Diplomatic Plays Suck

[Sleeper Agent]

Diplomacy is easily the worst part of this game, even worse than the warfare. They're almost entirely unpredictable, limited in their function, and often end in a total war between the player and half the great powers on Earth. My understanding was that plays were meant to take the focus of diplomacy away from warfare -- to simulate the tense backroom negotiations and great power dealmaking characteristic of the time period -- but when I start a play I don't feel like a suave diplomat navigating rivalries and treaties to secure an advantage for my country, I feel like an idiot starting a world war over Brazilian grain taxes.

The way I see it, diplomatic plays deserve a complete rework. I have three primary suggestions for what this might look like, but I'm curious to hear what you all think

1. REMOVE AMBIGUITY
One of the most frustrating aspects of diplomatic plays is the unpredictable AI. As it is, it is impossible to determine whether a given play is worth it, because it is impossible to determine which powers will get involved (though the answer seems to usually be a lot).

On a fundamental level, ambiguity is the enemy of compelling diplomacy. Ambiguity is introduced by devs who want to mimic the real world, where human negotiators are capable of hiding their intentions, or behaving in subtle, unpredictable ways. The problem is that AI does not have intentions to hide, and is generally bad at long-term planning. There is no room for clever negotiation or deceit with an AI, because despite what the game says, there isn't actually any ambiguity in its actions: a random number generator has already decided what it will do.

Don't tell me what an AI "might" do tell me what it WILL do. If you give Britain X they will support you, if China gives Japan Y they will do Z. Other paradox games like CK3 and EUIV already work under this principle and their diplomatic gameplay is much more compelling than Vicky 3's.

2. LOWER THE STAKES
Currently, there are three possible outcomes to a diplomatic play: the player gives in; the AI gives in; or the play escalates to war. This structure incentivizes both sides to escalate (and the AI seems *extremely* reluctant to back down even when it has zero chance) and results in many, if not most plays escalating into a war. This is especially ironic considering that the whole point of plays was to take focus away from warfare as a means of achieving goals. It currently has the opposite effect of placing the (awful) warfare system at the center of all diplomacy.

There should be other ways to resolve a play without backing down entirely. If a play is meant to represent aggressive gunboat diplomacy, then the two sides of a play should be allowed to negotiate with one another to end the play on some other terms, for example.

3. MORE MANEUVERING
As it stands, the maneuvers phase of a diplomatic play is completely pointless. Whichever countries want to support you will support you, whichever countries want to support your opponent will support them, and then things generally stay static until the play ends and World War 7 starts.

The existing maneuvers system should be expanded to allow for more fluid negotiations. Let us bribe countries to abandon support for our opponent, or to declare neutrality, and then give us more chips to play in these negotiations. Maybe GPs should be allowed to trade "claims" for certain pieces of land or cassus bellis (i.e. if you support me in this play I will support your claim to puppet someone else, etc.). There's really so much more that could be done here the sky's the limit.

[Mr. Wiggles]

Diplomatic plays will never not suck

[endymionologist]

The system definitely needs continual improvement. The 'Trade States' mechanic should be expanded to involve trading/forgiving Claims and just flat-out buying things too; that could also expand the utility of Obligations so that the AI would be less likely to have a huge stack of Obligations waiting for a Diplomatic Play to use them.
You can however Sway someone out of a Play, it's just that it takes timing and resources a human player usually doesn't have.

The back half of the game takes place in a period where there were almost no 'great power' peer conflicts though; indeed there were almost no peer conflicts anywhere. And the game tends toward that sort of rich-get-richer centralization and stagnation unless a human player is constantly upsetting equilibriums by starting big wars or under-building their own military strength to focus on smart growth over deterrence. In history, that pattern broke down completely just once, and it happened precisely because of the ambiguity that makes Diplomatic Plays so disastrous in the game.

No one, not even the British really, believed there was a line someone could cross that would put the French and the British on the same side of a war...and everyone was wrong.

So yes I agree.

[Deadwinter]

WOW op wake up... many things you say is already ingame just not the same names lolllllllllll... you able to play diplomatie to remove or else nations in a future war you will like to start and even you already able to play the same for another nations interess etc... so maybe learn the game with youtube videos or play more and try to see from that... good game in VicIII.

[Scheneighnay]

Native uprising plays are funny, because their terms are always along the lines of "either give us every state west of the Mississippi, or wipe us off the map"

Lack of a give and take is definitely the biggest flaw to mez like you said.

[Inquerion]

Originally posted by Sleeper Agent:

Diplomacy is easily the worst part of this game, even worse than the warfare. They're almost entirely unpredictable, limited in their function, and often end in a total war between the player and half the great powers on Earth. My understanding was that plays were meant to take the focus of diplomacy away from warfare -- to simulate the tense backroom negotiations and great power dealmaking characteristic of the time period -- but when I start a play I don't feel like a suave diplomat navigating rivalries and treaties to secure an advantage for my country, I feel like an idiot starting a world war over Brazilian grain taxes.

The way I see it, diplomatic plays deserve a complete rework. I have three primary suggestions for what this might look like, but I'm curious to hear what you all think

1. REMOVE AMBIGUITY
One of the most frustrating aspects of diplomatic plays is the unpredictable AI. As it is, it is impossible to determine whether a given play is worth it, because it is impossible to determine which powers will get involved (though the answer seems to usually be a lot).

On a fundamental level, ambiguity is the enemy of compelling diplomacy. Ambiguity is introduced by devs who want to mimic the real world, where human negotiators are capable of hiding their intentions, or behaving in subtle, unpredictable ways. The problem is that AI does not have intentions to hide, and is generally bad at long-term planning. There is no room for clever negotiation or deceit with an AI, because despite what the game says, there isn't actually any ambiguity in its actions: a random number generator has already decided what it will do.

Don't tell me what an AI "might" do tell me what it WILL do. If you give Britain X they will support you, if China gives Japan Y they will do Z. Other paradox games like CK3 and EUIV already work under this principle and their diplomatic gameplay is much more compelling than Vicky 3's.

2. LOWER THE STAKES
Currently, there are three possible outcomes to a diplomatic play: the player gives in; the AI gives in; or the play escalates to war. This structure incentivizes both sides to escalate (and the AI seems *extremely* reluctant to back down even when it has zero chance) and results in many, if not most plays escalating into a war. This is especially ironic considering that the whole point of plays was to take focus away from warfare as a means of achieving goals. It currently has the opposite effect of placing the (awful) warfare system at the center of all diplomacy.

There should be other ways to resolve a play without backing down entirely. If a play is meant to represent aggressive gunboat diplomacy, then the two sides of a play should be allowed to negotiate with one another to end the play on some other terms, for example.

3. MORE MANEUVERING
As it stands, the maneuvers phase of a diplomatic play is completely pointless. Whichever countries want to support you will support you, whichever countries want to support your opponent will support them, and then things generally stay static until the play ends and World War 7 starts.

The existing maneuvers system should be expanded to allow for more fluid negotiations. Let us bribe countries to abandon support for our opponent, or to declare neutrality, and then give us more chips to play in these negotiations. Maybe GPs should be allowed to trade "claims" for certain pieces of land or cassus bellis (i.e. if you support me in this play I will support your claim to puppet someone else, etc.). There's really so much more that could be done here the sky's the limit.

Post this on Paradox Forum, Victoria 3 Suggestions subforum and there is a very low chance that they will introduce some of your suggestions. Here is 0. They don't read Steam forums.

[Ass Denominator]

I like your ideas, it should be proportional to the goals as well. There should also be a militarization or tension factor where the diplo play will only military forces proportional to the goal.