Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Don't get too upset; in coding the AI to make it more challenging, it also became moodier; it frequently breaks treaties within a couple turns. The main reason is that many of the AI's now get angry fairly quickly. And the source of anger is generally tied to allies (!) building colonies in the AI systems, allies having ships in the AI systems, the AI noticing lots of colonizable planets in the (human) ally's system, but the (human) ally already has colonies on those planets... you get the idea. I've found that offering gifts in the first couple turns of a treaty will help get over the initial anger, and sometimes they'll maintain a treaty even when they get "murderous" towards you. BTW, offering gifts and/or tribute sometimes helps get a treaty in the first place.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
And the source of anger is generally tied to... the AI noticing lots of colonizable planets in the (human) ally's system, but the (human) ally already has colonies on those planets....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One might wonder how the AI ever got happy enough with you to offer you a treaty if it was coveting your planets. The answer is that most of the AIs (14 of the 20 default races) covet more of their allies' planets than they do of their enemies' planets. This seems totally backwards to me, but it's true. So as soon as you become an ally, they start lusting after more of your planets, which makes them angrier.

Example: the Cue Cappa covet 10% of allied planets and 0% of enemy planets. In one game, the CueCappa and I were both partners of the Praetorians, who had ships through half my empire 'cause they were at war with the Norak and the shortest path was across my empire. The Cue Cappa and I had no treaty, they offered me a trade alliance, I accepted, and 4 turns later they were murderous and at war with me ('cause they were suddenly coveting 10% of half my empire, which they could see via the Praetorians).

The easiest way to get treaties is either (a) to send a scout far away to a race that can't see any of your planets, or (b) talk to the Eee, Phong, Praetorian or Toltayan empires, who don't covet.

i\'m a political failure!!!
 

i'm having troubles with alliances. when i do manage to get a race to give me a TA (which is a rarity in itself), they usually just get mad at me and cancel it about 5-10 turns later. what am i doing wrong?

very confused am i, oh yes! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

LOL at that point I just go about and KILL-EM all!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Well, "Kill'em all" is an option, but in my eyes, this threat is another indicator that the diplomacy/attitude system needsm a major overhaul. "Murderous" allies and "brotherly" ennemies steadfastly refusing to maken peace - sorry, that always sounds ridiculous.

Also, in my first 1.27 game, I am now at war with all known AIs (I am not MEE). Some of them only encountered me once and since then are at least 2 systems away. Neither me nor them send any ships. How the heck do they "scan" my planets to get angry ?

[This message has been edited by jowe01 (edited 28 February 2001).]

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

sorry its been so long since i replied. I have a couple of questions, though:
-What does MEE stand for?

==========================================
One might wonder how the AI ever got happy enough with you to offer you a treaty if it was coveting your planets. The answer is that most of the AIs (14 of the 20 default races) covet more of their allies' planets than they do of their enemies' planets. This seems totally backwards to me, but it's true. So as soon as you become an ally, they start lusting after more of your planets, which makes them angrier.

Example: the Cue Cappa covet 10% of allied planets and 0% of enemy planets. In one game, the CueCappa and I were both partners of the Praetorians, who had ships through half my empire 'cause they were at war with the Norak and the shortest path was across my empire. The Cue Cappa and I had no treaty, they offered me a trade alliance, I accepted, and 4 turns later they were murderous and at war with me ('cause they were suddenly coveting 10% of half my empire, which they could see via the Praetorians).

The easiest way to get treaties is either (a) to send a scout far away to a race that can't see any of your planets, or (b) talk to the Eee, Phong, Praetorian or Toltayan empires, who don't covet.
=========================================

My problem with this is that I AM sending scouts far away. Like 3-4 system between the AI and any of my colonized systems. I do claim systems w/ breathable planets in them, even before I manage to get them colonized. Would the AI covet these systems, too? Even if (to my knowledge) they have never even seen these systems yet!!

My gifts and tributes (even of systems w/ their breathable planets in it) generally just get refused. I'm almost tempted to completely ignore the diplomacy aspects of the game. They do me no good anyway; in fact, it usually hurts me when an otherwise friendly AI suddenly declares war on me simply because I was foolish enough to accept their treaty.

Which is sad, because other than this miserably executed diplomacy system, I love this game (what little i've played it. not much free time lately). Can anyone tell me if I'm wrong? SHOULD I simply ignore all requests for treaties, or is there some way to get them to like me?



