Making Diplomacy Make Sense: Fish Friends, Lizard Lovers, and Humanoid Haters

[pedxing]

hey all, due to popular demand (well, mostly Longspur ;)) it's time to bring my version of the Base Relations table back to the Strategy Forum. the analysis that follows was originally directed toward playing Humanoids, but i'll try to make it more general. anyway, here's the chart:

http://members.cruzio.com/~empress/matrix_24.png

this gives approximate starting relations between various species. right after you meet a new empire, check your relations with them. it won't be exact, but as far as i can tell, it is always close.

in the same file this is from, it looks like there are also adjustments depending on relative government types as well, but i'm just ignoring those for now. who know, the game may ignore them too...

i left the Ithkul off the chart, becasue -150 is an easy number to remember.

so, going on the idea that good relations tend to get better, while relations that start out bad will get worse, and that bigger numbers will produce bigger effects, there are a couple of predictions: Everybody against the Harvesters. obviously. and they hate themselves as much as they hate and are hated by others, so having more than one in your game adds some extra twists.
The Great Fish/Lizard War. inevitable. -140 is as serious as -150. no other conflict has numbers even close.
these Wars are likely to provide the main story arcs for most games. clever play can of course change the course of the game tremendously, and even make friends of natural enemies... but playing along with these two Wars is easier than trying to prevent them.

next up, there are some smaller, but still serious negative numbers: The Machine/Gasbag Conflict. not as serious as the Big Wars, but likely to be the spark that sets off a wider conflict.
The Insect/Rock Conflict. another second-tier Conflict, providing a sub-plot for times when a big plot isn't handy.
The Humanoid/Machine Conflict. pretty much just as bad as the other two.
the first two of these little wars serve to drive apart the members of the each of the Sides of the Great Fish/Lizard War. the third is there (i think) to help force the Humanoids to eventually pick a Side. and just to keep things almost but not quite symmetric: the Humanoid/Rock Gripe. another step down in seriousness, but still there. Humanoids should expect their "lukewarm" relations with the Rocks to deteriorate, but not as fast as the Conflict with the Machines will worsen.
so, expect the Fish and Lizards to each collect a Side or Faction of Allies, and for the Factions to end up at War.

Humanoid players get along with 2/3 of the members of both factions, so their position in the middle of the chart is not an accident.... but they cannot remain friends with both Sides forever. at some point, either you will have to chose which Side to join, or one Side will turn on you, perhaps unexpectedly.

so, next thing to do is identify the Sides. on the Foriegn Matrix, put those Nommo at the center. do they already have Allies? recenter on one of the Allies... are they Allied with the other Allies of the Nommo? and who are they at War with? are all of the Nommo's Allies at war with the same set of Enemies? repeat the analysis for the Raas.

either the Machines or the Floaters are most likely on the Side of the Fish (but probably not both, or at least, not for long). same thing goes for the Rocks and Bugs siding with the Lizards.

multiple Fish or multiple Lizards may work together, or each may have their own Faction. the Fish seem to work better together than the Lizards, but that may be due to their better Diplomacy more than anything in the starting relations.

anyway, that's the basics of it. every game will be different, of course, but this analysis isn't intended to predect any more than the broad strokes of the plotline. the important thing is to have a model against which the reality can be compared. deviations should be investigated, and satisfactory explainations sought.

main deviations will be if the galaxy is lucky enough to have no Harvesters, and/or be completely missing one side of the F/L War. or if there are multiple Harvesters or Fish or Lizards. the total number of players strongly influences chances of each of these, obviously. and the order that the players meet, and the "enemy of my enemy" fallout of various wars that happen along the way will add more kinks.

so, the goal isn't a model that explains everything... it's just a starting point for thinking and discussing and strategizing.

so... let's go! does this fit what people tend to see? does it make more sense out of situations that appeared senseless?

----------------------------

added note: the table above matches the table shown in the POS Guide, because i made it while waiting for the game to actually get out the door and into the store. idle hands make light work, as they say...

so it is important to point out that the table used in the shipping game actually has one entry that is different! in the release version, although the Cybs like the Rocks just fine at +38, the Rocks secretly hate the Cybs with a -80!

this is the only asymmetry in the relations between the playable races! so i concluded it was a typo... anybody who has ever opened one of the spreadsheet files with notepad can, i'm sure, understand how a typo would not be a surprise.

however, the table used by the game has additional columns and rows for all the magnate races as well. and some of the "base relations" between magnates and playable races have recently been noticed to have asymmetries too!

but again, the magnates were originally going to be something like non-player empires of their own, right? with that design, having base relataions with each other and player races would make sense. but it was not to be... and the .mob files are full of other relics of stillborn features.

so, like so many other things we must ask, was it a brilliant stroke of game balance tweakage or the only typo in a jumbled, partially necrotic table that wasn't caught? were the other asymmetries typos too, that nobody bothered fixing since they didn't matter? or are they actually the crumbs of a partially unrealized vision?

your choice how you play. i like it with the symmetry restored, the way the above table shows. i'm a symmetry freak, and a believer in the theory that a lot of stuff gets swept into corners and never exhaustively scrubed unless something is obviously broken.

i've seen the bathroom floors of bachelor friends. :bulb:

but i digress... if you play with the stock table, then i need to add a new conflict to the above list: The Machine/Rock Backstab. even though the Cybernetics may start off making friendly advances (and this may hold them off from striking the first blow?) the Rocks hate them even more than they hate the Bugs!
there will be trouble between these two, if they have contact. i'm not sure if the +38 slows the fuse more than the -80 speeds it up, but it sure isn't going to end with anything but a boom.

strategy implications?: make sure that your Side of the Fish/Lizard War ends up with the Gasbags and Bugs, so that the other Side ends up with the problem! this is especially a natural strategy for Humanoids, who would rather avoid the Machines and Rocks in the first place.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. and thanks for the sticky, i should finally get around to saying! :D

[Longspur]

Hello all,

Well, reckon it all depends on your play style.

If you come out of the starting gate shootin', all this diplomacy stuff doesn't matter. To quote a swamp pirate from Pogo Possum, "He's ah comin' 'cross my starborn brow; give him a whiff of grape in the stern-uls."

Load up those frigates with lasers and blast away.

But, if diplomacy plays a role in your game, whether you employ Machiavellian politics with evil intent, or aim to be a high born statesman and use the whiff of grape only when others don't strew rose petals in your high born path, this chart and its crystal-clear analysis is the single most useful tool I have ever seen. (I have done a bunch'a forum reading.)

Of course, it's all out there. Scattered through the threads.

But here it is in one place.

In my experience (admittedly limited) I've never seen any variance from the approximate starting relationships in the chart. And those relationships always play a role in the diplomatic tone.

And how can one argue with this: Good relationships tend to get better; bad relationships tend to get worse. If changing these is your objective, it's gonna take a heap of diplomacy.

And every potential war/conflict/gripe (assuming the cast of characters in your galaxy) is always right there from turn 1.

The "sub-plots" are always present.

I guess in the old days (long before I came to these forums) when moderators still roamed the land, when something like this came along the call went up for a "Sticky."

Well, if race selection/government choice/development plans/combat mechanics/etc./ found sticky status, why not diplomacy ? For those who chose to use it, diplomacy is a vital part of MoO3, a big part of the game.

So, as a way of applauding pedxing's contribution, I say "Sticky." -- Longspur

[pterrok]

This nicely encapsulates what you're likely to encounter--good job!:up:

[Lennier]

And had Atari/QSI put this in their POS manual, it would have made the "experience" part of MOO3 much better.

[Shogo Yahagi]

They elected themselves on turn 0?

[Longspur]

Gosh people, I was really looking forward to lots of exciting discussion on diplomacy here.

Maybe because the information is so clearly presented and proven, folks think there is nothing else to say.

Well, I think this is brilliant. However, I think pedxing's thread title is really lame. I would have titled it:

The How to make a Million AU's, and Improve your Diplomacy and your Sex Life Cookbook.

Or:

Declaring War on Friends and Neighbors for Fun and Profit.

Then again, some things are so obvious I've never seen them mentioned in any thread. Example:

Anyone who has ever played even one game when they were in the Senate knows this: The New Orions will call the first Senate election on Turn 21. Then an election will be called every 22 years, on Turns 43, 65, 87, 109, etc. If you're striving for a Senate victory and want to butter up/bribe your friends and allies for their vote, this is useful to keep in mind.

Why 22 years is a mystery to me. It can't be that 22 is the New Orion's mathamatical base, or the first election wouldn't be on Turn 21. My guess is, it's because 22 is the power color for the NO's biorhythms. (See the manual for their color preferences.)

Even if Diplomacy/Conflict is absurdly obvious to the rest of you, I wish you'd share some of your expertise with befuddled newcomers like me. (In any case, I've got the chart. I know where to start.) -- Longspur

[Lennier]

That every 22 years thing sounds like something that could be modded. I'm not a modder so I don't know if there is one number so that the first election occurs on turn n-1 and then every n turns after that (with the "official" spreadsheets with n=22), or if there's two numbers so that the first election occurs on turn n and then every m turns after that (with the "official" spreadsheets with n=21 and m=22.) Might be kind of different to have the first election on turn 300 or so. Just dont have an election every turn; the Senate could never pass a bill.

To be honest, I hadn't paid any attention to the timing of the Senate elections, so this was news to me.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Shogo Yahagi
They elected themselves on turn 0? did the post that this referred to get deleted? or was it prescience about the post that would follow?

oh, and i changed the name of the thread to something more sexy... i was going to add a sub-title like "Fish to the Left of Me, Lizards to the Right of Me..." but i thought that might get too long.

tweaking the timestream: i'm doing it right now, myself... how does the newer new thread title strike everybody?

[Shogo Yahagi]

Well, that was odd. :bulb:

I entered it after reading his post, but mine was posted with the wrong date and time so it appears first.

I always hated the time-travelling episodes of Star Trek, but liked Doctor Who. Discuss amongst yourselves.

[Longspur]

Okay, I'm not sorry about my goofy title complaint and even goofier suggestions, 'cause this thread now has the perfect title.

It flys. -- Longspur

[Lennier]

Originally posted by pedxing
<snip>
tweaking the timestream: i'm doing it right now, myself... how does the newer new thread title strike everybody?
:up:

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Longspur
I guess in the old days (long before I came to these forums) when moderators still roamed the land, when something like this came along the call went up for a "Sticky."

Well, if race selection/government choice/development plans/combat mechanics/etc./ found sticky status, why not diplomacy ? For those who chose to use it, diplomacy is a vital part of MoO3, a big part of the game.

So, as a way of applauding pedxing's contribution, I say "Sticky." -- Longspur some say that the Mods have Diminished, and gone into the West, but others say that the They walk amongst us once more, wearing the shapes of Men...

the thing to do in the Before Time, in the Long Long Ago, was to PM them. Sencho's inbox is always full, but Xentax has been known to answer the Call, and in times of Great Need, one has even seen Apoc rise from the Deep...

[Longspur]

Well, if there's anyone still out there who thinks moderators are anything other than a myth from bygone days, I hope you do PM them. How long has it been since there has been a new sticky ?

(I'd nominate Strifeguard's Development Plan thread for the same sticky status, but I'm guessing appealing to a moderator will have about the same effect and writing to Santa Claus.)

So, I'll just keep coming here and asking my probably dumb diplomacy questions. (They've been spare 'cause my CD drive has crashed, I think, and I can't get into the game.)

Here are, I think, two obvious givens:

** I've never seen any significant variance at game start from the numbers in pedxing's chart. In Diplomacy, that's what you've got to work with at the start.

** The flavor of each individual start is a unique mosaic that develops and changes with each turn.

And I'm guessing that most diplomacy questions aren't in the rhelm of something the great number crunchers out there can drag into their laboratory and pin down. No matter how much formaldehyde you've got, it's hard to dissect such a nebulous frog. (No offense intended to Saurian players.)

So, from your anectodal observations, or your intuition or whatever, how much effect do you think Superior/Good diplomacy in race picks actually has ?

How many of you who play for Senate wins, or at least make diplomacy a vital part of your game, put emphasis on these picks ?

How about the "Empathic" special pick ? How much benefit do any of you think this actually has ? How many have even tried it ?

I know what seems to be the prevailing theory behind tech trades with other empires. Offer things that are not in their tech tree and things that are levels higher than what you are seeking. Hey, sometimes it even works.

Does Good/Superior Diplomacy increase your tech trade odds ? How about Empathic ?

For that matter, how about Good/Superior trading for increasing your tech trade odds ? Or, the Fantastic Traders special ?

I almost always end up with at least one defensive alliance. (2-Arm Giant, 8-10 players.) Carefully choosen. I hope. Are such alliances ever a good diplomacy idea ?

If you're striving for a Senate victory, which is the more important consideration in getting another Empire to vote for you ? Casas Belli, or alliances ?

Or, is a vote a rare and seemingly random thing, like a successful tech trade ?

In MoO2, too much diplomatic attention of any kind would end up irritating another empire. This doesn't seem to be the case in MoO3. Is that right ? In fact, the frequent opportunities for Improve Trade or Improve Research would seem to indicate that the more attention you pay to another Empire the better. Is this right ?

It's usually pretty easy to get a trade agreement with an Empire even if they really don't like you. But I've (it seems, anyway) never gotten an intelligence treaty with any empire that I wasn't on really good terms with. Anyone else notice this ?

Does an intelligence treaty give you the benefit of another empire's exploration intelligence, or does it just seem this way 'cause as the game goes along you just know more ?

I've had the AI Viceroy send colony ships to a system I've never been close to exploring. Is this knowing where to send 'em the result of intelligence treaties ?

Anyway -- way too much here, I know -- you can see why I feel diplomacy is such an important part of my game. And how pathetically little I seem to know about it. Any help, or observations, would be appreciated. -- Longspur

[Lennier]

Originally posted by Longspur
Well, if there's anyone still out there who thinks moderators are anything other than a myth from bygone days, I hope you do PM them. How long has it been since there has been a new sticky ?

(I'd nominate Strifeguard's Development Plan thread for the same sticky status, but I'm guessing appealing to a moderator will have about the same effect and writing to Santa Claus.)
:haha:
<snipped for brevity>
So, from your anectodal observations, or your intuition or whatever, how much effect do you think Superior/Good diplomacy in race picks actually has ?
Small effect; it won't keep everyone from ganging up on you if you get to far ahead, but it will help keeping them off your back for a while. But no gaurntees.

How many of you who play for Senate wins, or at least make diplomacy a vital part of your game, put emphasis on these picks ?
I put emphasis on diplomacy; I'm trying the picks in my current game.

How about the "Empathic" special pick ? How much benefit do any of you think this actually has ? How many have even tried it ?
Dunno; never tried it.

I know what seems to be the prevailing theory behind tech trades with other empires. Offer things that are not in their tech tree and things that are levels higher than what you are seeking. Hey, sometimes it even works.

Does Good/Superior Diplomacy increase your tech trade odds ? How about Empathic ?

For that matter, how about Good/Superior trading for increasing your tech trade odds ? Or, the Fantastic Traders special ?
Good questions; I don't have the answers for them.
I almost always end up with at least one defensive alliance. (2-Arm Giant, 8-10 players.) Carefully choosen. I hope. Are such alliances ever a good diplomacy idea ?
I think so. The only downside is that you will usually end up sharing systems with your ally. If the relations go south and you end up at war, defending those planets can be a bit messy.

If you're striving for a Senate victory, which is the more important consideration in getting another Empire to vote for you ? Casas Belli, or alliances ?

Or, is a vote a rare and seemingly random thing, like a successful tech trade ?
The problem with getting an answer to these questions is that you're never certain who voted for whom.
In MoO2, too much diplomatic attention of any kind would end up irritating another empire. This doesn't seem to be the case in MoO3. Is that right ? In fact, the frequent opportunities for Improve Trade or Improve Research would seem to indicate that the more attention you pay to another Empire the better. Is this right ?
Seems right to me.
It's usually pretty easy to get a trade agreement with an Empire even if they really don't like you. But I've (it seems, anyway) never gotten an intelligence treaty with any empire that I wasn't on really good terms with. Anyone else notice this ?
Yes; I've even had empires accept defensive alliances before accepting an intelligence treaty.
Does an intelligence treaty give you the benefit of another empire's exploration intelligence, or does it just seem this way 'cause as the game goes along you just know more ?
The intelligence treaty is an exchange of exploration intelligence, and nothing more.
I've had the AI Viceroy send colony ships to a system I've never been close to exploring. Is this knowing where to send 'em the result of intelligence treaties ?
Almost certainly yes.
Anyway -- way too much here, I know -- you can see why I feel diplomacy is such an important part of my game. And how pathetically little I seem to know about it. Any help, or observations, would be appreciated. -- Longspur
No problem.

[BrewGuru99]

good stuff.

It is quite concise, which makes it hard to debate it. Infact I just absorbed this info took it as is.

You may call me a MOO3 data *****.

[DavidByron]

And I'm guessing that most diplomacy questions aren't in the rhelm of something the great number crunchers out there can drag into their laboratory and pin down.

Well speaking for myself (as a number cruncher) I tend to be more interested in economics. Of course Visage was the combat number cruncher and I suppose someone like Da Blade for the Dev Plans. Seems like a bunch of the number crunchers went "west" too. You tend to research the questions you face and I tend to not need diplomacy or dev plans or combat for my game plan -- which is to build an economy that will steamroller the AI, grab all the X's fast and then attack Orion. If I don't have everyone at war with me and at -200 by turn 100 I'd feel I was doing something wrong....... ;)

I did look at diplomacy a little. I tried to see if there was any pattern to the wording of the replies they gave you in response to different choices of the style of delivery of the message but I couldn't see any. Perhaps I needed more testing because I didn't get far. You know - do Meklar prefer a more rational delivery etc, etc... My main interest was to see how fast you could con an AI into sharing it's intelligence with you so you could invade it faster. With some races, especially humans, it seemed pretty easy even with not particularly good relations (eg +15-20 ?).

My racial pics de-emphasise diplomacy. You'd need to have someone with the right (rather "rainman") personality for number-crunching who also prefered a diplomatic path to victory... but I would guess Diplomacy would be easier to research than space combat was for Visage. I was really impressed with his work.

Diplomacy questions would be important if you have senate victory enabled and you are not in the senate. At a minimum these questions need answering:

(1) When will an AI vote for another AI for senate?
(2) How can you most easily prevent an alliance between two AI empires (possibly 2 empires that you don't border).
(3) When do the elections get held -- answered above (every 22 turns).

The problem with getting an answer to these questions is that you're never certain who voted for whom.

If you are one of the principles you can see what proportion of the vote you received at the last election. I guess there are ways of opening up AI positions as "multiplayer" although I've not done it.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Longspur
So, from your anectodal observations, or your intuition or whatever, how much effect do you think Superior/Good diplomacy in race picks actually has ?
I agree whole-heartedly with Lennier. It's enough to offset belligerent empires in the early stages, but it's not enough to keep someone peaceful while you invade world after world.

The more interesting question is (which you ask later), how does the pick effect item exchanges? I usually play without it, so I don't have anywhere near enough experience to know.

Originally posted by Longspur
How many of you who play for Senate wins, or at least make diplomacy a vital part of your game, put emphasis on these picks ?
I play stock humans, everytime, so I don't really put any emphasis on the pick itself. Personally I believe in taking matters into my own hands.

However, if I was going to put any "diplomacy" pick above others, I'd definitely say go for "Member of the Senate" for only 10 points, it's a bargain. When I was first learning Moo3 (playing with modded Evons, back then) I chose to be a member of the Senate every time. I can't even imagine how often the ability to "praise" or "condemn" another empire gave me insights into the Moo3 diplomacy engine. Everything from Senate Votes to Item Excahnges can be gauged just by watching the vote fallout on those two bills alone.

Originally posted by Longspur
How about the "Empathic" special pick ? How much benefit do any of you think this actually has ? How many have even tried it ?
Never did try it, I guess I just figured that empathic + superior diplomacy would be overkill.

Originally posted by Longspur
I almost always end up with at least one defensive alliance. (2-Arm Giant, 8-10 players.) Carefully choosen. I hope. Are such alliances ever a good diplomacy idea ?
Alliances are excellent ideas in Moo3.

Unlike Moo2, empires in Moo3 actually seem to have some sense of honor. In Moo2, repeated requests for your "life-long allies" to join in a common defense were often met with "We will do this, but only if you give us Plasma Cannons!". In Moo3, this is simply not the case. AI empires will always come to your defense (though they may quickly cease interceding if they take a beating) and the conflict will bring your two empires closer together.

Originally posted by Longspur
If you're striving for a Senate victory, which is the more important consideration in getting another Empire to vote for you ? Casas Belli, or alliances ?

Or, is a vote a rare and seemingly random thing, like a successful tech trade ?
Okay, so I spent some time on this one, and I've determined that votes are dependent *entirely* on alliances, CB does not affect it at all.

I know this will create some discussion, so let me go through my methods, and you can judge the results for yourself:

To begin with, it's possible to reverse-engineer the results of the vote in a game where the Senate has few members. I say this because the only information available to the player is the vote %. If there are many Senate members, a small majority (51%) can probably be achieved (though roughly) through several different combinations of votes. If there are few members (the games I looked at had 6 Senate members) it's fairly easy to see how the vote fell.

Note: To do this kind of analysis you don't have to be the one of the candidates in a vote. Just load up multiplayer on a LAN, with you as the only player, and "resume" your saved game. Then select whichever empire you want, and begin looking at the game.

Anyway, the argument quickly became a chicken-or-egg problem when I began to comb through my old saves. In all analyzable cases (i.e. few Senate members) I was voted in by my allies. However, in all of those cases my allies and I shared very high, 100+, CB, while none of the other empires had a positive CB with mine.

Since CB will only ever become very high between empires with alliances, (Another observation of mine, I noted that after 100 turns of non-aligned coexistence, my humans and a psilon empire only had a mutual CB of about 50, whereas during a similar timeframe an empire of evons and I had developed a mutual CB of over 100. We don't know much about the innerworkings of the diplomacy engine, but there's clearly some process that significantly increases CB between allies *above and beyond* enemy-of-my-enemy) it becomes very difficult to tell what the cause-and-effect is.

So, I tried an experiment. In 2 of the games I had saves 2 turns prior to the vote. Upon loading said games, I cancelld an alliance with 1 empire, and continued for 3 turns. I did this several times, cancelling alliances with different empires.

In every case the result was the same. I would no longer win the vote by a % equivalent to the vote total of the empire with whom I had just cancelled an alliance. In a handful of cases I still had a CB of over 140 with those empires, and in all cases the CB was still higher than 100, but non-aligned empires still wouldn't cast their vote in my favor.

Now, this still leaves a few questions. I couldn't find any examples of ultra-high CB (near 200) so, it's possible that VERY high CB *might* cause a non-aligned empire to vote for you. However, I find that ultra-high CB between non-allies is unlikely in the extreme, and so it probably wouldn't ever be a situation that you face during gameplay anyway.

The bigger question deals with allies who have low mutual CB. I was unable to test whether-or-not an ally with relatively low CB (in the 20-30 range) will vote for you during a Senate Election. I'm guessing that they would, as CB doesn't seem to be a factor in determining votes at all.

Important note: The AI doesn't differentiate between "Defensive" and "Full" alliances when deciding who to vote for.

Originally posted by Longspur
In MoO2, too much diplomatic attention of any kind would end up irritating another empire. This doesn't seem to be the case in MoO3. Is that right ? In fact, the frequent opportunities for Improve Trade or Improve Research would seem to indicate that the more attention you pay to another Empire the better. Is this right ?
Definitely. None of the empires in Moo3 seem to have the "go away" syndrome that existed in Moo2.

Originally posted by Longspur
It's usually pretty easy to get a trade agreement with an Empire even if they really don't like you. But I've (it seems, anyway) never gotten an intelligence treaty with any empire that I wasn't on really good terms with. Anyone else notice this ?
I've also noticed this, but I'm inclined to think that it's a function of CB, rather than a function of diplomatic relations. Mostly because empires with which I have high diplomatic relations, but relatively low CB seem to have no problem agreeing to non-agression pacts, but won't enter into intelligence treaties.

Originally posted by Longspur
Does an intelligence treaty give you the benefit of another empire's exploration intelligence, or does it just seem this way 'cause as the game goes along you just know more ?
Lennier already got this one, but yes, he was correct, Intelligence treaties share exploration info between races.

Originally posted by Longspur
I've had the AI Viceroy send colony ships to a system I've never been close to exploring. Is this knowing where to send 'em the result of intelligence treaties ?
I'd say it's "highly likely" but I don't frequently use AI colonization, so I can't say for sure.

[Northstar]

Cool Discussion:up: !

I've been wondering similar things myself, and this thread confirms some things and clears up others.

One thing though, is there any way to influence (preferably mess up) other empires' alliances? In my current game, I am am playing Psilons. I have a defensive alliance with a Raas empire, who in turn has a NA with a Silicoid empire. My relations are currently low but stable with the Silicoids, but from earlier parts of this thread, it appears that I can expect them to head south eventually.

That being the case, is there any way for me to try to worsen relationships between the Raas and Silicoids, so that I can keep a strong ally in the Raas, for when things go bad. All three of us are in the senate, with a Cynoid empire rounding it out, so things don't look to good for me in the future, if I can't keep the Raas firmly on my side.

