Quantum Physics - easier to learn than Diplocacy

[MemoryLeak]

Could you have made Diplomacy any more complicated if you tried??? I doubt it. I was excited about buying the game but I hate to purchase a war game if I know in advance there is a section of it that I won't be able to use. I have read the manual and I can't comprehend even a fraction of the Diplomacy module. Has anyone translated that section yet into human-speak? If yes, where is it located.

[Joram]

Actually diplomacy is quite basic. So basic you could probably ignore it for the whole game and be none the wiser. On the diplomacy screen, the number on the left is the amount of DPs you need to influence it. Coups seem to be some extra percentage on top of that but haven't figured out the formula but regardless, mouse over the coup button tells you how many you need.

[Anraz]

ORIGINAL: MemoryLeak
Could you have made Diplomacy any more complicated if you tried??? I doubt it. I was excited about buying the game but I hate to purchase a war game if I know in advance there is a section of it that I won't be able to use. I have read the manual and I can't comprehend even a fraction of the Diplomacy module. Has anyone translated that section yet into human-speak? If yes, where is it located.

I'm sorry we failed to make this section of manful enough intelligible. Should you have ANY questions regrading diplomacy just ask and we, developers, or I hope other players or beta testers, will try to help.

[Chocolino]

I will give it a try but only go over the features that I actually use, other players can add and correct me:

Every country has a political alignment, either

- Member of one of the 3 big alliances
- Leaning toward one of the 3 big alliances (but not member yet, neutral in respect to war)
- completely neutral

The degree of "leaning" towards an alliance is measured by a value between 0-100 and is shown as second number on the diplo screen.

Each country has its own price to be influenced (called political resistance). The same diplomatic action can be more or less expensive depending on this value of a country. The diplomatic screen lists the political resistance of each country as the first value.

The cost of the diplomatic action is paid by DPs (Diplomatic Points). You can get DPs over time or via special events. You cannot buy them.

This "leaning towards" is important for a declaration of war:

You can only declare war on countries that are not in your alliance (obvious) and not leaning toward your alliance (not so obvious).

Countries in an alliance remain there forever.

All other countries can be persuaded by diplomacy to either join yours or you can dissuade them to join another alliance.

By "Exert Pressure" you motivate them to move closer (go closer to 100) if they are already aligned towards you. If they are already leaning towards a different alliance you dissuade them (move them towards zero)

Here I am not so sure: I think "Coup d'Etat" is used to change a countries alignment direction (e.g. from pro-axis to pro-allies). Only if this is achieved you can further pressure them towards you. Otherwise, pressure will only get them to zero in respect to the original alliance.

[MemoryLeak]

Chocolino,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I did read the manual but the relationships make absolutely no sense to me. It makes me tired trying to figure out some of these games.

[Mike Parker]

There is also 'Hold Parlimentary Elections' or something close to that.  It only works for the country your controlling.  I.E. you cannot as Germany use DP to force anyone other than Germany to hold these elections.  I do not know if it even works for Germany, but it takes countries that are for example 'Firm-Democracy' like the US and makes them Pro-Allied for example.  You can only do this ONE time a game too.  But other than that I think Chocolino pretty well covered everything.

[willgamer]

This may not be clinically accurate, but emotionally speaking:

My problem with the way diplomacy works is that it is glacially slow to accumulate points that are spent about 1/game on an event that is 50/50 for something or other- BFD!

Thanks for listening... [:D]

[jack54]

I agree totally that the dp's are too slow in coming,against the AI I've tried hitting f11 and adding a bunch more dp's just to have some sort of diplomacy,but it feels like cheating to me.


It's not a bad way to learn how the diplomacy system works though.

[borsook79]

ORIGINAL: Anraz

ORIGINAL: MemoryLeak
Could you have made Diplomacy any more complicated if you tried??? I doubt it. I was excited about buying the game but I hate to purchase a war game if I know in advance there is a section of it that I won't be able to use. I have read the manual and I can't comprehend even a fraction of the Diplomacy module. Has anyone translated that section yet into human-speak? If yes, where is it located.

I'm sorry we failed to make this section of manful enough intelligible. Should you have ANY questions regrading diplomacy just ask and we, developers, or I hope other players or beta testers, will try to help.

It would be much better if not for the errors in charts in the manual, I listed them in the thread about the manual...

[Tomokatu]

MemoryLeak confessed:-

It makes me tired trying to figure out some of these games.

  It may help you if you hover your pointer over each of the greyed out buttons on the Diplomacy screen after you've selected the country. You'll be told WHY that particular button is greyed out.
 
Sorry, can't help with getting DPs any faster but I THINK you get more if you win battles and/or take cities.[&:]

[MemoryLeak]

One other thing along the same lines...if I buy this game am I going to be hamstrung when it comes to declaring war on a nation? I only read through that section of the manual once but I got the impression declaring war was restrictive and perhaps plagued with obstacles.

[Tomokatu]

War is automatic if that country joins an alliance that you're already at war with.
You cannot declare war on a country that shares your leanings (The USA cannot declare war on the UK or Turkey, for example).
Other than that, you need DPs.
Look for the "Declare War" button for that country on the Diplomacy screen and hover the mouse pointer and you'll be told just how many you'll need.
My first impressions (and I'm only on my second game!!!) is that you need about double what you need for "Exert Influence"

[MemoryLeak]

What troubles me is that Diplomacy is the largest single section of the manual and I can't make heads or tails out of it. I'm not new at wargaming but this is convoluted. I hope someone can eventually put something together that makes sense and is a little easier to grasp.

However, I guess it is time to stop complaining and either buy it or wait for different game to come along. I like SC2 WAW and Pacific Theater but I dislike the squares instead of having hexes. Makes it real hard to form a combat line.