Diplomacy and mysterious Vendettas. And demands for 2500 energy!

[Dis]

I tried another Time Warp game. This time as the drones. this is my first time playing the drones. they are a challenge. My research sucks. I probably should run free market, but I'm running democracy/planned right now and knowledge.

For some reason diplomacy has been rough this game. I didn't start out in the monsoon jungle, but I did use transports to get there. Long story short, I'm #1 in power. Even though I'm behind in tech and military. I really think this game puts too much emphasis on population, because I'm not really that powerful. But to the point, everyone hates me for some reason.

It really got bad when the Spartans demanded 2500 energy. I had only around 100. what's up with that? I didn't have 1250 either. So I denied, and I ended up in war.

Diplomacy got worse from there. Everyone wanted to declare war on me because I wouldn't betray my pact and later truce with the Gaians. What's up with that? I eventually did betray and go to vendetta with the gaians to make truce with some nasty civs that are developing planetbusters.

I'm still so far away from orbital defense pods . I really don't know what to do.

right now I'm in a truce with everyone but the gaians. I'm the drones as I said. All game I have been giving in to their demands trying to stay on their good side. But it hasn't worked. I need to know how to remain at peace until I can get some orbital defense pods up. Other factions I'm against: University, Conciousness, Spartans, Gaians, believers, planet cult.

And at one point I did make a truce with the planet cult, but when my turn came up we were in a vendetta. What's up with that?

I'm really not having very much fun this game. It's very tough battling everyone. I'm playing a standard sized map, and I"m in the middle. But I am on a seperate islands (I occupy 1 contient and 1 island) except for one city on the spartan continent (this was a city the time warp establish). If I'm so high on the bar graph, I shouldn't be struggling like this should I?

These damn bug just make it unfun to play. But if I coul find a way to get people to like me, things would be okay. Any suggestions?

[livid imp]

Re: Diplomacy and mysterious Vendettas. And demands for 2500 energy!

Use your +2 Industry to build network nodes asap in all you bases. That will mediate the research penalty. This one of the reasons I think the Drones are one of the strongest factions. If you have a large pop that does not translate into a large number of min/energy, then use all that extra nuts to turn workers into specialists. As far as everyone delcaring war on you, sounds like a fairly normal Transcend game to me. Although the 2500 extortion does sound oddly extreme. If you only had 100, then you should of agreed to 2500. The game probably would only have taken your 100 from you, not a bad deal really.

[Dis]

I did build many network nodes. Esp. since the time warp secret project I got was Virtual World. Sweet.

[Dis]

Re: Re: Diplomacy and mysterious Vendettas. And demands for 2500 energy!

Originally posted by livid imp
Use your +2 Industry to build network nodes asap in all you bases. That will mediate the research penalty. This one of the reasons I think the Drones are one of the strongest factions. If you have a large pop that does not translate into a large number of min/energy, then use all that extra nuts to turn workers into specialists. As far as everyone delcaring war on you, sounds like a fairly normal Transcend game to me. Although the 2500 extortion does sound oddly extreme. If you only had 100, then you should of agreed to 2500. The game probably would only have taken your 100 from you, not a bad deal really.

I was afraid of going -2400 which would force the game to sell off all my improvements

[Hydro]

A couple of other suggestions:

* Go FM to get +1 energy/square. If you have to, disband units that cause unrest outside of your home territory. Dee will hate this, so be careful. I suggest lots of tech gifts to mollify her. I succeeded in this as Hive and had the PKs as allies for 70 years in a recent PBEM (!!!) while I was in PS.
* Modify your SE to get energy. I suggest Wealth. Wealth and FM gets you LOTs of energy.
* Modify your energy allocation to goose research. Don’t be afraid of an energy penalty. Dem/FM/Wealth will get you decent efficiency (and a energy allocation penalty that isn’t too bad).
* Make sure you pop boom ASAP, so switch to Dem/planned/wealth (always a good early pick, which fits nicely with your huge industry bonus) with crèche. Then you’ll blow Santiago away.
* Build tons of supply crawlers. Max out your mineral to at or slightly above your eco damage threshold, and then crawl energy. Don’t forget nutrients to goose growth too. As Domai you can build crawlers so fast it will make others drool with envy!

Have you infiltrated Santiago? If not, get the Empath Guild. Failing that send probe foils her way. Infiltrate and then steal ALL her tech. After that, steal ALL her energy.

If that fails and Santiago builds a PB then give Santiago a nice, juice target to PB. Build a base (any size will do) near her and far from your home territory and stack LOTS of military units in it. The AI algorithm views this as a ‘threat’ and will nuke it before your valuable home territory bases. You can do this as Domai very easily due to your huge industry bonus.

Is Santiago still building a PB? Consider suicide air strikes to take out the defender of that base. Construction will switch from the PB to a new defender. Air units in FM cause unrest, so this has to be used carefully.

If THAT fails then probe away one of her bases and fill it full of your troopers. Then she’ll have a local target and will probably forget all about invading you. Moreover, any PBs she lobs will almost always be at the captured base with tons of military units in it. So, she nuks her own territory, wastes a PB, and you are free of the burden of all those military units and a hostile captured base. Hehehehe

OR you can try the Blood Makes Grass Grow approach. No one, and I mean NO ONE, can build an army, navy, and air force as fast as Domai. With a little work you will be able to completely overwhelm poor old industry-challenged Santiago. Between the probes, aircraft, marines, amphib, and (gasp!) your own PBs you should be able to demolish Santiago before she knows what hit her.

So, you have lots of options as Domai. Experiment a bit. You’ll probably find one that I haven’t thought of!

