I agree with everything in the opening post completely. This game practically forces me to be militaristic, because otherwise even my best allies will turn against me in the blink of an eye.

Yes, I'd love better diplomacy. As it stands, the AI when it comes to diplomacy in this case pretty much ruins any enjoyment I get from it. Someone earlier in the thread had the best point (in my opinion): there are too many stupid modifiers which do nothing but ruin diplomacy. If not that, then there are too many large negative modifiers when compared to the few small positive modifiers. I've been playing a small map with a couple of other AI players (none of which were militaristic in any way). I met them, asked for peace (which also sucks in this game. Seriously, I have to research how to ask for stupid peace? And even then I have to wait several turns after meeting them to ask for peace? This game just has way too many stupid moments like that), and we got several trade routes and agreements made (trading resources and such). I'm thinking how awesome this is getting possible allies, and all relations are going great. Next thing I know I'm getting massive penalties for expansion (which is stupid because they're expanding more than me, and I'm too afraid to expand at all because it seems that gaining even one more planet makes everyone hate you), score (great, now doing anything in the game makes it impossible to have friends), connections via warp (that's the most idiotic thing I've ever seen in a game like this. Seriously, with that logic Canada and the U.S. would be constantly at war), connections via regular travel (once again, that wonderful logic leads to things like North Dekota going to war with South Dekota), and crap like that. What's worse is that all of these build up to massive penalties, while the positive modifiers don't get nearly as big, leading to cases where you will never be at peace with anyone.



This needs to be fixed. This is the worst "diplomacy" I have ever seen in a game, which sucks because everything else is great. I mean, Total War games have better diplomacy! There's just so many huge, negative modifiers in this game which don't make any sense, and do nothing more than ruin the experience. If nothing else, I want that fixed. You don't even need to add something like a no-mans land that other people have suggested. If nothing else, just make it so that if you are at peace the connection penalty is removed, because it's stupid. How many times has Canada attacked the U.S. for being there? Yeah, my point exactly.

EasyCo wrote:
I met them, asked for peace (which also sucks in this game. Seriously, I have to research how to ask for stupid peace? And even then I have to wait several turns after meeting them to ask for peace? This game just has way too many stupid moments like that), and we got several trade routes and agreements made (trading resources and such).

I have to disagree with the above. Remember, these aren't countries you're dealing with: these are alien beings fundamentally different from you. What may seem like obvious peace feelers to a human might be horribly misinterpreted by an alien or vice versa. (Babylon 5 has a great example of this where the Minbari, on first contact with the humans, want to convey their peaceful intent: so they approach with their gunports open, a sign of respect and openness in Minbari culture. The human commander, seeing vessel approaching him apparently ready to fire, attacks first.) Not to mention the difficultly of getting across concepts like 'peace' to a race that might not have a spoken language, might not have the same concepts of 'war' and 'peace' that we do (The US had this trouble just with humans, negotiating 'peace treaties' with Native Americans, which meant completely different things to the two sides and were basically dead letters the second the ink was dry. And that's two groups of humans.) This is IMHO fairly accurately reflected with Cold War... you're still getting a feel for what these guys consider a threatening action and what they themselves want, if they're hostile or not. Then for real peace, one side needs to develop a firm grasp of xenopsychology protocols and a way to 'translate' a mutually understood version of peace.



That said I agree the diplomacy model badly needs work. I wasn't thrilled to see the return of the insane trade AI from Civ 3/5. I wasn't thrilled to see that apparently being 'Friendly' means they have permission to fly their ships through my territory and plant colonies in my space, even though I never signed an open borders agreement. Especially aggravating given the ferociously punishing expansion penalty that encourages you to grow slow. I wasn't thrilled to have supposedly good, peaceful raves who I'd never had any trouble with go hostile for falling a little bit behind me, even though they were ahead of me in other areas. It forces you to be a militarist; I don't just mean keeping up a respectable navy for chasing pirates and providing a deterrent; I mean I've found to my chagrin you need to field a force capable of fighting at least two other empires at once, or the alliance system will suddenly turn two of your good friends and trading partners into the agents of your total destruction. And this is on normal!



I did see that they intend to fix diplomacy soon; here's hoping.

I'm all for diplomacy being improved, but some of the complaints in this thread are a little odd. There are complaints about the Ai getting angry because of players over expanding right alongside people getting angry about the AI over expanding. There are other funny things too, but I'm not gona nit pic.



Anyways, I'd like to see the AI become a lot less greedy. Even your friendliest of allies will demand trades to be in it's favor somehow. Fair deals are very difficult to make. The AI should be more forgiving when you are allies and it should be much easier to make trades that are fair. I'm uncertain if the AI ever trade with one another. Probably not since they always want deals to be in their favor and they never compromise, but this would be a very nice addition to diplomacy. If the player is trading with everyone and no one else is doing trading, it give the player a HUGE advantage. Also, since trade can be so useful in this game, it might be interesting if AI (your enemy perhaps) could bribe or convince another AI in some way to not do business with you, or to close it's borders to you, or even declare war.

Considering the next expansion is going to be focused on the military aspect of the game, we could start gathering ideas for the devs for a following diplomatic expansion, couldn't we? Like, we should make an official thread in the suggestion forums for this, I think, maybe with polls and the whole shabangabang.

As someone who stopped playing ES after the first patch due to dumb AI, I sincerely hope Amplitude will focus on AI instead of cosmetic updates. Right now, it's like playing against a two-year-old who just happens to have a bottomless FIDS stash.

All my diplomacy woes come from border disputes. I totally back the idea of negotiating no-mans land.



