The default state between players is Cold War. With each turn that passes there is a greater and greater chance that either peace or war will occur between players. In practice this means that on turn 0 there may be a 1% chance that either peace or war will break out between players, but that on turn 5 there will be a 5% chance, and on turn 10, a 20% chance. The purpose of this feedback system is to allow for Cold War states between players to exist for reasonably long periods of time, and to impose different diplomatic states if cold war goes on for too long (in real life either tensions would escalate until war breaks out, or the situation would diffuse into peace).
While the previous mechanic is mostly independant of player activity, the diplomatic state that Cold War resolves into is not. Performing passive actions such as trading, peacemaking or simply doing nothing will make Cold War more likely to resolve into peace, and will also increase the chance that Cold War will resolve. Performing aggressive actions such as assassinating heroes, stealing resources, or taking sides with other players cause Cold War to resolve into War. In practice this means that (at turn 10) Cold War will have a base chance of 20% to resolve into another state, but if the player had performed lots of passive actions, there would be a 50% chance to resolve to peace- resulting in a 70% chance total that peace will occur. Note: This may sound slightly confusing- I haven't ironed out exactly how this will work, but hopefully this will give you the gist of it.
It will be possible for the player to directly initiate War or Peace states, but this feedback system will help to reflect the players impact on the universe, and hopefully make it seem as if AI players have an opinion of you.
The various abilities possessed by heroes will also have advantages in different diplomatic states...
- Adjacency bonuses from Presidents are only active for other players systems when at peace.
- Peacemaking can only occur during War and Cold War.
- Assassinations, resource Siphoning and Tech stealing can occur in every state.
- Invasions can only occur during War (or cause War to break out instantly).
Although this is a rather brief explanation of diplomacy, I hope it whets you appetite a bit. I am on holiday at the moment, but will be able to work on the game full time when I get back, and hope to be able to deliver a 'playable' demo by spring time.
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