Welcome to the BE board!

[DrazharLn]

The Israeli government are building settlements in land that they claim, but that the international community, and even the Supreme Court of Israel, believe belongs to Palestine. The UN has spoken about it a lot. Even long-standing allies like the UK and US speak about it.

@BlaneckW
The US operates drones and special forces in the Middle East and Africa extensively without officially declaring war. The Libyan no-fly zone was performed without declaring war (I think). Gunship diplomacy and blockades are done without declaring war.

I think that if someone does these things to you and you can plausibly know, then you should have reason to go to war and should be able to with reduced diplomatic penalties from your peers, but you should also be allowed to tolerate it.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm going to allow frank arguing as long as no one gets too mad, but I want to point out to Draz that Israel is a subject Yitzi takes very seriously, so keep that in mind.

What's civil does vary according to who you're talking to.  Carry on, my friends.

...

And sing out if anyone involved would like OT talk split off into a Rec Commons thread.

[Yitzi]

The Israeli government are building settlements in land that they claim, but that the international community, and even the Supreme Court of Israel, believe belongs to Palestine. The UN has spoken about it a lot. Even long-standing allies like the UK and US speak about it.

And when  pushes the Council to repeal the U.N. Charter, does that have any impact on the morality of using genetic warfare?

In real life, as in SMAC, the international community has no impact on what's actually moral or ethical.

The Supreme Court of Israel is another issue, but they're known to be quite left-leaning, and have often been accused (with more than a little basis*) of ruling based on politics/what they think the law should be, rather than what they think the law actually says/means.  And that's the one thing that automatically invalidates a judge from having his opinion respected at all.

*They once ruled that a restaurant is not a public place.

Calling the U.K. an ally of Israel is highly questionable at best.  The U.K. has a sizable history (older than the modern state of Israel) of supporting arab interests in the area against Jewish ones.

The U.S. saying that is somewhat more notable...but as a country with only a few centuries of history behind it, I don't think it's really qualified to weigh in on a dispute where most of the major issues are based on historical claims on both sides that are substantially older than that...

I'm going to allow frank arguing as long as no one gets too mad, but I want to point out to Draz that Israel is a subject Yitzi takes very seriously

Although it should be noted that I am not one of the "won't tolerate any criticism" crowd; I am perfectly fine with criticism, just not with some of the beliefs and assumptions that often result in criticism.

[Buster's Uncle]

  I'm trying to look out for my friends.

That's all of you.

[BlaneckW]

I am never mad.

[Buster's Uncle]

Cool.  Knowing who can take what is half the battle.


GO JOE!

[DrazharLn]

Well, controversial real world topics aside, I think that it would be more interesting to have a box pop up saying "You are entering the territory of another nation. This may be used as casus belli by that nation and they may declare war."

This also points the way to introducing a notion of needing to prepare politically for war. You need to persuade your people that war is the right choice (if you have a relatively free society), you may have to convince your military, you may have to convince the elites in your country. Externally, if you make public your grievances against a nation, then other nations will not see the attack as unprovoked, which may mean you don't suffer as serious political consequences.

A brilliant strategy game, Solium Infernum, features wars, but you can only start them for a reason and they have very definite conditions attached. For example, I might declare war on my neighbour and declare that I can take three provinces from them in 10 turns. And then I have ten turns to do that and win the war.

If I recall correctly, you could also declare war on the ruling city and break all the previous rules. Which was very interesting and great thematically.

Borrowing the notions of puppet and client states, etc from Paradox Interactive's games could also be a great addition to diplomacy and politics in the game.

[Buster's Uncle]

I like those ideas.

[Geo]

This also points the way to introducing a notion of needing to prepare politically for war. You need to persuade your people that war is the right choice (if you have a relatively free society), you may have to convince your military, you may have to convince the elites in your country. Externally, if you make public your grievances against a nation, then other nations will not see the attack as unprovoked, which may mean you don't suffer as serious political consequences.

Wasn't it the same thing in Civ2 but after war was started if a player ran Republic/Democratic/whatever? The senate or something could force a peace treaty on the player?

[Buster's Uncle]

That's right.

[Vishniac]

I just think it would be more polite to at least put the links before the quoted articles.

I second this.

Borrowing the notions of puppet and client states, etc from Paradox Interactive's games could also be a great addition to diplomacy and politics in the game.

A lot can be borrowed from their diplomacy mechanisms. I still play Europa Universalis II to this very day and everything about casus belli, alliances and stability is very well designed. I always hate it in Sci-fi 4X games when an enemy attacks you and your allies do...nothing! In EUII, refusing to help comes with a price: stability loss and being kicked out of the alliance. Also attacking friendly nations or same religion ones induce more stability loss and diplomatic penalties.
So much can be done in the diplomatic department and I don't think it would be very hard to implement: just assign values to every action or situation. (something Distant Worlds does). It also allows previsibility of other nations future stance and actions.

