MOO2 - Please fix the Diplomacy!
Thomas Madden
First off, MOO2 is a great game. In many ways it far surpasses the original.
However... diplomacy is not one of those ways. It's a tragedy too, because
MOO was one of the only strategy games that made a creative approach to
diplomacy with AI opponents a necessity. Now it is about as lifeless as
diplomacy in Civ.
The word is that Simtex is coming out with a patch at the end of December. I
offer the following suggestions to improve diplomacy. These problems are not
as severe in Medium difficulty games and lower because the enemy AIs are much
easier to get along with -- actually pushovers. At hard and impossible,
though, diplomacy breaks down. (Before responding that "I don't have that
problem" please make sure you are playing on Hard or Impossible!)
1. Make the attitude bar mean something. In MOO I always checked other
races' attitude to see if I could get away with something or if I needed to
grovel a bit to get in good graces. A race that loved me would tolerate a
little espionage, even at the hardest level, although their friendliness
toward me would decline. Fostering and maintaining diplomatic ties means
worrying about the attitudes of your friends and enemies. That's what made
MOO fun. In MOO2 (again on hard and higher), as near as I can tell, the bar
means nothing. If I spy on a worshipful ally (or get framed for it, more
like) they declare war immediately. If I shower them with gifts to raise the
bar back up and get peace, they decline peace and, next turn, they return to
hating me. Happens every time.
2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race that is
killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
enemy!
3. Get "Declare war on..." out of "Demand." We need a "Ask politely..." In
MOO if you had good relations with a race you could try to get them to declare
war on other races -- just cause they like you. If they didn't want to
declare war, well, no big deal. It was just a thought. Now you have to storm
into their throne room and DEMAND that they declare war. If they refuse at
the very least you lose on the attitude bar (which doesn't matter anyway, see
no. 1 above), and it is very likely that they will declare war on you. Good
way to put a damper on diplomacy!
4. War should not be permanent. As it stands now, I can have wonderful
relations with a number of races, then someone frames me, and it is permanent
war. Within a few turns I am public enemy no. 1 and there is nothing I can do
about it. The other races either take the phone off the hook, or they let me
heap honors, wealth, and technology on their heads and then tell me to get
screwed. If there is a way to improve my standing with even one of them, I
have not found it.
5. Make the votes in the Galactic Council mean something. In MOO you get
substantially improve your position with a race by voting for them in the
Council. Now, it does nothing. They don't seem to care one way or the other.
By the same token, voting against a friend doesn't seem to matter to them
either.
6. Stop with the bloody framing! It is no fun to work dilligently at building
an empire and maintaining peaceful relations and then have all other players
declare war on you within the space of a few turns because you have been
framed. Getting framed is a good part of the game, but it needs to be cut
down. As it stands it looks like the game has just decided that I need to be
destroyed, so time for a frame job. And while we're at it, give the human
player a chance to frame others sometime.
To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
Tom
Timothy Burke
> 2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
> against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
> hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
> affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race
that is
> killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
> you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
> enemy!
I've had allies declare war on my enemies in Hard, many times.
I think generally the problems you're talking about are related to your
relative position in the game. I've had diplomacy work well on Hard games
while I'm weak; some of the problems you're citing crop up after I get
quite powerful. And at that point, it makes some sense...even the
strongest ally might begin to freak out while watching their pal conquer
the rest of the galaxy, and need only the slightest incentive to turn
against them.
What I'm wondering is what incites a CP to surrender to you or another CP.
I've had races surrender to me when I send just one or two wimpy ships to
their system out of idle curiosity.
I also love it when a CP offers me a system to get me to sue for peace
when I'm really not whomping their butts too badly.
On the whole, I actually like the diplomacy in MOO2 better than MOO.
Craig Wood
madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
>First off, MOO2 is a great game. In many ways it far surpasses the original.
>However... diplomacy is not one of those ways. It's a tragedy too, because
>MOO was one of the only strategy games that made a creative approach to
>diplomacy with AI opponents a necessity. Now it is about as lifeless as
>diplomacy in Civ.
>The word is that Simtex is coming out with a patch at the end of December. I
>offer the following suggestions to improve diplomacy.
SNIP
>To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
>Tom
Tom, send this to MPS or Simtex, I don't think they read the
newsgroup. Your ideas are great (except the framing changes, I kind
of like them) but MPS/Simtex will never hear them.
craig
steve_yancey
In article <tburke1-1212...@mac30.pearson.swarthmore.edu>, tbu...@cc.swarthmore.edu says...
<snip>
>I think generally the problems you're talking about are related to your
>relative position in the game. I've had diplomacy work well on Hard games
>while I'm weak; some of the problems you're citing crop up after I get
>quite powerful. And at that point, it makes some sense...even the
>strongest ally might begin to freak out while watching their pal conquer
>the rest of the galaxy, and need only the slightest incentive to turn
>against them.
>
powerful, CPs that you have been on good terms with the whole game will
come in _demanding_ that _you_ give _them_ something! This can
happen if they are right next to you or on the other side of the universe.
If you refuse they threaten you and come back soon with more demands, or
declare war immediately. I don't know what happens if you give them the
10% tribute or whatever they're asking for, but I expect it doesn't keep
them happy for long. In any case, in that position I'm not going to let
some bunch of pissant aliens come in and demand anything. The only reason
I would leave them alone is if they stay nice and obsequious - honor my
treaties and all that. If they're on my doorstep with nobody else likely
to come bail them out, they'd better even think about offering me bribes
to keep me from gobbling them up. Sometimes you might even expect to see
a weak neighbor offer to surrender to you out of the blue if he sees you
stomping everybody who crosses you. Making demands and declaring war is
usually suicidal in that position though.
I think this and all sorts of other "realistic behavior" problems come
from the design decision that "the gods must tip the scales to make it more
of a challenge for those who get out ahead and easier for those who
fall behind". Life isn't like that. If this is included in a game, it
should be either be an _option_, or something that goes with "easy" level
or whatever, not the way it always works, particularly not on "hard".
Life is hard. Sometimes if you fall behind, you get stomped mercilessly
and it's game over -- just like that. If you can get an edge and
properly exploit it though, you should be allowed to build momentum and
steamroller everybody. This gods-balancing thing just prolongs each game
and diminishes any sense of accomplishment I think you can get from it.
Look at it this way -- say you win some decisive battle or achieve some
other important goal. Instead of seeing the true rewards due that
accomplishment right away, you have to put up with a conspiracy that makes
your victory less sweet, and which delays your gratification by making
you always slog your way towards a more attritive, yet usually still
inevitable victory.
The other reason I can think of that a game designer would do this is
because the game is too hard to balance otherwise, and a clear victor
always emerges "too early" in the game -- i.e. nobody ever gets to the
end of the tech tree. In this sort of game, the mechanism I would favor
to accomplish this balancing would be to make most large empires hard
to maintain as cohesive entities without some careful social development
(as in Civ...). This at least is more "realistic" than the gods-conspiracy
factor.
<snip>
>On the whole, I actually like the diplomacy in MOO2 better than MOO.
