The game was shaken by the recent DLC, my play is on hold until it gets patched.

i think i'll wait for a patch too and hope the devs could fix that

I am new to ES2.  I do notice that the AI will open a dialog and "imply" something that can be done in diplomacy but not actually offer anything.  Something like them saying how they got good stuff to trade for example.  But I have yet to see them actually open a dialog an offer a trade.

So this is not how it used to work?  Is it recently broken?

Related question:  Do the DEVs ever respond on these froums?  I am wondering if they can or have confirmed this is a bug they are going to fix....

the devs are active in these forums

MrChoke wrote:

I am new to ES2.  I do notice that the AI will open a dialog and "imply" something that can be done in diplomacy but not actually offer anything.  Something like them saying how they got good stuff to trade for example.  But I have yet to see them actually open a dialog an offer a trade.

So this is not how it used to work?  Is it recently broken?

Related question:  Do the DEVs ever respond on these froums?  I am wondering if they can or have confirmed this is a bug they are going to fix....

Pretty sure they are aware and working on it. 

there is another matter, i don't know how about you, but i constantly get messages with wrong audio files. some empires need help, others want something from me, but every one of them sound like i just declared war on them

Hello everyone and thanks for all your feedback.

We have indeed noticed that some players are experiencing AI mood messages without any actual actions following, and we understand that it might be a bit unsettling.

There is an actual difference between the "mood" of an AI, and what it will actually do.

For instance, an AI can be "in the mood" for an alliance with you, but does not actually have the means to propose an alliance to you (eg it doesn't have enough influence to send the contract).

Another example would be the threat of war. If an AI is "in the mood" to go to war with you, that doesn't mean it will declare war right away, as it might not be the best move for it (eg it has already a few wars going and does not want another at the moment).

As for the "demand" part, it seems to be working after a few tests on my side. You got to remember that demands can only be sent when enough pressure is built against an empire, and also that AIs won't make demands as soon as it's available, they will only do so in certain moods of Cold War (they won't make any during peace, war or alliance for instance).

Anyway diplomacy is quite a complex subject as it is working with a lot of other systems so we might have missed something during our investigations of the matter.

As such, it would be super duper awesome if you guys could send us precise examples, with saves and all, of the situations you encountered (and if you find them still weird after this little explanation).

Thanks again for your 'endless' feedback.
Cheers :)

I've been experiencing the same with the save from before the update. I don't know if this is the case only with old saves, because I'm playing a new game with Cravers now so don't really care about diplomacy in this game.

@Chocossimo

Thank you for your informative answer.  I had guessed it was something like that, but it's always good to get confirmation.

Chocossimo wrote:

Hello everyone and thanks for all your feedback.

We have indeed noticed that some players are experiencing AI mood messages without any actual actions following, and we understand that it might be a bit unsettling.

There is an actual difference between the "mood" of an AI, and what it will actually do.

For instance, an AI can be "in the mood" for an alliance with you, but does not actually have the means to propose an alliance to you (eg it doesn't have enough influence to send the contract).

Another example would be the threat of war. If an AI is "in the mood" to go to war with you, that doesn't mean it will declare war right away, as it might not be the best move for it (eg it has already a few wars going and does not want another at the moment).

As for the "demand" part, it seems to be working after a few tests on my side. You got to remember that demands can only be sent when enough pressure is built against an empire, and also that AIs won't make demands as soon as it's available, they will only do so in certain moods of Cold War (they won't make any during peace, war or alliance for instance).

Anyway diplomacy is quite a complex subject as it is working with a lot of other systems so we might have missed something during our investigations of the matter.

As such, it would be super duper awesome if you guys could send us precise examples, with saves and all, of the situations you encountered (and if you find them still weird after this little explanation).

Thanks again for your 'endless' feedback.
Cheers :)

Thanks for the reply!  I am new to ES2 so I couldn't compare what it did before to now.  If getting "in the mood" messages is by design I am fine with that.  I also get demand messages from them so I see no problems there.  The only thing I have yet to see (granted I am new) is when the AI wants to offer a trade.  I have yet to see it do it.

