Everyone's all jealous

[Korashy]

Hey guys,

I haven't played this in a while, but in shadows it always bugged the hell out of me that every empire I meet is always immediately (even my very first contacts) hostile because "we are jealous of your colossal might or whaterver", making diplomacy very difficult.

If I'm a decent sized empire it's rather silly that the one planet guy with 4 ships hates me and tries to size me up when I just meet him and play a pretty peaceful game.

Have there been any changes to this? Or is there a way to avoid it?

[johanwanderer]

I understand your frustration, but I think that is a fairly natural (and IMHO, correct) reaction.

You became a huge empire some how, and if a huge empire show up next to my space, I would be worried, too

Maybe just play on in a while and let your natural kindness overcome their fear. Then invade them.

[Korashy]

The thing is that if you start in the age of shadows with slow research, by the time you have decent warp tech (without tech stealing; honestly I think you shouldn't be allowed to steal research from pirates before warp drives. How do they get to somewhere to steal the research?!) your home planet can easily be max population and churn out so much money that everyone just hates you like you spit in their sandwich.

If a major power suddenly appeared next to me when I'm ridiculously weak, I'd try my hardest to buddy up with them, and not embargo -> declare war.

[johanwanderer]

ORIGINAL: Korashy

The thing is that if you start in the age of shadows with slow research, by the time you have decent warp tech (without tech stealing; honestly I think you shouldn't be allowed to steal research from pirates before warp drives. How do they get to somewhere to steal the research?!) your home planet can easily be max population and churn out so much money that everyone just hates you like you spit in their sandwich.

The 1.9.5.5 patch (for Universe only, not Shadow) negated that benefit. You won't be able to have that super economy by the time you emerge anymore, so that is not so much of an issue.

If you're playing Shadow, I'm not sure if there is a solution. Maybe set the tax policy to automatic, and play at a level playing field with the AI? Or crank up the difficulty (or give them a better start) so they won't be so wimpy. I know all that changes the game's dynamic, but I don't know of another solution. Maybe you can open a support ticket so they can back-port the patch?

[Korashy]

I'm playing my first game in Universe with the most current patch, I'm still growing my home planet, but so far I'm not having any significant cash flow problems with 8% taxes (13% growth).

This modifier is probably the one thing I would mod out of the game or change it's scaling if I knew how. In my opinion Diplomacy is the game of the weak. That is how they survive, but in all my games it just leads to their doom.

[Shark7]

Well, they may be jealous, but they are also very unlikely to start a war with you. Congratulations, you are the sole super-power in your game...the whole universe hates you. [:'(]

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Korashy
(without tech stealing; honestly I think you shouldn't be allowed to steal research from pirates before warp drives. How do they get to somewhere to steal the research?!)

The steal tech from pirates to get going bugs me so much I have finally turned them off in my current game (pre-warp 999k tech) since it destroys the notion of a slow tech early game.

If they weren't already swamped with work I would suggest the developers add a 'no tech stealing from pirates' checkbox... wait, actually I just did. [;)]

As to the backstory I always imagine my spies getting on an independent freighter and buddying up with the crew, learning where the base is (although they never bother to tell me...) or stealing the tech straight from a ship or its computer.

[Korashy]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Well, they may be jealous, but they are also very unlikely to start a war with you. Congratulations, you are the sole super-power in your game...the whole universe hates you. [:'(]

Well it's nice if they aren't suicidal anymore, but it still makes playing the diplomatic game very difficult. I just wanna be friends

[Jeeves]

Well you can get your past dealings to maximum 72+ by giving 4100 five times in negotiations, exiting the negotiations, checking the current level of deal and repeat. Increasing empire attitude towards you by giving gifts is MUCH less effective, typically just a few points per gift. Get your cash back by selling them tech before you move on to the next empire. If you are already at maximum deal for an empire, you can stop doing that and just give the occasional gift when they call you up because they have no cash, increasing your empire's reputation...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
In my current game my reputation is notorious -51 according to the Guardians, and envy is maxed out at -25 for everybody, yet almost all empires are delighted with me due to past dealings, mining and refueling rights, trading them super luxuries, and treaties with their friends. The exceptions are the Banoserit, concerned by my reputation even more than the Guardians, the insects who hate my race, and some governments who hate way of the ancients.

[Vardis]

The 4100x5 thing has got to be a bug, or poor implementation at the least. Especially when you have the gift example of a few points for a gift.

[Jeeves]

When the game first came out, giving 1k added one point of dealings, but the number has increased as the game evolved. It's probably a maximum of one per transaction, with 4096 cash giving one point.


Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Unforeseen]

ORIGINAL: Korashy
I think you shouldn't be allowed to steal research from pirates before warp drives. How do they get to somewhere to steal the research?!)

Contact Pirates, Join them. They come and get you. You steal their tech, give em the finger and leave.

[Cauldyth]

Yeah, or how you can send your ambassador to races which none of your ships can reach. I just assume they hitch rides on independent traders and work their way over. [:)]

[johanwanderer]

That's one of my wishlist item: to use actual transport to ship characters around, with all the fuel requirements, escorts, dangers, etc. associated with being on a transport ship.

[Korashy]

Update:

All difficulties set to default (normal) with all events on.

My max population homeworld is bringing in 300k cash flow, I managed to sign 1 FTA before the -18 jealousy turned everyone to Angry. People are on and off embargoing me, but no-one has declared war yet. I have 0 military ships, but could easily crank out the strongest empire fleet in the galaxy in a matter of minutes (Shipyard wonder).

Some colonies are at 6000M people and some reaching 1000M now. No-one else has colonized. (I started out with 2 godlike spies and just ended up not getting caught on my steals).

[Unforeseen]

Not a single colony? What year is it?

[Korashy]

The first AI started colonizing around 2034ish, it's 2038 now and about 1/3-1/2 of them have started.

I'm playing on the slowest default speed so (480k)science. My minority populations are in some cases getting close to equal to their respective empires due to migration.

On a positive note resorts seem to be finally working. I'm making a fairly large chunk of money from them and haven't build or upgraded any new ones in years because I want the passenger ships to seed more population from my max pop worlds to my growing colonies.

Everyone still hates my guts with -22 jealousy. I've managed to get a few more FTAs through my +100% diplomacy ambassador, some gifts and then through the "treaties with friends" modifier. Tho I really gotta move mountains for people not to hate me even after just making first contact.

[Unforeseen]

2034?? That's before the game even started! Lol I think you meant 2134..if that's the case this is practically the opposite problem of that Finn guy. Where it was HE who hadn't expanded at this point. 34 years is very late for AI expansion.. how many of them are there? How many pirates and how strong were they when you set up the game?

Unfortunately there isn't a lot that you can do about the jealousy problem. They are essentially threatened by your existence.

[Korashy]

It's 1400 stars, 37 (max) empires, normal pirates.

My other gripe is the exploration event "ship discovered at XYX system", with that many stars, once you find the system and place 1 exploration ship there you can get free colonization ships + escorts or capital ships for free all day because they always spawn in the same set of 4-5 systems and there are a ton of ruins spawning them. It pretty much allows you to ignore colonization tech for a long time if you are fine with a multi-cultural empire.

I do realize that my complaints are specific to slow research games with a massive universe, and I don't know how many people play on those settings, but it find myself abandoning games where i don't try really hard to hold back a lot.