In Dynamic Alliances, Should We See Enemy Alliances?

In standar Alliance/Army mode, we can see who is working with who.

So then, should we be able to see who is working with who in dynamic alliances?

A case can be made that we shouldn't be able to see it, as it increases the complexity of the meta game. "Is Player A allied with Player B or not? Because if they are allied, I won't attack them. But if they aren't, then I will attack Player A."

I could easily see it go either way.

Maybe have it as a lobby option?

no because then how would be get murder party and phantom X to work?

If it's an option, then your stuff will work just fine.

Hmm, I also could go ether way on this. On the one hand knowing who's with who in the cosmic pecking order is kind of important. And a diplomatic over view tab would be welcomed or improve the current one to be more easily read.

But, also the funsies of the unknown like secret alliances and back stabbing while trying to reach the top would be nice to see. Being able to go 2v1 and as your partner helps you kill the one commander drop a couple of nukes on his unsuspecting commander who I would presume that you could see from your alliance.

There's also the difficulty of what if my ally allies with one of my enemies.

Kinda throws a monkeywrench into the mix, no matter which direction we go.

hmmmmm

That would be interesting if it was allowed but then you have one large problem. Player's A B and C where B is aligned with A and also with C. Player C and A are at war with each other but that leaves player B who can not attack anyone. Does Player B win a diplomatic victory?

Such a mechanic would have to be on non-shared victory matches.

I thought we can see just be passing the button on the left-up corner. Now we don't have it?

I think we should not be able to see the alliances of anyone else in dynamic alliance mode.

Players need to realize that a big difference between the game mechanic called 'Alliance' and an actual alliance between players. Clicking the alliance button with a player does not stop them from stabbing you in the back later, they could even be actively working against you now. Similarly you can have an agreement with a player without needing to touch the alliance button. The alliance button has very little impact on actual diplomacy when playing with people who know what it does.

So what does the alliance button actually do? What is it for? It is mostly a global unit state toggle (and maybe vision is shared depending on the settings). As with everything else on the UI it tells your units what to do. Your units will not shoot at allied units (or intercept nukes). This means that the alliance button is more like a conditional hold fire button. It could conceivably be (mostly) replaced with some really dedicated micromanagement.

At the risk of going off topic, is anyone familiar with the Psychic Sensor tower from Red Alert 2? It tells you what your opponents units are 'thinking' by drawing the movement orders of units whose destination is within a certain distance of the tower. I bring this up because the psychic sensor mechanic attacks a players UI, it moves the ability to give long distance move orders from the realm of pure UI to the realm of game mechanics. The psychic sensor is not an inherently bad idea but it is a bad idea in a game which aims to have a powerful UI.

One way to counter to psychic sensor would be to only give your units short ranged move orders. To automate this tedious task the player could have a script that sits entirely within their UI and implements a meta-move order. This script is separate to the rest of the game and can give ordinary orders which look just like player given orders. The script could implement some command handling such that players can send meta-move orders to the script in the same way they usually give move order. The script would then give many short ordinary move orders to the units such that they reach the destination without alerting the psychic sensor.

The script I describe is a simple UI improvement. If a game wants to have a powerful UI it should accept UI improvements. But the script also makes the Psychic Sensor completely pointless. I call the Psychic Sensor a degenerate mechanic because it is made pointless by a sufficiently powerful UI. So if you are trying to make a game with as powerful UI as possible it is quicker to never add the Psychic Sensor instead of adding the Psychic Sensor and then increasing the power of the UI to the point that the Psychic Sensor is pointless.

I want PA to have a powerful UI and the devs seem to want one too but they sometimes add degenerate mechanics. It is probably not top priority for them.

I seem to be a bit off track. In short I want alliances to be hidden because they are mostly a set of conditional hold fire behaviours and holding fire is a UI thing. There could be things that can only be done with alliances (such as not intercepting nukes) and here my dislike for open alliances goes beyond the UI issues. Why should someone on the other side of the solar system be told that one player just let a nuke pass?

I like the idea of both, but would like to see the ability to switch it one way or the other. The blind alliances would add a sort of political train of thought into the game, not to mention the obvious strategic changes that one would have to account for. That being said you really have no idea what you're in for if you attack someone unless you can spot some obvious signs of an alliance.

Yes

In short; I hope for both. I always want all the things.