------------------
May your Life prosper and your Dreams be sweet.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

MEE stands for Mega Evil Empire. A human player becomes MEE when their score both exceeds 500K and is 170% of the score of the second place player. Once you become MEE, every race in the galaxy will get so angry with you that they declare war on your irrespective of what level of treaty you may have had with them before you became MEE.

In my games, I manage to keep the AI extremely happy with me by simply staying out of his systems. I try never to build a colony in a system with another empire's colony if I can help it. When my ships enter systems with foreign colonies, I immediately reverse course. From what I've seen, the AI gets much angrier with my ships in its systems and my colonies in its system than it does over 'lusting' after my planets. (Of course, I guess if he can't *see* my planets, then this won't upset him?)

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 19 March 2001).]

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I agree fully.
The diplomatic aspects of the game are not executed very well. I my games against the computer I ignore it normally.

I think MM has underestimated the problems of programming a good diplomacy system. IMO there are too many diplomatic features. And nobody needs them really. It would be enough to have 4 levels of relationship between the nations:
war (AI attacks you)
neutral (AI ignores you but dont let you in its territory. it dont go in your territory) trade (like neutral, but with trade revenues, limited access to each others territory)
alliance (trade plus unlimited access to each others territory, use of others supply bases, allied combat support, limited tech, territory and troop exchange)

These 4 levels should be well implemented and thought out. The AI should be carefully programmed in its reactions when it is on one of these levels. No more is needed against the AI. If I am playing against humans I can always agree on more complex terms.


klaus

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

raynor:
I did as you said from the start, and it doesn't seem to make any difference. I find the AI, then totally leave their systems alone. If possible, i park a scout in a storm/nebula between their systems and my own; that way i can keep an eye out to see if they come visiting. They don't.

Soon, they are liking me quite a bit (warm, receptive). then they offer me a treaty. (Some never like me much, and thus offer no treaty, but they're just the xenophobes). I accept their treaty.

This is all cool, and relatively straightforward. The part that is neither cool nor straightforward is the fact that as soon as I accept the treaty, they like me less and less. 5-10 turns later, they are murderous towards me and declare war. (unless i break the treaty before this occurs).

Why???? Lusting after my systems doesn't make sense, they've never SEEN my systems to lust after them? I Completely ignore them, only replying to Messages they send. (I tried pestering them with general Messages every turn or so, thinking that I had to talk to them to keep them happy. no luck.)

In my current game, i've met all of two races by turn 40. I accepted their treaties, and now they are both at war with me!!!!!


AAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok. just had to vent a little frustration there. I'm ok. really.

klausD:
I disagree with you about simplifying the diplomacy levels. I like those the way they are. They will be a lot of fun when I get around to playing opponents who can utilize them effectively; someone w/ three Partners would be very, very hard to out-build. My problem is that the AI is NOT utilizing the diplomacy effectively at all!! Correction: My problem is that I can't understand WHY the AI isn't using the diplomacy effectively. If I understood WHY, I could work around it (hopefully).

In General:
Anyway, Sorry that I wasn't specific enough in my first post for all you helpful souls to give me advice pertenant to my problem. Oh, yea, more info for you:
v1.30; no mods.
(I'm still building up the courage to put mods in; I'm not the most computer literate apple in the barrel, if you know what i mean.)

Thanks again for all of y'alls help!!

------------------
May your Life prosper and your Dreams be sweet.

[This message has been edited by dumbluck (edited 19 March 2001).]

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Just for curiosity dumbluck: which races got angry after you had a treaty with them?
In my experience this varies very much from race to race. Some races behave like you described, other maintain the treaties and their fiendly mood. And I think you can change that by modifying their anger text files.
One problem that I personally find much more frustrating is the faked "declare war" message.
There is absolutely nothing you can do against it. The AI will reject every new treaty proposal for over a year and propably until then there have been so many battles between you and the AI that his mood is murderous.
Among human players this would be settled quickly ("Hey the Last message was faked, let's stay friends). In my opinion the effect of the faked message should not be a full state of war, but just an increase of the anger level.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Well, you could make an AI that gets happy whenever you blow its ships up (modify the AI anger files)

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I did that (edited the anger.txt), and everything got wierd. I thought that some races should get happy ( negative anger modifier) when winning a battle (Jrenjar).
Other races should get happy when loosing a battle (Crystolites, or whatever they're called) because they are actually cowards.

What happened? All the races declared war at me as soon as they saw me.

Mabbe it wasn't the anger.txt? Mabbe I altered too many things in the Politics.txt? I dunno, but now I tell myself to be VERY careful when modifying the files or they will start to modify me!

