Temporary alliances

[sacredceltic]

Instead of setting alliances once and for all at the beginning of a game, it should be possible to set up alliances during the game, by proposing an alliance to other players, including AI.
That would allow for strategic changes during the game, because it might be advisable to set up an alliance to eliminate a common enemy.
It should also be possible to betray alliances during the game. In that case, other players would be informed that a player has betrayed an alliance so they may choose to punish him by setting up a new alliance against him/her, or to reject further alliances that this player may subsequently propose.
AI players should be capable of assessing the potential powers of their enemies and to compute potential alliances to balance their possible weakness, in order to propose or accept alliances.

[Astoria]

This can already be done with WML. IIRC, this actually has been done before, and I believe there's an era like this on the server. (correct me if I'm wrong)

[zookeeper]

Yeah, there's a "Diplomacy Era" but only for 1.8.

[sacredceltic]

I was thinking of a generic feature, not specific to an era or a version...

[JaMiT]

I was thinking of a generic feature, not specific to an era or a version...

Since this would be a generic feature, it would apply in all games. So you would allow Konrad to betray the elves and ally with the orcs (in Heir to the Throne)?

Probably more in line with what you want is a multiplayer modification (not available in 1.10). It would still be user-made content, but once downloaded, it would be an option for all multiplayer games.

[sacredceltic]

@JaMIT

Of course, that doesn't concern campaigns, since these are based on fixed scenarios and alliances are part of their plots. I was thinking of a generic feature for multiplayer games. I think the ability to switch alliances would introduce a completely renewed perspective and make the game much more interesting.

[Doomchicken]

I think this'd be a really cool feature, so I fully support it.

[iceiceice]

If you think this, you can use the add-on as bumbadadabum suggested. But of course it should still be possible to play without this.

[JaMiT]

Of course, that doesn't concern campaigns, since [...]

You say "of course", but many people are too myopic to remember that the game supports both campaigns and scenarios. Nowhere did you indicate you had even considered this, and it is a vary significant factor. Consider this: the difference between campaigns and scenarios lies in what happens before and after playing -- while the map is shown, there is no difference. When would your proposal be effective? While the map is shown. When the game does not differentiate between scenarios and campaigns.

But this (not affecting campaigns) is good for your idea. It should be simpler to implement this via a multiplayer modification than trying to make it a core feature of the game. One big plus is that multiplayer modifications are only available in multiplayer (not sure about multiplayer campaigns, though), so the separation from single-player campaigns is automatic.

Flesh out the specifics of what options are available and how the AI should react to this diplomacy, and someone could probably whip up a diplomacy modification for you in a matter of hours. (Whether or not that "someone" is me would depend on how interesting I find the final write-up.)

[Doomchicken]

Consider this: the difference between campaigns and scenarios lies in what happens before and after playing -- while the map is shown, there is no difference.

Well, in campaigns you can quite often get events.

[sacredceltic]

> Flesh out the specifics of what options are available

The idea would be that at each turn, every player should be able to propose an alliance to any number of other players, who in turn, would have the possibility to accept or reject the different proposals (there might be a number of them at the same time...)
IA players should be able to assess the opportunity to propose or accept an alliance according to the power (in terms of number of villages/troops) of the proposed ally(-ies) and their strategic positions (for instance, it is interesting to set up an alliance with a player that lies just on the rears of your next opponent...)
I'm not aware of if and how IA players assess their own power and relative position against those of other players. I can imagine other factors might be considered as well in this assessment...
For instance, I think IA players should not accept an alliance with less powerful players that are their immediate neighbours (it's better to crush them...) except if another immediate neighbour and common enemy is much more powerful, so rallying weaker players against him then makes sense...
Otherwise, they should propose or accept any alliance.
At each turn, it would also be possible to breach alliances.
At each turn, IA players would re-assess each alliance, and would randomly choose to breach or go on with those that don't make sense anymore according to the opportunity assessment rules...Maybe the random factor for breaching existing "non sensible" alliances could be a parameter, in order to make IA players more or less unpredictable in the diplomacy, for further excitement...
I imagine a list of alliances (ie, a list of players engaged or wishing to engage in an alliance with the current player), with a status (active/proposed by them/proposed by me/breached), from where it would be possible to activate "proposed by them" alliances after reviewing them, and breach active ones at wish.
Whenever a player would breach an alliance, other players would be informed and/or he/she would be tagged as "untrustful" (for instance, their troops could wear a specific sign that identifies them as "traitors") so they can be subsequently more easily identified as targets for retaliation against their "bad behaviour"...
While an alliance is active, it is of course impossible to attack the ally, but it becomes again possible on the next turn after the breaching (or maybe this could also be a parameter, so that it could be set to 2 or 3 turns in order to give former allies more time to anticipate the new situation)
I think it would be more interesting to let 2 allies of a third player be opponents, so player A can be allied with players B and C, while B and C are still at war with each other. I also think this is simpler to manage since other alliances don't have to be taken into account in the acceptance or breaching assessment process. An alliance is a one-to-one business, except that the assessment might take into account the added power and global strategic position of the entire group of allies...I'm not sure about that one...

[Doomchicken]

Perhaps a power assessment should factor in 25% of the player's allies, unless they're allied to the assessor already.

[lipk]

The main (technical) problem is that Wesnoth can't interact with players in any way if it's not their turn. So, at best, one player could schedule proposals at his/her turn and the other one could accept/deny when it comes to his/her turn.

By the way, I wouldn't burn too much neurons thinking about AI behavior. MP is about playing against humans.

[sacredceltic]

> The main (technical) problem is that Wesnoth can't interact with players in any way if it's not their turn. So, at best, one player could schedule proposals at his/her turn and the other one could accept/deny when it comes to his/her turn.

That's the idea...

>MP is about playing against humans.

No it's not. I'm playing all the time in Multiplayer mode against AI players, and it's fun but could be even funnier with alliances...

[JaMiT]

Consider this: the difference between campaigns and scenarios lies in what happens before and after playing -- while the map is shown, there is no difference.

Well, in campaigns you can quite often get events.

Well, in scenarios you can quite often get events. It depends on what the author wrote.

(Just as a rough comparison, in 1.11, scenario 1 of the HttT campaign has 16 [event] tags. The multiplayer scenario Dark Forecast has 15.)