Even though it has some problems (most of which I assume will be addressed
in a patch), I agree that the diplomatic model in MOO2 has more depth
and subtlety to it than MOO's.
Steve (sya...@griffin.com)
Jeffrey M. George
Timothy Burke wrote:
>
> In article <58p0in$k...@axb.slu.edu>, madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
>
> > 2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
> > against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
> > hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
> > affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race
> that is
> > killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
> > you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
> > enemy!
>
> I've had allies declare war on my enemies in Hard, many times.
>
> relative position in the game. I've had diplomacy work well on Hard games
> while I'm weak; some of the problems you're citing crop up after I get
> quite powerful. And at that point, it makes some sense...even the
> strongest ally might begin to freak out while watching their pal conquer
> the rest of the galaxy, and need only the slightest incentive to turn
> against them.
>
> I've had races surrender to me when I send just one or two wimpy ships to
> their system out of idle curiosity.
>
> I also love it when a CP offers me a system to get me to sue for peace
> when I'm really not whomping their butts too badly.
>
I found it quite amusing when the following occurred in a 5 player
game: my ally was rather powerful but surrounded by 2 other large
empires. These other 2 empires decided to declare war on me. When I
tried to contact my ally for help, he just kind of whistled and looked
the other way, saying, "We're, uh, tending to internal affairs at the
moment." I can imagine him thinking, "There's no way I'm getting
involved in this." Then when I tried to contact the 5th, neutral,
empire and try to weasel some help, the reply was "We don't think
diplomatic communications are wise at this time" (or something to this
effect). I guess that would explain the arrival of his fleet of Titans
and Battleships to join in the fun....
JMG
Thomas Madden
Timothy Burke <tbu...@cc.swarthmore.edu> wrote in article
<tburke1-1212...@mac30.pearson.swarthmore.edu>...
> In article <58p0in$k...@axb.slu.edu>, madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden)
wrote:
> I've had allies declare war on my enemies in Hard, many times.
>
> I think generally the problems you're talking about are related to your
> relative position in the game. I've had diplomacy work well on Hard games
> while I'm weak; some of the problems you're citing crop up after I get
> quite powerful. And at that point, it makes some sense...even the
> strongest ally might begin to freak out while watching their pal conquer
> the rest of the galaxy, and need only the slightest incentive to turn
> against them.
>
Yes, that was the way it worked in MOO also. But I have never led the pack
on Hard level yet the opponents continue to act as I described. I don't
think it is quirk either. I've played many (too many! ;)) games on hard
and the diplomacy is always the same.
Tom
Roberto Ullfig
Craig Wood <burc...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<58pl46$r...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>...
Some clues that might show that diplomacy/relations has some problems...
1. When you assassinate a diplomat (random event) the message is that
relations have gotten bad, but when you look at the relationship bar, it
hasn't nudged a bit.
2. I just don't understand how you can have a friendly alliance with a race
on one turn and then on the next turn they declare war on you (and you were
NOT framed for anything). There should be at least one turn (with maybe an
appropriate message) where your relation bar dips.
3. This sequence of menu selection ALWAYS has the same results for me the
first time I meet a race:
Propose Trade Treaty (they refuse)
Propose Research Treaty (they accept)
Propose Trade Treaty (they accept)
Propose Non-Agression Pact (they accept and go away)
I mean ALWAYS, for every race I can deal with in every game at Hard and
Average.
>
Dean
In article <58pl46$r...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>, thus spake
burc...@ix.netcom.com:
>
>SNIP
>>To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
>
>>Tom
>
>Tom, send this to MPS or Simtex, I don't think they read the
>newsgroup. Your ideas are great (except the framing changes, I kind
>of like them) but MPS/Simtex will never hear them.
Framing is fun to have...but it's way overdone. It should be relatively hard
to frame someone, but in every game I've had with more than 2 races, I get
framed into war A LOT. Hell, I get framed more often than I declare and steal
tech combined! It's definately too common.
And I think that MPS/SimTex read the NG, but don't reply to it. They DID post
their FAQ...from their email address.
--
Dean Robb (WB: Raz1)
PC-Easy
On-site Computer Services
(757) 495-EASY [3279]
John Alcock
madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
Good, thoughtful post. Let me express a somewhat dissenting opinion.
>First off, MOO2 is a great game. In many ways it far surpasses the original.
>However... diplomacy is not one of those ways. It's a tragedy too, because
>MOO was one of the only strategy games that made a creative approach to
>diplomacy with AI opponents a necessity. Now it is about as lifeless as
>diplomacy in Civ.
The problem with MOO 1's diplomacy was that it was WAY too easy to
take advantage of it. I think that's what the designers were trying
to address.
In fact, it was probably MOO 1's diplomacy weakness which eventually
led me to stop playing the game. Suck up, suck up, suck up, give
tech, all the CP's love you and leave you alone so you can research.
Got into a war you can't handle? Go give the CP 3 or 4 tech's, and
all of a sudden he LOVES you.
It was too mechanical, and it needed to be improved. The game was FAR
too easy to win, and primarily IMHO because of the diplomacy.
>The word is that Simtex is coming out with a patch at the end of December. I
>offer the following suggestions to improve diplomacy. These problems are not
>as severe in Medium difficulty games and lower because the enemy AIs are much
>easier to get along with -- actually pushovers. At hard and impossible,
>though, diplomacy breaks down. (Before responding that "I don't have that
>problem" please make sure you are playing on Hard or Impossible!)
The fact that these things don't occur at Average difficulty (as you
point out), indicates to me that they are not bugs (you didn't say
that, but some have been).
>1. Make the attitude bar mean something. In MOO I always checked other
>races' attitude to see if I could get away with something or if I needed to
>grovel a bit to get in good graces. A race that loved me would tolerate a
>little espionage, even at the hardest level, although their friendliness
>toward me would decline. Fostering and maintaining diplomatic ties means
>worrying about the attitudes of your friends and enemies. That's what made
>MOO fun. In MOO2 (again on hard and higher), as near as I can tell, the bar
>means nothing. If I spy on a worshipful ally (or get framed for it, more
>like) they declare war immediately. If I shower them with gifts to raise the
>bar back up and get peace, they decline peace and, next turn, they return to
>hating me. Happens every time.
I'm sorry, but all this paragraph says to me is "MOO 2's diplomacy
doesn't work like MOO 1's". You're right. It doesn't. So?
Your (and my) old trick of showering the cp with gifts doesn't work
anymore. That's a GOOD thing. Makes the game harder.
>2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
>against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
>hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
>affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race that is
>killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
>you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
>enemy!
This may be a valid point, but since I NEVER get into an alliance with
anyone (old habit from MOO 1), it doesn't bother me much.
>3. Get "Declare war on..." out of "Demand." We need a "Ask politely..." In
>MOO if you had good relations with a race you could try to get them to declare
>war on other races -- just cause they like you. If they didn't want to
>declare war, well, no big deal. It was just a thought. Now you have to storm
>into their throne room and DEMAND that they declare war. If they refuse at
>the very least you lose on the attitude bar (which doesn't matter anyway, see
>no. 1 above), and it is very likely that they will declare war on you. Good
>way to put a damper on diplomacy!
