[1.0.2.8] Diplomacy - Envy makes peace impossible

[Kielm]

The envy modifier is a little broken

There's something I've noticed over the last few short playthroughs I've done, which is that the negative modifier applied by "We are envious of your huge strength and power" is for me, kind of ruining the experience a little.

I tend to focus on economy at the start of the game and pay off pirates where possible, sometimes into mid-game until it's appropriate to change lanes. The problem with this peaceful approach is that most (eventually all) other AI empires have a tendency to dislike me purely because of the size of my economy.

This makes a mostly peaceful playthrough pretty much impossible, as by the time the modifier is in the -10 to -15 range it becomes extremely difficult to develop positive diplomatic relations with most races. By Mid-Late game I see this modifier hit -20 to -30 and by then, war is inevitable. Which brings me to my next pet peeve...

The AI will inevitably start a war it can't win

Okay, so my economy may have grown to be 25% of the galaxy total, or more. I might have a sizeable fleet and a lot of people and colonies, but that doesn't mean I want to fight it out with every other race. Why is the AI starting a war when it has 1/5th the fleet power and economy and no chance of winning? I understand that, in exceptional circumstances there may be races which just don't like me for one reason or another, but the envy modifier makes this a rule, not an exception. The end result is that I'm now forced to fight a relatively easy but time consuming fight with each empire until it eventually starts to tire of losing, makes peace for a few years and then does it again.

The envy modifier could be reduced, and in peaceful games, reduced a lot

The game I'm currently playing is set to peaceful. Most of the options are set to normal, but I wanted a less frantic, brutal playthrough. Despite this, two AI empires, both vastly smaller, have declared war. I've only managed to get positive diplomatic relations with one empire by starting early, but the rest hate me so much (despite many, many gifts) because of this modifier that I'm going to eventually have to fight ever last one of them.

I would expect this modifier to count for a lot less in peaceful games, and to overall be less impactful than it currently is. Even at 50% of it's current impact, I'd have a much larger range of diplomatic options, and wouldn't have that entire side of the game unavailable.

It feels wrong to me, because it feels like the AI is playing the game purely against the victory conditions, not immersively, or like it wants to survive, or thrive, or anything - it's basically just tic-tac-toeing it's last gasp to attempt to block a potential win.

Am I totally wrong? Should I be expecting something else?

[gravyten]

Change your diplomatic stance towards specific empires to manual and then befriend or ally and see if that helps

Go to the diplomatic menu and then go to the screen of the empire you want to be friends with

[Kielm]

Unfortunately, that makes no difference.

The problem is the sheer weight of the envy effect (e.g. -30) far outstrips any impact that gifts or diplomats can have on relations.

It's not a matter of incorrectly setting the relationship - it's that the negative modifier of this effect is simply too large to counteract, manually or otherwise.

[Kielm]

Here's what I mean - I can't see any number of gifts, treaties or niceties that are going to fix that -35 effect

[Emperor0Akim]

The Full Diplomatic Research gives you a +15

+2 Language
+4 Culture and Customs
+6 History and Traditions
+3 Immersion

+10 Gifts
+7 Treaties
+3 Reputation
----
+45

0 or +x if the government was fitting
0 or if the enemies declare war

so if you keep on spending money on everyone you are barely able to manage peace.

[Kielm]

You carried an extra 10 there, it's +35 total.

So break even if you spend a century or so researching diplomacy for all the races and give gifts and happen to have treaties with their friends

[mrm0uflon]

A stopgap solution might be to have the envy penalty by limited by reputation to some degree, so only empires who misbehave get the whole galaxy hating on them. Whereas if you keep your nose clean you can overcome the envy with gifts and trade etc.

[CarloTheCurious]

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP.

In my current game I had a long time to build up before I met any other races. So now I've met them, they all hate or at least dislike me from -30 or more envy modifier. In this playthrough I'd rather co-exist with my neighbours (or at least the 'good' ones), but they keep declaring pointless wars, and there's basically nothing I can do about it except beat them down repeatedly or wipe them out.

fwiw, I loathe this kind of modifier, I think it railroads the player into playing a conquering game, or at best dedicating a lot of effort to countering a modifier which makes no sense (to me) in the first place - "You're enormously powerful, so rather than respond to your friendly overtures we'll hate you and declare a suicidal war". I understand it's there to provide some more challenge to the player, but I think that should be a choice. Even in Total War games (which at least are definitely focussed on war!) I prefer to mod out the "Great Power" modifier.

