Diplomacy musings

[kanliot2]

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. Merry Christmas!"

I was save scumming diplomacy.
I wanted to know if "free" trade agreements require higher bonus diplomacy levels. After all, some governments really have a negative diplomacy. (First) turns out, it tested out that money gifts get the same benefit from a -10% diplomacy empire as from a higher one.

Thinking on this a bit, I have a general theory of diplomacy. All the modifiers to diplomacy stacked on the contact screen do not change across less diplomatic players. What does change is the race vs. race debuffs, which is the "least liked races". So a general theory of diplomacy is that if I have a 40% diplomacy, then the diplomacy percent is just a bias on the racial debuff. Which makes diplomacy more important for disliked races. I like it.

Also, if you want an whatever trade agreement, you can just send the exact amount needed through the "discuss a deal". As long as you are not in deficit, you can send any amount. ... testing... (500k yields 19.8 for an empire with 700k population). This seems to be logarithmic function approaching +20 relations.

[kanliot2]

So a general theory of diplomacy is that if I have a 40% diplomacy, then the diplomacy percent is just a bias on the racial debuff.

So the racial bias to diplomacy is not terribly important. In order to win the diplomacy mini-game, you have to raise relations enough for the other empire to offer you deals that also raise the opinion value. This is best done with save scum, usually you want a LTA-limited trade, or a nonaggression since this further raises opinion.

First go to the option "Negotiate a Deal", and depending on the size of their economy, give them a single gift that raises opinion by 17 or more. Subsequent gifts will not count for the next 12 months, so you really want a single gift. Even if the empire will not allow a beneficial trade in the "Negotiate a Deal", a large gift will shift what they will accept, so you want to gift first, then go for the trade or nonaggression.

Switching to a government type closer to theirs will also give you a boost. I'm not sure what the hero diplomats do though.