ok got tired of reading all those so, sorry if my suggestion has already been brought up.

I would like to be able to go neutral with enemies/allies. I guess it would work kind of like the cease-fire, but I would like missions to not come up from them while neutrality is in effect. So I guess what I'm looking for is a temporary way to ignore each other if both agree, or something like that. Maybe I'll pay you so much to leave me alone for the next hour while I wipe everyone else out, or however you want to implement it. 

Also another random thought, how about different AI style for not just how they play on the RTS side but also for how they behave diplomatically.  Like you could have warmonger AIs, peaceful AI, Exploiters, traitors, and so on, or however you want to classify them.

[quote who="-=XX=-Nephilim" reply="2" id="2167564"]Shorter MP game modes with number of different win conditions!!!

 

This game doesn't need anything else IMHO.

 

Diplomacy is nice and all but it should come only after fundaments are fixed and in place...

 

And fundaments are: better MP system and SP campaign of some sort... 
[/quote]

Those aren't necessarilly fundamentals for all people. Not everyone plays MP, and a campaign would be of limited use, I don't even play campaigns for most RTS's I play.

4X games don't need a campaign, and typically don't have one. Personally I think the effort needed to make a campaign would be a waste of time and effort. SOASE has already given me several hundred hours of play. A campaign couldn't do that, and would take longer to build than adding lots more features to the game that could be used over and over again.

Scripted events in the course of regular play might be interesting however. EG discovering ancient alien technology or a phase lane being destroyed or created, perhaps new empires forming from allied unconquered neutral planets, etc.

Perhaps not diplomacy-related, but I'd like a way to define 'off limits' areas. I tire of ships taking the fastest way possible right through the pirate stronghold, or what have you. Simply by designating an area 'off limits', they'd automatically skirt around it.

Hello,

this is what i would like to see in next expansion:

- Improved trade agreement - not only makes trade route longer (normal TA) but also gives half of trade income of another player.

- Export/import of resources to other players - for example 1metal/sec for 3 credits/sec and two versions of it: limited - will export/import resources for a brief of time but if revoked earlier player who breaks contract must pay penalty to other player, unlimited - no penalty and no time limits.

- Make trade ships from 1 trade port phase jumping together (convoys) it will give more income but will be more vulnerable for enemy's attacks.

- Maybe research treaty - it will accumulate numbers of all labs between players with treaty, an improved version would also make research faster and/or cheaper if players have the same amount of labs (for example 1 player have 2 civ labs and 2nd player have 4 civ labs so both players have faster/cheaper research on tier 2and can research subjects on tier 6)

- Espionage - agents recruited in empire or in underground, they would comlete missions like sabotage, incite revolt, steal credits/resources counter intelligence, hunt for enemy spies, aquire empire/planet/tech info and if the same race steal technology.

- Diplomatic manipulation - for example force another player to attack, make peace or break/make agreement with another player, in exchange (or without) for alliance/agreement/peace or resources/tech/planet

- Ability to exchange planets for other planets or resources, also gifts and demands.

- Ability to sacrifice tax income to boost asteroid extraction rate.

- More culture usefullness.

- If planet is overthrowed by your culture, then planet should join your empire, not go neutral.

- Maybe this is not diplomatic way, but sending invasion forces to planets would be good.

- Make trade ships bigger (only visual), or make new bigger trade ships that would give more income if researched/built.

- Players would be able to communicate with each other only when discovered (not on locked teams).

- When player discover another player, status between them would be neutral, not at war.

- Maybe diffrent government types for each race.

- New paths to victory, not only total military supremacy.

- Ways to take planets not only through bombardment and colonizing.

- Culture should overthrow more quickly planets with less population.

- Stronger pirate forces in late game.

I think that's all, sorry if some suggestions someone wrote earlier.

the ability to bribe pirates to launch an attack against a specific enemy, even for them to coordinate with an ongoing attack

the ability to be able to trade techs, ships, planets, with other races

My 5 requests:

1 Multiple Pirate factions. is it truly realistic that every criminal in the game has allied itself with every other one? Even mutiny on lone pirate ships would make sense. And if you attack their base, they add a vendetta against you, making them attack you at random.

