How do I convince the Senate to let me go to war?

usually works for me when I have good approval. As long as the approval is in the green, I don't think you should have an issue.

There is one tactic to try and goad them into war. Create a bunch of troop ships and put 1 troop inside them (I don't know if the AI can see how many troops you have on a troopship) and then cluster those around some worlds of thiers.

Fairly simple solution. Change your government back to Imperial, and do what you want. Poo on the senate.

I actually just went back to the game after reading some posts here and discovering that the other race needs alliances too to form one with you, so I gifted the tech to the Iconians and Humans, formed alliances, and won the game. So there you go. Didn't really feel like a win, though. I never fought one battle the whole game, and didn't even actively try to get people to like me. They all just ended up with close relations to me for some reason. My custom race has the super diplomat ability, so I'm sure that has somehting to do with it, but I didn't put any other particular effort into getting them to like me. Somehow I thought tough level would be harder...

I didn't know you could change your government back. Probably should have been able to figure that out for myself... oh well. Knowledge for the next game.

Oh yes, you can government flop every turn if you like. Sometimes Imperial just lets you say "Not on my watch" when the need arises.

AFAIK, you still need a majority vote to go back to an "earlier" government form, but you can do it from the Government screen on your colony manager (whatever F6 is).




well, then why'd you sit around waiting!?! obviously you were on the ball enough to keep the AI from going to war with you, so it sounds like if you want conflict you'll either have to be the aggressor, or play on a harder difficulty level. way to go!

as far as the senate preventing you from going to war, that's never happened to me. did another party out-vote yours, or what?

you could also turn off all of the win options

I usually turn alliance victories off for exactly the reason you mention, it never eally feels like a win. It's much too easy to ride another races coat tails to "victory" without ever doing anything.

I turn off research victories too, since the AI doesn't seem to reliably have the sense to come after you when you try that one, so again it feels like a nothing victory.

Since the AI seems to get more and more fond of you for every planet you flip I may have to nix cultural victory as well, we'll see.

This is especially helpful if you get the galactic depression event (where apporval rates plummet). THat way you can stablinze things before your next vote.

Just remember, it is much more fun if you refer to it as "disolving the Senate" or "seizing authority".

I think the reason they stopped me from going to war was a combination of the fact that I had close relations with the humans at the time, and the fact that while my party (federalists) was in power, I actually didn't have a majority of the seats, the vote split pretty evenly between me, the populists, and somebody else, so I was the highest vote getter with less than 50% of the votes. I thought about stepping the difficulty level up this time, but I'm still pretty new at this. That last game was my first on tough, so I did the control-N thing a couple of times until I was in the middle of a couple of star clusters. This new game, and from now on, I resolved to just play whatever I got. I am right now in a large cluster that I share with Iconians that's very isolated from the rest of the galaxy. Even if I take them out, I still might have less planets than any of the guys in the main portion of the galaxy, so this ought to be more interesting. If I win this without too much trouble I'll raise the difficulty again.

Good luck . I too have never experienced the things you mentioned in your earlier posts .I am only one year into a painfull and all the AI have ganged up against me but my approval rating still allows me to control the senate   

Damn Squishy Organic Meatbags, the Senate.

-Have I mentioned the Yor rock?

> How do I convince the Senate to let me go to war?

Lie to them and the public about uranium shipments. Oops, wrong Senate....

I'm with tyrantus, Coup d'état their asses out of power.

If you play more of an EVIL type player you'll get activity from the AI. I normally played around neutral in my early games and found I could do almost anything without the AI ever declaring war on me except some puny EVIL race with 4 colonies which I stomped in the dirt. lol Think about reality, good rarely fights good unless provoked or "paid off" haha like I do sometimes and have some good/neutral races get it on with each other, then pay off another as those are weakening to take on the victor then another doing the same until there's nobody left strong eough to take ME on and I just waltz in and take all the nice planets and capitals that I have setup fleets near during all this waring of other races. lol It's quite hilarious an effective, but, really an exploit of the AI.

