How do you pick your fights and fight them?

all of the above according to the situation.

There are 2 main rules I try to follow:
- grab those Minor-race-planets asap (or at least all that are somewhat nearby) and ignore the diplo penalty
- I make friends with 1 race, usually the Drengin as I tend to play evil and they make great "cleaners" and are cheap to bribe into wars. Those will get the honour of being the last to die. Rest are fair game and I will use whatever means necessary to conquer them.

With my play style I don't usually start any wars, at least not near the beginning or middle of the game. I like to build up infrastructure and technology before really getting into a normal military. I like to hold out for that one-more-tech before designing real ships. That is, I will of course have some ships with small and maybe medium hulls but nothing that I'd consider an invasion force. These usually just sit on planets for defense of some sort.

So to answer you question, I try to stay on friendly terms with everyone while i build up. If someone is getting to big and/or my relations with them start to drop I will bribe someone to go to war with them. I wait until war gets declared on me, by then I'm prepared to build up a good military. I'll lose those defenders but never lose any planets. Then its all out until they are gone.

IF I do decide to start a war i will park as many ships as i can near their planets and their roaming fleets. Near the end of the game its different. By then I'm the biggest military so i get everyone one at a time.

Like Herodias, I also ignore the diplo hit when I go to war with minors. That's probably why I've never gotten an alliance victory. Taking minors out early can increase your strength pretty significantly, since their planets have the Civilization Capital bonuses.

Beyond that, I've generally tried to take out the closest AIs first, regardless of strength. The close borders make getting along difficult and it's better if they're subjugated before they become a problem.

Like CaptainYar said, parking troop transports next to their planets and waiting for them to declare war works well. It can keep relations with other races from deteriorating too quickly.

Invading them until they're weak and offering peace in exchange for their last planets can also keep you from taking a diplo hit.

If at all possible, I try to take their home planet quickly. It's usually built up nicely and serves as a key component of their strength. After that, high PQ planets with low populations make easy pickin's with good potential.

Once conquered, I like to adjust the planet's structures to my liking. There's no good reason to pay maintenance on structures that you don't need, so demolishing those buildings keeps costs down. In general, I'll demolish the lab structures except for the last one and upgrade it to a factory to save costs. I also demolish all morale structures.

Excellent suggestions. Especially the ones that focus on not taking a diplo hit.

How easy is it to get other AIs to declare war to you, especially when your military is relatively strong? What are the best ways to do so? Just parking your fleet next to their home planet?

Is is a good idea to not only bribe other players to go to war with each other, but also give them weapons, techs and money to actually win a war?

Having the AI declare war on you isn't always something you can "make" happen especially if you have a strong military. Just like sometimes its near impossible to get close relations.

Parking fleets I think is a minor thing to them and they don't really seem to treat their home planet any different than others. I guess what you want is for your relations with them to get worse. Look at the "Report" screen under foreign relations and see where your pluses are and try to make those go away. Usually people ask how to get better relations but if you want war then do the opposite.

Keep asking them for money I think is a great way to piss them off. You can also click on the trade embargo box, it will cancel all trade routes with that race and probably anger them.

If you want a war so bad why not just start it yourself? I've never noticed a problem with diplomacy hits from starting wars, but by that stage of the game i usually don't care anymore.

Having an AI fight another is a way to keep them both in check. I don't want one to start winning because I will eventually have to fight them too. I never give weapons techs to fight unless its is WAY below what I'm using. Again it could come back to haunt you, especially if the race you want them to kill steals that tech in an invasion. If I don't plan on a military victory and have allies, I will funnel them trade goods and some techs to help them get by. If the ask for help I'll usually throw them 100 bc or something.

Can you actually get a near-dead civ to give *all* their worlds for peace? I've never tried that, and it would sure suit my play style better than destroying them utterly.

Yes. There are factors that can make it easier or harder to do, including your relative military strength, relative diplomacy and map size. Also, in my experience, minor races aren't so willing to part with their last planet too easily.

The smaller the map, the harder it gets. Nevertheless, if you can beat them down to a single planet and then offer peace for the last one, it'll usually work. The enemy won't be added to the list of civs you destroyed and you won't take the tendency to destroy others diplo hit.

Motti, you said "their last planets" first time. Have you been able to get this kind of surrender with a civ that had, say, six or eight worlds left on a gigantic or immense map with 200-300 worlds on it?

I've never tried to get a last planet or planets for peace. At best I'm able to get maybe 2 out of their last 8 for example. So I just keep fighting until I get them all.


I wasn't familiar with a diplomacy hit for destroying civs. I have noticed it listed on the factors screen, -tendency to defeat others, or something. Does it affect your trade ability somewhat or just your relations?

Do surrenders count as destruction? What if there are multiple wars going on against the same civ, does everyone take a hit? Or is it just whoever gets the last planet if there is no surrender?

I'm not sure just how the game math works here, but since diplo skill affects how strong a trader you are, I'd guess that the diplo penalty for destroying a civ affects anything that your diplo strength, not just your relations. But I wouldn't be that surprised if my guess is wrong.



I'm pretty sure they do not, and I'd think it a "bug" if they did.

Let's see...

So smaller map = harder to get...that explains why it took me 6 billion BC to get the Drengin's last homeworld on a tiny map in DA (allied and with all diplomacy techs...)