2 A sense of urgency or random events. A star going nova, perhapse, or a new AI player appearing at random, even The Death Star appearing out of nowhere and blowing up a planet. In addition, give the backround info a purpose: F.e. if a map is game is not won by a certain time, the advent unity fails, or a coup de tat in TEC, or the Vasari's unknown doom. These wouldn't immediatly end the game, but would introduce a near-invincable juggernaut that would require more resources than that of one empire to ammend or fight.

3 The ability to destroy a planet. Perhaps a fleet of a certain size can fire all weapons at once at a planet to annihalate it, or add a special, super-expensive unit to do so. Similarly, a "burning earth" option should be available to add to your enemies' fear or demoralise them.

4 Juggernaut/dreadnaught type ships. You know, Super ships almost as large as a planet with enough weapons to destroy a small fleet ALONE.  Costing around 500 fleet poiints so you can only have a few.

5 Corporate downsizing for your fleets. If you maxed out your Fleet Logistics tree, you should be able to reduce the fleet upkeep by selling your ships. Or perhapse the tech in that tree can be toggled, like a "level of war/peace". You research it, then you can turn it on and off depending on how much of a fleet you want and/or have.

i just hope that the devs will look at a bunch of other threads and not just this one, i havent read every single post, but there are some good ideas about buffing the novalith, new ships, and general improvements elsewhere

just wanted to say that im sure its already happening, but still

another thing came to my mind: I'd like to see the stats section expanded. you know, currently we have information of our rank in fleet, colonisation, economy, etc. but these are fairly imprecise numbers and there are a few things I'd like changed:

1) indexing: right now, being 1st means fairly little. in fleet size it could mean you have 10 pts in fleet supply more than the second or it could mean you have double the fleet size. sure, in some cases you know when you are dominant, but still, the lack of absolute scale and its restriction to purely relative numbers makes the whole thing less useful than it could be.

2) see ranking of players: if I am 1st, who is second or what rank does player 2 occupy? anything to give us an idea of how other players are faring in the game.

3) possibly more different stats. for example, research could be split into civilian and military, credits and resources into trade and refinery income respectively and we could get some info on starbases.

now, there are of course several ways to do this, but it's not really my point. do it just like that, make the extra info available via research themes, tie it into spying if such an element is to come. the point is that this is information I'd like to have and that the existing system is pretty limited. at least for me, a good deal of 4x playing is also looking at stats to evaluate where I am doing well compared to other empires and where I suck. civ IV military, population and output/ gold ratings are a good examples, I regularly check them during the game. ( btw civ IV had a nice way with this, it gave your values in absolute terms, the value of the best competitor and the value of the worst competior. you did not know, though could often infer, who was the most dangerous players and how well you are doing compared to the best in the game. so, instead of 1st in military, go best 790, you 800, worst 150)

Things I liked from previous posts:

• Fix pathfinding
  
• Auto feed ability to send continuous resources to teammates
• Team placement for maps
• Make managing versions of game easier
• Players can give other players/AI missions
  
• Ability to make treaty simple demands (eg don't put your warships here or we have issues)
  
• Alternate victory conditions
• Espionage and diplomatic ships
• Colonize planets simply through proliferation of culture
  

Dislike from previous posts:

I like the flow and feel of the game as it is now and I don't want it to get overly bogged down or complicated from it's current form with TOO MUCH diplomatic options.

Also, I didn't like the idea of removing fleet capacity. It adds a nice negative feedback loop that helps curb a player from getting too quick of a fleet size advantage.

My 2 cents on Previous Ideas:

Planet Gain Through Culture: I find it rather annoying that culture is only useful on enemy planets. I agree with previous posters that you should be able to colonize planets simply through using your culture spread on neutral planets. I think an easy way to implement this would be to work the opposite of how it works planet loss works on enemy planets. In other words, allegiance to your empire would continually increase on neutral planets. When the allegiance reaches it's maximum, the planet becomes colonized under your control.

Espionage Ships: I don't want to really add any "agent" type units. While they can be fun, they can really easily upset the balance of things, and I like how the game has done everything fairly well just using ships. I think it would be cool to add a stealth ship that can only be detected by a scout ship (after researching an upgrade to it). The stealth ship would be comparatively equivalent to a scout in combat, and would have to "decloak" to attack. BUT, it would have special abilities it could use while cloaked.

