Contents:

I. Assumptions

II. Diplomacy System Options
1) Interior
2) Foreign

III. Option Descriptions
1) Counterintelligence
2) Internal Operations
3) Create Civ
4) Tariffs
5) Treaties
6) Threats & Protests
7) Spying
8) Contact Methodology
9) Voluntary Disclosure

IV. State Relations

V. Era Limitations

VI. Government-Type Limitations

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I. Assumptions:

1) Diplomacy System Options will be affected primarily by the status of State Relations (as defined in section IV). Another important factor is Era. (Probably determined more by research advancements than a pre-determined year. I haven't seen this discussed yet, but I assume we'll do it.) Within each era, the range of available options will be further affected by the Government Type. Government types are determined by Hrafnkell's government model. The Diplomacy model assumes three eras: Ancient, Medieval, Modern.

2) Clash will not use individual "Spy" or "Diplomat" units. The Diplomacy model depends upon the existence of what I'll call "The Chancellery". The chancellery is a government organization, and contains two primary components. A "Foreign Office" and an "Interior Ministry". A sub-component of the Foreign ministry is "Intelligence". One could also look at the chancellery as the entire government and include ministers representing each of the key models: Economy, Military, Social, & Science. (But that's beyond the scope of this discussion!)

3) Effectiveness of these organizations will be DIRECTLY RELATED to budgetary expenditure. A civ which devotes extensive resources to it's Chancellery can expect benefits to accrue in a wide number of areas. The model will allow the player to divide expenditures between the two ministries as he sees fit.

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II. Diplomacy System Options:

1) Interior = Counterintelligence, Internal Operations, Create Civ

2) Foreign = Tariffs on Trade, Treaties, Threats & Protests, Spying, Contact Methodology, Voluntary Disclosure

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III. Option Descriptions:

1) Counterintelligence: Activities directed against foreign operatives within the boundaries of your civ. On an increasing scale of awareness, here's what you can learn and do:

a) Is your civilization an intelligence target?
b) Which countries are responsible?
c) What are they trying to learn?
d) Has one of your characters been bribed?
The first two are very general levels of knowledge. The second two are specific enough that you can take actions of your own:
e) Issue a Protest.
f) Feed false information.

2) Internal Operations: These involve intelligence activities directed toward your own people.

a) Determine Happiness Levels: Clicking a button to determine exact happiness levels is not realistic. Using agents to see what people really think is the usual procedure.
b) Riot Prediction: Solid information on happiness. Ability to predict where riots will start, allowing you to appease the populace or squelch them with the military.
c) New Religion Identification. The earlier you learn that one has either sprung up inside your borders or spread from someplace else, the more options you have in dealing with it. Those specifics are contained in the Social Model.
d) Disseminate Propaganda: Ranges from crude hate mongering to sophisticated "spin doctoring".
e) Characters: Spy on your characters to determine their true capabilities and allegiance.

3) Create a new Civ: As described in Mark's Model

Civilizations with sufficient power in a controlled area can unilaterally create another civ. The created civ has whatever properties the creating civ desires. However, if the foundation of this state is unrealistic it will quickly change radically from the form in which it was created.

4) Tariffs on Trade: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

The player has control over taxes on trade, and can essentially move trade from a free-trade basis to a trade embargo by changing tariffs. In my opinion in would be way too messy to let the player handle tariff levels for every special commodity with every civ. So instead, I propose to let the player just raise or lower the overall tariff level with respect to each other civ. Trade status in the economic model would simply be handled by adding a number to the average tariffs between 0% and, say, 999% to get the tariffs for a given commodity with respect to a particular country. A quick example. I have instituted tariffs of 20% on steel, and 50% on textiles. So a most-favored nation (a + 0% modifier) would get these same numbers. A country I'm having a trade war with (+ 50% modifier) would suffer tariffs of 70% on steel, and 100% on textiles. (Edited 6/16 Note: Non-penalty trade & tariff adjustments are handled in the Economic Model, thus the ability to have different tariffs for each commodity.)

