Alliances. How to get Close with your friends?

Besides what you are already doing (giving them loads of free stuff always helps) there are a couple of other things.

1. Have lots of trade with them. If their economy depends upon you, they tend to like you.

2. Check you alignment. They just won't like you if your alignment is too different from theirs, unless you give them *masses* of stuff.

I spent ages in one game trying to get the Arceans to like me when I was pure good (they were the most powerful civ) but they wouldn't have it. So I switched and helped the Torians and Altarians instead, forming alliances with them (after giving them a few thousand bc, lots of techs and some ships) and declaring war on the Altarians.

23000 sounds like a lot. I have generally found a gift of say 2000 for 5 turns is enough to bump the relation silder a few notches at once, but I guess it depends how much the money means to them. If they are rolling in it already, they probably don't appreciate it as much.

I saved the game and tried serveral ways.

Gave a system each month. No change. (They were at Friendly to start)
I have them the 23000 all at once. No change.
I gave them 3000 for 7 months. No change.
I gave them ALL my ships and starbases etc...

Finally I gave up and just curtured them to death.

TFM

~SDC~

Gifts alone are not enough. Trade with them...a lot.

You mean trading Tech and ships? Or does giving them starbases help?

Or do you mean trade as in tradeships?

TFM

~SDC~

I mean: establish trade. Send freighters to their systems.

#4

TFM,

Trade routes/freighters seem to be the single best way to improve diplomatic relations.

Apparently you gain a +diplomatic bonus each turn you have an active trade route with an AI Empire. (You might also get this per route, so multiple routes = more bonus points.)

By establishing commerce with an AI over time, they think better and better of you until they finally reach "close" relations. At this point you can propose an alliance, if you have researched the tech.


~SDC~

Ahh, I'll have to try that next time. I've been trading with the minors a lot because it's been so convienent. But if that's what makes the difference...

I'd like to win a game where all 5 races and I are allied...

TFM

~SDC~

I'd love to see confirmation on whether or not multiple trade routes makes an AI like you faster or not. I generally direct all of my trade routes towards one AI in the hope of quickly pushing our relationship to Close. Maybe that's a waste.

I think trade routes do make a difference. All of my trade except one is with the Altarians since they were the furthest away and now they're close in relations. Of course I'm also fighting one of the enemies.

One trade route doesn't seem enough to change relations, or so it seems. I'm GUESSING from my experiences that you need to have the other empire reliant on you for a certain % of their economy, and that you need to maintain that for a certain number of turns in order to push a relationship from Friendly to Close. I'm just guessing though.

My last game had me versus the Torian with all other races, except 2 minors gone. I had heavy trade with one and the other was at war with Torians like me.

Relationships with minors both sat on "friendly". To tip the scale I gave them every tech I had; which was considerable since I was finishing up Researching the Wormhole crap.

BAM- instant friends. I allied with them and sent the Carinoids to fight more aggressively thanks to new tech (no, a Carinoid OVerlord is not a myth!)

But yeah, I really hate the whole, once you go evil there is no turning back, thing. This same game probably could have led me to be friends with the Good races instead of enemies. I was evil in the beginning to get my feet planted nicely. But after I killed off the Dregin (who were pounding the Torians), I'd expect a little slack! After the first 20 turns, I made no EVIL decisions when Random Events came up. Yet, I could NOT get out of being Evil. Plus, I dont like the fact that the comp players no you are evil even before you meet them. I made three evil decisions (stupid worms on the planets thing) before I even had diplomatic translators. And when I finally met the Altarians, they deemed me as Hostile. WTH?! Give a brother some room before you go passing judgement based on his wardrobe!

-HrK-

There be skeletons in your wardrobe

Hmmm....so it might be possible to force a relationship to Close by sharing a common enemy as well as sharing heavy trade. Interesting.

Of course, it's also possible that you had enough trade with both that you counted for a significant part of each of their income. It's easier to ally with minors than just about anybody else, since their income from taxes isn't as high.

Be wary when trading with the major civs; if they declare war on you and are your major trading partner, you are very dead.

Just an update here...it seems to matter not only what % of their income you account for, but also what % of their overall trade as well. I had a recent game where I managed to have the Dregs be Close with only 26% of their income dependant on me, while the Torians were not Close depite having 30+% of their income coming from trade with me. The difference? The Dregs ONLY source of trade income was me (26% from trade, 26% from me) while the Torians were trading heavily with the Arceans as well (30% from me, but 50% from trade overall). The Torians then eliminated the Arceans via culture flipping...and voila, we then became Close since I was the only one left they were trading with. (Only the Torians, Arceans, and Drengins remained at the start of this scenario I just described, and it was on a tiny map on Incredible.)