Unending Galaxy : Diplomacy

EsKa

Here is another design document regarding Unending Galaxy. I will explain how the diplomacy between the different factions (including the player) will work. As usual, this is not a definitive document, details may change, but the main ideas and concepts will stay more or less the same.

Enjoy ! 🙂

Quick Summary

For those familiar with the Civilization games (or 4X games in general), I am going to use something very similar. Factions rate each other on different subjects (do they own valuable sectors near our borders? Do we have different laws? How strong is their military compared to ours?…). Two factions rating each other poorly will be likely to declare war on each other. And two faction liking each other will probably make an alliance.

Diplomatic Modifiers

Here is a preliminary list of the positive and negative modifiers. Exact values and increase/decay rates are of course yet to be determined.

Positive Modifiers

  • We have been at peace for a while (increases over time)
  • We have similar values and laws
  • You helped us in a war (decays slowly)
  • You are at war with our enemies (increases while at war, then decays)
  • You gave us tribute (decays slowly)
  • You protected our ship / stations (decays slowly)
  • You sent diplomats (their diplomacy minus our xenophobia, decays)

Negative Modifiers

  • You own valuable sectors around near our frontiers
  • You own sectors that were previously ours (decays slowly)
  • We have different values and laws
  • You have a weak military
  • You killed our ships / stations (decays slowly)
  • You have too many ships / stations in our sectors
  • You declared war on us or our friends (decays slowly)
  • You refused to give us tribute (decays slowly)

Depending on both the source and the target factions’ parameters (aggressiveness, diplomatic strength, xenophobia, trading…) some modifiers will have higher values than others. As an example, the “You have a weak military” modifier will be more potent for warmongers than for peaceful factions.

Diplomatic Actions

While the game is in real-time, the diplomacy system can, more or less, be seen as turn-based. Each few minutes, each faction will refresh its modifiers and be allowed to take a few diplomatic actions like:

  • Declare war on another faction
  • Send monetary gift / diplomats to raise relation
  • Ask for an alliance
  • Ask to join in a war against a 3rd party
  • Request a sector or monetary gift

The probability of success for most of these actions (war excluded) will depend on the current relation between the two factions, their diplomatic skill, their xenophobia and probably a little randomness thrown in for good measure.

War

There’s two possible models regarding how wars will work in UG. The “Civilization” model where factions declare war when they hate each other enough. Wars last for a long time, the looser tend to be in very bad shape at the end of it. The winner being forced to stop by an artificial “war weariness” variable that increases over time. And there’s the “Crusader King / Europa Universalis” model where when a faction declare war on another, it is for a specific sector (or cluster of sectors), and when this goal has been achieved a truce is declared.

Instinctively, I would rather go for the second option (but I will experiment with both I guess). Code wise, it’s easier to manage the military part of the war when clear goals are defined, and for the diplomatic part, it makes peaceful negotiations both easier to code and more realistic. For instance, a small faction may give away a targeted sector to avoid war against a stronger foe while switching to a war economy and trying to catch up in military ships.

Also, having relatively short skirmishes between the main races mean that the game will also last longer. Well, there’s no end condition, but an universe with a single faction beside yourself (especially if you don’t want to play as an empire) may be boring. Also note that factions like the AI Core which is always at war with everyone and the Pirate Guild which will work, well, like in my plugin, will keep other ‘legit’ factions busy on the war front.

Final Words

There’s probably more to be said on the diplomatic front, but those are the main things that need to be implemented first. Details on how treaties, gifts, diplomats and so on will work exactly will come once I have a working model to test those ideas 🙂