How to diplomatically save your hide?

from Sins Forums

Here's the deal. I finally got diplomacy and I launched a single player game. I set a map designed by myself, which looks pretty much like a little enlarged version of the Huge Single Star random map. I set unlocked teams (gotta check the diplomacy rite?), turned off the pirates (I've read enough about these lads, thank you :P) and picked 6 AIs. I grouped the AIs in pairs (one with me and then two more pairs). One AI was left, so I made him Cruel and left him alone.

Obviously, Murphy's laws took place and the Cruel AI, with the worst of intentions, landed just three jumps away from me and the only good chokepoint between us was a magnetic cloud (orky's lost the job in this case). Anyway, just after the game started, the cruel AI decided I was having too much fun and started pounding on me.

Our relations plummeted and ended up somewhere in the -7.5 neighborhood (only negative factors from military actions, military strength, diplomatical inclination, racial inclination modifiers).

Question is - how do I use the tools from diplomacy to break the cuel AI's bloodlust?
Gifts seem to only bring the relations up by 1 point. My envoy cruisers in the magnetic cloud are welcomed with a beautiful bouquet of missiles, so planting them in the magnetic cloud is out of the question, planting them anywhere further even more so. I can manage to make 3 points from the passive boost researches and 1.5 from a silly "gimme 1k credits" mission. However, altogether this is 5.5 points and our relations are still solidly negative.
What else could I do? :P

4,391 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

if you have a massively overpowering fleet... it kinda makes the AI want to kiss your feet (for hopefully obvious reasons)

course, thats really hard to do vs a cruel ai.

see if you can get his other neighbors to attack the cruel.... this will take some of the heat off of you... and if you attack thier ships while the cruel has a little something in the grav well (try, like, defending one of his planets)... that tends to make the ai happy (gl with that though... the cruel might just crush both your fleets...)

 

In other words... the only real way to make peace with an an who hates you a shizzton, is preety much crush them, or to find some sort of common ground (aka, a common enemy)

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I managed to break through the AI's blood frenzy.

Guess what worked for me?

SPAM.

Yeah, spam. I made 15 envoys and channeled a steady stream of them through a chain of the enemy's planets. After such a trip, all those planets had 1.0~1.5 diplomatic bonus and I managed to get a ceasefire, which sealed the deal.

I think "military actions" bonuses should decay over time. Maybe not completely, down to +/-1.0 or +/-2.0 so that the memory of your help/aggression is not completely lost, just somewhat forgotten/forgiven. It is ridiculous though that once you rack up 6 or 7 negative points of military actions there is just no way to recover from that.

Star Control: Origins