This point I agree with.
>4. War should not be permanent. As it stands now, I can have wonderful
>relations with a number of races, then someone frames me, and it is permanent
>war. Within a few turns I am public enemy no. 1 and there is nothing I can do
>about it. The other races either take the phone off the hook, or they let me
>heap honors, wealth, and technology on their heads and then tell me to get
>screwed. If there is a way to improve my standing with even one of them, I
>have not found it.
Look, let's be honest, ok? You're out to beat the crap out of the
CP's. The only difference between this game and the old one is that
the CP's KNOW it now.
What you really want to do is: make peace with every race but the
weakest one, quietly blow him away while making nice with the others,
then repeat the process as needed until you win. It's certainly what
_I_ did in MOO 1.
Personally, I love it now when I can't hoodwink them anymore and I'm
at war with several races at once. I have gotten COMPLETELY DESTROYED
by this game at hard level, and the new diplomacy has a lot to do with
that. I love it.
>5. Make the votes in the Galactic Council mean something. In MOO you get
>substantially improve your position with a race by voting for them in the
>Council. Now, it does nothing. They don't seem to care one way or the other.
>By the same token, voting against a friend doesn't seem to matter to them
>either.
Again, I agree with this point.
>6. Stop with the bloody framing! It is no fun to work dilligently at building
>an empire and maintaining peaceful relations and then have all other players
>declare war on you within the space of a few turns because you have been
>framed. Getting framed is a good part of the game, but it needs to be cut
>down. As it stands it looks like the game has just decided that I need to be
>destroyed, so time for a frame job. And while we're at it, give the human
>player a chance to frame others sometime.
Well, maybe. But I'm opposed to anything which makes the game easier
to win. If it has to seem a little artificial just for the sake of
making the game tougher, I'm still in favor of it.
>To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
This last sentence I TOTALLY disagree with. Give us back MOO's
diplomacy and MOO2 will be DULL, DULL, DULL.
Just my .02
regards,
John
--
John Alcock
work: jal...@watson.ibm.com
home: jal...@ct1.nai.net
Jim Sun
In article <58pod2$9...@lana.zippo.com>, Steve Yancey writes:
|> Life is hard. Sometimes if you fall behind, you get stomped mercilessly
|> and it's game over -- just like that.
That I agree.
|> If you can get an edge and
|> properly exploit it though, you should be allowed to build momentum and
|> steamroller everybody.
More often than not it's *not* the case at all. People familiar with
Jewish experience in Europe or Chinese experience in southeast Asia
could probably tell you just how often people around you can turn against
you as soon as you become somewhat more prosperous than them; heck,
ask the Korean shop-keepers in Southcentral LA. In the world of
international politics, such basic human instincts (herd animal instincts)
for greed and envy are institutionalized, rationalized and legitimized in
the phrase "balance-of-power." When the Brits still had an empire,
their statesmen found out much to their collective dismay: their allies
in the last war had a consistent tendency to be their enemies in the next;
the reason was quite simple: everyone wanted a piece of the empire.
|> This gods-balancing thing just prolongs each game
|> and diminishes any sense of accomplishment I think you can get from it.
|> Look at it this way -- say you win some decisive battle or achieve some
|> other important goal. Instead of seeing the true rewards due that
|> accomplishment right away, you have to put up with a conspiracy that makes
|> your victory less sweet, and which delays your gratification by making
|> you always slog your way towards a more attritive, yet usually still
|> inevitable victory.
|>
The same thoughts must have gone through the brains of Napoleon, Queen
Victoria, Churchill, or even perhaps Hitler and Stalin. You should
feel lucky if you indeed achieve your ultimate victory. The "inevitable
victories" perceived by the above-mentioned historical titans all
came to naught: Nappy found himself exiled to St. Helena; the British
Empire was torn apart in two world wars after surviving all the challenges
posed to it in 18th and 19th centuries; Hitler put a bullet to his own
demented head, a rather ironic end to supposedly one of the best shot
and ballistic expert in Germany; Stalin, well, the USSR did not exactly
survive the Cold War, which as far as Stalin could tell was yet another
conspiracy drummed up by the West against him after he won his glorious
struggle against Hitler (sarcasm).
Building and maintaining an empire indeed involve at lot of loneliness
at the top.
Jim
Rob C. Johnson
Hi John!
I hav eto say that the diplomacy at the higher difficulty levels
is a lot like the Antag patch for Ascendency: everyone hates you
at the start and you have to work really hard just to stay at
peace. For me, at least, this makes it much harder to Suspend
my Disbelief. I am not just out to kill everyone, I play to get
into the game universe, and having everyone hate me makes me
feel like the game hates me, and I just can't get into that.
So, I play average and take huge disadds and few adds.
What I'd like to see is an AI with a memory. If I'm playing a
peacefull species, the AI should be able to figure that out and
take advantage of it. If I'm not the one who broke our previous
trade/research treaties, they shouldn't blame me.
Rob sez "Merry Christmas!"
(rcjo...@prairienet.org)
DarkKnight
I know this is beating as dead horse, but I just realized something. I
remember in the days of MOO that the quickest way of improving relations
with a race (and thus getting them to stop beating up on you) was to
vote for them. Of course this also had a dramatic negative effect with
the race you just voted against.
It is very likely that this is exactly what the computer is doing. A
race is beating them silly and they want a peace. A council vote comes
up and nows thier chance to make a big kiss-up. If this is in fact what
is happening than I think that it does make sense. I have to admit it
was a tactic I used in MOO on more than one occasion to save my butt. Of
course I never actually caused anyone to win the vote, but then I always
got to vote last also.
Bjorn Lovoll
I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Diplomacy is broken
and needs fixing. The fact that MOO I was too easy to exploit is
irrelevent. The fact is diplomacy in not working.
My last car had brakes that were too sticky, should I request that they be
left out altogether in my next one?
Key features are missing or don't work right.
Such as:
--asking a friend to join you in a war should not be a demand. You should
be able to ask politely as well.
--You can be framed but not pay them back in kind.
--You can not effect the political picture in anyway. You can't ask your
friends anything. You can only demand gifts from the weak. You can't even
taunt your foes... Wouldn't that be fun?
--If someone gets angry at you, they stay that way indefinatly. I've never
seen peace in the dozen or so games I've played.
--Spying (not directly related to diplomacy) doesn't do anything
meaningful. As a Darlok, I had 60+ spies in 3 races and a like amount
doing home security and I was being robbed blind in tech while not able to
reply in kind. I had researched all the available items that helped
spying.
it's so bad, that I just don't bother and choose repulsive and don't bother
talking to them at all.
John Alcock <jal...@watson.ibm.com> wrote in article
<58rqob$15...@watnews1.watson.ibm.com>...
steve_yancey
In article <58s4f9$r...@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, js...@athena.mit.edu says...
work. If a number of CPs see you as an aggressive expansionist, gaining
in power and bent on conquest, then I find it entirely reasonable that
_some_ of them may choose to ally against you rather than believe your
overtures and wait until you pick them off one by one. Sometimes you
should see some quislings though. Also, if you find yourself in a universe
where everyone is so obviously ready to gang up on the leader, how come
they only do it when _you_ are the leader? I don't see the CPs all as
anxious to ally with me or all declare war on an aggressive expansionist CP.