Condemning the Silicoids doesn't work, since its only ~Turn 80, so the NOs have too much voting power, and the Raas won't go for it anyway, since they have the NA.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Northstar
That being the case, is there any way for me to try to worsen relationships between the Raas and Silicoids, so that I can keep a strong ally in the Raas, for when things go bad. All three of us are in the senate, with a Cynoid empire rounding it out, so things don't look to good for me in the future, if I can't keep the Raas firmly on my side.
There are several ways to try and disrupt the Raas and the Silicoids.

You said that you have a defensive alliance with the Raas, so the best way to try and break up the Raas and the Silicoids is to get the Silicoids to declare war on you. Then ask the Raas to honor the treaty (Moo3 empires are *very* honorable). During the conflict, trade things to the Raas in exchange for Sanctions and then Embargo against the Silicoids. This will prevent the two empires from "buddying up" again immediately after the conflict is over.

Because you're in the Senate, don't be afraid to try use bills to your advantage. Repeatedly propose, second, or vote in favor of, bills that "praise" the Raas. Note: If there are any Fish empires in the Senate at all, they'll hate you for this, so be careful.

As for getting the Silicoids to declare war, I suggest dumping every spy you have into the Silicoid empire on a single turn. (Crank up the oppressometer to compensate for your decreased defence, and retrain spies ASAP) Follow that up with embargos and sanctions of your own. Then try proposing embargo and diplomatic isolation bills against the Silicoids in the Senate. Remember, as long as the war declaration doesn't come from you, the Raas will enter the conlfict on your side.

An alternative method to breaking up the Silicoid-Raas relationship would be to play off of a third party (preferably the NOs). Declare an embargo against the NOs, and then trade to the Silicoids in exchange for an embargo, and then a war declaration, against the NOs. Then cancel your own embargo against the NOs. Propose a bill to declare total war against the Silicoids in the Senate. Since the NOs are already at war with the Silicoids (because of your fast fingers) they'll vote in favor of the bill, giving it the extra push you need to get it passed. Since the Raas are in the Senate as well, they will immediately declare war on the Silicoids.

There are probably other options available, but without more data about which empires are in your game, where they're located, etc. it's hard to come up with other plans.

[RobNelson]

An alternative method to breaking up the Silicoid-Raas relationship would be to play off of a third party (preferably the NOs). Declare an embargo against the NOs, and then trade to the Silicoids in exchange for an embargo, and then a war declaration, against the NOs. Then cancel your own embargo against the NOs. Propose a bill to declare total war against the Silicoids in the Senate. Since the NOs are already at war with the Silicoids (because of your fast fingers) they'll vote in favor of the bill, giving it the extra push you need to get it passed. Since the Raas are in the Senate as well, they will immediately declare war on the Silicoids.


That's just nasty. I like it. :D

[Northstar]

Strifeguard!

That is so cold and devious . . .

I'M NOT WORTHY:D :p :D

[Lennier]

@Strifeguard:
http://members.cox.net/~kancho3/Smilies_Happy/notworthy.gif
I am not worthy either.

[DavidByron]

I've always wondered what possibilities exist in gifting worlds to AI empires. I notice you can send an offer to gift the same world to several different AI but I don't know if that does anything. You can also donate a world that's about to go into revolt such that you re-aquire it immidiately after donating it. That seems to have an odd effect on the relations making Current relations go to +200 and Cassus Belli to -200 in many cases.

[Longspur]

DavidByron, did I read you right ? You can somehow offer the same world at the same time to several different AI Empires ? My gosh, what happens ?

Lennier and Strifeguard, I thank you both for so patiently trying to answer all my numerous questions.

Now, here's the thing. It seems that the buried theme in all my many questions was "passive" diplomacy.

I mean, you chose the special "Empathic." What effect and you expect ?

But, in Strifeguard's answers to Northstar's dilemma, we get to the real meat of the overall diplomacy question: "active" diplomacy.

This opens up a whole new diplomatic front. I think in the past the closest I've come to "active" diplomacy was gunboat diplomacy.

I've come across reports of Strifeguard's diplomatic coups scattered in random threads, and always wondered, "Now how in heck did he do that ?"

The Northstar answer gives us a peek into the weapon "active" diplomacy can be. Wow ! "Quick fingers" indeed.

Naturally, this raises a plethora of new questions, but I'll wait -- and read -- until I'm back in action to ask them. (My CD drive crashed.)

Here's a left-over question based on a one game observation. It seems that inter-colonization with another empire(s) due to rapid expansion has a big, positive effect on diplomatic relations. This seems counter-intuitive, but in my current game diplomatic pluses have been dramatic, and I can't think of any other way to account for it. Anyone else notice this ?

Yeah, yeah, I know, maybe defensive headaches down the road, but I'm always ready to "take the cash and let the credit go,/nor heed the rumble of a distant drum." -- Longspur

[RobNelson]

I think that it's because of inter-empire trading. Not the type that you take care of in the diplomacy screen, but the kind that takes place between independant traders at spaceports. Everybody makes money, everybody gets happy.

And in most of those cases, you and the other empire like completely different types of worlds, so there's no conflict for space.

[Northstar]

Originally posted by Longspur
*** SNIP ***
Here's a left-over question based on a one game observation. It seems that inter-colonization with another empire(s) due to rapid expansion has a big, positive effect on diplomatic relations. This seems counter-intuitive, but in my current game diplomatic pluses have been dramatic, and I can't think of any other way to account for it. Anyone else notice this ?

*** SNIP ***


Interesting observation. I always kind of thought it was the other way around. That is, good relations is what ALLOWED empires to share systems.

Does make sense though, both because of RobNelson's observation and because of the potential war ugliness. I don't know if the AI is written to take it into account, but I would certainly try to maintain good relations with an oponent sharing multiple systems! A war could get really messy until borders stabilize.

[Longspur]

(Sorry for the aside.)

We are invited to "rate this thread." So, I did. (I rate it very highly because it is a single one-stop-shopping source for an important part of the game.) And you get a message something like, "Your vote is being taken into consideration."

Was thread rating something that the moderators did before they became extinct ?

In other threads I frequently see others referring newbies to this thread as a must/should read to understand diplomacy. Or references to the fish/lizard war, etc. I may be just talking to myself, but I still think this thread should have a sticky. -- Longspur

[DavidByron]

Ok I 5 stared this thread. I suggest we just "hup" old 5-star rated threads every 3-4 months.. so next time would be in March.

If anyone's looking for one of the unstickied threads they can just search by rating.

[Longspur]

DavidByron, thank you, thank you.

Apparently your 5-star recommendation carries a lot more weight than mine, 'cause when I tried it, nothing happened.

And, while I'm at it without saying it in each individual thread, thank you for the other good should-read threads you've bumped back into action and starred.

I think this does an enormous service to make these important topics more available/accessible to people.

I know this thread is supposed to be about diplomacy, so in the Senate I've proposed a bill to make DavidByron forum moderator for a day. I hope someone seconds it. We need some Ithkul-it sticky action around here. (Harvester-unprintable-mumble-mumble-grumble.) -- Longspur

[Awsric Armitage]

Cool A Sticky. Or was it just me blinking stars from playing Moo3 allnight again. Good for the thread great for pedxing. BTW how do I report my rate for this thread? Never mind found it. 5 Stars. And not Paula Abdul stars but Simon Stars.:haha: :D

[pedxing]

nope, no sticky yet. just some stars. anybody try to PM a mod yet? i'm not sure which sould be worse form... sending a request in to sticky my own thread, or winking and nudging harder until somebody else does... ;)

i know! i'll send a request in to get Strifeguard's devplan thread stickied, and we'll see if the Great Old Ones have truely moved on from this plane... if anything deserves a sticky, it's that thread!

[Longspur]

(So, where the BLANK are the stickies for these two most valuable threads ?)

I'll ask this question in isolation.

Does anyone have any experience/opinions with the "Empathic" pick ?

It sounds cool. How much affect does it have on the diplomatic game ?

It is only ten points (I think), but I know that often the points cupboard is bare. But what if these ten points have a big impact ?

[pedxing]

Empathic? why, i'm soaking in it, right now!

yeah, i like taking a bunch of the Quirks at the end, all at once.

Natural Engineer, Tolerant, Empathic, and/or Fantastic Trade.

i took all of them except Fantastic Trade this time, since i'm playing Meklar, not Cynoids, eh? :rolleyes:

this mix probably gets me effects that i could get more cheaply by spending picks elsewhere, but i figure:

(a) it makes me feel all special, and everything, ya know...
(b) it makes me feel less bad about getting the points for them from cheesily cranking down all combat stats to minimum.

i like to grease the training wheels of my diplomatic channels just like the next bot: with lots of trade treaties, espcially Economic. and Fantastic Trade does increase the chances of getting those treaties... but i figure ya can't pick all 4 every time!

plus, i mostly only make those treaties with those already inclined to be my friends anyway... so would it really have done any extra good if i got it?

and for the same reason, i can't really tell if its my Empathy or my good sense of who is likely to say "yes" that has resulted in the Treaties that i have going.

anyway...

i'm up to just after turn 70, on a very weak Nommo side. the (much stronger) Raas and i have had treaties the past, but we've just exchanged threats. their open war with my Nommo allies probably doesn't help. Nommo just asked me to honor our Defensive alliance. i demanded tech. the Raas are strong. then i went and sent the Raas a Threat. just felt like they should get fair warning. they sent one back. the Raas are cheeky.

i'm preparing for an assault on a new Harvester Mob Center that's sprung up right where my border with the Evon. the Evon and i snipe at each other whenever possible, so i'd be happy to let them take on the Harvesters themselves, but i'm afraid that they would lose... and of how frightening an Infested Evon would look. :eek: the Evon are also in contact with a second Harvester, and a Tachidi. they probably met them through the wormhole they must have found, in order to have just one colonly, all alone way over there.

the Raas, Nommo, Evon, and one (of two) Silicoids is in the Senate. the Silicoid is my peacefull neighbor, and i'm courting them for the Fish side, since they are strong. and since we are staring to share systems.

i've actually just starting trying to absorb one of their outposts they landed in one of my systems. they got a colony in there before i could do anything. using Audr..whatchawhoosits. the plant magnate. likes hot and heavy air. i dropped an outpost down, started migration, and kept that very old scout in orbit. should be cool to have them in the mix. only magnate i have so far is Darlok.

i'm trying to get outposts/colonies to some juicy worlds on the other side of the Silicoid, and secure outposts in some of their systems, so i hope the theory that this will "make us better friends" is true. the Nommo are really going to need some help if they are not going to get crushed.

if i can pull the Silicoids into a defensive alliance, then wait for the Evon to attack (like rusted and twitchy clockwork, they are), and then hey, the Rocks don't like the Humanoids anyway, so there shouldn't be any problem.

i wonder... would getting both the Silicoids and Nommo to go in together on a War against the Evon... would that be likely to improve their relations? maybe put (or hasten) them on into an alliance. if they are both fighting the same enemy, they must be friends, eh? or, i can't believe that the Meklords got both of us into this mess!

anyway, i've been trying to get the Tachidi into the Senate. no luck. i just started trying to get some Cynoid in. looks like there's also a Gasbag empire. i'll be keeping them out of the Senate, thank you.

[haniblecter]

Lol, all this talk about "factions" and "sides". My spying humans eat whatever race is closest and weakest while maintaining as many alliances as possible.

But htem damn machines and siliciods always give me a *****. Like they have somehting against me steam-rolling their allies.

[Longspur]

Wow, pedxing.

Sounds like your game is a perfect blueprint with all the elements present and accounted for to test your analysis on the diplomatic battlefront.

This will make it especially interesting to follow in this thread.

Notice that at Turn 70 you've already chosen sides in the Fish/Lizard war. You didn't waste any time in getting your bet down.

What compelled you to make your decision so early ?

It sounds like your plan to force feed a Nommo/Silicoid alliance is a good one. I guess this would mean the Senate would shake out as Meklar/Nommo/Silicoid vs. Raas/Evon. If you're going to pound on the Ithkul it would seem you could keep your relations with the Evon from getting too bad too quick. Enemy of my enemy stuff.

This might prevent the Raas proposing a bill to kick Meklar out of the Senate, Evon seconds it, and New Orions, well, he probably doesn't want anyone in the Senate so he votes for these things. Then, you're out in the cold.

But, if you proposed a bill to kick Raas out of the Senate, surely the Nommo would second it ? Then you've got it. 'Specially if your plan to get grumpy grandpa Tachidi into the Senate works.

Do you want Raas out of the Senate, or in there where you can keep an eye on 'em?

All this is just another way of saying, "Keep us posted."

(Glad you're using Empathic. I really want to try this, 'cause it has received almost no discussion that I can find.)

[pedxing]

for now, i want the Raas where i can watch their relations with everybody. once the War really gets going, i'll see about getting them booted out.

i want to get the Evon out first, though... but i haven't started trying that yet, since the Evon are the only ones with contact with the Tachidi so far. i'll have a direct line eventually though, when the outpost ships i snuck past the Evon/Ithkul get settled and build up to be colonies.

in the other direction i'm just now getting colony and outpost ships in place to take those juicy worlds on the other side of the Silicoids... and a string of outposts leading through their space, of course. we'll see if the "living together will bring us closer" theory holds!

i went for the Nommo side early on becasue they responded to more of my offers faster, and even gave me an intelligence treaty before the alliance. so i could tell that they had a path into Evon space. and i wanted to give the Evon early troubles. so i went for the alliance with the Nommo.

the very same turn that i got the alliance, the Evon ended their war. but it was only a matter of time before they sent me another nastygram. so i put the Nommo right onto them.

the Evon had good relations with the Nommo, and i was afraid that they would get better. so now, every time the Evon "attack" (i have yet to see one of their ships) i call in the Nommo. their relations have cooled, and the Evon have started drifting towards the Raas camp now.

the Nommo of course in return want me to declare against the Lizards, but:

a) the Raas are too far away from me.
b) the Raas are too powerful for me.
c) i don't want to declare, just yet.

i was hoping on getting the Tachidi into the Senate and the Silicoids onto my side, first. all the squidly freaks need to do is give me the tech i asked for in the counter-offer, if they really want me to declare... pathetic calamari.

anyway, here's the ranking. 13 total players, including myself and the NOs.

the NOs have fallen to 9th, creating a clique of 8 "strong" emprires...

my Meklords are 6th,
the Raas are 4th,
Silicoids are 2rd.

Nommo and Evon are out of the running at 12th and 13th, respectively.

so numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7 are out there somewhere... oh, and 10 and 11, but i'm not so worried about those (or 7 :) ).

the contestants are a Tachidi, a Cynoid, a second Silicoid, one of each flavor of Gasbag, and two Harvesters.

half of them are stronger than me. i'm hoping that the Harvester i'm squaring off against isn't in that half. and i hope that if the Tachidi are up there that we can get to be friends by fighting Ithkul together.

and of course, i'm not really trying to hitch the Silicoids to the Nommo cause for the good of the Nommo! i want to get the Silicoids fighting the Raas, and slowing each other down.

ok, back to playing now... i'm massing for a second go at that ithkul Mob center... they mobilized right as i attacked last time, so i shot and, uh, scooted. no damage to their side. i'll probably stay through two missile rounds, this time.

i've got my own Mob closer to the boarder, now, and i'll be designing ships with Class III shields in a few turns, so i don't mind wasting some first generation ships to get a feel for the ememy...

more updates as i have them!

update: the Evon are warming back up to Nommo, the Nommo now have an alliance with the Silicoids, the Silicoids have dropped to 3rd, the 2nd is now the Ithkul that i just attacked, and the survivors of that unfortunate attack are falling back to defend the new colony that gave me contact with those Ithkul. very unfortunate. they shrugged off my damage, and slowly blew up my detachments... hopefully, Class III Shields, Hellfire Cannons, and Neutronium Missiles will be on ships by the time they mount a serious countstrike.

we shall see!

[pedxing]

new colony on the other side of Silicoid space seems to be in the middle of a war zone between the Cynoid and Imsaeis, and a bit too close to an Imsaeis Mob center for comfort. not looking good for those plucky colonists!

looks like i've gotten some updated intelligene treaty information from my Nommo friends or something, but i can suddenly see an awful lot of things that i couldn't see before... mostly Silicoid space... i wonder if they did an Intelligence treaty with their new allies, the Nommo, and my treaty with Nommo makes me privy? that's kinda cool.

i'm thinking now that, other than maybe getting the Silicoid to fight the Raas, the Fish-Lizard War theme isn't going to be huge in this game. the Nommo are busy fighting the Evon for last place in the power rankings... pathetic.

the secondary stories are going to be big, though. the Cynoid (and Meklords!) against the Imsaeis (and their Eoladi allies), the Silicoid against the Tachidi. the Silicoid is sending warships through my space, and just rejected my latest pleading for defensive alliance.

just like the weak Nommo drains the dramatic tension from the F/L war, the weak Evon make the "Inorganics vs the Humanoid" plot-line less compelling.

conclusion: the Evon are weak and boring in this game, and must be destroyed. if i can't fight the Harvesters yet, i'll have to take out the Evon before the Harvesters do! it'll make the Silicoids happy with me, maybe enough to get me that alliance.

my main worry right now? the Imsaeis is on really good terms with the Silicoid... i can't afford for them to get any more cozy! i also see that the Imsaeis is friendly with the Raas.

dream scenario? the Imsaeis become allies of the Raas, and end up at war with the Silicoids. that would be a fun train-wreck to watch.

oh, yeah, power rankings:

1: Harvester - the one i picked a fight with
2: (unknown)
3: Silicoid - the horse i'm trying to ride
4: Raas -- lightning-rod for my schemes
5: Imsaeis -- going to be trouble
6: Meklords -- me
7: Cynoid -- future friends, i hope
8: (unknown)
9: NO
10, 11, 12, 13: Evon, Nommo, two unknowns.

unknowns are a Eoladi, second Silicoid, second Harvester, and the Tachidi.

if the second Harvester is #2, then the Everybody Aginst the Harvesters plot may overshadow Machine vs Gasbags and Rocks vs Bugs subplots. hopefully, the Eoladi aren't #2. go go Tachidi!

[Longspur]

In the thread on the best and worst governments, Shogo commented that eventually Diplomatic picks become worthless since if you become strong enough eventually everyone will declare war on you anyway.

I guess this turns on how you define "eventually." Other posters have reported that by Turn 200 everyone has turned on them. This has not been my experience. I have been able to hold the diplomatic game together, but I should note that much beyond 300 turns is unexplored territory to me.

But when you read, "One turn we were best buddies and the next they declared war on me," I'm convinced that the reason is always there is you can peel through the layers to find it.

There is a logic to diplomacy, and if it were as simple as one, two, three, what fun would that be ?

So, you're minding your own business and you get a message from someone you have good relations with: "Stop what you're doing, you're ticking me off." I'm convinced there is always a reason for this, and, sometimes I'm even able to figure it out.

What is more mysterious, to me, is the out of the blue message: "You ain't quite the stinker we thought you were" relations improving thing. Unless the answer is pretty obvious, I often have a much harder time figuring this one out.

So, here is pedxing in another thread about development plans going to great lengths to cut down on micro-managing, but juggling diplomacy almost demands micromanaging that. Put that on automatic pilot, ignore the foreign matrix long enough, and discover things have gone tail over tea kettle.

Then you can say, "One turn we were friends, and the next turn for no reason they turned on me."

I meant to talk about proximity and relations, like pedxing reported above, but got side tracked.

Mostly I am waiting for another pedxing diplomacy war front report, and ideas/observations from the rest of you, 'cause I admit I've barely got my toe in the diplomacy door. 'Course I could'a just said "bump" to this sadly un-stickied thread.

[pedxing]

ok, another update...

things are good and not so good.

the Raas have an alliance with the Imsaeis,
the Imsaeis have an alliance with the Silicoid,
the Silicoid have an alliance with the Nommo.

that's not going to end with everybody happy!

the darned Silicoid keeps refusing alliance with me,
and the Imsaeis has declared war (no ships, yet.)

if this keeps up, the Imsaeis might be able to get the Silicoids to declare war on me, and then i'm a gonner... we share a couple of systems, nestled up against my soft underbelly.

danger!

my options seem to be:
(a) get the Nommo into a war with the Imsaeis, and hope that the Silicoids enter on the right side... but the Nommo don't have contact with the Imsaeis.
(b) work on the Silicoid until an alliance is made, and then push them to turn on the Imsaeis... attacking the Tachidi should help.

i'm liking (b) more and more the more i think about it. i'm moving to reinforce my diplomatic system (outposts put there to get diplomatic contact) with the Tachidi. also have outposts moving in on planets just insided their space. that diplo system is racing to build a Mob center now, and i'm saving up ships in the reserve. maybe i can actually take some planets full of industrious bugs!

i've given up on the plan of attacking the Evon... looks like Harvesters have already taken the boarder world i had my eye on. they beat me to it...

here's the power listing:

1: Silicoids
2: Harvester
3: Raas
4: Meklords (me)
5: <unknown>
6: Imsaeis
7: Cynoid
8: Tachidi
9: NOs
10 - 13: Nommo, Evon, and two <unknowns>

the <unknowns> are now another Harvester, another Silicoid, and the Eoladi. Both the second Harvester and second Silicoid border my big Silicoid.

i finished my string of bases across Silicoid space, picked up a few good worlds along the way. now i've got a mess of outposts heading off to Nommo space to do the same to worlds that they aren't interested in. if i get kicked out of my beachhead near the Imsaeis border, i can then re-colonize from Nommo space, instead of trying to go past the Silicoid.

when the next round of Mob centers gets done, we're gonna see some action!

[Shogo Yahagi]

It was around turn 200, 6 enemies, spiral galaxy, don't remember the size or dificulty off the top of my head. Not easy, not impossible. Tiny senate. I was in with one Cynoid empire that I wiped out, so it is just me and the NO. I have all 5 Xs. Can't remember if I had them all in place when this happened or not. If I did, the last one wasn't discovered or implemented near when this happened, or I would have considered that as a possible cause. Peace Through Strength.

We had shared systems all over the place, and we had treaties in place for over 100 turns. I ran into them early and allied pretty quickly. We were both at war with the Ithkul, and they still had a -200 CB toward them. I was generating enemy of my enemy points out the wazoo from blowing up Ithkul ships and glassing their colonies.

However, I also had a good 120 planets more than my ally. I was at something like 270, he was at around 150, Ithkul down to about 70. We were 1, 2, 3. One race had been wiped out, the other 2 were fairly inconsequential: 1 had less than 20 planets, the other less than 30. Grendarl and Silicoid, respectively. Plus the NO.

His CB toward me had been stable at about 170 for ages. Then, in two turns where I did nothing but stomp our mutual enemy, his CB toward me dropped by 370 points. If you know of something else that can generate that kind of CB change, I want to know what it is so I can use it to bust up enemy alliances.

After almost 100 turns of war and him glassing several of my colonies, my people still love them. I have a +200 CB toward him. (Stupid CB. If you already like them and aren't in Holy War, anything they do to you only increases your CB. "Thanks for glassing that colony, buddy! I hated those jerks!")

Here's a thought. Does diplomacy suffer from the same bug as the treasury? Is the value calculated and then displayed with a cap at +/- 200? Can they love you so much that they hate you? That's the only explanation I can see other than sole superpower, but then again, they weren't at the 200 CB cap.

I know every planet had not been colonized. I don't know about other systems, but I know there are still uncolonized planets in some of my systems a hundred turns later, and we had an intel treaty, so he knew about those. There were also at least a few planets open in some of the systems we shared.

Could there be some effect that kicks in when every system with planets has at least one colony? I suppose that could have happened at about that time. I tried to keep an empty system between the Ithkul and my colonies, but eventually a colony ship would escape my attention and settle in no man's land. I suppose we could have briefly ended up with at least one colony in every available system.

[Shogo Yahagi]

Originally posted by pedxing
my options seem to be:
(a) get the Nommo into a war with the Imsaeis, and hope that the Silicoids enter on the right side... but the Nommo don't have contact with the Imsaeis.


Have you thought about giving the Nommo a planet near the Imsaeis? You would get brownie points for it with the Nommo and put the wheels in motion for them to go to war with the Imsaeis. If you could grab a planet in an Imsaeis system, give it to the Nommo, and then bug out, that would be a quick way to generate some instant conflict between the two.

[pedxing]

ooooh! i like that idea! :up:

i've got the world on the other side of the Silicoids that gave me contact with the Imsaeis... don't want to give that one to them... but i could divert an outpost ship that is on it's way past, set up shop on a likely planet in the same system, get it up to colony status, and then do the gift.

i'll try to time it with attacking the Tachidi, go at the problem from two angles at once...

[JosEPh]

I'd like for this Idea to be analysed, I think it has Merit!

"...Here's a thought. Does diplomacy suffer from the same bug as the treasury? Is the value calculated and then displayed with a cap at +/- 200? Can they love you so much that they hate you? That's the only explanation I can see other than sole superpower, but then again, they weren't at the 200 CB cap. ..."

Turn 237 was a long time ago but Shogo eXperience was not that far off from mine. I too had over 250 planets to the Fishes 180, Bugs 150, and Meks,rocks over 110+ each only the Grendarl were under 100 at that time. And yes i did have trade treaties with almost everyone, but by this time Meks and rocks had long broken them and declared war. Of course back then Not knowing about Fish/lizard hate thingy sure didn't help either! Actually there were turns prior to 237 that sometimes in trying to get to next turn would ignore a diplo msg and move on to next turn. Didn't mean to but it did happen several times. Just didn't give the Weight to Dilpo that I guess you really have to!