Yes, you can get all their worlds...even their last one. I've actually found this somewhat EASIER with minors, but I didn't really compare on a minor to minor basis, so it's probably just the different diplomacy values interfering.

The hit for destroying a civ is not diplomacy; it is relations. You get a - to your relations with all surviving civs when you take one out. Diplomacy, trade, etc, is unaffected.

I don't recall taking said hit when a race surrendered to me. In particular, it wouldn't make any sense if they were at war with someone else (but not you), surrendered, and then you got the hit.

I have not seen the hit appear when buying a race's last planet.

As for who gets the hit-it's last blow. Whoever takes the last planet kills the civ; up to that point everyone's just wounding it.

Extermination due to the last planet flipping doesn't give you a hit, either. And it DOES count as a conquest victory    

See, I KNEW I forgot something!

I've only been able to get multiple planets (as many as four) as a final trade on gigantic and large maps. It might work with six if you add stuff to the trade. I've only been able to get one planet as the final trade on medium maps and the smaller ones only seem to work if you add stuff to the trade. I have no experience on immense maps yet.



I'm not sure how many civs take a hit when a civ fighting multiple wars surrenders. I've found that they count against me if any civ I'm at war with surrenders to anyone.



I hadn't thought of trying that. Not bad.

Any method of extermination, be it surrender, destruction, peace agreement or whatever will count as a mil conquest as long as all of the AIs are eliminated.

There is a bit of a disagreement here; do surrenders count against you or not?

I think it would have been better to for it to take into account who started the war. If they started it the I should be able to annihilate them, to protect myself from the in the future of course. Or the AI should make some sort of plea for peace before it gets destroyed.

I would love to know what goes into a surrender. I had the Torians surrender to the Krynn while they still had like 10 planets left. I wasn't at war with them and I didn't even realize the Krynn were.

Hello there...
>>If you want a war so bad why not just start it yourself?<<

Because often if you start a war, the AI that you attack has allies that will then declare war on you. What would have been an easy victory becomes a real problem.

Re goading someone into a war, building military starbases near their valuable planets seems to help. Also these act as powerful magnets when they do decalre war - they often seem hell bent on destroying those starbases at the expense of making sensible defensive deployments. Just don't bother building these starbases up with lots of additional constructors, since you know your going to lose them anyway.

Cheers

That's not necessarily true. In my current game, I have a mining starbase that has more kills than all my fleets put together. And this is in year 6 of a normal tech speed immense game.

Of course, I do have the Thalan defensive module on it, so it has far more defensive capability than most starbases can have.

I've done this 3 or 4 times, with the most planets gained being 4 against the drengin. What also works with this, is being a lot more powerful militarily (and wiping theirs out), and also trading them really good techs too. This isn't always necessary but it helps. They won't be able to do anything with them anyway, like trade them to others, because they will cease to exist after the conversation is over.


EDIT: I've done all of them on small and medium galaxies.

How eerie.

Perhaps it's a difference between DA and DL. The games I've done this in were in DL and from what I gather, diplomacy is easier in DA. There are several posts to that effect. I might try a game or two in DA to check it out.

This proved disastrous for me. Played Large map with 9 races and 8 minors.

Conquered 3 minors and everybody started getting mad on me for being conqueror. After some time almost every race went berserk with me. Even if I signed peace treaty with any of them they declared war right next turn again (exempt if I bribe them to attack someone else during same diplo meeting).

Was pretty much end game for me.
Played on Crippling.



P.S.
Never started a single war with major races.

After finishing off the two that attacked me, I am left in my Universe with 3 other races. 2 are my old Allies and all 3 are weaker than my by a large margin.

 

Now here is the problem: While I killed the two dangerous ones I left the others to their own devices (apart from having them fight for me of course). Now all 3 of them are allied, while 1 of them is not allied with me. I would like to entice the unallied race into a war with me, but however badly I behave, our relations won't drop under "friendly".

 

I tried: parking tons of transports by their planet, building influence bases (- our influence in relations), making absurd demands.

They keep liking me. I would like to see if I can make them attack me or get the others to break their Alliance.

Any suggestions would be very welcome

I believe Danielost asked for a similar functionality a while back. AFAIK, this level of diplo complexity is impossible and I don't expect to see it added for 2.0.

Still, how hard could it be to add "Break Alliance with" to the Diplomacy page? It seems very similar to the "Attack" option--it would just need to pop a box listing the allied civs and calculate a (hopefully very, very high) cost.

p.s. In my current game, I'm again very frustrated to see that honoring an alliance does not trump breaking an econ or research treaty. IMO, if a civ that I have a treaty with attacks my ally, that civ and all the others should lower relations with me only if I break the alliance, not if I honor it and break the treaties.

 

That was what I was looking for, like in Master of Orion a "break Alliance" diplomatic argument.

 

Well, looks like I will have to steamroll them ; )

As DrSchneider told, it's absolutely absurd that they still keep liking me or do not break their alliance, even if I starbase hug them...

 

Also, at the game I'm playing right now, there are 5 civilizations left. Devoured 2 with starbase hugging (were my allies) and now the remaining 4 are allied with each other - 2 even with me (allied with all) and I'm left alone to fight with the other two. No problem though. God bless TA attack priority!!! Just one fleet of mine has 1500 attacks and 300 defenses