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Diplomacy
Published on September 22, 2003 By Ray the Wanderer In PC Gaming
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.

Comments
on Sep 23, 2003
My suggestion: If a resource has a starbase built on it in the turn after you destroyed the old starbase and that new base does not belong to either you or the race that you are at war with, then the resource has been stolen from you.
on Sep 24, 2003
Perhaps the first race to build a starbase on a resource gets a claim to it. Any race which destroys that starbase then also gets a claim. If a third race build a starbase on your claim then you could demand compensation to remove your claim (or even the starbase itself).

It could be implemented as a pop up window when you build on a claimed starbase. Problem of determining the value of the claim still remains and the extra work is unlikely to be an easy update.

I would also definitely agree that transports and colony ships when sold in orbit should be minimum population (crew only).

If bought in flight then the population on the transport should add greatly to the cost. How many times have you bought a transport off race B (just as it was to invade race C) and used it yourself against race C.

Paul.
on Sep 25, 2003
if ships and missiles that were sold to another race/leader would automatically move to one of the new owners planets (so that the new crew could get familiar with the controls or the computer hard- and software), the ships would not be automatically used to destroy starbases on resources, unless the planet happens to be nearby.

what do you think?
on Sep 25, 2003
I like the idea, Morbutor.

I also like Solitair's idea of having claims over resources. The first to a resource will have a claim (maybe shown as a small flag over the resource). You can only build a SB over a claimed resource only if you are at war with the race with the claim. So vulturing is still possible but you must be already at war.
on Nov 18, 2003
The idea that you can only build on a resource if you have a claim or at war should be expanded to willing to go to war. If you want to build on a resource currently claimed by a race (small flag) then you either buy the claim from them in diplomacy or the act of building on that resource is a declaration of war.

Another addition would be that the claim flag goes away after 10 turns so that a race can not lay permanent claim to something if they are not using it.

Perhaps a claimed resource that is not used should be taxed at 5bc to prevent a human from laying claim to resources early in the game but not building on them.