Ideally it would be tunable in the game options (or someone will come up with a mod )

[Kielm]

I think it's overcompensating for a relatively weak or ineffective reputation system.

Getting a -2 or -3 reputation from declaring war for no reason, or conducting a hostile invasion of an independent system just doesn't stack up against a -35 modifier for being peaceful, but powerful.

Is this something that's even moddable?

[TheForsakeen]

As @ Emperor0Akim put it the full Diplomatic Research gives you a +15 and iv seen gift go up to +30 via tech trading add to that trade agreement(+20), map sharing(+5 to +15), non-aggression(+10), migration(+5) you can easily get over the malus and if you have a good reputation(+7) and actually assign an ambassador even better. I am not sure of the exact modifier but having a defense treaty should also greatly boost relations. I think the envy mechanic is alright what they need to do now is to fix the dumb AI and boost the reputation system and maybe add some vassalization/puppet/federation system if there isn't one already to make it less of a hassle.

[Kielm]

As @ Emperor0Akim put it the full Diplomatic Research gives you a +15 and iv seen gift go up to +30 via tech trading add to that trade agreement(+20), map sharing(+5 to +15), non-aggression(+10), migration(+5) you can easily get over the malus and if you have a good reputation(+7) and actually assign an ambassador even better. I am not sure of the exact modifier but having a defense treaty should also greatly boost relations. I think the envy mechanic is alright what they need to do now is to fix the dumb AI and boost the reputation system and maybe add some vassalization/puppet/federation system if there isn't one already to make it less of a hassle.

I have to admit I hadn't tried donating tech. I will try that next time, thanks.

Ambassadors make a negligible impact without existing treaties, and all your other suggestions (treaties) require a positive standing to achieve which isn't applicable in situations where such a large envy effect is already in place (how am I supposed to use a treaty bonus if I can't get them to sign a treaty?)

Agree that the reputation system could be more impactful, but I still think that economic envy shouldn't be equivalent to all of the above combined, as that still seems quite unbalanced.

[Emperor0Akim]

You carried an extra 10 there, it's +35 total.

So break even if you spend a century or so researching diplomacy for all the races and give gifts and happen to have treaties with their friends

You are right, those 10 came from -7 friends with enemies and -3 Government, if you could get rid of those it is equal to +10
I removed those two while writing, but did not fix the calculation.

[WiZz]

Same here. Envy is the most broken and weird mechanic in the diplomacy.
We need an additional mechanic - fear. 'We fear your fleets so we won't attack you', something like that. It should compensate the effect of envy.

[Dampfnudel]

One big issue is that the player consistently outgrows the AI.
We need better AI enemies.

[maggiecow]

All working as intended. Obviously if you have a large neighbour with a similar political outlook or core philosophical values, you'll instinctively grow to hate them and want to fight their vastly more powerful empire. That's REALISM!

Imagine if there was a real world power that was significantly more powerful than every other country in the world. They'd constantly be rebuffing invasion attempts from Cameroon or New Guinea; nations driven mad with jealousy at the gross imbalance in living standards.

/s

Yeah, it's a stupid mechanic that needs to go. Fair enough if you're ideologically opposed, but not when you're both singing off the same hymn sheet.

Why bother even researching the diplomatic topics when you could put the time and money into making better weapons and just steamroll those smaller empires to roll up their territory?

[Kielm]

You are right, those 10 came from -7 friends with enemies and -3 Government, if you could get rid of those it is equal to +10
I removed those two while writing, but did not fix the calculation.

Ah, thanks.

Same here. Envy is the most broken and weird mechanic in the diplomacy.
We need an additional mechanic - fear. 'We fear your fleets so we won't attack you', something like that. It should compensate the effect of envy.

There's a lot that could be changed in diplomacy, to make it work better, and I'd be totally on board with a more comprehensive approach that took into account fear of military, desire to trade, unwillingness to oppose, the whole spectrum. I thought simply reducing the existing envy modifier would be a quicker fix, though.

One big issue is that the player consistently outgrows the AI.
We need better AI enemies.