And what if you have been honoring your agreements and not attacking
anybody? Should you expect to _always_ see the exact same reaction from
_all_ the CPs (who may have been fighting each other like crazy up to that
point), just because you have quietly pulled ahead on the "history" graph
through economic or technological growth? Maybe sometimes, but _always_??
Perhaps the Antareans always choosing to raid whoever is "ahead" is even
acceptable. You don't know their agenda -- they're the Antareans. The
main thing I'm objecting to is the way the leader is always "unlucky"
in game terms and the loser always "lucky". Otherwise supposedly "random"
events caused by "the gods" (nova, earthquake, plague, etc.) obviously
are _not_ random when the good events _always_ happen to a weak player,
and the bad events _always_ hit a strong one. Are you supposed to pick
"lucky" just to break even if you start winning the game?
There are plenty of fantasy stories where there _are_ gods meddling in
motal affairs for their own unfathomable purposes. If it's going to happen
in the game, then at least put it in the story line. Then when you win
the Battle of Midway, you won't be suprised when a storm sinks the Pacific
Fleet and an earthquake destroys Washington the next day.
Steve (sya...@griffin.com)
Jeffrey M. George
I felt an irresistable need to put my opinion in on this.
Bjorn Lovoll wrote:
>
> I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Diplomacy is broken
> and needs fixing. The fact that MOO I was too easy to exploit is
> irrelevent. The fact is diplomacy in not working.
>
>
> Key features are missing or don't work right.
> Such as:
> --asking a friend to join you in a war should not be a demand. You should
> be able to ask politely as well.
I believe the "Demand" notation on the menu is just a coverall heading
for getting your friend to do something. I don't believe it actually
means you are "demanding", but you are asking or negotiating in some
way.
> --You can be framed but not pay them back in kind.
I have framed other races many times.
> --You can not effect the political picture in anyway. You can't ask your
> friends anything. You can only demand gifts from the weak. You can't even
I can ask my friends for tech, wars, etc.
> --If someone gets angry at you, they stay that way indefinatly. I've never
> seen peace in the dozen or so games I've played.
I've had longterm enemies become friends after many years of war. All
due to peace.
> --Spying (not directly related to diplomacy) doesn't do anything
> meaningful. As a Darlok, I had 60+ spies in 3 races and a like amount
> doing home security and I was being robbed blind in tech while not able to
> reply in kind. I had researched all the available items that helped
> spying.
I have stolen numerous techs and committed dastardly deeds of sabotage
with my spies.
>
> it's so bad, that I just don't bother and choose repulsive and don't bother
> talking to them at all.
>
I have found diplomacy to be very effective for the most part.
JMG
Rob C. Johnson
True, JMG, diplomacy does work fine... at average difficulty.
That it doesn't unless you choose to be a Charismatic Telepath
at higher dificulty levels is really annoying, though.
Rob steals a disclaimer:
Someone once said that the realization that you don't
know much is a good start on the path to learning.
I.e., I don't know squat, so if you read something
which makes you _think_ really hard, I can't be held
responsible for damages which might ensue.
(rcjo...@prairienet.org)
Shane
Thomas Madden (madd...@slu.edu) fired on the Antarans with:
[snip]
> 6. Stop with the bloody framing! It is no fun to work
> dilligently at building an empire and maintaining peaceful
> relations and then have all other players declare war on you
> within the space of a few turns because you have been framed.
> Getting framed is a good part of the game, but it needs to be
> cut down. As it stands it looks like the game has just decided
> that I need to be destroyed, so time for a frame job. And
> while we're at it, give the human player a chance to frame
> others sometime.
I'd be quite happy for the various empires to go about framing
each other and myself - so long as my own/friendly spies had a
chance of revealing it for the galaxy to see:
GNN Droid: "And in late-breaking news, the Sakkra Dictatorship
refused to comment over accusations by the Darlok Imperium that
Sakkra spies attempted to frame the Psilon Democracy after
stealing 'sensitive technologies' from the Human Confederation.
GNN believes this will only serve to strengthen diplomatic
relations between all three non-Sakkra governments..."
Two turns later and a bit of diplomacy:
GNN Droid: "Today the Darlok, Human and Psilon governments officially
announced their new Technology Exchange program. Ominously, all three
governments have just recalled their ambassadors from Sakkra space..."
:)
Shane (sle...@peg.apc.org) "Telepathic Darloks? Aiee!"
John Alcock
"Bjorn Lovoll" <cpts...@wolfenet.com> wrote:
>I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Diplomacy is broken
>and needs fixing. The fact that MOO I was too easy to exploit is
>irrelevent. The fact is diplomacy in not working.
The fact that MOO 1 was too easy to exploit is not irrelevant at all.
It's (I believe) the REASON they changed the diplomacy in this one.
And to say diplomacy is not working is way too extreme, IMO. Look, as
I said before, if you play at Average you don't see any of this stuff,
so it's quite clear that these are not bugs.
And even at the harder levels: my experience has been that you can
successfully make NAP's with all your non-repulsive neighbors and stay
at peace for quite a while. You get quite a bit of benefit from this
in the form of trade and research agreements. In my games, it's only
when a war has started between me and somebody else (whether because I
started it, I was framed or whatever), that the CP's begin to get less
friendly. They're suspicious of me, see, because I'm warlike.
The very fact that they included the Repulsives in this one proves my
point, I think. It was a conscious design choice to make the
diplomacy "tougher", not an oversight or a bug.
>My last car had brakes that were too sticky, should I request that they be
>left out altogether in my next one?
Nope, you want them less sticky the next time. And that's exactly
what you've gotten.
>Key features are missing or don't work right.
>Such as:
>--asking a friend to join you in a war should not be a demand. You should
>be able to ask politely as well.
As I've already said, this one I agree with.
>--You can be framed but not pay them back in kind.
I'm not entirely sure this is true. I think someone posted that s/he
had managed to frame somebody. It may be like the spying (which I'll
address in a minute), we simply don't know the formulas.
>--You can not effect the political picture in anyway. You can't ask your
>friends anything. You can only demand gifts from the weak. You can't even
>taunt your foes... Wouldn't that be fun?
Let me ask you something. How good a neighbor/ally are YOU? I have
found that if I keep giving little gifts of tech (or sometimes money)
to a CP, they are reasonably receptive to any suggestions I might
have.
Maybe we should start differentiating between levels. At Hard I
haven't had much trouble if I ask a NAP partner to go to war with
someone. You can't abuse it, and they don't go to war for very long,
but, hey, this seems entirely realistic to me. You're asking him to
go to WAR, for Pete's sake, and divert resources from his economy. Do
YOU go to war when THEY ask?
>--If someone gets angry at you, they stay that way indefinatly. I've never
>seen peace in the dozen or so games I've played.