Also, can I ask a different AI diplomacy question?  The one thing I have seen multiple times now is my AI ally calling for a truce and I get no chance to veto it.  And in the same game he also started a huge galacatic war with the other alliance.  Again, I had no say on it and was completely unprepared.  I am sure you guys are aware of this beahvior.  I hope it can be fixed at some point.

Thanks.

MrChoke wrote:

Also, can I ask a different AI diplomacy question?  The one thing I have seen multiple times now is my AI ally calling for a truce and I get no chance to veto it.  And in the same game he also started a huge galacatic war with the other alliance.  Again, I had no say on it and was completely unprepared.  I am sure you guys are aware of this beahvior.  I hope it can be fixed at some point.

Hey MrChoke,

We are indeed aware of this issue when allied with AIs and will do our best to come out with a solution in the near future :)

Thanks again for your feedback.

Cheers

I have seen this a lot too, the AI only talks to me about their mood yet never actually offers or demands anything other than a war declaration sometimes and or a request to demove my ships from their territory, etc. But no trade agreement, alliance, nor actual demands of any kind :(

I started a new game and what I am seeing now is when a faction is contacted I get no notification of it.  I go to the diplocacy screen and it reveals who it is but the status is still "unknown".  I have to start a dialog for it to trigger that I contacted them.  Is this bugged too?  Shouldn't the AI report when I contact them??

The more I read this thread the more I think maybe I need to stop playing until these diplocacy issues are fixed.  They seem quite serious.

I have an AI at present telling me it wants an alliance, but not actually offering one.  Why tell me if it won't do it?

Chocossimo wrote:

As for the "demand" part, it seems to be working after a few tests on my side. You got to remember that demands can only be sent when enough pressure is built against an empire, and also that AIs won't make demands as soon as it's available, they will only do so in certain moods of Cold War (they won't make any during peace, war or alliance for instance).

Nononono, there's demands and then there are demands. Like, every now and then the Vodyani will make noises at you about donating to the church, and then come at you with an amount request, and you can refuse and make them hostile for a bit. This isn't a "demand" in the influence sense, you suffer no penalty or sanction for refusing other than aggravating the Vodyani. However, the Empire and the Cravers also show this behavior, but they don't ever make any actual demands, they just say "give us dust" and the next turn say "oh, you refuse to give us dust? you're gonna get it" without ever hitting you up for an amount. It feels strange and is not consistent.

And yes a faction that gains enough influence over you will use that, if they aren't friendly, to extract wealth from you, but that's a different behavior.

Hello everyone,

We are currently investigating to grasp the extend of the issue.

Thanks again for all your feedback on this matter.

We'll get back to you with more informations as soon as we can.

Cheers

great, thanks in advance, Chocossimo

MrChoke wrote:

The screen shot below is exactly what people are talking about.  Something is VERY wrong with the diplomacy AI.

The AI says it did something and I may be angry.  Did what?!!?  I got no other messages before or after this one.  I goto the diploamcy screen and nothing has changed.  Was the AI supposed to do something and it is broken and can't??

Amplitude, I think we need a comment on this issue.  At least agreement that something is wrong would be great.

This bit sometimes means the AI has sent a fleet into your territory with the possible intention of backstabbing you, but yeah, frequently I get messages like this and I can never find what the offense was supposed to be.

Chocossimo wrote:

Hey everyone, it's me again (yeah double posting ! )

After further investigation, we managed to find why our AIs were getting cold feet instead of sending actual diplomatic contracts.

It was a sneaky error so it will require a bit more testing before we can push it live to you guys.

It might be included in the incoming patch, but no promises there, we'll keep you updated :)

Thanks again for all your feedback, and thanks in advance for your patience.

Cheers

Great, thanks!

Chocossimo wrote:

Hey everyone, it's me again (yeah double posting ! )

After further investigation, we managed to find why our AIs were getting cold feet instead of sending actual diplomatic contracts.

It was a sneaky error so it will require a bit more testing before we can push it live to you guys.

It might be included in the incoming patch, but no promises there, we'll keep you updated :)

Thanks again for all your feedback, and thanks in advance for your patience.

