Religion, Culture, Politics... and War

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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So, age of empires IV is primarily a game about war.

However, so much is missed. Religion, culture and politics are great games that could be woven into war. However for the aformentioned to thrive, there needs to be periods of peace, just like there was in real human history. Nonstop aggression is NOT conducive to any of the above.

In order for this to be a thing, the game needs an extra political state. We have friend, and we have foe, but we also need neutral. And we need an AI that can start in a neutral state to other players, and then make demands.

Here are a list of political events that could be made

  1. We demand a summit. The AI marks a spot on the map after meeting you, and DEMANDS that you send a delegate to that location. The AI sends their own delegate unit. Delegates are low cost to train (25 food) and once sent to the summit location, delegates enable negotiations. If a delegate is NOT sent to the summit location, the AI declares war. Once delegates have entered a summit, they leave the players control and food count, and cannot move. (although you can build walls around them)

  2. Sue for peace. The AI has a continuously listed price. Every time you kill one of the AIs units, this gold price goes up. If you pay, the ai goes neutral, and immediately demands a summit. If you kill any of the AI units during the truce, the pay price is reinstated, but the gold is not returned.

  3. Tentative alliance. While a summit is active, a player and an ai, an ai and an ai, or a player and a player may enter a tentative alliance. under a tentative alliance, players cannot attack the other player without breaking the tentative alliance in the politics dialogue first. Breaking a tentative alliance gives a permanent increase in the cost to sue for peace with ANY player. The AI will not break a tentative alliance unless another player or ai invites it to a unified victory alliance, or the player fails a tribute mission. The AI in a tentative alliance will not initiate a unified victory alliance if it has two or more active tentative alliances.

  4. Broken summit. If a summit is attacked and either diplomat is killed, it triggers war between the two players, and neither player can sue for peace for 3 minutes. This creates a situation where a third party player can target summits in order to sow political chaos and war.

  5. Unified victory alliance. Players can sign a unified victory alliance for 30 minutes. During this time, if one player meets victory conditions and wins, the other player wins with them. During a unified victory alliance, players may not break their alliance (although if the summit is attacked and destroyed, that will still break the alliance and trigger war.) Entering a unified victory alliance breaks all tentative alliances with other players, and triggers war with them.

  6. Demand peace. the AI will demand other AIs to sue for peace once they owe it more than 1,000 gold. If the other AI has the gold, they will always settle. If they do not, they will reject the suit for peace. Players may demand peace, but the ai will never settle with a player. Players may sue for peace and give the ai gold as outlined in (2) suit for peace.

  7. Demand for tribute. In a tentative alliance, the AI can demand resources. They will send a demand tribute mission. Once sent, the player has 5 minutes to fulfill the tribute mission. Players can send demand tribute missions to the AI as well, (which may or may not) pay. If a tribute mission is failed, the player can declare war without increasing the cost to sue for peace, and the AI has 35% chance to immediately declare war.

Now that we have politics, we can have religion! We can send our religious units into the territory of players we have tentatively allied with. Religious units can do several things! They can gather tithes, they can spread influence, and they can have cultural effects.

Religious units get a new ability

  1. Spread faith. The religious unit targets a unit that they are tentatively allied with, and puts them under a religious buff. If the owner of that unit declares war on the owner of the religious uinit that placed the buff, that unit will be immediately converted to the player who placed the buff. However, if the player who placed the buff declares war, the unit will not be converted. If the summit is destroyed, the unit that has the buff on it will be converted. The buff lasts 60 seconds, and the religious unit can place one buff every 3 seconds, with a range of 6 tiles.

  2. gather tithes. The religious unit gathers the tithes of the faithful, and preaches sermons. They setup a podium that spreads faith, and every time they spread faith, they generate 1 gold for their owner. A religious unit can generate up to 20 gold per minute with this technique.

Now that we have politics and religion, we can have a cultural effect. When more than 25% of an AI players units are under the effect of your religion, the ai will not ignore demand tribute missions. :slight_smile:

Anyways, thanks for my ted talk on how to turn age of empires 4 into a grand strategy game that would be far more interesting and allow for politics and intrigue. Oh, and lets not forget… since people who kill diplomats are usually assassins… we could totally justify getting assassin units :smiley:

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Some of the ideas are interesting or kind of cool, but if the AI is losing, you have to pay it gold to make it declare peace? Why is there no option for “Demand vassalization” where you can force other players to surrender to you and pay you regular tribute or rebel? Other ideas could be adding extra stuff to treaties, so that when delegates meet, the players draw up a treaty, where each one puts stuff on the table, like settlement costs, units that will change hands, duration of peace, research pacts, mutual defense agreements etc, and then all players agree to it. Just some more ideas.

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This is not a grand strategy game.

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That is YOUR opinion. There are plenty of people who want grand strategy, and while age of empires 2 was a true rts, this engine does everything better, and politics could be added as an option to toggle on and off at will.

Adding politics to the game that can be toggled at the match start will not harm your game play. If you play with others online, it might even bring in other players who might be inclined to play your version without politics. And if you play single player, this opens the doors to new and interesting missions.

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There are other games for that not this game.Knights of honor would be the game for such people.