Borders and Politics do not work

[Sultan]

Well after trying game after game I have not seen the AI respect borders at all. If you demand them to leave your space they say they will and then hang around turn after turn. Ask one computer player to goto war with another computer player and he says yes, check the Treaty Grid and hes still in a trade agrement with the other AI player. Most of the Demand/Request/Warn Messages do not work.

[Ebonyknight]

I noticed something similar. I asked a partner to declare war. He did. I then asked him to attack the enemy in a particular sector. He said he would and never showed up.

Talk about holding a keg party and he was supposed to bring the keg!

[ashbery]

I agree the a.i needs some work in certain areas,i hope the upcoming patch deals with the a.i flaws rather than anything else.

[Danny]

I second that, subjugation is useless, I deninate then for one turn then have to kill there treaty breaking asses.

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I AM Canadian.

[Grifman]

The diplomatic AI is wonked Everyone is friendly at first (with a few raids at first I might add - which seems realistic to me). However, I've had races ask for alliances and then three turns later start disliking, then hating me, and finally declaring war in less than a dozen turns. And I've done nothing to them - not raided them, spied against them, or even trespassed into their space. I think their dislike appears to be tied both to my progress, their lack of expansion room, or my small fleet. Nevertheless, this is pretty unrealistic and frustrating. It sort of takes the role playing out when the aliens act to erratically. This needs to be tweaked.

Also, in my Last game, all aliens hated me rather quickly. I was whipping two races rather easily, and each time, as soon as I met another race, within half a dozen turns, they were declaring war on me and again, I had done nothing to earn that enmity. Again, it seemed to be tied to my progress, not anything I had done. Obviously, if I am dominating, the AIs will gang up - I expect that - but not so blatantly - it needs to be a more measured response.

Another thing, I was beating up on race Y, the archenemy of race X, who had been warning me of race Y for several years. Yet X refused to help me against their archenemy when I asked and declared war soon on me! That makes no sense at all.

I'd also like to suggest that when a treaty of any type is signed, it is signed for "X" number of years, and cannot be broken by either side. Then even if the alien starts to hate me, I can rest assured that I have "X" years to prepare myself. That's one thought, and as I remember it, in MOO, when you signed a peace treaty with an enemy you did have about 10 years to prepare yourself when they could go back against it.

The diplomatic AI is the most disappointing thing about an otherwise great game.

Grifman

[LintMan]

As a feature to make the game more difficult, the AI's are set to turn against a player (or another AI) when that player's score excedes everyone else's (> 150% of their score), and the player's score is above a certain amount (500K).

The behavior I've seen with this is I can have a great relationship with some race, despite having double their score, but then my score goes over 500K, and within a few turns the race turns hostile. Other races I then meet thereafter start out OK, but also turn hostile within a few turns.

You can turn this feature off with the "AI Uses Evil Empire" setting in Settings.txt, or use change change the numbers to adjust it

[Barnacle Bill]

Another related thing I'd like to see changed is exactly what subjugation means. In one of my demo games, I had a subject race which was getting beat up by one of my trade allies. Since subject races are not allowed to form treaties, there was nothing I could really do about it. I tend to play more of a "role-playing" game (solo, not MP), so I like to build up more or less peacefully and prefer the idea of subjugation over conquest.

What I'd like to see is that subject races cannot have trade or better treaties with any third party, but otherwise automatically share your relationship with third parties. In other words, if you are at war with somebody so is your subject race. If your relationship with the third party is non-intercourse or non-aggression, your subject race has the same relationship. If your relationship with the third party is trade or better (or they are a protectorate or subject race), your subject race would have a non-aggression treaty with them.

Also, I think subjugation should work as a one-way military alliance - you can use their resupply & repair facilities but they can't use yours.

With the "mega evil empire" thing turned off, races should keep treaties unless there is a reason to break them (bad relations over some real conflict, AI "style" for the particular race which is supposed to be erratic, etc...). Races you have made protectorates or subjugated should only cancel that treaty if their strength relative to yours grows to the point that, were they still independent, they would not accept such a treaty with you.

Finally, I've noticed that when the AI agrees to give you a system their claim to it only disappears for a couple of turns. I think they should honor such agreements in perpetuity by default as long as peace between you Lasts (unless again the particular AI style is supposed to be erratic).