i'm a political failure!!!

[klausD]

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

[dumbluck]

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).]

[Q]

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.

[Instar]

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

[Lucanos]

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?

[dumbluck]

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.

[Q]

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!