Mmmm...and if the Alkari sneak-attack you during a flux and you swear
to yourself to mop the floor with them, and then when it's almost over
they come and ask you for peace, do you give it to them? Maybe you're
nicer than me, but I sure don't. I keep right on mopping.
>--Spying (not directly related to diplomacy) doesn't do anything
>meaningful. As a Darlok, I had 60+ spies in 3 races and a like amount
>doing home security and I was being robbed blind in tech while not able to
>reply in kind. I had researched all the available items that helped
>spying.
This one I don't think any of us understands. I have successfully
gotten lots of tech with 2 spies. I've also seen close to the
situation you describe. Of course, if the #^$%*$#^ strategy guide
were any good, we'd know the answer, but it's not, so we're in the
dark. May be a bug, or it may be some complex algorithm nobody's
figured out yet.
>it's so bad, that I just don't bother and choose repulsive and don't bother
>talking to them at all.
You know, people used to bitch about MOM's diplomacy, too. I never
had any problem with it. I think some people just didn't understand
the rules: don't go near their cities, if you're on the same continent
there's nothing you can do so wipe 'em out, etc. I had some wizards
be friendly with me the whole game, perfect buddies (until I took him
out last, of course ;->).
MOO2 is more of a dog-eat-dog universe than the original. I believe
they did it that way to provide more of a challenge for us jaded types
who found MOO 1 too easy. The CP has wised up, he isn't the sucker he
used to be. I'm glad. It means MOO2 will stay on my drive a lot
longer, because I'll be LOSING sometimes.
Only my opinion,
John
John Alcock
>Hi John!
Hey Rob :) (Did you ever finish Daggerfall? I stopped playing when I
got the "can't save" bug on my best character...grrr! Did they ever
come out with a patch to fix that?)
Incidentally, I find it kind of amusing that it bothers you that this
game hates you when you didn't seem to mind being a friggin' VAMPIRE,
for Pete's sake, and offing innocent young children in the other one
;->
I think both your points are good ones. If somebody wants to play a
more peaceful race, just building, researching and occupying their
quiet corner of the universe, I agree that at the upper difficulty
levels they're SOL. The solution, as you point out, is to play at
Average, and heap on the disadvantages if you want a challenge.
I also like the "AI with a memory" idea. I suspect that they may have
TRIED to implement this, though: is anyone besides me having the
experience that as long as you stay at peace with everybody, you don't
seem to get bothered much? Unless you get framed, of course, but
them's the breaks. I had one game where I had researched everything I
needed to take on the CP's and nobody had declared war on me (this was
at Impossible, I think). So, like the sweetheart I am, I sent a fleet
towards a system belonging to the weakest race and one turn before it
arrived broke our NAP. Boy, all hell broke loose after that! Soon I
was at war with 3 or more races (I don't really remember too clearly,
I just remember all the red dotted lines :)
It may have been a fluke. But maybe "it's in there"?
And the CP's have ALWAYS had lousy memories as to WHO broke the trade
agreements. Come on, you can't say it wasn't that way in MOO 1 as
well, can you? I suppose there's always two sides to any argument or
something. And when one of the sides is a CP, you don't want the
debate to get too intricate, if you're catching my drift here...
best,
John
Peter J. Stewart
John Alcock (jal...@ct1.nai.net) wrote:
: "Bjorn Lovoll" <cpts...@wolfenet.com> wrote:
: >I'm going to have to agree with the original poster. Diplomacy is broken
: >and needs fixing. The fact that MOO I was too easy to exploit is
: >irrelevent. The fact is diplomacy in not working.
: The fact that MOO 1 was too easy to exploit is not irrelevant at all.
: It's (I believe) the REASON they changed the diplomacy in this one.
: And to say diplomacy is not working is way too extreme, IMO. Look, as
: I said before, if you play at Average you don't see any of this stuff,
: so it's quite clear that these are not bugs.
I have to agree that in general MOO2 diplomacy is working, and that it is
indeed more difficult to handle than in the original MOO. In MOO, if I played
as the humans, I could finagle things to get most of the races following me
like little puppy dogs. Then I turn around and screw them over. In the new
MOO2, I feel as if the AI *knows* I'm going to screw it over later and is thus
less gullible.
Another thing that makes the diplomacy harder is that I'm finding that the
CPs are much more willing in MOO2 than MOO to demand you live up to the
terms of the alliance and declare war on their enemies. Generally the first
thing I do after getting an alliance is demand they make peace with any enemies
they're fighting that I'm not prepared to take on. Unfortunately, I've seen
cases where the war flares up a few turns later and my ally *immediately*
demands I declare war on them.
However, there ARE bugs in the diplomacy that need to be addressed, the
biggest one being how actions taken in galactic council voring appear to
have the opposite of the intended effects.
: And even at the harder levels: my experience has been that you can
: successfully make NAP's with all your non-repulsive neighbors and stay
: at peace for quite a while. You get quite a bit of benefit from this
: in the form of trade and research agreements. In my games, it's only
: when a war has started between me and somebody else (whether because I
: started it, I was framed or whatever), that the CP's begin to get less
: friendly. They're suspicious of me, see, because I'm warlike.
Good, I wasn't the only one that noticed this. If the game indeed does take
that into account, then MAJOR kudos to the developers of MOO2.
: The very fact that they included the Repulsives in this one proves my
: point, I think. It was a conscious design choice to make the
: diplomacy "tougher", not an oversight or a bug.
I have to agree with this, but I think that the charismatic pick should
partially neutralize repulsive. What I mean is, currently if I'm up against
a repulsive race, I can't even get treaty selections to show up on the
diplomacy menu. But I'm playing a charismatic race; I figure that should also
mean that my race is more tolerant of other races and I should at least get
those treaty options back. A penalty should still be applied to the chance
of success of a treaty, but I should at least get that option. IMO, anyway.
: >Key features are missing or don't work right.
: >Such as:
: >--asking a friend to join you in a war should not be a demand. You should
: >be able to ask politely as well.
: As I've already said, this one I agree with.
I'm wondering if perhaps "demand" is as another poster suggested, just an
generic overall heading not meant to imply fist-pounding-on-the-table type
demanding :)
: >--You can be framed but not pay them back in kind.
: I'm not entirely sure this is true. I think someone posted that s/he
: had managed to frame somebody. It may be like the spying (which I'll
: address in a minute), we simply don't know the formulas.
You can indeed frame someone, you just can't pick who you frame. A MAJOR
oversight, IMO.
[snip]
: MOO2 is more of a dog-eat-dog universe than the original. I believe
: they did it that way to provide more of a challenge for us jaded types
: who found MOO 1 too easy. The CP has wised up, he isn't the sucker he
: used to be. I'm glad. It means MOO2 will stay on my drive a lot
: longer, because I'll be LOSING sometimes.
An overall comment I wanted to make was that I'm finding that the reason I
have been losing games on MOO2 is because I'm using MOO strategy, which
no longer works. One of the major deficiencies of the old MOO AI that I
exploited time and time again was the inability of the CP to fight a war
of movement. The old AI could barely conduct one attack at a time against me.
