An opportunity to parlay / declare a draw

[Dionysus9]

I've been in several situations where it would have been very appropriate to offer a draw. The other player might not want to route out his units--but a draw is much more respectable.

Sometimes, especially after a break in intense fighting, neither army can attack the other w/out routing. This also happens when each army has a nice little hill to stand on.

It would be really cool if we could offer terms of surrender/stalemate to the enemy general(s). It could be done in an "offer-acceptance" type format like alliances are in the campaign mode. Perhaps even incorporate some type of payment system...."for 1,000 Gold Pieces, we will call this battle a draw, and you can keep Hungaria". "No, you pay me 5,000 and I will let you have Hungaria" "No deal, back to the fighting"

Some sort of parlay system would be realistic because, historically, generals would often parlay before and even during battles, especially if there was little or nothing to be gained by more costly fighting.

Either the general and an honor guard could go out to meet the enemy general and discuss terms, or a messenger could be sent to do it.

If the parlay went poorly and insults were traded, it could turn into a toe-to-toe honor-guard brawl, with both ragged armies racing to defend their general.

Now THAT would be righteous.

[Catiline]

Sounds like a plan, the English should get to break for Tea.

Would be most useful in MP battles, SP you can whoop five kinds of s*** out of the AI in anyhow, but too often i've reached a stalemate in MP when noone will move because they know just giving an orders going to rout their tropps, whilst being aware that the opposition is in exactly the same shape.

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Timeo hominem unius libri

[Vanya]

I have a feeling this would just entice players to plant themselves and give in to the Camp Side... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Dionysus9]

Maybe Vanya, but maybe it would force the camper to come down from his perch and skirmish a little. The camper would lose his advantage if all he could do by camping is achieve a draw. If he doesn't want to come down and fight, then a draw is probably what he would end up with.

Of course, my idea is only that the players should be allowed to PROPOSE a draw... nobody should be able to impose one on the other players. So, ultimately, the camper could camp as much as he wanted and still force an attack. That result is no different than what we have now.

[This message has been edited by Dionysus9 (edited 06-05-2002).]

[Vanya]

Ah so! Good clarification! That might actually work!

[w00tage]

This would me more usefull in castle assults.

"surrender now and we'll only kill half your men"

"quarter no more, and pay us 5000 florins"

"Gah! 2500 florins of I will roll my cannon over your body"

"deal," to men "OK lads when they come out, jump on them"


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"A warriors death in battle should be bloody"

[oZoNeLaYeR]

Totally agreed!

[Catiline]

A draw function would also seem useful to impose on any dropped escaped games (short of giving the escaper a loss)

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Timeo hominem unius libri

[Fast Death]

How would you handle negotiations? Given the light of recent world events, this could take years for an agreement on terms.

Or

Are you suggesting that both parties just walk away from the battlefield?

[Dionysus9]

Negotiations could be handled by a series of pop-up boxes.

To initate negotiations, an icon would have to be lit (like the rally icon). There would be certain conditions for the icon to light up...for example: 1) no shots fired (no men killed) in last 2 minutes, 2) armies are at least X feet apart. Or something like that, when the conditions were met, the parlay icon would light up.

Any player could initiate negotiations by clicking on the parlay icon when it is lit, and a messenger screen would come up asking you various questions. You would have time to answer/navigate the negotiation screen without getting beaten up on the field, because the parlay conditions ensure that nothing much is going on.

First question: Do you wish to meet with the other General personally, or send a messenger?
[] personally (other General must agree)
[] messenger (you risk losing one man)

If the other General refuses to meet w/ you, or returns the head of your messenger-- you have your answer. He could also let your messenger return without killing him if he is honorable.

If he accepts the message, then you would go to the next stage of negotiations: OFFER:
[] offer $____ (0-10,000) florins for a draw
[] offer ____ honor points for a draw
[] offer ____ troops for a draw [specify troop type]
[] offer alliance for a draw
[] offer to attack his enemies for a draw

etc. However, it should be time consuming to send messages back and forth. Meanwhile, units could be moving around and the parlay icon could even turn off...but you are still in negotiations so have to keep your wits about you.

The enemy Taisho would receive your offer and then be asked to ACCEPT, COUNTEROFFER, or TERMINATE NEGOTIATIONS (peacefully, or with messengers head in a bag).

If he agrees to meet personally, your General and an honor guard (1 unit) would march out to between the two armies for a meeting. A special chat window would open up between you and the general, and you could speak to him in normal chat-room terms, without having to go back and forth with messengers. Once an agreement was reached, you would call up the OFFER window and enter the terms of the deal. He would then ACCEPT, COUNTER, or TERMINATE the negotiations. ([ ]terminate and return to army, [ ] terminate and attack)

At any point in the process of a personal meeting, treachery could ensue. The enemy general could attack you, or could be maneuvering troops around behind you while you were chatting with him. You could quickly terminate negotiations and charge your army toward the Parlay at a moments notice.

Of course, treachery should increase your generals vices, wherease honorable play should increase his virtues.

Would make for some really cool dialogue/situations, character building, and possibly even long term alliances--not to mention adding some needed realism/diplomacy to the battlefield. You could fight to a standstill...think, this guy is good, maybe we should be working together.

[Hirosito]

i thnk it's a really cool idea although you seem to be referring more to MP rsther than SP. but in SP it should work along those lines as well.

especially interesting as all the genrals have different virtues so it wont be like doing deals with the same daimyo all the time.

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Fast Death]

Great ideas. So.... should we start working on the MOD now or wait to you get home.

Shoot him now, shoot him now.

[Wavesword]

It also has the comedy value of having 4 peasants left vs 2000 camels and saying "call it a draw". But why stop at offering draws, there should be some way to end battles quickly in case someone has to go- perhaps a real papers scissors stone mini game in text would do!

[Dionysus9]

Hmmm, good idea Wavesword. I have the perfect idea for situations where a person has to leave (or possibly if they get dropped).

SAVE GAME FUNCTION FOR MULTIPLAYER BATTLES

If all players agreed, then the game (unit positions, fatigue, # of men, ammo left, etc) would be saved to a file. This would not take up much disk space at all, and would be pretty easy to get working. The game obviously "knows" all of these variables and could just dump them out to a file.

When you are ready to resume the game, you just load up those game-stats and host it up--away you go, back to your interrupted battle. As a security feature, all players would have to have identical StatFiles (to ensure no cheating) or you would get a drop.

Now, if there was a drop in the middle of the game, you could have your SETTINGS set to record the unit positions for the battle to be resumed later. This could be abused by some of the bastardos out there, by dropping and then refusing to resume--but it wouldnt be any worse than it is now (in fact it would be much better).

Just another little option I hope CA considers.