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JEDALE007

Join Date 01/2011

TRINITY - Diplomacy Victory in a one on one match?

(Why do I get penalized for military action when an AI opponent invades ME?)

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and fairly new to the SINS games. I played the original SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE very briefly, and had the dubious honor of having my A** handed to me on a plate by the Vasari. (I am primarily a TEC player).

Then I played Entrenchment and finally started getting the hang of things - and those starbases and minefields are most definitely a welcome addition. I also got my first exposure to the (earlier) Diplomacy system which I found to be crappy and pointless - not to mention incompatible with a story line built on top of a 4X genre that simply leaves little or no room for diplomacy (in my opinion).

In the Entrenchment micro addon I found that in a locked FFA match I could easily break a deadlock situation by unlocking the players after reloading the save game, and then chumming up with one of my former opponents by completing their missions and giving them resources. My end-game motive was actually very lofty and altruistic - eliminate the third party; maintain peaceful relations with my new ally and "live happily every after". You get the picture.

Although that is not quite how it played out. Once the 3rd party was eliminated, my new ally would suddenly and unexplicably cancel all the treaties and agreements in place and declare an instant state of war, without even honouring the buffer time period that usually follows breaking a cease fire. I found that it was then impossible to win the AI player back as an ally - even after giving them hundreds of thousands of credits. The only means to victory would be military conquest. This is very similar to what I see on the survivor series TV show ... you form pacts only as a means to keep yourself in the game by manipulating others ... and when it comes to crunch time it is everyone for themselves.

Now I am playing the TRINITY expansion and I am glad to see the Diplomacy system has been revised, but I see that pretty much the same type of "problem" persists. Diplomacy seems to work fine until there is only two players left on the map - you and one other AI player.

In a one on one situation .... I simply cannot seem to win a diplomatic victory. For starters I am not sure how to use envoys: even with diplomatic immunity on autocast, they get wiped out by the opposition in the enemy grav well even before they get the opportunity to perform their diplomatic duties.

I also notice that when I start the game as a one-on-one match with unlocked players and diplomatic victory turned on (in opposed to an FFA with 3 or more players) diplomatic victory still seems elusive. Even if I choose large maps and stay far away from the other faction's planets and systems, the AI player always initiates the hostilities by invading my system and planets. Even worse, I notice that *I* am the player that gets diplomatic points taken off due to "military action" - simply for defending my own home star system and planets!! No amount of envoys, requests for trade alliances, cease fires and no amount of resource donations seems to help.

So now my question which seems pretty straight forward and yet is frustrating me to no end ....

How do I best go about winning a diplomatic victory against a single AI opponent (difficulty set on "hard aggressor"), for example when the relationship with them is "hateful"? it seems that any amount of positive gestures on my part (such as giving large sums of money and respources) is instantly cancelled out when their invading units engage my fleets and star bases in combat.

Following on the basic questions, how does one best use envoys (properly)? do I build large numbers of them? do I leave envoys in the enemy star systems or send them directly to enemy planets and hope that at least some of them survive?

Perhaps this is all by design? and that following the basis of a 4X game genre which is to "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate", perhaps there can really only be one player (ruler) in the universe?

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Diplomatic Victory doesn't really work well 1 on 1.

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Diplomatic Victory works by accumulating Diplomacy Points until you reach a certain amount to claim victory. This amount varies depending on the number of initial players.

You can accrue Diplomacy Points over time by maintaining an overall positive relationship with other players, and lose them over time by having an overall negative relationship with other players. Points cannot be accrued from dead players, even though you can still get 10 relationship through military actions with dead players.

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Thanks, Kitkun, I guessed as much. Maybe an enhancement is in order for future updates/releases? @InfiniteVoid - a good 'textbook' answer, but you cannot 'maintain' positive relations if they are not there to begin with. The whole point of diplomacy is to offer an ALTERNATIVE solution to war between factions with BAD relations, not GOOD. Otherwise Diplomacy and Envoy expeditions are just a waste of lives, research and fleet supply. I guess the final answer is that diplomacy or peace between a human player and the last AI faction on the map is impossible.

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If you do want to start diplomatic relations, try to get at least a cease fire with the desired player.

There is an setting in the Game Options when you start a game that determines the maximum number of allied victors in a game. I believe it's "No Allied Victory" by default, so the game goes on until there's one player left standing, which is probably why the AI is turning on you after you defeat your common enemies.