[Buster's Uncle]

I will link first in the future then, but I'm tellin' you, this is the internet and the presence of the backlink for SEO anywhere in the post is the part that really matters.

No refunds. 

[BlaneckW]

I rarely include the whole article in a post, because often parts of the article are fluff - or poorly written.  In the case of some of the interviews with the BE developers, the whole interview was fluff.  I interpretered this as meaning that the game is fluff. 

[Vishniac]

I am NOT happy and I’ll tell you why!
I have much to say so it’s gonna be a little unstructured but I’m sure you’ll get the general feeling.

It begins with all the negative displayed here, not only by BlaneckW but also by others to a lesser extent. The game is still 6 months before release but you guys already know some things:
- you won’t like it
- It doesn’t have ALL the features of SMAC and some more so you won’t like it.
- It doesn’t even have the same social engineering settings so you won’t like it.
That’s the same pattern I’ve noticed on geek movie forums: people often shoot on movie as soon as they know it’s gonna be made.  “Look at the shots: horrible!”, “The cast is bad”, “The story won’t do”, “The producer/realisator/scenarist/ the first cousin of the wife of the scenarist is bad”… I admit there are bad movies, I rarely see them in theatres because I can smell them but sometimes not: the last “Pompeï” was for me very bad but I can explain why in clear terms.  Sometimes, and more often than not, geeks and proto-geeks just go ballistic about little changes or adaptations that someone more…casual would not even notice. The Buncle talk about fake Trek has something so irrational and fanatical that it irks me and, Man, the day they show again on TV the movie where Piccard meets Kirk, I’ll write a post making you ASHAMED to belittle this movie at all!!

Here, it looks like Firaxis will rape your childhood by making Beyond Earth something else than SMAC2! For myself, I’m happy to have something different, a new vision, new ideas. If BE is really bad, it will be disappointing but you’ll still have SMAC to play just like the bad remake of, say, John Carpenter’s “Fog” won’t prevent you from seeing the original again and show it to your friends, your wife, your children: it won’t take anything from SMAC.
I still play SMAC and it still surprises me: last Sunday I read for the first time the interlude about the Borehole Cluster and how they were made by some old alien race. But loving it and its atmosphere can’t make me understand all your talk about sandbox and blankness. “You do whatever you like”…
That’s exactly what you do in Europa Universalis, don’t you? The game doesn’t give you objectives, you do. I can play Portugal and decide that my goal will be to have the whole Indian sub-continent colonized by 1820, or that I’ll be the first to take North America; as Russia, I could go to eventually annex Persia and realize the Russian dream of access to the warm seas, or I can make a goal to take back Constantinople from the Ottomans and be the protector of all orthodoxs… The player decides his goals, or lets the flow of the game take him if he hasn't any.

So BE has affinities, a very detailed starting game editor and you can choose which victory condition you will follow by following said affinity or not. What’s the beef?  This affair of affinities and what advantages/disadvantages you get by pursuing them fully or staying middle of the road makes me think of the first Galactic Civilizations and their random events where your answer would tilt your orientation between Good or Evil: Evil had tactical advantages, Good would make for stronger alliances. Well, it seems a little like the same here and I honestly can’t see the problem. Maybe I haven’t play enough games or all games or even all Civ games: in fact, I only played SMAC in the Civ department.
So if you could see the glass half-full instead of b!tching…

Another thing.
The announcement of BE just came and there are dozens of threads open to talk about anything/any link/any screenshot. Fine.
But Pandora: First Contact has been sold for 6 months and nobody cares, nobody posts. Nothing! And we’re talking about the first SMAC-like game in 15 years. I’m sure you can tell me that it’s more SMAC-lite, and that there’s no social engineering, little diplomacy, little this, no that, yaddah yaddah… but, HELL!, can’t someone, a real SMACer, at least come and compare what is comparable, tell us what’s good and what’s not, and to whom it could appeal?  I have understood that it’s not to your liking but some could like it: too militaristic, too warfare-oriented? And what about those who like to play Miriam and Santiago then?

First thing I do when I finish this post will be to go and read the reviews and news about Pandora, and perhaps I’ll buy it. Not a question of money, a question of available time to play. But there is so much that reviews can tell you. A few years ago, I wanted some X-com derivated and hesitated to buy the UFO Trilogy (aftershock, Aftermath, Afterlight); the reviews on IGN, Gamespot and others would give them around 6.0/10, telling scenarios were always the same, the games was repetitive with few maps, and so on… I bought them and spent weeks on each: real cool games!
So…if the (un)happy owners and players of Pandora could go to the dedicated sub-forum and tell us a few words, they would be appreciated.

*End of rant…for the moment*

[Buster's Uncle]

Vish, do me a favor - I'd like to take the Pandora folder public, but it needs something besides a few screenshots.  Whaddya say?