I don't know if this is the proper place to put a question, but i believe the first release the envoy ships were invulnerable to attack except from Pirates.   All the Militia and Factions would disregard the envoy. I thought this was very interesting.

With the release of course now of beta two, that behaviour seems to have changed. The ships are invulnerable, but only for a certain time, and even after entering the well of another world and establishing relations I still get fired on.

In addition, i had a relationship deteriorate. From the original 10% back down to zero, consequently i had to flee or die.

My own personal opinion of course, is that i preferred the original way in beta one. With the possibility of going from there and establishing a stronger relation.

The second beta is of course more realistic, but in this regard, i reallly am not hopeing for more realism, but rather staying alive. Of course many players may prefer this as it seems in line that nothing, not even the envoy ships now, are over-powered.

Just my two cents

-Teal

Quote: Better yet, why not give a player who has the most territory the power to arbitrate for his own gains (think oil-for-food)?

This is exactly how it works in Galciv2 at the moment. People with more influence (which is highly related to territory) get more voting power in the UN. There seems to be quite some support for the proposal to have a UN kind of diplomacy forum. Any more votes in favour? Opinions from the devs are appreciated!

I really like the idea of a galactic UN (or, to nick a term from Stargate, a "United Nations of the Stars"). It explains why you can have a relationship with a player when you dont know where any of their planets are. It exaplins how the relationships are mediated without embassies

Perhaps the UN of the Stars could be some Uber-strong hull/shield-Starbase (with Armistic ability) at the central star, and if a faction attacks it, they get declared "hostis humani generis" like if you use a planet-buster in Alhpa Centauri, all the factions start attacking you (well, not "hostis HUMANI generis" but you get my point)

It would add another layer of depth to an already fantastic game

i know this sounds terrible, but can i uninstall beta two and go back to beta one?

-Teal

Teal, what did you like in beta one that you don't like in beta two?

So there was an update for diplomacy?  What was changed?  I Havent played with the new change since 12.14.09.  Forums seems quiet

Sorry to sound terrible, i started playing beta one with the envoy ships and it was very neat, i would try to get them out first, along with the scouts and they would have the invulnerability on and the only ships that would attack would be the pirates, the factions and the militia would veer off when they came close.

When the envoy ships hit the grav well of a faction planet, they would go straight for the planet and establish an embassy, which was very cool, i would get a 10% raise in relations and i could further it, or i could sorta try the undermine thing, so it was very very neat.

In beta two, the invulnerability is set to 30/120, which means i get fired on alot, haha, and when the envoy hits the faction planet it just sits there, it doesnt establish an embassy and my relations are still zero. If i sit there long enough i start to get shot at again and either have to flee or die, or pull out my envoy ships later, say mid or late game. What i liked with beta one, was you could start from square one with a diplomatic plan, you could start playing differently than we have in the original, or in entrenchment, not to say they are bad, because they were a lot of fun, but with the diplomacy expansion, it was just very very cool to start playing right off the bat in a different way.

That is what i thought was cool, and what seems to be different now in the new beta two.

Not that im like depressed or anything about it, but it was just very very cool and i enjoyed it, and now miss it is all.

Thanks for listening, hope the devs could bring the way it was done in beta one back, and maybe give us an option to do it like then, or like now, i think having the option would be cool, people could decide how they like to play it.

-Teal

Yes, it could be one of those selectable options: "Embassies On/Off"

Samurye

Negative as of the patch that came out 12.14.09

Does anyone know how to achieve a peace treaty?  I noticed there are a lot of pacts, research and resources, culture... the problem i am having after playing about three games with the new beta, is that i have yet to get a peace treaty, they either declare war on me, or i wind up defeating the other opponent and once that happens the other side sits at the same relationship level, but no way to get a treaty.

Thus no way to get those interesting pacts. 

I was hoping it would be easier to achieve a treaty with a faction, or several factions in fighting the others. That is what i was hoping, but im not sure what im doing wrong, but im not able to pull it off.

Any suggestions?

-Teal

Any answers on this yet?

Is it possible to implement to share tech between races? For example the phase stabilizers, that you could share them with TEC.

Good thought, but i need to get a peace treaty, (i think) in order to get any of that, and so far, i havent been able to get a game where i could get a treaty, which makes me believe, i could be wrong, that if they are possible, of course they have to be sometimes, that those treaties are something that come mid to late game, not early game.

Anyway, without the treaty, no pacts.

To a very large extent, im still getting the same response out of the ai that i got before Diplomacy, which was i would get a certain small alliance until one of the other players was removed, then suddenly the ally decides to dump me and go to war.

