Let's walk through what it would look like if we didn't have the AIX values and only had Tension.
The
Asari and the
Krogans have made first contact. At first contact we roll d100 and get a starting Tension of 32.
Turn 1:
The Asari roll 5 for diplomatic shift. Tension increases by 1.
The Krogan roll 2 for diplomatic shift. Tension increases by 10 and a hostilities check is required.
Tension is now 43. The Krogan hostilities check is an 81, which is a failure. It would have had to be less than or equal to Tension to have triggered a declaration or breaking attempt.
Tension increased this turn, so it doesn't get a natural reduction.
Turn 2:
The Asari roll 7 for diplomatic shift. Tension unchanged.
The Krogan roll 10 for diplomatic shift. Tension is reduced by 1.
Tension is now 42. Tension did not increase this turn, so it decreases 1 point to 41.
The old rules had an "At a Crossroads" critical shift that the current system lacks. If there was ever a desire to try putting that back in, it could be at the "7" result on the diplomatic shift. At that point you might have to roll against Tension to see what the NPE thinks about the situation. I wouldn't have a treaty offer or declaration/breaking attempt tied to this, but possibly a significant Tension shift?
Turn 3:
The Asari roll 8 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
The Krogan roll 5 for diplomatic shift. Tension is increased by 1.
Tension is now 42.
Turn 4:
The Asari roll 7 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
The Krogan roll 3 for diplomatic shift. +5 Tension.
Tension is now 47.
Turn 5:
The Asari roll 5 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 9 for diplomatic shift. -1 Tension.
Tension remains at 47.
Turn 6:
The Asari roll 4 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 8 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
Tension is now 48.
Turn 7:
The Asari roll 5 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 8 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
Tension is now 49.
Turn 8:
The Asari roll 5 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 3 for diplomatic shift. +5 Tension.
Tension is now 55.
Turn 9:
The Asari roll 8 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
The Krogan roll 9 for diplomatic shift. -1 Tension.
Tension did not rise, so it drops by an additional 1. Tension is now 53.
This does show an issue with the "Tension did not rise" rule. The At a Crossroads might be a better way to handle this after all, as then you just can have natural shifts one way or another over time.
Turn 10:
The Asari roll 9 for diplomatic shift. -1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 4 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
Tension is still 53.
Turn 11:
The Asari roll 10 for diplomatic shift. -1 Tension.
The Krogan roll 5 for diplomatic shift. +1 Tension.
Tension is still 53.
There is a good argument for there to be a change in Tension lost/gained at each breakpoint. Right now it goes 1/1/5/10. It might make more sense to go 1/2/5/10 to show an escalation.
Turn 12:
The Asari roll 7 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
The Krogan roll 8 for diplomatic shift. No effect.
Tension drops to 52.
# # #
That was a year of diplomacy between two NPEs. Neither one of them rolled a treaty offer, and only the Krogans needed to make a hostilities check. This reduces the number of rolls per turn to one per NPE per relationship, which is far less than what the 1E rules had. There we had about a 5% chance per turn of offering/declaring in many circumstances. This 1/36 is decidedly worse odds for either one, but it makes it less likely that an alien is going to spam offers/declarations.
This is a good argument for "At a Crossroads" to come back, to make it much more likely that you'll have some decisive diplomacy between the two empires. For example, with the Asari "7" on the last turn, I could have rolled a d100 and got a "72". This is greater than Tension, which would have translated into -5 Tension and a treaty offer. If the Asari and Krogans are at Normal Relations, and we assume a 60% chance for Non-Aggression, when we offered the Krogans that treaty they would have a 60 - 47 = 13% chance of accepting. The roll is "59", which is a failure. Admittedly, once we get the Tension balance in place, I suspect Non-Aggression would be closer to 80%, at which the chance would be 33%. Still a failure, but closer to the realm of possibility.
Unlike the original diplomacy rules, I don't think we would see a diplomatic modifier here from breaking. The Tension mechanic already builds in the enmity between the empires. We'd still need a treaty delay to prevent players from spamming missions, but I'd probably change it from being an acceptance modifiers to being where if Tension + Treaty Delay is >= 100 then the NPE recalls its ambassador and you can't negotiate with them anymore.
# # #
Going back to that early turn when the Krogans did roll a hostilities check, Let's say they had rolled a "10". Tension was at 43, so "10" would be enough to trigger an attempt to declare war (or hostilities, if there is a desire to bring that back?). Before we had all of those diplomatic modifiers that determined the chance, but under this new system those sorts of things would be applied to Tension. So our chance is going to be equal to Tension. I roll d100 and get "51". The Krogan fail to declare war. At first I thought the failure to declare war should also reduce Tension, because obviously there isn't enough support for it in the Krogan government, however that makes it too easy for a player to just spam war declarations in order to drive Tension DOWN, which isn't intended.
As with player empires, the NPE Krogans would be able to spend economic points to use diplomatic Intel to boost their chances. This is paid for in the Intel Phase (out of sequence for normal), at the CM's discretion, with up to 10 Intel being applied, and each Intel giving a +5% bonus. If the Krogans had used even 2 diplomatic Intel they would have succeeded in making their declaration of war.
The diplomatic Intel cost may be too low, and it may be better to ratchet up the costs or each reduce the effect to just +1% per point of diplomatic Intel. This would scale the cost and effect better, too, as then it would have a substantial cost to try using it to influence your attempts.
I could also see the diplomatic Intel being used on treaty offers to increase the treaty chance. This would let a player offer a treaty that they may otherwise not be able to offer.
# # #
Under this system, the AIX effects would be rolled into custom empire traits that would achieve similar modifiers. This more than likely would take the form of Tension modifiers that apply when performing certain checks. An Aggressive empire might get a +20% bonus to attempts to declare war, while a Xenophobic empire gets a -20% penalty to treaty acceptance.
I may need to expand the maximum trait limit and number of design points to accommodate this on the custom empire side (I had it locked at 2 points of traits and max 4 traits), but that is all doable. Then to get the "full effect" of the NPEs you'd have to use the custom empire rules, or some stripped down version of them.
Relating this to our example, the Krogans would definitely have the diplomatic trait that gives them a +20% bonus to declaring war because they are so aggressive. However, the Asari are Charismatic and enemies have a -20% penalty to declaring or breaking with them. This results in a wash, unless the Krogans also have a Totalitarian government at which point they get an additional +20% declaring bonus from there.
I think you can kind of see where this is headed.
# # #
So what do you think about this approach? Does it look like it simplifies the NPE diplomatic maintenance down to a more reasonable level? Is the loss of AIX a major sticking point for everyone, or is rolling that into the custom empire rules going to be sufficient?
) and have them in the book as a basic option. That would make solo play easier, which honestly is probably one of our bigger draws.