[pedxing]

i think.

i've got an outpost under my wing on the Imsaeis border, set to migrate. i was going to give it to the Nommo, to get them in contact with the Imsaeis, so that i could call in my treaty with them. war between the Nommo and the Imsaeis ought to stir up the situation with the Silicoid, who has alliances with both.

to bring the Silicoids around to my side, i've been ratcheting up the pressure on the Tachidi in the Senate. they aren't members, but they don't have to be. just the Silicoid do, so that they can watch. i'm settling outposts right now in what should rightly probably be Tachidi space, and racing to build a beachhead Mob center, from which to launch border skirmishes and eventually... invasion. <dun dun dunnnn!>

i've just repelled a Harvester attack on that beachhead system, my first combat with them after losing my first two assaults on their magnate Mob center. fighters and missiles were ineffective, but when they closed my PD and SR light mount weaponry tore them to shreds. that's promissing.

same story on the Imsaeis front too... first gasbag ships to actually warp in to that system. i rush-built the fighter base as soon as i saw them coming down the starlane, and finished it just as they arrived. luck thing, too, since the only other ship on orbit was the outpost ship for the outpost i was going to give to the Nommo.

anyway, looks like my focus on the Silicoids is well founded:

1: Silicoid - objects of my machinations...
2: Meklords - me
3: Harvester - have be snacking on the Evon!
4: <mystery>
5: Raas - open war
6: Imsaeis - open war
7: Cynoid - mmm... heavy mek petting...
8: Tachidi - threats, condemnations, borrowed CDs returned.
9: NOs
10+: Nommo, Evon, and all but one of Eoladi, Silicoid', or Harvester'.

i'm trying to seed Nommo systems with outposts right now. i can even see a magnate that they overlooked! only problem is a big Raas blockade about 1/4 of the way down. i don't think i can break it.

i bet the Silicoids could break it... i wish there was a diplomatic option for Coordinating Attacks. didn't SMAC have that? i forget. anyway, Allies should be able to not only ask each other to declare war, but also suggest targets! :sour:

ok, back to it.

edit: i checked the Senate, and the Raas are proposing that the Imsaeis join! if they do, then i don't have to bother with giving the outpost to the Nommo. i'll give it to them anyway, maybe, or suggest a trade for something on the other side of the Raas blockade?

anyway, i Seconded it.

[Awsric Armitage]

So, you're minding your own business and you get a message from someone you have good relations with: "Stop what you're doing, you're ticking me off." I'm convinced there is always a reason for this, and, sometimes I'm even able to figure it out. - Longspur

Too true. Some do not remember that spies can cause people to get very pissed at you. I think their is evidence that the Moo2 spy system of blaming an enemy or planting incriminating evidence framing someone else is still in there. Not conclusive, spreadsheets etc, but I think it's still in their some where.

Pedxing- Good diplo. game for the thread showing the sub-plots and how to weave them together to your ultimate advantage. Eventually some enemies may be forced to fight Harvesters for mutual survival making for some of the players to remain 'on the fence' so to speak making them more vulnerable to manipulation. Tried some of Strifeguards' diplo. enhancers with adding or offering sanctions and embargoes to maintain the pull on the CB towards one direction or the other yet ? Might keep some at war longer or shorter however your 'miestro' diplomatic envoy wants to play this verse. Then on to the chorus and another verse to begin with a new rhyme in mind. Eh?...Hmm?...(If I had a goati I'd be smoothing it right now with repeated softly stroking downward motions twisting slightly at the end of the goati to form a pointed end and giving that end point a slight tug just enough to jar my musing mind forward another inch in the long ponderous journey of the diplomatic game.)

[JosEPh]

"...(If I had a goati I'd be smoothing it right now with repeated softly stroking downward motions twisting slightly at the end of the goati to form a pointed end and giving that end point a slight tug just enough to jar my musing mind forward another inch in the long ponderous journey of the diplomatic game..."

This is a bit off topic but,... if you can "paint word pictures such as the above paragraph then I suspect that you're quite capable of contributing an "Ode" to the OT forum. I lay down a literary challenge Awsric! Pick a song Mod it to the forum/game and Post!!:D :up:

JosEPh;)

[Lennier]

Originally posted by pedxing
<snip>
i bet the Silicoids could break it... i wish there was a diplomatic option for Coordinating Attacks. didn't SMAC have that? i forget. anyway, Allies should be able to not only ask each other to declare war, but also suggest targets! :sour:
<snip> Yes, SMAC did have that, although I rarely used it. But I agree such a feature would be quite useful in MOO3.

Keep us posted on the great diplo!

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Lennier
Yes, SMAC did have that, although I rarely used it. But I agree such a feature would be quite useful in MOO3.

Keep us posted on the great diplo!
will do.

i used that feature in SMAC to say "hey, why don't you go attack over here drawing heat off my flank, while i take over... uh, care of the important cities..."

[Awsric Armitage]

@ pedxing need another update of the machinations per Machiavelian(Mispelled I think) guises of the Meklords.

While waiting for a sticky for the thread I have seen Sencho ban and add warning levels for a couple of people so moderators are out there lurking. Longspur started a thread about people ranting in GD and then left. Similar to in game gifting a planet near an enemy to make the introductions or set out the bait. Funny after the first post I do not think he posted again in that thread. Hmm...

Just thinking about adding some more info to this thread regarding the different Diplomatic agreements, treaties, and actions and their effects. I was thinking something that included stuff like what treaties change your general 'stance' from say 'total war' to 'quiet front' to 'defensive front' as some probably do not realize that these settings automatically change with certain diplomatic agreements and they also effect ongoing relations as well as letting colony ships past your borders. Somone at sometime said they could get a Non-Aggresion but still prevent the rivals ships from moving through or colonizing by using the 'defensive front' stance. I do not know if you or others want to tackle the diplomatic relations tables for offers and acceptance or not but I know a table exists. Just have not tested it out yet for how reliable it is. Same files where total war and war weariness numbers are at. If anyone else has consolidated the info please post it. Reading a chart is one thing but if someone has proven some of the chart is conclusive or valid as a guide it would be good to know.

[pedxing]

ok, one update, coming up!

turn 110. just lost my last outpost on the other side of the Harvesters. those were the ones that gave me contact with the Tachidi. i've still got contact, but i'm not sure how. anyway, doesn't matter.

about 5 turns ago, the Silicoids started rating me higher than the Imsaeis. Gasbags had been in the +80s or +90s (current relations) and i was in the 70s. i've had one ancient scout ship parked over a single undefended Tachidi planet for about 10 turns, and every turn i just let the AI have it's way with assault and bombardment.

it problably did little damage, and it didn't seem to help releations with the Silicoids..

then a Praise the Silicoids bill came up in the Senate, so i seconded it and voted yes. NOs voted it down. hopefully, it's the thought that counts.

anyway, two turns ago, the Silicoids came to me, looking for a Defensive Alliance. it took two turns to show green in the diplo window, but as soon as it did (this turn) i requested that they backstab the Imsaeis.

we'll see how that goes. the Silicoids are currently +110 with me, and in the low +70 with their other allies, the Imsaeis and Nommo.

based on my recent encounters with the Harvesters, i'm going to need some serious help against them!

oh, and i checked military-politacal economy for everybody, and just me and the Raas are the only ones that aren't in Holy War state. so what should happen? i wish i had been checking earlier... of course i've been saving off every 10 turns or so, so i could go back and check... but i'll leave that exercise for later.

current rankings:
1: Harvester
2: Siliciod
3: Raas
4: Meklords
5: Imsaeis <- not for long, i bet
6: {mystery}
7: Cynoid \ both just sitting
8: Tachidi / still right here...
9: {mystery}
10: Evon <- making a comeback?
11: NOs <- falling fast in the rankings
12: Nommo <- still pathetic
13: {mystery}

where {mystery} are still the usual suspects: an Eoladi, another Silicoid, and another Harvester.

it'stime to go play now, and see if the Silicoids actually do some harm to the Imsaeis... i suppose since they are both at Holy War, i don't have to worry them making up after they suffer losses!

other next step: getting the Evon kicked out of the Senate.

[JosEPh]

"...other next step: getting the Evon kicked out of the Senate..."

See!!! Everybody picks on the Evon!!!:p ;)

[pedxing]

i just don't want the knee-jerk humanoids seconding any anti-mek bills, that's all!

but nobody (not even Silicoids) is seconding my bills to remove or declare war on them. same goes for my bills to declare wars on the Floaters (who aren't in the Senate)

actually, the only bills that have ever been seconded in this Senate have been Diplomatic Isolation for a Harvester (not the big one), Senate Mining Subsidies (now expired), and Jumplane Tracking. that's it.

useless international diplomatic organization. someday, i'll kick everybody else out of it... muahahahahahahaha!

[Awsric Armitage]

i just don't want the knee-jerk humanoids seconding any anti-mek bills, that's all!

but nobody (not even Silicoids) is seconding my bills to remove or declare war on them. same goes for my bills to declare wars on the Floaters (who aren't in the Senate)
-pedxing

IIRC the Humans have the bonuses for others not liking being at war with them maybe that has something to do with the bills but it would be a smaller effect than the others I think. Something to consider in the machinations anyways.

[Longspur]

" Longspur started a thread about people ranting in GD and then left. Similar to in game gifting a planet near an enemy to make the introductions or set out the bait. Funny after the first post I do not think he posted again in that thread. Hmm... " -- Awsric

Ah, I'm still here, reading instead of posting. Actually, I am sorry I posted that rant thread; doing the very thing I was complaining about. Embarrassing.

So, I won't rant about this, but . . . Where is the sticky?

Actually, this one thread and all the wonderful contributions you all have made to it changed the way I think about MoO3.

Guess I'm unredeemable. What others see as design flaws I see as a wonderful complexity that keeps the game fresh and interesting.

[Awsric Armitage]

Good to see your still around Longspur. Thought we might have had another casualty.:rolleyes:

Ran into a situation that almost had me convinced of what some have posted about getting to powerful and pissing the other AIs off. After carefully looking over everyones relations and known treaties I was still baffaled as to why my CR went to -200 all of the sudden with two AIs I had been on good trading terms with both and non-aggresions with both. We all three had common enemies and were doing good turn to turn damage so enemy of enemy should have been working. So what gives???

Both the AIs in question were in the Senate and I was not. One of the third parties we were at war with was in the senate and obviously proposed a bill and got it seconded to hit me with a Senate Embargo. CR goes to -200 for both these two AIs who were in the Senate and I am assuming the NOs voted for it and so they had to go along with it. Boom! Next turn I have both declare embargos against me just like the one I was at war with had done before. All treaties broken and embargoes. All this is done with out my knowledge except for the diplomatic messages out of apparently no where as I am outside the Senate. Only Senate members relations with me were effected and there CBs are still hovering around the same as before the Senate Law was passed emargoing me. The other AIs outside the Senate were uneffected. Dirty Bastards. Not only underhanded but behind my back in the Senate were I can't see it coming.

Still goes to show that if you look hard enough there is a cause behind it. This was the hardest to spot thus far. An Orion Senate Conspiracy. Who Knew.

[Shogo Yahagi]

... doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you.

I still contend there is a tipping point where you get so big everyone hates you. In my case, I basically was the senate. It was the NO and me, and I was the president. Nothing happens unless I say so. There was no senate conspiracy in my case.

[Awsric Armitage]

Interesting twist a couple of turns later and I am in the Senate, huh? There is no law showing declare embargo against me but their is a declare total war against one of my allies that is outside the Senate. Only one of the Senate races has contact with my ally that the Law is directed towards and they have been at war for a little while. I am assuming this is the one race that proposed the bill and the NOs went for it. I did not think that my relations would dip that fast for being the ally of the recepient of a Senate declare total war law. Two of the Senate Members changed to the -200 CRs mentioned above breaking all agreements one turn and then embargoing me the next. I guess I did not get the clue or hint as I was still outside the senate at that time and did not know of the Senate Law to declare total war on my ally. Next turn both declare war on me, this is when I was thinking I did something wrong but the only thing making any sense is this Senate War law. During the whole process their CBs did not change. Hmmm. I am going to try and propose to end the war against my ally and see if the others will accept peace, armistice, or cease-fire agreements. All previous attempts were basically laughed at. Interesting twist is that if the Senate members do not have contact with their 'wipping boy' empire that they declared war on I guess they take the next best thing and go after his allies. Still Dirty Bastards.

Good news is the NOs have 50 more votes than me right now in the Senate at 65xx? something and the other empires are between 1500 and 2500 votes each. So I clearly have the edge population wise and should soon outstrip the NOs in Senate votes. Get my ally in the Senate and we will control a majority with two other Senate members still on good terms with me and two that declared war. Strange that 2 did and 2 did not???

[Rover]

Originally posted by Shogo Yahagi
... doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you.

I still contend there is a tipping point where you get so big everyone hates you. In my case, I basically was the senate. It was the NO and me, and I was the president. Nothing happens unless I say so. There was no senate conspiracy in my case.

I concur, there’s no doubt in MY mind about it anymore.

In my case, three close allies went from the CB +50 to +100 range to –200, about 5 turns apart, each in the space of 3-4 turns and despite my making significant gifts of technology and clobbering Itkthul and others that they considered enemies. I was president of the Senate, and there was no bill presented against me.

Checking the numbers, I noted that the first started to turn against me about when my total number of planets equaled the sum of everyone else’s. Or about half of the galaxy. That’s where I think the tripwire is.

I think that it’s the AI deciding that you’re going for galactic conquest, and that if they’re going to fight you anyway, it would be better if they hit you earlier rather than later.

Either that, or it’s part of the design to help players going for the Sole Survivor victory, so that you don’t have to turn on an old friend, that old friend turns on you.

Awsric, can you go back to one of your saved games, in multiplayer mode, as one of the Senate members, to confirm if there WAS Senate action against you? If you didn't see a bill when you got into the Senate a few turns later (in fact, if you DID get into the senate a few turns later), I'd suspect that there was no bill.

Awsric/Shogo, when the rest of the empires turned on you, did your total number of planets also roughly equal half of the planets in the Galaxy?

Rover

[pterrok]

Originally posted by Awsric Armitage
Interesting twist a couple of turns later and I am in the Senate, huh?

A pet theory of mine is that you automatically get in the Senate IF you have contact with the NO AND 25% of the galactic population--regardless of whatever yov've done. Since all my games post patch where I started out of the Senate were losses on Impossible, I could never confirm it myself, but someone else in another thread DID say that it seemed to hold true in their game...

So, note the turn you got in the Senate and when the game ends, go back in the history and figure out the total population and if you have 25%

(Please say you got contact with the NO before getting in! If not, you WERE just voted in 'normally' by a regular vote.)

[Shogo Yahagi]

Originally posted by Rover
Awsric/Shogo, when the rest of the empires turned on you, did your total number of planets also roughly equal half of the planets in the Galaxy?

Rover

I didn't have that many. I had a big lead on any of the other empires, but not as many as all of them put together.

[Awsric Armitage]

I had contact with the NOs before getting into the Senate after the as yet unexplained shift in CR with 2 seperate Senate Members while 3 others remained unaffected. I have a good edge in # of planets owned but I do not think it is 1/2 the number in the galaxy. I could be close to 25% population of the galaxy as the Senate votes are NO 65xx? +50 more than me, 65xx? me, and 1500 to 2500 each for 3 of the four other Senate members and around 400-500 for the last one. 6 Total senate Members including me after I just got in. The 2 empires effected about the same time were with CR drops to -200 and the other 3 including the NO not effected.

This leads me to believe that the enemy-of-enemy CR shifts for third parties might be subject to the same reversing rules of MPE Holy War settings effecting CB shifts for the primary party. Both the 2 empires effected had recently changed to Holy War MPE settings and on the turn before the shift I did considerable damage to a common enemy. Could this have triggered an opposite than expected CR shift from enemy-of-enemy when at Holy War settings? Seems unlikely as it would surely have shown up and been discussed before now?

Just to clarfiy the enemy empire has been at Holy War, the 2 Senate shifters just switched to Holy War right before the shift, and I am not in Holy War.

I am not convinced the 2 empires shifted because of the Senates Law passed before I entered the Senate of declare total war on my Ally. As my ally is unknown to them they take a over -200 CR shift towards me? A pretty big swing for being someones third party ally. There has to be more in the mix somewhere that I am missing?

[pterrok]

Cool! You have the perfect test case!

In a competitive game where a bunch of us played from the same save in v1.0, two guys got contact with the NO when they had 40 or 50% of the population and they got in as soon as they made contact.

I, on the other hand, was slow growing and met the NO, and then after I took a few more planets and grew a bit more, made it in--and it looked like I had 25% when it happened backtracking from the Senate win 20 turns later.

From your vote totals it looks like you could be close to 25%, but when the game ends you'll be able to know what it really was.

[Awsric Armitage]

From your vote totals it looks like you could be close to 25%, but when the game ends you'll be able to know what it really was.-pterrock

Can I not just tell right now when I am admitted instead of voted into the Senate. Should be in the Victory screens under the History tab sorted by population, just have to tally all the players and see if mine are 25%(assuming I have contact with all of them). Or am I missing something.

Anyways I pulled a copy of the savegames file from under my Moo3 directory and put them all into another folder so I would not lose the previous autosaves and the turn of admittance or voted into the Senate.

This would be nice to know for sure if this happens consistently with the NO admitting empires this way. Strategically speaking if a larger empire has not penetrated into the core to make contact with the NO and Senate victory is possible then all that is necessary is to make contact with the NO to get into the Senate or to have their votes to block anothers Senate victory. Much easier than having to be voted in. I guess with the number of votes the NO had without my empire in the Senate they could have 'voted' me in themselves. So much for Roberts Rules of order in the Orion Senate where the NO are concerned. They can propose membership and vote in whoever they want if this is true.

[pterrok]

You could check now and see what comes up, but I was thinking it was the total GALACTIC population--if you don't have contact with a race they don't show up in the history... But you're right, it could also be based somehow on the pop of the current Senate members only.


It was the fact that one of the players in our game was basically at war with everyone, eliminated one entire race, made no attempt at all in diplomacy, yet STILL got into the Senate that launched the whole idea of an automatic invite.

[Awsric Armitage]

Did three more turns last night and kicked the Meklar out of the Senate. The other two empires the Klackons and the Nommo are still staying at -200 CR. I have fleets on the way to hit the Cynoid, not in the Senate, that are at war with both so we will see if I can get some enemy-of-enemy gains in CR with them. This still does not explain the shift though. The only thing I can come up with is that the Meklar traded sanctions against me with them both as a part of either the peace terms or in another trade. It is just strange both things occurred right before I got into the Senate. With both of those empires in the Senate the only way was for the NO to either motion the bill or to second it. Strange?

On another note I had another look at the baserelations table and found out why one of my new colonies is in unrest, I think. The Magnate races have listings for their relations and the Phaigor hate the Audrieh worse then the Ithkul a -160!! The worst base relations in the game!! The Phaigor also hate the Ajadar at -75. Others that do not get along are the Alkari and the Etherians either Imsaes or Eoladi at -50, the Ajadar and the Etherians at -60, etc. With the Phaigor disliking everyone except the Geodics and not liking them very much at 14. I wonder if these races continue with their disputes once absorbed into your empire? If so this explains why some of my racially mixed planets are always unhappy until some unrest reducers are built.

[RobNelson]

@AA: Are those magnate numbers base relations, or base CB? Regardless of how they're labelled, if one empire suddenly had an influx of magnates (which hate your people), then CB might shift drastically. -200 still seems too much, though.

[Awsric Armitage]

I found them in the baserelations.txt so I assume they are CB like for the starting player races. I really do not know for sure but since I found them in the table I thought I would post and see if anyone knew if they are even used.

I had one planet colonized with an Audrieh colony ship and migrant Phaigor population. Immediately they were in unrest 1. That was the only reason I could find for the unrest. None others were listed and the rest of my empire was relatively O.K. . A few piracy problems as the humans do have in newer systems but this one came out on unrest1. First one I have ever seen like that. Do not know if the relations are for unclaimed magnates or claimed ones as well? Maybe they will take on your races prejudices after a while? I just do not know for sure.

[RobNelson]

Interesting. I've had a few unrest problems that never seemed to have a reason, but since I play Nommo, I knid of expect that sort of thing.

I also grab up magnates like there's no tomorrow.

[Awsric Armitage]

Yeah, that is what turned me onto the idea that maybe they do have an effect against each other when in adjacent zones on a new planet or something. I always assumed when the unrest tabs said Human it was because of war weariness or FLUs settings or oppressometer settings which all do not show up in the unrest tabs, all the magnate races also have tolerances for oppressometer settings I think.

I guess someone forgot to link these unrest causes to the unrest tab when the spagetti code started in between the programmers and developers coming and going.

Makes it frustrating to find the causes sometimes and then consider the possibilies of unknown social spies. All though I think these, social spies, cause sitrep messages but then again maybe only when they get caught at it like when failing the cloak skill check or something. So much unknown and hidden even after playing extensively.

[RobNelson]

I thought it had been settled that "Human" and "Nommo" unrest reasons were for the liberty pick. I see that on every planet, even if the unrest is 0 (due to gov, rec, mil DEAs), and even before any magnates are found.

On the other hand, I sometimes see a blank line in the unrest tab. This may be a cause of unrest that had the description deleted, or just an "end line" (carriage return, whatever it's called now) in the description of one of the causes. Or something else entirely.

This is why my highschool Pascal teacher told us to document everything. :D

[Lennier]

Originally posted by RobNelson
I thought it had been settled that "Human" and "Nommo" unrest reasons were for the liberty pick. I see that on every planet, even if the unrest is 0 (due to gov, rec, mil DEAs), and even before any magnates are found.
Yes, that's what I see as well.
On the other hand, I sometimes see a blank line in the unrest tab. This may be a cause of unrest that had the description deleted, or just an "end line" (carriage return, whatever it's called now) in the description of one of the causes. Or something else entirely.

This is why my highschool Pascal teacher told us to document everything. :D What your high school Pascal teacher didn't tell you is that it's much easier to fire/downsize/refuse to give a raise to a person who has documented his/her code. :rolleyes:

[RobNelson]

[quote]
What your high school Pascal teacher didn't tell you is that it's much easier to fire/downsize/refuse to give a raise to a person who has documented his/her code.
[quote]

True. It should be noted, however, that the vast majority of coders on MOO3 were downsized anyways. :p

[Shogo Yahagi]

My motto on documentation:

"If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand."

[Gerra]

Hi all , in following up the excellent visualisation by Pedxing i took a shot at another table in baserelations.txt .
I have built a somewhat identical image applied to the government base relations.

http://members.chello.nl/gbrinkers/images/baserelations.png

It can help you in deciding how to tweak and determine your neighbourly contacts with the victory/overview tabs and your empire settings
Notice that with Unification and Unique you'll have negative relations all around while the 'human' settings make for a more relaxed option

PS What does Unique apply to ? Might this be the setting for the New Orions ?

:up: (edited for victory tab misnomer)

[Awsric Armitage]

Yes, Unique is the NO.

[Longspur]

Thanks, Gerra.

More good stuff for a terrific thread.

[pedxing]

hmm, yeah... i wonder.

maybe they are adjustments to the racial base relations?

maybe. i've seen small deviations from the racial values on first contact, but assumed they were a random factor.

will have to pay more attention next game.

i'm feeling itchy to do the magnate part of the chart, now... dunno if it actually does anything, but might be fun to puzzle through.

oh, and i'm up to turn 160 in the on-display game described above. who wants an update?

[Awsric Armitage]

Update Request.:D

[pedxing]

ok, here we go...

i'm finally getting more time to play, the last couple of days. turns are speeding up right now, because i'm not producing ships as fast as i would like.

i think after this one is over i'm going to go back to timed turns, try to get my edge resharpened (and finish games more quicly)!

so it is turn 169, i've been #1 for a while now, but #2 Harvester has some big big fleets, and i can't mobilize enough ships fast enough to drive them back. i'm only slowing them down, is the feeling i get... but i make them feel the cost. oh, yes.

the Silicoid is #3 and being increasingly helpful in defending both the Harvester and Imsaeis borders. i'm holding the line against the Raas myself.

Raas are #4 and Imsaeis are #5. no other empire is even close in score to this leading pack, and my Meklords are pulling away now from even this pack. only the Harvester looks to have any chance of catching up.

the other Harvester is #13 weak, and working together to beat the hapless monster into a throbbing pulp seems to be making the Silicoid into good friends with the Gasbags again.

only my use of Treaty Obligations (e.g. Exchanges of war for hand-me-down-rev weapons techs) keeps the war going there... gotta keen the Silicoids on my side! if they turn on me, i'm going to be in some seriously bad trouble.

so, despite three fronts going and a weak underbelly, i decided that it was M&A time. remember those ouposts that i snuck past the fighting Evon and Harvesters way back? that gave me contact with the Tachidi? well, hello Mob Center!

and hello Tachidi worlds! their navy is apparently completely depleted, probably from fighting the Harvester. problably took about 15 planets, for a while it was one per turn.

but now i fear that the Harvester has followed me into the Tachidi hinterland, and has started taking from me the planets i just took. or glassing them. grrrrr.

so. keep Silicoid happy, to keep Raas/Imsaeis heat off. keep Harvesters out of the homeland, and from de-liberating the Tachidi worlds. take a decade or so to bulk up. and then start to really wear the Harvester down.

sounds like a plan. i'll get right on it.

[Longspur]

Yes, about time for an update . . .