Example, maybe a TEC stealth ship would have some kind of resource steal ability similar to embargo but on a smaller level, or maybe it could cut a planet out a trade route as if it didn't have any trade ports (but the port still produces money).

Likewise, advent could "possess" one hangar strike craft for a duration or shut off a culture center.

Vas could reverse phase jump inhibitors to affect the owner or increase cooldown of defensive structures.

To help keep them from being overpowerd, and to make turrets even more strategic, turrets could be upgraded with a "sonar pulse" type ability. It would last for approximately 5 seconds, but have a cooldown of 8 or 10. When fired, the sonar would shade the gravity well, giving an imprecise location of the stealth ship (ie a large ellipse approxmating the location of the stealth ship). Firing multiple sonars (ie from different turrets) would allow overlapped shading to give a more precise estimation of the ship's location.

Diplomatic Ships: Researchable after culture centers, the diplomatic ship would be similar to a colony ship in speed, armored/shielded like a support cruiser, but be completely without weapons. The diplomatic ship would act as a mobile culture center (making culture wars much more strategic than "park my cap at the chokepoint to prevent his culture from affecting me).

In addition, it would have an ability ("diplomatic relations" possible name) where the ship would shuttle a diplomat to the surface of an enemy planet. The ability would not cost antimatter, but the ship becomes completely immobile and must suffer a 2 or 3 second period activation/deactivation period while it waits for the shuttle to go to and from the planet. While the ability is activated, the planet's allegiance loss/gain due to culture is multiplied by a ratio of 10 or whatever balances nicely. Also based on balancing, the effect could stack (or not if it's too OP).

To help with balancing, maybe you could only build as many diplomatic ships as you have culture centers (or maybe a fraction thereof, whatever balances better). Also, since it has no weapons, it would not take up fleet supply.

I agree, you just don't get more supply and crew compliments just from research, you usually get your crew and personnel from your population, either by mandatory conscription or enlistment, but the thing is, all of the planets population would need to rework, well they rework anyways, I mean a terran planet can only support 200-400 people only, a asteroid can only support 20? Surely, home planets should have a population (we are talking about the future) of 3 million - 10 billion at least.

I have posted quite a few suggestions for a pirates overhaul which I believe fit in the 'Diplomacy' theme:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/351529

About the diplomacy with gaming factions, though, I haven't said anything.

I will tell my ideas even if they have already been said, you should want to gauge the popularity of the ideas:

One capital per star system. It could be researchable, and not as effective as the 'Empire Capital'.

Change culture/allegiance mechanics. Culture should have consequences according to the relationship with the empire associated. I should be able to notice not only how much of my culture, but all other cultures in each of my planets as well. 'Corruption' counts as a culture too, and benefits mercenaries / pirates (see linked post above).

Stances against each other empire. I should be able to set my stance as 'At war', 'Armistice' or 'Peace Treaty'.

If player A has a strong culture, it will influence player B's neighbouring planets. If they go to war, the amount of player A's culture in player B's planets will degrade ship production and credits/metal/crystal generation. An armistice would reduce the penalty by 50%. Peace can give an economic bonus depending on the amount of time the peace has been kept and the standing of each race towards the other.

Neutral planets would all be considered 'minor factions'. Minor factions can be either race, or independent 'rogues', runaway from the main races, in which case the ships in the gravity well are mixed between races.  Their stance against ships inside their gravity well would also be varied. They could be friendly (peace), neutral (armistice) or aggressive (at war).

Planet domination would be possible by culture. Having a large majority (say 80%) of the planet's culture (be it an opponent empire or neutral faction) and trade and military alliances (more on those later), you may offer something in return for their vassalage. It would work by oferring something in the Diplomacy screen. You will be bribing the planet governor when you ask him to switch to your empire though, so expect a sharp drop in diplomatic relations to the offended party, as well as a probable attempt of military re-occupation.

In the case of a cultural takeover, the offended party has a time frame where it can break any agreements without penalties, and declare war with very little change to its 'Warmonger' trait.

