Diplomacy on the Disco server has been bugging me for a long long time now, and i would love to hear everyones opinion on it:
I think that 99% of the factions have messed up relations with the other server factions in terms of being faction A being allied with two factions( B and C) that are at war/hostile to each other. How does that work out?
Would A really be allied with B or C anymore if anyone even had a slight idea what is up?
An example: If B kills C( while being unrelatedly employed by A, using As tech or whatever) wouldn`t you think someone would be displeased? Wouldn`t B and C be worried about A...they might favour one side or the other or even playing both...it would be safer to cut the ties for sure.
Let`s ttry an analogy - right now a country with a nice eagle as animal of state is krieging all over the world targetting people with different beliefs. Now that Eagle fans have allies, people that love tea for example - the Eagles and the Tea fans trade with each other. Now imagine the Tea guys suddenly deliver guns to those with different beliefs to the Eagle guys...would there be a problem?
Or even more direct - we have pirates around Africa, kidnapping traders. The traders get protection by the military and private organizations. Would the traders still hire them if they knew said pirates would hire the security company as well for piracy unrelated things? surely not- conflict of interests for the win.
There are many many examples like this where every normal ( i hope) thinking person would agree that it would never happen or would be so well covered up that it needs quite some extreme leakage to get uncoverd.
How comes this kind of logic was never introduced to disco? is it the lac of interest on "logic" or realistic diplomacy tables? Or is it not catering enough to the pew crowd?
Then again....diplomatic approces have been dev-vetoed as they want more conflict as conflict sparks interest and activity....so aren`t we all sitting on a whole boatload of new "activity" by streamlining diplomacy?
Even a simple rule such as You may not be allied/friendly with a faction that is at war/hostile with one of your allies?
There is no logic, vanilla was haf-made when realised, the diplomacy is mediaeval type based on subjective stuff not on logic.
Also there is no way of dynamic changing the diplomacy since all the rumours and base infocards need to be re-written.
Skype buddies are probably at the heart of the situation you allude to.
This counts only for non-vanilla factions like SCRA and CR, the most vanilla factions get their reps from the vanilla lore with small adjustments during the mod versions because the vanilla lore was not completed and some huge loopholes were filled- especially smaller factions have little to no vanilla lore, not to mention reasons behind diplomacy.
For example the reason why Mollys and Rogues use the same line is because vanilla devs haven't bothered to model separate lines for the small factions, same story with bw line and all other small factions that use generic CTE stuff.
After Chris Roberts failure to complete the game in the promised development time-line he left FL selling it to M$.
Then the vision and the scope changed- M$ wanted some ROI and paid some german dudes to patch and fix and realise what was left from the unfinished Digital Anvil work, they cut huge parts of the Roberts vision in order to deliver the game faster and cheaper.. Germans did great job on stablity/lack of bugs and other typical german stuff but ignored the lore in typical german way.
Well, disco has been around long enough, so it is about time we fix those "holes" i mean in all honesty, just because it has always been that way doesn't mean you are not able to change things. Same for skype buddies- the sole advantage of factions dying and old players leaving is that old behavioral patterns and relations might break up....so there is a chance in that as well....
So....why not making a cooler, atmospheric and not brain hurting faction set up
You have to understand that diplomacy is far more complicated then seeing who your friends and enemies are. There are multiple factors that go into considering a faction's diplomacy e.g. the faction's interests, their trading partners etc.
Real world diplomacy is like this as well. For example, when state sponsored terrorists attacked India in November, 2008 (I think you can guess which state sponsored this terrorist attack, but I won't name it), India did not go to war with that state due to a multiple number of factors e.g. that state was and still is allied with China (very powerful), U.S. didn't want two nuclear powers going to war with each other and neither did the Indians, India and China are huge trading partners, as is the U.S. and China etc.
Therefore diplomacy is not as simple as faction A is allied with faction B and C who are at war with each other.
One Disco example would be the Zoners. IMO as a former Zoner, the only reason they can remain neutral with the majority of factions is due to their economic influence in regions such as the omicrons which are somewhat resource rich. Zoners are allied to the GMG, who absolutely hate the Corsairs and Outcasts. By your logic Rodnas, the Zoners should go to war with the Corsairs and Outcasts due to their alliance with the GMG, but that is not the case especially because a lot of Corsairs are living in Gran Canaria and because it goes against Zoner ideology to not be neutral.
EDIT: So basically you have to take into account other factors when considering diplomacy.
Thank you, Stolt, for being a voice of reason.
Nothing is black and white.
Quote:You have to understand that diplomacy is far more complicated then seeing who your friends and enemies are. There are multiple factors that go into considering a faction's diplomacy e.g. the faction's interests, their trading partners etc.
+1 to the above. Diplomacy isn't always as black and white as you think it may be.
@OP - Can you provide any specific examples of crazy/crappy diplomacy that you think need fixed? The craziest I could think of might be the Junkers (I'm not sure the whole Gallic-Sirian split is that clear-cut). I'm ignoring Zoners altogether...since they're not even one unified group.
Not sure what your talking about, but bounty rules forbid hring someone you would be hostile to due to prior actions, and also forbid hunting a faction unless your hostile to them. So African pirates wouldnt be allowed to hire the PMC's by disco ruels, as they should be hostile to them. However I do remember Reavers hunting Mollys, and then the Mollys hired the reavers, so maybe you do have some points there. But diplomacy shifts, so theres nothing to say the mollys couldnt have decided paying the reavers as better than fighting them.
Also to go on your gun lending theme, one time Bretonia and liberty had a tech exchange program, then bret and lib used the others tech against kusari/rhienland, and Rhienland DID get very angry with Bretonia. Its one of the factors that lead to the Omega war, as Rheinland placed an embargo on bowex buying their military vehicles. So it sounds like what you said should be happening, has.
i d suggest to take all the factions that are currently in use - put them in a spreadsheet
then link them to all the factions they are "hostile/kill on sight", "neutral" and "allied" to ( yes, lets keep only 3 states - unless you want to overcomplicate things )
disregard balance - just go by lore alone
then - look at the entire sheet - and check for balance.
when doing that - you should also write up why faction X is wahtever it is towards faction a, b, c, d etc.
once done ( i predict it to be a huge document ) - either submit it to the dev team or join up as story dev yourself if you have plenty of free time and love to be yelled at by certain community members.
and the above is quite serious. - if such a proposal was both - more logical and also balanced, there is no reason not to seriously consider it.
why is it not done every now and then? - cause its a freakin ton of work - and also - much of it is highly subjective. - imagine alliances cease ... that will affect the tech sharing - which will affect the players choices - ( most of all it might make existing RP obsolete ) - that will make players unhappy ... whowill turn on you ... accusing you for putting the final nail into disco
now - there is always a risk that you put hours after hours into a spreadsheet - which is simply not considered in the end - thats work done for NOTHING.
yea - happens a lot. - you have to agree to that if you wanne start deving.