[Dis]

eventually I do plan to oerwhelm them. But I find if I am ruthless and they have a PB, they will use it. I prefer to get some orbital defense pods up. I probably should have done it early. I was playing a strictly builder game, but fell far behind on research. The AI loves to go straight for planetbusters.

[smacksim]

Could you post a save, preferably right before the "I want 2500 ECs Damn You!" extortion? This game sounds interesting.

As to AI getting nasty, I theorize that the AI makes pacts that are 'to the death' on some issues. Have you ever noticed that once you convince a submissive to attack another faction that sometimes they won't stop, no matter what you say? They'll reply

We have accepted payment for the destruction of the Morganites. We intend to honor that agreement

And truly nothing you do will get them to stop. I've even opened the scenario editor to see if the diplomacy flags were set for 'We are offended by faction X and it's too the death' (can't remember what the flag says. Anyways, that flag isn't set, but the submissive acts like it.

If you extend this phenomenon to the AI dealing with each other, it's not too hard to see how they get stuck in vendetta with a human player. The question always is, what triggers this? What triggered some or all of your enemy factions to get stuck in 'to the death' vendetta mode?

It's true, this is not rare in Transcend games, but your game sounds exceptionally nasty. Perhaps the data from a timewarp game is also an unintentional power-warp for how the factions decide to deal diplomatically. As to getting out of the situation, I agree with above. It sounds like your plans for a builder game must be put aside for awhile. 30 turns or so and you'll tame the beasties.

-Smack

[Googlie]

For some reason the AI are always more aggressive in accelerated start games.

Try starting ten successive games on regular start (use quickstart after the first) and for each one, as soon as the game loads, hit the scenario editor and go into "edit faction personality". Fairly passive (except for the by-design aggressive ones)

Now do the same with ten accelstarted games, and look how much more violent they are, people like Lal and Dee being "Aggressive" and Roze and Domai "Ganging up on humans" etc (and of course, Miriam and Yang "committing atrocities wantonly"

I don't know why that is - programming, I guess - but it's noticeable

G.

[EternalSpark]

I'm so high on the bar graph, I shouldn't be struggling like this should I?

I'm beginning to believe that the higher you are on the graphs, the more likely other factions just naturally begin to dislike you. In my game right now, Dee won't even give me a treaty, and demanded Fusion Power for Lal's comlink.

Prissy *****. Through probe actions, I've already framed every other faction for some probe actions

[Method]

It is true that the AI will dislike you if you are high on the graphs.

But yeah, Drones are great. I find myself running into the situation that my tech is low, but with the industry rating I have, I've built all the facilities I can and end up with 6 formers per base

So what if someone declares war? Build 10 impact rovers in one turn

[Googlie]

Chris Pine (one of the Firaxis programmers) says in Prima's Guide:

The "mood swings" computer players undergo during diplomatic relations is based on a number of factors including:

• They'll "gang-up" on a human player who is way ahead of everyone else
• First place and second place factions are natural rivals and will tend to dislike each other
• Third place - and lower - factions will tend to want to ally with one of the first 2 factions (see gang tackle above)
• Units in another faction's territory make it progressively angrier
• If you make SE choices counter to a faction's agends, this will annoy it
• If a leader has a much better commerce rating than you, he'll want peace (so that he can treaty, pact and make money from you). If your commerce is much better, he'll be harder to convince to sign treaties, etc
• Factions get annoyed when you sign Treaties & Pacts with their enemies
• If another faction is more powerful than you on a landmass where you share a border, it will try to bully you
• factions will always hate you if you commit an atrocity against it or its captured population
• all factions will gang up to attack you if you Planetbuster one of them
• the more often you betray a faction, the more they will hate you
• factions know when you have betrayed another and will trust you less and less

[Dis]

Originally posted by Method
It is true that the AI will dislike you if you are high on the graphs.

But yeah, Drones are great. I find myself running into the situation that my tech is low, but with the industry rating I have, I've built all the facilities I can and end up with 6 formers per base

So what if someone declares war? Build 10 impact rovers in one turn

I've been holding my own in war. Even the city on the Spartans continent held back a vicious Spartan assault.

I admit it. I'm scared of planetbusters

Yeah I wish I had save before that 2500 EC thing. I would have reloaded and see if it happened again. Maybe I wouldn't have had to pay it if I had reloaded. Plus I would have liked to check if it would set me to 0 or -2400. I just didn't want to risk going to -2400

[Hydro]

You do NOT want to go –2400 EC! If you do I’m pretty sure your improvements will be scrapped for EC until your balance is made up, and soon you’ll be left with nothing! You were right to tell the AI to go stuff themselves!

Hydro

P.S. – any verification on this? I saw this auto-scrapping occur in one of Googlie’s Spartan Chronicles scenarios. In that game Santiago at PS/Green was hemorrhaging money, went way in the red, and had her facilities automatically scrapped as her economy imploded.

[Qwerty88]

Sometimes if auto scrapping occurs the surge gets absorbed by a energy bank instead and nothing is scrapped but you still get money, though this isn't garented even if it hits a base with a energy bank or you have the Planetary Energy Grid.

[Commy]

You think 2500 ECs is weird? I played a game on a crappy scenario I made that screwed up the game (which I eventually reinstalled) where the AI demanded zero, yes, I said zero, energy credits. You could give it to them, and they didn't attack you. Amazing. Pay absolutely nothing to prevent war. But even better, when given a choice like this, you can attempt to offer half of their demand. Except, if they demand zero, the game thinks that half of that is one. Retarded. No, better yet, INTARDED.