Q:
What's a fake declaration of war?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Q:
HAH! i haven't played the game long enough to learn their names! But every race I've encountered except for one (the fish-faced neutral race. they are merchants, so....) has done as I described.

Oh, and I am FAR too computer illiterate to go around tinkering with politic or anger files.

L:
A fake declaration of war is an intel project, "Fake Communique", or something like that.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Dumbluck just modify in the race AI settings text file the line
Get Angry Over Allied Colonizable Planets := False

Then they should not get angry about all your nice planets. One race that already has this line set to "false" is the Phong. All races that have "true" will get angry about your planets, if they can colonize them. So it's no danger to make a treaty with a race that can colonize only Gas Giants, if you colonize only Rock planets. But beware of the moment when the other race develops Rock colonization technique!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Lucanos the faked war declaration is indeed a intel project named "Communications Mimic", applied intelligence level 3 and costs only 20000 points. That's in my opinion really to cheap. I changed this in my games to level 4 and 200000 points.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Some observations about the AI behavior (please remember that I learned with the old trial/error method... then, I could be wrong in some of my comments).

Looking into the Anger.txt, exist a lot of options, that determine the way, when the AI get or not angry.
I will comment a few, because others are more easy to understand.

1) Receive General Message := 0
IF the race that have the treaty with you, have something more than 0, they will get some anger, every time that you send a general message.

2) Per Ally Ship := 0
IF the race have something more than 0, they will get angry against you, depending your number of ships (Number of your planets x Ally Ship Anger).
The same thing but with the "Per Enemy Ship" parameter.

3)Per Attack Location := 0
IF the race have a positive value, they will get angry against you, depending your number of planets (Number of planets x Per Attack Location anger).

The other important file is the Politics.txt.
Some interesting parameters are:

1) Highest Allowed Treaty := Partnership

It mean that eventually, some races never will accept a high treaty. They don't care about your efforts to have a better treaty.
For example, the moded Version for the Sergetti, have the Trade Alliance as max treaty.

2) Turns Since Last War Before Friendly Treaty := 30

This is the min number of turns, before accept any kind of treaty, after a war declaration.
It mean, for example, if other race send a "Communications Mimic" to your better ally, at least they will be 30 turns without to sign the peace. And if they fell "Brotherly" for you, is not important.

3) Accept Treaty Base Anger Level:=30
It mean that the race will not accept any treaty, if they feel more anger against you, than 30.

4) Accept Treaty Minimum Time From Last Treaty := 10
Similar to the point 2). If for some reason, your previous treaty was broken, they will wait at least 10 turns before accept a new treaty.

5) Break Treaty Base Anger Level := 50
IF the anger for you, is more than this limit, they will break the treaty with you.
BUT, also mean, that the AI could be MURDEROUS with you, and still keep their treaty, if the limit is high.
Also, exist other parameters related with the size of both empires, that the AI use to consider to break the treaty with you or not.

6)Declare War Base Anger Level := 100
The same thing than the previous point, but they will declare the war against you.

7) Max Anger Level for Accept a Gift :=80
It mean that not all the races will accept gifts from you.

Exist too much parameters to comment here, but, are not hard to understand if you check a bit, both files (anger.txt and politics.txt).

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Master Belisarius, thanks for your effort.

Just a couple of questions, if you don't have time to answer them maybe someone else do?

Master Belisarius wrote:

"1) Receive General Message := 0
IF the race that have the treaty with you, have something more than 0, they will get some anger, every time that you send a general message."

Could it also be that every time you send a message the AI's anger level is modified by the value (in this case 0)? So if I set
Receive General Message := -50
the other race should really like me if i just say hello. (?)

Master Belisarius wrote:

"2) Per Ally Ship := 0
IF the race have something more than 0, they will get angry against you, depending your number of ships (Number of your planets x Ally Ship Anger)."

In my imagination this parameter would increase/decrease the anger lvl according to the value (0 in this example).

So if I set this value to 1, and have ten ships the AI's anger would rise by ten?

Or am I just imagining this?

Thanks!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

About your first question, I'm 100% sure about it, because was very easy test it (I got the aggressive race that I did, and change this parameter. After some general Messages they changed from Murdeous to Cool, but no more from Cool! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif )

About your second question, in my view the answer is yes. But test it, is more hard, because how can you know if the AI become angry for other things?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Master B. Wrote:
"...how can you know if the AI become angry for other things?"

Sometimes I think that if nothing happens - then the AI shouldn't be pissed of about anything (because there is nothing to be pissed about).

