I don't understand why the alliance needs to force having the same diplomatic relation with each faction in the first place, decisions like that should be voted upon. Like, why can't I be at peace with a faction I've been friendly with the whole game, but my ally is having a petty land dispute with. Instead of them dragging me into it, there should definitely be something like a vote or council. Also, more alliance specific actions would be cool (not sure what that would entail). 

Something I'd also like to see is the ability to gift fleets, doesn't make sense why we can't. Say.. I want to indirectly support someone I am in a truce with without major risk of pissing of the faction they are fighting, I could offer to loan them my juggernaut, or just straight up give it to them.

Or better yet, the ability to bribe the AI in order to take action against another faction. Say, I give them 200k Dust in order to go to war against the Unfallen for x turns, because they've embargoed a key system of mine or something, and the faction I'm bribing would get control over a trade chokepoint. 

Also, why impose a limit on alliance size at all? Why not have a diplomatic victory, where all players are in the same alliance, but in return, make it harder to get an AI in an alliance in the first place to give it more challenge.

Another idea, why not have another bonus, something like Alliance-wide Laws? Laws you all vote on that have unique impacts (rather than just straight up stat bonuses) on all factions in the alliance. 

I love how much of an improvement the diplomacy AI and diplomacy in general is better than most other 4X games, but it still has a long way to go. Thanks!

Sublustris wrote:

I concur on what CaptainCobbs siad, but want to address this:

I like how Total War Shogun 2 had this end-game crysis called "Realm divide", when one player is getting close to victory condition, every other faction start allying against it. Even if other faction was friendly before, it turns back on you eventually. Even thought it felt unfair for winning faction, it was also balanced and kept interest to finish the game.

I don't think same mechanic can be applied to Endless Space directly, because allied victories are cool. But I think it would be cool to introduce mechanisms, that favor creating alliences of weak factions against strong/steamrolling, instead of allience of strong against weak we have now. 

Amplitude have resisted this train of thought repeatedly. They are dead set on not creating a situation where AI gang up on stronger opponents. I know because I've asked for it to be a thing on numerous occasions. So I suggest you think of something else.

Huh, didn't know that. A bit dissapointing, but I can see where they come from. May not be realistic, but monstrous AI alliance would probably take a bit of the fun away. 

I dunno. I mean I'm not a programmer but I know it worked for Age of Wonders. When a faction would get close to a Victory, other factions would go after them. 

I think it helped that one of the victory conditions made the other factions approval go down so there was that incentive.

for those who haven't figured it out, more likely than not, the reason why truce is accepted by alliance members is because they don't have enough influence to refuse the truce offered to them.

i've seen alliance members, over many games, refuse offered truce, after offered truce, after offered truce - sometimes at every turn.

Sublustris wrote:

Only in case all those 3 want a 4th allience member. Horatio might plan to capture few Lumeris systems later, and Riftborns prefer to leave current peaceful relationships. That's why some voting mechanism should be implemented too. Lumeris will recieve denial, and might instead leave by itslef or pursue allying with Unfallen instead, who might see aforementioned 3-way allience a bigger threat, then Lumeris.

Right but does the AI have the ability to "think" that deeply. I mean I don't know, I'm not a programmer. But I would think it could at least think about who is hostile to it now and act accordingly based on past interactions.

In response to claims that we said it "works fine" I would like to share my original response to the "Alliance Declare War Voting System" Idea.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that this will most likely not make it into ES2. While we still like the idea, the additional changes it would require to accomodate it make implementing it in ES2 unfeasible. The Veto system we tried at one point did not turn out as desired, and a more complex system caused other problems.

We are keeping this idea wishlisted for future reference, though.

Yes, we are aware that many of our players are unhappy with how alliances work out in the game at the moment. We agree that this system could be improved. However, reworking the alliance system is a fundamental change to game mechanics and thus requires a very significant reworking of the (Diplomacy) AI as well. Given the risk of breaking the AI's diplomatic behavior involved in such a rework, we are not ready to commit to this at the moment.

However, there are a few aspects of these suggestions that are out of vision for us:

A "realm divide" style mechanic where all AI tend to ally against the leading player will not happen, because that conflicts with the narrative aspect that is part of our vision for ES2.

Neither will we allow different empires in the same alliance to have different diplomatic relations to other empires, as alliances are meant to be a commitment to working together in peace and war alike.

So no, we don't think this works well. It is merely "acceptable," and we have to face the reality that we can not tackle this issue in a satisfactory manner.

so short answer the diplomacy is still busted....

Sublustris wrote:

That's not the only problem with alliences. There should be a vote to pass all major decisions, and decisions should be made by absolute majority (50% + 1 vote). Like, when allience member wants to declare a war, to sign up peace, to sign up truce, go to cold war, accept incoming treaties, accept new allience member etc. As of know every member can decide for the whole allience, that's why people criticize alliences so much. Interests of every ally rarely align so diplomacy feel unnatural.

I'd also limit allience size further, because half of the players doesn't feel competitive. A dedicated size game setting would be great to solve this, like, 6 players max to 1 min (disable alliences) to better suit other settings: galaxy size, player count etc.

^

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

In response to claims that we said it "works fine" I would like to share my original response to the "Alliance Declare War Voting System" Idea.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that this will most likely not make it into ES2. While we still like the idea, the additional changes it would require to accomodate it make implementing it in ES2 unfeasible. The Veto system we tried at one point did not turn out as desired, and a more complex system caused other problems.

We are keeping this idea wishlisted for future reference, though.

Yes, we are aware that many of our players are unhappy with how alliances work out in the game at the moment. We agree that this system could be improved. However, reworking the alliance system is a fundamental change to game mechanics and thus requires a very significant reworking of the (Diplomacy) AI as well. Given the risk of breaking the AI's diplomatic behavior involved in such a rework, we are not ready to commit to this at the moment.

However, there are a few aspects of these suggestions that are out of vision for us:

A "realm divide" style mechanic where all AI tend to ally against the leading player will not happen, because that conflicts with the narrative aspect that is part of our vision for ES2.

Neither will we allow different empires in the same alliance to have different diplomatic relations to other empires, as alliances are meant to be a commitment to working together in peace and war alike.

So no, we don't think this works well. It is merely "acceptable," and we have to face the reality that we can not tackle this issue in a satisfactory manner.

^

In my view I would change it to a mutual defence pact.That would at least solve a lot of issues without a major rework.

Should let alliance members to have an internal vote wether to sign peace or not

everytime when I am about to take a system from enemy

my ally backstab me by signing peace with that particular faction

/shrug.