Diplomacy makes NO sense!

[heretk]

There are many reasons diplomacy in MOO3 is buggy and nonosensical. I could write page after page about it. But one thing really tweaks me. And I am wondering if anyone else has had this experience.

My empire and the Harvesters colonized a system at roughly the same time. I didn't feel ready to start duking it out yet so I left them alone. After all, we were not at war.

Well, some Harvester ships showed up and immediately began assaulting my colony. I checked the Foreign Office and it indicated that we were still not at war!

I couldn't ask for a cease fire, since that option is only open when you are at war. The Harvesters, even after several turns, did not declare war but kept bombing me. They also never even launched a ground assault.

Other diplomacy bugs I have encountered (Reader's Digest version):

1. Races that declare war on you in one turn and make peace in the next. Then repeat the process over and over.

2. Races that make a warm-fuzzy offer one time and then within the space of a few turns, treat you like a case of the Space Herpes.

3. Races that will make offers to trade tech but NEVER accept one you make.

[Epistax]

They actually bombed you? Consider yourself lucky, I have never been.

I did the same thing to the harvesters actually. I attacked them and took several systems, never declaring war. They never declared war back.


What really bugs me is people declaring war out of the blue, but not having an attack lined up. They are hurt significantly from the trade loss, so I don't quite understand why they do it. Also the game seems to make blood-enemies. No matter how diplomatic your race is, it'll pick random opponents who will hate you no matter what.

Finally what bugs me is the whole + and - to diplomacy. The reasoning behind it makes sense, but why not just let the situations of the races determine if they'd be warlike instead of some silly predisposition. Sorry but the sakkra aren't going to declare war on the trilarians if they are their only salvation, no matter the hate.

[kalbear]

It depends, right? If the palestinians are the israelites only means of salvation, are the israelis going to accept it?

Thousand year grudges and history are nothing special in our world. It's not that hard to believe that a race that cast your race out of their 'eden' would not look all too kindly on them.