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

["Per Inge Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004, James Canete wrote:
> I like the idea of emissary meetings, but I can't help but think of how
> people could abuse them.
>
> Assuming everyone's timeout is changed when an emissary is sent, I can
> see this happening:
>
> Before the timeout hits zero, Player A sends an emissary to player B,
> resetting the timeout. Before it hits zero again, Player A sends an
> emissary to player C, resetting the timeout again.

There are two issues in the model I sketched: The timeout increase you get
when you receive an emissary, and the time stop when you go into an
emissary meeting. Both of these can be changed so that you cannot cheat
with the timeout.

For the former, we can either rule that any time beyond the normal timeout
can only be used for emissary meetings and nothing else - this way you get
no actual benefits from exploiting it - only annoyance. Also, sending an
emissary might have some small cost to prevent it from being used in
infinity (eg cost MAX(5%, 1) of your gold) or even a larger cost to
discourage it from being overused.

> So I think the number of game related emissaries should be limited to 1
> per player per turn

Also possible. A good idea, but I'm not sure if this might not just be too
restrictive. Making such a limit a server set option value would be
necessary, IMHO.

> I also get the feeling people will abuse the server votes just to annoy
> people, since they are automatically broadcast to everyone. So either
> these should also be limited, or we can be mean and make a vote for
> silencing someone's server votes. :) (or is there already a cmdlevel
> that can't start votes, so starting a "/cmdlevel cantvote annoyingruler"
> vote would work?)

Yes: /cmdlevel info annoyingruler

Abusing server votes to annoy people... yes, this is possible. But keep in
mind that today any player can /cut any other, and pubserver is still
playable, well, for the most part :-) So I think we can fix that as we go
along if it turns out a problem.

One possible fix that we can try later on is a (server option set) limit
on how many server votes you can suggest during a whole running game.

> Thirdly, should there be the option for altering trade negotiation
> clauses and sending the emissary back? For instance, if I offer two
> cities for 200 gold, can my counterpart change it to 100 gold and ask
> for a response to the new deal? If we limit emissaries like I said
> above, these kind of negotiations should be exempt to the limit until a
> player accepts or rejects.

The problem with that is that we still need to increase the timeout for
each of these back-and-forth, so that renders the limit kind of pointless.
Surely he can send back another offer next turn? Instead of sending offers
back and forth, they can agree on something over the chatline.

  - Per