In my current game, the green neutral dudes got angry with me right after I had agreed to his trade treaty. Our relation - MODERATE.

Next turn it was ANGRY.

The turn after that MURDEROUS.

No ships in his system - no demanding or insulting - no MEE - he can't see my planets, nothing to be angry about.

So I guess, the answer to your question is: I can't know if the AI gets angry over other things. Because most often he (AI) gets angry over nothing.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Lucanos: Are you using the Modpack 1.61?
In my test games, the 1.61 Neutrals, are very aggressives.
They attack every ship that enter into their system, for example.
Remember that the Neutrals, were a source for the human players, to get an easy race to subjugate... then, would be that they were changed to be more hard.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Lucanos are you sure that the race who got angry after you had a treaty with them could not see your planets?? If they have a partnership treaty with an other empire who sees your planets they will see them to!!!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I appreciate all of your help on this, but I must admit that I am still pretty confused about why the AI hates me so much.

1) The AIs that hate me as soon as we have a treaty had never seen any of my systems, so they don't lust after my planets. I know this because NO ONE had seen my systems in any way UNLESS they visited them before I did (which is not a very high probability).

2) The AIs had seen exactly ONE of my ships: the one that made first contact then immediately turned tail and ran out of the system. So they can't be angry with me over that.

3) I never initiate any conversations with them (i figured out on my own that they don't much like to be pestered with lots of general Messages).

4) I'm not MEE (hell, i'm not even in first place! the red guy that builds lots of ships is. he's got like 30 or 40 more ships than I do.)

So why do they hate me as soon as I make a treaty with them?

As an update, I HAVE found two races that don't hate me as soon as I make a treaty with them. One is the phong, I'm their partner and they are brotherly with me. the other is the red guys that build lots of ships. I just met them a few turns ago (but knew they were there for longer thru the phong). we have a TA, and they still like me. One thing to note is that there is one empire between my systems and each of my two treaties. I know that the red guys haven't seen my systems, and (of coarse), the phong have. Is it possible that there is a bug and the AI lusts after your systems even if it CAN'T see them?

[This message has been edited by dumbluck (edited 25 March 2001).]

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

It may be possible that it isn't necessarily anger at you, but anger in general, which gets directed at all races they have contact with.

More detail: when you make first contact, mood always seems to be "moderate". The mood is then modified by the races' anger score. Some events make them more or less angry to you in particular (ships/colonies in their system, coveting planets, various message types, giving gifts/tribute, etc.). However, anger can also increase for other reasons, depending on whether the race is peaceful, bloodthirsty or neutral. The "generic" anger may affect the AI's relations with neighbors.

Any other opinions on this?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dumbluck:
Is it possible that there is a bug and the AI lusts after your systems even if it CAN'T see them?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very likely - look at the "borders" screen - what does it say which system are "conquested" when you activate only your race and them?
Then disable the AI for that race .. and look which systems theirmap says they've claimed ...
Found the Sergetti claim 3 of my 4 systems, but when I looked into their turn, I found that they only have seen ONE, and of course haven't claimed the others !!!

Has anyone seen similar ?

Thinking about mailing the savegame to MM ..

A.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
It may be possible that it isn't necessarily anger at you, but anger in general, which gets directed at all races they have contact with.

More detail: when you make first contact, mood always seems to be "moderate".

(snip)

Any other opinions on this? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First I'd like to answer Q and Master B.

No!
...and
...No!

Now I'd like to ask DirectorTsaarx: If the AI have "anger" in general, howcome I've never met any angry or happy empires.

All empires I've met started of as "moderate" which doesn't seem like any "general anger" to me. Is the "general anger" an amount of decrease/increase in anger perhaps?

I think some of you agree with me when I say that the anger rules are somewhat fu*ked up (*=my respect for the moralists). All races are actually psychotic and no AI empires (not even the Phong or the Eee) are Honorable or Serene.

But even though the game is unbalanced and full of psychotic, dumb, evil empires it's still (one of the) the best game(s) in the world. Why is that?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

ARRALEN,

do you set the option:
"Can view score of all players"

...at game setup?

Mabbe that's why AI empires get angry over planets they can't "see"?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I've noticed since I installed the mod pak races that when I meet a new race they are always moderate and in 2-3 turns they are at war with me. I used to think it was personel against me. Glad to see I'm not alone in pissing them off for no reason.
Oh well I'd rather fight allies than be allies anyway!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lucanos:
ARRALEN,do you set the option:
"Can view score of all players" ...at game setup?Maybe that's why AI empires get angry over planets they can't "see"?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Only "can view score of allied players" - and the Sergetti never had any treaty with me (but I'll check this in the logfile http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ).

