Where Are My Ambassadors?

[tgb]

I started the non-historical campaign as Eastern Entente. On turn 3 (late August)I got the diplomatic tutorial, but when opening the menu at the bottom for diplo actions, there were no Ambassadors available.

Bug or am I missing something?

[freeboy]

go to the nations flags on the map.. click F11

[tgb]

F12. I did that, and have diplomatic decisions - but no ambassadors

[Gilmer]

Hmm, look at the little head silhouettes on the screen. Can you right click any of them to remove them?

[tgb]

I'll try, but I didn't place them.....nope, can't remove them. Tool tips say that they were placed by Western Entente and CP.

[Gilmer]

I don't know, then. I'm certainly no expert and did not participate in the beta.

[Ace1_slith]

Russia doesn't have ambassadors. It may sound weird, but personally I don't mind it. I guess they did it to avoid Entente sending 2 ambassadors to a country while CP could muster only 1. SO they left EE out of it. Overall, EE is modeled as a side little less important. For example, if CP throw out Britain and France out of war, it is game over. If Russia is thrown out, the game still goes on (as in history)

[tgb]

Thank you. I wish that had been documented somewhere.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: tgb

Thank you. I wish that had been documented somewhere.

See pg 79 in the manual:

Send Diplomat (Major/Minor): The Central Powers and Western Entente each have 1 Send Diplomat (Major) and 4 Send Diplomat (Minor) RGDs (all Entente diplomacy is handled by Western Entente).

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: Ace1

Russia doesn't have ambassadors. It may sound weird, but personally I don't mind it. I guess they did it to avoid Entente sending 2 ambassadors to a country while CP could muster only 1. SO they left EE out of it. Overall, EE is modeled as a side little less important. For example, if CP throw out Britain and France out of war, it is game over. If Russia is thrown out, the game still goes on (as in history)

Would have made more sense to disable Diplomacy on whichever Entente side the player is not playing.

[mariandavid]

Sense maybe but not historical. For all practical purposes only Britain and France had enough diplomatic 'weight' to achieve anything. Even Romania, sitting next to Russia, was affected by western diplomacy and paid little attention to Russia (which cost them their war since there were no spare Russian troops around to help when they finally decided to take on the CP!),

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

Sense maybe but not historical. For all practical purposes only Britain and France had enough diplomatic 'weight' to achieve anything. Even Romania, sitting next to Russia, was affected by western diplomacy and paid little attention to Russia (which cost them their war since there were no spare Russian troops around to help when they finally decided to take on the CP!),

Achieve anything for whom? Russia had it's own strategic aspirations and diplomatic goals - there was no universal strategy. Yes, each of the Entente nations shared the common goal of winning the war. But each had very different ideas about what victory would achieve.

Russia actually had significant diplomatic success early in the war. For example, despite the fact that Britain and France had both strenuously opposed the Russian goal of gaining access to the Bosporus and the Dardanelles throughout the 19th Century (even fighting the Crimean War over it), both agreed in the spring of 1915 to Russia's postwar acquisition of them, the city of Constantinople, and the adjacent littoral.

While those goals are difficult to translate into game terms, they illustrate that the goals of a Russian-focused diplomacy might look very different from a more western-focused one. For example, would Russia benefit most from the USA or Romania entering the war? From Belgium or Bulgaria remaining neutral? And who's to say Russia would not have had greater diplomatic success later in the war had they had better success on the battlefield?

If the decision was truly one of game design, then it's a poor one - removing options is never the best idea for gameplay. More likely it was made for coding reasons - too much work to do it right - and the explanation now is just rationalization. As it stands now, you can play the WE and kinda play the EE. Hard to argue that makes it a better game.

[Toro12]

Sorry, I have to agree with mariandavid. "What if" with Russian diplomacy really isn't an issue in historical context. That the Western Entente agreed to the Constantinople acquisition was only because they wanted the Russians to help open that front. But Russia had minimal world-wide influence in the period when dealing with the influence of other countries, and didn't push the little they had. Besides, diplomats cost money -- let the West spend it...

[vonRocko]

ORIGINAL: Queeg

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

Sense maybe but not historical. For all practical purposes only Britain and France had enough diplomatic 'weight' to achieve anything. Even Romania, sitting next to Russia, was affected by western diplomacy and paid little attention to Russia (which cost them their war since there were no spare Russian troops around to help when they finally decided to take on the CP!),

Achieve anything for whom? Russia had it's own strategic aspirations and diplomatic goals - there was no universal strategy. Yes, each of the Entente nations shared the common goal of winning the war. But each had very different ideas about what victory would achieve.

Russia actually had significant diplomatic success early in the war. For example, despite the fact that Britain and France had both strenuously opposed the Russian goal of gaining access to the Bosporus and the Dardanelles throughout the 19th Century (even fighting the Crimean War over it), both agreed in the spring of 1915 to Russia's postwar acquisition of them, the city of Constantinople, and the adjacent littoral.