Thing that irks me is this seems to be the standard behaviour. If it was sometimes betrayal, sometimes allied victory that would be interesting and intriquing enough to play. But the standard, ally until x point then break treaty behaviour makes me feel like turning off treaties all together. Forgive me, im in a little bit of a mood, but this really has me rather tweaked. I hope the Devs can fix this, im assuming it is only because its so early in the beta that its soooo, well, like it wsa before. I stopped allying with ai for just this reason, either that or play locked teams with partners, then i didnt have to worry about that behaviour.

ANyway, enough of my rant, sorry, i have two finals tomorrow and im probably venting some pent up freustration. Thanks for listening,

-Teal

Just a quick thought about teams and artifacts...

As it currently stand (that I've seen so far) artifacts are still player exclusive to the owner of the planet it's on.  The biggest thing when I'm playing with my buddies is we tend to butt heads because only one of us can use them.

What I would like to see added is the ability to share the advancements gained by the artifacts through the Diplomacy tree that was added.  It would help take the cut-throat type of atmosphere out of a locked team game (cause who cares about the other players in a FFA...  Just Joking).

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing (and I'm not quite sure how this would be added) is the ability in the map editor to state which planets (or planet groups) would have artifacts and which wouldn't.  While having them added at random is fun because it adds an element of suprise to the game, it doesn’t help when a person trys to create a balanced map.

Not nit-picking but rather trying to get a couple of good ideas out on the chopping board for the devs to see.

Thank you very much for your time,
Ravis T Bawm

I was wondering if the difficulty of obtaining a pact would be lowered somewhat. I find it really hard to get a resource pact no matter how many missions I complete for an ally or how many envoys I send.

Ive had that. i think its because it has to be two sided; i.e. you have to have a high opinion of them before you can offer them a pact, which means they have to send envoys and complete missions (which they dont do by the way)

Yeah, I noticed they don't really go around to carrying out your missions, but I also noticed that if you carry out the mission that you offered (i.e. destroy a ship), you'll notice the ship count actually goes down! That's another issue that needs to be fixed, methinks. Also, I can't demand gifts of crystal, credits, or metal even though I can research it. Anyone found out how?

I havent, and Ive been looking damn hard. It does say it doesnt have all the features available yet. In Beta 2 for instance you had the research speed boost pact but not in beta 3. Maybe the demand gifts thing will turn up in Beta 4 or the final release

There are only two beta's out so far, unless i missed something, when did beta three get released?

-Teal

just checked Impulse, it looks like there was the initial .085   then a .085.006 listed as beta 1 and .090 which is listed as beta two. Which means exactly what you said, there really have been three versions, if we count the first version.

Anyway, i still miss embassies.  :(   I really thought we had something there. The excerpt on Impulse says that treaties will be hard to get (so far for me very hard to get) but that they grant very nice bonuses.

I'm not sure i particularly like the changed way they are doing this now, but have little say in the matter. Well... we aren't finished with the beta's yet... so there is hope they will try something a little easier to get, just so it makes starting from a diplomatic stance easier to play, instead of getting diplomatic options later in the game. Just my opinion, of course. But i liked getting the embassies off the ground very early game, it was very different and made the game feel very different.

Anyway, enough of my negativity, I'll just wait and see what happens,

-Teal

I really really like the idea of an artifact-sharing technology.

I would of liked embassies to be an actual construction akin to starbases (only smaller!) that the envoy would transform into. However, what we got now is beginning to work out. It just needs to *really* be refined more, as keeping an eye out on each envoy on a planet is extremely difficult and taxing in terms of micromanagement.

something i would like to complain a bit about... in the notes you say that pacts do not stack... however I can nor form multiple pacts with other people (it says you can have only one of each pact).

Please make it so you can offer pacts to multiple people... even if you dont recieve the bonus.

However... I think that having the same pacts with different races should still give diminishing returns... say... the first pack gives your current 10%... the second 6.66%, and the third 3.33% (4th and 5th? pacts give nothing)

This way, while your rapellon armor is good... if you perfect it with the tec guy next door its better... and then if you get the vasari to tell how nano-bots can make it flawless... its just a litttle bit better... and then if you can get the advent to give you a few of their quac-- ...  people? to "psychicly protect" it...

something to note... the advent shield pact... the mitigation cannot be subject to diminishing returns... else you end up with lv 10 advent capital ships floating around with 95% mitigation... (65 base+10% from level +10% from advent research/culture bonuses +5%+3.33%+1.66% from shield pacts....)... honestly... i think that a 10 advent battleship with 90% shield mitigation is a bit op.... before we throw in the guardians... a progen with shield restore... and vengance and malice and a healing subjugator and a repair bay and a 75% mitigated starbase with metor control and mass disoriant...

         Am I missing something ? When its down to the last two empires fighting it out, is ANYTHING in Diplomacy useful? Not loving this expansion, as a single player locked teams kind of guy. I think the devs should have gone in a different direction.