This is the same as what I posted on the BGG-forum

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After reading posts from Kaiwen Zhang and Bleached Lizard about a more " interesting" Diplomacy mechanic, the following idea popped up in my head.
I think it could actually be a very good variant, so I'd like to post it here.

First : what's viewed as somewhat lacking in the diplomacy mechanic ?
1- Convincing a mighty dragon is just as easy as convincing a lowly Razorwing.
2- Convincing a group is just as easy as convincing one unit.

The new mechanic should thus scale diplomacy difficulty so that it is
1- more difficult to lure a Dragon unit in than a Razorwing.
2- more difficult to convince more units than fewer units.

The Variant Mechanic works surprisingly simple and effective :

When you move units into an area containing neutral units you have two options :
1- Fight them ( as per the official rules)
2- Try Diplomacy on them

When you try Diplomacy you must pay exactly 1 Influence for each neutral unit in the area and draw the same amount of Fate cards.

Meaning, if there's just 1 neutral unit you must pay 1 Influence and draw 1 Fate Card...
If there are 4 neutral units you must pay exactly 4 Influence and draw 4 Fate cards ...
So, the more units in the area, the more influence you'll have to use to get them to listen to you.

Then you'll play 1 Fate Card result ( using the corresponding unit type result ) on each neutral unit to indicate how they react to your diplomatic efforts.

When using Fate Cards for diplomacy purposes the icons on the Fate cards have a different meaning

"Blank" result : you succesfully ally 1 unit (of the corresponding unit type.)
Base 40% chance to ally Triangle and Round units.
Base 30% chance to ally Rectangle Units.
Base 20% chance to ally Hexagon Units.
Basically, the worst result you can get in combat, a "blank", is the best result you can get in Diplomacy.
This means it's easier to get Sorcerers and Beastmen to join you than Dragons and Giants.

"Damage" result : this neutral unit (of the corresponding unit type) attacks you ( after the diplomacy part is finished completely )
base 13.32% chance to be attacked by Round units.
Base 26.64% chance to be attacked by Triangle Units.
Base 33.33% chance to be attacked by Rectangle Units.
Base 39.96% chance to be attacked by Hexagon Units.
So, it's more likely that Giants and Dragons will attack you than Sorcerers.

"Orb" result : this neutral unit (of the corresponding unit type) retreats.
base 40.% chance that Round units retreat.
Base 20% chance that Triangle, Rectangle and Hexagon Units retreat
Wizard type units flee twice as often as the combat oriented types.

"Flag" result : this neutral unit (of the corresponding unit type) is unaffected by your diplomacy and stands his ground.
You'll have to fight this unit after Diplomacy is finished to try to control this area or you'll have to retreat.
base 20% chance to be unaffected by diplomacy and stand their ground : Hexagon Units.
Base 16.65% chance to be unaffected by diplomacy and stand their ground : Rectangle Units.
Base 13.32% chance to be unaffected by diplomacy and stand their ground : Triangle Units.
Base 6.66% chance to be unaffected by diplomacy and stand their ground : Triangle Units.
Dragons and Giants will stand their ground and force the opponent to fight them or retreat more often than lower units like Razorwings.

An example to finish off.

You send a Sorceress into an area containing a Dragon ( Hexagon unit), a Hellhound ( Rectangle Unit), a Sorcerer ( Round unit) and Razorwing ( Triangle unit)

Since there are four Neutral Units in the area you have to pay 4 Influence to try Diplomacy on them.
You work through the units one by one, starting with Initiative 1 units, then initiative 2 units and so on

Sorcerer and Razorwing are both Intitiative 1 units and you decide to start with the Razorwing.
You draw Fate Card 22 which shows a "Blank" for Triangle meaning the Razorwing allies with you.

Then you Draw for the Sorcerer : Fate card 2 : which shows an "Orb" for round units , meaning the Sorcerer withdraws.
The player to your left decides what area the Sorcerer withdraws to following the normal retreat rules.

Then you draw for the Initiative 3 unit Hellhound : Fate Card 1 : which shows a "Flag (2)", meaning the Hellhound is unaffected by your diplomatic efforts and will stand his ground.Ignore the number (2) for Diplomacy.
You'll have to decide at the end of diplomacy whether to attack him or retreat.

Finally you draw for the initiative 4 unit, the Dragon : Fate Card 8 : which shows a "damage (3)" result, meaning the Dragon attacks you (at the end of Diplomacy) ( again, ignore the number (3) for diplomacy).

So, the situation is set :
the Sorcerer has withdrawn and the Razorwing is now your ally.
You decide to retreat from the area so you don't have to fight the Hellhound but before you can retreat you will have to fight the Dragon.
Line your Sorceress and your Razowing up for Combat against the Dragon and resolve as normal.
If any of your units survive the battle they can withdraw as normal.

Even though this makes a rather lengthy post, this system is quite simple really and provides a "more interesting" diplomacy game IMO.

DarkElf said:

It's an interesting idea. If you're inclined to use it then I hope it works out well for you.

