How about simply letting the computers offer multiple missions but you only have to complete one?

For example, let's say Player A says "I have a mission for you." but when you go to the diplomacy screen it will show multiple missions Player A is offering. You could select "Kill 15 ships of Player B" or "Kill 5 tactical structures of Player C". While you'd have to complete one of them in order to gain any benefit, or to keep from being on their bad side, it would at least give you a chance.

These multiple offerings don't even have to last the entire game. Just early on when you're trying to form a relationship with someone. It's perfectly reasonable that eventually the computer would want you to do something that would be inconvenient for you, but if you're their true friend you'd want to help them. It's just that right now the game makes it too difficult to form allies, yet they all seem to be able to ally against you.

An alternative solution would be to simply make it more difficult for the computers to befriend each other to ally against you. If it was as difficult for them to get on friendly terms with each other as it is for the player to get on friendly terms with them, then the game would be more manageable.

Ok, I'll take a stab at this.

As said earlier skip the first mission of giving credits, then pick one AI to keep happy but don't go out of your way to complete them. I find it best to pick an AI player to keep happy that is opposite the direction you are expanding.

Cheers.

I'm yet another who has been having his share of problems with the diplomacy system. In every 4 player FFA I've played I've been unable to ally with another side, and it hasn't been for a lack of effort. It just seems like everytime I complete a mission or two, the AI that gave me the missions will just barrel into one of my sectors or planets, automatically incurring a response from a defensive fleet and resetting my relations with that AI back to zero. It may just be me, but it seems like the AI makes no effort to avoid fleet entanglements that just complicate the diplomacy process... If an AI is actively giving you missions and you are attempting to complete them, the AI should at least ease up on contact that threatens to reset relations back to zero.

The last FFA I played was against 3 medium AIs... The first was killed off rather quickly and I had very little contact with it. The remaining two proceeded to battle eachother for a bit while I established a foothold in the central system. About 3 hours into the game, though, they just decided to attack me relentlessly. They'd both give me missions against the other while they both attacked me and failed to attack eachother. I'm busy defending my planets from constant attacks from huge AI fleets and they expect me to complete some mission against the other AI? Far too often the AIs seem to form an unofficial alliance, where they're still at war but simply concentrate on killing me off instead... I've been able to handle it every time, but it's frustrating beyond all words... It adds at least 3 hours to the game (which isn't necessarily a problem) and a ton of stress (which IS a problem).

A more robust diplomacy system is a NECESSITY for future content...

I agree, the diplomacy needs some work. I was just posting about this in the "what do you want for 1.3 thread".

The idea of missions is good, but the kinds of missions offered distract you from obvious strategic objectives (like taking neighboring worlds) and the unlocked AI ALWAYS winds up with near everyone attacking me even with some of the enemies being too far off to benefit from taking my worlds (and often so early that they havn't even colonized all of the more local worlds).

Once I set teams to locked, which I don't really want ot do, this never happens.

The one game where I really made an effort to make an alliance just saw me get into a terrible perdicament, way over extended with my back door open for attack by the same guy I was trying to ally with (which was quite funny really, I wonder if they were just trying to get my fleet away from my worlds so they could attack! Hah! The buggers, I fell right into their hands!)

Anyway, the early missions should be more benign for the most part and just deal with trading resources or something that dosn't force me to run around like a delivery boy with a special order of 'big stick'.

Later, maybe hit man contracts come into it, but these should be more general, like "attack the green empires stuff" rather than "hit four ships"

I should add that I don't mind them being allied against me later, its at the start that I dislike.

Here's a decent strat you could try:

Please everyone, so long as you don't have to go out of your way to do it. I don't believe the AI will attack you so long as you don't provoke it if you even have a trade relationship with them. I've never seen it, but don't take my word for it.

So, the strategy to avoid getting swarmed is to make as many tentative alliances as possible just by doing what you do. If you constantly attack at least one guy, the others are going to get happy one way or another. Eventually, someone is going to give you a peace treaty. JUMP on it!

I'm glad to read that other people are having trouble with the AI ganging up on them. For a while there I thought I must be the worst strategist in the world because all my allies would eventually become my enemy and gang up on me in massive, three AI cooperative fleet attacks! Sheesh, I can't keep one ally happy but the computer can manage a three-way alliance?!?

