Shdwborn

I've been using this same strategy since the game was released, and it always works just fine for me against normal/hard AI's and against friends over LAN. I always play as Advent, though occasionally Vasari on maps with larger star systems. I start the game and I build a progenitor right off the bat and I start capping planets. Usually within 10 minutes I have a Radiance built and I send that to cap more planets with a colony ship. I pay close attention to who my enemies and all

i really hate those little squares in the empire tree that show all your ships and the like, when i have a full sized fleet on one planet i get a big yellow bar of squares that stretch halfway across the screen. i don't mind the second counters on planets, with seconds it looks more...spacey or...sci-fi-ey

generally the problem I have with diplomacy vs vanilla sins is that fact that I can have a relationship of 810+ with a faction who I have spent the entire game inflicting genocide upon. Simply because of "Military Actions", I'm in the midst of a 10 player game with normal AI's and I have no allies, I'm simply obliterating everybody, yet I still have 100% relationship with 8 out of 9 AI's, all of whom are continually offering me planet vision even as I bombard their capital. All the alliances

To me it seems the easiest way to implement threats at their most basic level would be to add another box to the offer missions menu. Having an AI surrender would have to be something that doesn't happen to often or to easily. A good time for them to surrender would be when they only have 1 planet left, and your massive fleet is parked on the next planet over, that way they'd save you some time and not force you to fight it out to the bitter end, they could simply surrender, all their

I personally love the advent superwep, late in the game when I have 10+ of them I just set them on autocast and watch my enemies economies get obliterated, much more useful in the long run then straight up damage

Already pre-ordered it, can't wait for the final release The pacts are quite interesting.

With pc games, requiring the registration code for patches and online play (especially if the game is online based) goes a long way to preventing piracy on their own. And like mikhail says making better games that take advantage of pc's and their much looser hardware restrictions would be a huge boon for the pc gaming market.

I would like to see addition of another option in the offer missions screen, simply a "or else" box, that way players and AI are more inspired to complete missions. If you could say "give me 2000 crystal or i'll bomb planet x" , or "if you don't cease hostilites with faction x, i'll enter the conflict on their side", this second ultimatum would be nice when trying to get a solid alliance going, i find my allies like to got to war with one another. I tend to skip most

I'm a big fan of the Advent, their ships work really well together and the anima are great for defending planets and taking out starbases, the deliverance engine is also great for wreaking economies when used in multitude

That's a good point, it would no doubt require quite a bit of modification to the AI, but it still would be pretty cool, even if it were to happen a few months from now in a super-update or something, and if Sins 2 is on the way, they could work it in there

An option would make a lot of sense, players and AI of the same race should at least start at cease fire, after all why would the Advent be at war with the Advent? Aren't they a hive mind or something?

Obviously yes it quite possible to make threats and the like with human players, but when playing in skirmish, or with friends via LAN against/with AI, you don't really have much reason to maintain friendships with the AI late in the game as the only consequence to refusing a mission is losing some points from your relationship, with a actual consequence attached the missions become much more of a priority, but that doesn't mean eliminating the "give me crystal and I'll be your buddy" sort of

I pre-ordered Diplomacy yesterday and having been playing sporadically since then and so far I like what I'm seeing, one thing I haven't noticed though. is the capability to make threats and the like, and have the AI make threats as well, whether bluff or not. A couple drop down boxes in the diplomacy menu or something could be used to communicate with the AI in a number of ways. For instance "If you don't give me 1000 crystal I'll obliterate&