While those goals are difficult to translate into game terms, they illustrate that the goals of a Russian-focused diplomacy might look very different from a more western-focused one. For example, would Russia benefit most from the USA or Romania entering the war? From Belgium or Bulgaria remaining neutral? And who's to say Russia would not have had greater diplomatic success later in the war had they had better success on the battlefield?

If the decision was truly one of game design, then it's a poor one - removing options is never the best idea for gameplay. More likely it was made for coding reasons - too much work to do it right - and the explanation now is just rationalization. As it stands now, you can play the WE and kinda play the EE. Hard to argue that makes it a better game.

Seems like a lot of shortcuts where made in this game. Shared resources, can't play the full war as entente,infantry units the same for all countries.
etc.

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: cassmj

Sorry, I have to agree with mariandavid. "What if" with Russian diplomacy really isn't an issue in historical context. That the Western Entente agreed to the Constantinople acquisition was only because they wanted the Russians to help open that front. But Russia had minimal world-wide influence in the period when dealing with the influence of other countries, and didn't push the little they had. Besides, diplomats cost money -- let the West spend it...

It's not so much a matter of giving Russia "what if" powers - it's more about letting the EE player make decisions that best reflect his own goals and, even more importantly, letting the human who bought the game be the one who gets to play it.

They could have adopted a system like WWIG where every major power has diplomats, but the numbers and abilities are adjusted to achieve historical balance. Instead they chose to limit the options for the Entente player. Having backed themselves into that corner, it would have made for a better game - the "fun" part of why we buy these things - for the human to get to participate in the decisions. Otherwise, the EE player is just playing a scripted game.

[sanderz]

the real issue is the designers were just to lazy to code the UI to let the player know what was going on

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: sanderz

the real issue is the designers were just to lazy to code the UI to let the player know what was going on

That's probably a too harsh, but I do think it was an issue of expediency more than stellar design choice (however much they protest to the contrary). I have a hard time imaging that someone who is designing a game - something where humans have fun by making decisions - would really think it was better to let the computer make all the decisions. Did they really think adding a great new diplomacy feature, complete with fancy map art, but then telling half the Entente players "You can't play" would make the game better?

[sanderz]

ORIGINAL: Queeg

ORIGINAL: sanderz

the real issue is the designers were just to lazy to code the UI to let the player know what was going on

That's probably a too harsh, but I do think it was an issue of expediency more than stellar design choice (however much they protest to the contrary). I have a hard time imaging that someone who is designing a game - something where humans have fun by making decisions - would really think it was better to let the computer make all the decisions. Did they really think adding a great new diplomacy feature, complete with fancy map art, but then telling half the Entente players "You can't play" would make the game better?

good points

my further point is that considering the huge amount of work and research they must have put in they mess up something that to me (who admittedly knows nothing about programming) looks comparatively minor - how much extra work would it have been to leave the diplomats there but with a tool-tip explaining you can't play them as Russia --- simples [:D]
- i really do think its a lack of thought rather than time

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Queeg

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

Sense maybe but not historical. For all practical purposes only Britain and France had enough diplomatic 'weight' to achieve anything. Even Romania, sitting next to Russia, was affected by western diplomacy and paid little attention to Russia (which cost them their war since there were no spare Russian troops around to help when they finally decided to take on the CP!),

Achieve anything for whom? Russia had it's own strategic aspirations and diplomatic goals - there was no universal strategy. Yes, each of the Entente nations shared the common goal of winning the war. But each had very different ideas about what victory would achieve.

Russia actually had significant diplomatic success early in the war. For example, despite the fact that Britain and France had both strenuously opposed the Russian goal of gaining access to the Bosporus and the Dardanelles throughout the 19th Century (even fighting the Crimean War over it), both agreed in the spring of 1915 to Russia's postwar acquisition of them, the city of Constantinople, and the adjacent littoral.

While those goals are difficult to translate into game terms, they illustrate that the goals of a Russian-focused diplomacy might look very different from a more western-focused one. For example, would Russia benefit most from the USA or Romania entering the war? From Belgium or Bulgaria remaining neutral? And who's to say Russia would not have had greater diplomatic success later in the war had they had better success on the battlefield?

If the decision was truly one of game design, then it's a poor one - removing options is never the best idea for gameplay. More likely it was made for coding reasons - too much work to do it right - and the explanation now is just rationalization. As it stands now, you can play the WE and kinda play the EE. Hard to argue that makes it a better game.

There is no reason, not a sensible one anyway, IMHO, that Russia can't have ambassadors. They did have them after all. And I agree, Romania/Bulgaria entering the war, or not, would be more a matter of Russian concern than the West's

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

Sense maybe but not historical. For all practical purposes only Britain and France had enough diplomatic 'weight' to achieve anything. Even Romania, sitting next to Russia, was affected by western diplomacy and paid little attention to Russia (which cost them their war since there were no spare Russian troops around to help when they finally decided to take on the CP!),

Romania was influenced by both French and Russian ambassadors. They were also influenced by the early success of the Brusilov Offensive.