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Yep, as Infinite Void says above, set the maximum allied victory to 2 and when it gets down to you and your chum the game will end.

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Thanks all, I tried that allied victory = 2 setting but it was on a saved game before loading. No joy; the AI was still slugging it out with me seemingly to the bitter end, but chucked in the towel when there were only three planets left to take

I think these settings must be used right at the start of the game before doing the first save - that might make things work better. Ultimately what causes the issue I think is that the "military action" demerit points did not go down and stayed on minus 20 all the way through the game. Other categories such as "resources given" went to a maximum of +3 and then dropped in small increments after that, which means whether you give a 1000 credits or 100 000 makes no difference.

As an experiment, I wiped out all the defences in an enemy grav well but left the planet intact and still owned by the enemy AI. I locked down the grav well with a starbase and then sent in 16 envoys with all abilities on autocast, and between all 16 constantly using their abilities, the diplomatic points did not exceed about 1.5, but dropped quickly after the envoys left. Many other categories such as fleet strength all stayed on zero, even though I had 16 cap ships (all level 10) with full supporting fleet of kodiaks, robotics cruisers, ceilons, LRM Javelis frigates, Cobalts, etc never more than a planet away, and their own star was locked down with 4 star bases. No hope of a diplomatic victory with this kind of buggy system.

B.T.W. the AI player was paying bounty for pirates towards the end, but I left pirates disabled throught the entire game.

Thanks anyway

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Envoy bonus is capped at 1.5 per planet. Decays over time, quite fast if there's no Envoy. Bribe bonus is also capped, though you can research it up. Also decays.

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In the saved game you loaded you were no longer an ally of the last player and so the victory condition did not kick in. You need to have an alliance with him for it to work.

If you had loaded to an autosave or other saved game just before the 3rd player was wiped out and you were still in alliance with the last AI, it would have ended.

And yea, envoy bonus is capped. But I doubt the last AI would have allied with you any way cos its was just 1v1 at that point and the AI is designed not to ally with you in 1v1.

Your experiment would have worked however if you had 2 or more other players still on the map and you 'locked down' and envoy spammed more than just one world (along with diplomatic bonus research and the "Forgiveness" diplomatic tech if there race wasn't the same as yours). However, a military action score of -20 is very hard to come back on. It is actually better to scuttle your damaging doing defenses (i.e turrets, hanger, starbases but not repair bays) when the player first started attacking you at the start of the game and let him take the planet while you try the diplomatic route (research + missions + envoys). You may lose the world before a cease fire but you will get the ally.

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Gah, what's the clucking point of even trying?? my next diplomatic envoy is going to be a fleet of Marzas

Thanks for all the info and inputs. It would be nice though if the game development going forward gravitates towards making diplomacy a viable option even 1 on 1 to make it a true strategy game. The strengths and weaknesses of the different races in comparison to one another might be arguably well balanced, but because the game design and AI behaviour ultimately favours military conquest, the balancing is thrown out somewhat. Again, the game developers developed Sins under the 4X genre, which makes true diplomacy incompatible with what the game is designed to be.

Having said that, there are some enhancements/additions to the gameplay that would make things interesting (IMHO) - especially in multiplayer games:

1) Introduce a diplomatic penalty (in terms of your relationship with other factions, especially those not very friendly with you) for the building of super weapons such as the Novalith or Kostura. A possibility for consideration is including cease fire conditions such as demanding that the nation in question destroys their mass destruction weapons within a certain time frame.

2) Introduce an additional penalty for ecosystem or planet damaging technology/weapons such as Nuclear fallout (The TEC can be screwed over big time on this one. Their Novalith is the ONLY super weapon that will do this type of damage) - bigger penalty when these weapons/technologies are used on Terran planets (For obvious reasons)

3) A corollary to 1) and 2) - increase the fallout length and damage caused to planets that are atacked by these weapons/technologies. The impact to population growth, built rates, tax income, infrastructure capacity etc should be made more severe.

4) For superweapons, ecosystem damaging weapons, etc this should also negatively affect the allegiance of your populations - reducing income, etc and increasing the chances of a revolt

5) Add some intelligence to the game in terms of fleet supply; which should factor in the population availability and growth of your planets as well as in their ability to supply fleets with munitions and supplies across star systems. Surely, if a nation builds massive fleets, engages in combat frequently and also suffers huge losses due to poor strategy, would they not eventually run out of recruits from their planet populations because the mortality rate exceeds the growth rate? Perhaps civilian numbers should progressively decline and cause economic impacts, which in turn reduces alliegance? Just a thought.

