Still really hard to make freinds in diplomacy...

The negative "military strength" modifier is caused by having a smaller fleet than them, as they view that as weakness.  You need to match or surpass their fleet strength.

Not too much though, 'cause they don't like that much either.

Similiar issues here, I can't seem to be able to make one single friend out of the 3 AI I put there.

Match was 1 TEC, 1 Advent, 1 TEC and I picked the Vasari, unlocked teams and random vicious AI.

Fast research as I prefer to avoid falling asleep between one research and another, all the rest was default with pirates active.

Relationship bar stay fixed at 0% whatever I do, I tried giving them resources, completing missions...nothing.

The modifiers changes but the the percentage value is freezed at 0% precluding any chance of dimplomatical endeavours.

Game ended with all of them deploying against me, not that it was a problem fending them off but I just wanted to try out some of these new diplo features and they don't seem to work at all so I'm not going to play again until beta 3 I guess.

Lo

I think the problem is that the penalties for rejecting/not completing missions is huge. Frankly I'd like to see the AI beholden to the same wacky missions system, since it seems like it's all too easy for them to ally up and gang up again.

The negative penalty for military action needs to be dropped as is completely silly. If the default stance in this game is war, it's WAY too easy to wind up in situations where everyone hates you; IE raiding your planets while you're out trying to fulfill THEIR mission.

I think that the fact that I destroyed someone's ships should only negatively affect my relationship if I am not in a gravwell owned by me. If I own the planet, I have the right to defend it. fighting on neutral gravwells should only have a minor negative effect if at all as well.

Agreed, an enemy has little reason for grievance if you shoot down their ships as they attack you. I like the idea that there should also be a difference for 'neutral' (unowned or unownable) grav wells.

I'm also fairly certain that the bonus for completing missions doesn't stack - it just stays at 3. Still, on the plus side the penalty doesn't stack either.

I've whinged at length in another thread about similar early-game problems.

I am curious as to when or if the caps on bonuses will be removed or increased... or be related to techs (specific 'understanding type techs' or your race relations imposing the caps or current diplomacy research level (+1 to cap for each diplomacy tech). At the moment I think res donation bonus has a cap of 1 (which is tiny). Mission bonus is for the last mission, not cumilative missions (which it should be, up to a high cap of +/- 20, to potentially negate the team bonus).

The negatives from military strength and ship destruction seems to really surpass everything else. Not sure if it dissipates over time either, didn't seem to (unlike the donations which do decrease quite rapidly). I'd like the diplomatic penalty to appear on the infocard of ships/planets under the experience value (proportional to experience... for example 1/n(experience) in enemy wells, 1/0.25n(experience) in neutral, 1/0.025n(experience) in own wells... not zero but not as significant. Whatever value is chosen it doesn't matter as long as blowing up a scout in your own well is lower than blowing up an extractor in an enemy well, 'n' could perhaps be related to current fleetsize, so when you have 500 ships, 'n' will be lower (say 1/200 down to 1/1000 to 1/5000). Blowing up your first capital ship at the start should be much worse than a dozen ships at max fleetsize.

Without any random numbers, I'd like to know what happens when I blow up an invading enemy starbase and for that to be less damaging to relations than dropping a starbase in an enemy gravity well and destroying their defences. For something that happened at the start, it shouldn't prevent an end game alliance, except perhaps key things, planet/cap/starbase destruction penalties should perhas have a much larger grace period before they start to degrade to represent the significance of the loss to that race. I'd like a delay before the res donations start to degrade as well, otherwise it's fairly pointless for such a little bonus. (maybe res over the cap increases the time before delay, to help you keep relations high without constant investment)

Near as I can tell, the most you can get from missions is +3.  Especially with the current mission spam issues, I felt like I was repeatedly grovelling to maintain that +3 for fear of either getting a negative to rejected missions or to missions itself.

 

That said, once you get a cease fire (which isn't *that* hard if you do 1 mission, have some diplomatic inclination in your favour and quickly bribe them up 10% with giving resources) you can then fairly easily stabilize and grow your relative %.  The trick is the envoy cruisers.  Sit one in each of their gravity wells.  This is expensive, fleet wise, but if it lets you get a permanent ally, and later, pacts, it is worth it.  Even chatting up 1-2 gravity wells is enough to easily maintain a cease fire, more or less indefinitely, even if you start rejecting a few missions or stop bribing them.

I agree with the above wholeheartedly.  By the time I wanted to try to make friends, it was impossible.  I had -30 Military Actions for one race and -39 for the other.  No matter how many missions I completed, the most I could get for Completed missions was +3.9 (Diplomat Upgrades).  The most I could get for gifting resources was +1.  The most I was able to get for sending out 10 envoys was +1 (granted, I sent them all to the same planet).  Since the Military Actions didn't reset over time, there was no way to make friends.  Not once did I attack the computer - the military actions were the result of them sending their fleets into my Starbase grinders.  I should be the one pissed at them for attacking my planets...  the bastards have no right to be mad at me if they lose their fleet while attacking ME

Soo... the best I could get was +6, and at the same time the Military Actions kept decreasing while they continuously ground down their fleets against my planetary defenses.  I know in vanilla sins, you lost relationship points when the enemy attacked your planet and for every ship of theirs that you destroyed, regardless of the circumstances.  But at least you could stack your mission accomplishments to eventually get a Cease Fire.