For my part, I don't necessarily see these elements as "lacking" anything in the mechanics. The thing about diplomacy is it isn't always based on physical force. If you easily convince a dragon to join forces with you, that may be because the dragon was already inclined to do the things you want him to do and therefore he agrees to help. If you fail and a battle starts, maybe he's the sort of dragon who just wants to burninate everything. There's no reason to assume neutral units are hostile until convinced otherwise. The way I see it, the random outcome of the diplomacy draw represents how well or ill suited that unit's philosophy is to your own, and as such has little to do with the unit's physical power and more to do with what that unit wants to do with its life.

That's also why I don't have a problem with you sending 1 unit versus sending 8 and it not having a difference for the outcome - if sending more troops made diplomacy easier that would imply you were forcing these neutrals to assist you on threat of violence, which may be effective sometimes but it certainly isn't diplomatic.

Likewise, when talking to a group of units, you really just need to convince the leader. If the group reacts nicely to you maybe its because they weren't opposed to you in the first place and accepted your offer up front.

I'm not saying the variant is a bad idea, as I said before it looks quite interesting. I just don't think the existing rules are as flawed as this motivation for the variant suggests. At the end of the day, what's important is that you have fun playing the game, so if these details bother you then by all means make house rules to fix them.

Another consideration.

Corey ruled that you can't overstack a hex that has a lots of neutrals if you are attempting diplomacy.

ie a hex contains 4 dragons and 4 giants. you want to attempt diplomacy. you can NOT send 16 units, attempt diplomacy, fail, and then start battle.

You CAN send 8 troops, attempt diplomacy, if it fails, then choose to fight or retreat.

so in regards to a large group of scary neutrals, they are best dealt with in two ways

huge army to destroy, and then retreat the excess over 8

a small envoy of a couple units to woo them with diplomacy, and then retreat if diplomacy fails

sending a large number of units to attempt diplomacy and stick around to battle if diplomacy fails is a BAD idea if you are facing a large number of neutrals

now, of course, if you are gonna use these house rules, then you would probably want to house rule that you can retreat units after a successful diplomacy

Having played the game a few more times, I am pretty happy with how neutrals are now. IF you changediplomacy too much, then you change other things, like the secret objectives which require allying with neutrals, or tactics and seasons which affect neutrals.

I like your idea.

As i am also trying to change the in-game diplomacy rule. Specially in the fate-deck there are only 4 success-diplomacy cards. I am not quite sure what the aim was with that, but this makes diplomacy pretty uninteresting, as an oportunity, it feels more like buying a lottery ticket. I am not sure if the aim is to not get a lot of allied units, and therefore you have to fight more against neutral units. We however, prefer to have those units allied with us and battle with them. So we changed it as following:

Diplomacy symbol: gold / silver = success; red = fail (all together 12 / 16)

1. draw fate cards according to your spent influence;

2. now you have to distribute all drawn cards to the neutral units; therefore we had two methods:

a) freely, but the amount of cards have to be balanced as much as possible; so u couldnt just give A 3 fate cards and B 1 fate card; they both have to be 2 /2

b) distribute according to their order as printed on the neutral units sheet; where "success" is distributed to sorcerers first and than up; and "fail" is distribute to giants first, and than downwards

so u might get sth like this:

drawn 4 cards, 3 neutral units, sorcerer, beastman, dragon

order: sorcerer, beastman, dragon

cards: s sf f

3. Outcome:

a) if s > f; unit allies

b) if s = f; neutral unit retreats

c) if f > s, you have to retreat or fight

d) if there is no fate card applied to a unit, it counts as fail; this fail has to be applied first, before any other cards;

e.g 2 sorcerers, 2 beastman, dragon; but u can only spend 4 influence; so the dragon will get an auto fail; the other 4 cards will be distributed as stated above.

e) we also had a variant for this outcome; dragons & giants need a +2 fail / ratio in order to succeed. e.g ss sssf etc; whereas ssf will still be enough to ally with other units, but not for dragons & giants

>> if you have to retreat / fight; allied untis will go / fight with you

>> if neutral units retreat; allied units will stay with you

>> as for the example above:

you ally with the sorcerer

the beastman will retreat

the dragon forces you + sorcerer to either fight or retreat

DarkElf said:

I actually prefer this to my own variant, and we will quite likely be trying it (yours) soon. The only amendment I might make is that a player may spend additional influence before each card draw to draw an additional card for that monster. What do you think?

oh yes. we never intended to limit the amount of spend influence. You can spend as much or less as you want. As in this case spending more influence actually feels right, because you will get a much higher rate of success. Than compared to the 4 hits in the standard version. And for people who dont have much influence they can still try to get a neutral cheaper unit. All the unpaid units (e.g 3 neutral, spend 2 influence) will first get an auto- fail, starting with giants. And that single biggies still "hurt" a bit to get, we put the +2 ratio. So mostly people spend like 4++ influence if they try to get a single giant or dragon..

Bleached Lizard said:

So, you're paying 1 influence per neutral unit up front for the diplomacy attempt , allowing you to draw 1 Fate card for each neutral unit

and may add additional influence to draw 1 additional Fate card per 1 additional influence spent for (a) neutral unit(s) of your choice ?

