Zplintz wrote:
It possibly the easiest tactics for them to be employed in - also in a world where a lot of players go for world domination - not being agressive can mean an early defeat.



Hopefully the end game will address this.



I would like to be able to turn off all the victory conditions - therefore leading to a game that could be potentially neverending (providing you dont get wiped out along the way.

Something to add onto that GREAT idea, would be if a race is wiped out or something to that affect, you could have a possibility of them re-emerging, or something to the affect of the race coming out of hiding...with a vengeance. It would be an interesting scenario...a war with another race that lasts for years, finally they are conquered, your frontline forces move on, leaving their home planet lightly defended for use against the random pirate that may pass through...only to have the race launch a large-scale strike to take back their own home, thereby bringing them back into the game.

Alexandus wrote:
Well thats good..I would just love to see something like a game where you can play it for months if possible and go back and forth through negotiations, have skirmishes every now and then but make full-blown war a last resort sort of thing.

Well right now I believe that is only possible if you turn all victory conditions off. When a victory condition is reached right now, the game ends and there is no option to continue. Hopefully that is on the list of things to tweak!

PolytheistGoat wrote:
Could not agree more - again, I am a pacifist at heart. More to the point... Combat always becomes old and stale; finding new things, new explorations, etc... That's something that remains fresh and interesting. On that note, I tested out the 'uncheck all victory options' method, and have been playing an endless game (so far)!... Unfortunately, the AI decided that I was weak, since I had only a fleet of colony ships scouting around. They seemed to miss my gigantic industry, and that made their move somewhat foolish. I am now all alone in the Galaxy, despite having had great relationships with the UE and Sophons for some time... But I will make sure to keep their planets unterraformed and fit for them, so the survivors of their (very foolish) war may grow, once again.



How I'd deal with it; have a 'trustworthiness' variable. For every shared victory, honored deal, tribute and ten years of peaceful borders, the trustworthiness bar goes up an increment. For every broken deal or alliance, blockade or encroachment of INFLUENCE (not expansion, as all civs will be expanding - right now, you can take relations hits for expanding even if the other players don't know you!), embargo or snide comment at the ambassadors dinner, the trustworthiness bar goes down an increment. It's fairly neutral from 5 / -5, but every 5 past those extremes, you start getting bonuses to relationships. 25 would be 'blood allies' or something, whereas -25 could lead to a Hundred Year War scenario where your dominions would engage in petty struggles even long after both sides were exhausted. This would encourage the AI (hopefully) away from bipolar scenarios where they are your friends one minute, and hate you the next.

Good idea, Civ V had a similar system and so does Crusader Kings II but they're both built into the overall approval or relations ratings. In CK you lost relations points for being a new ruler or breaking treaties but gained them for a long reign or being friends with someone for a long time. There were more reasons but you get the idea. I'm not sure if I'd like to see it separate to the relationship rating since that's how I've seen it work elsewhere and I think it works well plus it keeps it all in one figure so you have less to worry about. That's not to say you don't have an excellent idea, I'd just like to see it presented slightly differently.



Personally I thought the one in CK worked well, allowing more gradual change whereas the one in Civ V would sometimes mean you could have been friendly for a long time and then suddenly they hate you and declare war when nothing really changed. I'm more of a hedgehog builder, favouring economy and science and then if I can't end up winning that way I'll use the advanced science for war purposes but all in all it's a long game plan rather than a short skirmish so I'd also like to see the AI be more inclined to co-exist. Perhaps there could be an in-game setting for the aggressiveness of the AI, or different races come pre-defined with different aggressiveness? I think GalCiv II did something like that and you could adjust each race individually when you added them to the game.

I realize that there aren't many of us probably who want it..but I would like it as an option.



I was just including that a similar game, albeit an older one has done such a tactic already that I feel worked very well, thereby stating that I would love to see something similar again.

@Alexandus - I think you missed the points above, the game is NOT set for prolonged peace in a grand scale - there are a few of us who would like that option.



The UI on this games knocks Sins out of the water, in terms of functionality and the sheer slickness of each interaction.

Well it would be nice...my thought is if I want a game where there is no such thing as prolonged peace in a grand scale, I'll just play Sins of a Solar Empire. This game will need something different to make it stand out and be noticed!

Thanks! I'm sure it can be ironed out a bit; I basically drew my inspiration from MOO3's casus belli system, or how it should have functioned, and admixed it with the country-relation function from EU3 (which decreases and increases similarly). Some other things that could be done to make it more unique might be to add unique methods of raising/lowering approval. The United Empire should be very good at bribes, for example; and perhaps factions raise opinions differently to one another. But that's something the devs - if they choose to implement an idea like this - can play with.

Yeah amazing idea Polytheistgoat

PolytheistGoat wrote:
How I'd deal with it; have a 'trustworthiness' variable. For every shared victory, honored deal, tribute and ten years of peaceful borders, the trustworthiness bar goes up an increment. For every broken deal or alliance, blockade or encroachment of INFLUENCE (not expansion, as all civs will be expanding - right now, you can take relations hits for expanding even if the other players don't know you!), embargo or snide comment at the ambassadors dinner, the trustworthiness bar goes down an increment. It's fairly neutral from 5 / -5, but every 5 past those extremes, you start getting bonuses to relationships. 25 would be 'blood allies' or something, whereas -25 could lead to a Hundred Year War scenario where your dominions would engage in petty struggles even long after both sides were exhausted. This would encourage the AI (hopefully) away from bipolar scenarios where they are your friends one minute, and hate you the next.

