Warning : Most, if not all of my Galciv articles would contain spoliers so be warned.


Continuation of favored Diplomatic moves

3. The Surrender Monkey (SM)

The state of relations between Humans and AIs has an obvious influence on the potential outbreak of war. Relations can degrade for two major reasons – conflicting alignments and the disparity in empire power. I believe that empire power is a function of both economic and military rating. So an economic superpower can inspire awe in AIs even without any military. The best way to keep abreast of the AIs’ empire power is to look at the diplomatic screen. Be concerned of opposite alignment AIs with Strong and/or Strongest military and economy. Their relations with you are likely to degrade quickly.

The SM attempts to placate the AI by sending tribute. The smart SM is not reactive because he has no influence over the tribute if the AI is the one who initiates. Therefore, the SM sends tribute regularly (not every turn as the impact is reduced if time gap between tributes is too small) to improve relations. As with all diplomatic moves, a high diplomatic ability is extremely useful. Techs are good tributes to give as those don’t cost you anything and the high value of tech usually improves relations by at least one notch.

The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey uses a tribute of 1 influence point (or equivalent tiny tribute) to improve relations. This exploit works only if you have a much superior diplomatic ability as compared to the tribute recipient. This is a powerful exploit that ensures that AIs (even Maso ones) don’t ever declare war on you due to poor relations.

Suggestions – 1) Introduce a random variable into tributes, if there isn’t already, so that tributes can have an unexpected impact to relations occasionally. 2) Remove positive diplomatic impact of tiny tributes.

4. The Rabble Rouser (RR)

The RR buys military ships from the AI in order to use the equipment against it. He buys off the military ships and/or transports orbiting the target planet. The RR would then invade the planet with the transports that he has just purchased.

I see this almost like a pseudo-espionage move where Humans buy insurgents to revolt against the incumbents. However, realistically, a human would never dream of selling these ships if they could pose a threat to their own security.

Suggestions – 1) AI should refuse to sell ships on dedicated defensive duties. 2) Transports sold should have zero troops as AIs are selling the ships, not selling mercenaries

5. The Arms Dealer (AD)

The AD does not just sell surplus military ships to the AIs for a good price, specializing in obsolete ships, but he sometimes provides the equipment right up to the front lines for immediate deployment. One of his favorite free deliveries is the Anti-matter Missile (AMM). For no extra charge, the AD will to sell an AMM to say the Dregs and position the weapon right next to an Altarian resource SB while the two empires at are war. The Dregs happily destroy the Altarian SB with the newly acquired weapon and the AD finds (to his surprise and delight) that one of his constructors happens to be nearby and proceeds to claim the vacated resource.

The AD also enjoys trading his ships, and especially AMMs, for AI techs and SBs or to use them for bribes. In fact, the AD likes to get the Dregs to declare war on the Altarians by using the AMMs as the bribe and then proceed to claim the vacated resources after the Dregs use those AMMs to destroy Altarian SBs. Everyone’s happy, well everyone except the Dregs and the Altarians.

Suggestion – How do we get the AIs to realize that resources due to them have been stolen under their noses? Can’t think of any good suggestion.