Yeah, the diplo AI needs to be tweaked some.

For now, I am playing a locked teams scenario (with one AI on my team against three other non-aligned AIs) and for once I am actually winning and not being frustrated out of my mind!  

Disregard my above post. I don't know what I was thinking at the time. It's utter gibberish.

Yes u are so rite but i myslef experience a swathering of attacks but its ok since i dont use the diplomacy. I am playin 4 normal computers and i am deliberate in my movements. Slowly and surely i gobble up their planets. I fought 3 hard AI and they behave the same way. "u failed to complete so and so" so what i do i go to their home system and i go crazy, then jump out. Take that ai now u can chase me like a lil punk bitch

I think it says something when it is simply a more enjoyable game when you just ignore the diplomacy system unless a mission happens to fit with where you fleet is an a given moment.

Totally agree with that. Being at loggerheads with everybody from the off doesn't seem right. The diplomacy side of this game is needed IMO but it's probably, no certainly, it's weakest feature.
An example of it's 'unrealisticness' (is that a word ) was last night when one of the AI races offered me a trade deal. I quickly accepted and then asked the same race for a ceasefire but got a reply that went something like 'why would I give up such a rich target'. What's that all about? We shouldn't have been in a position of requiring a ceasefire in the first place but surely peace between two factions should be automatic if they are trading with each other?
Very good game this (I wouldn't bother moaning if I didn't like it, it would just go in the bin)but I think the diplomacy side needs sorting to make it a great game in the long term.

diplomacy is a powerfull weaopon

keep your allies happy, and a cease fire is all u need

a trade negotiation thingy wouldnt be bad either

just remeber YOU have to get advantage from the trade agreement
never lose sight on your neighbours, since i;ve got backstabbed by an AI once
(fact that he had 3 planets (1 asteroid) and i had 8 plants (4 asteroids) didnt mean a thing to him, pounded him completely and got another 3 planets

in this case the AI definatly couldnt compare the balance of power at that time -.-

So.... to fix Diplomacy what do we want? Looking at the thread I think we're saying:

a) We want a refuse command for missions?
We want the effects of completing missions raised?
c) We want a way of influecing empire attitudes effectively without warring against another?

hmmm. What I want is a diplomacy model similar to the old Masters of Orion model...

d) Not starting at 0% with everybody.

I say with people with the same race you should start out with 50% diplomacy, where as people of different races you start out with 0%-25%. Because if you are a TEC and your verusing another TEC and an Advent, you'd think you'd be in more friendly standing with the TEC in the start.

Just an idea i'll throw out..

how about adding a mish to help an AI if they are getting attacked by pirates and are, say, 1-2 jumps away from either a concentration of ships or one of your planets?

also, QUESTION:

why is it that ai's ALWAYS agree to a trade alliance with me, them jump into one of my systems (no, not their trade ships..we're talking moderate expiditionary forces) only to be fended out by defenses and then break off relations?

do i have to force my units away from contact with the ai or what?

Well, i just managed to get an alliance up to 100%. I wasn't even trying at first until I realized that I was at 60% or so just through random chance. Then they started asking me for resources, which i had plenty of, so it worked out well.

I will say that once they get the details of forming alliances worked out, the mechanism for your allies helping out is already well provided for as my allies were all over the place putting out fire on my front lines.

That all sounds dandy except that while it was nice to have one ally, it didn't make up for the fact that there were five AI's trying to kill me. It was a huge map with three star systems and the four AI's in the other stars (one of which was obviously very far away) decided to get together, pop a a couple of cold ones and turn me into the alamo. The one enemy AI in my system should certainly have been trying to kill me as I was paying in kind, but it seems a bit suspicous that on this huge map with only two powers in each of the other Star systems that they would figure that the best way to build their power base was to come right for me. I couldn't have been much the front runner as I had half a star system which they, by default of being in a emptyish system, should have all had as well.

Suffice to say that people with the "The AI Never Attacks Me!" experience would have been pleased as punch.

I looked like Poland in 1939.

The answer to fixing diplomacy is

E) Work out how the AI's deal with each other and form alliances that are more likely to be smaller and not Napoleonic era grand coalitions for the destruction of one power.

Anyway, i think they can work this out without too much trouble as behind the scenes of this one hiccup is already a good system of interaction with allies.