5) Treaties: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

a) Treaty Description - Treaties can be formed between any number of states. To keep things simple, treaties that involve more than two states must handle all members of the treaty on equal footing. So, for instance, five civs can participate equally in a mutual-defense pact against another civ, or another alliance. Three civs could participate in a most-favored-nation trade pact. Each treaty can include an unlimited number of clauses (drawn from an as-yet-to-be-determined list).

b) Treaty components (possible clauses) include:
1. Change of basic diplomatic status (peace, war, cold-war etc. A change in status that makes the diplomatic state between two parties more hostile can be undertaken by either party if they have the internal power within their civ to do so. A change in status that is less hostile requires agreement of all parties.) The diplomatic state can be collateralized
2. Cash (either in lump-sum or in an installment plan) or loans
3. Territory transfer (either now, or at some future date)
4. Technology (although, as discussed in the tech model, trade of a technology does not necessarily result in the acquiring civ immediately having that technology available.)
5. Ceding control of military units (usually temporary)
6. Trade status (from most-favored-nation up to embargo)
7. Internal matters, such as treatment of religious or ethnic minorities (this one will be tough)
8. Demilitarized zones
9. Arms reduction treaty elements (FE: "My army will grow to at most 20% more powerful than yours.")
10. Dynastic Marriage (Added 6/16)

c) Treaty Duration - Treaties do not last forever in the real world, nor should they in Clash. The following rules will govern treaty duration. (Added 6/16 - Thanks for reminding me about this, Harun!)

1. Treaties always come up for review whenever there's a change in government type.
2. Non-representative governments experience a "treaty review" every "X" number of turns.
This periodic review represents "Ruler Lifespan", historically the biggest factor behind changes in diplomatic status.(Note: The determining factor for "X" should be entertaining game play, not realism.)
3. A variety of factors will be used to determine the result of the treaty review process. A treaty could be extended, canceled, downgraded, or upgraded. One mechanism would be to "weigh" the interactions between the two states during the life of the treaty. Negative factors would include spying, threats, and protests. Positive factors would be gifts, military aid, similar culture & religion, etc.
4. Surpassing an as-yet-undetermined level of Negative or Positive "points" will cause a treaty to automatically come up for review.
5. Unilateral cancellations are always an option, but carry their own set of risks such as reputation "hits", risking other treaty relationships, etc.

6) Threats & Protests: As described in Mark's Model (with some mods)

Threats in Clash need to be every bit as nuanced as treaties. The player should be able to make a threat using all the components above. Protests are similar to Threats, except they are based upon actions which the other civ has taken against you. Subjects for Protest include: Treaty violations, military provocations, and Intelligence activities.

7) Spying: Intelligence operations aimed at other civs. There are two types, passive and overt. As a general rule, each civ expects the others to conduct passive spying, so there's little downside. Overt acts carry more severe penalties should one be caught. Penalties include reputation loss (of varying severity), change in treaty status, even internal unrest.

a) Passive:
- Society Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Social Model)
- Government Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Governance Model)
- Economic Details (Potentially all info contained in another civs Economic Model)
- Military Details (Awareness, but NOT theft, of another civs Military unit info)
- Research Details (Awareness, but NOT theft, of another civs Research Model info)
b) Overt:
- Theft of non-Military Research info
- Theft of Military Research info (harder and more dangerous)
- Bribery of Cities (Added 6/16)
- Bribery of Units/Armies (Added 6/16)
- Bribery of Characters (risky)
- Assassination (VERY risky)
- Moles (Intelligence Agency penetration)

8) Contact Methodology: Civilizations cannot perform any diplomatic activity unless and until they achieve contact. Until such time as permanent embassies are allowed, each government contact will require the dispatch of an official representative.

a) Emissaries: Permanent embassies are a fairly recent phenomenon (since @1700 AD). Until that time, governments dispatched personal representatives who would visit the court of the foreign ruler and present gifts, demands, treaty options, etc. The clash diplomacy system will rely heavily upon this mechanism until modern times, with an obvious impact on the quality and timeliness of the information it produces. As a ruler, you must make extensive use of emissaries in order to have any idea what is going on around you, and that will cost $$.

b) Embassies: Physical structures located in the capital city of an opposing civ. Requires $$ to open and maintain. Existence of an embassy provides automatic low level intel on happenings in enemy capital (attitudes, troop movements there, anything you could glean from a newspaper)

c) Consulates: Physical structures located in the provinces of an opposing civ. Requires $$ to open and maintain. Requires approval of civ to open these. Usually a sign of good relations. Improves reliability and quantity of low level intel.

