Diplomay to be fixed in the next Total War

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

There is one fatal flaw with your idea. That is, that the whole point of the TW games, is have WAR! No one could really care about making documents and powerpoints, all they want to do is build a empire, make armies, have huge battles, and conquer the world, hence the name TOTAL WAR. Diplomacy was put there because it would be realistic. And besides, what would think is cooler, watching your infantry charge into the enemy line, while your archers use fire arrows, while your siege engines take down the enemie's walls, or giving a document to some other country and hoping that will pass your law?

[Daveybaby]

@slippybee :
@berserker :

[slippybee]

Irony alert, irony alert

[Beefeater]

Mock ye not, I think Slippybee may be onto something here, provided that we have full multiplayer support by this point, and some control over the apparently random distribution of bugs. Let me expand on this.

How many of us have played a simple board or tabletop game, only to chuckle with delight as one of our fellow players acts out of turn? The memory recalls cheerful games of 'beats', a card game played with a simple 52-card pack and the meaty fists of a class of 17-year-old males, in which the penalty for purporting to act out of turn was to be rapped painfully on the knuckles with the edges of the pack of cards. In similar, if nerdier, fashion, it was a core rule in the far less macho game of Blood Bowl (a sort of fantasy version of American Football) that if a player moved his pieces before moving on the turn counter, he forfeited his entire turn. This was the cause of a great deal of amusement amongst experienced players at the expense of their less savvy opponents.

Indeed, the innocent pleasure in watching someone else's frustration mount toward boiling point as minor lapses of concentration render them increasingly helpless is one of the main pleasures we draw from playing face to face against other people. Think of how annoyed your friends and family get when they land on your three hotel corker in monopoly, and are forced to mortgage their whole carefully-assembled property empire - and then, the next turn, when you land on one of those now-harmless properties. Sheer bliss, I think you'll agree. Yet, until now, this core reason for playing against other humans has been puzzlingly absent from online games. There is a clear gap in the market here!

Think how this would work in relation to TW. The screams of frustration as, thanks to your opponent's careless failure to read every SINGLE one of the five hundred amendments in your blackline of his draft peace treaty, he finds that he has ceded control of half of his empire to your violent militias. The fury he would feel as his troops' charge fails - again - thanks to your masterful deployment of the 'break formation' bug.

Overall enjoyment could be enhanced by including a webcam feature, so you could see the mounting horror on your enemy's face as he realises that, by placing a priest on that bridge just there, you have caused his full stack to use up its movement for the turn trying to walk from Paris to Rouen via the antarctic instead.

Come on CA, this is your moment. Act now and you could clean up the market for schadenfreudespiel.

[slippybee]

Gentlemen, we are moving quickly towards a completed outline design document.

We need to decide whether to sell this gem to CA or possibly open up the market to outside bidders.

Your feedback is appreciated as always.

[GFX707]

Slippybee:

Is it really too much to ask for an alliance to actually mean something in this game? Or are you content playing medieval:total deathmatch?

[Ludivico Sforza]

Oh I see...it's a joke...har...har...

Now really, fix the diplomacy.

[Shadow_Wolf33]

just as long as I can mod it, so that I can make longbows and use them to shoot the enemy diplomat type folks.

[TheFluff]

Slippybee:

Is it really too much to ask for an alliance to actually mean something in this game? Or are you content playing medieval:total deathmatch?

HAHA! nicely said ^_^

[Djurre]

There is one fatal flaw with your idea. That is, that the whole point of the TW games, is have WAR! No one could really care about making documents and powerpoints, all they want to do is build a empire, make armies, have huge battles, and conquer the world, hence the name TOTAL WAR. Diplomacy was put there because it would be realistic. And besides, what would think is cooler, watching your infantry charge into the enemy line, while your archers use fire arrows, while your siege engines take down the enemie's walls, or giving a document to some other country and hoping that will pass your law?

errrrr.... joke?

[slippybee]

@ JFC

Do you think we'll need to get accurate dialects for the "harrumphing".

I know some of our potential customer base have strong feelings about the correct accents being used in all circumstances and I'm wondering if a Milanese and a Scicilian "Harrumph" in the same way. We'll need to think through in the Definition phase.

As for thinking of more, there's always room in the UN Total War stew for the more meaty ideas.



@ Djurre

Either he's using some new "super-reverse-irony" technique I've not seen before (and if he is, then he's darned good at it ) or it may be that he just won't form part of our target demographic. I'll memo marketing before close of play and get them to work on some population segmentation analysis.

[JFC]

Dialects will be very important. I think that this game will be clearly accepted as an 'English' version. The foriegn embassadors will clearly have to be addressed as we all know by shouting English S L O W L Y and vigourous generic pointing with naming ALL the afore said foriegn dignatries as either 'Panyo' or 'Philleepo'.

[ScrapTower]

United Nations and Total war dont even belong in the same sentence...

[slippybee]

@ NONOPUST - I'll consider myself Tsk'ed.

@ Scraptower - See the "Irony Alert" Post

[Solo]

The diplomacy system is not bugged. The diplomacy system works as designed (as I understand). The fact that the system doesn't work to your liking or my liking doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Yes, it is. Let's be simple. Share a border = ennemies to death. Doesn't share a border = want my kings head on a silver plater ? May sound like a feature to you, but it sounds like a bug to me. It can be exploited in many ways to get ceasefires and money : for example holding Antioche isn't worth it, just give it to the pope, get ceasefire with the neighbours (a few thousands florins very quickly made and of course top relations with the pope even if you fooled him) and get it the next turn when the city revolt. Do it again and again. Even better, someone hold Cyprus or Rhodes ? Not only you can take it but they will pay you for a ceasefire next turn since an island doesn't share border (makes Cyprus 10 times more valuable than Acre or Antioche). Still think its a feature ? well ever wondered what happens to a faction lonely on his island ? well, nothing : they sit there forever, not going to crusade or declaring war to anyone, try it : No borders, no wars.
So, no, sorry but I don't believe there are "objectives behind the game" that nobody saw until today. There's just an agressive AI, relationships constantly decaying based on difficulty level and a 100x border-war-factor you can work around to exploit.