Thanks for the work on hangars and Illuminators, and the removal of the stupid TEC charity ability on envoys that always semed viciously overpowered to me. The multiplayer community will no doubt digest these alterations and the extensive pact alterations over the next few weeks.
One element of the new version that has me slightly confused is if a faction is defeated, on the section of the relations screen that details the modifiers they are now described as 'HUMAN'? What mean? Though the relationship modifiers continue to change for defeated factions the changes no longer affect Victory Points, but this seems a very doubtful way of making that clear? I've always been utterly unimpressed by the Diplomatic Victory and still am. Points you have stacked up from your relations with defeated factions should at the very least be subtracted from your total. Generally the current system is silly and makes no sense and I still cannot recommend turning the feature on. Please implement an artifact victory instead, it would be fun, this isn't. However this update didn't focus on the Diplomatic Victory, except for the effect of the relations points changes.
I have had a quick test of the work you've done on relations and I am bemused by it. What you seem to have done is to eliminate every modifier except the racial modifier, the research modifier and the AI relations bonus. None of the others seem at all significant. Over time the AI develops its general research, and the AI bonus increases and this will eventually get similar factions into cease fire status and they can then get into envoys and trade. However what seems entirely missing is any kind of relations response to what happens in the game. The new relations system is entirely predictable and the AI will all become friendlier to each other over time. Meh.
So what we still have is what claims to be a sophisticated system, from the detailed screen devoted to it, but which is not. The AI are for the most part utterly indifferent to each others military and political moves and the extent and strength of empires, even on the brink of victory or extinction. For me, the success of a system, what would allow it some life, is the sensitivity to these factors. A proper adjacency system, a tendency to ally against the strongest military and economic powers, a hatred for long-standing enemies who have destroyed many of your ships. This is not that system.
TL;DR My prediction for single player FFA games is that the AI will no longer fail to ally with each other. Instead, given long enough they will all ally with each other, with when depending on the difficulty...