[pedxing]

up to about turn 180.

the Silicoids now love the Imsaeis (and Eoladi) soooo much that they just turned down my latest request to honor our Full Alliance.

if the Silicoids turn on me, i'm in big trouble.

the world on the Harvester boarder that i gave to the Silicoid has been left intact by the Harvester tide, and that tide seems to have gone back out to sea.

i might have drawn the heat off by trying to retake one of the worlds on the other side of the Ithkul Infestation (where i'm consolidating the worlds i took from the Tachidi), and mobilizing a big force with which to counter their counterstrike.

but, in any case, they've gone and left the Silicoid Mob world alone. i've also gifted the Cynoid a world one hop inside this new border, so that they could meet the our friend the Harvester too.

i'm trying to get the Cynoid into the Senate, the Evon out, and just Abstained on an Evon proposed bill to put Diplomatic Isolation on the NOs. if i had voted for it, it would have gone through.

i got 40% of the last Senate vote, so i'm thinking that i need to sidestep the Siliocid problem, and adjust the Senate a bit before the next elections. get the Raas out of there too, and then it'll be my club.

who knows, maybe i'll try to get the NOs kicked out of the Senate!

[Longspur]

"who knows, maybe i'll try to get the NOs kicked out of the Senate!" -- pedxing

__________________


In a game long ago Senate members voted diplomatic isolation for New Orions. And it passed. Then on the first victory screen, instead of being listed as Senate: Voting Member, they were listed as "New Orions." And they kept their vote.

[Lennier]

Originally posted by Longspur
"who knows, maybe i'll try to get the NOs kicked out of the Senate!" -- pedxing

__________________


In a game long ago Senate members voted diplomatic isolation for New Orions. And it passed. Then on the first victory screen, instead of being listed as Senate: Voting Member, they were listed as "New Orions." And they kept their vote. Diplomatic isolation is not the same as being kicked out of the senate. Although the name does imply that you won't be in the senate, in reality it just means that the other empires won't listen to you. Unless they want to.:rolleyes:

[pedxing]

interesting... poor little laptop is back in the shop, power problems may be cooking my RAM. :(

but when the little feller is back up, i'll get on with kicking them out, just to see what happens! :up:

the Evon got kicked out of the Senate, as payback for badmouthing the NOs, but right before the went they proposed another bill against the NOs: removal from the Senate.

i abstained again, waiting to see if anybody else would second it.

and then the crashing and the not booting. :sour:

[Lennier]

Originally posted by pedxing
interesting... poor little laptop is back in the shop, power problems may be cooking my RAM. :(

but when the little feller is back up, i'll get on with kicking them out, just to see what happens! :up:

the Evon got kicked out of the Senate, as payback for badmouthing the NOs, but right before the went they proposed another bill against the NOs: removal from the Senate.

i abstained again, waiting to see if anybody else would second it.

and then the crashing and the not booting. :sour: I feel your pain. Since July, my TiBook has been back to Apple 3 times. :eek: Luckily, I've only had to pay for the repair once. :up: I'm wondering how many times it must return home before Apple says "we can't fix this; here's a refund. Go buy a new computer.":bulb:

[nuclear hawk]

Hi, I have posted following thread:
-----------------------------------------------
I don't understand the politics of my allies, since I have patched the game with 1.2.5
I mean one turn we have complete harmony in relations, desire end conflict or demand peace as current causus belli.
Next turn they declare war on me, try to concuer my planets, and relations don't change. A turn after they will either accept my preposition of peace accord or will propose themselfs.
Now since while declaration of war all previous treaties are lost (economic, research, intelligence) I don't quite get it...What the **** is going on? What for do they need a war they:
1)cannot win and can hardly benefit
2)going to end anyway next turn
3)going to suffer economic backstep because of it
????????????????
-----------------------------------------------
One of the answers i have got that those friends of my probably had an alliance with one of my enemies and he asked my friend/s to declare war on me, which was declared, couse AI always accepts such a request...
The suggestion this person made is to ask my friend to declare war on his friend, whom I at war with and that will couse them to go to war, couse AI always accepts this.
so:
1) Is this advice true?
2)Does declaration of war has something to do with the fact that I have descovered genetics antaran X?
3)I am the biggest empire and I have numerous aliences, part of those at war with each other and I can understand that they don't like me being allied with their enemies. I have so far being able to avoid conflicts with them by asking a high price for my involvment, when I was asked to honor the allince. I want to keep low profile until I'll build lots of powerfull ships and come down on everyone. I was able to make it at my previous game, even though I was biggest empire )but this game was unpatched)
Can I somehow do this now?

Michael

[Lennier]

Originally posted by nuclear hawk
Hi, I have posted following thread:
-----------------------------------------------
I don't understand the politics of my allies, since I have patched the game with 1.2.5
I mean one turn we have complete harmony in relations, desire end conflict or demand peace as current causus belli.
Next turn they declare war on me, try to concuer my planets, and relations don't change. A turn after they will either accept my preposition of peace accord or will propose themselfs.
Now since while declaration of war all previous treaties are lost (economic, research, intelligence) I don't quite get it...What the **** is going on? What for do they need a war they:
1)cannot win and can hardly benefit
2)going to end anyway next turn
3)going to suffer economic backstep because of it
????????????????
-----------------------------------------------
One of the answers i have got that those friends of my probably had an alliance with one of my enemies and he asked my friend/s to declare war on me, which was declared, couse AI always accepts such a request...
The suggestion this person made is to ask my friend to declare war on his friend, whom I at war with and that will couse them to go to war, couse AI always accepts this.
so:
1) Is this advice true?
I would soften this and say the AI almost always will accept the first request to declare war. The worst thing that will happen if you ask is that your ally will say "no."

2)Does declaration of war has something to do with the fact that I have descovered genetics antaran X?Not directly.

3)I am the biggest empire and I have numerous aliences, part of those at war with each other and I can understand that they don't like me being allied with their enemies. I have so far being able to avoid conflicts with them by asking a high price for my involvment, when I was asked to honor the allince. I want to keep low profile until I'll build lots of powerfull ships and come down on everyone. I was able to make it at my previous game, even though I was biggest empire )but this game was unpatched)
Can I somehow do this now?There is some strong evidence that if your empire gets "too big," all the AI empires will start getting jelous of you and your CR will drop to -200, quickly followed by CB, quickly followed by war. "Too big" seems to be somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the galaxy. I tend to try to come down on one at a time (if possible) and leave my allies to last.

[nuclear hawk]

I would soften this and say the AI almost always will accept the first request to declare war. The worst thing that will happen if you ask is that your ally will say "no."

Actually the worst thing is that my ally will listern to my enemy and dclare war on me, which would lead in about 10 turns to multiple conflict with half of a galaxy and many blocaded planets

now I also have a weapon question:
what is this short range weapon that fires white balls, virtually bursting from ships, like some spray and extreemly effective against fighters and missiles? I think it's phaser, but I am not sure.
Anyone?

[Lennier]

Originally posted by nuclear hawk
Actually the worst thing is that my ally will listern to my enemy and dclare war on me, which would lead in about 10 turns to multiple conflict with half of a galaxy and many blocaded planetsGood point.

now I also have a weapon question:
what is this short range weapon that fires white balls, virtually bursting from ships, like some spray and extreemly effective against fighters and missiles? I think it's phaser, but I am not sure.
Anyone? It's the Lightning Field Generator (LFG).

[nuclear hawk]

Originally posted by Lennier
I would soften this and say the AI almost always will accept the first request to declare war. The worst thing that will happen if you ask is that your ally will say "no."



By the way if I am to ask this ally of mine to declare war on my enemy, who is his ally, what emphasis should I use? Do I demand or do I beg?

[nuclear hawk]

It's the Lightning Field Generator (LFG).
what mount should I use to make it effective against fighters and missiles? Note it's gonna be my secondary weapon on point defence and SR ships

[Lennier]

There's actually a lot of debate about it; some use heavy mounts to use LFGs as anti-ship weapons as well. I usually us PD mounts on my PD ships and light mounts on my other ships.

[pedxing]

depends on what your friends are like...

there is a Diplomacy mod (Otsego's Diplomatic Mod v2.0, available here (http://www.moo3.at/mods/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=18)) that really improves the text of diplomacy.

the aliens seem a lot less random, and to have more consistent personalities.

i find that makes it a lot easier to pick an emphasis for talking to them.

i figure they probably fall into three camps: the ones that treat you the way they want to be treated themselves the ones that treat you the opposite of the way they want to be treated the ones that are too crazy/alien to be so simple to pidgenhole like thatthen you just have to figure out which are which...

i've got some ideas about that, but really have no idea if they are right.

it could just be my Superior Diplomacy, Empathy, and Fantasticly Superior Trading skills that they are listening too, rather than my emphasis!

[Awsric Armitage]

Once upon a time there was a thread regarding this but IIRC the best responses to races were something like this.

Human: Reason
Insectoid: Reason
Silicoid: Formal
Saurian: Demand/Cold
Etherian: Varies/Reason
Ichthytosian: Polite/Appreciative

Some one explained that the Saurians respected sterness and cold to demanding emphasis viewing politeness as weakness. While the Ichthytosians were insulted easily and responded better to polite and appreciative tones.

For real, I do not think anyone knows for sure as there exists a few emphasis charts in the spreadsheets(EmphasisModifiers, MissedByModifier, ReplyEmphasis) but how they are used to modify the prefered method of delivery is beyond me. I have printouts of the tables but can't find what file I extracted them from now. Probably Hard-Coded anyways.

The ReplyEmphasis table seems to indicate that the tone used has something to do with this formula: DiploPts+=(Various Ratios), CRDipGon+or- and= Various Bonuses and Penalties. What that means and if it is used are something else entirely.

[Longspur]

Here is, I guess, a kindergarten level diplomacy question.

Say you're in the Senate and an early, early game election comes along. Should you,

#1. Vote for New Orions, 'cause he's gonna win anyway and it's best to hunker down in the trenches where he's concerned.

#2. Abstain, 'cause New Orions is gonna win anyway.

#3. Vote for the opposition candidate, in hopes you'll gain a few brownie points which might be useful down the line, or,

#4. It really doesn't matter.

Here is another diplomatic question from a situation I haven't encountered before.

The Senate passed an Anti-Cloning law that reduces population growth by 20%. I abstained. Everyone else voted for the measure. I opened up the bill to see how people voted, and there is the option of checking a box to "ignore this bill."

I checked the box. Now, on the Senate screen, the bill shows up bright neon red, marking my transgression clearly for all to see. What can I expect ? Diplomatic isolation ? Maybe getting kicked out of the Senate ? Nothing ?

It has been about 20 turns since I checked the box, and so far it doesn't appear to be having any effect. Would it be wisest to maybe see if I can uncheck it anyway ?

[RobNelson]

I normally don't vote for the NO, the other races tend to get ticked off if you seem to like the NO too much, and the NO don't seem to care one way or the other.

I've never ignored a bill before, but it's supposed to have a negative diplo effect with senate members. (Not 100% sure on that).

[nuclear hawk]

Originally posted by Lennier
I would soften this and say the AI almost always will accept the first request to declare war. The worst thing that will happen if you ask is that your ally will say "no."


but sometimes it doesn't!
There is this case that certain empire A constantly refused to declare war on empire B
How is it posible (if it is) to override this obsticle?

Another thing: Causus belli of empire A droped to -200 because I've been whiping out empire B (they were very good friends, I guess). Is quick whipe out will help to avoid it (It took me 20 turns, but I can do it in about 5, if needed)>?

[JosEPh]

Okay Pedxing I need your expertise!

The Pedexes at turn 85 are confronted by a diplomatic conundrum.

As posted in the last report the pedexes have Mil. Alliances with the Imsaesis, Evon, and Raas. At war against Vamlra (rocks) via Evon, Cyniods via Imsaesis, and Ithkul (cause their just plain BAD).

Now into the mix comes the Sakkra (Ath), Triarians (Earili), Nommo (Igua), and a 2nd Cynoid (only just made contact).

The Sakkra and the Nommo have been asking for TAs for the last 5-7 turns every turn! They have treatened, mused, and even begged for these TAs. I have ignored them so far. But since I now share a system with the Nommo and soon with the Sakkra What am I going to do?

The Raas are already Allies and if I accept TAs with the Nommo this will probably send the Raas on the Warpath! Yes? No? And if I start accepting Sakkra TAs the Nommo and the trilarians will then side against the Pedexes.

The Sakkra are already at war with both the Fishes. But the Raas does not yet have Formal contact with either. Although they soon will with the Nommo.

My original core Allies I'd like to keep intact. Main reason is that we are all in the Senate. These Other races are not.

But this fish/lizard war is just waiting to eXplode!

One last item, every time the "wars" against Cynoid and Rocks expire the Imsaesis and Evon are "johnny on the spot" to demand Fulfil Oblig. against each respectively. And since neither have made contact with the Ithkul I can't get them to do anything against the ickies.

What to do, what to do?

JosEPh

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by JosEPh
The Sakkra and the Nommo have been asking for TAs for the last 5-7 turns every turn! They have treatened, mused, and even begged for these TAs. I have ignored them so far. But since I now share a system with the Nommo and soon with the Sakkra What am I going to do?

The Raas are already Allies and if I accept TAs with the Nommo this will probably send the Raas on the Warpath! Yes? No? And if I start accepting Sakkra TAs the Nommo and the trilarians will then side against the Pedexes.
I know you asked for pedxing's help, but I'd like to throw my 2 AUs in here, if you don't mind.

By "TA" I assume you mean "trade agreement", and you can safely sign as many of those as you wish. The Raas may get a touch upset if you "up the ante" by signing non-aggression pacts, but they won't out-right go to war over anything less than an alliance (and by that time they'll probably be trying to drag you into war anyway).

At the VERY WORST, you'll recieve a threat, but there shouldn't be any appreciable drop in your status with the Raas.

Don't get me wrong, the Fish/Lizard war is definitely going to go off in a big way, but you won't be serving as a catalyst by signing trade treaties.

[JosEPh]

Strife you can throw "your" 2 AU in any time!

That's good news about the Trade Agreements. I can use the revenue and open lanes of travel that would otherwise be lost.

Hopefully these new TAs will help in my push to unite the Galaxy against the ickies.

One more item that I overlooked-- the Imsaesis and the Raas are both at war against the NO. And it's only turn 85! The Imsaesis have asked for a Fulfil Oblig. against the NO but I stalled. The NO have 3 Task Forces parked over 3 of my sytems. And one is my Home world system. I'm no where close to ready to go fighting the NO.:eek:

JosEPh

[Longspur]

"Strife you can throw "your" 2 AU in any time! " -- JosEPh
_______________________________________________

Wouldn't you love to see all this collected in one thread ? 2 AU here, 2 AU there = priceless stuff.

JosEPh, sounds like a very interesting game; waiting to read the AAR on this one. Rich and complicated.

[Severus Snape]

Random diplomatic suggestion:

If you enjoy the diplomatic game, have disabled Senate Victory, but want more Senate action before the game is pretty much over, go into the "Orion Senate.txt" file in the unzipped Spreadsheets archive. At the bottom you'll see a table detailing how the number of votes are determined. Tweak the numbers for the Antarans (or "New Orions", I can't remember how it's listed) down a bit. They actually get votes for each "star" in the galaxy; I usually cut this number down from 10 to 5, or even 3. This will make for a much more interesting game, especially with a medium to large Senate. The Antarans will still be the "nay, nay, nay" faction for most votes, but they will quickly be relegated to near insignificance as you and the AI empires grow.

[Lennier]

Originally posted by JosEPh
One more item that I overlooked-- the Imsaesis and the Raas are both at war against the NO. And it's only turn 85! The Imsaesis have asked for a Fulfil Oblig. against the NO but I stalled. The NO have 3 Task Forces parked over 3 of my sytems. And one is my Home world system. I'm no where close to ready to go fighting the NO.:eek:

JosEPh Here's my 2 AU (pretty soon you'll be rich at this rate :D .)

When my "allies" try dragging me into a war with the NOs way before I'm ready, I just ask for three of their really good planets in return for fulfilling my obligations. I also try to aviod full alliances and usually stop at defensive alliances. The NOs usually don't declare war before smacking someone down.

[Shogo Yahagi]

If you really need your allies to be in contact with the Ickies, you could give them a planet to give them contact. If you don't have any you want to give up, you could always queue up a few colony ships and drop them on some crummy worlds in contact range of the Ithkul.

You spend a couple of colony ships, but your allies like you for giving them a planet, and you get the long term effects of EOME fighting for a war you were fighting anyway.

[Longspur]

"If you really need your allies to be in contact with the Ickies, you could give them a planet to give them contact. If you don't have any you want to give up, you could always queue up a few colony ships and drop them on some crummy worlds in contact range of the Ithkul." -- Shogo Yahagi
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excellent idea ! This works. Comes highly recommended.

[JosEPh]

This would be great, But the only system I had in contact with the Ickies was Niddam and they glassed it! No shared systems with Ickies to trade away. And only 1 other race, that the Pedexes have contact with, has contact with the Ickies. That's why I can't get any of My Allies to support my Bills in the Senate. They haven't met the Ithkul yet.

What to do, what to do?

Take 13 turns to reach Niddam from my closest system. The Brye Ehts in my Empire formed that colony on their own. That's the reason the Ickies glassed it, 87% Brye and only 13% Tachidi.

JosEPh

[pedxing]

Originally posted by JosEPh
What to do, what to do?ok, ok, i'm back.

been ugly busy. good to see this thread has a life of it's own.

my greatest goal is to be un-needed. wanted is fine, of course, just don't want to be needed. ;)

uh... yes, i'm a cat person, why do you ask? :weird:

anyway, i haven't even had time to play my own game, and wanted to actually take the time to read what's going on here before slapping off an reply... just didn't have time to do it right.

still don't, really, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

[JosEPh]

I understand! My computer has crashed on me this week, work has been a bear, and my internet connection keeps dropping out. Sheesh!

And tomorrow I turn 52!!! At least I took the day off.

Gonna have to look into that wireless DSL, this twisted pair of speaker wire the Local Verizon phone company uses is only good if you want to hook up a generator and stun some fish! Very slow download and upload speeds, 2 to 9kbs. That's what you get when you live in a cornfield.

Anyway when you get a chance to catch up on this thread and my Pedexes predicament, I'd like some more advice.

Got some notes hurriedly jotted down for the next AAR installment. Pedexes at cycle 101. Need to flesh it out and post there.

JosEPh

[Severus Snape]

Originally posted by Shogo Yahagi
If you really need your allies to be in contact with the Ickies, you could give them a planet to give them contact. If you don't have any you want to give up, you could always queue up a few colony ships and drop them on some crummy worlds in contact range of the Ithkul.

You spend a couple of colony ships, but your allies like you for giving them a planet, and you get the long term effects of EOME fighting for a war you were fighting anyway.

This is a very effective technique, but it also has a more peaceful and friendly use. If you're in the Senate, and trying to get an ally into the Senate who is not already and who has contact with few or no other members, give that ally some colonies within contact range of other Senate members. If all goes well, your ally will make friends and you'll find it easier to get "yea" votes for their admission into the group. It would be wise, however, to consult the "base diplomatic relations" table before deciding which colony to give; it won't help, for instance, to give your Raas ally a colony within contact range of a Trilarian or Nommo senate member.

[Lennier]

Originally posted by JosEPh
This would be great, But the only system I had in contact with the Ickies was Niddam and they glassed it! No shared systems with Ickies to trade away. And only 1 other race, that the Pedexes have contact with, has contact with the Ickies. That's why I can't get any of My Allies to support my Bills in the Senate. They haven't met the Ithkul yet.

What to do, what to do?You don't need a shared system to give away, just one within two jumps of the Ickies. Then you can give a planet in the system that's two jumps away from an Icky system to give them contact with the Ickies. (The two-jump rule applies even when the interviening system is a Guardian system. :weird: )

[Shogo Yahagi]

Originally posted by JosEPh

And tomorrow I turn 52!!! At least I took the day off.

JosEPh

Happy birthday, old man! :D Have a good one!

[Lennier]

Originally posted by JosEPh
And tomorrow I turn 52!!! At least I took the day off.
I had misread that as "And tomorrow I'm at turn 52!!!" and wondered how your game had so much action in such little time. Ooops.

Happy b-day JosEPh.

[Longspur]

I'm attempting to play Human -- oh oh -- for the second time. The first attempt was lost 'cause of a hard drive crash, and was perhaps more successful.

I'm at about Turn 100 or thereabouts. These Humans are slightly modified, dropping ground combat stuff as low as possibled for 20 points, and starting planet bio for 10 points. I spent 20 points on superior diplomacy and 10 to bump trade to good.

I'm in the Senate with Tachidi, Cynoid and Grendahl, and have contact with Silicoid, Eloadi and Ithkul. 'Cept for the Harvesters, have good relations with all. Well, touchy with the Cynoid, but you know.

And -- I have yet to complete a successful trade. (I almost invariably accept exchanges offered to me, hoping to create a climate of trade.) It has become a challenge. I know the theory: offer tech not in the AI tech tree, and offer decent trades. I've tried that, and everything else. Hey, I'll swap you Hard Beams, Merculite Missiles and Sunlight Redirection for a Level 3 laser modification. Buzz off, no deal. I've tried every combination I can think of. I even tried coloniazing planets terrible for me but Green for an AI and throwing that in to sweeten the deal. They thumb their noses.

All other agreements are easy to get. I have turned down alliance offers to avoid involvement in on-again-off-again wars around me.

I am playing on Hard. I am number two. The Tachidi, with about 20 more planets, twice my population and about six tech levels above me, is number one.

Trading sounds so easy when you read accounts about using it in forum threads. (I have been able to trade, playing other races, but Humans ?)

What am I doing wrong ? What can I do ? Is having an alliance an absolute requirement ? Just one completed trade, no matter how worthless, and I'll nail it like a trophy to the barndoor. Help.

[Castellon]

Take the alliance, it is easy to avoid the call to battle by counter-offering and asking for stuff you know they will never agree to.

The only thing you have to watch is them building in your systems.

[Awsric Armitage]

Hey Longspur.

Sounds like you actually are being very successful at trading to me just not like you had envisioned it. Having the AIs accept your offers of tech trades is only one aspect of a much larger trading picture.

You already mentioned that the AIs were already offering you many trades to fill out their tech trees which you accepted no doubt which counts as a successful trade in my book even if not initiated by youself. Attempt to sweeten some of these deals slightly with lower level relatively speaking techs that the AIs have that will roundout your tree. Sometimes they bite sometimes they do not. Depends on how badly they want the techs more so than their CR with you IMHO; however, both count but I think need outweighs like in the larger trading equations.

Also remember your increased trading points will be reflected more in the values and numbers of trade agreements not tech trades or swaps. You should receive substantially more AUs incomes from your bordering spaceports and from the Orion Senate trade if I am not mistaken.

So you are being successful in trading across the board just not as successful in the singular area of offering tech exchange deals; however, some are being thrown your way.

[Reklar]

Hi Longspur,

From what little I know, it sounds like Awsric Armitage is right, you are doing pretty well in the trade department. My current game is a rather heavily modded Human with a heavy focus on diplomacy (with research, manufacturing and trade as well) and even I have trouble getting tech trades to work sometimes. I gather from my experience so far with this game that being allied facilitates acceptance of trades, but only insomuch as it affects your CB rating with them. I'm not sure if CB rating can be maxed out without being allied, but you might check your ratings with each empire you are trading with and make a judgement based upon that whether or not they will see your offer as beneficial, always remembering how they like to be addressed as well. Also keep in mind when you are trading what their racial weaknesses are, what goverment type they use, and what their relations are with their neighbors. I've found that even if something is in their tech tree, but they haven't discovered it yet, they will often accept it as part of a trade package.

I'm sure that being the veteran you are you have already thought of all of this, but I thought I would put it in writing just in case it will help you or someone else. That and I like to post my thoughts sometimes to help me organize and summarize for my own benefit. I guess this could be considered talking just to hear myself talk, but I hope it is not perceived as such. :)

-Reklar

[Awsric Armitage]

I'm sure that being the veteran you are you have already thought of all of this, but I thought I would put it in writing just in case it will help you or someone else. That and I like to post my thoughts sometimes to help me organize and summarize for my own benefit. I guess this could be considered talking just to hear myself talk, but I hope it is not perceived as such. -Reklar

Funny, I often do the same thing and once posted realize that even though I preach the concept alot I might not take advantage of it as much when playing the actual game. It helps me in my mind to solidify the ideas in writing and then actually examine them more thoroughly.

[Longspur]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sure that being the veteran you are you have already thought of all of this, but I thought I would put it in writing just in case it will help you or someone else. That and I like to post my thoughts sometimes to help me organize and summarize for my own benefit. I guess this could be considered talking just to hear myself talk, but I hope it is not perceived as such. -Reklar
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
Funny, I often do the same thing and once posted realize that even though I preach the concept alot I might not take advantage of it as much when playing the actual game. It helps me in my mind to solidify the ideas in writing and then actually examine them more thoroughly. -- Awsric Armitage
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Absolutely ! Couldn't agree more with both of you. Years ago there was a newspaper strike in New York City, shutting down the papers. Someone asked Red Smith, an elegant sports writer, how he felt about the strike, and he said: "I hate it. How do I know what I think unless I can read what I write."

Diplomacy continues to be one of MoO3's biggest mysteries to me. I'm convinced that there is always a reason when things happen; the fun part is trying to peel away the layers and discover what the reason is. It is this depth that makes the game fascinating for me. The alternative is to just say, "Aw, the game is bugged," and give up on it. One of my biggest "discoveries," after playing the game awhile without the benefit of these forums (I summer in a remote cabin in Alaska without a telephone) was the very first post in this thread. That was a real "Eureka !" moment. I've been wrestling with diplomacy every since.

