The One thing that drives me mad

[Nyx]

Not too long ago I played an e-mail game of Emperor of the Fading Suns with 4 other humans and no AI players where one guy had 3 times as much power as the #2 player, and I was at the bottom but his ally. Everyone else turned on him purely because of his size (the MEE mindset working among human players) but I managed to score him the victory anyway giving myself an unofficial allied victory. It was a lot of fun. I think really weak players stand to gain so much by allying with a MEE that they really ought to be more likely to side with it, than oppose it.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[geoschmo]

I think it would depend on the actions of the empire in question.

This is not a new thought, it is discussed in another thread somewhere, but ai anger should be more dependant on how your race interacts with others than how high your score is in relation.

If I was a tiny empire I would want to be friends with a gigantic empire that was not going around snapping up all the tiny empires like myself. But, if I see him at war with pretty much everybody, and attacking races he was in treties with a few turns before, that would make me very suspicious of him and not likely to be friendly.

Also, how he acted in a war would affect my judgement as well. If he conquered other planets with troops I would be more amenable to him than if he went around glassing planets and blowing up stars.

There should be penalties for genocidal behaviour. Not that it wouldn't be allowed by the game, it can be fun in role play, but it should affect how the ai races view you.

Also the victory conditions should be factored in. If it is a true Last man standing game, then the ai races should act as if they want to be the Last man standing. Only make treaties with you if it benifits them to get rid of a common enemy, or something like that.

As it is now I don't think the ai even has an awareness of the victory conditions.

All of these would add realism to the political side of the game, but I imagine they would require extensive code modification and may not be possible with the current game engine.

[Nitram Draw]

It would be nice if the AI had at least some memory. It should be able to remember if you broke a treaty or went to war with it and act accordingly.
I agree that there should be penalties for genocidal actions. Could actions be made to count really heavily toward evil empire status?