quote:
Originally posted by Daynarr:
1) You can't do it by modding. It is something that AI never does and is hard coded. I am surprised that you guys never noticed it before. I thought that you were flooding MM mail with these reports on AI that doesn't use about half of the diplomatic options even if they exist in their politics file. 
2) My vote is 'no go' for Mechanoid. It is nearly useless for 1000 points and the people that really want to have RP before competitive game can change that themselves.
On the other hand, I have included 2 types of emp files for all my moded races. First type with the default roleplaying characteristics and the second with the settings for greater challenge playing with and without intel. You can try that approach as well.
Yeah, I've often wondered why the AI doesn't go begging for gifts when it's low on resources. It will occasionally ask for tribute, but it seems to only realize it can do so once. I'm guessing that it has a "level sensitive" check of some sort. When it sees that it has crossed the threshold it will ask for tribute. But if it remains above the tribute level it will not ask again. I've never seen it ask for surrender. And there is another opportunity for some trickiness here, too. Some AIs ought to pull the MOO trick and surrender to someone else just to spite you.
I must disagree about the value of the Mechanoid ability. The AI is just about clueless with Medical Bays even though I've added medical science to the research queue. There's no type for a "Medical Ship" and I don't want a bay in every ship of a class. So, when plague events hit or some nasty hooman uses bio-weapons, the AI is helpless. Admittedly, it should NOT be...
but it is. This makes an AI invulnerable to that particular trick. Not having to research medical science to defend yourself is an advantage, if a small one.