+1, well done.

I share your dream...



I dream of a faction that says to you "hey, look, you are growing too powerful, and need to slow your expansion, or buy us off, by doing something nice for us - Let's talk."



I dream of a faction declaring not war, but ship licensing and patenting demands, (in which effect - they start turning out ships with your technology),

I dream of agreements not to settle certain systems on your direct border, agreements to lend ships to help with a particular military problem they are having,

I dream of sending over, loading or reassigning 1, 2 or 3 of your heroes to help them upgrade their empire (with random success, tilted by quality) with various consequences available for success, etc..



I dream of the developers making it INTERESTING, and not giving us the usual crap, or trying to mass produce to the lowest common mental denominator out there - what everyone expects.

I agree. I was on very good stand with an AI. Next turn they're neutral. A turn after that they're declaring war..

Jethro wrote:
I dream of agreements not to settle certain systems on your direct border

This just caught my attention and i instantly thought about how neat it would be to be able to make an agreement with another empire to create a "no-man's land" treaty on a system between your two empires. Breaking said treaty would obviously have a big diplomatic penalty.

MT4K wrote:
This just caught my attention and i instantly thought about how neat it would be to be able to make an agreement with another empire to create a "no-man's land" treaty on a system between your two empires. Breaking said treaty would obviously have a big diplomatic penalty.

Yeah, a diplomatic penalty is something a must have for when the multi-player comes.

Seconded. Diplomacy needs a lot of care and love... from the developers

Just happened in the game I started this morning . Kept on flipping between neutral and hostile (despite us being at peace for most of the game) depending on how our scores were fluctuating in relation to each other. Finally, as I pulled ahead in economy, he turned very hostile and declared war.

Perhaps they implemented mood swings...

Sometimes i wish 4x games have the diplomacy options of games like Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings II

That little no man's land idea is actually brilliant, but a +1 to Diplomacy TLC

Although annoying for an AI to break a long standing alliance because your empire is starting to look powerful enough to conquer everything, it is actually what a player would do in the same situation (unless they had resigned themselves to coming 2nd).



I would have thought though it makes more sense for the AI to remain loyal providing you throw enough bones their way.

Zplintz wrote:
Although annoying for an AI to break a long standing alliance because your empire is starting to look powerful enough to conquer everything, it is actually what a player would do in the same situation (unless they had resigned themselves to coming 2nd).



I would have thought though it makes more sense for the AI to remain loyal providing you throw enough bones their way.

Well, the assumption there is that every ai in the galaxy should have a 'winner takes all' mentality, like humans in MP. Imo, playing SP should be different from competitive MP.



I find games more enjoyable when AI players don't play to dominate the galaxy, but instead play according to their own philosophy (like countries in RL for example). Vicious warlike races should of course lean towards war, but scientific races could leave you alone unless you directly threaten their territory (not the same as you looking powerful! And if they feel threatened, they should just passively build up their defences instead of declaring war and attacking you) and some peaceful diplomatic races might be satisfied owning a few well developed systems and make trading networks and alliances with other like-minded races for defensive purposes.



I guess what I'm trying to say is that 'winning' shouldn't be considered as important as gameplay. You don't need violent warmongering AI to stop the player from completing objectives either. For example, just strong, passive, defensive AIs can stop you winning by conquest just by holding onto their territories (they don't need to declare war on you and attack you!). In the case of a scientific victory, the same AI can compete with you in those areas, while you both have to hold out against war-like races.

It is going to need a great programmer to pull it off - to be able to create lots of conditions that bug them, and then be able to address those in a more sophisticated manner than the mood swing or civ 5 approach, If I get another Civ 5 diplomacy system, I will cry. I want to be able to win by PEACEFUL and COLLECTIVE means if I feel like it. And if I change, and rip up treaties, then yeah, kill me and turn on me (balanced by the AI personaility somewhat). Also, I want steps IN BETWEEN peace and war. Recall Ambassadors (A -3 per turn to relations, with a x% chance of shaking some sense into them), the gradual ripping up of treaties, and things that will warn you well in advance that your relationship is souring.



** I want to be able to assign my best administrators to resolving the crisis, perhaps pulling them from normal duties for X turns, with a chance to really make the relationship go somewhere - or fail classically and have the relationship go south. With maybe a fantastic military general working better for some factions, and my civilian heroes working better with peaceful governments. **



Dev's please listen!



What do you guys think?

My pet 'hates' from 4x games, that always ruin the immersion for me. It would be amazing if Endless Space could avoid these:



(1) inconsistent + unrealistic relationship changes - allies one minute, then enemies the next, especially after peace and an alliance lasting most of the game or after having lots of trade relationships between you. This might be because of:

(2) contrived triggers for diplomatic relationships - you expand a certain amount, and suddenly all your friends and at peace neighbours hate you and declare war. This is especially annoying if (see above) you have a long term relationship and you're not going for a military victory. Other examples, even peaceful/good empires will be hostile to you at first contact because they somehow know that you don't have much of a military, but will suddenly become more friendly when you build a few military ships in some far off spaceport!



I dream of a more mature diplomacy system which allows more strategic choice in various scenarios. E.g.: you build up a steady game-long relationship with an ai race (possibly at the detriment of your relationship with other empires who view your alliance with suspicion). If your ai friend is a lot lot weaker than you, maybe other alliances will form and choose to attack your friend first, in which case your friend may ask to become a protectorate, and give you a percentage of their economy in return for military protection.



TDLR: More options, loyal ai, and ai that's proactive in building up a relationship with you please .