In a recent game that I utterly lost, the Elerians declared war on me after
I demanded they stop spying, and no fewer than *three* fleets were launched
at different targets in my empire. I don't think I've ever been so glad to
have lost; it showed that the AI is capable of a more complex strategy than
in the old game. True, it has some rough spots and one or two nasty bugs,
but I believe these can be fixed with a patch. Overall, the AI is much smarter
than the old MOO.
Pete
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Stewart | "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
ste...@bae.bellcore.com | - Salvor Hardin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey M. George
Rob C. Johnson wrote:
>
> True, JMG, diplomacy does work fine... at average difficulty.
>
> That it doesn't unless you choose to be a Charismatic Telepath
> at higher dificulty levels is really annoying, though.
>
Jeff steals a reply <g>:
I don't know, even at Impossible it seems that I've been able to have
fairly good diplomatic relations unless I do something really stupid.
For example, one time I had a nice relationship going with my neighbors,
the Bulrathi. When they stole a tech from me, I righteously demanded
that they give me a tech in return. Well, they did share their tech with
me, but not in the way that I had intended....
Perhaps I'm just rationalizing the reasons for relationships going sour
and it really is just the game deciding it's time to mess me up!
JMG
Jeffrey M. George
Peter J. Stewart wrote:
>
>
> I have to agree with this, but I think that the charismatic pick should
> partially neutralize repulsive. What I mean is, currently if I'm up against
> a repulsive race, I can't even get treaty selections to show up on the
> diplomacy menu. But I'm playing a charismatic race; I figure that should also
> mean that my race is more tolerant of other races and I should at least get
> those treaty options back. A penalty should still be applied to the chance
> of success of a treaty, but I should at least get that option. IMO, anyway.
>
>
>
I don't agree with this one. I envision repulsive races as being
something so completely foreign to our concept of society that it
doesn't matter if you're the freakin' Pope, they still will not interact
according to your laws of behavior.
JMG
John Mueller
>> 1. Make the attitude bar mean something. In MOO I always checked other
races' attitude to see if I could get away with something or if I needed
to
grovel a bit to get in good graces. A race that loved me would tolerate
a
little espionage, even at the hardest level, although their friendliness
toward me would decline. Fostering and maintaining diplomatic ties
means
worrying about the attitudes of your friends and enemies. That's what
made
MOO fun. In MOO2 (again on hard and higher), as near as I can tell, the
bar
means nothing. If I spy on a worshipful ally (or get framed for it,
more
like) they declare war immediately. If I shower them with gifts to
raise the
bar back up and get peace, they decline peace and, next turn, they
return to
hating me. Happens every time. <<
I've even seen this problem with the medium games I've played. The CP
looks like he loves you, but attacks for absolutely no reason the very
next turn. It seems to happen more often with the repulsive races, but
even races like the Psilons will do some pretty strange things at
times. The funny thing is that the attitude indicator returns to at
least the midway point after the attack as if the CP is saying "just
kidding." The same thing holds true with espionage, as you indicated,
though not as often as in the higher levels.
John Mueller
Tyson Richard DOWD
madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) writes:
>[stuff about MOO diplomacy being better than MOO2]
Since MOO2 _still_ hasn't been released in Australia (think of all those
people buying Red Alert instead... ugh), I've been preparing by playing
MOO lately. I think some of your statements about diplomacy are wrong -
going back to MOO won't change them at all. But most of your criticisms
are valid - just that MOO had the same problems.
>2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
>against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
>hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
>affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race that is
>killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
>you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
>enemy!
This still happened on MOO. I usually ally with the other people at
war with the race I'm at war with. The best way to become someone's ally
is to beat up their enemies.
>3. Get "Declare war on..." out of "Demand." We need a "Ask politely..." In
>MOO if you had good relations with a race you could try to get them to declare
>war on other races -- just cause they like you. If they didn't want to
>declare war, well, no big deal. It was just a thought. Now you have to storm
>into their throne room and DEMAND that they declare war. If they refuse at
>the very least you lose on the attitude bar (which doesn't matter anyway, see
>no. 1 above), and it is very likely that they will declare war on you. Good
>way to put a damper on diplomacy!
Same as 2, really. There's just no way to do things subtly.
>4. War should not be permanent. As it stands now, I can have wonderful
>relations with a number of races, then someone frames me, and it is permanent
>war. Within a few turns I am public enemy no. 1 and there is nothing I can do
>about it. The other races either take the phone off the hook, or they let me
>heap honors, wealth, and technology on their heads and then tell me to get
>screwed. If there is a way to improve my standing with even one of them, I
>have not found it.
Yes. This still happens in MOO though. You get into a war with someone,
they start pounding you (with biological weapons, mind you), and
everybody else joins their side. It looks like CPs 'talk' often, and
don't seem to stay in each other's bad-books as long. Very annoying.
>5. Make the votes in the Galactic Council mean something. In MOO you get
>substantially improve your position with a race by voting for them in the
>Council. Now, it does nothing. They don't seem to care one way or the other.
>By the same token, voting against a friend doesn't seem to matter to them
>either.
This is clearly a change from MOO.
>6. Stop with the bloody framing! It is no fun to work dilligently at building
>an empire and maintaining peaceful relations and then have all other players
>declare war on you within the space of a few turns because you have been
>framed. Getting framed is a good part of the game, but it needs to be cut
>down. As it stands it looks like the game has just decided that I need to be
>destroyed, so time for a frame job. And while we're at it, give the human
>player a chance to frame others sometime.
This is very annoying, but is still part of MOO. Two days ago this
happened to me. Impossible level, looked like I was going to win,
carefully kept all major races happy with me, tribute regularly,
about to ramp up production and population. Someone decides that
I've tried to assisinate Strader (Human), and all hell breaks loose,
I'm at war with everyone in no time. Next day, same thing happened,
except it was false espionage with the Sakkras. When I espionage
and frame someone, they don't seem to care!
>To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
No, you're probably just sweetened your memories of MOO's diplomacy.
In future games, however, I hope someone comes up with a better model
for diplomacy, and uses it in a game like this. What's in MOO (and
apparently even MOO2) is ok, but I, for one, would certainly appreciate
something better.
--
Tyson Dowd #
# Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.
t...@cs.mu.oz.au #
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~trd #
Kagetora
>1. Make the attitude bar mean something. In MOO I always checked other
>races' attitude to see if I could get away with something or if I needed to
>grovel a bit to get in good graces. A race that loved me would tolerate a
>little espionage, even at the hardest level, although their friendliness
>toward me would decline. Fostering and maintaining diplomatic ties means
>worrying about the attitudes of your friends and enemies. That's what made
>MOO fun. In MOO2 (again on hard and higher), as near as I can tell, the bar
>means nothing. If I spy on a worshipful ally (or get framed for it, more
>like) they declare war immediately. If I shower them with gifts to raise the
>bar back up and get peace, they decline peace and, next turn, they return to
>hating me. Happens every time.
