Diplomatic proposal...what to answer ?

Taqwus · #1 February 1st, 2001, 08:37 PM

and don't forget that early wars can be rather expensive in the long run, since some of the maintenance required for a fleet capable of a decent offensive could have been spent expanding via more colonies. start fighting too early and you might get bogged down in a war while somebody on the other side of the quadrant's still building up. it may be more in your interest to get those two busy fighting each other. the communications mimic intel op is the most direct way to do this, but i suspect you can achieve the same result by doing things like trading for ships in their space, and then giving/trading ships to the other party so that they have ships / colonies in each other's space, which may perhaps cause mutual anger.

Also, if you're running short of a resource type but rich in another, you may be able to make some useful trades in that way... especially for minerals, which are disproportionately valuable (almost everything takes minerals to build, and some things take *only* minerals to build).

Trade with them (some tech trades are safe if they're not in a position to exploit them well... for instance, if you research shield-piercing weapons, offering them low levels of shielding is an option. If you use many fighters for defense, which can't be hit by missiles, you might want to trade missile tech. And so forth, as long as you have the patience (the AI doesn't seem to like tech trades that much -- often rejecting even pretty good offers without a counter-offer).

There are numerous ways to temporize while you expand, and encouraging them towards pointless squabbles with each other, and tossing the occasional trinket in their direction.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

raynor · #2 February 1st, 2001, 08:42 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Viking:
I see, thats interesting. But.....do i have to share my tech with these species ? I'm kinda greedy and doesn't want to share anything with anybody =) So thats probably why i say no.... I have been thinking...if they get angry, let them get angry...them fools doesn't have Cruisers and Shields III and other valuable tools of destruction LIKE I DO..

No.

The research treaty doesn't mean that you trade tech levels. It just means that if your colonies produce 50,000 research points per turn that the empires with a research treaty will get 1%, 2% up to 20% of your research points. BTW, these points aren't lost to you. It's just that the other empire gets the benefit of them as well.

IMHO, if you are playing a reasonably good gam, even with 20% of your total, even the #2 empire behind you is still going to be *WAY* behind you in research. As Baron Munchausen said, best to strive for peace with all your neighbors even if it means you give them a small research boost.

Sorry for not making it more clear that you don't have to give other empires tech levels as part of the research treaty.

raynor · #3 February 1st, 2001, 08:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
but i suspect you can achieve the same result by doing things like trading for ships in their space, and then giving/trading ships to the other party so that they have ships / colonies in each other's space, which may perhaps cause mutual anger.

Dude! You are *EVIL*.

This is one tactic I never thought of trying. But it is pure genius!

(The rest of your post was pure gold as well. But this one in particular.)

nweaver · #4 February 1st, 2001, 09:15 PM

One problem I have is that when I make treaties, the F@#)#@$ computer can then send ships through my guarded warp ports, in preparation for an attack (I once had a military alliance parter do that).

As a result, I have now adopted a policy of no treaties except with neutral empires, since neutral empires won't come marching through my warp points, colonizing MY planets, etc etc etc.

SunDevil · #5 February 1st, 2001, 09:40 PM

The default diplomacy files for all default ai races is extremely unfinished. I've made a mod that at least makes the ai races act like their description. When I was creating my mod, I've noticed that MM just made all the default races act the same way. Be aggressive and break treaties. This method makes sense for some races, but the more peaceful races with descriptions that state that they are peaceful does not make sense at all. I can only hope that the patch that comes out after the upcoming one will definitely deal with this.

bmills · #6 February 2nd, 2001, 01:14 AM

I'm still working out how to use diplomacy well, but I have learned a few things.

Like many strategy games, in SE4 it only really makes sense to trade with empires that are much smaller than you are. If somebody else is equal to you or more powerful, you don't want to give them an additional economic or research bonus.

Also, as I learned in my first game, you don't want to trade with somebody you are eventually going to fight. When my neighbor cancelled the treaty and attacked me I lost a huge chunk of my budget, and my navy just evaporated on the way to the front because I couldn't pay the maintenance costs. Ouch!

On the other hand, if you make a trade treaty with somebody you can get a lot of useful information about him from the "comparisons" button on the race information screens. You could always break the treaty again, assuming you can afford the happiness effects.

If you're worried about the trading partner wandering around your systems simply mine your border warp points. Strangely enough, the AI does not hold it against you if its ships are lost to your mines in peacetime.