[Puke]

I had thought about giving the AI culture bonuses or unique tech, but that creates an opportunity for a player to 'cheat' and take that culture or tech for themselves at game setup.

now, this isnt a big problem because its easy to tell if someone is cheating and kick them from the game after first contact. but it creates an opportunity for someone to 'misunderstand' how the game is setup, and the added complexity that Users would be facing just seems like an unclean design.

that said, if i was to use a hook like that, it would probably be in the form of unique technology. The idea would be that neutrals would produce spacestations that generate resources, research, and/or intel (thanks to the handy new patch) and you would purchase those stations as they are produced. You would want to keep in the good graces of the neutral so that they would not declare war or break treaty, and have that spacestation shot down - because its probably going to be orbiting their homeworld.

if the basic premise of the mod works and the above concept is not used, things will be alot simpler. I would rather keep this easy, and not edit technology files and design creation texts. that way, the ImpMod will be streamlined and easy to add in to any other mod that wants to take advantage of it. a couple settings changes, and new neutral AI files. Easy to add to your favorite existing mod.

It seems like the only problem remaining, is preventing subjugated neutrals from accepting a gift from enemies. And this is easily surmounted.

The AI can be made to not accept gifts or tributes above a certain anger level. this can be set so that they will never accept a gift or tribute. furthermore, they can be set to be almost infinitly unlikely to accept a trade from an enemy, and fairly likely to trade with a friend.

actually, in the case of trades, likelyness has nothing to do with it. They can be set to trade at outrageous (500:1 or so) ratios with enemies, and generous (9:10 or so) ratios with friends. that way if someone REALLY wants to spend an arm and a leg to undermine your treaty with a neutral, they can. it also creates an incentive to try and prohibit other empires from establishing contact with your pet neutral - especially if you plan on 'trading' half the planets in your empire to it, to take advantage of its increased output.