this is not as hard stuff as you would think, just imagine you could create and destroy aliances at will so you can play with your friends making arangements and treaties for them backstabbing all over the place. it would be nice to be able to make binding arrangements (peace treaties and no fly zones) but just the ability to assemble and disassemble teams would be nice. this would also require units to not autoatack neutral units (players you have yet to atack or declare war on manually). i dont know how hard this would be to make but i like the idea. EDIT: so noone is confused, i imagine this could be a gamemode, not the regular game.
Don't think you would really need a game mode for that. Just a toggle to "enable alliances" with regards to the team setup. If checked the set teams would be the "starting alliances" or full neutral if the game was set up for FFA. I like the suggestion actually could make for some interesting game dynamics. Though you would have to disable team shared vision otherwise the alliances would be a massive double edged sword.
Seems cool, I like the idea of starting all neutral to each other and developing enemies and allys as players develop and confrontations occur.
You must be an Eve Online player. You're not? Oh... well, I think you should. You'd certainly fit right in.
I actually posted this idea earlier, but I think I posted it in the backers' lounge. The simplest way to deal with diplomacy is just to give each player the option to toggle their own hostility, intelligence sharing, and resource sharing with each other player. All the other mechanics could be handled simply by players communicating with each other. It allows for a very direct and simple control that can balloon into huge, complicated WWI type scenarios, and from the standpoint of a non-programmer, seems like the development and resources required would be extremely low.
one would think that all the tools for making this is there, it is just about making some ui and determining the extent of sharing. the hard part is to make binding agreements, they are not needed though so i hope the basic backstabbing mode happens.
In my mind, one of the best parts of diplomacy in game is that no agreement is binding. You can trust people or not, but it's up to you. One of the most unpredictable (and fun) ways to make a multiplayer game is to make the players interact with each other. There is also the added benefit that the processing is done by your brain rather than your cpu.
why wouldn't you have all available options e.g. Alliance/Cease Fire Share Victory Share Intel Share Control Share Economy (& Production) *each option includes the above options As well as regular gifting options. These options could be 1 sided if desired (e.g. your noob friend sharing control with you but you not sharing with him) and automatically disabled if another player breaks the agreement (e.g. auto unally if another player unallies you).
Honestly i like the Starcraft system. Three boxes, one gives another player vision and allies him, the other just gives him vision, the last gives him control over production and units that you have as well as giving him vision and allying him. These can be revoked in a split second. However advanced options like ceding control of units and buildings individually would be nice.
Good ideas, but I'd swap 'share control' and 'share economy'. Or, actually, make all of them individual options, with only the alliance / cease fire being included with all others. That could lead to nice trades; for example, I could ask a military genius to fight a battle for me, while I provide him with some intelligence. Of course, whether this 'military genius' won't purposefully destroy my armies remains to be seen...