research and economic treaty?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

You seem to be talking about the UP issue that states that all civilizations at war must pay x% if their gross income to the UP.  A research treaty would not be affected by this-it only applies to the economy.  An economic treaty would, as it is part of your gross income, but for instance if the UP votes that races at war should pay 10%, then you still get 9% of the other player's economy added to yours (normal value for treaties is 10%).

Since the treaty is treated as part of your economy, it is only taxed if you are at war.  Further, them being at war does not decrease their gross income; it just adds a tax onto it, so it would not decrease because of that.  By the same token, if they are at war, then your treaty to them will be taxed, as it is a portion of their gross income.

Since you can't have a treaty with someone that you're at war with, I don't see another question there to address.

Please correct me if I've interpreted your question wrongly.

I think he was asking about the diplomatic hit you take whe declaring war on a treaty partner. This penalty only applies when you attack a civ you have given one of your treaties, not when you attack a civ that has given one of their treaties to you.

...this is what happens when I read too much into something.

+1

What about if that civilization declared war on your ally?

If you declare war on them and have given them your treaty, you get the penalty.  It doesn't matter whether they declared war on your ally first-you are given the option to refuse to declare war on them, albeit losing the alliance in the process.

As a note, the Altarian super ability will cause the same kind of prompt to come up, if your ethical alignment is the same, but you lose nothing by ignoring it.

I've had that happen - you're taking a hit either way. If you declare war, you attacked someone you gave a treaty to. If you don't, you take a hit for not defending an ally. The Altarian super ability is the only way you can decline to attack the aggressor and not take a hit.

So not defending your ally gives you a diplomatic hit in addition to losing the alliance right? And these hits according to the manual is permenant?

If it happens more than once do they stack up? And how big is the hit really?

I would be interested in an answer to this question.

I also have to comment on the treaties. IMHO there should be a possibility to cancel them as well as the opportunity to get other races to cancel theirs and switch over to deal with you instead. As it is now, A.I. players always help each other very early with treaties and there is no chance for me to get in later.

The funny, or sad really, thing is that it was obviously planned for you to be able to suspend treaties, as there is dialogue written for it, but it was never coded into the game, or if it was coded it was never activated.  To me, its one of the biggest things holding back the diplomacy side of the game.

Wow, I let that one slip for a while. Yes, you take the hit as well as losing the alliance. Yes, they are permanent as far as I can tell. No, to my knowledge they do NOT stack; what happens is you get a permanent - in your relations to all other races as "untrustworthy" (or something to that effect, it's been a while). I don't believe it's possible to get it as a double minus, so repeated offenses *shouldn't* be a problem.

It would be convenient to have a way out, but that would also reduce the value of them. As it is, the only way to cancel a treaty between AIs is to start a war between them - and that's not always easy. Usually, having treaties indicates they have good relations, and you can't pay one civ to attack another unless their relations are neutral or lower. What you CAN do is start proxy wars by proxy; that's right, pay one treaty member to attack the other's ally or the Altarians (if target is good), forcing the victim to declare war on their treaty partner. Also good for a laugh is to park transports next to one civ's planet, gift them to the other, and watch relations plummet as the recipient is too stupid to move the transports.

That was beautiful.

Why haven't I done that yet?

Stardock: Please put the above in your dictionaries next to the word exploit...

But please don't fix it. It's just too... too... perfect.

T

Maybe they will fix it "accidently". Often enough the A.I. (intelligent) is begging for help and if I give away some ships I can watch them hanging around several rounds doing nothing.

AIs would do almost anything to improve their ratings, including trading for a decent fleet built with around the highest techno weaponry & defenses available; for a recurrent maintenance cost that can rapidly go out'a'hand, though!

I do NOT trade my military potential - i'd rather loose a few, less, or all in fair & square battles.

Your mileage may differ.

You could always sell them a ship build with all defenses. Expensive, improves their rating so they'll pay through the nose for it, but absolutely worthless in terms of combat power. The AI won't upgrade it anyway.

Diplomatic reputation would possibly suffer to the ----- multiple minuses (on the relations tab) until every AIs declares total war to you.