Diplomacy

Maybe another AI (Resoln?) paid Kraxis to declare war on you. And Kraxis is so diplomatic...

In my opinion, diplomacy is the weakest part of the game so far. By postponing alliances to the very late game, we are missing the opportunity to create pacts early, the same goes for weak civs paying powerfull allies (and making it more difficult for player to sack them). Trade etc. treaties are a single sided must, without any cons except money cost - e.g. trading with enemy of civ A could worsen relationship with civ A? Something like "You are trading with my enemy!" penalty. That would make such decision much more interesting, creating trade pacts of befriended civs... Of course penalty could be mitigated for Diplomat sovereigns.

AI breaking pacts when it should not is and old story... I at least hope they make this option for player as well and would give that an INFLUENCE COST, making this resource once more viable. Again, different setting could be for Diplomats...

These are few of my ideas, but it definitely needs tweaking....as far as I think.

Diplomacy's a mess, and this has been noted in numerous threads.  The options are very limited, and the current AI involving them is buggy on a number of fronts that have been discussed here over and over.  On the one hand, Stardock hasn't shown any evidence of real concern at this point over diplomacy, but on the other, it would be difficult for a company that produced the far better diplomacy of GC2 to be unaware of how it's current state, and how it reflects upon them.  So I suspect that at some point they'll deal with the bugs, add new options, and pour in some flavor, as well.  Just not too soon.

There isn't a lot of incentive to be diplomatic unless you want to set up caravans, there is a lot to be said for going it alone and not helping the AI players by giving them something.  It's a lot easier to be aggressive and unfriendly to them than it is to be nice.

Diplomacy is rubbish, one of the cons of the game. Especially due to the AI breaking seemingly "unbreakable" treaties before time, just because its the AI.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Thanks for the replies. I now know not to pursue Diplomacy in this game for the time being. I saw that for 1.1, the AI is being worked on, so hopefully Diplomacy will work when that patch goes live.

"AI being worked on" can mean many things: combat AI, city-building AI, the AI's choice of spells, the AI's scouts, etc.  But of course, I hope you are correct.

I love diplomacy, it's a good source of cash for me, and it lets me end wars and/or the game without having to chase sovereign's down to their last town.

Diplomacy could have some work to be really usefull

This is my attitude to diplomacy in this game and I have grown to like it.  Don't trust the AI to hold to treaties they only respect your strength. View treaties as restrictions on your own options but not on theirs.

If you want to be safe against treachery build up your faction power.  Recruit troops and champions and level them up and the AI will not (usually) attack a stronger power, at least I haven't seen it do that yet.

Once you are stronger than some of the AI factions they will want to form a Non Aggression Pact and will pay for the privilege.  Then use that gold to set up the economic and trade treaties.  Only do this with weaker players and then you get the full benefit as long as they survive and these treaties give 10% more gold in your capital and 10% more gold overall and that soon builds to a nice surplus each turn.  This extra cash easily pays the increased maintenance of the extra troops you had to build to become a stronger player so don't worry too much about the financial implications.

When you need even more cash sell off your research or surplus resources to the weaker players or to a faction that can't use the resource well (e.g. sell ore to Resolyn whose trained troops are weak and who doesn't research warfare techs much).  Make sure the trade partner has at least 250 gold before selling a lot of techs or resources and they will value gold at the normal rate instead of counting it double.  Just use your own gold to buy something useful until they have 250 gold and then clean them out selling whatever junk you have for their gold.

The other AIs are a major source of resources and tech once you know how to manipulate and milk the system. 

JJ

Not could have, must have.  As it is, so many triggers need to be worked to greater specificity.  They don't make sense, and the thing's a mess.

Consider: I just finished a game where Magnar was at war with Altair.  I declared war on Magnar, and destroyed him.  Checked Altair, and wonder of wonders...!  I was liked less than before.  Seems war isn't a condition Altair likes, and I also attacked another player.  The fact that the player in question had declared war on him apparently wasn't taken into account in the code.

One of the main problems I find with diplomacy is that, while in early and mid game you may not need too much of it, because you are very busy dealing with monsters, in the late game, there are almost no monsters, only the AIs left. All the weight of the late game is supported by the diplomacy, and it is then when it fully shows all of its weaknesses.

Unfortunately, it has a lot of weaknesses: bugs like the city insta-razes, weird research points trade system, AI breaking NA pacts, ... and lack of options that would give a bit of more depth to that late game: trading cities or units, resource production pacts (like the gildar pacts, but with resources), open/close borders pacts, ... the kind of things that would encourage the player to develope alliances to avoid long conquest games...

diplo was better before 1.0, in .094 you could sell influence for 20 gold each, and sell early metal/cystals at a premium.

Now once the AI gets 10 crystals/metals, they don't care for making bulk orders anymore.

Once they changed that, the only reason i continue to conduct diplomacy is to trade horses/wargs/metal for tech until they lose value.  Tech, Trade and Economic treaties are ok but the AI seems to want your entire profit from the deal up front.

These days i can win on ridiculous without diplomacy at all. Sometimes someone tells me they are at war with me, which i guess in FE means they will send over every trash soldier they can afford; and an army of heroes with crappy leather armor.  Then when i wipe their army they torch their cities as soon as i begin my advance.

I have never had the pleasure of an AI nation become servant to me like i have seen some others here do.

Diplomancy in this game well to be blunt it sucks. Really needs an overhaul but I doubt it will happen.  I've gotten to the point of just ignoring Diploymancy all togather since it brings nothing to the game.

It would contribute extra gold from economic/trade pacts but the AI knows up front how much money you "could" make from it, and demands the entire amount up front, so in other words - signing one of these pacts helps the AI and not you. However, the AI all sign these with one another when not at war anyway, so not doing it can cause a fall behind.

Tech treaties are the same situation - the AI knows how much "gold worth of tech" you will get, and wants the entire payment.

I generally ignore diplomacy because there is no situation in which it "benefits me as much as it benefits you" and in Settlers of Catan we all know that we just never accept "This trade is better for you than for me".  Of course, there is no negotiating - there is one offer, take it or leave it.  so i leave it.

When I outpower my foes, I love negotiating non-aggression pacts and trade pacts and so on with them -- I drain them of their coins, I get to focus on my own priorities, I get various benefits (I do not bother if I do not think those benefits unfairly benefit me).

I do not know if it's because I play on epic pacing, but usually after a few rounds of non-aggression pacts they are all broke and helpless, while I've been building up my own strength, and the trading pacts also help me... sometimes by impoverishing them I am also keeping them from destroying each other, which is sort of funny.

This is not possible when they have insane AI, but when it is possible it works well.