[1.05b1] Blackmail event lacks common sense

[Malevolence]

Per the image, the blackmail event lacks common sense. Nothing about the regime profiles described in the game support the event as designed.

Supporting coercion is disciplined and shows obedience to customs, rules and laws (enforcement)?

How is blackmail rational, thoughtful, ethical, and creative (mind)?

The refusal shows faith and a belief in each other in a joint struggle (heart)?

Also, not paying does not result in war--as stated.



Device is Windows 10 Pro 64bit, version 2004 (v19041.421), Intel i7-1065G7 1.30Ghz, 16GB RAM. It is a Surface Pro 7, connected to 2560x1600 display monitor via USB-C. Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics.

For reference, Game Build v 1.05-beta1; Scenario Build 1.05-beta1; Last Game Build used 1.05-beta1; Scenario Version Number #53.

[EuchreJack]

Well, avoid war doesn't imply that today war will occur, any more than refusing to buy slaves doesn't immediately lead to war. It might happen next turn, or maybe later down the road. Or maybe relations are so high that ignoring this one attempt won't lead to war. Or maybe it would lead to war, but then I play a strategy card that makes them like me better, and they decide not to declare war.

The biggest problem, in my mind, is calling it a blackmail event. It should simply be called request tribute, or if done by a larger power, request protection money. Then it all makes sense.

I've never seen enforcement as "disciplined and shows obedience to customs, rules and laws". I've always seen it as the Obey The Thugs in Uniform. Paying protection money sounds very much like obeying what you're told to do. The Mind boost would be "better to pay and live that risk offending and dying", or "pay with renewable credits instead of more valuable dead bodies".

Heart totally seems like the Resist against all Odds.

The other problem is that sometimes the AI is just set to blackmail, even though the AI can't actually win a war of conquest. It should, in my opinion, generally only threaten violence where it is likely to draw blood, and never when it is likely to be destroyed.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Like many other diplomatic events, this one picks the 2nd profile affected based on the other regime's highest profile, apparently Enforcement here - when you choose options that involve closer relations with other regimes in decisions, that pushes your society towards being more like theirs. Heart's themes include communal pride and Mind's include engagement with foreign cultures, so I don't see any issue with rejecting tribute demands increasing the former and accepting them increasing the latter.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

Like many other diplomatic events, this one picks the 2nd profile affected based on the other regime's highest profile, apparently Enforcement here - when you choose options that involve closer relations with other regimes in decisions, that pushes your society towards being more like theirs. Heart's themes include communal pride and Mind's include engagement with foreign cultures, so I don't see any issue with rejecting tribute demands increasing the former and accepting them increasing the latter.

Maybe so, but it makes no rational sense in terms of outright coercion. Like any story, the event must stand on its own merits to be convincing. The intent does not matter.

If you want to change another nation's reasoning you use different forms of propaganda (i.e. influence operations). Cultural exchange would be more reasoned.

It's another game example of mixing variables in a poorly assumptive way.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: EuchreJack

I've never seen enforcement as "disciplined and shows obedience to customs, rules and laws". I've always seen it as the Obey The Thugs in Uniform. Paying protection money sounds very much like obeying what you're told to do. The Mind boost would be "better to pay and live that risk offending and dying", or "pay with renewable credits instead of more valuable dead bodies".

Heart totally seems like the Resist against all Odds.

In terms of this game, the meaning of the regime profiles are defined in the manual and repeated here in the forum. How they mean to us does not matter. What actually matters is the orthogonality of the game's rules (i.e. its world's physics).

Very little of this game conveys meaning the way I understand it or would make it myself.

Put another way, the OP illustrates a sloppiness.