it's just me? or on high difficulty, trying to impress a minor faction is imposble if another AI faction is trying to impress them as well?

I was plaing unfallen, so influence was not a problem. i find out a minor faction between me and the AI (pretty sure i found them first). so i spend all my influence on the minor faction, +12 for the next 10 turns... and sure thing, i  got the aprovale first, but when i got to the 80%. the AI stole them from me in approval. and i have no idae how :(

im not sure in 100% how the approval system work. and what bonuses the empire with the most approval get in addition... but i felt like they do "im an AI on endless diffeculty. so i pump +20 approve per turn, even when im playing a function with no influence"

i know the AI cheat minerals and so. but it make me feel like if im not the only one how know this minor faction exist, they will steal them from me. so im not going 2 even try and battle them over the minor faction. if the AI find them, they will get them.

it heppand to me when im plaing horatio and vaulters as well, but vs the +12 with the unfallen it what pisses me off...

In higher difficulties, the AI gets a higher and higher percentage bonus to all its stats, so unless you're playing a flawless game you're going to struggle.

If you own the penumbra dlc, you can hack the minor faction and reduce their relation with their sovereign aka "the cheating AI". It would allow you to steal the minor faction back.

It's one of the available strategies.

Once you play past a certain difficulty level, there are things you learn to just give up on, like being the first to produce 100 dust in a system or have a certain max manpower first.  The AI simply wins those races and there's zero you can do about it apart from building your empire SPECIFICALLY to win those things and devoting 100% of your efforts to stealing them back...which usually cripples you in the long run.  Let the AI have them; take them back later through influence conversion, war or raiding.  It's not worth the headache trying to outrace them as such.

I don't know if this works on hard, but there is a trick you can use to snowball minor faction approval.

Race to get them to 90-99%. DO NOT spend an amount to get them over 100% yet because once you cross that line you can no longer bribe them.

On the turn that you get there, dump all the dust you can on them.  Now it will go WELL over 100%, and once they become your ally, the passive approval will kick in and keep you at the top.  In my experience the AI can't react to this, but I don't play on hard a lot.

If you arrive way too late, then the AI's passive boost might be too high for you to get there, but that makes sense if they've had many turns alone with this AI with nobody to stop them.

RabidHobbit wrote:
On the turn that you get there, dump all the dust you can on them.

Only the Lumeris spend dust on minor factions. Everyone else spends influence, and usually struggles to get a lot of it.

It can be annoying, if another empire suddenly absorbs a minor faction you tried to win over. I agree, but I guess it's just part of the game. I tend to stick to the few minors I meet first or those that are very isolated. If an AI is close to a minor faction it's not worth it most times. On higher difficulties the AI simply has more influence due to cheating.

Daynen wrote:

Once you play past a certain difficulty level, there are things you learn to just give up on, like being the first to produce 100 dust in a system or have a certain max manpower first.  The AI simply wins those races and there's zero you can do about it apart from building your empire SPECIFICALLY to win those things and devoting 100% of your efforts to stealing them back...which usually cripples you in the long run.  Let the AI have them; take them back later through influence conversion, war or raiding.  It's not worth the headache trying to outrace them as such.

yea... with the quest i already give in... just with the minor function it annoying ><"
I forgat to say, im a high level player. endless level is the norm for me.

i think i will try and mode it after my semester. something like: "the dust quest dont count the flat bonus an AI get for beening on high defficulty"
again, im ok with the faction cheating reasoses, but not the auto win part...

BlueEyeD wrote:

Daynen wrote:

Once you play past a certain difficulty level, there are things you learn to just give up on, like being the first to produce 100 dust in a system or have a certain max manpower first.  The AI simply wins those races and there's zero you can do about it apart from building your empire SPECIFICALLY to win those things and devoting 100% of your efforts to stealing them back...which usually cripples you in the long run.  Let the AI have them; take them back later through influence conversion, war or raiding.  It's not worth the headache trying to outrace them as such.

yea... with the quest i already give in... just with the minor function it annoying ><"
I forgat to say, im a high level player. endless level is the norm for me.

i think i will try and mode it after my semester. something like: "the dust quest dont count the flat bonus an AI get for beening on high defficulty"
again, im ok with the faction cheating reasoses, but not the auto win part...

The hard part about Unfallen, and correct me if my memory fails me here since its been a long time since I've played vanilla/custom Unfallen, is that to assimilate a minor faction requires that you entangle their system to your vine network before being able to assimilate(100 support+ally) or assist them with a quest. Meaning you can have all the support/influence on the faction in the universe and another faction can swoop in and take it from you simply by "assisting" them and acquiring their system and faction trait upon completion of the random quest. Meaning acquiring additional faction traits as Unfallen is all but impossible unless they happen to spawn right by your Homeworld. Price you pay for having conversion immune systems.

Yeah, that's because Minor Faction diplomacy was designed before Unfallen were. Of course it should've been redesigned, but diplomacy overall is the weakest part of ES2.