Diplomacy still easy and flawed in DW+E

[ASHBERY76]

I have moaned about this is the past and the expansion has not solved the issue that bribing races in DW really makes it the easiest 4X game I have played to get all the races to love my race with little effort.Elliot tried to scale it in the expansion but when the game hits mid stage and the economy gets a huge surplus it takes little financial effort just to respawn bribes quickly with every race you meet to get trade treaty and high relations in a game week.

Diplomacy really should require more skill than that.I would prefer it if relations were more natural and bribing was taken out completely than the present exploitable system.

[Data]

Have not checked the poll lately but dimplomacy improvments was in the top places so if Elliot will use that feedback this will get fixed. Until then we can just abstain from exploiting this.

[gargoil]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

I have moaned about this is the past and the expansion has not solved the issue that bribing races in DW really makes it the easiest 4X game I have played to get all the races to love my race with little effort.Elliot tried to scale it in the expansion but when the game hits mid stage and the economy gets a huge surplus it takes little financial effort just to respawn bribes quickly with every race you meet to get trade treaty and high relations in a game week.

Diplomacy really should require more skill than that.I would prefer it if relations were more natural and bribing was taken out completely than the present exploitable system.

1) Being friendly with everyone is not always desireable. Impedes conquest.
2) There are some races that it really doesn't do much good with (and if you play mods, try the Star Trek one, the like and hate in that mod is quite well done).
3) RP a bit, do not use all that bribing.

[cookie monster]

What is there to gained out of a bribe?

A free trade agreement, a mutual defence pact, the ability to tech trade

To better relations after a failed spy mission

Bribing is one method of overcoming the Aliens natural dislike of your race

I dont find much place for bribes when I have set up all my free trade agreements

I personally don't think it's overpowered

This is to me afterall a trading game, why wouldn't everyone get along until you start building in their systems

I could list more even cheesier things a player can do, but I won't

[MartialDoctor]

Ash brings up a good point, though.  One shouldn't be able to constantly bribe to bring up relations.  Constant bribes should only work up to a point.

I haven't noticed this but, then again, I haven't done much more than a few back-to-back bribes at a time.  If you can indeed constantly bring up one's relations with a race simply by bribing, then I think it's an issue.

[Shark7]

Hmmmm...

I present to you the Shark7 theory on galactic relations. Subtitle: How to make friends and get them to squash bugs for you. [;)]

All joking aside, here are some very specific changes I'd like to see to diplomacy.

1. Making enemies: Yep, there should be a set of options for purposely irritating other empires via the diplomacy screens.

• Insult: self explanitory
• Ignore/Cold Shoulder: An option to simply ignore an incoming diplomatic message. For every message you should have an Accept/Acknowledge, Ignore, and Reject/Dismiss option. Ignore has a smaller negative effect than outright rejection, but it does negatively affect relations.
• Demand: already in, though you should be able to demand anything
• Threaten: already in, but you should also be able to send a general threat... "We will wipe your pathetic infantile race off the galactic map!"
• Cancel existing Treaties: One or more or all.

2. Making friends:

• Gift/Bribe: As current.
• Trade agreement: A limited trade agreement that allows the trade of civilian goods, but the cash bonus from it is not as great as the current free trade agreement. this is a pre-requisite for a Free Trade Agreement.
• Free Trade Agreement: As current.
• Basing Agreement: An empire cannot refuel military ships from your stations without one of these and vice versa. Also allows repairs at star ports.
• Open Borders Trade Agreement: Same effects as Free Trade Agreement, but also allows empires with this agreement to build civilian stations in each others 'territory'. Meaning if Empire A owns the Paradise system, and has an OBTA with Empire B, then Empire B can build a mining station, gas mining station or resort base in the Paradise system without any negative effects on relations.
• Non Agression Pact: Two empires agree to not attack each other for any reason for a set period of time. This treaty has an expiration (I suggest 10 game years) and prevents the two empires from attacking, spying or declaring war on each other for that time period.
• Research trade agreement: This treaty gives a small bonus to both empires in research when activated. Very High relations (90+) should be required.
• Intelligence Trade Agreement: allows you to see an empires exploration and enemy assessments in real-time and vice versa. 90+ relations required.
• Mutual Defense Pact: This does not give you real-time intelligence...it only shows planets the empires own. This also prevents attacks or DoW between the two participants. If my empire or my MDP partner are attacked or has a DoW against us, the MDP issues an automatic DoW against the agressor (so long as you don't have a MDP with the agressor...at which point you must first cancel the MDP and can then manually DoW). Requires 75+ relations.
• Alliance: Two empires have entered into a share everything, defend each other at all costs because we love each other and each thinks the other is the best thing since sliced bread treaty. Alliance gives the benefit of all of the above agreements. Also the hardest to get and requires 100+ relations.
• Trading technology: this needs a revamp that makes it harder to accomplish, and actually require very good relations for an AI empire to even consider it (60+) relations. Why would I sell you something when there is a good chance you turn around and use it against me a couple of days later?
• Planet/Colony gifting and trade: Mostly for the player to use...the ability to give a liked empire a planet or colony without any strings attached or for a trade. This is very similar to what it is currently, but it needs a revamp so that the AI will only consider it if the relations are extremely high.

3. Subterfuge/Deception: The art of making two AI empires fight each other.

• Ruin reputation: Tell Empire A something false and evil about Empire B.
• Lie about another empire: Tell Empire A that Empire B is planning to attack them soon.
• Inform: Tell Empire A that Empire B is spying on them.
• Hire a Pirate: Works as present, however tell the pirate empire that they should say Empire B was the one who hired them.