Sounds good to me.

DarkElf said:

That's it exactly.

mateooo said:

"Q: If I move 10 units into an area with 5 neutral units,
attempt Diplomacy and succeed, can I retreat my excess
units?
A: You would NOT be able to retreat excess units. In fact,
you cannot bring more than 8 into the area unless you start
a battle INSTEAD of attempting Diplomacy. This means you
can't send in more than 8 units if you are going to attempt
Diplomacy, even if you are expecting to battle. You will lose
any excess units if you succeed in Diplomacy."

To me, "You will lose any excess units if you succeed in Diplomacy" is already well perfect, there's no need to limit the intrusion unit number to 8. Since if there are many neutral units in that area, people should certainly prefer to have them ally rather than battling. So in common sense player shall use more influence point to bid the alliance, prudent ones would put 1 small triangle unit to go, to prevent losing if diplomacy fails, or at most only bring units just enough to make up to the "8" to prevent unnecessarily destroying their own units. So that if someone is really so careful to bring 16 or 24 units into an neutral area to bid alliance, after success, the destruction of his own units will compensate for his overwhelming intrusion.

Hey DarkElf,

Just to let you know, we played with your diplomacy variant today (plus my small amendment) and absolutely loved it. We'll definitely be playing this way from now on.

The only thing the game is lacking is interaction between players (like trading and politics in TI3)

except for the cards that trade influence and share resources

mateooo said:

Sure but it just doesn't feel as involved as the politics in TI3. They should have used the council for something political. But still it's a great game.

mateooo said:

If you send 8 units to diplomacy 8 nuetrals. And succeed. That will leave you with 16 allied units in the hex, so 8 of them will die from overstacking. Which seems a bit pointless ?!?

XAos said:

Not necessarily. I have had situations similar and it was far from pointless.

For example, There's a neutral area with 2 Giants, a Dragon, 3 Sorcerers, and 2 Beastmen. I want them, but want the area MORE; I thus send in a bunch of weaker units. I don't really plan on battling, but if I have to force them out with the "neutral" result, I still want a relatively large army in the hex. And if I succeed the diplomacy, I just kill off some of the weaker units (like some of the beastmen and sorcerers, and some of my own units.

Gallows said:

True, but Twilight Imperium takes 12 hours to play, runewars takes about 3.

mateooo said:

Yeah and I actually find runewars more fun because the the setting, combat system, goal of the game, seasons, order cards are also better than the TI equivalent. I just hope they make an expansion focused on political relation between players.

There are so many nice options for a political system based on your owned areas, cities, keeps and spending influence to determine votes. There is a lot of things that could be passed as political law by the council.

We are absolutely thrilled by this use of fate cards for Diplomacy.

We're defenitely going to use it, next time we play Runewars......

THNX for your suggestion !

Played my first game last night and wasn't enchanted with how diplomacy was working, we always got a gold therefore they always joined our ranks, it didn't quite feel right to us, so from what you have posted Dark Elf going to try that sounds like that might fix what was bugging us. Thxs for the great idea!

Kayoz said:

For what it's worth, I believe there are only 4 "win" results out of 30 cards in the fate deck. It sounds like your game might have been uncommonly lucky in this regard.

Kayoz said:

Like Steve-O said, I'm not sure how you were getting "gold" ones so often. There are only 4 in the deck, and so unless you are spending a LOT of influence every time, you should be getting golds only occasionally.

In our very first Runewars session, we decided not to count the number of the gold symbols before playing – we wanted to get the full amount of surprise.

We used diplomacy very often and we suceeded nearly every time we tried to convince some neutrals, even with very few influence.

A few games later, we knew that there are only four gold symbols. The result: Now we rarely attempt diplomacy as it doesn't seem worth to burn influence on an attempt with such a little probability of success.

The irony is that diplomacy worked pretty well as long as we didn't worried about the real chances. Maybe we should simply go on attempting diplomacy a lot without calculating the chances too much as it might work better than the mathematician in us supposes.

I think it becomes a combo of realizing how "hard" it is, and realizing how important influence is. IE, spending 6 influence to get a group of neutrals is cool - but you've just burned 6 influence that you could have used in an influence bid, etc - one that could have earned a Rune!

Graf said:

I'm always a strong advocate of not over-analyzing a situation. I'm aware that no small number of RW players consider it fair play - even necessary - to keep track of discarded fate cards and use them to calculate the odds of success before drawing, but personally I prefer to draw blind and see what happens. I play games to have fun and crunching statistical number every turn is not my idea of fun.

Having said that, being ignorant of the odds will not change the statistical expected results of any random endeavour. The thing people love to forget about statistics is that they're based on a very large number of test cycles (ideally infinite.) If you find yourself winning every diplomacy attempt in a game you play, that's great. More power to you. It just means you got lucky. The same effect might hold true for a few games, especially if you have a tendancy to go on about how amazing the victories are while shrugging off the failures (makes the victories more memorable and forgets the failures), but in the long run it will balance out to statistical average, no matter how much attention you pay. Unless someone is stacking the deck of course