[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Diplomatic states

["Per I. Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
> > Now AI diplomacy is coming and diplomatic states get more important.

True. Hopefully ;)

> > After contact, you have war (this is going to change).
> > Cheapest treaty you can make is ceasefire.
> > If you cancel cease fire treaty, you are neutral
> > if you cancel "neutral" treaty, you get war.

Correct.

> > You can never get neutral, except you cancel a treaty.

Wrong. It is also default for human players and for AIs in AI diplomacy
patch, and it comes once ceasefire runs out of time.

> > If you cancel peace, you get "neutral" (not cease fire, ok this has some
> > logic in it).

I can see arguments for and against this. Going to ceasefire may not be
such a bad idea, either.

> > Looks not very consistent. Is this intended?

It is not consistent, but I am quite sure it is intended to be this way.
That doesn't mean we change it, though.

> I suggest:
> (1) we retire ceasefire.I think it has no meaning on its own.

It has a meaning: If you break a NEUTRAL 'treaty' you get no
reputation penalty. If you break a CEASEFIRE, you lose 1/6th of your
reputation.

Now, of course, reputation has very little meaning, so my point is moot.
If there was no way to regain your reputation, or if it healed a lot
slower than now, then loss of reputation might scare someone. Maybe. Or
maybe not.

IMHO 'reputation' is just silly. If we have A, B, C
        alliance(A, B)
        peace(A, C)
        war(B, C)
and A declares war on C, then A's reputation will be lowered for all
players. No doubt C agrees that A is a sleazy rat who broke his peace
treaty, but B should now have a _higher_ opinion of his ally (he is
someone who stands up for his alliance partners - a good guy in his
book). So this idea of a universal metric of reputation does not work
well.

> (2) once we have AI diplomacy, we make NEUTRAL the first default state

That's the way it is now, in AI diplomacy patch.

  - Per