Alas, as someone once observed about sex, "There is a thousand miles between the library (the forums) and the bedroom (the game in practice)."

So, I may hold the forum record for asking dumb newbie questions. I've got a bunch more. Seems I discover a new puzzle almost every playing session. Hooray ! for the forums -- and patient people.

[Otsego19]

Originally posted by Longspur
quote:
Diplomacy continues to be one of MoO3's biggest mysteries to me. I'm convinced that there is always a reason when things happen; the fun part is trying to peel away the layers and discover what the reason is. It is this depth that makes the game fascinating for me. The alternative is to just say, "Aw, the game is bugged," and give up on it.

I've done some modding, so I've spent some time digging through spreadsheets, and there really is a reason for everything that happens diplomatically. Nothing is really random, but there are so many different things happening behind the scenes, and some things don't work as they should, so its hard to make sense of it.

I'll try to make a diplomacy guide sometime, but I haven't played the game in months (I was waiting for the patch:weird: ) so it may take a while.

BTW are we ever getting another patch? I did a search and found nothing.

[silentrogue30]

Nope the 1.2.5 patch is the last we will get.:( Would love another patch from Atari, but lets face it they have closed the book on MOO3.

[Awsric Armitage]

I've done some modding, so I've spent some time digging through spreadsheets, and there really is a reason for everything that happens diplomatically. Nothing is really random, but there are so many different things happening behind the scenes, and some things don't work as they should, so its hard to make sense of it.


I couldn't agree more. There always is a reason behind it all. With your single diplomatic decision causing ripples through out all the races you have contact with friends and foes alike. Just from one decision. Now add on top of it any other decisions or actions in the same turn for you AND add on top of it any oher decisions or actions in the same turn for all of your rivals known or unknown that have contact with anyone you have contact with and the ripples become waves very quickly.

You definately do not live in a bubble in Moo3. Well maybe on that desolate Red 2 but we are talking about a diplomatic bubble.

[Incubi]

bump this needs a sticky, this is the second mot helpfull thread I have read. It shows that the atarians put some real thought in this aspect anyway. unforetunantly I noticed that the fish side usually ends up on the winning side. I think this is due to the gas bag friendship. I tend to befriend lizards and insects so you know what My games end up like.

[pedxing]

i'm playing diplo-trade custom Grendarl lately, just to see how the life of a Lizard works out, and i'm finding that the Gasbags usually end up on my side, and the Machines end up with the Fish.

note that i play with the altered BaseRelations.txt, though, so there may be some additional dynamics going on... i also usually end up with a Bug or two on my side, which puts off the Silicoids... and the Rocks and Machines get along fine in my games. that's like, what, a third-order effect, probably not significant, unless we're all in the Senate together.

i think what happens, really, is that the Gasbags are plain good diplomats, and with my fanstastic-empathic Lizards there is just a snowball effect, and we end up with >100 relations in no time... same thing with the Psilons if they're in the game.

but if there are Nommo in the soup, then there is much more of a race for me to get defensive alliances with Gasbags and Psilons. then it's only a matter of time before the Squidlies to get itchy... a quick Fullfill Obligation war won't break up their friendship with my Allies completely, but at least it can slow it down or delay the natural formation of the Gasbag-Psilon-Nommo Axis...

and if during that time the Nommo pick up the Machines (and Silicoids?) as friends, that'll drive a wedge between them and Gasbags and Humanoids, and i get to keep my friends.

so i'm experimenting now with a policy of threatening the Machines early on, trying to drive them into the arms of my enemies faster, see if i can avoid calling in so many Obligations.

[Crovaz]

ok, interesting observation: stalling can be used to forever delay desicion making at no cost

I back this up by the fact that in one game i had two full alliainces with two empires. Those two empires declared war on each other and both asked me, every turn, to help them fight the other lol.

Not wanting to make a desicion and hopeing that their war will end soon, i've managed to stall for 30 odd turns now :P

I've regularly checked my relationship with both empires and there has been no change, (+190 for both)

Just a thought, discuss as u like :D

[Longspur]

"i'm playing diplo-trade custom Grendarl lately, just to see how the life of a Lizard works out . . ." -- pedxing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This game fascinates me 'cause Grendarl is the last race I would think about to venture into a hostile galaxy armored with diplo-trade skills. I always thought it sounded like a fun challenge.

Corvas, a much used alternative to stalling is the old counter-offer. I have never had someone reply, "OK, if that's what it takes for you to go to war, take our planet. Glad to have you on our side in this great battle."

Here's something that has always confused me. You get a message asking for a tech exchange from an AI empire. They want your mittens and offer a hand-knitted scarf and "Declare war: New Orions." So, I finally accepted one of these offers. Nothing happened. Well, I got the scarf. What's going on ?

[Lennier]

Originally posted by Longspur
Here's something that has always confused me. You get a message asking for a tech exchange from an AI empire. They want your mittens and offer a hand-knitted scarf and "Declare war: New Orions." So, I finally accepted one of these offers. Nothing happened. Well, I got the scarf. What's going on ? [/B]Was the Declare war: NOs on your side or their side of the trade? If it's on their side, they're offering to give you the scarf and declare war on the NOs in exchange for your mittens. Check to see if they've declared war on the NOs. (I sometimes get my allies "offering" to declare war on the NOs through trade. I'd rather have my allies alive, thankyouverymuch.)

[Patton1942]

Originally posted by Lennier
<snip> I'd rather have my allies alive, thankyouverymuch.)

heh. Not me. If they're dumb enough to declair war on the NO at turn 150, buckem. They'll just get me into trouble later on.

I accept, and scoop up their planets when the great white smackdown is done with 'em.

[Lennier]

In my game 2, I had a couple of allies who went on ahead a declared war on the NOs without my mittens anyways. The most annoying thing was that the NOs had to travel through my systems (blockading them) to get to my "allies." I tried the "recolonize the planet the NOs glassed" seveal times; once my ship landed at the same time as my ally and all I ended up doing was contributing some Adjar to the other empire. :( After declaring war on the NOs, they weren't good for anything much except for asking me to fulfill my alliance obligations and declare war on the NOs.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Longspur
This game fascinates me 'cause Grendarl is the last race I would think about to venture into a hostile galaxy armored with diplo-trade skills. I always thought it sounded like a fun challenge.
that was part of the attraction, indeed... the Grendarl seem like they should be a simple smash-and-grab race, poor tech, and teeming masses... nay, "hordes". good fun to make them smooth and savvy ad everybody's buddy!

right now i'm playing a variation... medium cluster, 12 AIs, low diversity poor homeworld, random senate (i'm in this time, but being out would probably be interesting too). oh, and i took off the 7 minute timer. turned too many people off of trying the challenge, i think.

those that know the challenge will remember the Imitative Creativity... trading for techs is now hugely vital, and is often best done by giving away the same 3 techs to three different allies, for one tech from each. they rarely say no. works much better than trying a three for three trade with each of them individually, and getting three "no"s.

the insects and fish are way ahead of me, but i'm about to swallow a machine empire whole, so i'll be back in the game soon...

[Lennier]

Originally posted by pedxing
the insects and fish are way ahead of me, but i'm about to swallow a machine empire whole, so i'll be back in the game soon... [Homer Simpson Voice]<drooling>Machine Empire; yuuuum. <more drooling sounds>[/Homer Simpson Voice]

[Patton1942]

Originally posted by Lennier
In my game 2, I had a couple of allies who went on ahead a declared war on the NOs without my mittens anyways. The most annoying thing was that the NOs had to travel through my systems (blockading them) to get to my "allies." I tried the "recolonize the planet the NOs glassed" seveal times; once my ship landed at the same time as my ally and all I ended up doing was contributing some Adjar to the other empire. :( After declaring war on the NOs, they weren't good for anything much except for asking me to fulfill my alliance obligations and declare war on the NOs.

grabbing up planets early on can be tricky. its too hard to time it right, your far from the planet, he's close. You're both slow as hell on the galactic map...

As to obligations: 1.) stall 2.) make unreasonable counter offers. Now they might take them eventually, so make sure you pick their 3 best planets.... :evil

[Lennier]

Originally posted by Patton1942
As to obligations: 1.) stall 2.) make unreasonable counter offers. Now they might take them eventually, so make sure you pick their 3 best planets.... :evil I usually go for option #2. The Trilarians had colonized 3 planets in my home system, so when they'd ask me to declare war on the NOs, I'd ask them for those three planets. They never accepted. And the NOs refused to glass any of them. :cry:

[Longspur]

(Apology: This is really just a bump.)

Stuff I've never tried:

#1. Trading the same planet on the same turn to multiple empires. What happens ? Is it possible ? Or, after the first trade offer, does the planet no longer appear on the trade screen ?

What is happening is, I landed a two-pod colony ship on a planet in an isolated system (a red planet -- sigh) and by the time my colony ship got there, it was already an Ithkul outpost. So, when the planet came on line, the population was about 50-50, me and the Ithkul. Gradually, the Ithkul ate all of me, and now it is 100 % Ithkul. I've thought about trading it, or gifting it, but for tactical and long-term strategic reasons a mobilization center in that neck of the woods would be great. I had the planet set for migration, but it seems that if anyone actually relocated there, the damn Ithkul just et 'em up. Unrest ? Well, 'cept for a lack of Harvester food, they're doing just great.

After a tragic Senate loss (I was playing Darlok -- I started with low-growth sex-is-taboo Psilon, but built my colony ships on Darlok worlds 'cause -- compared to Psilon they like nice big planets -- and was not in the Senate -- my Psilon worlds were dedicated to research and the Darkok did everything else) I went back to the tried and true Evon.

Huge, 3-arm spiral. 16 AI's. Which makes 18 with the N.O. and me. In the Senate. A huge Senate. Playing on Hard.

This Senate cast of characters included a Human, Trilarian, Nommo, two Meklars, a Silicoid, a Raas, and a Klackon. Well, the machines got the Human kicked out in short order. The lizard and the two fish went to war. The Klackon borrowed his breeding habits from the Psilon and is turning out to be a non-player. For almost 200 turns, I've walked tippy toe through this mess. The machines hate me -- but only about -35 CB -- and the Silicoid ain't a bit Evon fan either -- also about -35. Just one problem is, both fish allied with the machines early. The Raas is powerful, but he stands alone.

'Cause I dithered around and didn't take sides early, I have good relations with most, but no defensive allies. (I did ally with two non-Senate gasbags. I know so many players, including two Ithkul, 'cause at the beginning of the game I was completely squeezed in close to New Orions and surrounded, but found some wormholes and now my "empire" is about four widely seperated clumps.) No allies meant no decent trading. Oh, sure. Lots of trade agreements and non-agression pacts with everyone but the machines -- I'm a pedxing guy, Fantastic Trader and Empathic -- but I couldn't get a trade.

And, guess what ? Evon aren't allowed original creativity. I've played before where I never researched shields, for instance. But this time I never researched warp drives. Imagine buzzing around the galaxy -- a huge galaxy -- with nuclear drives when everyone else has Fusion Drives ? (Finally, fortunately, one of the gasbags offered me Fusion Drives and a couple of other nice techs in exchange for just about zip in a trade. I was so grateful I didn't even gift him my Ithkul planet. First time I ever felt like kissing a mushroom -- 'les it's on a steak or in an omlet.)

I have no idea what to do. I'm about to take out a couple of Guardians and this will mean my pretend war with the Ithkul will become a hot shooting war. I'm probably just a whisker away from a shooting war with one of the Meklar and the Silicoid. I'm #1 -- with some 1,000 + votes compared to the New Orions 7,000 + -- and nobody will ever vote for me. I know, 'cause every election I vote for the N.O. and I always get 0 % of the vote.

Maybe because of my early Nuclear space drives, my Antaran Xpeditions are the slowest I've ever seen. The first three armadas went out before Turn 100, and at almost Turn 200, they are still wandering around at a Destination without a single partial discovery. Three other Xpeditions haven't even found a destination.

Could the great Emperor Longspur be destined for two losses in a row ?

P.S.: I know, this is a long-winded bump.

Post-post script: If you only press the button thingy to read the last post in a thread, THE MOST IMPORTANT POST IN THIS THREAD IS THE FIRST ONE. If you only read one post, READ THAT ONE.

[Longspur]

In the above post, I said something about the game in progress being about 200 turns. When I opened the game to check, it was 130 turns. Well, it seemed longer. So many complications.

And, I do have Ion Drives visible. Imagine that ! I am actually going to research a star drive. Speed kills. Somebody.

[Lennier]

Having Ithkul in your empire is not as much of a Big Deal as one would expect. So keep the planet if you want.

[Poptoad]

I too enjoy this thread. It's one of my favorites. I've learned a lot. Without the diplomacy & combat screens, this game would be awfully heavy on the spreadsheets.

Don't get me wrong! I'm a geek! I love spreadsheets!

Here's an observation: I've seen mods for just about everything in this game, but the ones for diplomacy are always quite conservative. I don't know why. Re-drawing the natural alliances would seem like a quick and fun way to vary the playing experience, e.g.:


The humanoids vs. the rest of the world--the humanoids all love each other and everyone else is neutral
organics vs. inorganics
cold-blooded vs. warm blooded
Friends of the Antarans vs. those the Antarans shun
etc.


I'm just saying this because the fish-lizard war, with all its subplots, is fascinating. It IS the story-line to every game of MoO3. It also seems there would be other good stories to tell.

[Awsric Armitage]

Pretty easy to do with base relations numbers in the spreadsheet. Guess that is what you were saying.

Ed the 2nd did something similiar with one of his invader sheets IIRC.

[pedxing]

i like the idea of designing a three sided war, rather than one with just two sides. well, really 3+1 since everybody still hates the Ikies, right? and that minus one leaves 15 races, which divides neatly into thirds... so i'm going to look for things that add up to 5 only, requiring symmetry at least at the start.

i like: Rocks (1), Gasbags (2), and Meks (2) on the Weirdo side.

Humanoids (3) need 2 more, so which of Fish or Bugs? well, the Humanoids could use some high-growth allies for Senate bids, right? so the Bugs (2) would be good for this Pragmatic side.

Lizards (3) would pick up whichever the Humanoids didn't, and that would be Fish (2)... talk about maximum difference with the normal story arcs! call it the Amphibious side?

and maybe mix it up a little, the way the game is now, with the Cross-side stuff. only a few ways to do that...

Rocks (1) would need a new pair of deuces, which can only be Bugs (2) and Fish (2). that's like a whole ecosystem in there!

the Lizards (3) pick first this time, instead of getting leftovers, so give them the Meks (2), since that's more in character, eh?

so them Humanoids (3) get Gasbags(2), which seems a more refined choice anyway, diplomacy wise.

so each Race would have 7ish others that they get along with, maybe fewer if they don't like their own Species (as in the original game), especially bad for those that have more Races in the Species (Humanoids & Lizards). this could be used as a play balancer, maybe... if the Gasbags are too strong, reduce the Etherean vs Etherean relations, to at least keep pairs of them from teaming up and being unstoppable!

i'd vote for tweaking the Lizards to like each other quite a bit... it wuld be interesting to see them all working together. and maybe making the Fish hate each other, just to see what happens? see if (otherwise reasonable) Grand Alliances tend to fragment if two Fish are in the Senate?

plus there's relations with the other 7 or so races with which no side is shared. for example, the Silicoids never share a side with either the Humanoids or the Lizards, in this scheme. so do they hate them? or just have minorly bad relations? oh, the tweakability!

ok, maybe i'll give it a go after trying a "non-fixed" BaseRelations.txt Silcoid Senate game, requiring at least one Cyb is also in the Senate. goal is go get an Alliance with the Cvb(s), and then somehow (conquest and subjugation of voting populations, perhaps?) win the Senate despite the awful population growth rate of the Geodic Godfathers themselves.

gotta dig up Qev's images again, and get a link to the Silicoid!

both high and low player count and map size games might be neat, but i'd suggest a smaller map with lots of players. really fast early game to small empires stage, then gridlock, with lots of "aquisition targets" in the pool, suddenly eying each other.

go after the Gasbags from Turn 1, to make the Cybs happy. just send them Pleading Threats to go away, until they fall solidly into the orbit of any no-good Humanoids? fight them too, to solidify realtions with the Cybs.

and Customize heavily for Diplo and Trade, including the specials!

ok, bedtime.

[mpenni]

Hey all, long time lurker, infrequent poster. First off, my congrats on a great thread. Learned a lot about diplomacy here and how it functions in the MoO3 universe. Also loved the ongoing updates and analyses on the various games. Always good to put a concrete example to a theory.

My first point is my 2 AUs on the notion of emphasis in diplomatic negotiations. A few places in this thread and elsewhere the topic of what emphasis to select and what effect this may have has been brought up. I do recall seeing a list (partial?) somewhere on the boards to this effect. IIRC that post was listing from memory himself. I wanted to bring up the Prima guide strategy guide for MoO3, (not too many groans please). I realize that it is woefully inaccurate and full of stuff that doesn't exist in the game any more. It did however have a breakdown for each race and more to the point, tips on what emphasis to use for most of them. This list of emphases matches perfectly with the list I obtained from these boards, (but have forgotten where said list came from exactly).

For what it may do as help, I will include it below for those who might want to peruse it.

Race ask respond
Sakkra demand insult
Eoladi reason polite
Human reason polite
Grendarl reason polite
Trilarian reason polite
Tachidi declare ?
Imsaies declare ?
Evon beg humble
Klackon argue cool
Cynoid state formal
Silicoid state formal
Raas reason polite
Meklar declare cold
Nommo ? ?
Psilon ? ?
Ithkul ? ? (does anyone ever TALK to these guys??)

I hope this provides some help to peple out there.

As for my problem with the Nommo, they just won't talk to me. They won't declare war, threaten or even glance in my general direction. Some background: I am playing a modded Meklar race. I have lowered Manu to good, home planet bio to similar and lowered cunning in order to pick up Collectivist and Natural Engineers. I am also a big fan of Bard of Prey's mods and have the three of them in as well as tech slowdown.

I like to throw in a little roleplay into my games, this coupled with the fact that I discovered this wonderful thread after I started my game, I am playing a mechanoid race that is out to rid the universe of all organic life. My opening diplomatic stance was shoot first, keep on shooting and don't bother with questions.

I also figured that I would solve the problem of other empires colonizing within my borders by colonizing every planet in every system I came across. I know, not the wisest of expansion strategies, but with a greatly reduced reliance on bio for food and a mineral surpus that is now bordering on 17K, I figured I could get away with it. (little did I know I had forgotten about the penalty to production from those Red 2 worlds....)

I started in an arm of a three arm, huge galaxy, out of the senate. I had upwards of 150 worlds before I met my first empire, (some poor rock empire that now no longer exists). I have since met and have contact with all the other races except the NO, (met them, but they just sailed on by on their way to glass someone's poor hapless planet).

My vision of a pefect mechanized universe has led to the destruction of three empires thus far, (two Silicoid and one human), and the crippling of another human empire. I am currently pounding a Rass empire into oblivion. To say that the rest of the universe hates me would be putting it mildly. The only two empires not at war with me are a Tachidi, (ranked #1, I am #3), that started off trading and I accepted at the time not wanting to open up a fourth front in my ongoing cleansing efforts. I have also met the Nommo empire in question, (rank #2).

They have never responded to any of my hails. Not a one. They will not offer any conversation of their own, will not declare war on me, nothing. (at first I thought they might be deaf or my translation software was buggy) They have a Total war stance against me, I lowered mine to defensive to try to get them to talk, nada. We shoot down each others ships, I outclass them tech wise but they have more ships, we have even glassed a planet of the other.

He laid waste to two of my planets, populated by captured silicoids, (I permited this blemish on my perfect mechanized plan because I discovered that the huge penalties my Red 2 planets were getting in production were starting to hamper my ability to build larger ships fast enough, I figured the rocks could make better use of some of these worlds, I needed slaves for mining and I don't have to feed bio to these guys. Besides, they are technically not organic and thus sort of do not impinge with my cleansing efforts), but must have felt so bad about this that he quickly replied with a gift of a low level tech.

This is the only time I had heard from him before or since. My subsequent hails still go unanswered. I even signed a NAP with the Tachidi, (which the Nommo have a NAP with) believing he might like that and started the slaughter of the Raas to try to get some EOME effect going, (once I learned about it here), still nothing. CR between us has sat at about +30 for the lonest time and is only now, (since the Tachidi NAP), started to fall gradually. The Tachidi with whom the CR has also been in the same range are also growing to dislike me more and more every turn.

I can't speak for senate activities, no one will let me in. When I eventually find that Orion system I am planning on burning the senate building to the ground.

Why, oh why will they not speak to me?! Even if it is just to declare war, send a threat or spit in my general direction! I can handle that, I am going to turn them into fried calamari soon anyway, but to be IGNORED!!! Oh the utter lack of logic of it all......

[edit] sorry about the long paragraph, did not realize it had become so monstrous in the small box we have to type in

Meklar who just can't figure out these organic life forms.....

[jwfcp]

referances to the "strategy" guide tends to make me burst out in laughter. he fought the good fight, but they just dont make em like they used to, it isnt worth writing a statguide on a game till at least v1.3

and um could you edit your post with a few returns? i doubt there are many people that would make it to your well placed python quote.

i dunno i think the devs messed up the cyber balancing, by my reconing the psilons should be half and half while the meks should be full minerals like the silicoids. and every race should have the option of being cybered like in moo2.

speaking of the psilon, arent they just the useless race, they cant do anything theyre just something you add to your empire as you expand. sickly unbalanced.

[Longspur]

Originally posted by jwfcp
speaking of the psilon, arent they just the useless race, they cant do anything theyre just something you add to your empire as you expand. sickly unbalanced.

Well, jwfcp, if you're looking for a challenge . . .

Currently playing Psilon in a strange kind'a game I hope to do an AAR on someday. Am in the Senate, playing for a Senate victory, and it's a large Senate, which is good 'cause I'm a Fantastic Trader, and I need all the AUs I can pull in. I'm spending 'em all. There's not much in the bank for a rainy day. Turn about 120.

To the south of my position, beyond which is only black space, is an Eoladi empire. Completely cut off and therefore desperate. The Eoladi only has contact with myself and a Trilarian, who is also a Senate member. The Eoladi, of course, is not.

I have no allies in the Senate. There is also a Sakkra, and I was waiting to see how the Trilarian/Sakkra thing shapes up.

So, the Eoladi, who I had very good relations with, declares war. Well, what else could they do ? And, they have an alliance with the Trilarian. Now, my CB with the Trilarian is about 190. So, I get two messages from the fish: relations improving, and a declare war. I ask for a peace accord, and get it, and then get a non-agression pact. This lasts until the peace accord expires, when I again get two messages from the Trilarian: relations improving, and declare war. Another peace accord, etc. (I'm also approving the Trilarian's requests for trade/research agreements each time, although it seems rather pointless since the declaration of war each time cancels them.)

Within my borders, the Trilarian and Eoladi share a system, one big planet each. And I've been blockading this since the Eoladi declared war. I don't have much in the way of ships, but I cob-job together a fleet that should be enough, and load up some troops. My Rhea have been building Mobiles x 10 since forever. I arrive the turn the Peace Accord expires, and, what'da'ya know ? The Trilarians have two armadas there and shoot me to pieces before I General Retreat. Then the Sit-Rep has another two message combo: relations improving and declaration of war.

I honestly don't know what to do. Diplomatically, I'm stymied. I guess I could get the Trilarian kicked out of the Senate, but to what effect ? Oh, I should mention that after every two-message deal from the Trilarians, they post a bill in the Senate praising me, and, except for the New Orions, everyone usually votes for this. (Well, I'm the one who seconded it.)

Take 'em both out, you say ? Fat chance. According to the powergraph on the history screen, I am #3. The Eoladi is #6 and the Trilarian #7. But, get this. They both have as many or more planets than I do, are both four tech levels ahead of me, and both have twice the population. If they have less money than I do, they both must be bankrupt. To the southwest, they share so many systems it's like they are braided together.

(Can anybody explain to me how the History/powergraph works ?)

Anyway, if I tried to take both these guys on, they'd go through me like beets through a baby. Either one has more of everything worth having more of.

For now, unless the Eoladi get around to mounting a huge effort, I can defend okay. But in the long run, I'm in a heap'o trouble here. I guess I should get busy trying to stir up trouble for the sweet Trilarian in the Senate. Maybe try and build a coalition around the Sakkra, who nobody seems to like very much. Hard row to hoe there; the Sakkra is at war with the Klackon, who is top Senate dog.

If you think I've misplayed here, yep ! Somehow, I've gone desperately wrong, and my rag tag band of magnants aren't faring well at all.

Well, if you enjoy a challenge, try the Psilon.

[pedxing]

i think you should have made enemies with the Lizard, early on.

that would have driven the Trilarian into your arms, along with their allies, the Eoladi. bang, classic Psilon-Etherean-Fish Axis of Wheezing, right there.

in the Lounge Lizards games i found it best to intentionally make enemies with the Cybs early on, to bring the Gasbags over to my Side. both pushing and pulling on both sides of the power structure gets it into the desired form much more quickly.

the nice thing with Psilon, Ethereans, and Fish is they're all good (or better) at Diplomacy, and like each other from the start anyway. they're a natural club that could end up together without much effort. abusing the Sakkra from the start would've accelerated the natural process.

fence-sitting about the Sakkra delayed and discouraged the formation of the Axis, leaving you in the current tight spot.

do you have an early game save?

