Buying the galaxy through diplomacy

Have you patched up yet? The diplomacy gets much harder after the more recent set of patches.

And yes, Super Diplomat really is a super ability - you can do a lot of ridiculous stuff with it.

its true, you can do alot with the diplo super. untill every one else get the diplo techs as well. then... its not so much supper, just kinda shinny and neat. Or atleast thats what ive read ive never played with the humans since ive heard to many crappy things about how the diplo super ability sucks in mid to late game. and every game ive seen the human AI play they just get shatted on. because they have soo much infuence every one winds up hating them, dispite their diplo cunning. but then again maybe im not the best to be responding since i dont play them

Anyway, yes the AI tech trading gets abserd with the updates, however i dont know if that applys to planet trading. If your currently running the patch maybe this is actually the reason for your problem. maybe the AI values the techs sooo much due to the tech trading updates that, with your diplo abilities, their willing to give you whatever you want for just a few precious techs... anyway hope that helps.

They never easily sell their planets to me. Unless its like a class 4 in my system, then they still want 20,000BC! D:

You can do a lot with diplomacy. In the latest patch they really tightened up tech trading on the Masochistic, Obscene and Suicidal difficulty levels. Before that, there are still a lot of options.

If it seems too easy, try upping your difficulty.

Hi!

Yesternight I as Humans bought in a suicidal game a class 11 planet for Planetary Improvements and Advanced Trade. In fact at turn 30 a half of my ~10 planets are bought.   I'm abusing the Super Diplomat to the extent never seen in my games, and I used to do a lot of trading.   

BR, Iztok

Yeah, I too bought a bunch of planets off of a race that I had set to the highest level in resources and difficulty. It amazed me when they were willing to trade planets with only a few hundred million to a billion population for only a few techs. I guess it's one way to get an influence victory.

Iztok - I'm jealous. I don't ever play with humans, but for me buying planets is tricky, and not something I can depend on yet. Are there any pointers you can pass on that I might be overlooking?

Thanks.

Hi!

Don't be. I'm just imitating your gaming style, using more suitable Super Diplomat for that. And you probably know what's said about imitating.


Nothing I'm aware of: I have ALL techs that increase diplomatic abilities (but last majesty, federation and last two ethic ones), and 've lease-bought Diplo Translators. The Galactic Showcase is pending (not in queue), and I still don't have the last trade tech for the "wonder" that increases my trade offers' values by 50%.

In fact I'm not doing so well. Too low research output (~50% of the best AI) to get more mil/soc production from focus. IMO I turned to 100% research too early. I'd probably fared better (built more labs) by keeping 1%/66%/33% for a dozen more turns, and buying one factory before labs. The only planet that's fuly covered with Basic labs and one Research center is Earth (a factory on a 300% production tile helped a lot there). The second one has 4 labs finished, and the rest of planets has one bought, two-three in queues, the rest are Trade centers. I don't generate lots of money from the trade-abuse: other AIs (9 mayors, 5 minors) simply don't have enough money to pay my trades each 4th turn. On average I collect only ~4000BC each 4th turn, and that's just enough to buy one structure on each planet and maybe two small-hull constructors, and keep running a ~300BC deficit. So at times I'm "simply" trading tech for tech, or for their research treaties (IIRC about 12 of them ), or for planets. Takes a LOT of time though Techs also became more expensive, so I can't research so many of them to profit significantly by trading them.

BTW I don't get a ++ in relations from their research treaties. Like in your case I still have only the starting 40% econ ability, despite having Democracy and Trade centers. IMO two bugs.

Will report what happens further.

BR, Iztok

i've never been able to buy planets trough diplomacy no matter how much money or tech i give them, this made me think that it wasnt even possible.

There is a big jump in AI asking price when the planet population gets over ~2 Billion. Look for planets that have under 1B. I don't have it all down yet either, but that is a huge factor.

Yeah, it's probably an easy way to get freshly "spored" worlds from the Korath that way, since there's pretty much no population to speak of. I've only tried getting planets as the Terran Alliance though, so I'm not certain how it would be for another civ that doesn't have Super Diplomat.

I played Terrans on Painful before the last few patches and found planet buying a cheap way to cinch the game very early, with or without Diplo Trans or all the diplo techs. As the last phases of the colony rush continues as the AI builds space ports at new planets the colony ships have very little populations. You can buy these low population colonies for a song. Heck, for an economic and/or research treaty the Krynn basically gave me 2/3 of his empire. I documented this in an AAR a while ago.

I haven't played Terrans since the last two patches and this little exploit has probably been nerfed.

Still, it is worth exploring. Perhaps some of the techs the AI values (logistics, extreme colonization, weapons) can be sold to good effect this way.

Hydro

Does Super Diplomat make it easier to buy planets?
Do you have to have an overwhelming diplo ability for this to work?

