Vendettahood

[Kinjiru]

No problem HP. Glad to be of service.

As to your supposition that a true diplomatic victory being tough to get at transcend, you are absolutely right. That is all I try for in SP anymore. (And I do still play SP alot on my flights every week!) I rarely manage to win this way.

One very intereting thing happens if you are using the SMAX variety and choose all non-warmongering factions. The Drones will seriously pull ahead in energy by late game, since Domai will start cranking out sats every turn or two. He has actually pulled of a couple of economic victories in the games where I am trying for true diplomacy!

[Zonk]

I have been in situations where I've accepted tech and/or energy credits to call off a vendetts when I really wanted to continue hostile action. In most cases, I am pacted to another faction who is also at war with the faction I just accepted peace with. My next step is to contact my pactmate, who will undoubtedly ask me to assist them in their vendetta. Accepting their request allows me to keep my reputation and also has the side benefit of the tech and energy given in tribute the turn before. Many times I've accepted this tribute, knowing that I could be back at war the very next turn. This may be viewed as one of the "legal cheats". Mayby someone has an opinion on this.

As for The Drones, Orbital Defense Pods will soon knock his energy producers out of the sky. Domai has built these in SP games I've played, and I've found after a few turns of using the ODP's, he will quit building them.

[Horus]

Zonk, do you really got your rep. intact? I read a message in a thread (I am very accurate, yes), which stated the opposite in that very situation. Anyone who can fill in the blanks?

[Helium Pond]

It is my understanding that if you accept urgings to go to Vendetta against a faction that you currently have a diplomatic agreement with, this will be seen by the global community as a violation of that agreement, and therefore will hurt your reputation. This is also indicated by the text of the option to agree to the Vendetta, which usually says something like, "Certainly! [faction x] will soon feel my knife in [his/her] back!" which indicates pretty clearly that you're doing something sneaky.

If Zonk's findings are accurate, my assumption is that this is a bug, and that the game somehow gets its wires crossed when you do the two things in the same turn (calling off a Vendetta against a faction and then agreeing to a Vendetta against the same faction).

However, I have noticed something else that I'm not quite sure about. It seems like sometimes the AI is just urging you to help them, not actually making you agree to join them in a Vendetta. In other words, sometimes agreeing to help them puts you in Vendetta with their enemy, sometimes not. But I'm not sure how you can tell this.