And you cannot war on them for spying on you w/o damaging your rep...however
their rep is never a consideration. And they don't seem to care that in 5
turns, you can have a fleet at their homeworld consisting of nothing but Doom
Stars w/ Stellar Converters and Death Rays.
>2. Make alliances mean something. Now I KNOW I once saw an ally declare war
>against one of my enemies, but I think that was in a easy or medium game. On
>hard they never do. What's the point of the alliance? If you go to your
>affable ally and point out that you are in this little war with a race that is
>killing you and it would be just great if they would, you know, kind of help
>you out -- they are just as likely to declare war on you as they are on your
>enemy!
And it'd be nice if they gave *you* gifts occasionally, instead of having to
kiss *their* ass all the time. And stop that stupid crap where they demand an
exhorbitant amount of money from you or they go to war...especially if you can
wipe them out quickly.
>4. War should not be permanent. As it stands now, I can have wonderful
>relations with a number of races, then someone frames me, and it is permanent
>war. Within a few turns I am public enemy no. 1 and there is nothing I can do
>about it. The other races either take the phone off the hook, or they let me
>heap honors, wealth, and technology on their heads and then tell me to get
>screwed. If there is a way to improve my standing with even one of them, I
>have not found it.
And I've never seen the AI offer to surrender to *me*. Nor can you make
demands on them for peace (i.e. give me a system/tech/money, and I'll stop
turning your colony worlds into asteroid belts). Now, it's like you're asking
*them* for peace...even if you're winning...and wiped them out but for one
planet...a barren planet...and they *refuse* your overtures of peace...and you
heppen to be orbiting that planet with a Doom Star w/ Stellar Converter...
"Power is in tearing human minds to | Jon Hickman
pieces and putting them together again | Oni Dragon -=={UDIC}==-
in forms of our own choosing." - _1984_ | Kage...@pernet.net
Rob C. Johnson
Hola John!
No, I didn't finish the main plot quest in Daggerfall, that
wasn't why I was there after all. I did get up to Medora and
the quest to get the Dust of Restfullness on one character b4 it
got scrapped though 8-).
The current patch is 191 which is supposed to fix vampire clans,
so I guess I'll have to go back and start a new character and
find out! Of course, to make the game interesting, being a
past master, I'll even just answer questions and see what pops
out. Well, not really, that always ends up as a monk, but you
get the idea. As for the save game problem, that was supposed to
be fixed with 179, but it seemed only reliable if you started a
character under that patch.
Oh, and remember, people may hate Vampires in principle, but when
we get up close with our charming spells, they love us! And I
never killed off any future prey, er, children! (There aren't
any which can be killed, anyways ;-).
Average is a lot funner than Impossible, so far:
1) I actually get to interact with aliens instead of just trying
to kill them (call me wierd, I like going for the peacefull
resolution, despite being a Psycho Vampire)
2) Until late in the game, everyone has very small fleets. This
is very cool! Unlike at Impossible, where I have small fleets, and
they don't, so I always end up waiting till they come to me, kill
their humongous fleet, then go take their colonies. At least,
usually, sometimes they have tech which is to tough, then my
colonies get blasted, and so do theirs, wheee!
3) Alliances actually mean something. For when I'
m playing a Honorable Environmentalist, for example, and I stick
by my allies, even though they drag me into war after war. But
wait! I can demand they make peace!
For the best play at Average, I recommend a Pre Warp start,
-50% Pop Growth, Feudal, and one of the 2 pter combat disadds.
Try to limit yourself to, at most, 10 picks, but it would be
better to take only 1 of the expensive ones, or 2 of the cheap
ones. The more daring won't take any picks at all 8-).
Rob steals a quote:
Evolution is caused in part by changing environments,
such as the ice ages.
(rcjo...@prairienet.org)
Thomas Madden
In article <petranE2...@netcom.com>, ste...@bae.bellcore.com wrote:
>John Alcock (jal...@ct1.nai.net) wrote:
>: "Bjorn Lovoll" <cpts...@wolfenet.com> wrote:
>
>: And even at the harder levels: my experience has been that you can
>: successfully make NAP's with all your non-repulsive neighbors and stay
>: at peace for quite a while. You get quite a bit of benefit from this
>: in the form of trade and research agreements. In my games, it's only
>: when a war has started between me and somebody else (whether because I
>: started it, I was framed or whatever), that the CP's begin to get less
>: friendly. They're suspicious of me, see, because I'm warlike.
>
>Good, I wasn't the only one that noticed this. If the game indeed does take
>that into account, then MAJOR kudos to the developers of MOO2.
>
regularity one must conclude that the AI has decided that it is time to start
fighting -- and that means you. One race declares war, then another, then
another. None will consider peace -- all are hellbent on your destruction.
This, BTW, is not in response to your relative position. You can be a
struggling pygmie and, once that trigger flips, all of the races find a reason
to go to war with you. This is not a fun way to make hard hard. Give them
more ships, easier technology, better weapons -- but don't disable diplomacy
after turn 50!
Tom
Thomas Madden
In article <58vhpp$e...@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>, t...@holly.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Tyson Richard DOWD) wrote:
[snip -- why MOO diplomacy is like MOO2]
>
>>To sum up -- give us back MOO's diplomacy and MOO2 will sing.
>
>No, you're probably just sweetened your memories of MOO's diplomacy.
>
of the behaviors of MOO2 diplomacy were present in MOO, but it is a difference
in degree. A big difference. Sure, a MOO race may be bent on your
annihilation and refuse to make peace with you, but do *all* of your opponents
do that? And at roughly the same time? I wouldn't mind if MOO2 made
diplomacy smarter, but just turning it off isn't the answer.
Tom
John Alcock
madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
>In article <petranE2...@netcom.com>, ste...@bae.bellcore.com wrote:
>>John Alcock (jal...@ct1.nai.net) wrote:
>>: "Bjorn Lovoll" <cpts...@wolfenet.com> wrote:
>>
>>: And even at the harder levels: my experience has been that you can
>>: successfully make NAP's with all your non-repulsive neighbors and stay
>>: at peace for quite a while. You get quite a bit of benefit from this
>>: in the form of trade and research agreements. In my games, it's only
>>: when a war has started between me and somebody else (whether because I
>>: started it, I was framed or whatever), that the CP's begin to get less
>>: friendly. They're suspicious of me, see, because I'm warlike.
>>
>>Good, I wasn't the only one that noticed this. If the game indeed does take
>>that into account, then MAJOR kudos to the developers of MOO2.
>>
>If, indeed it does... I don't think so. Since it happens with such stunning
>regularity one must conclude that the AI has decided that it is time to start
>fighting -- and that means you. One race declares war, then another, then
>another. None will consider peace -- all are hellbent on your destruction.
>This, BTW, is not in response to your relative position. You can be a
>struggling pygmie and, once that trigger flips, all of the races find a reason
>to go to war with you. This is not a fun way to make hard hard. Give them
>more ships, easier technology, better weapons -- but don't disable diplomacy
>after turn 50!
>Tom
Do you really mean turn 50? 5 years into the game? This is most
definitely not happening to me.
Actually, my last 3 or 4 games at Hard have been rather boringly quiet
and any action that started was started by me.