However, the point is not them getting angry .. the problems is my map says they claim my systems (what would make them angry), but their map doesn't even show these systems because they had never been there .. and you can't claim a system you never explored !!!

A.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

The thing about AI claiming neighboring system is automatic and hard-coded. Whenever AI colonizes a system it automatically claims all surrounding systems even if he can't see them.

However, I don't believe that AI will go angry over a system that he can't see (in my experience). When game determines AI anger it simply looks at ALL the planets that AI can see and are colonized by you. For example, if I have claimed my neighboring system that has only asteroids in it and the AI has claimed the same system, it won't affect AI's anger. But if AI makes partnership with me (or some other empire that can see my systems), it can go berserk in just few turns.

What AI also hates are ships in his territory (if you don't have any treaty with him). If you have large fleet in any of system that AI claims, he will go angry really fast (the increase of anger is per-ship). This can be the cause of the anger discussed here.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lucanos:
Now I'd like to ask DirectorTsaarx: If the AI have "anger" in general, howcome I've never met any angry or happy empires.

All empires I've met started of as "moderate" which doesn't seem like any "general anger" to me. Is the "general anger" an amount of decrease/increase in anger perhaps?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As I said in my original post, they always seem to start off "moderate" towards you; their mood from then on is definitely changed by your actions; but _may_ also be changed by other events, outside your control. THAT would be a "general anger" event. But I can't verify that this is happening.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Dynarr: I agree 100% with your observations.

Really I would not like to be in the Aaron shoes!!!
Some time ago, I can remember that the people said that was so easy, to sign a Trade alliance with an AI, and then, a few turns later, send a large fleet into the AI territory to destroy their planets...

Seems to be that's very hard try to find a balance, and keep happy everybody!

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I agree, Master Belisarius. However there must be some middle ground. The signing of a simple trade agreement does not have to allow free access to each other's territory, particularly free access by ships containing weapons. Our planet is complex maze of trade agreements that does not allow for such access. Frequently I do not sign any such agreements simply because I don't want them poking around all my systems. Perhaps there could different levels of trade and trade/research agreements that allow for varying degrees of access. At the low end there would be no access, but trade and or research would be minimal. Access to systems adjacent to each other only would increase the level of trade/research and finally full access would garner the best possible level of trade and research.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Maybe the AI should be able to distinguish between warships and unarmed ships? Then perhaps only partnership/military alliance treaties would allow warships into other empire's territory without penalty?

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
I also hate the fact that once you sign a trade treaty the AI comes in and colonizes all the planets in my system that I can't. Then 50 turns later the decide to attack me and have more bases in my systems than I do! What a pain!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is quickly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves. Borders are completely worthless because the AI refuses to respect them at all. But it damns you all to hell if you violate the AI's borders.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marty Ward:
I also hate the fact that once you sign a trade treaty the AI comes in and colonizes all the planets in my system that I can't. Then 50 turns later the decide to attack me and have more bases in my systems than I do! What a pain!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
This is where the Golden Rule comes in: "Do unto others before they do unto you."

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

How about making those three levels of access (none / border sys / all) linked to the maximum trade percent you get.
Ie. maximum 5% trade for no access,
maximum 10% trade for border systems
full 20% trade for total access.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Easiest solution - only Military Alliance or Partnership allow moving ships in another races space.

On the other hand - the AI shouldn't attack anyone it doesn't have a treaty with on sight .. as this hinders the AI players amongst themselves more than the human player, who would protect his ships/colonies anyway.

And for the AI claiming all neighbouring systems automatically - why doesn't this show up when you open the AIs turn and take a peek at the border map, which shows only the colonized systems as claimed ?

A.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

I also wish there were some things that could be locked down. for instance, partners and military alies might be allowed to resupply at an outlaying colony, but it would be nice to put an 'off limits' marker on a homeworld or a jump point to a core system. England might park ships in US ports, but they dont usually steam fleets up the Potomac.

Re: i\'m a political failure!!!
 

Maybe a treaty could be modded that was like a non-intercourse with minimal trade. That way you could have some trade and still protect your systems.
I also hate the fact that once you sign a trade treaty the AI comes in and colonizes all the planets in my system that I can't. Then 50 turns later the decide to attack me and have more bases in my systems than I do! What a pain!