[Longspur]

Originally posted by pedxing
i think you should have made enemies with the Lizard, early on.

that would have driven the Trilarian into your arms, along with their allies, the Eoladi. bang, classic Psilon-Etherean-Fish Axis of Wheezing, right there. . . .

the nice thing with Psilon, Ethereans, and Fish is they're all good (or better) at Diplomacy, and like each other from the start anyway. they're a natural club that could end up together without much effort. abusing the Sakkra from the start would've accelerated the natural process.

fence-sitting about the Sakkra delayed and discouraged the formation of the Axis, leaving you in the current tight spot.

do you have an early game save?

You are so right about what I should have done. Thing is, the Eoladi came on the scene late, and as a non-Senate member I didn't figure them for a player. In this case, and in most, I suspect, fence-sitting was definitely bad. Better to actively mold the political situation a la pedxing or Strifeguard. I trapped myself with the lure of that Fantastic Trader bonus.

I guess I mentioned that in a huge galaxy I enjoy a very large Senate. There's even another Psilon. We have interwoven hopscotch systems via a wormhole to the east. They are good about trading tech, but it's hard. I'm so far behind. Strangely -- for Psilon -- they've never asked me for a defensive alliance. No one has, but relations with everyone, including the unlikelies, are very good. Probably because, in spite of that silly #3 ranking, no one sees me as a threat.

I do not keep early game saves. Even when I've made a stupidly bad blunder, I've never gone back to an earlier save. Always kind'a seemed like a cheat, and I'm not a tester at all, just a player. I cut the deck, so I always figure I gotta play the cards I'm delt. Even when I make a mess out of it.

Should mention that my "Psilon empire" isn't really Psilon at all. First magnant to come fully on line was Elerian, and they built colony ships. Then a Darlok colony came on line and now they are building the colony ships. There are also Rhea, who build Mobile x 10, Ajadar and Audrieh who build ground combat support stuff when they are not building ships, and, yeah, the slow-growing Psilon. I guess, if I succeed in taking out that big Eoladi planet within my borders, they'll get their turn at building colony ships also.

I'm a slow player, and maybe I can figure out an angle. Or a way to survive. But, if there is a moral to this sad story, it is implicit in pedxing's advice above: (I'll restate it in blunt terms) Fence-sitting is usually a pretty limp diplomatic strategy.

[Awsric Armitage]

This is the only time I had heard from him before or since. My subsequent hails still go unanswered. I even signed a NAP with the Tachidi, (which the Nommo have a NAP with) believing he might like that and started the slaughter of the Raas to try to get some EOME effect going, (once I learned about it here), still nothing. CR between us has sat at about +30 for the lonest time and is only now, (since the Tachidi NAP), started to fall gradually. The Tachidi with whom the CR has also been in the same range are also growing to dislike me more and more every turn.

I can't speak for senate activities, no one will let me in. When I eventually find that Orion system I am planning on burning the senate building to the ground.

Why, oh why will they not speak to me?! Even if it is just to declare war, send a threat or spit in my general direction! I can handle that, I am going to turn them into fried calamari soon anyway, but to be IGNORED!!! Oh the utter lack of logic of it all......

First off your shoot first and ask questions later approach is hampering your diplomatic overtures from the early game I think.

If the Nommo are Senate members and you are not and no one will allow you in then you are more than likely at war with a few members or are close to war diplomatically. If these Senate member races are diplomatically even neutral they can swing votes into there favor and might have been doing so for a while. I am just surprised the Senate has not declared war on you yet but perhaps they do not have the votes quite yet for that either. I would suggest making some friends instead of blasting away unrelentlessly as the entire diplomatic web shakes from the movements along one tiny spindle or thread. It is all interconnected and without some help from another ally you might be SOL.

Might want to bring up the Nommo's diplomatic picture of the universe in the foreign relations tab. Then check all their relations with all others that you have contact with. This normally 'get out of my races viewpoint' can be quite enlightening to what is actually occuring through the ripple effects of several interwoven relationships. Almost no diplomatic decision goes unaffected by more than a few races relationships together. It seems the third party is always effected slightly in some way either seen or unseen.

Ohh!! Also remember the damage done to an enemy at Holy War acts opposite driving them deeper into hatred than it does for non-Holy War stances.

[JosEPh]

@mpenni Sounds like the Nommo got Diplomatic Isolation passed in the Senate against you. Basically all the Senate members will ignore you if this is passed.

He is in the Senate right?

Also if his stance is Total war from Victory Screen and he's a Senate Member then he's probably got a bill passed called "Total War Meks". Which means all Senate Members will be on Total War stance against you. But you probably knew this already.

JosEPh:)

[Poptoad]

Originally posted by pedxing
in the Lounge Lizards games i found it best to intentionally make enemies with the Cybs early on, to bring the Gasbags over to my Side. both pushing and pulling on both sides of the power structure gets it into the desired form much more quickly.

That's beautiful, pedxing. I wish I would have thought of that myself.

I have this instinct left over from MoO2, to make all the trade/research agreements I can, then make Non-Aggression Pacts with everybody and pick my wars one at a time. It works great in that game, where alliances always just get you into trouble.

But in MoO3, the "have lukewarm relations with everybody" strategy too often ends up in isolation.

I play Sakkra, and like you say, the Gasbags-Fish-Psilons-Humans usually end up connected by bright green lines between each other, all of them declaring war on me. I call them the "goody-two-shoes" alliance. I get driven into the Machine-Rock camp, where I don't really want to be, because my poor-Diplomacy Sakkra take forever to warm up to those two guys. It's decades before I can get non-aggression pacts with them, more decades for intelligence agreements. I don't know if I've ever gotten an alliance with one of them.

The races who make friends with me easily are the Gasbags and the Humanoids (except the Evon)--there's where I want to be. It's always a race between me and the Fish to see who'll make friends with them fastest. Then--in the few games I've played--the Humans and the Psilons rapidly become irrelevant. They're too weak, or get wiped out entirely. This still leaves me facing a powerful Gasbag-Fish alliance, and all I have on my side are NAP with Rocks & Machines. If I'm lucky, I can make a third axis with the Insects, but that hasn't happened too often.

Anyway, the lightbulb just went on with your idea about using declarations of war as a positive diplomatic tool. *Ding.* Dorothy, we're not in MoO2 anymore. New lizard motto: Be mean to your machines.

[mpenni]

Thanks for the replies guys. Informative they were, but both are operating under the assumption that the Nommo in question were in the senate. In my game, they are not, (I am sorry for having left that out in my previous post). In addition, when I first met the Nommo way back in the early part of this game, I was the first race they had made contact with. I checked the Foreign Relations tab for the Nommo and no one was listed there except my empire.
I realize that my "shoot first and don't bother with questions" attitude was not going to make me any friends. I was expecing that. I expected my first contacts to go along the lines of "Hello.... and by the way, we declare war on you." That would have been fine, even expected. But the Nommo said nothing. They are still saying nothing. I finally declared war on them in a last desperate attempt to get some sort of rise out of them. Nothing. I am toasting their planets, scattering the ions that once comprised their ships out across space... nothing. Their insolence at refusing to speak to me is affecting me more than their war plans. I am really beginning to hope that they are mute....
It is a moot point now, everyone is at war with everyone at this juncture. The #1 Tachidi are at war with #2 Nommo and my empire, (#3). The Nommo are at war with the Tachidi and my Meklar and I am at war with everyone. The other races, (Raas, Human and Imsaeis), have banded together to try to stave off the carnage of the big three, (their empires lie scattered in between the main contenders). (I haven't found Orion yet, I have seen the White Fleet on its way to glass some planet or other, but I let it go on its merry way)
The Nommo still won't talk to me, but this protracted war, (going 200 turns now), is hurting them more than me. My Meklar seem to thrive in this atmosphere of conflict, while the Nommo and Tachidi must be experiencing unrest levels of biblical proportions. Revolts have created seven new Tachidi empires and five new Nommo enclaves. More organic infestations to be cleansed.....

P.S. One of the "new Nommo" empires has actually spoken to me, (they declared war), the "Nommo motherland" however is still frustratingly silent....

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Poptoad
The races who make friends with me easily are the Gasbags and the Humanoids (except the Evon)--there's where I want to be. It's always a race between me and the Fish to see who'll make friends with them fastest. Then--in the few games I've played--the Humans and the Psilons rapidly become irrelevant. They're too weak, or get wiped out entirely. This still leaves me facing a powerful Gasbag-Fish alliance, and all I have on my side are NAP with Rocks & Machines. If I'm lucky, I can make a third axis with the Insects, but that hasn't happened too often.i was playing empathic fantastic trading diplotrade Grendral, and would push the Mechs over to gain the Gasbags. and do the same with the Silicods to get the Bugs.

the Humanoid AIs would try to play both sides for a while. yeah, then they would fade. what, with all the honored Obligations aginst Fish-bloc empires and all... wore the poor things out, i suppose. ;)

the Bugs would rise fast, too. and they'd be the one standing up there in the Senate, compound-eye-to-eye-stalk with the NOs, taking the heat of the Great White Fleet, bless 'em. but they'd top out eventually, and fade into second-class powers, just like the Humanoids. often they'd go into this convenient decline just before the time that the NOs had any chance of losing votes in the Senate. the perfect ally, really.

the Gasbags often ended up settling a lot of the Red worlds in my systems, as would the Psilons. if they ever turned against me, it made the invasion very easy. zero turns for troop ship arrival. hello front-runner in the next Senate election! otherwise, taking over Silicoid or Cyb space is an easy thing to get allies interested in... and if you trade them a useless rock with a mob center on it, their attempts at helping you will be less pathetic.
New lizard motto: Be mean to your machines. exactly... and rude to thier rocks. :cool:

[Longspur]

"Almost no diplomatic decision goes unaffected by more than a few races relationships together. It seems the third party is always effected slightly in some way either seen or unseen. " -- Awsric Armitage
____________________________________________________

I think you can take the above observation all the way to the bank. Enter it in the official Protocols of pedxing.

The hard thing, the skillful thing, is to untangle the reaction and trace the thread back to its source. Often, I remain flat out baffled, but I'm convinced the reason for any diplomatic action is always there, if you can just figure it out.

If anyone comes late to this thread, the best, most important starting point is the very first post.

[tardis]

I'm playing Megamod with NO bankruptancy . One thing that drew my attention in a recent game was the fallen NO empire had a green alliance with an ithkul empire. The ithkul was not any good, but the NO empire quite succesfully made war to empires at war with the ithkul.

[nuclear hawk]

#1. Trading the same planet on the same turn to multiple empires. What happens ? Is it possible ?
once one of empire will agree to trade something for your planet, others will automatically decline the offer

[Longspur]

"once one of empire will agree to trade something for your planet, others will automatically decline the offer" -- nuclear hawk
_____________________________________________

Thank you, nuclear hawk. That makes perfect sense.

I hope it has not escaped anyone's notice that Strifeguard's excellent and very valuable development plan thread was recently awarded sticky status.

Okay, I admit it. I was the first in line among non-believers. I thought active moderators were gone the way of elder races, leaving behind only filters to mark their places, like Guardians circling lost planets of what once was.

But if Xentax, or someone pretending to be Xentax, could come along and grant sticky status to a valuable thread, then my question is: WHY NOT THIS ONE ?

Oh, mighty Xentax, hear my plea. If side tracks and silliness offend thee, O mighty one, then still hear my plea, and use thy powerful moderator's machette and chop 'em the hell out, all except the first post in this thread. (That's the one that contains the chart and the explanation that we all refer to. )

If only one more thread can achieve the nirvana of sticky-dom, then let it be this one. I think, because it is maybe the most frequently referenced thread ever, that it has earned that status.

How 'bout a sticky ?

[Bhruic]

Xentax will generally sticky a thread, all you have to do is PM him and ask. Although having too many threads stickied is counter-productive, so some of the older, less useful ones might need to go.

Bh

[Poptoad]

Learn something new every day, and here's mine:

I was looking at baserelations.txt, and noticed that there's a modifier to reactions depending on what government you both have. Mostly these are small, but there are a few noticeable ones:


Most representative governments really like their exact counterparts. Parliaments get +10 to each other; Corporates get +12; Democracies +15.

The Collectivist Series and the Representative Series don't like each other, getting -10 to -15 in their reactions.

Unification governments don't like each other! -10 reaction.

The Absolutist governments are mostly pretty mellow about other governments, with only small plusses and minuses. Oligarchy has a couple exceptions--they like other Oligarchies, +12, but not Hives, -10.


The other thing that stands out is how Collectivist governments have minuses across the board.

10 points here or there isn't a huge influence, but it's one I had no inkling of yesterday morning.

[Lennier]

IIRC that the only race eligible to have Collectivist is the Antarans. So nobody likes them. And they like nobody.

[Poptoad]

Originally posted by Lennier
IIRC that the only race eligible to have Collectivist is the Antarans. So nobody likes them. And they like nobody.

Well, I think the Insects get a point discount for taking the Collectivist series--40 points instead of 60. The AI insects all start with Collectivist governments, I believe. The Harvesters get the same discount, but the AI defaults them to the Absolutist series.

[Lennier]

Maybe I'm getting Collectivist & Unification mixed up. Or maybe I'm getting confused. I should have listened to Ben Franklin...

[pedxing]

Originally posted by pedxing
in the same file this is from, it looks like there are also adjustments depending on relative government types as well, but i'm just ignoring those for now. who knows, the game may ignore them too... from the ever-lovin' first post.

and iirc, Hive and Unification are the two types of Collectivist governments.

i hope the numbers are used. it's a neat idea for a twist.

but i suspect that it would only affect the initial state of relations,
rather than the evolution of relations over time.

[nuclear hawk]

It is only at the beginning of a game, in progressive stages it won't work
Look I have been successfully using roman "devide and conquer" strategy, being ally of almost entire galaxy, untill I became major power. In this case no diplomacy works...I think...
for those, who are interested in this SPECIFIC case here's a link to the thread:
thread (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=383036&highlight=kinda+very+hard+question)

[Strifeguard]

Wow, this has been an *amazing* week for stickies. Personally I've wanted this one stickied for a while, I'm very happy with it.

@nuclear hawk, I think Diplomacy *can work* in that case, to a point. Eventually you'll become so large that everyone will hate you forever. You can, however, delay the point of "hate you forever" by giving planets, starting "galactic-wars" etc.

The point is to keep everyone occupied for as long as possible to truly tip the scales in your favor.

[nuclear hawk]

@nuclear hawk, I think Diplomacy *can work* in that case, to a point. Eventually you'll become so large that everyone will hate you forever. You can, however, delay the point of "hate you forever" by giving planets, starting "galactic-wars" etc.

The point is to keep everyone occupied for as long as possible to truly tip the scales in your favor
:rolleyes:
yeah you are correct, you can do all that staff, me however in my particular game have 2 problems
1)I out of principle do not give my planets away, it might sound stupid but I feel I have obligations to residents of those planets and I THINK they are better off with me (it's not smart strategic descision and I know it)
2)Since I was allied with half a galaxy, where part of my allies were allies of my mortal enemies and part were allies of my other allies. This situation keeps me kind of diplomatically occupied, since I almost constantly have to ask my allies to declare war on myenemies to confront possible request of my enemy of this kind.
Of course if my ally declares war on me I have to immideatly ask all other allies to declare war on him to keep one step ahead of him.."Galactic wars" threw senate, well...it's good, only allies usually do not support such a declaration against their allies, and as I have said above in any case my enemy had one of my allies as an ally

[elizibar]

Originally posted by nuclear hawk
and as I have said above in any case my enemy had one of my allies as an ally

Best solution: Kill them all and let gravity slowly sort out the monoatomic dust that remains.

[nuclear hawk]

Best solution: Kill them all and let gravity slowly sort out the monoatomic dust that remains
And that is EXACTLY what I am gonna do, just I want to get to level 50 development before that, build levithans equiped with Tachyons at ultra-spinal, damper fields, adamanium armor, omega warheads, wrap factor X, etc' where they will have maximum titans (cause now they have behemoth technology but only dreadnaughts operational). Then I'll blast them out of my galaxy-all of them!!!!
Now that's the BEST diplomcy ever and pretty easy to understand

[Domaru]

Originally posted by nuclear hawk
And that is EXACTLY what I am gonna do, just I want to get to level 50 development before that, build levithans equiped with Tachyons at ultra-spinal, damper fields, adamanium armor, omega warheads, wrap factor X, etc' where they will have maximum titans (cause now they have behemoth technology but only dreadnaughts operational). Then I'll blast them out of my galaxy-all of them!!!!
Now that's the BEST diplomcy ever and pretty easy to understand

Errhm dumb question but why do you want to wait until you DON'T have the possibility to have better techs than they? If I get you correctly you want to wait until you are at level 50 and then start conquering. In that case some enemy will also have tech 50 reached. SO it will be Tachyons at ultra-spinal, damper fields etc versus Tachyons at Ultra-Spinal........
that sounds like a clean proper fight. You REALLY want that? :D :D

[nuclear hawk]

Errhm dumb question but why do you want to wait until you DON'T have the possibility to have better techs than they? If I get you correctly you want to wait until you are at level 50 and then start conquering. In that case some enemy will also have tech 50 reached. SO it will be Tachyons at ultra-spinal, damper fields etc versus Tachyons at Ultra-Spinal........
that sounds like a clean proper fight. You REALLY want that?
1) I am aready pretty big-302 planets, so I don't mind to wait
2) I am now at level 40-44 aprox and they are too, but I have titans and they-superdrednaughts (best case) and battleships (worst case), although some of them AREADY have behemoth technology, which I am only researching. Their problem is that they produce large quantaties of ships which in time get old and then they start to simply run from battles(each one causes AI to disband the taskforce-means it ca not scrap it for at least 9 turns and after that-it throws them into battle again and runs again...magic circle) I belive the situation won't change much, well may be they'll have titans against my levithans.
for more details you can see my thread that was posted above in one of my replies

[Poptoad]

Here's a general diplomacy question: what does it mean when your current relations with an empire are very high, approaching +200, but their cb toward you is low, like -100?

I'm playing my first game as Human, and I have alliances with the Fish/Humanoid/Gasbag crowd. Relations with the Nommo/Trilarian are hunky-dory, but the Evon/Psilon/Ismaeis/Eoladi all have that strange thing going where the relations are good, but their cb toward me is bad. My cb toward them is good. What's going on?

Generally we have alliances with the same people, and we're at war with the same people, the Lizards/Machines. Their diplomatic messages are very nice...they're always showing up to offer a new exchange. The Eoladi and Psilon both just asked me to upgrade my alliance from Defensive to Full.

But I don't know what that huge negative cb means. It makes me antsy. I don't know what behavior to expect from them, my erstwhile allies. Anyone have any clues?

[nuclear hawk]

Here's a general diplomacy question: what does it mean when your current relations with an empire are very high, approaching +200, but their cb toward you is low, like -100?
be ready for war
I'm playing my first game as Human, and I have alliances with the Fish/Humanoid/Gasbag crowd. Relations with the Nommo/Trilarian are hunky-dory, but the Evon/Psilon/Ismaeis/Eoladi all have that strange thing going where the relations are good, but their cb toward me is bad. My cb toward them is good. What's going on?
you like them, they hate you, they would lilke to kill you and piss on your grave, the question is whether they can...
The Eoladi and Psilon both just asked me to upgrade my alliance from Defensive to Full.
both think that full allience with you will strengthen them full allience means if they war against someone-you automatically war against him too!!!
so it might be good and bad thing, depends...
both might be in war with each other and want you on their side, in that case I usually demand from them price they can not pay and they refuse, AI thinks it's not you refused, but he refused-relations do not suffer damage, yet it also can result in war-depends on your strength, who your other allies are, what turn it is...

[Lennier]

Originally posted by Poptoad
Here's a general diplomacy question: what does it mean when your current relations with an empire are very high, approaching +200, but their cb toward you is low, like -100?I think nuclear hawk is being a bit pessimistic. It literally means that their governments like yours, but their people are beginning to fear (and then hate) yours. I would guess they are fearing the size of your empire.

I'm playing my first game as Human, and I have alliances with the Fish/Humanoid/Gasbag crowd. Relations with the Nommo/Trilarian are hunky-dory, but the Evon/Psilon/Ismaeis/Eoladi all have that strange thing going where the relations are good, but their cb toward me is bad. My cb toward them is good. What's going on?

Generally we have alliances with the same people, and we're at war with the same people, the Lizards/Machines. Their diplomatic messages are very nice...they're always showing up to offer a new exchange. The Eoladi and Psilon both just asked me to upgrade my alliance from Defensive to Full.

But I don't know what that huge negative cb means. It makes me antsy. I don't know what behavior to expect from them, my erstwhile allies. Anyone have any clues? Go to the first post of this thread. The fish get a +50 starting CB towards humanoids. Other humanoids and gasbags get 0 starting CB towards humaniods. I guess that the fish-people will just take a bit longer to notice that you're too big for your britches.

[nuclear hawk]

be ready for war
something similar happened to me, of course I was then major super-power in galaxy and it was turn 600+,
so I say it depends...anyway it is always good to be ready for war
http://fool.exler.ru/sm/sumo.gif http://fool.exler.ru/sm/kar.gif http://fool.exler.ru/sm/duel.gif http://fool.exler.ru/sm/susel.gif http://fool.exler.ru/sm/bud.gif http://fool.exler.ru/sm/att.gif

[eastwind]

I noticed a difference between the table at the start of the thread and the one from my .mob file. I have 1.2.5.

The entries for Geodic vs Cybernetik aren't symmetric in my mob file, its 38 one way but -80 the other. The table at the top of the thread has 38 in both entries. Is there some common bugfix mod I should have?

And so which way do you read the table? Is it row race's attitude toward column race or column race's attitude toward row race?

(The Cybernetic row has 38 for Geodic column but the Geodic row has -80 for Cybernetic column)

I'm playing a cynoid and the Silicoids have been after me from turn one, so I think based on that its the row race's attitude toward the column race. But that's just one game....

[Lennier]

Yes; pedexing has good evidence that the table in the .mob file has a typo in it. His fixed version is available through a link in his sig.

[eastwind]

Thanks, I searched through this forum for Geodic and Cybernetic and got a hit on the text under pedxing's icon for each of his posts, but I didn't search on racerelations.txt and I didn't read his sig.... I was this close...

[pedxing]

i've just recently updated the first post in the thread to talk about the "typo", with arguments for both sides, and the adjustment to general strategy for playing with the release version.

i prefer the re-symmetrized table myself. much more rational.

[nuclear hawk]

the troble is it is good only for the beginning of the game
and there was almost no change or no change at all for humanoids...or am I mistaken?

[MaxKnight]

What causes the Antarans to increase their relations toward you? I was recently playing an un-modded 1.2.5 game as the Meklars. I was playing an increadibly militaristic game (unusual for me), and got sick of my ally, a Trilarian, declaring war on me that I just kept attacking. The Trilarian empire still has relations of 200 towards me, and is constantly asking for Armistice. I refuse, wanting only to take their worlds for my own. As I continue my campaign not only against them, but also a Human empire and an Imsaeis empire, I slowly notice that relations with the New Orions has increased to Calm. I check the Foreign Relations tab and sure enough, I'm at a positive 20 or so with them. It has since grown to a friendly attitude towards me. It could just be because of some hostilities towards my enemy, the Imsaeis, or maybe it's the ruthlessness of my betrayal of my closest ally. I just can't figure this out...

[Lennier]

You could be getting enemy-of-my-enemy points.

[MaxKnight]

But the NOs are not at war with anybody. They still have white lines leading from them to all other races...

[blubberbob]

Similar thing here; my relations with NO are 192 (CB are both -16). The NO are/were at war with two races with whom I have a defensive allience, both having relations and CB below -100, and they have slightly negative relations with two races with whom I am at war.

I did however propose 'Praise NO' bills several times (sometimes with success) and I've sent quite some diplo messages for trade/research agreements, without response of course.

In the senate I usually vote the same as NO.

But I have the feeling that the relations went from slightly negative to +192 pretty fast without a good reason. A few turns ago it was even +200.

[silentrogue30]

Thats weird:weird:

[MaxKnight]

But I've never done anything like that. I've never proposed any bills at all, and the NOs are not at war with anybody...

I still think it was my ruthlessness for attacking my closest ally and continuing the conflict even after being asked for armistice.

Actually, my former ally did offer conditional surrender, and I refused, mainly because I felt like pressing my luck by attacking all of the colonies that they put in my systems.

What does conditional surrender do, anyways? I was offered it by my ally, but due to the fact that it was conditional, I decided it was not worth it. I really want to add all of their Trilarian and Magnates to my galactic civilization.

[Lennier]

Conditional surrender means they'll pay you 5% of their GNP for you not to attack them. Unconditional surrender means they'll pay you 10% of the GNP. :bulb: Not like in Moo II, where surrender meant that you get all their planets & tech. :sour:

[MaxKnight]

Exactly why I continued conquest:D .

[Bhruic]

Actually, the various peace treaties can be very tactically useful. While they are ongoing, you can't get attacked by any of their ships. What I like to do (if I have the ships) is position a fleet + transport around all of their systems. As soon as the treaty expires, it's massive attack time. At that point I can generally end the war in 5ish turns.

Bh

[MaxKnight]

I like it. I think that will have to be my new strategy...

NA Pact, then position myself around all of my "ally's" systems. Then cancel and attack!

I could double my population in only a few turns!

