Forming alliances in-game + seeing a list of alliances

[MightySheep]

this is the end of my reclaiming allies bases and taking all their mexes days... oh yeh... those days are already over for me

[manored]

* Shared victory means ending the game when only one alliance is left. If auto accept is turned off, every player is asked whether they want to end the game, when all enemies have been cleared.

For shared victory to work we would need something like a limit of how many players could win a game tough, else all games would end up on this :)

[Google_Frog]

Letting everyone else know about your alliance would take away all the fun of ffa. I think the alliance system should just be the ability to make your units not shoot at a certain player(s) and an ingame pm system. In a ffa 1 person has to win but temporary alliance are still be useful e.g. two people who start close together decide to expand in separate directions because fighting would only weaken them both.
In short a system to make your units uphold a verbal agreement so a stronger foe can be fought off together without attacking your allies units.

[manored]

Problem is that too much dependancy on diplomacy would make it a "who puts a knife in the others back first" game instead of a "who is smarter at econ and unit management" game :)

[Google_Frog]

Problem is that too much dependancy on diplomacy would make it a "who puts a knife in the others back first" game instead of a "who is smarter at econ and unit management" game :)

Isn't that the point of ffa.

[Forboding Angel]

Exactly!

Besides, it's fun!

[manored]

Problem is that too much dependancy on diplomacy would make it a "who puts a knife in the others back first" game instead of a "who is smarter at econ and unit management" game :)

Isn't that the point of ffa.

Ya but if that be the only thing mattering it wont be fun :)

[Forboding Angel]

in ota FFA's it was always a watch to see if your ally was going to stab you in the balls. It really is a lot of fun :)

[Google_Frog]

Problem is that too much dependancy on diplomacy would make it a "who puts a knife in the others back first" game instead of a "who is smarter at econ and unit management" game :)

Isn't that the point of ffa.

Ya but if that be the only thing mattering it wont be fun :)

In a 2 team game the aim of an attack is to make your opponent lose more than you do. In ffa the aim is to make your opponents attack each other kill them and reclaim when their weak. How could ffa ever not have backstabbing? So I think all that is needed is ingame pms and temporary cease fires to make ganging up on a strong player in a joint attack easier.

[manored]

YA, but in the future there might be diferent winning goals other than "destroy everthing", so it would be good to have a complete diplomacy system :)

[BlueTemplar]

FFA games is a great idea. But Melee games where you can choose your ally on-the-fly won't work. Why? Because of the time frame. You can't afford to lose time on complex diplomacy while you could use it to manage your troops and economy. It never worked in any RTS I played. On the other hand, diplomacy was (practically) always essential in winning TBS games I've played.

That's why I have an idea: Implement a "turn-based" option in spring. That's how it would essentially work:
Every N minutes, the game is paused. You can then discuss alliances. The game would be resumed after X minutes, or after Y if a large number of players voted for it. You would have the option to forbid players to give new orders to units during that phase. (to prevent endless order queuing instead of diplomacy - or it could also be a third "phase" of the game, when you could either discuss diplomacy, or give new orders)
You could also try playing huge maps on minimum speed setting.
Or combine both methods.

BTW, is save/load stable in multiplayer? It would really help if you knew you could pause the game, and resume it the next week...

[Google_Frog]

I've managed ingame diplomacy the only problem was that everyone else could see the chat. Also a system to draw lines with a certain player would be nice for splitting up territory.

[BlueTemplar]

Don't you already see only your allies' drawings?

[Google_Frog]

Don't you already see only your allies' drawings?

Yes but what if you want to backstab someone who is currently your ally with someone else and you wish to co-ordinate the attack?

[manored]

That's why I have an idea: Implement a "turn-based" option in spring. That's how it would essentially work:
Every N minutes, the game is paused. You can then discuss alliances. The game would be resumed after X minutes, or after Y if a large number of players voted for it. You would have the option to forbid players to give new orders to units during that phase. (to prevent endless order queuing instead of diplomacy - or it could also be a third "phase" of the game, when you could either discuss diplomacy, or give new orders)
You could also try playing huge maps on minimum speed setting.
Or combine both methods.

That idea sounds interesting, but I think most players wouldnt like so much time only in chatting :) Also continuing games later would be pretty much impossible if you play with like 10 randow players... I think that if we had diferent objectives other than killing everone, diplomacy would be simpler, but since thats always the objective you have to make sure that you will backstab everone winhout being ourself, and that in fact sounds like too much diplomacy for our fast-paced mods :)

[zwARREN69]

This sounds great, just allow host to enable/disable these, apparently, controversial features.

[CarRepairer]

Distinguish a ceasefire from an alliance.
Alliance = what we have now.
Ceasefire = in game agreement with your enemy that causes your units to not fire at eachother, that is all. No LOS, no info, no shared victory. Ceasefires can only be temporary or the game cannot end.

There's a thread in the lua section about this too. A ceasefire option in game would be nice (but should still be enabled by the host of a game before it begins).