Monday, March 30, 2009

WinWar II 5.0 Diplomacy


I've completed the Diplomacy system for WinWar II 5.0. Each Nation in the game has a Stance against each other Nation in the game, even Minor Powers to Minor Powers. Actions that occur in the game can impact the Stances of Nations toward one another. Stances can more directly be affected by executing a Diplomatic Action.

Each Major Power can take a Diplomatic Action when it's available. After an Action is taken, another Action isn't possible until an internal counter counts back down to zero. The length of time between Actions is determined by the last Action taken (some are more costly than others), the Political Strength of the Nation's Head of State, and a randomizer.

Below are the Diploamtic Actions available in WinWar II 5.0:

Conduct Summit - If successful the Stance of the target Nation is improved. There is a small chance that the Summit will backfire, reducing Stance. This chance is based roughly on the current Stance between the two Nations, the lower the Stance the greater that chance that the Summit will backfire. Note - if you raise the Stance of a Minor Power to 100, that Nation comes under your control!

Denounce - Available only to Nations that are not flagged as "Imperial". This reduces the Stance between your Nation and the target Nation, and also impact the Stances of other Nations friendly to you toward the Target. A non-Imperial Major Power can only attack another Nation when they are At War (Stance = -100) so Denounce will be an important the Allied Powers.

Declare War - Imperial Powers will have a Declare War Diplomatic Action instead of Denounce. An Imperial Power could Declare War automatically by just invading a Nation, but they might want to issue this Action if they want to attack an enemy navy without having to invade a Land Zone.

Exert Pressure - If the target Nation succumbs to the pressure, it comes under your control immediately. If not, the Stance between the two Nations suffers. The Action has a greater chance of success if forces are massed along the target's border.

Incite Coup - If successful, a new Government is formed in the target Nation, having a set of roughly opposing stances, with some randomization involved here.

Another nuance of the Diplomatic System: taking hostile Diplomatic Actions has the effect of making the target Nation's neighbors nervous, and reducing your Stance with them. Also, Diplomatic Stances are dynamic, and can shift during the game spontaneously, sometimes with interesting results. For example, in one game, early on, Spain spontaneously allied with the UK. That would surely shake up the strategies in the early phases of play!

A scolling ticker informs you of various events on the bottom of the screen, allowing you to keep up to date without providing too much of a distraction. Game event history is also available in a dedicated window if desired.

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