Well cruisers, not destroyers....





But I agree with the comment.

Ail wrote:
It also depends on how much they like you.

If they don't like you they want more from you for the same thing.

Yeah, seems to be pretty much this. There's a minimum amount of happiness to even propose a deal, and the AI will start proposing the deals at this level, but for a huge sum. Gain another 50 points, and the deal will be much better. Gain 100 points, and they'll offer it to you an even exchange. I'm pretty sure the biggest effects to what they ask for are in the following order:



-How much they like you

-Their alignment vs. your alignment (Good players will give other Good players good deals)

-Other minor calculations

It also depends on how much they like you.

If they don't like you they want more from you for the same thing.

I have found it be the reverse strangely enough, but that might also because when I am weaker the deal is worth more.

After 300 hours playtime, i think i have an answer about the strange diplomacy.

It looks like the AI compare the points of you and itself.

If you have more, they will offer you only bad deals.

If you have a similar amount of Points, they will offer you fair deals.

If you have less ponts, they will offer you deals in your favor.



And why is this logical?

Because the great Thinker about leading a country Niccolò Machiavelli, said that alliances with smaller countrys are allways better then alliances with bigger countrys.

Why? Because you cant trust a big ally as much as a small one, who needs you to survive.



I like this System. It favors weaker factions and slows down stonger factions.



Sry for my worse english.

The AI makes quite sassy demands/offers. But then again in 15 years of computer games I think only two games ever had a reasonable diplomacy AI (Alpha Centauri was pretty good. To bad the tactical AI was horrible instead). I don't know what or where the problem lies. If it beyond the capabilities of programmers, like the depiction of space for movie directors or it's just not financially reasonable because it is too time consuming to develop a proper diplomacy AI.



For me when it comes to diplomacy the ship is sailed. I'm not angry about this. I'm past this but rather it's a source of laughter now.

Like when I destroyed 2/3 of the Terran navy and they offer me peace in exchange for one of my planets. They just got militarily defeated. Now is the time to beg for peace before you're start to lose things that really matter. It's not the time to make absurd offers.

A dozen turns later the Terran fleet ceased to exist, two systems are occupied and all other remaining under blockade about to be invaded. Now they ask again for peace in trade for their most worthless system. That is the point where the laughter comes in, when I think to myself. Good news everyone! I'm going to take everything.



If the Terrans had offered me a reasonable peace after being militarily defeated and with reasonably I mean one of the following. A load of money, some tech or a mediocre system I would have taken it. No hard feelings. Lets move on.

Because a couple of turns earlier the Pilgrims, the weakest of all current factions with just a couple of system, offered me an alliance in exchange what seems all of my resources.

I politely declined their generous offer but the idea of an alliance found some merit in me. However I doubt the kind of alliance I'm planing was what hey had in mind nor do I think it will pleases them. Oh well, the world is not perfect but I thank the Pilgrims to bringing themselves to my attention.



So in some way the diplomacy AI works in that it helps to narrate a story of "Who I'm going to conquer next".

That's btw the same way I play Civilization 5. I always conquer the AI closest to my starting position, but who's next is decided between the AI players in game of "Who makes the most ridicules demand to the human".

Fritzworth wrote:
Always look carefully when the AI proposes those curious 1:1 (or less curious N:1) exchanges; I always bring up the empire management view and check my resources before responding to any deals to ensure that making the deal won't drop me below the magic "4 units" level for key resources or even leave me with no such resources at all. Learned that lesson once the hard way ("Wait? Why can't I build that class of ship any more?....").



That said, AIs asking for too much is pretty common in 4x games. The good ones let you make more favorable counter-offers that the other side may or may not accept. ..fritz..

That's right, good point there: trade too much away in terms of resources and you might find that you suddenly can't build any larger ships anymore!



Also, here's my favourite deal: AI makes the following deal proposal: give resource X in quantity X in return for... NOTHING! wtf?! Only a complete nut would agree to that... lol

Always look carefully when the AI proposes those curious 1:1 (or less curious N:1) exchanges; I always bring up the empire management view and check my resources before responding to any deals to ensure that making the deal won't drop me below the magic "4 units" level for key resources or even leave me with no such resources at all. Learned that lesson once the hard way ("Wait? Why can't I build that class of ship any more?....").



That said, AIs asking for too much is pretty common in 4x games. The good ones let you make more favorable counter-offers that the other side may or may not accept. ..fritz..

Add alliances and sometimes even open borders treaties to the cooperation agreement bullet point, and that's a pretty comprehensive list of everything that's wrong with AI trade valuation right now.



