Diplomatic Penalties for Aggression

Hi!

In DA I got negative diplo "points" for starting wars, for exterminating a race and for breaking treaties (econ and/or research one I gave to AI). But differrent races had different "sensitvity" for the first two events.

You can avoid the first one with parking troop transport close to the race you want a war with, so they declare the war on you.

The second penality you avoid by getting peace treaty just before the race is exterminated. E.g. you don't take that race's last small planet, and make peace treaty with it. When that planet flips or the race surrenders, it's not counted as you'd conquered it.

The third penality you avoid by not giving your econ and research treaty to anybody. I usually saved the research one for the most hostile and strong neighbour, so I'd got one diplo plus with it. Coupled with one trade route and better diplo ability it was usually enough to avoid being attacked by that race, this develping my empire in peace for another game year or more.

AIs play (mostly) by the same rules as the live player. So penalities I counted above very likely apply also to them.

BR,  Iztok

Thanks for your reply. So there are subtantial diplomatic advantages for playing non-aggressively; glad to hear it.

Are these diplomatic penalties different for "good" and "evil" ethical alignments? I hope that they're harsher for "good" and less severe for "evil"; "Evil" races should be expected to aggressively war much more than "good".

Not really, no.

But if you're Evil, evil races like you better (up to a point), so they're less likely to go after you than if you're Good/Neutral (up to a point).

Hi!

Not really. About the only small diplo advantage for non-aggressive play is the + in relations for long lasting peace. In this game calculated aggression pays out nicely. If you're not expanding on account of other races, you'll lose at the end, because most AIs do.

If you really want a peacefull game, you should exclude aggressive AIs from your game. In DA those were Drengin and Korath, and partucularly those bloody Drath with their war-inciting super-ability.

BR,  Iztok

Iztok's reply is on the money if a high score is your main goal--the scoring math strongly favors aggression.

But plenty of us just like to play, and if you're interested in an Alliance victory you can most certainly have a good game with the Drengin and Korath on the board. (I admit I shun the Drath, but I probably just have a bad attitude about their Super Ability.)

Also, I tend to stay in a basic settings rut for the maps I play, and I have definitely seen more than a few games where the biggest aggressor on the map was a so-called Good civ like the Torians, Iconians, or Altarians--even with Drengin, Korath, and Yor in the mix.

p.s. All these AI behavior remarks from us 'old' players should be taken with a bit of salt b/c Stardock have been diligent in steadily tweaking, and mostly improving, their behavior.

On the topic of ai diplomacy, anyone notice how sometimes the computer will come to the aggressor's side in a war, but claim they're doing it to stop the other guy's "war of aggression"? This happened in my last game. The Terrans, who were the most powerful civ in the galaxy, declared war on the Drengin Empire, who had just 2 planets. On the very next turn, the Altarians and a few others piled on by declaring war also. This is fine, but the diplomacy text should match what's really going on--they should just say the opportunity has come to take out an evil civ, or something like that.

Another thing that really bugs me is when the ai contacts you with that old "We're going to war with X, a civilization with a great deal of persuasion convinced us to do so." I thought the computer was supposed to treat the human player the the same as ai players, but I've NEVER been asked by any civ X to declare war on civ Y. Sometimes I can put that option on the table, but if the computer never suggests it how could races like the Drath use their super ability?

I think it has to do with the difficulty levels and the AI's personality. Have you played on the higher levels with manipulative civs like the Drath?

I've never played on anything above "tough", but the ai should be maxed out at that point.

It should, but there's still the fact that if you are in the leed monetarily, they probably would not try to pay you, as they have nothing you want and I think they actually know it.