Temporary truce with AI in a 1 Player vs. 1 AI game?

[gypakk]

When I start a one player skirmisch against one AI opponent, how can I initiate truce for some time, let say 10 or 20 minutes?

The AI never accepts an offered alliance...

[Buginator]

You want to have a truce with a 1 on 1 game? 

Perhaps the AI is smart enough to know a traitor when it sees one?

All kidding aside, what you want is a "safe" period?  Maybe in the future, it can be a game type.

[kage]

i agree, unless this is "sid meier's warzone 2100", i think it's best to consider it a mandatory safe period, rather than a truce -- an ai should be unwilling to accept a truce with their only remaining enemy, because if they were getting beaten to a pulp already, all it would mean is that it gives their enemy (you) enough time to build up the forces needed to mash that pulp into a fine puree.  with the reverse, a human could just use that as an exploit, and ask for a truce whenever the enemy ends up in their base, giving themselves enough time to surround the attackers, and send a substantial force into the ai's base before breaking the truce.

alternatively, if the ai does form such a truce, it should use it treacherously -- immediately sending its forces past your defenses, and position themselves around all your factories before breaking the truce (a sort of "serves you right").

the safe period might reasonably need to force players to stay in their bases -- otherwise it's purely first come first serve for oil derricks, and the smart players will all create half-builds on oil resources (trying to secure as many of those as possible), before eventually returning to finish building all those derricks. furthermore, slight imbalances in the positioning of oil resources (only thing that matters in the early game would be time-to-travel, not defensibility, etc) could easily shift the balance of power in an irrepairable way: those that have exclusive control more derricks for 10 minutes without any possible military recourse could afford to match their enemy forces in number, but largely consisting of better technology.

[gypakk]

Yes, you both are perfectly right.

But I did not want to use this truce to deceive the AI, otherwise I simply would cheat.

I just wanted to divide the map in two areas and secure that border with a simple wall to prevent trucks passing through and exploit enemy oil resources. That's very easy at "High Ground".
Then, after a predefined time period, the truce would end, the battle would begin.

While the truce, both sides would have time to develop in that way they want to...

All what I needed would be this program change:

IF game just started AND only one human player AND alliance is offered by human player
THEN ai accepts alliance

Of course, this could be used treacherous to defeat the AI in an unfair manner, but all other designed program supplements which would allow such a save period, are much harder to realize.

[Rman Virgil]

the safe period might reasonably need to force players to stay in their bases -- otherwise it's purely first come first serve for oil derricks, and the smart players will all create half-builds on oil resources (trying to secure as many of those as possible), before eventually returning to finish building all those derricks. furthermore, slight imbalances in the positioning of oil resources (only thing that matters in the early game would be time-to-travel, not defensibility, etc) could easily shift the balance of power in an irrepairable way: those that have exclusive control more derricks for 10 minutes without any possible military recourse could afford to match their enemy forces in number, but largely consisting of better technology.

* Uh... yea, those Half-builds... hmmm, the way they worked was bull chit in the same way as ranking-up by shooting at your own tank-traps was a flawed GPM.

* No longer will a partial-builds garner you FULL HPs%...

* You build 10% & that's all you'll get - 10% Hps of a Full-Build... right as rain, no ?

- RV

[kage]

in this case, the partial build would be for a completely different purpose -- even if a partial build only had one hp, it wouldn't matter if all players were physically unable to attack it -- you flag a resource by starting a build, and then immediately move the truck to another resource, thus preventing anyone else from destroying the partial and/or building on that oil resource.  the partial wouldn't be the end result: the player creating the partially-built derricks would, of course, come back and finish the build.

[gypakk]

I realize, this subject is not as easy as I thought...
Maybe this suggestion would consider all balance fears:

http://wiki.wz2100.net/Other_Proposals#Save_Period