AWESOME idea! Hopefully a dev sees this one!

Could not agree more - again, I am a pacifist at heart. More to the point... Combat always becomes old and stale; finding new things, new explorations, etc... That's something that remains fresh and interesting. On that note, I tested out the 'uncheck all victory options' method, and have been playing an endless game (so far)!... Unfortunately, the AI decided that I was weak, since I had only a fleet of colony ships scouting around. They seemed to miss my gigantic industry, and that made their move somewhat foolish. I am now all alone in the Galaxy, despite having had great relationships with the UE and Sophons for some time... But I will make sure to keep their planets unterraformed and fit for them, so the survivors of their (very foolish) war may grow, once again.



How I'd deal with it; have a 'trustworthiness' variable. For every shared victory, honored deal, tribute and ten years of peaceful borders, the trustworthiness bar goes up an increment. For every broken deal or alliance, blockade or encroachment of INFLUENCE (not expansion, as all civs will be expanding - right now, you can take relations hits for expanding even if the other players don't know you!), embargo or snide comment at the ambassadors dinner, the trustworthiness bar goes down an increment. It's fairly neutral from 5 / -5, but every 5 past those extremes, you start getting bonuses to relationships. 25 would be 'blood allies' or something, whereas -25 could lead to a Hundred Year War scenario where your dominions would engage in petty struggles even long after both sides were exhausted. This would encourage the AI (hopefully) away from bipolar scenarios where they are your friends one minute, and hate you the next.

Having played a little more since my last posts - I have to point out the AI tactics seems a little odd.



CIV V does the same (and it was annoying there too).



You can be happily co-existing with the IA - open boarders, trading and general good will - but keep expanding (colonizing systems not taken by anyone else) and your neigbhour gets more and more hostile until war is declared.



Unless those of you that have a better handle on the game have other suggestions, it seems to me at this time that I must gear for war and war only - everything I do should be geared to powerfull fleets of ships - anything else is resulting in me being over powered.



Personally I think it would be nice to be able to be a scientist or industrialist or diplomat as well - maybe thats to come in the Beta.



Still enjoying playing though

Looking at the game previews and reading about the game I was curious...



is this a game where one can have a large game-universe and subsequently have a single game that could potentially last without end, or is this a game that no matter how large the map may be, your other factions will be vying to kill you rather than try to co-exist with you on some level.



I ask this because when I see this game, I think of Imperium Galactica II: Alliances. The game had a similar feel to this one, large map with multiple races to interact with, research, colonization, warfare etc. Knowing all of that, I recall in some of my games of IGII, there were sessions that could last seemingly forever. Races would make peace with one another, sending various diplomatic messages that were more filler than anything. I remember one time an ally race sent me a message wishing me a happy 136th birthday! Messages like that, while not having much tactical use, was nice on a level of giving the AI more...I rather than A.



That brings me to the heart of the question...is this game going to have potential for more diplomacy rather than straight tactical warfare? Will all of the races be able to come to a peace, making some sort of pseudo-galactic alliance, making all of them turn on one enemy should they decide to go rogue or be able to spark a civil war amongst the allied races etc? I am just curious how deep the politics of the game will be going before I decide whether to invest any time, money or general further interest into it.



Note: For those who haven't heard of Imperium Galactica II, see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E9Pjmd0Jps

OtherPlayers wrote:
I don't know if it works right now, but under the "Advanced options" menu when you are starting a new game is the option to turn off various winning conditions. When I just opened it up it let me turn all of them off, so this might actually be possible.

I believe a dev said once that unchecking victory conditions doesn;t work in this version and that it's bugged. There have also been reports of people getting economic victories even after turning it off which would suggest it is bugged as well. Something to look forward to being able to do in future for sure though.

Zplintz wrote:
I would like to be able to turn off all the victory conditions - therefore leading to a game that could be potentially neverending (providing you dont get wiped out along the way.

I don't know if it works right now, but under the "Advanced options" menu when you are starting a new game is the option to turn off various winning conditions. When I just opened it up it let me turn all of them off, so this might actually be possible.

It possibly the easiest tactics for them to be employed in - also in a world where a lot of players go for world domination - not being agressive can mean an early defeat.



Hopefully the end game will address this.



I would like to be able to turn off all the victory conditions - therefore leading to a game that could be potentially neverending (providing you dont get wiped out along the way.

Yes, I concur. I've always wondered why AI, and even many players in these sorts of games are so interested in rushing to an early victory. It's much more interesting to have a series of little conflicts that lead to a mid/end-game war of epic proportions than to wipe out most factions or be wiped out in the opening acts. I feel that first contact would of course be frightening; but also tentative. You do not rush to attack an opponent you know nothing of, even if you want/need their resources (Cravers). And also having strong allies over time, neutral parties... Yeah, more diplomacy and perpetual exploration/discovery would be awesome.

Well thats good..I would just love to see something like a game where you can play it for months if possible and go back and forth through negotiations, have skirmishes every now and then but make full-blown war a last resort sort of thing.

It will be fixed. The AI has given me a run for my money often.

Remscar wrote:
Diplomacy is being worked on from my understanding. AI isn't something very easy to make in games, it's perhaps one of the hardest things to do, and make seem realistic.

Hope so.. As of now, the AI are extremely blood-thirsty.

Diplomacy is being worked on from my understanding. AI isn't something very easy to make in games, it's perhaps one of the hardest things to do, and make seem realistic.