6) The advent could gain advantages here for having the only super weapon that has the least impact in terms of diplomatic penalty. They could also gain stonger and more persuasive diplomatic abilities due to their emphasis on mind sciences. The TEC could have propaganda campaigns to counter the above factors, and the Vasari could further exploit their Nano technology to mitigate the effects of 5).

Just some ideas ... they are not perfect, but they are ideas that have some merit nevertheless.

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Seems you've overlooked the Heavy Fallout ability that Krosovs can gain for the TEC. That hinders population growth on a bombarded planet.

Superweapons are primarily intended as ways to break stalemates between two heavily entrenched players to force players to go after the weapon, not to mention as intimidation. If any, one would think that such weapons would bolster allegiance for the empire that constructed said weapon and diminish allegiance for opposing empires (being a direct threat to security).

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Well, some work does need to be done on the diplomacy aspects of the game. But I disagree with some of your ideas. One could argue that superweapons encourage diplomacy rather than hinder it. But you are right that in other times, superweapons discourage it. I would say that superweapons should give a huge diplomatic advantage until another player has a superweapon.

But in general, penalties and bonuses do not seem to be the fix in my view. I just dont see how the current formulation of diplomacy can be used offensively. Sure, they allow you new technologies for allies, but what can you do to your enemies with it? how about something equivlent to an arms reduction? you take away one of their supply tech levels. or reduce the tactical slots at their systems.

on the allied side of things, what about giving techs to other players? ships? what about communal research labs? You know it doesnt even make sense that because you and I are allies our guns work better. What I'd say is certain particular techs, unique to each race can be given to any race. if it happens to be the same race, they can build off that tech and save themselves the time and money. otherwise you get a tech you would never get. The communal research labs are a great way to keep players researching; you could also have it such that over time, certain techs (eg. hull points, shields, lasers) that all races have auto-research for free for all allies while the research labs aren't doing any scheduled research.

then theres the artifacts. these arent very common, imho, and would be nice to see more often. a diplomatic way of removing the cost for the planet upgrade or a way to guarantee you get an artifact you dont have yet would really help and make this more of a factor in games (I envision you send a scout into deep space, he brings you an artifact that you then install on a planet you own. I would also say that an artifact pact would be a good idea, if artifacts were more common in games. all the artifacts you and your allies own can be shared.

Oh, and whats with only being allowed to forge a particular pact with one ally?

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Actually InfiniteVoid, I did not overlook the Krosov siege frigate. My use of the words "heavy fallout" was making specific reference to them. I said in point (2) that the Novalith was the only SUPER weapon in the game capable of causing fallout damage. I did not say it was the only fallout capable weapon.

Some valid points have been raised here, and like I said, my ideas are far from perfect.

As for using super weapons to break a stalemate situation; adding penalities for the use of these weapons does not prevent a commander from using them. It simply means that the commander will now have to think twice and weigh up the pros and cons instead of just using super weapons carte blanche. Reminiscent of the days of RED ALERT and Command & Conquer's Tiberium Sun, you can potentially end up with a situation where battlefield tactics take a back seat in favour of players skulking in their bases chucking super weapons at each other. Using the economically powerful TEC as an example, a player simply needs to climb the initial hurdles of research, build cost and losing 18 tactical slots per grav well. After that, it becomes stupendously easy and tempting to continuously spit a battery of novalith shells from multiple sites all across the galaxy - even across star systems - and at no additional cost. I have never played a multiplayer Sins game (I am not good enough as a player and I never will be) so I can only speak from a perspective of one human player against AI, but I am yet to come across an AI player in the game that builds and uses super weapons against me.

As for using a super weapon to "bolster" the alliegance of a housing empire, I don't really see how. I think it is the military victory against a homeland threat that would do that, and not so much the fact that you used a super weapon to do it. The emphasis rests with the end result, not the means. It's just that super weapons are so easy to exploit in the Sins universe that the differentiation between the means and the end result is very blurry. To hypothetically argue that building super weapons will bolster the alliegance towards your empire also precludes the possibility that there may be activist elements present in your society that may not support your war, much less the means that you using to wage it. Forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki; have you ever stopped and imagined (hypothetically speaking) what a nuclear warhead the size of a battleship would do to a planet, and the countless millions of living beings that preside there?

