Diplomacy with far away nations needs to be limited: possible solution:

[dearmad]

Trade with them too- starting out as highlands on hard, getting a trade agreement with byzantium and making +30 gold right off the bat should not be possible. There needs to be a limit in who you can talk to (your neighbors) and how far away you can trade unless you've built certain things in your city or something-

Do the developers frequent these boards at all anymore?

I said it in another thread, but taking out farmer knights and adding in diplomatic ones (might be a good solution. But maybe this would be better and EASIER:

Add in that merchant knights allow communication between kingdoms. This way you wouldn't have to code out the farmer knights (which are useless though). So like in my other thread:
1 merchant = can contact neighboring kingdoms.
2 = contact all of same religion + get info on the neighboring ones.
3 = contact all kingdoms + info on all of same religion
4 = all contact + all info available.

The info part cointaining rumours should always be available, but not the actual numbers until you have merchants going everywhere reporting for you.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

farmer knights, who are they? you mean landlord guy? What does he do anyway, i never use him

[dearmad]

I fugured you didn't use him- I can't imagine anyone who would- he increases farm output.

[Arcador]

Maybe getting the builder and the landlord into 1 = city governor that gives the bonuses of the two +1 gold coin (if you put the merchant in)
So getting one elite governor may give you huge boost to one city.
The other way is just to boost their bonuses.

Anyway I got sometimes one 5 stars landlord in some military city - the food supply is getting full very quickly...but compared to the other knigts (slots) almost noone make those guys.

As suggest boosting them or combining them into 1

[despot666]

Trade with them too- starting out as highlands on hard, getting a trade agreement with byzantium and making +30 gold right off the bat should not be possible. There needs to be a limit in who you can talk to (your neighbors) and how far away you can trade unless you've built certain things in your city or something-

Do the developers frequent these boards at all anymore?

I said it in another thread, but taking out farmer knights and adding in diplomatic ones (might be a good solution. But maybe this would be better and EASIER:

Add in that merchant knights allow communication between kingdoms. This way you wouldn't have to code out the farmer knights (which are useless though). So like in my other thread:
1 merchant = can contact neighboring kingdoms.
2 = contact all of same religion + get info on the neighboring ones.
3 = contact all kingdoms + info on all of same religion
4 = all contact + all info available.

The info part cointaining rumours should always be available, but not the actual numbers until you have merchants going everywhere reporting for you.

Do you also think being able to make offers and demands at the same time during nagotiations would be a decent improvement?

[dearmad]

It would nice to be able to offer money AND a demand that they attack someone (for example). Yes. However, I really want the AI to already value its own self enough to not just be a toy for us to manipulate into poor choices (as it sort of is now).

The way I understand most programmers go about the diplo part of gaming isn't the right way to do it, IMO. Not even according to simple mini-max theory. The idea of valuing offers and demands as numeric constants and then evaluating them according to a criterion or reference is a poor way to do it. It leads to thing slike offering the AI 5000 gold for it to pay you 1000 gold over 6 turns... hile on the surface this makes sense (a typical loan procedure), it does NOT make sense in a GAME.

Another example:

offering 1800 gold = +2
demand attack BIG COUNTRY = -5
offer hand of my daughter = +2

total =-1 so odds are (using 50 + 10x as an example forumla, since that's a typical form these things take):

50 + 10X
50 + 10(-1)
50 + (-10)
40% chance to take the offer. Of course all dice rolls for every offer are prerolled so in ONE turn you don't get an AI that waffles back and forth.

So if you offered more gold and got it to +3 you get a total modifier of 0, so:
50 + 10(0) = 50% chance to derive an agreement.

Anyway, all this does is mean there is SOME threshold at which the AI will commit an atrocious stupidity. This is one of the dangers of offering more than one thing at a time- how will the AI evaluate the total offer? Because attacking country x may not be really be worth x amount of dollars (to counterbalance the negative influence the demand to attack makes on the AI). It demands that the programmer accurately know the true value of an offer and factor that in- impossible, as offers' values are DYNAMIC according to game situation. The hand of my daughter to a many who's first born son is already married may not be worth anything. Attacking country X now might be a good idea, since country X's troops are far away at the moment... etc...

I have my ideas on how diplo should really work in a game, but wonder about other peoples'. My idea involves evaluation of the items far less than evaluating internal variables- goals, patterns noticed in the player, what the AI could truly use or not at that time, and "personality" variables of the AI- which seem to exist already in KoH.

[dworfi]

more simple : set a limit for trade based on incom. If you have +4 income then you can trade for +4 (and have +8 income). If you have +100, you can trade for +100. Yuo should double your income like that no more (maybe this limit should diseapear with the silk road).

[Damn Dirty Ape]

farm output, about as useless as the builder then ehz, im drowning in money at the moment so i just click quickbuild,done, merchants governing are uselss also, only governer i use is the cleric which converts and adopts those pesky new pronvices.. merchants for cash and goods, and 2 marshals for fighting.. don't need anything else.. Too bad my damn king was impotent again and now i lost my ubermarshal of level 18 to the throne again ;(

[dearmad]

Agree with your points. Putting anyone in charge is almost purposeless in this game.

[Frujin]

Guys, please, understand one thing. In KoH when you ask the AI to do something it will ask you back IF there is anything usefull for it. When the AI declines, that means that AI don't want to do that and there is nothing which AI sees as valuable as needed to make it agree. The decisions are based on many many things. I will list a few of them:
- relationship between you and the AI
- do you have marriage
- common friends and enemies
- what your stance is? Trade agreement? Alliance?
- what is your history? do you hold territories populated by his subjects?
- what is the relation of so called "War and Peace" points.

War and Peace points (WPP) is one of the most important things in KoH. They represent both the desire of the AI to harm you and in the same time the desire of the AI to go well with you. When WP are much more than PP, the AI is going to attack. Many many things are evaluated to form WPP. I'll list just a few of them:

- relationship between you and AI
- eventaul army strenghts
- town defence abilities
- what wars are you and AI currently involved
- your history track
- who will be pissed of and who will be angry for both good and bad actions
- religions
- king skills in diplomacy
- stances
- location of your kingdoms (are you close, neighbors, etc)
- and many many more

There is a bug in the retail when the AI declares wa, but immediately agrees to peace thereafter. This is not because of the AI is made stupid. Sometimes the AI can declare war on you by diplomatic reasons. If you are hated by some big powers and if the AI is far away and feels secure - it thinks "OK, if I attack this Kingdom, so many others will enjoy it. So it worths". The bug was in evaluation of this making it too important factor.

[Arcador]

Thank you for the info :)

[Damn Dirty Ape]

figured as much, but it's still a bit odd sometimes. For example i helped Ireland and a couple more countries to grow huge cause i conquerd and gave them the land for i had no use for it. Then later on when i ask for one province i need the refuse it, even for absurd amounts of money. I helped them for hours after hours and still the stab me in the back and will do anything for a city. These are truly not "knights of honor"

[Arcador]

If you played civilization it is the same there - if you give the AI a town, it will be extreamly happy, but if you want a town, even giving him everything you've got - you got no chances. Give towns only to help some allies, but expect no town in return. It is very rare when AI offers a town.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

greedy buggers

[OSDSET]

i think its fine as it is

[King Yngvar]

Diplomacy is perfect in KoH, if RTW had KoH's diplomacy (plus real time and setting medieval), it would be perfect...

[dearmad]

Ick... that is so wrong.