The Diplomacy Screen

One should be able to engage diplomacy with other empires/pirates, and do one of the following:

• Trade goods
  • Instance trade - goods trade hand one time, like when you buy on current black market
  • Trade either goods or information obtained by scouts or espionage
  • Can make a complete trade proposal and ask if the other party agrees i.e. 1000 credits for 200 metal
  • The other party can accept or counter-offer
    
  • Can make a partial proposal - I offer 1000 credits for metal - how much do you give me?
• Accept/request missions from/to a specific Empire
  • Combat missions
    
    • kill X ships from player C
    • kill frigate factory on planet Z
    • scout planet M
    • help me attack player C
    • help me defend planet M
  • Diplomatic missions
    • Trade agreements - trade X credits for Y metal for Z minutes
    • Trade alliance - increases income, especially on planets with mixed culture
      
    • Military alliance - increases military strenght perceived by other Empires (influences diplomacy) and allow buying ships from other empire at greater cost if same race, or much greater cost if from different race 
    • Declare war on player Y
    • Trade embargo player Y
    • Request vassalage (other empire surrenders to you, giving control of all planets) - not possible against pirates
      
      • Mixing different races this way would have an impact on economy due to cultural clashes.
      • Building stuff from the vassal race (if not the same) would have a cost multiplier.
      • Some research technology would mitigate the penalties.
• Demand tribute
  • Like the above actions, but offering nothing in return
• Offer gifts
  • Like the above actions but ask nothing in return

The culture from dead or surrendered empires and factions should keep going even after they are dead, and getting rid of it would take time. If a vassal culture drops below a certain level, the knowledge of their machinery is lost and they can be no longer operated i.e. frigate factories , tactical defenses, ships etc. stop working.

Each empire would have several traits which would build up over time, as the game progresses.

Although the traits are local i.e. each empire sees the other by its own light, your actions  against/toward one empire may influence how the others see you.

Friendly / Arrogant - Dpends on whwther the player sends gifts/makes demands, trades at a loss, bargains hard or makes outrageous proposals to other empires / pirates

Trustworthy/Backstabber - Do you keep your word? Are armistices respected? When some ally asks for your help, do you help him? Do you backstab allies and invade their planets? Do you deal with pirates? Do you secretly asks for someone to attack your ally? Backstabbing allies should have the greatest impact against trust. Negotiations with any empire/faction shoud be secret, but espionage should uncover the 'dirty secrets' of what you may have done.

Peaceful/Warmonger - Do you prefer to colonize other planets by culture or by force? Empires which declare war always rise their Warmonger trait.

Dominator/Eradicator - Do you call witch hunts to eradicate dissents from your planets? Doy you siege bombard enemy planets until the enemies are all but exterminated to then colonize (Eradicator)? Or do you prefer to se occupation forces to take over the planets without wiping out enemy population, thus culture and initial income (Dominator)?

Vasari tend to be Warmongers and Dominators, while Advent gravitate towards peaceful (well not quite) and Eradicators. TEC would be more Peaceful / Dominators. When the game begins, the AI would be internally set to have a variable tendency to do actions towards one or another, or sit in between, but the perception of the empire would depend on the actions which would happen during the game history.

Military, cultural and economic strength all would weight in when attempting any kind of trade. Prematurely breaking agreements would give a negative bonus.

Instead of sieging a planet, one should be able to send occupation forces to the planet surface. This could be a siege ship ability which consumes the ship. Depending on the planet strength - number of upgrades - more siege ships are needed to occupy it. Some of the population would die (50% maybe) , but it would not be as bad as completely wiping out the planet. Planetary orbital structures would be retained and switch sides to the dominating player. On the defending side, friendly siege ships can send troopers to the surface to restore the resistance against the invaders.

Espionage missions could be performed. Scouts have a researchable tech where it can be 'transformed' (disguised) as a scout from another faction. It can then go in a gravity well from another faction. If the scout uses any tech except the 'plant spy' it will be detected and acted upon accordingly. This action consumes the scout. Scouts will also have the 'detect spy' ability, which they can cast on other scouts, planets, structures or ships. Detected spies will be killed, and may or may not confess who they work for. If they tell which empire they are from, relations will deteriorate.

Several spies can be stacked on the same place to increase effect.

Spies will have different actions accoring to where they are:

Spies on the planet can:

Initiate propaganda on behalf of your empire, improving your culture there.

