Matrix Games Forums

Is the -35 malus for being too powerful relative to a different state intentional? It seems incredibly harsh and punitive. I can hardly find trading partners, everyone absolutely hates my guts because I'm too strong. If it is intentional, how can I mod it?

It's pretty easy to get everyone to hate you, yeah. If you still want to make friends, you're going to have to do a lot of bribing and diplo research.

The mechanic is meant to counterbalance powerful empires, but honestly it's not doing a great job of it.

I get in most contexts, but trade shouldn't be something that everyone refuses because you're strong. If anything, because your economy is so good and you can provide so many things they lack, they should be happy to engage in it.

Sorry to bump the topic, but is there any known way to mod it?

For me, it's quite a deal breaker: Every single empire I encounter immediately shifts towards extreme hostility - and "-35" is very hard to counter, even with high level diplomatic research (and I don't have access to level 3+ yet). I think I can manage a couple of wars more, but I hoped my foreign politics to be more... diverce.

Bribing / Gifts don't matter much with such a huge gap, unless I throw all my precious research at them, I guess. But gifts only open a small time window, maybe allowing a trade aggreement. And then I'm back at -30 or something like that.

But I also agree that it doesn't make any sense in general: weaker empires should be cautious for sure, but outright hostile? At least, different empires should behave differently, according to their traits (existing stats: aggression, caution, general compatibility/hostilty towards our race and so on). Some could see a bigger empire as an immediate threat, others could see a chance to prosper - or to get a powerful ally etc. I understand the general reason behind this balancing, but maybe there could be much more trait-dependent opinions, counter-balancing each other and thus reflecting a complex and unique overall opinion - which could be net negativ but also net positive?

It makes sense if you are warmongering, but not if you are playing peacefully.

Current game, everyone I meet has this malus because I invested in peacefully integrating independents and have a stronger economy than them.

How is it breaking the game? You’re the strongest power and closer to winning the victory objectives. Ultimately, they want to win the game as much as you do and they want to stop you.

It's a game with winning conditions, so to counter it you get "too powerful".

Uhm, stop playing easy mode, go to harder difficulties, the game has setting for making the AI stronger and setting for how much they war. You can go low on war and high on AI bonus if you want a trading game.

I don't know why people try to justify this. -35 is literally a permanent forced negative relation unless you invest ton of cash and research. It makes no sense from any perspective, especially from AI side - "We see that empire 10 times stronger then us, lets hate them and declare a war".

If incentive was to limit snowballing of big empires - it is done badly. Now instead of reaching some neighbors and stop expansion - you are literally forced to steamroll them. It could work if there was some coalition system from EU4 where empires unite against stronger enemy - but having -35 being alone neighbor to overpowered enemy makes no sense.

In my current playthrough as technocrats I met human republic bordering hive mind. Instead of allying with me to resist hive mind invasion they have -50 relation with me and declared war on me with 20 ships...

I agree that this seems to be a poor modifier to counter getting too powerful. In my last game it just made me have to destroy my neighbours instead of work with them even after spending tons of money and ambassadors it just wasn't worth it to make them friendly. It would have saved me even more money if I just went to war earlier. It just forces unnecessary wars. It is not the smart thing for those empires to do.

There should be some more logic behind it, especially for the more economic focused races. It makes sense for them to want to do trade with their economically rich neighbour. There could be many more factors in the calculations, or add other modifiers that counteract the negative.

Which race are we talking about though? Some races simply are hated by everyone else no matter what size empire you have and it only gets worse as you get more powerful? As in you wouldn't pick boskara if you are wanting to forge a huge trade empire. You would enslave the various races and steal the stuff instead.

As to modding it you could use the game editor to create a super ambassador with mega bonuses to diplomacy and trade etc.

WingedIncubus wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 10:53 pm How is it breaking the game? You’re the strongest power and closer to winning the victory objectives. Ultimately, they want to win the game as much as you do and they want to stop you.

Don't you think this argumentation is completely immersion breaking? We're not talking about a chess game vs. a player or computer that you can win or lose. We're arguing from a stand point of an in-game civilization interacting with other civilization - that's no "game" with some artificial conditions etc.

As an extreme example, imagine us, humans, encountering mighty aliens, technologically advanced beyond comprehension and having colonized hundreds or even thousands of worlds. For sure, it's a pretty dangerous situation. But, would our only feeling be... hatred? Unless, of course, it's indeed a race of world destroyers or slavers or something like that. But what if they happen to actually be... friendly?

Miravlix wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 11:51 pm It's a game with winning conditions, so to counter it you get "too powerful".

In some cases, befriending me would be more beneficial as a way to hinder my progress than simply declaring war and getting destroyed.

It's not about difficulty or the challenge, but other empires behaving irrationally.

In my opinion there should never be maluses or bonuses to make any one "win" the game.

Relations should build on trust and reputation not just pure strengths or influence. A belligerent empire with bad reputation should universally be disliked no matter its size.

The main drawback of the both DW2 and DWU is the lack of multilateral dealings between empires. I hope that this is something that will be looked at in some future expansion of the game as it is sorely needed.

I always miss in games of these natures that you can't engage in diplomatic dealings on behalf of other empires just as countries do in real life.

I don't think that arguments such as the AI trying to "win" the game is a good argument as the AI should not even try to do that, nor should the player. The point should be to play the game and build the story... winning should also be something empires could do as an allied entity.

To be honest I don't like that "winning" always have to be the "king of the hill" type mentality as that is the Autocratic way of do things, there needs to be alternatives. This is why I never bother with winning conditions at all in my games, they are just pointless.

Jorgen_CAB wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:38 amTo be honest I don't like that "winning" always have to be the "king of the hill" type mentality as that is the Autocratic way of do things, there needs to be alternatives. This is why I never bother with winning conditions at all in my games, they are just pointless.

But you still start wars on the internet, insulting developers for programming their damn game wrong according to you.


Sometimes you need to learn to accept reality instead of being entitled. The earth goes around the sun, so we have seasons, whining about winter or summer is pointless and so it whining about someone else "programming" the game they made wrong.

Playing as the humans I recently encountered another human group and have to say I find it a bit odd we've got a negative 35 diplomacy hit right from the jump in our relations. I mean after all we just met.

We're the same race and I don't track on why just because I've managed to expand a bit more than they have that we should automatically start at odds.

How about start neutral and see where things take us, both of us will show our true colors in time and then respond accordingly diplomatically.

In the real universe first contact should be handled with a bit more nuance, and a race that's a much smaller empire encountering a neighbor who is a much larger one would do well in thinking twice about immediately taking an overtly hostile stance towards them.

Put this in the context of the game and it still makes no sense.

This was bumped up shortly before release and we inadvertently went way too far. It should be toned down in the 1.0.1.9 update coming our shortly today.

Just saw steam updated, man are you fast.

Thanks!

Edit: Btw, loaded latest save on my end and when I loaded it up after the patch the diplo hit was still there. I assume then the change only kicks in with a new game perhaps?

3asytarg3t wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:44 pm Just saw steam updated, man are you fast.

Thanks!

Edit: Btw, loaded latest save on my end and when I loaded it up after the patch the diplo hit was still there. I assume then the change only kicks in with a new game perhaps?

Correct, new game required....GP

Wow, thanks for the quick fix!

And no, it doesn't seem a new game is necessarily required: I've just loaded a previous save and the value now definitely changes over time (or, rather, the "weight" is much lower). It went from -35 to -30 with 4 of the races almost immediately and is still rising (up to +3 p.a.)