I saw this strategy a couple days after it was posted and I could not believe it could happen. Immediately I started a suicidal game and tried out this strategy using the Drath. There opening Diplomacy bonus is a little bit higher, I think they get better approval also. So I thought this would help in making the planets cheaper, getting my economy out of the whole faster, and the Super Manipulator will let me make people go to war with each other while I am still building my defenses.

But low and behold when the Iconians made contact with me and I tired to buy any one of their planets it was well beyond 4500BC which is all I had. Even a class 5 with 500 million people on it.

Am I missing something about this strat?
Did the most recent patch own this strat?

Honestly the map setup I recieved with this Drath game could not be better (I am in middle of galaxy, all the rest of the races are on one side of the map, I have an 700% industry bonus tile on my home planet,and their are two class 11 and two class 12 that I colonized early).

Oh and I didn't even use rest the map until I got a galaxy that I liked. It was the first try.

Super diplo, diplomatic translator structure, and a number of diplo techs all help to reduce the cost. The Bazaar might help, too.

But I don't know how well this works in 1.5x DA.

Hydro

in the AAR I'm playing, pretty epic, I declared war on the antarrens and was planning on wiping them off the map, taking their territory, when I declared war, I guess I did it wrong. I attacked a ship without clearing the research treaty I had first with them (formally declaring war), so got huge minuses to all further diplomatic endevours from that point on. When I declared war, my two other neighbors also joined the fight, but I was fine fighting all 3....

In the end Antarrens were wiped out, and other two gave me many planets just to do a peace treaty. actually I think both of two surviving races were surprised that I bothered with diplomacy, and gave me the kitchen sink in order to just survive....

I'm not sure exactly where I am in timeline, since this is my first game on normal, and I am still learning. The Drengins hate me though, and they did say my influence is scary...used some funny adjective, will have to look it up again. lol

War with the drengins/korath seems inevitable....I'm prepping for it as best I can right now, but at war with two other races......the two races I am fighting Yor and Korth haven't been hurt enough yet to start handing over their planets....although I'm owning them with my ships, they haven't killed one....Yor did have scary missile ability similiar to Drengins rail guns, so they have been hurting my ships....just not destroying few if any....

Buying the galaxy has always been extremely viable. That had been my winning Impossible strat in MOO2 so I immediately tried it on GalCvi2 the moment I played. It's viable through all versions of the game, at least at Tough difficulty or less.

Super Diplomat, Diplo Translators, and at least a three Diplo tech advantage will provide the baseline.

You'll need a large treasury. Techs are nice for buying stuff, but generally speaking, it's better to buy with money.

Population is the singlemost important variable when buying planets. That means that it's easiest and cheapest to buy planets that are in the middle of war territories or have been newly established. This strategy will necessitate that you spread yourself out throughout the galaxy. You will probably not be able to wage a war until you have the game well in hand - you're too spread out to defend yourself competently. You defend yourself with a token military presence, trade, diplomacy, and treaties.

Yes, this will often involve bending over backwards anf gifting people with tech and money. You will sometimes have to ask people to go to war for you in order to defend your planets or to provide the opportunity for "new acquisistions." Super Manipulator helps in this regard, but it doesn't help much with costing, so Super Diplomat is really better.

Populist governments together with invested point in Population Growth are best. The morale helps keep your population taxable, and making babies helps make new low-pop planets useful faster. Sometimes, I load population onto Transports, not to take over planets, but just to shift populations around so as to help new colonies on the startup.

The Populist Party also incidentally helps with Diplomacy, so that's a good thing.

I prefer focusing on Defense when I pursue this strategy. You won't have much Tech to go around so instead of investing in Logistics and Weapons, invest in hulls and Defense instead. You'll only need the most basic of weapons tech to win as long as your ship is invulnerable. Less ships saves on maintenance, and if your ships are powerful enough, one Medium ship can take out entire armadas of 10-15 high Logistics fleets (up to 24 Logistics points each).

You'll have to switch around Defense depending on who you're fighting, but generally speaking, enemy fleets tend to focus only on one kind of offense. Mixing offense types generally doesn't work since secondary offense powers aren't all that strong. Defense techs are cheap enough that you can usually trade for the base techs and work your way up to the relevant techs without too much cost.


In contrast, you will usually have the weapons tech you need because the AI doesn't prioritize Defense very much. You can even field in a 2 Beam Power weapon and still win.

Military Resources are your friend. You'll need them to save on ship and weapons/defense tech spending. Morale Resource helps, of course, but until your pop gets way up, your native Morale should be enough. Econ Resources help you acquire money, but money won't usually save you from an invading warlord. Tech Resources will probably be second only to Military Resources in terms of importance. You'll need to have some modicum of technological parity in important areas (and Diplo tech advantage) to pull this off.

Oh yes - take it easy on the influence. Diplo techs that don't gain influence are best. What you want is to own the galaxy, not to inundate it with influence. Get only enough influence so that your bought planets don't revolt. Stop there. You definitely don't want the relations hit from a too-high influence count.

Hi!

I abandoned the game after another night of playing. I just don't have the patience to do 20-30 minutes of trading each 4th turn.

BR, Iztok