With the exception of perhaps the Advent who spent a thousand years all full of piss and vinegar plotting their revenge, consider that the TEC were inherently a peaceful nation that resolved issues in trade courts and not on the battle field, and that the ancient Vasari are *actually* a conglomarate of multiple alien races; many of which were forcefully enslaved. Since wars are usually declared between leaders and not nations, it's not difficult to imagine, all things considering, that elements of dissent and opposing points of view may exist. The developers of the game seem to concur with this theme of dissent - just watch the opening cinematic for Trinity/Diplomacy. All I am trying to say is that the developers should try to find some means of weaving these themes more tightly into the game play, and the super weapons penalty system was merely a wildcard idea I had for how that could be applied. The sins background storyline is so full of richness and potential, and I really want to see a future release of the game that integrates all of the rich themes more tightly into the game play.

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Quoting JEDALE007,

reply 12

As for using a super weapon to "bolster" the alliegance of a housing empire, I don't really see how.

I am not threating you. Imagine that I were to hold a weapon to your head and demand things of you. You are unarmed. Your willingness to do those things is strongly correlated to the size of the weapon I hold. Now, if another person also holds a weapon to your head and demands different things, your willingness to do things for me will greatly diminish and you might not do what either of us say in desperation.

Quoting JEDALE007,

reply 12

That's I think a matter of perspective. The TEC was at peace with itself. The Advent were pretty peaceful until the TEC (or whatever you could call them at the time) exiled them and their beliefs. Now, that might not be war, but you can bet that if thats what they did to the Advent, a bunch of other things were 'repressed'

Quoting JEDALE007,

reply 12

All I am trying to say is that the developers should try to find some means of weaving these themes more tightly into the game play

No one has disagreed with you on this. how much will happen, what should happen is debatable

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I am a little taken aback by the last response from SithlordAJ. My goodness, did I offend anyone? If I did then please accept my apologies. That was not the intention, as I was merely sharing my observations, ideas and views from an academic spirit of what comes across in the game's own storyline. This is my last post on this forum. Thanks for all the inputs.

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hi, also a newbie on the forum, but after reading some info about the SOASE Rebellion expansion posted just recently (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?aid=405917) it looks to me like the whole idea of diplomacy has been ditched anyway. I don't agree with some of the ideas posted above and IMHO jedale's ideas are better suited to games like CIV.

I must say rebellion looks very promising, and I can't wait to try out those titan and corvette class ships. I always felt that there should be an extra class or two of vessels to choose from such as destroyers or corvettes to add an extra dimesion to the game.

As for the story line stuff, The TEC are definitely not all sweet and innocent as they make themselves out to be, and yes they are responsible for causing the war with the Advent. Vasari use brute military force to conquer worlds; TEC uses economics and policies which they make up as they go along. They should have just left the ancestors of Advent to manage their own government, society, culture, etc. I can understand if laws that govern commerce and trade are centralized, but don't try and force your brand of "code of conduct" and "morals" on another nation simply because they don't match yours.

SOASE storyline and cinematics is biased towards TEC, imo. It would be nice if we could see cinematics and storyline presented from the Advent and Vasari point of view. For example, the claim that the ancestors of Advent were "sinful deviants" could have been false TEC propaganda.

That being said, with respects to Sith I don't think the Advent were necessarily all that innocent either. "Peaceful" in the military sense, yes, "innocent" in the karmic sense? not so sure about that. They might not have been at war with anyone before the TEC pulled a smelly on them, but the irony here is that the Advent were doing to their own people exactly what was done to them by the TEC on a larger scale. In Advent society, there are "silent ones", or beings who cannot participate in the collective group mind for whatever reason. Did the Advent society treat the silent ones with love and acceptance as fellow advent citizens? NO. The Silent Ones were shunned and isolated by the higher Advent castes and treated as outcasts. As much as the minds of the Advent were deeply scarred by what the TEC did to them, so equally the silent ones could have been deeply scarred by being rejected by their own people.

Thousands of years later, should the Advent continue to blame the TEC for their actions? and if the Advent were to now gain power, how would they use that power? what would they do to the last remaining TEC citizens who had nothing to do with what happened to the Advent's ancestors?

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Above post, Yarlen said this to a response to what it would have. From the way it sounds Diplomacy stays. I have no idea why this was in quote marks.

As Pbhead states, Rebellion will include all the previous content too.

I like the idea of diplomacy but they could have made it better it my opinion. Hopefully they take a little time to improve upon it instead of just putting it in as a bug filled filler.

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