Recently, I played a game as Lal with only Transcendence Victory enabled.
As I usually do with the Peacekeepers, I relied heavily on my large bases surrounded by highly productive forrests, so from 2150 onwards I had always the largest population on Planet. Diplomatically, I stayed in character by being extremely cooperative with regard to tech trades and giving non-critical techs (i.e. anything other than fusion power, air superiority etc.) away for free. I even paid tribute when asked - only small amounts, as my Peecekeapers were so busy hurrying infrastructure that money hardly ever piled up.
Of course, Lal does not compromise about Democracy [insert Churchill-style speech], so I introduced Democracy-Planned-Knowledge SE-choices as soon as I could and sticked to them. With that and my unsurpassed position in the power charts, I was certain that sooner or later later someone would declare Vendetta despite my appeasing tech-share policy, but noone did. Sure, they called me names all the time, but noone actually attacked me.
There could be all sorts of explanations for this. I was playing on a large planet with (initially) 70-90 % ocean coverage; there was no land contact between the factions. Second in the power charts (and normally most likely to attack me) was Morgan, in whose favour I had intervened diplomatically before someone could seriously hurt him. (I'm not a fan of a huge military, but this Morgan guy spends so little on safety, he must have trouble getting insurance.) Morgan is a Pacifist, but that never stopped him in other games from attacking me for running a planned economy, even when he was much weaker than in this game.
So, I wonder: Does disabling Conquest Victory affect AI strategy and make it less hostile? I'm not asking whether disabling Conquest Victory will turn Yang & colleagues into peaceful builders. I'm sure it won't and in my game there would have been plenty of inter-AI conflict if I had not intervened diplomatically to keep, well, the peace. However, victory conditions could (and should actually) be a factor in determing the AI's play. I do want to know whether there is any hard evidence that it does. From my single game, it really is hard to tell.
Verrucosus
As I usually do with the Peacekeepers, I relied heavily on my large bases surrounded by highly productive forrests, so from 2150 onwards I had always the largest population on Planet. Diplomatically, I stayed in character by being extremely cooperative with regard to tech trades and giving non-critical techs (i.e. anything other than fusion power, air superiority etc.) away for free. I even paid tribute when asked - only small amounts, as my Peecekeapers were so busy hurrying infrastructure that money hardly ever piled up.
Of course, Lal does not compromise about Democracy [insert Churchill-style speech], so I introduced Democracy-Planned-Knowledge SE-choices as soon as I could and sticked to them. With that and my unsurpassed position in the power charts, I was certain that sooner or later later someone would declare Vendetta despite my appeasing tech-share policy, but noone did. Sure, they called me names all the time, but noone actually attacked me.
There could be all sorts of explanations for this. I was playing on a large planet with (initially) 70-90 % ocean coverage; there was no land contact between the factions. Second in the power charts (and normally most likely to attack me) was Morgan, in whose favour I had intervened diplomatically before someone could seriously hurt him. (I'm not a fan of a huge military, but this Morgan guy spends so little on safety, he must have trouble getting insurance.) Morgan is a Pacifist, but that never stopped him in other games from attacking me for running a planned economy, even when he was much weaker than in this game.
So, I wonder: Does disabling Conquest Victory affect AI strategy and make it less hostile? I'm not asking whether disabling Conquest Victory will turn Yang & colleagues into peaceful builders. I'm sure it won't and in my game there would have been plenty of inter-AI conflict if I had not intervened diplomatically to keep, well, the peace. However, victory conditions could (and should actually) be a factor in determing the AI's play. I do want to know whether there is any hard evidence that it does. From my single game, it really is hard to tell.
Verrucosus
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