I don't disagree, but I think that no matter how good the AI is, players will either intentionally curate a game where they have an economical advantage or accidentally find themselves with one. Good point though, maybe I should try ramping up the difficulty.

[Kielm]

Imagine if there was a real world power that was significantly more powerful than every other country in the world. They'd constantly be rebuffing invasion attempts from Cameroon or New Guinea; nations driven mad with jealousy at the gross imbalance in living standards.

I laughed, thank you. It breaks the immersion a lot when the AI does it, and leaves me shaking my head asking... why?!

Yeah, it's a stupid mechanic that needs to go. Fair enough if you're ideologically opposed, but not when you're both singing off the same hymn sheet.

Why bother even researching the diplomatic topics when you could put the time and money into making better weapons and just steamroll those smaller empires to roll up their territory?

I feel the same - it really does feel like a forced confrontation.

I want to trade and form defensive pacts and enjoy the benefits of cooperation, and while I don't expect the AI to be cognizant of the benefits, I would enjoy seeing it be a factor in diplomatic relations and have the AI try to make money that way, too - "Your empire has lots of trade opportunities", or "Our citizens seek your protection" etc.

[deMangler]

Imagine if there was a real world power that was significantly more powerful than every other country in the world. They'd constantly be rebuffing invasion attempts from Cameroon or New Guinea; nations driven mad with jealousy at the gross imbalance in living standards.

I laughed, thank you. It breaks the immersion a lot when the AI does it, and leaves me shaking my head asking... why?!

Yeah, it's a stupid mechanic that needs to go. Fair enough if you're ideologically opposed, but not when you're both singing off the same hymn sheet.

Why bother even researching the diplomatic topics when you could put the time and money into making better weapons and just steamroll those smaller empires to roll up their territory?

I feel the same - it really does feel like a forced confrontation.

I want to trade and form defensive pacts and enjoy the benefits of cooperation, and while I don't expect the AI to be cognizant of the benefits, I would enjoy seeing it be a factor in diplomatic relations and have the AI try to make money that way, too - "Your empire has lots of trade opportunities", or "Our citizens seek your protection" etc.

I like playing long games, and a rich diplomacy element can really work for long games.
I think diplomacy in DW2 at release is little more than placeholder, and that is not meant as a criticism.
I just mean that rather than being broken or not WAI, like a lot of the stuff - fleets, some population stuff etc - diplomacy is just a really simple and not very... fleshed-out... system atm. It is great flavour though and I do love what is there.
I really hope it gets properly expanded upon later.

[Emperor0Akim]

All working as intended. Obviously if you have a large neighbour with a similar political outlook or core philosophical values, you'll instinctively grow to hate them and want to fight their vastly more powerful empire. That's REALISM!

Imagine if there was a real world power that was significantly more powerful than every other country in the world. They'd constantly be rebuffing invasion attempts from Cameroon or New Guinea; nations driven mad with jealousy at the gross imbalance in living standards.

/s

Yeah, it's a stupid mechanic that needs to go. Fair enough if you're ideologically opposed, but not when you're both singing off the same hymn sheet.

Why bother even researching the diplomatic topics when you could put the time and money into making better weapons and just steamroll those smaller empires to roll up their territory?

Assimetrical Warfare on the other hand would be the way to go against this fictional empire.
Insurgents and Freedom Fighters whittling away at the greater power.

[maggiecow]

All working as intended. Obviously if you have a large neighbour with a similar political outlook or core philosophical values, you'll instinctively grow to hate them and want to fight their vastly more powerful empire. That's REALISM!

Imagine if there was a real world power that was significantly more powerful than every other country in the world. They'd constantly be rebuffing invasion attempts from Cameroon or New Guinea; nations driven mad with jealousy at the gross imbalance in living standards.

/s

Yeah, it's a stupid mechanic that needs to go. Fair enough if you're ideologically opposed, but not when you're both singing off the same hymn sheet.

Why bother even researching the diplomatic topics when you could put the time and money into making better weapons and just steamroll those smaller empires to roll up their territory?

Assimetrical Warfare on the other hand would be the way to go against this fictional empire.
Insurgents and Freedom Fighters whittling away at the greater power.

Absolutely. Against the right political system you could probably just infiltrate the Recreation centers and hollow the heart of the country out with propaganda.