I too had my first, yeah first alliance (100%) on my huge game. There's few things that i find very odd.

a) Said faction was still in alliance with others that were attacking me (how's that possible anyway .). From 9 factions - 5 are still alive but my "friend" refuses to attack anyone of them.

I ordered him to defend an area with that was getting mauled by the biggest group i've ever seen (3 factions were attacking it). There were hundreds of ships, that was so crazy!. My fps died as soon as i entered the sector - the enemy bar went halfway of the screen. Anyway, my "friend" didn't do jack because of point a).

c) There was this one time when this "friend" of mine entered a sector that was just sieged to dust.. wanna know what he did. He "stole" the planet so to speak, my orbital structures were intact as it was just an zerg. Then he started to whine that it was getting sieged and i stole it back.

There's a possible reason for this but this is a guess, maybe alliances dont expire on AI players?. And even if they do the missions might be all against me, another guess. Gosh .

One of the devs posted in a different diplomacy thread that they are changing it in a minor way. I wonder what they're going to do.

A minor way? I hope this is a reference to 1.03 only. Just started another game and one of the A.I. offers a trade deal, which I accept. When I suggest a ceasefire and I get a sneering reply of 'no chance' or similar. surely a ceasefire should occur before any diplomacy...or at least any treaties are agreed to? Bonkers.

i formed an alliance pretty early in the game (first 45 min i think) on a 29 planet, single-star map.

what i did was, after scouting the best expansion route and finding an ai core planet along the way, i rushed a marza and some cobalts and just kept pressure on that system. lucky for me, the flank of my prime planet was the same ai that was asking me to attack this ai..

when i got to 40-60% i ceased fired and est. trade alliance

destroyed more units/structures and eventually got 100%, then peaced it out.. after that, the ai was asking me for all kinds of junk, like share vision, planet vision, backup..

never backed the ai up.. i think i dropped one mission and my % went down to 81.. completed the next, which was more units/structures on my enemy front, got back to 100.

POINT: it's nice to have a ceasefire/peace treaty not for backup.. but to eliminate that threat for the time being, while i tech and mass up my empire.. eventually we'll have it out.. but maintaining an ally is valuable to expansion.

on the other hand, I CANT WAIT until i get to jump a fleet to my ally's prime system and stick that nuke-tipped brutus knife in deep!

am i a bad person? nvm, dont answer.

My problem playing is that as soon as I finish one mission get my % they send in some stupid scout to my systems wich slaughter it and my standing goes back to 0%.

I dont see how the AI can be a problem though. I like playing against all the AI, in FFA mode however, on the map doppelganger. All on hard. It's really fun! Sometimes they attack like crazie sometimes they dont, I never manage to get standing with any of them though.

ok, well i did it... kinda.

after squeezing the life out of the other two ai and my peace treaty still in place, we destroyed the last enemy ai's outpost and we got victory together.. after i allied with the ai in the beginning my alliance didnt go below 81.. i researched diplomats and it helped, i think.

when u win together, ur ai ally automatically breaks the peace.. and the victory screen asks if u want to quit of keep playing


i kept playing just to check some stuff out, and although my % was still 100, i couldnt even get a cease fire agreement and i lost all ship and planet vision..

so i guess thats it.. it may be more sophisticated to manage on a multistar map, but it was interested to test out an achieved ally victory

OK, some good posts in here folks. I agree almost across the board so I've decided to fix things.

WWW Link

I'm having the exact same problem. I'm currently playing a 9 player FFA; of the 6 players I'm in regular contact with, I'm allied (100% rating, shared vision, etc... we have everything together) with 2 of them. The problem I'm facing now is that every single one of the AI's are allied with each other (even the ones I'm allied with), and therefore NEVER attack each other (and yet they're still posting bounties and giving me missions against each other); so instead of having a little alliance which is helping me out I have to fight the uber fleets (hundreds upon hundreds of light frigates) from four of them at a time, and none of the AI's are attacking each other, so the game is basically impossible for me to win (or really advance much).

I've had my allies steal planets from under me (they park a colony ship at it), and they just use me for traffic between my systems (without doing jack squat... they just go back and forth, its bloody annoying) while giving nothing to me except not attacking my planets.

The diplomacy seriously needs to change; once you get into the bigger games it just becomes one giant AI alliance with none of them attacking each other.