I did some experimenting with the dust trade value formula, and it's rather difficult to get good results that make dust meaningful, but don't just allow you to buy off anything you want, because of the number of factors involved. A formula that looks great with a relationship of 0 is suddenly totally broken with a +50 relationship, and still unusable with a -50 relationship. I feel like relationship is way, way too huge of a factor in these formulas, especially in some where it should hardly enter consideration-- like a one-off trade of a non-combat tech for a flat dust fee.



In addition to balancing/fixing the basic value formulas, the AI should really maintain a list of needs and wants; things that it will actually pay equal or slightly above 'fair' value for, possibly even regardless of relationship state (at least above a certain threshold). Right now, the only way it does this is with strategic resource amounts that will give it a monopoly. The reverse should be true as well. It already clearly marks star systems and some luxury resources as off-limits for trading (presumably based on its needs), and should probably do this for some techs and even dust as well (e.g. not trading any dust below a certain threshold), assuming the formulas for these things can be fixed in the first place.

I'm not sure if the AI consistently charges too high a price in trade for various pacts and peace deals, but its grasp of the value of different items is very skewed.



- Dust (flat or per turn) is worth very little. I've had the AI give me upwards of 20k dust with basically no movement on the deal fairness scale.

- Some really cheap useless/outdated techs are more important to them than expensive useful/modern ones.

- The cooperation agreement is absurdly overvalued by the AI, I don't think it understands that both players benefit.

- Tribute demands are excessive and counter-productive, it doesn't understand that I'm not going to give it my 8 T-70 but I would have given 4 of them for nothing. Indeed, it would make more sense to demand 4 of two different types of resources provided it left the player with a monopoly/abundance of each resource.

Dan2102 wrote:
I think the trading is slightly broken right now. In the same turn I had the Horatio offer a straight out peace deal and a peace deal that asked for several of my resources too. Obviously I choose the one that cost me nothing.



I think the AI is a little too happy to hand over excess amounts of dust when you're allied and they are very close to you.

Playing Amoeba and it is common for AI partners to ask for alliance and charge ALL of my Hyperium or other selected resource and still want tech. Worse 7500 point techs (I am leading) barely budge the approval bar

A large part of that problem is again that the dust formula is all jacked up. The AI just doesn't value dust at all, either incoming or outgoing, so while you can't really use dust much in trade (except in extreme amounts that clear the magical threshold), they'll happily give all of theirs away for a song.

I think the trading is slightly broken right now. In the same turn I had the Horatio offer a straight out peace deal and a peace deal that asked for several of my resources too. Obviously I choose the one that cost me nothing.



I think the AI is a little too happy to hand over excess amounts of dust when you're allied and they are very close to you.

I was laughing throughout the game as the AI asking me for an alliance and charging me a fortune for the privileged of not making them next. Each time (regardless who asked) it was always for 8 of one and 11 of the other I had lots of in regards to resources. This is when I was seriously ahead of one actions and about even with the other.

Humm, if i were to change the strategic uses.



Destroyers, battleships and dreadnaughts would cost T-70 (The war like ships)



All beams and rockets except those at the cross points and the first ones in the tech tree would cost a resource.



Defenses I feel should be left out of this, as to prevent someone from using this to dominating a game.

Igncom1 wrote:
Well cruisers, not destroyers....



But I agree with the comment.

My mistake. XD

It matters so little to me as to be irrelevant (one game I had 14 units of T-70!).

Hello,



I'm playing Sophon race, 8 spiral, 8 players, Normal difficulty, wanted to make a diplomatic/scientific playthrough.



I quickly expanded into the middle of the galaxy and locked all branches with a few fleets and gained full control of it which led me #1 in score.



However two amobea players keep giving me peace offers and ask me 5 titanium as extra. I'd gladly accept alliances but depleting all of my titanium sounds like a high price since I rely a lot on missiles fleets for my blockades. Why should I pay such a high price knowing that I have the high ground? Other AI's (Empire and sophon) are asking me normal peace offers (without extra) but Amobea sounds bugged.



I'm not able to attach a file... edit: here it is: http://www.sendspace.com/file/v53qin



A

Igncom1 wrote:
I feel like more military things like weapons, hulls, defenses and such mods should be associated with a strategic resources.

They are. Destroyers take T-70. Beams 1 take Hyperium. Etc.



The problem is that none of the higher level ones do (there's on higher up on each tree that does, but if you don't have it, it's easily skippable).

Rough up the AI in a few battles and they'll be giving you peace terms that are too good. I had to refuse a few worlds they offered me because defending them would have been a nightmare, so I just settled on having them pay me tribute every turn in Dust.

I feel like more military things like weapons, hulls, defenses and such mods should be associated with a strategic resources.