[pedxing]

this is one area where SMAC had a much better model...

lack of True Surrender and lack of Cooperative Victory are my main gripes with the diplomacy sub-game. :down::down::down:

oh, and for the insidious "let them move in, then take their stuff" strategy, you don't really need to cancel the treaty. they'll turn on you eventually anyway, right?

having Mob Centers in-system sure does make invasion a lot easier... :D

[Lennier]

Here, here.

[MaxKnight]

Yes, in my latest game as the Eoladi, I begun invading my friend, the other Etherean race. He continued to re-negitiate trade treaties with me while I invaded and took his worlds. We still have relatively high relations with each other, but he finally declared war. I've gotten many a technology from this empire. I'm almost ready to redesign my fleets for invading the next empire.

[Incubi]

Originally posted by Bhruic
Actually, the various peace treaties can be very tactically useful. While they are ongoing, you can't get attacked by any of their ships. What I like to do (if I have the ships) is position a fleet + transport around all of their systems. As soon as the treaty expires, it's massive attack time. At that point I can generally end the war in 5ish turns.

Bh

Isn't that like useing the rights of passage in civ3 to place units for an attack. ;) I know Moo3 doesn't have the same political reprecussions, but I just cant bring myself to do that :D

[ThunderHammer]

Originally posted by Incubi
I know Moo3 doesn't have the same political reprecussions, but I just cant bring myself to do that :D

Like Pedxing said, sooner or later they're gonna attack you anyway. You might as well take the initiative rather than having to scurry about on the defensive. ;) :cool:

[silentrogue30]

One of the key principles of war is to fight on the terrain of your preferance. If you let your enemy dictate the terms of war you have lost. Let them react to you not the other way around.

[pedxing]

by making the alliance and allowing my eventual victim to move in, how would i not be dictating the terms of the war? (edit: or is that not what you're saying?)

terms: your newer, lightly defended colonies, far from your home and help, in the same system as my established, heavily defended colonies with Mob Centers.

it's not abdication of the initiative. it's a trap.

in any case, this sounds like a groovy topic for a new thread!

edit: i think the other thing you might be talking about, which is doing a peace deal with an enemy and using the time to build up fleets and get them into position to strike, is a time honored tradition, indeed!

[silentrogue30]

That is part of what I am saying the other part is placing your fleets over his key systems. Then when all your assets are in place end the treaty before he does and strike the fatal blow. CHECK MATE:D

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Incubi
Isn't that like useing the rights of passage in civ3 to place units for an attack. ;) I know Moo3 doesn't have the same political reprecussions, but I just cant bring myself to do that :D in Civ2 days we used to say, "the English use peace treaties as an opportunity to sharpen their swords..."

[Dark Duke]

Originally posted by pterrok
A pet theory of mine is that you automatically get in the Senate IF you have contact with the NO AND 25% of the galactic population--regardless of whatever yov've done. Since all my games post patch where I started out of the Senate were losses on Impossible, I could never confirm it myself, but someone else in another thread DID say that it seemed to hold true in their game...

So, note the turn you got in the Senate and when the game ends, go back in the history and figure out the total population and if you have 25%

(Please say you got contact with the NO before getting in! If not, you WERE just voted in 'normally' by a regular vote.)


I wish this rule was true, then I finally would know how to get into the Senate when starting outside.

Does anyone know a reliable rule for getting in (I have been voted in by a partner empire) other than being voted in when someone proposes this?


Unfortunately the rule suggested by Pterrok does not hold:
(Sorry for writing half an AAR here but I want you to know what was the matter, especially diplonmacy-wise)

I played Human (customized for hellish production at the cost of diplomacy/ ground combat, 5 opponents + NO, 3-arm large)

Starting in an Arm (Not in Senate obviously) I could build up quite a while. When I was about to leave the arm I made contact with the Raas who settled there. According to their relation matrix they were at war with everyone: Meklar, Tachidi, Ithkul, Rocks - The Gasbags had been destroyed very early - by the Ithkul I realized later.

The Raas declared war on me, too as an answer to my trade offer - not that they could afford a war against me, fighting on all fronts already ! (Maybe they feared my larger empire, but why commit diplomatic suicide - I would have fought with them, especially against the Ickies who were #2 ?)

I met the Tachidi by sending a colony ship through empty space. (A planet with some starlanes between two Guardians ! Only empty space behind it and the Tachidi behind the 2nd Guardian.)

They also did not like me: No war no peace all the while... I tried everything, from begging to demanding and could not even get a trade agreement.

As they asked for it, I then gobbled up the half of the Raas on my side of the wormhole that connected the two Raas blocks.
(no wonder they had fronts with everyone, the poor lizards sat in the middle)

Behind the first Raas world I took was Orion - contact established !

I was not yet at 25% Galaxy Population, but with the Tachidi getting beaten up by Mechs and me recolonizing the glassed Ithkul sector and the Raas blending nicely into my Multiculture Human empire (Raas, Audrie, Rhea, Brye Eth, Tachidi (from a Raas World) and some Rocks (12% on a Raas world, started outposting areas by themselves, hey why not...let them !) I was getting there quickly.

I was numbver 1 on the powerchart before I took the Raas and with all the others fighting each other (this was a No-diplomacy game the AI set up - I did not start any war, they were all going !)


I eventually conquered the whole Galaxy, so if there is a population percentage to be asked into the Senate by the NOs automatically I should have passed it some time ! In fact I never was in the Senate but left Orion alone until the end, so the percentage theory appears to me to be disproven !

(Of course none of the other weaklings risked to vote me into the Senate, although the victory was off, I could have passed any old bill after all on my vote alone !)


I hope this game contibutes to the possible theories on how to get into the senate.

If someone knows a way that works, tell me !

[Dark Duke]

This seems to be the area to ask Diplomacy questions (correct me if I am wrong) so I would appreciate any comments on the following situation: (Sorry for the long mail, I hope you will find this interesting...)


How can this be :

In one of my games I am playing as stock Grendarl. I was the first to make contact to a Klackon race. Relations started out low, but kept growing into a defensive alliance, improved TAs all over and some successful trades from both side were accepted. From turns 56 to 123 we developed our Friendship, shared a few systems, too and the only other species the Klackon ever came into contact with were some small Ithkul, who lived between the Galactic core and our northern border. Our CR grew from 30something to 93, CB is 89.
The Klackon lives secluded in a spiral arm's upper half, the wormhole to the south leads to me, where he has a couple of worlds as well, but otherwise there is only Grendarl for systems in every direction.
The spiral arms south end has a wormhole, too, owned by the Cynoid, a powerful, spread-out empire I am currently pounding on as I enjoy taking on the biggest to know where I stand. He owns a cluster of planets at the end of the spiral arm around the coreward wormhole. I have many systems, some shared with Klackon between the Klackon and Cynoid, I colonized past the Klackon to no bad effect many turns ago.
The Klackon, occasionally, when he has the ships, makes small contributions to the fight against the Cynoid and also setttled in a system I took from the Mechs.

Then he met the accursed Nommo - f%#@ing Fish - who shared a Cynoid system and have an alliance with the Cynoid. Classical Lizard/Bug vs. Fish/Machine ? NOT! Look at this:

I asked the Klackon to fulfill obligation against the Fish, who I was of course at war with, since we had contact on the other side of my empire - I never fought the fish yet, as he is not worth it (Number 13 or so on the Power, I am #1, Cynoid is #3, Klackon #6 by the way. The two Nommo (there is a remote other one, #8, that I have never seen yet) got me kicked out of the Senate early on, but any Senate laws cannot have an influence, the Klackon is out of the Senate, too.

Now the big question:

For three turns, I ask the Klackon to fulfill Obligation against the Fish and he refuses, then I offer him improve TA Economic for a change. The fulfill obligation nagging boosted our relations above 108 in a few turns, the Nommo got a trade agreement with the Klackon in the mean time ????
Now one turn later, the Klackon declare all out war ( not that they could afford it, stupid Bugs). I check the relations screens and see the following. I know Nommo should be better diplomats anyways than Grandarl, but get this:

Klackon relations before this turn:

Nommo : Cr +2 CB -2, trade agreement
Cynoid allied with Nommo: Cr -5 CB -7, no treaties
Grendarl (Me): Cr 108 CB 97
I am at war with both asking fulfill Obligation for a while...

After this turn :

Nommo : CR + 153 CB + 124, full alliance ????
Cynoid: CR + 6 CB, Nommo ally, trade agreement

Grendarl, (Me): CR 76 CB -200 ??????? War !


How could the Nommo twist my ally around in one turn like this and why did the damn Klackon refuse to declare war on them anyways, the useless Punks ?

Does anyone have an idea to make sense of this ?

I am currently killing Nommo and cynoid in the shared systems, even managed to disrupt contact with the Nommo for a couple of turns, before the Klackon reestablished contact by colonizing a useless ( one size 3 world) glassed system.
I constantly make peace offers at all flavours, which the Klackon politely turns down. CR increases to 87 over the turns, but CB stays at - 200 ! Whast is going on ?

Someone help me please ! Any suggestions, anyone ?

I think I will have to kill him ! Next turn I will mobilize Battleoid armies in all shared systems and a conquest fleet against him. I will just assimilate the Bugger ! But I cannot help wondering how the Nommo did this ? I want to do this ! Did he donate him 60 planets or what (he does not even have 60 planets, #13) ? Luckily my other - and only normal acting - ally, the number two Imsaeis in the core happily agreed to fulfill obligation against the Nommo and I get a lot of relations improving for the hell I unleash on Mechs and Fish on my side.

I will win, but I would have liked to keep the friendship with the Bugs......

[nuclear hawk]

you are power no 1-so they fear you more then they fear them
plus I have heard that when relationships go to maximum or minimum and then go higher or lower respectivly, they just twist for they exceed their limits...happend to me number of times, but not at progressive stages of the game

[StealthGriffin]

I'm playing as the Evon, albeit slightly modified here and there for increased trade :D

I expanded rather quickly, made trade treaties here and there but no one would sign a NA pact or an alliance.

And then all of a sudden I get attacked by all 5 other races. :(

The thing that is pissing me off is that I have over 450 planets (3 times as many as the nearest competition) and my military is bigger than everyone else combined.

But because I have a multi-faced war there is this one intersection where I have SOOOO much trouble. I hold the system with a heavy fleet and focus elsewhere on another enemy and then a pair of other fleets assault that system and I have to redirect my fleets.

And now I am having revolts EVERYWHERE. In my last turn 13 planets revolted, and they were all original colonies!! AHHHHHHHHHHH

[Dark Duke]

Originally posted by nuclear hawk
you are power no 1-so they fear you more then they fear them
plus I have heard that when relationships go to maximum or minimum and then go higher or lower respectivly, they just twist for they exceed their limits...happend to me number of times, but not at progressive stages of the game


First of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts, Hawk !


I have considered those two options and I should have mentioned this in the situation description:

It is way before turn 300 when this happens and although I am #1 and in quite a mighty position (Us Grendarl, we Strooong !), I am nowhere near overpowering the Galaxy. (Nommo are #3, too, much bigger than the measley Klackon)
I have played games where suddenly I become the "sole superpower" threat, but three things make this solution unlikely for this game:

1) I really do not have such an overhwelming position (yet !), unless in more crowded Galaxies with many empires this effect cuts in earlier ?
2) If so, why doesn't the Imsaeis turn on me , nor the Psilon ? Those two are one above, respectively below the traitorous Klackon and have been my allies for almost as long as the Klackon. If a sole superpower effect was in action, why do they love me so much, sending "relations improving" for every #2Mech Planet I slaughter.
3) There is a Tachidi out there who also fights the #2 Mech in the core (many worlds shared with the Nommo there). Since I start hurting the Mechs, the Tachidi comes up to CR 120 from stable 45 before. He would never do that if sole superpower was already in effect !

So sole superpower seems out.....

Now for the relations turnaround at maximum I can only say:

1) Never had it happen - this game was my first try to be diplomatic. Usually my diplomatic appraoch is: "Surrender, or we will slash off your legs, so that you will have to kneel while you scrabble for your head in the gutter !" - and since there is no full surrender in MOO3 and the poor guys cannot just hand their empire over, they pay...

2) when this happened to me, the Klackon was only above 100 CR/CB by a bit, so I would have to get over 200 in one turn ? Not likely. I asked him for inporved TA Econ - if that only gave instant 100 CR, I would be the Diplomancer !
It also does not explain, why he suddenly has 150+ relations with the Fish ! He should dispise the enemy of his long-lasting ally, or what ?
I believe he secretly is just an accursed fish lover !


I played that game a bit more last night. Want to laugh, read on:

I gifted the Imsaeis a lousy Mech planet so that he would have contact with the Mechs.(He only knows the %&^$@#^ Nommo, their allies) I ask him to fulfill obligations and he does. Now for every Mech I kill he sends his warmest congratulations - cute. His relations with the Nommo go down slowly but they go and he is naturally not a Mech friend. His loyalty is defenitely an argument against sole superpower.... and why couldn't the Nommo twist him ? I tell you the Klackon is a Fish lover !(perverse)


I keep nagging the Klackon every turn for peace, but he does not give up. I even let the war fall asleep and he redeclared, the insolent $@&*. Now our CR is 187 !! (get that ! War since almost 80 turns now, CR 187. Are we masochists ?) but since he is at holy war and attacks with every ship he can muster (4 every 10 turns or so, pathetic really), CB is still -200.

Will I ever know, how the Nommo turned him around ? I guess not. I even considered the Nommo voted him into the Senate and passed a declare total war bill against me without my knowledge, but then again, why would the Imaseis and Psilon like me, they are Senate members, too !


Any further suggestions will be very welcome. Thanks again Hawk !

[Dark Duke]

Stealth Griffin,

have you seen Eastwind's mail above yours ? His first idea for me appears to me to be right for you ! (The previous sentence makes sense !)

You have 450 planets and are stronger than all of the other losers ? Sounds like a good setting of sole superpower effect for me.

Is this late game ? (If yes, sole superpower effect more likely)

Who are the others ?

Are they all allied or do they just all turn on you independently?
(If idependently, sole superpower more likely)

Some Accursed Fish around like in my last game ? (Actually I do not hate all fish - just Nommo....)


Your real problem is the Unrest for a while. Humanoid races get an unrest problem if they engage in multiple, prolonged wars. I hope you have some good Military/ Recreation DEAs around ? Especially on home systems, they tend to be forgotten, as the Government DEA with full upgrades on the neighbouring planet often take care of this one as well - until unrest gets serious.

If you have the ships and tech to hold the others from entering your borders, just defend only for a while until you can calm down your people, then take them out one at a time - that's what I would do...


Now it is a bit late to tell you to take on one at a time, but there are much more experienced players around here than me, who will know what you better do in your situation

I hope one of the savvy Human players will give you the solution, I only identified the problem - pretty useles after all, eh ?

[Dark Duke]

Ooops, forgot to ask:

Who is in the Senate, who isn't ?

If you are not and the others are, one of the backstabbing
B$%!#s may very well have gotten a "propose total war against Griffin's innocent Evon" Bill through the Senate.

In this case all of them will turn on you.

Happened to me twice already and took me a while to figure out. (I was not a member, how would I know). I bet it was the Nommo ! Any Nommo in your Senate and you are not - they will try this, as it helps them keeping you away from their squishy shells - cheating weaklings ! Sorry, all Nommo players. It may have been the Cynoid or Meklar, too. They hate you Evon!

This might be another solution....

[eastwind]

Idea? I had an Idea? Where? Are you sure?? If you've found an idea with my name on it, could you please explain it to me?

[StealthGriffin]

You have 450 planets and are stronger than all of the other losers ? Sounds like a good setting of sole superpower effect for me.

Is this late game?

Turn 335 :D And yeah I have sole superpower as my only Vic-Con

Who are the others ?

Well at the start there were

Meklar, Klackon, Sillicoid, Grendarl and Eoladi. Plus the NO. I glassed the Meks, took a few extra turns because their 2 allies planted 400 ships each on the last Mek system.

Are they all allied or do they just all turn on you independently?

A combination of both. The Klacks and Gren are allied and the Sillies and the Eols are allied. Its a pain in the ass.


Your real problem is the Unrest for a while. Humanoid races get an unrest problem if they engage in multiple, prolonged wars. I hope you have some good Military/ Recreation DEAs around ? Especially on home systems, they tend to be forgotten, as the Government DEA with full upgrades on the neighbouring planet often take care of this one as well - until unrest gets serious.

My home systems are all very well protected against uprisings. Its the ones on the fringe I'm having trouble with.

If you have the ships and tech to hold the others from entering your borders, just defend only for a while until you can calm down your people, then take them out one at a time - that's what I would do...

That's what I've been trying, but my economy is taking a beating from the combination of revolt and war and If i try to build up forces at a choke point for defense they ram through them.

Now it is a bit late to tell you to take on one at a time, but there are much more experienced players around here than me, who will know what you better do in your situation

Thing is tho, I didn't start a single war lol...All of a sudden I just have all of my treaties canceled, at which point I massed my forces and held my breath...

Who is in the Senate, who isn't ?

Me, The Meks were, Gren and Sillies. And I've been the largest voting block in the senate for over 100 cycles...

It may have been the Cynoid or Meklar, too. They hate you Evon!

Actually I had built up a very good relationship with the Meks before they turned and declared war.

[GangsterOctopus]

How do I make the base relation fix?

[Lennier]

Get the .txt file from pedexing's sig and put it in a folder called "spreadsheets" at the same level of directory that the "spreadsheets.mob" file is at.

[GangsterOctopus]

Thanks

[Longspur]

. . . bimp . . .

General principles. I'm taking my vowels out for a ride.

[pedxing]

what, to bring it up to the top of the sticky list? :weird:

[frostynso]

I had a few things:

1) I was just thinking, is it posible that the baserelations.txt typo isn't really a typo at all? After all, the cynoids and meklar do consume minerals to exist, making them a prime competitor for mineral resources, which the silicoids could definately get pissed about. (Not to mention my wierd visions of cybernetiks eating silicoids!)

Meklar: "Mmmmmmm, I like these blokes!"
Silicoid: "Aaaaiiiiieeeeeee!"

2) I've been wondering why my great allies start to all turn on me at about the same time, even without any galactic wars flaring up. I've heard mentions of the "sole superpower" effect, but was wondering if there was any more specific information towards how this is calculated. Also, is there any way to avert this effect diplomatically?

[MisterPlow]

2) I've been wondering why my great allies start to all turn on me at about the same time, even without any galactic wars flaring up. I've heard mentions of the "sole superpower" effect, but was wondering if there was any more specific information towards how this is calculated. Also, is there any way to avert this effect diplomatically?

I know that in the earlier MoO games you got negative dip effects once you passed some critical threshold of planets, depending on galaxy size. I don't know the exact mechanics within MoO3, but I'm pretty sure it's something like that. I don't keep real careful track, but in a standard large galaxy, I notice the effect somewhere around 150 planets.

As far as avoiding it, well, I've never tried, but then I don't go for NAPs or alliances either. Maybe you could do it by picking superior dip & giving gifts or whatever, but it's a losing struggle with average dip.

[JosEPh]

This is Hallowed Ground we walk upon and since Ped is the Sole remaining Diplo Guru (Strifeguard got a girlfriend and is back in college) I voice my opinion in hushed tones and somber reflection.

1) I was just thinking, is it posible that the baserelations.txt typo isn't really a typo at all?

yes

Look at the baserelations.txts form versions 1.0 and 1.2b. Now this does not preclude an *original* typo, but..........

I've heard mentions of the "sole superpower" effect, but was wondering if there was any more specific information towards how this is calculated.

My answer is not so much on how it's calculated but where it can be modified.

This table basically specifies how aggressive the AI is - that is, how likely is it to increase it's force levels each turn (within the bounds of what is allowed), decrease it, or leave it at the current level. Values should vary from 0 to 10.


From this Table in MilitaryAI.txt:

TableStart BorderPolicyModificationPref
ColumnHeadingsStart KeepTheSame RaisePolicy LowerPolicy
RowHeadingsStart
preference 5(8) 5(7) 5(3)
TableEnd

Values in *parenthesis* are the default 1.2.5 settings. The # before is my current setting courtesy of Strifeguard(above) and my own efforts (below).

In conjunction with the above modification I've also instituted these changes in baserelations.txt(among other things):


TableStart RelationBar
ColumnHeadingsStart MinValue
RowHeadingsStart
Feud -181(-200)
Loathing -157(-181)
Hateful -133(-157)
Jaundiced -109(-133)
Troubled -85(-109)
Tense -61(-85)
Wary -37(-61)
Unease -13(-37)
Neutral 0(-13)
Calm 14
Relaxed 38
Peaceful 62
Cordial 86
Amiable 110
Friendly 134
Harmonious 158
Solidarity 182
TableEnd

TableStart CasusBelli
ColumnHeadingsStart MinValue
RowHeadingsStart
DemandExtermine -191(-200) Same trend as above table
DesireExtermine -181( )
DemandSurr -169( )
DesireSurrender -154( )
DemandWar -135( )
DesireCOnflict -111( )
AcceptConflict -81( )
Unfavorable -44( )
Apathetic 0 (-44)
Favorable 45
AcceptEndConflict 82
DesireEndConflict 112
DemandPeace 136
DesireTreaty 155
DemandTreaty 170
DesireAlliance 182
DemandAlliance 192
TableEnd

TableStart PerceivedImage
ColumnHeadingsStart Increase Decrease
RowHeadingsStart
OneThird 134 -167(-200)
TwoTHird 67 -100(-133)
Full -100(-200) 66
Double -167(-400) 133(101)
TableEnd


TableStart WarLossValues
ColumnHeadingsStart Factor MeansWar
RowHeadingsStart
Troops 2 0
Hull Size 1 0
Population 4 0.25(0)
Univalue 0.01 0
Planets 4 1
VictimMult 1.5 0
EnemyOfEnemyMult 2(1) -0.25(0)
TableEnd


TableStart LapseParams
ColumnHeadingsStart Value
RowHeadingsStart
PreLapse 7(4)
PostLapse 9(5)
TableEnd


Also, is there any way to avert this effect diplomatically?
This I leave into Pedxings Domain of Expertise.

JosEPh

[Dotmusician]

Are you sure about those tables JosEPh? I'm not sure I follow what you're suggesting myself, but I am VERY interested in learning anything about the "Sole Superpower" effect, and if anything can effect it in any way...


It's an utter gamebreaker for me:(, all other diplomacy considerations are overriden by a frustrating (for me) feature, setting CR and CB at -200 with everyone in about 3 turns of me settling that newly explored system. It really does get my goat! Whatever modifier is used simply seems to override all other diplomacy factors: it doesn't matter if you've been Allies since turn 2, and have every possible positive modifier: once you hit a certain point, you're satan incarnate in the eyes of every AI player...


Now that little rant is over:p, what exactly do those spreadsheet numbers you've pasted change? AI aggressiveness in general? Have you tested if that effects the "Sole Superpower" effect? Sorry to bombard you with questions, but it doesn't seem like many people have looked into this (or diplomacy in general, as you point out), and this particular "feature" has spoilt many a game, esp with Bhruic's Allied Victory patch, so I'm hungry for insights!;)

[pedxing]

Originally posted by frostynso
I had a few things:

1) I was just thinking, is it posible that the baserelations.txt typo isn't really a typo at all? After all, the cynoids and meklar do consume minerals to exist, making them a prime competitor for mineral resources, which the silicoids could definately get pissed about.yeah, but why wouldn't the Cynoids and the Meklar be irritated with the Silicoids... it's the non-symmetrical thing that bugs me.

but yeah, maybe it isn't a typo. maybe it's an interesting attempt at game balance?

one thing it does, it make it uncertain which way the Geodic/Cybernetik relationship is going to go... perhaps if pressed by a common enemy, they have more chances of uniting in a way that wouldn't happen if they both had negative feelings about each other?

and perhaps the Humanoids just get worked if they both have positive feelings about each other?

anyway, yeah, that's why i added the section about the Backstab to the first post... doubt about it being a typo.

2) I've been wondering why my great allies start to all turn on me at about the same time, even without any galactic wars flaring up.this has been explained to us as "expansion pressure": all the empires want to expand, so as soon as all the stars fill up, they start looking at their neighbors, who they view as being "in the way" of their expansion.

and of course, the player who tends to be in the way most often is you.

I've heard mentions of the "sole superpower" effect, but was wondering if there was any more specific information towards how this is calculated. actually, they just hate your freedom... :p

no, really, current thinking is that it's not directly calculated, that it's just an emergent effect from the expansion pressure.

also, the Enemy-of-My-Enemy calculation has a "divided by turn number" factor in it, so it falls off over time, becoming less important than other factors...

so your "Friends" stop caring so much about anything other than gaining more territory, including all those good times you had together in the early game.

Also, is there any way to avert this effect diplomatically? make sure your Allies have plenty of enemy planets to gobble up.

as long as they're busy with that, they'll stay friends with you.

the Allied Victory patch makes this a viable strategy for winning... the trick is to make sure your friends don't run out of enemies too quickly.

making sure your allies remain strong compared to you, letting them take the lion's share of the planets once you have enough, and delegating the final destruction of their natural enemies to them (while you take down the NO) seems like the way to go. :alien:

[elizibar]

Originally posted by pedxing
making sure your allies remain strong compared to you, letting them take the lion's share of the planets once you have enough, and delegating the final destruction of their natural enemies to them (while you take down the NO) seems like the way to go. :alien:

Or you could just crush everyone and make yourself King. :p

[JosEPh]

Are you sure about those tables JosEPh?