[Data]

Ruin reputation: Tell Empire A something false and evil about Empire B.
Lie about another empire: Tell Empire A that Empire B is planning to attack them soon.

These should have repercussions on us...if they fail. They will have them even if they work if B finds out.

[shinobu]

One of my biggest problems with the diplomacy is that it is always "static". By this I mean that, once you get a bit into a game, friends are always friends and enemies are always enemies. Even when they make peace, it's just a matter of time before the same star nations start fighting each other again because of the bad blood they've built up over time. If we used this game dynamic in real life, the United States and Germany would still be enemies in 2011 (and fighting WWVII...).

We need some randomness in the game engine so that former AI enemies CAN become friends (and vice versa). I'd also like to see alliances used more- I RARELY see the AI governments actually allied with each other.

Also, I'd like to be able to ally with another star nation in a specific case (we ally with empire "A" in their war against "B", but ONLY against "B"- if empire "A" attacks "C", we are NOT involved...).

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Data

Ruin reputation: Tell Empire A something false and evil about Empire B.
Lie about another empire: Tell Empire A that Empire B is planning to attack them soon.

These should have repercussions on us...if they fail. They will have them even if they work if B finds out.

Agreed. I just want another tool in the toolbox so to speak.

[Apheirox]

Ashbery, I think you are approaching the problem from the wrong angle. The real issue is that the AI is too weak all round. Were it stronger, you would be under more pressure and wouldn't have the luxury of sitting on a huge stash of cash with which to bribe the AI.

Imagine AI empires that aggressively scouted, expanded, conducted lots of research and fielded huge fleets - essentially copied what you are probably doing... Such AI's would be no pushovers - maybe it would be THEM bribing YOU to further their agendas instead of same old, same old situation of you being the superior human player always toying with the AIs...

[Astax]

I've taken to not trying to bribe races but rather conquering the hell out of them. They seem helpless against my Boskara onslaught!

[kenata]

One trick l learned a while back was to trade a little amount of money for a larger amount of money. The AI seems to have a limit to the amount of reputation they will give you from gifting them money. However, once you hit this limit, you can simply go into the trade screen and trade money for money to continue to gain reputation. In all honesty, I can normally buy a free trade agreement shortly after meeting a race for about 30k by simply making these meaningless trade.

[Data]

Sounds like an exploit imo

[kenata]

Definitely an exploit, but one that underscores a significant weakness in the diplomatic model.

[Canute0]

Yep, succesful trade allways give a reputation boost.
That should be like bribes just 1 succesful trade / month should give you positiv reputation.
And trades who are rejected (No deal / can you improve it a bit) should give small negativ reputation hits.

One of my biggest problems with the diplomacy is that it is always "static". By this I mean that, once you get a bit into a game, friends are always friends and enemies are always enemies. Even when they make peace,

So long the empires dont change the Goverment it wont change. USA and UdSSR allways was enemys until the UdSSR broke up and start going the kapitalist way. The same is at DS.

[tegenAQR]

This is a really interesting discussion. It's understood that programming a tough AI is a difficult and tricky part in development. In my actual game this happened to me:

At war with the Haakonish. Playing as Ketarov I accidentally shot a Haakonish transport ship by not stopping a maneuver, they conquered one of my colonies and there was war for quite a while
Looking at the diplomacy screen the Haakonish proposed trade sanctions against Race xyz (I think it was the Atuuk) to end our war. I agreed to that.
The Atuuk turned hostile but I offered to give them tech and money to get our relationship back to "good".
They agreed and everything went well for me... after that I expected the Haakonish to turn against me again and declare war for reconciling
the trade sanctions with the Atuuk BUT nothing happened!

Exploit? At least I used to bribe the Atuuk. But I think it also worked so well because of the relationship percentage. The relationship with the Atuuk was quite good before this incident. I don't recall how much the trade sanctions against them changed the overall relationship. The relationship with the Haakonish was Furious (-88)

[Shuul]

The problem is that other empires dont "remember" what you they demanded from you (and others) 5 minutes ago.
Next problem is that we see EVERYTHING that influences our relations with others, its a real exploit, there MUST be something that we dont know, secrets etc...
Also, when we make treaty (sell some tech ) with other empire, it does not care if they need it at all, they dont look at our relations, our enemies and friends... They just look at numbers (credits)... good relations - ok,take Mutual Defense pact, bad - here you have war. AI must think strategically - while they want to capture you in distant future, why they should make defense pact with you to protect from your current enemies???

All the Diplomacy in this game is exploit! IF you have a some money, you can manipulate anybody!

Because AI does not think, it just choose better values(numbers, credits, whatever...)

[Data]

While I agree in principle with you I don't think it's all exploit or beyond rping; for example, a human can use a MDP with a race that he wants to invade later to protect them from others...claim the techs and colonies for himself or keep them as a buffer for the time being or many other reasons. The AI can be coded to behave similarly.

[tegenAQR]

ORIGINAL: Shuul

The problem is that other empires dont "remember" what you they demanded from you (and others) 5 minutes ago.

That's right. It's all in the formula. In my case the AI could use a period of time (in the background) during which my agreement to the pact cannot be broken. Otherwise the AI would declare war again.
For TBS it's simple to use a turn timer.

[Data]

This reminds me of MOO2 where signing a non-agression pact with some races would gurantee that they never attack you while with others it meant absolutely nothing as they didn't stop their war plans.