FWIW, here's my recipe for a quiet game at Hard (haven't tried
precisely this at Impossible yet):
1. Whenever you meet any non-repulsive race, instantly get a trade,
research and NA pact with them. Then leave them alone for several
turns.
2. I _think_ the CP's don't give much of a damn what you do with the
Repulsives. I guess THEIR relationships with the Repulsives aren't so
good either. In a recent game, the Darloks were my neighbors and
Repulsive. They started getting annoying, so I exterminated them.
None of my NAP partners minded in the slightest.
3. Exchange tech but don't bug them too often (wait several turns
between attempts)
4. If you see their attitude towards you start to slip below, say,
Peaceful, you might want to give them a low-level tech or two every
now and then. They like you a bit better after you do.
5. Don't spy on NAP partners. In fact, don't spy on anyone you're not
at war with.
6. Go easy on the Demands. If somebody steals a tech from you, ignore
it and build more spies and use them defensively. You can, I find,
demand that they stop spying if they like you, but it'll probably only
work once or maybe twice (pushing it).
7. Erratics and Repulsives are loose cannons. Don't expect any
consistency from their behaviour.
8. Get any diplomatic bonuses you can, including that tech (whose name
escapes me at the moment).
What you're trying to do here is get them to like you better than they
like the other CP's. If you can manage that, then I think they will
frame other CP's more often than you.
Note that this approach does not necessarily make for the most FUN
game possible. As I said, my last few games have been so quiet I've
had to stir things up myself. And some people, I suppose, might
disdain such a "wimpy" approach to CP relations. But it does seem to
work. Unless, of course, the random number generator hates you, in
which case all bets are off.
Thomas Neil Franklin
The way the diplomacy is now, you can't go for the peaceful
win. Why bother with the vote if the game is programmed to
hate you if you get too powerful, no matter how much you kiss
their asses?
--
Tom Franklin
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Internet: tn...@Virginia.edu
Doug Jacobs
Kagetora (kage...@pernet.net) wrote:
: In article <58p0in$k...@axb.slu.edu>, madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
: And it'd be nice if they gave *you* gifts occasionally, instead of having to
: kiss *their* ass all the time. And stop that stupid crap where they demand an
: exhorbitant amount of money from you or they go to war...especially if you can
: wipe them out quickly.
Actually, I have had the computer do this _ocasionally_ (very occasionally).
For some reason the dialog would go something like "We present a gift to
your empire.." and allow you to accept or reject it...why would you reject
a gift?
Peter J. Stewart
John Alcock (jal...@watson.ibm.com) wrote:
: FWIW, here's my recipe for a quiet game at Hard (haven't tried
: precisely this at Impossible yet):
[snip]
: 8. Get any diplomatic bonuses you can, including that tech (whose name
: escapes me at the moment).
I think the tech you're talking about is Xeno Relations, or something like
that. Also, there are several leaders that have diplomacy skills, and there's
always the Charismatic pick.
Peter J. Stewart
Doug Jacobs (dja...@rahul.net) wrote:
I would reject it if the gift were being given to sweeten the deal for an
offer of peace in a war that I'm winning hands down anyway. I only wish there
were a way to both reject the gift and demand unconditional surrender :)
Panther
Peter J. Stewart <pet...@netcom.com> wrote in article
<petranE...@netcom.com>...
> Doug Jacobs (dja...@rahul.net) wrote:
> : Kagetora (kage...@pernet.net) wrote:
> : : In article <58p0in$k...@axb.slu.edu>, madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden)
wrote:
>
> : : And it'd be nice if they gave *you* gifts occasionally, instead of
having to
> : : kiss *their* ass all the time. And stop that stupid crap where they
demand an
> : : exhorbitant amount of money from you or they go to war...especially
if you can
> : : wipe them out quickly.
>
hehehehe
What I think is stupid is when you are kicking the crap out of some empire
(Elerians in my case) and you take/destroy 5 of their planets in a few
turns, and then when you go to make peace with them (to squeeze that last
bit of tech out of them with spys) they want you to GIVE them a gift !! HA!
Why??? They have failed to even destroy 1 of my ships, they are losing
fast, and I am offerring them a way out and they refuse??? What kind of an
idiot rules this race?
--Jake
Doug Jacobs
Panther (jre...@cris.com) wrote:
: hehehehe
: What I think is stupid is when you are kicking the crap out of some empire
: (Elerians in my case) and you take/destroy 5 of their planets in a few
: turns, and then when you go to make peace with them (to squeeze that last
: bit of tech out of them with spys) they want you to GIVE them a gift !! HA!
: Why??? They have failed to even destroy 1 of my ships, they are losing
: fast, and I am offerring them a way out and they refuse??? What kind of an
: idiot rules this race?
Apparentally a prideful one ;)
I've had wars where I'd take a system or two, and the computer would _give_
me another system. Okey-dokey. Wait a few years, demand until they declare
war (hey, _I'm_ not the aggressor here ;) they're the ones who declared war)
and take another few systems.
Mike Delphia
No sh*t... I played three games "being nice", I built up a respectable fleet that
never attacked everyone, gave everyone everything they wanted. Made allies - who
attacked me for "insulting a diplomat". Nope, being nice didn't do a damn thing
for me. Game four was different. I started back-stabbing, and extorting everyone
in the game - I am winning and unless there are any ridiculous suprises I will
win.
It would be nice if alliances that were forged could win the game together
also. I played a play-by-email game. This game was space-based and consisted
of about 20 people. Teams of people won and rarely, if ever, did one person win.
The possibility of fighting with a CP in a game with 3-8 players would most likely
end up with only one winner but if an alliance could win, why not?
Trevor Barrie
madd...@slu.edu (Thomas Madden) wrote:
>Sorry that it hasn't arrived down-under yet. You make valid points, that many
>of the behaviors of MOO2 diplomacy were present in MOO, but it is a difference
>in degree. A big difference. Sure, a MOO race may be bent on your
>annihilation and refuse to make peace with you, but do *all* of your opponents
>do that?
Yes.
>And at roughly the same time?
Yes. Really, diplomacy was pretty much non-existent in MOO. I haven't seen
MOO2 yet, but I don't really see how it could be much worse.
TVspace
>A big difference. Sure, a MOO race may be bent on your
>annihilation and refuse to make peace with you, but do *all* of your
opponents
Does this happen to you often in MOO2? What, are you demanding tech from
everybody? ;-> I don't believe I've ever been at war with *all* of my
opponents at once, even when playing as the repulsive Borg I was able to
manage my diplomacy. Of course I play at Average level coz I don't like
cheats, and if you're playing at a more difficult level maybe that is the
way it's cheating. But for instance in the game I'm playing now as The
Foundation (telepathic fantastic traders, etc.) I've fought wars against
three opponents, one of which I caused by demanding technology,
maintaining peaceful relations against two who were wiped by the Klackons,
and I've had an alliance with the Psilons going strong for about 250
turns. My continuing showdown with the Klackons only persists because I've
refused their offers of peace.
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Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room.-Dr. Stranglelove
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