I've been using them for the better part of a year at the very least. All my games are Sole Survivor with sometimes the X win enabled as an aside. The only Senate Games I've played have been various Challenges put forth to me.

The MilitaryAI.txt is a Big part of the Key to understanding the AI's need to expand and reaction to expansion of others.

In the the other tables, especially the ones that had a +/-200 value, the triggers for the sudden turnarounds are imbedded. This one comes from experience and not math.

Percieved Image Table may be the least contributor as of recently I've come across a modifier in the Modifiers.txt that may negate all percieved image. What happens when you multiply by zero? Was it too hard to balance and so it was nullified?

Another trigger that I didn't post is the Holy War Setting. This setting causes many values to be reversed instead of continuing to increase or decrease. Quite Frankly I wish it was removed from the Game.

The little Table of LapseParameters dictates how fast an AI can flip-flop it's position in regards to those that it has declared war on or have been declared on by.

This is not a very coherent post as it's 2:30am and I should be in bed. Long day tomo.../today.

I'll try to be more concise later.

JosEPh

[mpotto]

Originally posted by frostynso
1) I was just thinking, is it posible that the baserelations.txt typo isn't really a typo at all? After all, the cynoids and meklar do consume minerals to exist, making them a prime competitor for mineral resources, which the silicoids could definately get pissed about. (Not to mention my wierd visions of cybernetiks eating silicoids!)

Meklar: "Mmmmmmm, I like these blokes!"
Silicoid: "Aaaaiiiiieeeeeee!"



Exactly. This is what I suggested a while back and it just makes sense. Think of human rinds from Futurama. My understanding of this game is that it was meant to be played in mostly single player mode. Therefore why the hell would everything have to be balanced? It doesn't make sense for veteran players to choose another race because it is balanced against the others, it's because of the challenge and role playing aspects.

[Jadgklinger]

Just dredging up a previous post, on the way to best address empires:


Race ask respond
Sakkra demand insult
Eoladi reason polite
Human reason polite
Grendarl reason polite
Trilarian reason polite
Tachidi declare ?
Imsaies declare ?
Evon beg humble
Klackon argue cool
Cynoid state formal
Silicoid state formal
Raas reason polite
Meklar declare cold
Nommo ? ?
Psilon ? ?
Ithkul ? ? (does anyone ever TALK to these guys??)

Is this true? is there a particular tone you should adopt for certain situations? Or does it really make little difference?

[JosEPh]

First talking to the Ickies does no good. They are bent for War and Eating. That can be changed though in the baserelations.txt.

Nommo Reason
Psilon Reason

Is this true? is there a particular tone you should adopt for certain situations? Or does it really make little difference?

Yes, it does. This comes from gameplay and experience. If you want to have a good Diplo game pay attention to how you respond and are responded to.

Each response/query/demand shifts the Diplo points up or down. These base Diplo points are then applied to your relations to that race. If they push it out of the range needed for your desired result you will get ignored or a negative response. Vice versa if they keep it in the range needed for compliance.

Have you ever studied Otsego19's DiploMod2.0 .txt files? Especially in comparison to the default 1.2.5 ? Some interesting work done there. Almost all of us take what he has done and use it. But as far as I know, no one else has tried to refine or bend his work.

Pedxing here is the Current Empress while the Late Great Strifeguard was Emperor of the Diplo Relations.

JosEPh

:)

[pedxing]

i played the the Grey Godfathers always doing State, and responding Cool, unless i was making an Offer They Can't Refuse, in which case i would be Polite/Resonable. if they wouldn't listen, then i might make my tone a little more aggressive.

i prefer to roleplay the emphasis, but i'm also lazy and leaving the tone neutral (for offers, at least) often takes fewer mouse clicks.

anyway, The Chart is back!

[Tarhalindur]

Originally posted by pedxing
i like the idea of designing a three sided war, rather than one with just two sides. well, really 3+1 since everybody still hates the Ikies, right? and that minus one leaves 15 races, which divides neatly into thirds... so i'm going to look for things that add up to 5 only, requiring symmetry at least at the start.

i like: Rocks (1), Gasbags (2), and Meks (2) on the Weirdo side.

Humanoids (3) need 2 more, so which of Fish or Bugs? well, the Humanoids could use some high-growth allies for Senate bids, right? so the Bugs (2) would be good for this Pragmatic side.

Lizards (3) would pick up whichever the Humanoids didn't, and that would be Fish (2)... talk about maximum difference with the normal story arcs! call it the Amphibious side?

and maybe mix it up a little, the way the game is now, with the Cross-side stuff. only a few ways to do that...

Rocks (1) would need a new pair of deuces, which can only be Bugs (2) and Fish (2). that's like a whole ecosystem in there!

the Lizards (3) pick first this time, instead of getting leftovers, so give them the Meks (2), since that's more in character, eh?

so them Humanoids (3) get Gasbags(2), which seems a more refined choice anyway, diplomacy wise.

so each Race would have 7ish others that they get along with, maybe fewer if they don't like their own Species (as in the original game), especially bad for those that have more Races in the Species (Humanoids & Lizards). this could be used as a play balancer, maybe... if the Gasbags are too strong, reduce the Etherean vs Etherean relations, to at least keep pairs of them from teaming up and being unstoppable!

i'd vote for tweaking the Lizards to like each other quite a bit... it wuld be interesting to see them all working together. and maybe making the Fish hate each other, just to see what happens? see if (otherwise reasonable) Grand Alliances tend to fragment if two Fish are in the Senate?

plus there's relations with the other 7 or so races with which no side is shared. for example, the Silicoids never share a side with either the Humanoids or the Lizards, in this scheme. so do they hate them? or just have minorly bad relations? oh, the tweakability!

ok, maybe i'll give it a go after trying a "non-fixed" BaseRelations.txt Silcoid Senate game, requiring at least one Cyb is also in the Senate. goal is go get an Alliance with the Cvb(s), and then somehow (conquest and subjugation of voting populations, perhaps?) win the Senate despite the awful population growth rate of the Geodic Godfathers themselves.

gotta dig up Qev's images again, and get a link to the Silicoid!

both high and low player count and map size games might be neat, but i'd suggest a smaller map with lots of players. really fast early game to small empires stage, then gridlock, with lots of "aquisition targets" in the pool, suddenly eying each other.

go after the Gasbags from Turn 1, to make the Cybs happy. just send them Pleading Threats to go away, until they fall solidly into the orbit of any no-good Humanoids? fight them too, to solidify realtions with the Cybs.

and Customize heavily for Diplo and Trade, including the specials!

ok, bedtime.

Oddly, I've been having some thoughts lately about variant diplomacy games; here's some of my ideas:

-----------------------------------------------------------

2-front: Similar to the Fish-Lizard War, but they call 'em Human Haters for a reason...

Side 1: Humanoids, Fish, Gasbags, Rocks
Side 2: Lizards, Machines, Bugs, Ithkul

Main Wars:
Probably Human-Lizard War, but this design jas a lot of potential...

--------------------------------------------------------------

3-front: Actually, it's a four-front war, since there are 16 races and 16 is not divisible by 3. The Harvesters would either hate everyone or be neutral...

Side 1: Humanoids, Machines
Side 2: Lizards, Bugs
Side 3: Gasbags, Rocks, Fish
(Ithkul could be a general ally, a general enemy or neutral.)

Main Wars:
Humanoids-Bugs*
Fish-Lizard
Gasbag-Machine
*Personally, I think that humanoids would have a far easier time talking to a logical machine or humanesque cyborg than a hive drone or queen. That's just me.

--------------------------------------------------------------

4-front: One of the easier designs. I tend to view Harvesters as reminescient the Gou'Ald or Tok'ra from Stargate SG-1, so they DO have an ally... :cool:

Side 1: Humanoids, Ithkul
Side 2: Machines, Bugs
Side 3: Lizards, Rocks
Side 4: Fish, Gasbags

Main Wars:
Humanoids-Bugs
Fish-Lizard?

--------------------------------------------------------------

5-front: This one is a bit harder

Side 1: Humanoids
Side 2: Lizards
Side 3: Gasbags/Rocks
Side 4: Fish/Ithkul
Side 5: Bugs/Machines

Main War:
Cynoid/Meklar (to break Side 5 up)

[Lennier]

I've done some mucking about with the diplo table. It's one of the easiest ways to change the flavor of the game. I did one where I switched the lizard-fish war for a human-mech war. And the Summer of Love. (I'm working on a Winter of Discontent, but I'm devoting less time to MOO3 as the real world intrudes.) See some of my later AARs in my sig.

[Tarhalindur]

I feel like noting that the 3-sided war mentioned above in this thread will be included in Legacy of the Ancients Mod v.1.2.5.

Oh, and touch to prevent *possible* deletion. :)

[Narshal2]

The current game that I just started is currently showing textbook situation discussed by the original poster.

It's a 16 player game set in a huge 3 arm galaxy.
I'm playing the Imsaeis, currently in the senate.

Other races in the senate include:
1 nommo (fish), an eoladi (etherean), 2 cybernetiks, 1 sakkra (lizard), 2 insectoid, 2 silicoids (geodic) and 1 evon (humanoid).

After 10 turns into the game, I can see the lines drawn.
The nommo and sakkra have declared war.
a cybernetik has declared war on me although the other cyber is getting friendlier with me. the other cyber has declared war on the eoladi. the silicoids and the insectoids have declared war on each other.
the evon are friendlier with the nommo than the sakkra.
the eoladi has NAP with several races including the Sakkra. I think it's a sign he wishes to concentrate on the cyber.
I may have confused the cyber the declared war on me. He propose a praise of a silicoid and since I had good relations with the silicoid (NAP), I seconded it and voted yea on it. It didn't pass by the silicoid, the enemy cyber and me were the only yea.
I'm curious what races I will find on the outside and how it will influence the game.

[Longspur]

Have just been reading the "Succession" threads over in the general forum.

Highly entertaining, and you get to see many of the ideas propounded in this thread put into action in actual games.

For example, in one game our band of heros (in the succession games they rotate leadership among the players after every senate election) is playing Nommo. They are anxious to get a Saurion out of the senate. So the strategy seems to be to carpet bomb the senate with a constant stream of bills proposing embargos, condemnations, limited war and full war against the poor lizard. Unrelenting.

However I'd quibble about one tactic I've seen. That is giving gifts to an AI empire in attempts to butter him up to obtain a NAP or something. Now I may have misunderstood. Or maybe what I recall was in the "Tropical" game, and I guess this mod changes the game in radical directions.

But in general giving gifts to an AI empire does not improve his CB towards you. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. You can test this easily.

There are times when you might want to give gifts. ('Course a trade is always better.) I dunno, maybe you'd want to give shields, better armor or weapons to an AI who is fighting a war for you, and losing. But in most cases, a gift involves a planet, and all the many reasons why this can be a good policy are suggested above in this thread.

However, that is almost always just an occasional tool.

[pedxing]

well, i certainly haven't been Gifting things! i know that doesn't work to improve relations.

Exchanges, though, for sure a lot of Exchanges! In Succession II, it's mostly been in an attempt to get the Ethereans into striking distance of the Cybernetiks... at least getting them close enough that they have diplomatic contact.

nature should take care of the rest...

anyway' i've been using NAPs and Trade Agreements, to butter the empires we're courting into Alliance. and oinly then, when we run out of other things to propose, then the offers of planets to Exchange.

[Longspur]

well, i certainly haven't been Gifting things! i know that doesn't work to improve relations.

Exchanges, though, for sure a lot of Exchanges! In Succession II, it's mostly been in an attempt to get the Ethereans into striking distance of the Cybernetiks... at least getting them close enough that they have diplomatic contact.

nature should take care of the rest...

anyway' i've been using NAPs and Trade Agreements, to butter the empires we're courting into Alliance. and oinly then, when we run out of other things to propose, then the offers of planets to Exchange.

Succession II is my favorite, 'cause when I reinstalled MoO3 on my new laptop a few days ago Strawberry 1.2 was the mod I picked. Just lovin' it. (I need to add the Allied Victory patch, I think, and Bhruic seems to be closed down for awhile so I'm not sure how to do it.)

If anyone is looking for diplomacy in action and how to use all the tools available, Succession II is a great place to find it, along with a Mary Poppin's spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.

[pedxing]

well, it's high time to revisit this topic again!

Bhruic's Race Based Relations patch has been sitting unused for a while, and i can only assume that it's becasue everybody has been waiting for me to do sumthin' clever with it? :p

the way i'm planning to use it now, unless somebody has a better idea, is to break the symmetries between the races in each species, but mostly in their minor relations...

leaving the main themes of the game intact, but adjusting some of the side-plots, and introducing some new ones.

i'm thinking i'll start in one place, make one change, and then move outwards from there, to the races that it effects, make changes there, and so on, spreading outwards from the first change.

so here it is... a resolution to the Silicoid/Cybernetik question!

both +38 and -80 appear in the table for Silicoids/Cybernetik relations, right? so, which should be used?

and so, my first change...

Meklar/Silicoid: +38 (they're both completely inorganic, after all...)
Cynoid/Silicoid: -80

now, let's see where to, from there?

[Monkey Head]

Meklar/Cynoid: -40ish? result of a schism in a race remember..... probably not as hateful as the fish lizards tho...

[pedxing]

yeah, maybe balance it out by giving Cynoids positive relations with themselves, since they get the fuzzy end of the Silicoid-pop?

in all my games lately, the Cybs have just gotten diplomatically cold-sholdered, grown isolated, and finally been hammered from all sides, as if they were low-grade Ithkul or something.

they need to stick together for their own protection!

[Monkey Head]

i do find, depending on how the game runs, they can become a sole superpower quite easily - if they can land a few decent planets and a decent position - which plays well with the "eventually we hate you all" scenario

[elm]

wrong post


I

[Grimbear]

well, it's high time to revisit this topic again!

Bhruic's Race Based Relations patch has been sitting unused for a while, and i can only assume that it's becasue everybody has been waiting for me to do sumthin' clever with it? :p

the way i'm planning to use it now, unless somebody has a better idea, is to break the symmetries between the races in each species, but mostly in their minor relations...

<snip>Here's what will probably be the final form of my own file, for my mod...just to give you some ideas? I like feedback...(copy and paste onto a copy of BaseRelations.txt, for easier reading.

TableStart SpeciesBaseRel
ColumnHeadingsStart Human Evon Psilon Imsaeis Eoladi Silikid Meklar Cynatu Trilar Nommo Itkula Klakt Takdi Sakkra Raas Grendar xxxx xxxx xxxx Elder Civilizations
RowHeadingsStart
Human 25 25 25 -75 -75 -100 -100 -100 -75 -75 -75 -100 -75 25 25 25 0 0 0 -35
Evon 0 100 50 25 0 -75 -75 -50 -5 -15 -50 -100 -25 75 75 75 0 0 0 10
Psilon 25 75 75 -25 -25 -75 -50 -50 -50 -75 -25 -100 -50 50 50 50 0 0 0 -15
Imsaeis -75 0 -25 175 150 -75 -75 -75 75 75 -25 -100 -50 0 25 50 0 0 0 -35
Eoladi -75 0 -25 125 200 -50 -50 -50 75 75 0 -75 -50 25 25 25 0 0 0 -10
Silikid -100 -75 -75 -75 -50 200 75 75 -75 -75 100 -25 -50 -50 -25 -50 0 0 0 -50
Meklar -100 -75 -50 -75 -50 75 200 100 -75 -75 65 -50 -25 -50 0 -25 0 0 0 -30
Cynatu -100 -50 -50 -75 -50 75 100 200 -75 -75 50 -75 -50 -50 0 -25 0 0 0 -30
Trilar -75 -5 -50 75 75 -75 -75 -75 150 75 -75 -75 -50 -75 -35 -100 0 0 0 10
Nommo -75 -15 -75 75 75 -75 -75 -75 75 150 -75 -50 -75 -65 -40 -75 0 0 0 -20
Itkula -50 -50 -25 -25 0 100 65 50 -75 -75 200 -75 -50 -50 -50 -50 0 0 0 5
Klakt -100 -100 -100 -100 -75 -25 -50 -75 -75 -50 -75 50 25 -75 -50 -75 0 0 0 -75
Takdi -75 -25 -50 -50 -50 -50 -25 -50 -50 -75 -50 25 100 -50 -50 -50 0 0 0 -50
Sakkra 25 75 50 0 25 -50 -50 -50 -75 -65 -50 -75 -50 175 125 150 0 0 0 -30
Raas 25 75 50 25 25 -25 0 0 -35 -40 -50 -50 -50 125 175 125 0 0 0 -15
Grendar 25 75 50 50 25 -50 -25 -25 -100 -75 -50 -75 -50 150 125 175 0 0 0 -30
xxxx 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
xxxx 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
xxxx 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Elder Civs -35 10 -15 -35 -15 -50 -30 -30 10 -20 5 -50 -50 -30 -15 -30 0 0 0 50
TableEnd

TableStart GovBaseRel
ColumnHeadingsStart Uniquest Despotic Hivemeld Kwizatsuk Shariate Exploitive Republic Tumnarate Barrakka Whirrita Communate
RowHeadingsStart
Uniquest 50 -20 -15 -35 -30 –5 15 20 30 30 20
Despotic -20 15 10 -15 -10 20 -25 -20 -35 -15 -35
Hivemeld -15 10 20 -20 -10 5 -15 -30 -20 -20 -30
Kwizatsuk -35 -15 -20 25 10 15 -25 -20 -30 -30 -20
Shariate -30 -10 -10 10 10 10 -20 -15 -35 -25 -25
Exploitive -5 20 5 15 10 60 35 20 5 10 -10
Republic 15 –25 -15 -25 -20 35 40 30 15 5 -5
Tumnarate 20 -20 -30 -20 -15 20 30 45 25 -10 10
Barrakka 30 -35 -20 -30 -35 5 15 25 75 -5 5
Whirrita 30 -15 -20 -30 -25 10 5 -10 -5 35 15
Communate 20 -35 -30 -20 -25 -10 -5 10 5 15 35
TableEnd

TableStart RelationBar
ColumnHeadingsStart MinValue
RowHeadingsStart
Feud -196
Loathing -181
Hateful -157
Jaundiced -133
Troubled -109
Tense -85
Wary -61
Unease -37
Neutral -13
Calm 14
Relaxed 38
Peaceful 62
Cordial 86
Amiable 110
Friendly 134
Harmonious 158
Solidarity 182
TableEnd

TableStart CasusBelli
ColumnHeadingsStart MinValue
RowHeadingsStart
DemandExtermine -200
DesireExtermine -191
DemandSurr -181
DesireSurrender -169
DemandWar -154
DesireConflict -135
AcceptConflict -111
Unfavorable -81
Apathetic -44
Favorable 45
AcceptEndConflict 82
DesireEndConflict 112
DemandPeace 136
DesireTreaty 155
DemandTreaty 170
DesireAlliance 182
DemandAlliance 192
TableEnd

TableStart PerceivedImage
ColumnHeadingsStart Increase Decrease
RowHeadingsStart
OneThird 134 -198
TwoThird 67 -132
Full -200 -66
Double -400 101
TableEnd

Note:Amount of Casus Belli drifted per 10 diplomacy points
TableStart RelationsGravitation
ColumnHeadingsStart DPs Drifted
RowHeadingsStart
1 1
2 1
3 2
4 2
5 3
6 3
7 4
8 4
9 5
10 5
TableEnd

TableStart MoralOutrage
ColumnHeadingsStart ChancePop ChanceReg NotSenate NotBanned SenateBanned
RowHeadingsStart
NuclearWeapons 1 0 "CRTreaty+=-10,CRPeaceT+=-10,CRTradeM+=-10,CRExchng+=-10,CRDipGon+=-10,CRLarges+=-10,DiploPts+=(-5:-1),CasusBel+=(-5:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-20,CRPeaceT+=-20,CRTradeM+=-20,CRExchng+=-20,CRDipGon+=-20,CRLarges+=-20,DiploPts+=(-10:-1),CasusBel+=(-10:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-30,CRPeaceT+=-30,CRTradeM+=-30,CRExchng+=-30,CRDipGon+=-30,CRLarges+=-30,DiploPts+=(-15:-1),CasusBel+=(-15:-1)"
BiologicalWeapons 1 0 "CRTreaty+=-10,CRPeaceT+=-10,CRTradeM+=-10,CRExchng+=-10,CRDipGon+=-10,CRLarges+=-10,DiploPts+=(-5:-1),CasusBel+=(-5:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-20,CRPeaceT+=-20,CRTradeM+=-20,CRExchng+=-20,CRDipGon+=-20,CRLarges+=-20,DiploPts+=(-10:-1),CasusBel+=(-10:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-30,CRPeaceT+=-30,CRTradeM+=-30,CRExchng+=-30,CRDipGon+=-30,CRLarges+=-30,DiploPts+=(-15:-1),CasusBel+=(-15:-1)"
ChemicalWeapons 1 0 "CRTreaty+=-10,CRPeaceT+=-10,CRTradeM+=-10,CRExchng+=-10,CRDipGon+=-10,CRLarges+=-10,DiploPts+=(-5:-1),CasusBel+=(-5:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-20,CRPeaceT+=-20,CRTradeM+=-20,CRExchng+=-20,CRDipGon+=-20,CRLarges+=-20,DiploPts+=(-10:-1),CasusBel+=(-10:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-30,CRPeaceT+=-30,CRTradeM+=-30,CRExchng+=-30,CRDipGon+=-30,CRLarges+=-30,DiploPts+=(-15:-1),CasusBel+=(-15:-1)"
DestroyUnpopulated 0 5 "CRTreaty+=-20,CRPeaceT+=-20,CRTradeM+=-20,CRExchng+=-20,CRDipGon+=-20,CRLarges+=-20,DiploPts+=(-10:-1),CasusBel+=(-10:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-40,CRPeaceT+=-40,CRTradeM+=-40,CRExchng+=-40,CRDipGon+=-40,CRLarges+=-40,DiploPts+=(-20:-1),CasusBel+=(-20:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-60,CRPeaceT+=-60,CRTradeM+=-60,CRExchng+=-60,CRDipGon+=-60,CRLarges+=-60,DiploPts+=(-30:-1),CasusBel+=(-30:-1)"
DestroyLightPop 0 8 "CRTreaty+=-40,CRPeaceT+=-40,CRTradeM+=-40,CRExchng+=-40,CRDipGon+=-40,CRLarges+=-40,DiploPts+=(-20:-1),CasusBel+=(-20: -1)" "CRTreaty+=-80,CRPeaceT+=-80,CRTradeM+=-80,CRExchng+=-80,CRDipGon+=-80,CRLarges+=-80,DiploPts+=(-40:-1),CasusBel+=(-40:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-120,CRPeaceT+=-120,CRTradeM+=-120,CRExchng+=-120,CRDipGon+=-120,CRLarges+=-120,DiploPts+=(-60:-1),CasusBel+=(-60:-1)"
DestroyPopulated 1 8 "CRTreaty+=-60,CRPeaceT+=-60,CRTradeM+=-60,CRExchng+=-60,CRDipGon+=-60,CRLarges+=-60,DiploPts+=(-30:-1),CasusBel+=(-30:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-120,CRPeaceT+=-120,CRTradeM+=-120,CRExchng+=-120,CRDipGon+=-120,CRLarges+=-120,DiploPts+=(-60:-1),CasusBel+=(-60:-1)" "CRTreaty+=-180,CRTradeM+=-180,CRExchng+=-180,CRDipGon+=-180,CRLarges+=-180,DiploPts+=(-90:-1),CasusBel+=(-90:-1)"
TableEnd

Base war loss value is (Troops * #units lost) + (HullSize * #hullsizeslost) + (Population* #poppointskilled) +
(univalue*univalue of captured or destroyed planets) + (Planets * number of captured or destroyed planets)
"For victim, this value is multiplied by VictimMult, then the sqrt of the result is applied as to the casus belli of the victim towards the attacker"
"Casus Belli is increased when at war, decreased when not at war or at holy war."
For empires at war with the victim. The loss value is multiplied by EnemyOfEnemyMult and then divided by current turn number
This result is added to the current relations between the attacker and the other warring empires
TableStart WarLossValues
ColumnHeadingsStart Factor MeansWar
RowHeadingsStart
Troops 2 0
Hull Size 1 0
Population 4 0.25
Univalue 0.5 0.25
Planets 5 1
VictimMult 1.5 0
EnemyOfEnemyMult 1.5 -0.25 EnemyOfEnemyMult doesn't seem to work as it should. It is multiplied by the loss value but it isn't divided by the turn number
TableEnd


PreLapse is the minimum number of turns which can trigger a war lapse
PostLapse is the minimum number of turns after a lapse for a declaration of war to be made purely for low casus belli reasons

TableStart LapseParams
ColumnHeadingsStart Value
RowHeadingsStart
PreLapse 8
PostLapse 8
TableEnd

[EvonAlkari101]

Does an intelligence treaty give you the benefit of another empire's exploration intelligence, or does it just seem this way 'cause as the game goes along you just know more ?


It's my experience that a TA: Intelligence shares your known exploration of the galaxy with wahtever race you've an Intelligence agreement with, and vice versa. Furthermore, so long as the TA is in effect, you will benefit from their continued exploration of the galaxy, and vice versa.

Also, I once had an Intelligence agreement with another empire I had a NAP with, though in most cases it seems I need an alliance at tleast before they will agree to it.

[Quinn]

...and if you have the Contact Propagation patch installed (one of Bhruic's last patches) you gain contact with everyone they have contact with, and vice versa.