Diplomacy

[nightcleaver]

I was wondering: For some reason everyone thinks I'm untrustworthy in my game (I'm the peacekeeper) and now no one will trade information or anything, nor will they swear friendship. Is there anyway to change this? They keep demanding stuff, and I give freely without being asked, even giving back a couple of towns to the spartans, to no avail. Is that a BAD idea? Will it not help in the end? I mean, I'm doing well, but not so well I don't think that I'd be able to take on the three factions that hate me at once - all three being the other most powerful nations currently.

[Skanky Burns]

It might be related to your SE settings.

[Commy]

I believe the term your looking for is integrity. I you right click on the information window in the bottom middle of the screen, and select 'Dimplomatic Status' (or something like that) it will inform you of your integrity. The game defines integrity as how you keep your word. Attacking those that you have made treaties or blood truces with lowers your integrity, and atrocities can lower your integrity very quickly.

This also includes betraying friends when the AI asks you too. If the AI asks you to attack your friend, and you agree, usually that faction will become a pact with you and give you some energy or tech, however, because you betrayed your friend, your integrity will lower. While declining the offer will keep your integrity, it will often result in a war that you will probably not want, which is a risk you have to take...

Raising integrity is often very hard to do. Think of it this way. Say you're on a baseball team, and you hit 3 homeruns. Great. But then lets say you strike out, make the third out of the last inning, and your team loses because of it. While you did a lot of good things, everyone will remember the one bad thing you did. The AI is the same. Chances are it will take another 3 homeruns to make up for the one strike out. While 3 homers is a lot better than one K, others will percieve it as equal. It will take a lot of rights to fix just one wrong, and often it is very, very hard...

Overall, the AI will go to war with you anyway, simply because it gets ticked of by others and takes it all out on you. War is almost always inevitable with the AI, and usually only ends when the AI dies. Even if it is your integrity that the AI uses as an excuse to attack you, had your integrity been high, they probably would have attacked you for another reason, so don't feel bad...

[nightcleaver]

I know, I just want to trade research. I'm at a pretty severe disadvantage as is, and as one of the biggies of the peacekeepers is having extra votes for the senate, well... it's not good to have them against me.

Thanks for replying though. Does giving away stuff to them really help, or is it juts a waste of time?

[Skanky Burns]

It can prevent the AI from declaring war for a number of turns when they really want to attack you.

[Flubber]

Its not always clear why the AI factions do what they do but:

1. An AI in 1st or 2nd on the powergraphs will likely hate its main rival in those power rankings irrespective of anything else.

2. If you are overwhelmingly in first place, the AI gets inconsistent-- its can get hostile so you have vendetta after vendetta but some of them might get downright humble and suck up to you

3.Governmental choices matter. An AI will only accept you running their aversion for so long. If you can vary these settings sometimes to good effect, make sure you call up those AIs that like your new choices and DON'T call those that hate them

4. reputation matters to the AI-- You can use tricks like continuing to demand withdrawal to try to get the AI to declare war on you and save your reputation. Declaring war at the behest of another AI will actually hurt your rep a little less than just doing it alone.