other reasons. Also note that historically treasuries are usually in the red net because of borrowing during wars. However I assume positive cash in what I've got so far too.

Territory could work similarly to a lump sum of cash where you use the territory's econ power as a fraction of total economic power of the respective civs. Then you would modify for strategic value, and possibly other things.

Tech will have to wait until we have a way for the AI to evaluate tech.

I can't do anything with the rest of your model until I am ready to kludge together an interface for it. And That will have to wait until I have rearranged the code to reflect the new hierarchy and classes for the very high-level parts of the program. (To make the code adhere better to OO design) So, why don't you keep going with the code, and I will tell you when I'm ready for it. Maybe in a week or so... I will then need a lock on your classes temporarily to make the changes in the upper class hierarchy consistent throughout the code.

Keep up the good work!

I. Questions about Treaties:

I agree with Mark's responses to 1 and 2. The round of negotiations is an acceptable solution for 3. I'm mulling over some alterations, but I like the basic concept. 4 and 5 ARE difficult, if only because they could easily become so complex that you impinge on the "Fun-to-Play" factor. For example, if there's 7-30 "nations" out there, the average player does not want to engage in treaty negotiations with them every turn! Or incur some kind of "unfriendliness" penalty if he refuses to talk with them. The solution may be to think of it from the "Foreign Minister" (or "Secretary of State") viewpoint. At such a lofty eminence, he couldn't care less when some minor nation wants to curry favor, that's why he employs all those low level functionaries (ie. the AI). Let the Foreign Minister outline some broad principles (Don't start any wars, pay no bribes greater than $X, Don't give or trade the following technologies, etc.) and only contact him when nations X, Y, and Z are involved. To avoid overloading the AI, we'll need to define which combination of factors will generate a diplomatic contact between nations. I suspect most of these factors will be found within the other models (Social, Economic, Military and Governmental).

II. Treaty Responsibilities (Initiative):

A third method would be to display a list of all upcoming treaty actions and allow the player to either approve all as a group or opt to edit. (i.e. individually approve every treaty action except the payment to Slobovia.)

III. Tribute:

Yep, all us democratic do-gooders . But certainly during the cold war it was more to prop up allies and bribe neutrals than out of any sense of real altruism IMO. That sort of giving has gone on thru history.

Agree completely with your point that Most players will want the AI to field at least a large proportion of diplo requests. I think your solutions are reasonable. We'll just have to see how good we can get the AI. I think the interface-type stuff is ok to talk about, but better to wait a little before we worry too much about it. When we get to the point where we can actually Test interface ideas then we'll be cooking.

jacobo: