Something not about 1.6 but still important: Alliance mechanics

[MasterFool]

Okay, so either side can currently cancel an Alliance immediately. However, for the first time I got a message today that said my Allied Admiral doesn't like the alliance but failed to break it in his country. Well, that was an eye opener, it means the mechanic actually has to check against what the government thinks in order to break an alliance.

What this means is that there is a possibility to actually INFLUENCE another Allied Admiral to try to stop their government from Breaking an Alliance or to keep a negative admiral from doing it yourself.

We already have this mechanic is the "Increase Tension"/"Improve Relations" front.

We need another choice when we are allied with someone, instead of just "Cancel Alliance". We need a "Strengthen Alliance" button to pick up a phone and call our Allied Admiral, take him to dinner, send him a fruit basket, or several pretty girls to ... uh... clean his office! This would potentially be able to stop all these silly Alliance breaks that seem to happen for no reason, but the player would need to pay close attention and notice when things could be getting strained. Right now, we have no ability to influence this. Such an option would help stabilize the Alliance system and I think make it possible to have much longer lasting relationships with other nations when you both have combined interests.

... and for the Machiavellian among you, to derail a potential adversary at a critical moment to give your plans time or a push in the right direction at the right moment.

Anyone else think this might be a reasonable idea?

[cwaadd]

Good idea, the alliances are usually too short lived tight now.

[glythe]

I would love it overall if you had a choice to continually raise/lower specific relations.

Like you say : spain up, england up, Germany down, etc.

Alliances should work this way too and if both sides "like" each other then there shouldnt be a chance to break the alliance.

Originally posted by MasterFool:

Okay, so either side can currently cancel an Alliance immediately.

We need another choice when we are allied with someone, instead of just "Cancel Alliance". We need a "Strengthen Alliance" button to pick up a phone and call our Allied Admiral, take him to dinner, send him a fruit basket, or several pretty girls to ... uh... clean his office! This would potentially be able to stop all these silly Alliance breaks that seem to happen for no reason, but the player would need to pay close attention and notice when things could be getting strained. Right now, we have no ability to influence this.

So I have been digging in the files recently and it's a flat 5% chance to cancel the alliance.

I would rather see it as "decision based". For example imagine if you go to war with a common enemy and "peace out first". Then I would like to see a 5% chance right then that the ally breaks the alliance instead of a 5% chance per turn.

That would make alliances mean more. They would be harder to break and feel like you accomplished something.

Also... can we get rid of the "bad loan scenario"? Im never taking a GDP hit to make an alliance with anyone.

[MasterFool]

I'm with you on the horrible 'pay to play... or else' alliance offer. What gets me is when I'm the 800lb Gorilla and some upstart nation with a fraction of my GDP or Navy puts that ultimatum to me. Makes me want to go all DeNiro on them...

You talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me!?

If it's a flat 5% chance (1 in 20) that means that all alliances are done in about 20 months. That's kind of a stupid mechanic... okay, maybe not stupid but certainly lazy. I've noticed a lot of these lazy choices present in the game and it really takes the shine and fun out of the game.

I don't think the UAD devs completely understand that there are majorly important parts to this game that make it fun for all kinds of players. The Campaign/Political game is really under developed when it could be a complete star of the show. Yes, we all like the build game, and the shoot guns at other ships game... but the Campaign game is pretty much the most important part of the game (As it represents the Strategic aspects) to 'winning' the game. You can lose the game in the campaign side just as much as you can in the build/combat side, arguably more and easier.

So the details in the Campaign side really matter. The Fleet/Task force mechanics are too subject to RNG. The Army mechanics are just awful and lacking is common sense. The math behind the nation ranking and how GDP is calculated is really questionable and inscrutable at that. The alliance, no, the whole raise/lower relationships process is fairly poorly done and relies on RNG for most of it. The Tension mechanic is back and still broken with Tension in places it can't possibly exist. The entire thing is EVENT driven and this makes for repetitive and RNG control when the player and AI should have far greater control over this.

Yes, we should have pressure options, especially if you have hegemony in the area. We should have peace/no interference options in areas we don't want to contest. Those could be done in the fleet/task force screens with "Sea Control" exerting pressure and "Defend only" being peaceful/non-confrontational. A "Piracy/Insurgence" option would be a great thing to build custom ships for that would raid/provoke regional responses. Yes, there are Invade/Protect but those are wartime options. China is currently demonstrating how it's done in peacetime but they are getting close to having it blow up in their face... so we'd be seeing in reality some effects of this kind of game mechanic.

It would take more effort to code such actions into the game but it would dramatically alter the Campaign game to being less random and far more of a chess game between nations. Masters of this side of the game could actually play smaller nations with smaller navies and still rule the seas because they know how to play the Political/Diplomatic game well.

[glythe]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

So the details in the Campaign side really matter. The Fleet/Task force mechanics are too subject to RNG. The Army mechanics are just awful and lacking is common sense. The math behind the nation ranking and how GDP is calculated is really questionable and inscrutable at that. The alliance, no, the whole raise/lower relationships process is fairly poorly done and relies on RNG for most of it. The Tension mechanic is back and still broken with Tension in places it can't possibly exist. The entire thing is EVENT driven and this makes for repetitive and RNG control when the player and AI should have far greater control over this.

Yes, we should have pressure options, especially if you have hegemony in the area. We should have peace/no interference options in areas we don't want to contest. Those could be done in the fleet/task force screens with "Sea Control" exerting pressure and "Defend only" being peaceful/non-confrontational. A "Piracy/Insurgence" option would be a great thing to build custom ships for that would raid/provoke regional responses. Yes, there are Invade/Protect but those are wartime options.

I like everything you have to say here. Peacetime transport piracy at the cost of "-relations" would be cool (and is a mechanic in EU4 for example).

The one thing I would like to see with alliances is that they dont have a chance to get broken unless one party feels like they are "getting used" possibly because they have eclipsed the other (or as I said before you "peace out on a common foe first") For example I could imagine that the player is playing as Japan and has a slow start. Maybe they Ally America and are much smaller in terms of navy/gdp. AI controlled America might look at the alliance and think : why do I need Japan?

On the other hand consider my Game as Germany now. I control from Moscow to Gibraltar. Why are people not jumping in line to be my ally? My GDP is almost higher than everyone else together.