Treaty, Vendetta, & Reputation

[bobyk464]

Perhaps I'm missing something simple. How do I end a treaty with a disagreeable party and start a vendetta without besmirching my reputation, when my comm is being ignored?

[johndmuller]

bobyk, if they are ignoring your messages, then your relationship is probably already on the skids and therer will probably be a rift soon. Changing your SE settings to something antithetical to their belief will help that trend along. If you want to force the issue, a probe action (except infiltration) is considered an aggressive action by the AI and will get you your vendetta; I don't believe that besmirtches your reputation.

Another method (although it may not work as well with a treaty partner as with a neutral) is to just hang out in their territory with some of your units and keep ignoring the 'get out' messages (said messages may also give you a chance to proffer insulting demands). You could also contact all the other AIs hoping that one of them will ask you for help against your target.

Speaking of that, what is the effect on your reputation when you comply with an ally's request for help against someone else? It seems that I have complied without penalty sometimes at least, but it seems to me that some other times it has led to a lowered reputation.

More fundamentally, does reputation really do much for you; it seems that at transcend at least, the AI will be after you sooner or later anyway. What about MP; do human's have reputation issues among themselves?

[RedFred]

Arranging your SE settings so that they are incompatible with your potential enemy is a solution for the long term only. A quicker and more effective method of triggering a war with no rep hit is to keep "demanding withdrawl" of the potential enemy's troops from your territory. It is not necessary to speak to the AI faction involved to do this. "Demand withdrawl" action seems to infuriate them and they generally go to war with you within a year or two.

You don't actually need any of the potential enemy's troops in your territory for this tactic to work.

[Morganstern]

I too am interested in any insights to JohnDMuller's question about reputation. Does this factor have any great meaning in these games, either as to treatment by AI factions, or to ultimate score? I try to play by means maintaining a good reputation, but am uncertain it does anything for me. Like JDM, AI factions will attack me on cue even when I have a good reputation.

[Ned]

I too would really like to know how reputation affects one's likelihood of making and keeping treaty and pact mates, and whether reputation has any affect on a faction's willingness to surrender.

I have see messages to the effect that I cannot be trusted when offering a treaty after I have first betrayed a treaty partner by a sneak attack. I take this to mean that, in other circumstances, the treaty would have been made.

On the surrender issue, I have had games where all hostile factions fought to the finish. If reputation has something to do with this, I would like to know.

Ned

[Earwicker]

Originally posted by Ned
On the surrender issue, I have had games where all hostile factions fought to the finish. If reputation has something to do with this, I would like to know.

I haven't seen a correlation between willingness to surrender and my own reputation. I almost always keep it Noble, and have had several instances where most (or all) fought to death despite my Noble reputation. And other times where they ignored a transgression or two and saw the light of reason, surrendering before it was too late.

I suspected that the AI just really didn't like Morgan

[Blake]

You can learn alot about AI diplomacy and reputation by playing a game where you NEVER do anything even remotely hostile to any faction. This means refusing any request to declare war, and accepting any demands (with limited exceptions).

My experience has been that even a slightly spoiled reputation is enough to make pacts difficult to get.

Reputation has a lot to do with being attacked too - AI's seem very reluctant to declare war on someone with a spotless reputation, but note I do mean spotless. If you have never declared war on anyone, the AI's probably wont ever declare war on you. (conflicting SE makes it difficult to make pacts peacefully, but the AI is still reluctant to downgrade relation)

Anyway, I strongly reccomend playing a game under the following self-imposed restrictions:
Never ever ever declare war on anyone
Dont probe anyone, just dont.
Try to remain around 2nd on the powerchart.
Dont build military units - you dont need them.

Your ultimate goal should be diplomatic victory.

"Easy" factions
You - Lal
AI's: Morgan, Zak, Domai, Aki, Dee, Roze
Unoffensive SE setting: Demo, Knowledge.

"Hard" factions
You - Dee (or, for extra challenge Morgan)
AI's: Lal, Santi, Yang, Miriam, Sven, Cha Dawn
Unoffensive SE setting: Green, Power.

It is very easy to win using Easy factions.
I still managed to win first try using hard factions.
By far the biggest difficult with the hard factions is not the AI's personalities, but brother Lal. In my game he was "jungle Lal" which made things even more interesting, he was a big PIA the whole game, and all the factions started snapping at each other (and me) so I engineered a war between Lal and the rest of the world, after a few turns of global vendetta he calmed down and agreed to peace. The other factions had been appeased by the short vendetta too, and with Lal out of favour with everyone else I snagged the planetary leader a few turns later. Earlier in the game Sven (bless him) had a short vendetta with me (actually about 20 turns) but after that he agreed to a pact and was loyal the rest of the game. So strategic vendetta's are allowable (maybe unavoidable) with "hard" factions, but dont start them (just "let" them happen), and dont use military units. I guarentee that you will learn things about AI diplomacy by playing such games, I for one could run much tighter circles around the AI diplomatically in future games. And besides playing without ever using a military unit is a fun experience in itself.

[Ned]

Blake, Your post is interesting and somewhat confirmed by something that happened in my current game. I am playing Morgan. Both aliens are in the game. Both declared war against me. I kicked Marr's butt. He offered all his money for a truce. Uncharacteristically for me, I accepted. I pulled back and have observed the truce faithfully for at least twenty turns while I went after the Caretakers.

Well, mid war with the Caretakers, Marr builds a PB and actually uses it against the Caretakers, helping my war against them significantly. Heretofor, I personally have never seen the two alien factions actually fighting let alone using PBs on each other. However, the fact that Marr used the PB against the Caretakers and not me, Morgan, I attribute solely to my good behaviour.

