There's something which is really annoying and definitely unrealistic: Cold War at the Beginning. I mean normally every civilization, including our "evil" one, wants to have positive relations to other empires (or will have when our technology is ready). Only the Cravers and the Hissho might be more aggressive but in total I think that has to be improved. Is it possible to make a mod that changes the starting relations from Cold War to PEace?

Quaresma7 wrote:
There's something which is really annoying and definitely unrealistic: Cold War at the Beginning. I mean normally every civilization, including our "evil" one, wants to have positive relations to other empires (or will have when our technology is ready). Only the Cravers and the Hissho might be more aggressive but in total I think that has to be improved. Is it possible to make a mod that changes the starting relations from Cold War to PEace?

Nice Idea, but I'm not sure if our modders already can change this - but I think it's realistic

I will have to disagree with the 'realistic' part, from my point of view peace would require a treaty of some kind to be agreed upon by both sides involved, while cold war fits better the scenario of first encounter, with skirmishes possible outside empire border (influence area).



The real issue might be that the AI is trigger happy during cold war even if they play a more peaceful race that wouldn't shoot everything that moves 'just cause'.



Summary: Peace as starting relationship -NO, changing the AI (specially for the more peaceful races) so it doesn't just shot everything outside borders regardless of circumstances. -YES PLEASE.

Pretty much what Skyrah said. Cold War is fitting but AI is too good at taking advantage of the inherent rules without considering player response.

Skyrah wrote:
I will have to disagree with the 'realistic' part, from my point of view peace would require a treaty of some kind to be agreed upon by both sides involved, while cold war fits better the scenario of first encounter, with skirmishes possible outside empire border (influence area).



The real issue might be that the AI is trigger happy during cold war even if they play a more peaceful race that wouldn't shoot everything that moves 'just cause'.



Summary: Peace as starting relationship -NO, changing the AI (specially for the more peaceful races) so it doesn't just shot everything outside borders regardless of circumstances. -YES PLEASE.

Good points!



Well I didn't express myself well - I meant it's realstic to be modded

Okay I agree concerning the first encounter situation, but ingame it's not well developed I think. In my actual campaign nobody wanted to sign a peace treaty with me although this would be the best way for all empires to expand and develop their colonies instead of using their production capacities for building ships. So I think even Empires, who are a bit unfreandly to each other should agree at least a peace treaty without any demands. Maybe something like this: After the 10 turns of cold war, empires should have the decision to declare war completely or to sign a peace treaty, but they have to decide directly after these 10 turns instead of continuing cold war.

Quaresma7 wrote:
Okay I agree concerning the first encounter situation, but ingame it's not well developed I think. In my actual campaign nobody wanted to sign a peace treaty with me although this would be the best way for all empires to expand and develop their colonies instead of using their production capacities for building ships. So I think even Empires, who are a bit unfreandly to each other should agree at least a peace treaty without any demands. Maybe something like this: After the 10 turns of cold war, empires should have the decision to declare war completely or to sign a peace treaty, but they have to decide directly after these 10 turns instead of continuing cold war.

Good idea!

I like the way cold war works right now, the problem as i said before is the way the AI plays. Forcing you into a peace or war treaty after 10 turns would be a really bad idea.



I suggest adding an aggressivity value for each race, when 2 fleets meet during cold war, both side roll to decide if they enter battle based on that value, if at least one side decide to engage, battle like usual takes place.



If both sides decide not to engage then both side increase their relationship toward each other using the system that is already in game, if only one side engages then the side that rolled against fighting reduces their attitude toward the other side, if both side decided to engage then no change takes place.



This should give a small boost toward forging future relationships between empires based on their early contact and should give the more peaceful races a decent chance they won't shot on the spot.



To expand the idea, traits to increase or reduce your race base aggressivity could be considered and maybe a modifier to this system based on alignment, for exemple conflict between 'good' races being less like to happen during cold war.

Skyrah wrote:
I like the way cold war works right now, the problem as i said before is the way the AI plays. Forcing you into a peace or war treaty after 10 turns would be a really bad idea.



I suggest adding an aggressivity value for each race, when 2 fleets meet during cold war, both side roll to decide if they enter battle based on that value, if at least one side decide to engage, battle like usual takes place.



If both sides decide not to engage then both side increase their relationship toward each other using the system that is already in game, if only one side engages then the side that rolled against fighting reduces their attitude toward the other side, if both side decided to engage then no change takes place.



This should give a small boost toward forging future relationships between empires based on their early contact and should give the more peaceful races a decent chance they won't shot on the spot.



To expand the idea, traits to increase or reduce your race base aggressivity could be considered and maybe a modifier to this system based on alignment, for exemple conflict between 'good' races being less like to happen during cold war.

Hmm, this agrassivity value might be useful - when implemented carefully!

This traits would need a lot balancing, or?

that might be an alternative as well. It's the AI that should be improved in terms of diplomacy. I mean especially neutral or even "good" races like the amoebae should agree peace treaties as fast as possible, and not disagreeing because my military is too strong (so they are fearing war with me and don't want to agree a peace treaty because of my strong forces, so their weaker fleets are getting destroyed by mine?) That's unrealistic...

I don't think you can change the starting-relationship. But you can easily make it so, that a peace-treaty requires no tech and "wait time" before you can suggest/accept it.



I've asked the Devs for some more triggers to affect diplomacy via modding. One of the most important ones would be to tell races apart from each other and thus give them different diplomatic behaviour.



I plan on making a mod using these enhanced possibilities once they are implemented. And making peace-benefiting-races into trying to negotiate-peace ASAP could be one thing to be done there.



There's also one race, where I feel they would benefit greatly from staying at cold-war: The Horatio.

Don't think much balancing would be required for the traits once aggressivity is in place, it would act like a slider for your faction personality, for this reason this supposed traits should probably have 0 cost.



Each original faction would have their base aggressivity value probably linked to their affinity, meaning the additional traits are only for custom factions, for exemple you want to play an aggressive sophon faction or a peaceful craver faction.



But all this are just ideas trying to come up with a easy way to implement better interaction during cold war without needing to change the AI system that is the real problem here but would require a lot of work.