Cheers

I think this is an important enough issue to require a quick fix. I really hope you can make it with the next patch. I am trying to avoid ES2 for now because it is not satisfyimng to play vs brainless AI and I really want to jump back into it as soon as everything is fixed.

Frogsquadron replied in another thread saying a big 5-page patch may come out next week.  I can only hope improvements on this problem are in that patch.  I am not even going to start another game until the patch, in hopes this issue is fixed.

hello again. sorry to say, but the patch changed nothing. AI controlled empires continue to spam with "we need alliance" and "give us dust" messages. the Riftborn for example sends me message after message "We're losing war, request alliance" and if i try and propose it myself ITS CONSIDERED BAD, gives them -mood, why? what is the problem with AI? it was so good before Hissho update. what happened?

Waiting here as well to start another Game. Watched a Youtuber play recently, to see what was up NOW. 

Turns out NOTHING, really (yes a new race ok, but it acted like all he others do diplomatically really) and the same fustration(s) they dealt with during that play through, were the same ones (near verbatim) those that had me put the game away in the first place. 

If "Diplomacy" is noted worse now, then, I guess the "wait will have to continue"... sad panda :(

the AI is still stupid after patch

Yeah, I agree too.  The patch has done nothing.  I have had many messages saying the AI did something or will do something soon and never does.  The only things I ever get from it is  war/truce changes and demands based on pressure.  That's it.

MiyaNarisse, yeah and next turn pissed off craves send you death threats anyways

MiyaNarisse wrote:

Cravers: “Give us dust. Now!”

Me: “Okay” *goes to diplomacy screen and gives 10 dust*

Cravers: “The Hive accepts your tribute for consumption!” *nom nom nom*

Me: “lol, that was easy”

Ok, I get that for that particular message.  How about:

Horatio:

"I like you <blah blah blah>, a science agreement will be coming soon."

IT NEVER COMES.  So I should initiate that myself?  And if so, here is a question:

If I ask for an agreement I pay in influence.

What if the AI asks for an agreement.  Do I play the same cost of influence???  I wouldn't know since I started playing this game with Supremacy and have never seen it.  Not once.

IRivenI wrote:

MrChoke, thats the point, before Supremacy when AI asked you about help with the war or demanded a certain ammount of dust from you, there was an actual option to refuse to give dust or to accept an alliance proposal. they no longer send those messages, in the grim darkness of Endless Space 2 diplomacy, there is only spam 

Right now it looks like the refusal is implied by not doing the action within X number of turns (granted I think that is a poor approach).  The question I still have though is before when it offerred things like agreements, do I still pay the same influence cost as if I proposed it myself?

if my memory doesn't fail me, then no, when AI offered something, they paid for it. except for the "War agreement" when an enemy faction propose truce to your alliance, there used to be an option to pay some influence to continue fighting

Hi everyone,

First of all apologies for the delay of the answer, but we didn't want to say anything before we had a deeper understanding of the issue.

And god was it a vicious, tough as nails, sneaky bug. So here is a bit of insight for you guys: a performance optimization was meant to prevent AIs from spamming players with contract, but as a matter of fact, it was a bit too zealous and it ended cutting early almost all contracts between AIs and players, whereas AIs had no problem sending contracts to one another.

But, to the important bit! The fix allowing AIs to normally send contracts to players will be included in this patch! (yeay)

As all things diplomacy, we count on your feedback to help us detect any aberrations with the behavior in the future.

Once again, thanks for your vigilance and your feedback.

Cheers

Thanks for the update! I can't wait to resume playing once the patch arrives.

lets hope it works

Chocossimo wrote:

But, to the important bit! The fix allowing AIs to normally send contracts to players will be included in this patch! (yeay)

'This' patch meaning the next patch (in some indeterminate time), or is a patch about to be released?

Well, we have a stream coming this afternoon at : https://www.twitch.tv/amplitudestudios

You guys know what this usually means.

Also wasn't there something about some fleet skins a while ago? ;)

Ohhhhh.....

HYPEDDDDDDDDDDD

Tried out the new patch and already the AI is opening trade deals and other things.  Yay!  This bug is fixed.  Thanks guys.

yeah, everything works great now, thanks devs