quote:

ORIGINAL: ironduke1955

I was thinking that if two cards were available say a minor power is attacked and you are the power with the most influence would it not be better to have a card that you play to support that country example.

Minor power is invaded it does not automatically join the power with main influence, but remains neutral on the turn of the player with most influence he has the option to play a card to bring that minor power under his control.

Just to add to the above if the influencing nation decides to play the card then they will be at war with the attacking nation. Also it might be necessary to pay a PP cost to play a card supporting a minor nation under attack, since such a action would require that a political price had to be paid.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ernieschwitz

quote:

ORIGINAL: ironduke1955

I was thinking that if two cards were available say a minor power is attacked and you are the power with the most influence would it not be better to have a card that you play to support that country example.

Minor power is invaded it does not automatically join the power with main influence, but remains neutral on the turn of the player with most influence he has the option to play a card to bring that minor power under his control.

Just to add to the above if the influencing nation decides to play the card then they will be at war with the attacking nation. Also it might be necessary to pay a PP cost to play a card supporting a minor nation under attack, since such a action would require that a political price had to be paid.

In an ideal world, you are probably right. It would be much better to have nations run independantly (AI driven) if they where not supported by their friend. And allow some sort of card to allow players to take over control.

However, even the world of ATG is not ideal. There is such a thing as RAM constraints. Each independanty run AI takes up memory. And it takes up alot more every time you add a new one. In the old days before I made the programming change to the current diplomacy way, regimes where just that, all independant. And the up to 55 AI run countries were simply too much for some machines. I had reports of players that got out of memory problems, and game crashes as a consequence.

The new method of making regimes (faux regimes) was revolutionary in more than one sense. Firstly it allowed the diplomatic system that you now see in games, secondly it reduced 55 AI regimes, to 4 non-AI regimes. Thus freeing up alot of RAM, for other stuff, like more detailed SFTs and Items, which translates to more varied units and thus more fun.

If I had to program the game so that an AI took over fighting for a country that was attacked, instead of it being assigned to a players country, that would require exactly up to 55 regimes again.... because (in theory) each country could be at war with the totality of all nations. And it doesn´t make much sense to say, let Finland and Thailand be the same AI power.