Make terrorist acts, killing part of the population. Can 'always work' and kill the spy, or have a chance of failu in exchange of having the spy survive. The latter may fail and kill the spy.

Divert economic resources to your empire. Will 'improve' corruption in target planet.

Sabotage planetary improvements. Same as terrorist acts.

Attempt to kill the governor, temporarily stopping production/income. Always has a chance of failure.

Although this one is not Diplomacy related, fleet should have a 'space-wave resonation' tech, which would increase the fleet's velocity and turning speed. Fleets really needs to have a speed boost to be more useful.

Maybe more fleet-specific improvements could be in place too, race dependent. Advent would have 'shield resonation', which would have a small percentage of the damage to be distributed to other ship's shields, thus improving any individual ship's survivability. TEC would have improved repair speed, while vasari would have reduced weapon cooldown.

And more techs! I like big tech trees. The diplomacy stance alone would be enough to warrant a few techs. The above Fleet enhancements too. I wouldn't mind having 10 tech levels or more, even if it means getting the ultimate techs less often. One hardly even researches any level 8 tech in a small map anyway. Higher level techs should be for bigger maps, and long tech trees give that sense of grandiosity .

@Shadowhal:

By Stances I mean the general attitude of your empire's government against each of the other empires and factions. It's a user-settable option. If player A sets its empire's stance (you can call it relationship) against player B as 'neutral' or 'peace', ships will not engage in combat on mere sight of player B ships. Additionally, the 'peace' stance tells the AI that it's OK to route trade ships through player B's planet nodes. With a trade alliance (implies 'peace' stance), trade ships will also go to player B's trade space stations.

I haven't finished my suggestion actually. I was going to describe what spies can do when placed on ships and structures:

Spies on planet also give insight on the amount of income the planet generates, and its upgrades.

Spies on structures:

• Gives insight on the number of structures and ships in the grav well, but not ship location.
  
• Gives insight on what the structure the spy is in is doing, as well as upgrades it may have.
• May sabotage production and/or operation. May fail, and spy may die (even if it succeeds).
• May sabotage the structure, causing damage. May fail, and spy may die (even if it succeeds).

Spies on ships:

• Gives insight on location of ships in the gravwell it is in.
• May attempt to disable shields (inflict damage on shields - 1000 maybe)
• May attempt to sabotage ship (inflict hull damage - 1000 maybe)
• May attempt to disable systems (disable weapons/regeneration/antimatter replenish)

Targets will have increasing difficulty. It is easier to try to sabotage a LRM frigate than to sabotage a capital ship.

Spies can be stacked to reduce difficulty of tasks.

Other things which could be created are empire-wide unique planetary structures, which would yield unique bonuses.

They would not cost tactical or military slots, but have variable requirements, most of the time a fully upgraded planet.

• Galactic prison: drastically reduces planet's income, but also reduces corruption in all planets. must be on (dead?) asteroid
  
• Planet forge: increases metal output on planet (200%). must be volcanic.
• Empire stock exchange: increases credit output (200%). must be earth.
  
• Universal research: counts as 1 military and 1 civil research labs. must be desert.
  
• Military Academy: boosts one capital ship with one Admiral. The Admiral improves all ship operations in the same gravity well, and additionally gives a good armor/cooldown bonus to the capital ship he is in.
• Atomic assembly: improves crystal output. must be ice planet.

We need an ability to trade with the neutrals. Such as you come upon a neutral planet who gives you an offer, you gift them a certain amount of metal and cyrstal they will open trade relations with you. With that they give you the option to trade techniology. Such like this
A TEC scout comes across Neutral Miner Base A537, to open negotiations they must gift 1000 credits and 500 of both metal and crystal. Which the TEC gladly does. Now with trade opened your trade route grows with this planet and also they give you the option to buy their ships and technology. This mining base for 1250 creits and 100 crystal will sell you a new type of mining facility what improves their armour and/or mining effiancy an X amount. Also they give you the option to sell you the cargo carrier. A jurry rigged version of the cruiser carrier with heavy armour and even less speed.

Just a thought that might help improve stradagy when dealing with neutrals (take the planet or take their technology?) and add a little diplomatic spice to the game.