Relationships question

what version are you using.

on the bomber thing... were they targeting vasari structures?  if so, vasari structures have a researchable ability that causes them to 1. reduce incomeing damage, and 2. make units forget their targeting orders.

That would explain the bombers

I am playing on Trinity version 1.21.

The best advice I can give you is:

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

Like most (if not all) 4X strategy games, diplomacy is only as good as your defenses.

These are just some basic principals, if you already know how to play the game just ignore them and skip to the last paragraph: research starbases, build one in every colony, keep your outer-rim colonies (the ones closer to your enemy) literally bristled with defenses and fully-upgraded starbases with hull, armor and damage-related upgrades (keep the trade/culture upgrades for the starbases located more towards your empire's center). I don't like mines as they never actively prevent a fleet from defeating you, they only help tipping the battle in your favor a bit, but your experience may be different.

Keep a mobile fleet of defenders that will help bolster your colonies' defenses when needed (too bad you're playing Advent, as the TEC have starbase upgrades that allow them to very quickly build ships with their starbases which would help cut a lot of the micromanagement).

Once you are sure your economy is stable enough and your defenses deter the enemies from easily invading, only then start researching into diplomacy and work your way from there. That way, not only you will be getting more diplomacy bonuses, no one will gang up on you.

How can you break an alliance between two AI factions? I have two neighbors that I really need to start killing eachother, since Im boxed in again between the two. One likes me but the other is my mortal enemy.

Kai.

This is interesting. Whenever i read Sins of a solar empire: diplomacy i always forget the diplomacy part. 

kyecoo, you can't break an alliance between two other factions. The 'Diplomacy' part is really not that fully fleshed out in this game.

Look at Seven Kingdoms 1 or 2 for a real example on a diplomacy model in RTS games.

I think they are slowly beginning to dislike eachother. Its a shame I cant have a hand in that. If for some reason they stay allies through the game then I cant expand at all.

Thanks for the advice and input!

Kai.

If you can manage to get a cease-fire (get relationship research upgrades, donate credits and stuff, do missions if you have to), and don't piss them off more, then you can send an envoy cruiser to each of his planets, which'll probably keep him from breaking the cease-fire, eventually leading to peace treaties (envoy cruisers increase foreign empires' opinion of you when the envoy is in the foreign-owned gravity well). After that, it's virtually guaranteed that you'll remain at peace (until you decide to break the treaty).

This is exploitable, though, since (if you don't care for the Pacts) you can then build starbases at their worlds, break the peace treaty, and quickly gain control of his entire territory.

Any advice on this would be great.

On single-player, it's easy. Build a starbase as quickly as possible at all choke points, upgrade them as needed, and fill out every spare logistics slot with trade ports. Any potential attacking AI fleet will suicide themselves on your starbases: you'll be free to research and fortify and save to your heart's content until you feel like building an offensive fleet.

Secondly (this is a minor problem), sometimes my bombers will stop attacking the target I give them and will attack something else. Im sure this didnt happen eariler in the game. I lost a cap trying to take out structures for missions, and the building was almost destoryed till the bombers decided to take on something else.

This is due to a Vasari quirk. Is it a bug, or by design that bombers stop attacking structures at that point? It's pretty stupid for them to stop attacking when incoming damage is only reduced by a slight fraction: it could mean 30 second's worth of firing wasted, unless the player catches on.

I lost a cap trying to take out structures for missions

The AI doesn't give out missions very intelligently...

How can you break an alliance between two AI factions?

Start by killing their envoy cruisers at their respective worlds. That should go a long way towards lowering their relationship towards each other.

Slightly off-topic: It would be interesting if building a starbase in an ally's gravity well caused you to lose relationship points with them (faster than an envoy gains them) as they interpret it as a hostile act or it simply causes social problems like real world bases can when put in other countries.  This would make the above-mentioned exploit slightly less attractive.  True, it would make it harder to defend your allies, as you would have to use ships, but that's the interesting thing about trade-offs.

Or they might see it as you spending your resources to defend them.