Matrix Games Forums

Start with, I am really getting into this game. It's blowing my mind because I'm used to games where limitations are built in. Here they're not -- if I find a limitation (like my post below about construction ships bailing on jobs), it's only a matter of getting deeper into the game and finding a completely plausible, consistent-with-storyline, fix. It's amazing.

Still and all, here are a couple of things that are bugging me. First, I'm not really into war. Part of that is because I'm not yet good at it and tend to leave it on AI, where I usually get my ass kicked because my AI seems to be made up of the collected wisdom of the French, British and Austro-Hungarian General Staff, while my opponents' AI gets the German General Staff. Part of it is also that I'm really into colonizing, economics, and ship design right now. Any ideas on lessening or removing the occurrence of war would be helpful here.

Second, my advisors put up messages from time to time urging that I impose trade sanctions or declare war. That's OK, but there's no background information provided on why they're recommending that action. So it's sort of a coin flip decision, informed only by generalities such as, "Well, I remember that X empire is Way of Darkness, and therefore the Y empire might get ticked off." But even that level of analysis is frustrated because the game won't let me go to other windows (like empire status) while deciding on what my advisors want. Any help here would be appreciated also.

Any ideas on lessening or removing the occurrence of war would be helpful here.

When setting up a new game, there is a slider that sets a general level of aggression for the computer players on the first page. Setting this to a more peaceful setting should reduce the number of wars which flare up during the game. You can also manually select who your opponents are; choosing less aggressive, less reckless, more intelligent, and more dependable species for your opponents' empires can help reduce the likelihood of wars (though with more intelligent species, note that intelligence is not in and of itself an indicator of a peaceful empire, merely one which is better at evaluating the risks and benefits of war and peace).

Some things that you can do within the game are to grant mining and refueling rights and try to obtain free trade agreements. Treaties and agreements produce a semi-permanent positive relations modifier with the beneficiary, which can offset those governmental and species-related relationship penalties or reinforce governmental relationship bonuses. Throwing gifts around can also help a bit, though the relations bonus from a gift is temporary. Also make certain that you don't have any bases or colonies in their territory (check the diplomacy menu and look for 'disputed bases' or 'disputed colonies' relationship penalties as you click through the various empires) and keep your military ships from visiting the space of any empire with which you do not have refueling rights. Sending a diplomat, especially a good diplomat, to a foreign capital will also help improve relations.

Also, don't send intelligence agents against empires with which you wish to remain on good terms, as a detected or captured agent produces a relations penalty.

Second, my advisors put up messages from time to time urging that I impose trade sanctions or declare war.

Your advisors ask you to declare war or impose trade sanctions on empires that the game thinks that your empire should not like. If you want to determine which empires the computer thinks that your empire doesn't like, then you'll need to open the diplomacy menu and click through each of the other empires on the screen and look at the line where your empire is listed and see if you're 'friendly,' 'hostile,' 'close,' etc with the selected empire (you can also use this method to check what each known empire thinks of the selected empire - if you have the Mortalen Federation selected and you see the word 'hostile' on the line for the Quameno Technocracy, then the Quameno Technocracy is likely to engage in hostilities with the Mortalen Federation and might not be displeased if you go after the Mortalens). Note that the computer can decide that your empire hates several of the empires which really, really like you, which can mean that the advisors may ask you to sever ties with an ally you've been working with all game long, impose trade sanctions on your best friends, and grant mining/refueling rights to your greatest rivals.

I would generally recommend ignoring or disabling the diplomatic advisor unless you're looking to handicap yourself.