An alternate suggestion is to be able to initiate a cease fire, regardless of diplomatic points.  For example, if I am overwhelming an AI and he obviously cannot stop me from rolling over him, I could give him the option to Join With Me or Die Against Me.

I do have to say I like the race relations modifier. It makes sense and is a nice bit of character, especially in a game with no campaign as such. It ought to be easier for Advent to ally with Advent, or to grudgingly team up with a Vasari faction, but to get over long-term grudges and animosity in order to side with TEC forces... it makes sense that that takes effort and/or a very threatening third party empire.

The current beta 2 build has a bug where the positive military action bonus isn't being applied correctly. The idea is, faction A hates faction B. If you destroy faction B's ships and facilities, faction A is going to like you better. This is going to get hot-fixed early next week and will hopefully address a lot of the concerns people have with the negative military action penalty.

I'm with wolfpackmars2 etc, the military actions stacks up way too fast (it shouldn't add up AT ALL for defending your own planets, and I'd say it shouldn't really be increasing for defending your starbases in neutral gravwells either (suppose I want to actually defend the metal/crystal asteroids i've taken in nearby neutral wells?).

Without securing a cease fire VERY early in the game, it quickly becomes utterly impossable to get one with anybody. thats not an exageration, it litterally becomes impossable, there simply isnt enough +modifiers available to counter the massive -modifier that has built up from defending yourself.

 

It's one thing to make it hard, but currently its way OTT. It's mostly the military actions thats the problem, that and the fact that nothing seems to increase the 'diplomatic actions' or 'research' modifier (I assume the research modifier is a +modifier for if you are well ahead of them technologically, but I never saw any change and maxed out all research with the computer miles behind). I tried moving 10 advent diplo ships into an enemy grav well, they all used the first research ability (that gives them a culture boost and supposedly increases relations) then they all used their other ability to sacrifice themselves to increase relations. Nothing moved, not a single modifier appeared

played a game on a smaller map after making this post and still had the same trouble. I agree that if it takes place in your gravwell its not "military action" Period. I do agree that race diference should have some penalty but it should be WAY smaller. Like 1 point at most. In the opening statement of Diplomacy (as can be currently seen on the loading screen for the beta) it actualy states that the factions of each race are disgusted with thier own peoples actions and are looking for answers in diplomacy with the other races. 3 points penalty does not support that statement IMO. Ill be waiting to try this hotfix and see if it makes any difference. Still havent even come close to being able to try out pacts. Also side note. 30% is the highest aproval ive gotten from an AI in game so far. That should be enough for a ceasefire. Its not like getting a ceasfire with that much is gonna make it too easy to get higher, it will just give you some ground to work with (you will have to break it with one faction to make another happy anyway...)

Long time without war should also gradually accumulate a positive modifier over time.

NOT FIGHTING FOR A WHILE SHOULD DECREASE MILITARY ACTION.  ALSO DESTROYING SHIPS THAT ARE ATTACKING YOU IN YOUR OWN GRAVITY WELL SHOULD NOT COUNT AGAINST YOU. It's self defense.

This. It doesn't make sense that you lose points for defending yourself from an attacker. I realize Sins is fantasy, but I'd expect to hopefully see basic real world politics in it.

If this was a persistent world like an MMO I could understand the desire to make friends. But as a RTS, diplomacy is hardly needed, I wish the devs would have spent the considerable time on getting diplomacy in the game on something else.

The second expansion with more toys, another race, etc... would have sold a TON, just ask your marketing department. As great as that game is don't try and make Sins into a Dawn of Discovery.

I've actually (although it can be hard) made freinds and won with an ally. Largely this was luck - they didn't feel like attacking me too early and so I was able to ingratiate myself enough to make a cease-fire and work from there. Envoys are very important for this, as is trying to stay on top of the missions (to avoid the equivilent of a 4.5 drop in relations). Still no luck on the pacts, but then I wasn't using too much in the way of tributes.

It's quite satisfying to get an opponent on your side finally, but it can be a little hard and, once you have two or three of their planets with an envoy sitting in orbit, it can actually be easy (perhaps too easy) to keep them and build on that. Maybe a decrease in effectiveness for every envoy ship above 1 that you have in their territory?

Games In sins can last a LONG time. I think diplomacy and Espionage options would make great additions to keeping the game lively (especialy late game). New toys are fun but they would kill ballance. A new race would be great but thats a big change for a $10 expansion. Just wait for sins 2