If only I could program the AI's of some of these games. People would be screaming this AI is TOO HARD. lol I've had the pleasure of being able to adjust two AI's for two different games. Spartan by Slitherine and Kohan II and passed those mods around and people really enjoyed the challenge of my AI's. I don't believe in "passive" AI's in dadgum strategy or wargames. I believe in aggression and the fastest way to it and pouring it on the human player from all sides. Forget diplmoacy and tribute and all that bunk, when you play against MY AI's you have played against a challenge that you will always remember and sometimes even scream about. lol

From paying espinage and getting to high level being able to view AI planets that is where I'm a little disappointed in the AI. It almost seems like it has no structure or intelligence in building up like say in Civilization. I got two Yor Planets (who surrendered to me after getting stomped by another AI after I paid that AI to stop attacking them lol go figure) and the CAPITAL had FIVE Xeno labs deep into the game, no improvements, had like two unfinished upgraded factories a low level recreation center with 16 pop max (when I got it it went to 36% happiness/morale have no idea what level of morale/happiness the Yor were getting with maxed 16 pop an only a low level recreation center), typical Starport, one 4x food production and one open space and that's it. What a POS starting capital planet.

I viewed another race and all it built on nearly every planet were mfg centers and research centers, no happy stuff, no banks or trade except for 1 eco capital at it's capital without even any eco like trade or bank or nutin there either. And every single planet was building some type of "small 10hp fighter ship" lol except 1 which was building a construct. You should have seen all the mfg centers or research centers in "bonus" tiles for Influence or Growth or Approval. This is where the AI looks like it doesn't think most. I always, always plant an influence building when I get a bonus influence tile. It at least did plant the mfg's and research buildings on bonus tiles of their type, but, wasted (I think) a lot of potential power/abilities by not placing influence buildings in their bonus tiles. It also appeared it had no intention of building up population by using up all the tiles for mfg's or research something else I always always do with any planet 5 or better is always always leave a tile open for growth (using food production).

Something else I'm noticing is I always get ALL the super techs and I'm playing on Painful difficulty. I still outpace 90% of the AI's in research every single game so far. Might have to move up another notch. I also notice a race with like 3 or 4 planets does this tech race crap and never gets any good ships out into the play before it gets stomped. Like the Terrans, they were waaayyyyy ahead of all of us in Beam Weapons to Phasors III, but, got stomped by the Altarians before they even got to use it. What good does it do to tech race if you don't build anything while doing so? (Got me some Phasor III tech upgrade though before they got stomped lol) It's kinda funny for a long time they wouldn't trade any weapons techs to me, then all of a sudden when they are near the end they trade me their highest tech haha so here I get Phasor III's and get to bypass ALL that other junk before it and then start churning out my 18's Beam Laser powerships and stomp everyone afterwards. lol
Yah know though? If I were losing that's probably what I would do also just to piss everyone else off, give my best techs to another race just so they could cream everyone else with them. lol Maybe the AI has a human mind afterall? haha

Hi!

I never, never, never put an influence building on a bonus influence tile, (save Stock Markets). But I have to add that I never, never, never build any influence building at all. Why shall I do that when the closest AI planet is in the next sector, and my planets aren't in danger of flipping? I played only one game where I culturally flipped my opponents. It was so easy it almost felt cheese.

However in DA it seems I'll need some influence support, as those mining stations flip way to easily. However I'll rather build that Galactic Wonder on only one tile, than "waste" many tiles on many planets. Here in DA with nerfed-down infrastructure I always feel I'm lacking free tiles, much more than in DL.

BR,   Iztok

Q: How do I convince the Senate to let me go to war?

A: Easy, you tell them that the "enemy" has weapons of mass destruction.

The usefulness of the influence bonus tiles varies depending on the density of your maps. If it's dense, the influence is most definitely useful. And it doesn't have to be on your borders--when flipping, the game somehow takes into account your civilization's overall influence. It affects your diplomacy as well.

If you're on a sparse map, lots of life support, well--influence isn't so great. Just build the Restaurant of Eternity (like Iztok said) and be done. That is, unless influence starbases are part of your strategy. I know for me, though, on a sparse map I'm going for the conquest, not influence.