Ned

[johndmuller]

Blake,
When you say don't build/use military units, how far are you taking that? No base garrisons? No armor on probes, crawlers, transports? You also said no probing; does that include infiltration?

I've played quite a few SP games with a basically pacific and defensive outlook, but not without a decent army to provide defense and respect. While following this strategy, I would be as inoffensive as possible and avoid vendettas nearly all of the time - except a few of the kind where you take an AI base and then accept a truce. In many cases I would even submit to shakedowns to keep the peace. I would not, however, be above infiltration and occasional tech stealing while in those brief vendettas. Most of the time, this leads to a game with 1 or 2 very strong and advanced AI players, which makes for a very entertaining game. Interestingly, just like you were saying, Lal does seem to be a PIA when following this strategy; btw, how did you engineer the Lal vs the AI without some aggressive probing, at least?

[Ned]

Actually in SP games, the AI is so weak that I also just use police scouts or if I am running FM, no units at all on interior bases. I got into this habit from my CIV days where running no military was the only way I could win.

Ned

[NorthSwordsman]

Originally posted by Ned
Well, mid war with the Caretakers, Marr builds a PB and actually uses it against the Caretakers, helping my war against them significantly. Heretofor, I personally have never seen the two alien factions actually fighting let alone using PBs on each other. However, the fact that Marr used the PB against the Caretakers and not me, Morgan, I attribute solely to my good behaviour.

Ned

Ned, I've never seen the Aliens PB each other in any of my SP games. My observation is that folks build them, but rarely use them. It must have been an interesting game, to say the least.

[Blake]

By no military units I mean exactly that . I only built units with attack, defense rating 1,1. I used special abilities for worm defense (ie trance). Any chassis for scouts / worm hunters. Keep captured worms, but dont attack with them (they are usfull scouts).

There is no use for probes, except maybe infiltration (but you should by gov).

The unique challenge is playing without resorting to combat, ever. If you consider playing a defense war as a strategy to fall back on, then you probably wont make your best effort at diplomacy. Also SE quickies are a no-no.

How I engineered the war against Lal : basically I was pacted with everyone else, (treaty with Lal) and there were NO vendettas bewteen anyone. After pleading for a pact with Lal for a century or so (while he became increasinly hostile) I finally decided to let him declare war on me (I think by declining a demand). Everyone else was pacted with me, so then every other faction announced they were coming to my aid in the vendetta against Lal. (as Lal declared the vendetta). AI's seem to be pack creatures, and Lal was suddenly eager to make peace, presumably this was because he had 6 simultaneous vendettas, and a peace treaty is very valuable under such conditions

Possibly this is also why AI's pact easily at the start of the game, they see they have no friends, so a pact is a very attractive proposal, quite quickly the AI's make contact and with a few treaties under there belt they feel somewhat more secure, and dont see the need for a pact.

[Avenoct]

By far the best way to start a war is to probe the target. Your reputation will not go down whether you steal their tech, incite drones, mind control their base, or my favorite, take a few energy credits. I've never used the probe atrocity option, but I'd guess THAT has significant repercussions. Once you are at war with the target you will stay 'Noble' as long as you commit no atrocities.

As to the value of reputation. It's unlikely that we'll ever get the 'formula' for this b/c the effects of a good or bad rep are longterm. I think pooling our experiences is the closest we will get.

I agree with Johnd's observation that agreeing to help one AI attack another is variable. I avoid this as much as possible as I think it often does damage your rep.

I question the tactic of troops and demanding or refusing withdrawal. I think this also damages your rep. Its far easier to just use a probe.

Blake is right on about staying #2 in the power chart, ESPecially in might. Check out the might formula in the datalinks. I don't think they included it so a player could prove themselves mighty. I've won a few transcend games by diplomatic victory, and these have only been when I was noble, and as often as not, not very powerful. However, the AI will gang up on me regardless of reputation if I'm #1 in might. Even then, unless you cave in to the demands for tech and energy credits it is quite difficult not to go to war.

I have two SP strategies that, in hindsight, deal with this. The first works only on Large or smaller maps. That is, make war as soon as you can get a probe into the field. Make your neigbor submit and proceed to the next neighbor. Two or more submissives will enable you to get just about any victory you desire. The reasons for doing this early should be obvious. The second is to stay Harmless or even Anemic on the might chart untill I have fusion and clean reactors. Then it's a choice...build a very strong army to respond to the threats or...not. As often as not when I try the second strategy I just can't personally accept some AI demand for say, Fusion Power, and I go to war anyways. When I do manage to slip by this period without a war I can also get most any victory in the end, but it's much dicier than the first strategy. Fortunately the first strategy isn't really all that easy on Large or larger maps b/c when it does work it's just too easy to hold the lead (ie boring).

In my experience, when I'm not Noble in SP transcend games, I invariably get attacked from multiple sides. When I am noble this does seem less likely. AI factions seem more inclined to keep treaties and pacts.

-Smack

[Avenoct]

One more thing...

Check out the Scenario Editor. I believe either there or in the Alpha text is a numerical reference to reputation. So there is a formula, it's just that we'll never know how the AI uses this to make it's diplomacy decisions.

-Smack

[Vytae]

A Handy hint

When a computer asks for a tech always ask for cash first if the option is offered and go for the "no check no tech" option this dosent piss them off as much as a flat no and allows you to skim past tough parts when you play passive but dont want to give up the tech.

I also find Lal the most agressive (which is ironic to say the least) late/mid game if hes a power in the game hes the one of the only factions to ever use a PB on me ( Believers are the 2nd faction.And i didnt even think Lal was allowed to PB)

Heres a question of my own now,Has an Ai ever demanded a surrender pact of any human players? or even other computer players? ive never seen it but i believe its possible.