9) Voluntary Disclosure: The same information which intelligence seeks to obtain illegally will have to be provided voluntarily by the partners in every State Relationship beginning with Peace. The level of disclosure should not be subject to negotiation, but rather be treated as an integral part of the treaty. More details are required, but here's an example of military disclosure based on treaty relations (see section IV).

a) Peace: I know exactly how many units he has and vice versa, but no details.
b) Co-Agression: Same as above. If we are at war with the same enemy, we share unit info on those which are in the "War Zone" with that enemy. This zone could be defined as "X" number of hexes from the "front".
c) Cooperation: We share numbers and locations and generic types. Also sharing of "War Zone" unit info (as defined above)
d) Defensive Alliance: Same as Cooperation but includes detailed unit specs for those stationed on a mutual border. (ie between the allies).
e) Offensive Alliance: I have complete details on his military and he on mine, except injury and preparedness data.
f) Same Ruler: I know everything about his military, he just gets total numbers on mine.

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IV. State Relations (More detail to be included later)

Here's a sample list of diplomatic states available between civs. These are not necessarily well thought out. The values associated with each name are modifiers on a -10 to +10 scale that Mark has used in the existing code on the diplomatic system. The numbers generally indicate the "strength" of the relationship between the powers.

Diplomatic State Constants

Vendetta = -10; State Seeks To Annihilate Opponent, And Its People
Total War = -9; Seeks To Destroy Opposing State, But Not People
War = -7;
Limited War = -5; War Whose Aims Are Restricted In Some Way
Cease Fire = -3;
Cold War = -2;
Contact = -1;
Peace = 0;
Co-Agression = 1; States Cooperate To Attack A Third, But With No Other Alliance
Cooperation = 2; A Deep, Peaceful Relationship, With A Long History
Def Alliance = 4; Defensive Alliance
Off Alliance = 8; Very Strong Offensive/Defensive Alliance
Same Ruler = 10; Case Where One Civ Is Completely Ruled By Another

Any diplomatic state that is agreed-upon between two or more parties can be collateralized for any mutually-agreed-upon period of time. For instance, a peace treaty between states might be guaranteed by both to the tune of 1000C over a period of the next 20 turns. Any party that unilaterally breaks the peace gives up the collateral. Whether the collateral becomes the possession of the offended party, or simply disappears is also determined in negotiations. Collateralization is meant to symbolize things like hostage-holding, marriage alliances, and other ways to guarantee treaties where the game does not have sufficient depth to include the particular factor. I think collateral could become standard for treaties, since it ensures that each party will take the treaty seriously. This feature seems to work better in the ancient and medieval world, than in the modern. We'll have to address it as a play balance and realism issue at some point.

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V. Era Limitations (Much more detail needs to be added)

Ancient Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from emissaries, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is limited, and overt acts are restricted to bribery and assasination. Treaties are based upon marriages and hostages.

Medieval Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from emissaries, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is "medium". All overt actions are available except moles. Treaties continue to be based upon marriages and hostages.

Modern Era Synopsis: Intelligence info comes from embassies, consulates, spies, traders, and armies in the field. Passive info is unlimited. All overt actions are available. Treaties are based upon modern factors

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VI. Government-Type Limitations (Much more detail needs to be added)

Monarchy-type Govt Synopsis: Most options are available since reputation is less of a concern. More susceptible to bribery. Not a "trusted" form of government, so higher level treaties aren't available.

Representative Govt Synopsis: Certain actions are very dangerous for a representative government to undertake, since failure could cause the government to collapse. "Home" territory transfers are not an option. Vendetta is not an option.
 

 
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