Is "Super Diplomacy" an Oxymoron?

Trading was tweaked a while ago, and as a result the AI' acts like everything is thier last can of beans in a twelve year famine. I miss the old days...

I'm playing almost exclusively with the Terrans too, and in terms of the perceived value (or in this case, the lack of it) of the Super Diplomacy trait, I have to completely agree with Vlacknar.

Stardock rehauled the SD ability in one of the last patches, and since then it totally lost its edge. As Terrans you now have to put at least three techs on the line to trade ANY tech the race you're negotiating with has and trading military techs or proposing economy/research treaties have become ridiculously difficult to near impossible, unless you are on "close" terms with the other race.

In my opinion, the SD ability has at least to be somewhat buffed to its former glory, otherwise it remains a pretty pointless super ability as it is now.

Interesting... my last 2 games were almost only won through Super Diplomat. Both were on Tough difficulty level, 9 random AI's, large map. Both were won through a diplomatic victory, the second game i wasn't even declared war throughout the whole thing. What i do is make sure i have all 9 research treaties while i draw attention away by making sure everyone is at war with at least 2 to 3 opponents while researching all the government and diplomatic techs.

As for tech trading, well, my experience is again totally different. Last game there was a moment where i lost focus and let other races attitude towards me drop to Neutral. Now i don't know about you guys but the Drath agreed to go to war with the Altarian, Korath, Drengin and Krynn for... Laser V. The others were similarily bribed with Laser V, Point Defense II, Starbase Defenses... and they were not of my alignment. There were 4 neutral (me included), 3 good, 3 evil.

I suggest not looking a SD as a way to get more techs but as a way to create wars and divert attention from you while making money. I don't even try to get techs from the other races because i am the one selling tech, which is a great way to keep them low on money. I don't even sell diplomacy, influence, colonization or soldiering techs, usually it's just 2 weapon lines and their corresponding defense, trade line, eventually some morale, miniaturization and support techs. If i'm going for beam, i trade missiles and mass drivers as well as their defenses.

I used a custom race with the following:
+30% Economics
+20% Research
+5% Pop Growth
+30% Social Prod
+30% Military Prod
Technologists Party
Super Diplomat

And the standard +6% Logistics. Not one single diplomacy point.

That is funny, I am playing Terrans on Suicidal with 9 opponents on a Huge map and super diplomacy is the only ability that is saving me. The AI even trades some of the lower range weapons techs with me. Their are only a handful of techs that they won't give up (pretty much the top level of just about any tree). If anything I think the super diplomacy ability is rediculously good. Oh and I have 7 out of the 9 tech treaties in the game (which means slid my research bar to 0 and didn't build a single lab). If you don't call that a good superability I don't know what is. You just have to trade like mad and stay ahead of them on the diplo techs.

Look up the thread "tell me how you dominate" and read WYNDSTAR's post. He is godly at strategy.

Oh and I am playing 1.50 DA and I had no extra points in diplomacy.

Thats exactly why. 1.50 is the "straight out of the box" version. Patch it via Stardock, and you wont have that edge anymore.

Forgot to point out that i've been playing with DA 1.6 beta 4.

mmm, currently i'm busy with a meta game, playing the krynn, played for 3 years now on crippling level with 7 AI's on gigantic map.
I have tech trading on, i have like 3 economic treaties and 4 research treaties. i was able to stay out of wars and so far the trading goes pretty well.
Ofcourse i have ot research the weapons and colonizing tech myself but imo thats only fair, else this game would be to easy.