[Freeciv-Dev] Re: New alliances (PR#8394)

["andrearo@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <andrearo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=8394 >

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> IN SHORT:
> Now alliances are relationships between two players. With this patch,
> alliances become named organizations with leaders and rules of engagement.
>
> WHY:
>   - it is better and much more fun
>   - generalizes the 'alliance leader' concept in the AI diplomacy
>     code and makes it available for human players
>   - solves all the nightmarish problems with fragmented alliances
>     and war without the horrible cascading war declaration kludge
>
> RULES CHANGES:
>   - no longer lose embassies on a player split (read: civil war)
>   - you lose 50% reputation on breaking a ceasefire, 33% when breaking
>     a peace treaty and 20% when leaving an alliance
>   - an alliance is no longer a relation between two players, but an
>     organization with independent existence
>   - each alliance has a leader; only the leader can declare war,
>     accept ceasefire or recruit new members to the alliance
>   - to join an alliance, you must diplodlg someone who is in an alliance
>     while not being in one yourself
>   - you may at any time leave an alliance by creating a new alliance
>   - if you are the alliance leader, you can remove anyone, including yourself,
>     from the alliance; if the alliance leader leaves the alliance for any
>     reason, new leader is whoever with higher score
>   - you can make any other member of the alliance the leader instead
>     if you choose
>   - making contact with one member of an alliance gives you contact with
>     all members of the team (for easy contact with alliance leader)
>   - when you make teams in pregame, you go into "team mode" (game.team_mode),
>     and you can use the team research feature; this feature is otherwise
>     not available (as before)
>   - 'set diplomacy' server option now limits diplomacy betweeen teams;
>     by default it allows full diplomacy (I am unsure of the wisdom of this
>     as opposed to checking game.team_mode and just banning cross-team
>     diplomacy when in "team mode")
>
> TECHNICAL NOTES:
>   - alliances are stored in the team code, it was just perfect for this use
>   - two new menu options in gtk2 client: new alliance, remove player from
>     alliance
>   - two new packets: add and remove player from team
>   - mandatory capability (no way around it)
>   - simplified a lot of AI diplomacy code (no longer need to kludge in
>     the alliance leader concept in AI code, since we now have it in the
>     main code)
>   - savegame compatibility: all alliances and teams in older savegames
>     are turned into peace treaties; basically no way to properly
>     reconstruct old style alliances into new ones
>   - the patch contains some rather convoluted and complicated game
>     logic, so I need someone to review it
>   - contains the draw patch posted earlier
>
> TODO (later patches)
>   - optional server option that you cannot join an alliance once it
>     represents more than N% of the game's total score
>   - AI should consider the love/hate and war desire of its team members
>     when declaring war and peace (ie consult its allies on matters of
>     war and peace)
>   - the pacts in diplodlg should be grayed out when not usable
>     (not really related to this patch but really ought to be done)
>   - more AI awareness of alliances in general
>   - find bugs, quash bugs; remove some debug code
>
> You need to run ./generate_packets to use this patch.
>
> Comments and playtesting _most_ welcome.
>
>   - Per


Some comments:

When in alliance with an AI player, I try to establish the Pact called
"Team". The AI accepts, but when I click "Accept treaty" nothing happens,
even though it sais "The parties resume the search pool" in Clauses.
The Team pact only shows up in the Pact-menu after I'm allied with the
player. Something doesn't seem right...

When I'm the only player in my alliance, creating a new alliance reduces
my reputation. Maybe you shoudn't be allowed to reduce your repuation if
you gain nothing from it.

Every alliance's name starts with "Pax". Maybe some alternatives,
like "Treaty of Versailles" (named after city) or "Monroe Doctrine" (named
after president), or something..

Andreas Røsdal