What killed pacts and envoy's in multiplayer?

I don't know if its the reason, but the fleet supply the envoys use has always made advanced diplomacy more of a pain than in other game. You of course know my answer to that problem...

I really wouldn't be surprised if people's spending priorities have simply changed in Rebellion and they haven't bothered to put envoys make into their build plans.

Yep, I know what you mean there. They did lower fleet supply from 12 to 8 which unfortunately didn't help bridge that gap.

A single envoy should be enough to get the first level pact though.

There is no time to get pacts up since titan rushing takes priorities. Then you need anti titan fleets ....

well we haven't seen too many vasari rebel players due to imbalances, so once they are allowed back into the fold u will see plenty of them getting some good defense and getting pacts. 

After all, their faction has good diplomacy.

This has always kind of been true, people focus on fleeting up limiting any thoughts towards envoy's or pacts. 

Plus an ECO person doesn't really benefit from sending envoy's out when there is no reciprocation to actually get the pact.

Possibly, the dual relationship might still make this hard to see.

I also think it might help if the cap on number of times you could gain relationship by gifting in a row wasn't so low, or just didn't exist at all. It's like, okay, thanks for the last 500 credits you gave us, we don't want any more money and aren't going to appreciate it for a while! I'm not really sure what's up with that, I guess its just to keep people from getting pacts in like 5 seconds, but it is kind of annoying.

I think it's mostly so TEC don't have an edge in the gifting area.  Their great econ would allow them to gift all the way up to the top without a cap.  It's not realistic, but even I see that SOME things have to go out the window to make room for balance.

-Twi

Perhaps making the envoys free of fleet suplly people maybe use them again since they can't build any other ships. Then it would be an extra at that point, and perhaps by boosting the diplamacy points by the envoys so only then you can get pacts would be a way of getting them back used.

That would be a bit OP, costing no fleet.  I'd say 6 is a good number for them though, or make it equal to each faction's colony frigate.  The rate they improve diplomatic relation is fine as far as I'm concerned though.

Actually, now that I think about it, doesn't Neruda Envoy cost 8 now?

-Twi

I think that pacts need to be more powerful. I mean I wouldn't care if they were more expensive, it'd just be nice for most of them to actually be worth getting, cause atm the best one by far is supply pact. Its like resource pact, except better in every way and it also gives you fleet supply. Many of them provide a very small benefit for the amount of time/ resources you need to get them, and even after you get them you have to maintain them, because if your relationship falls below a certain level you lose them. One thing I think would be nice would be the ability to go above 20 relationship, not so that you could get even better pacts, but just to give you a buffer to help prevent pacts from ninja wearing off.

And yes, all Envoys cost 8 supply now. 

Anyone know if there is a bug with Supply Pact right now?  I researched and got it with a friend yesterday, and the extra 550 didn't show up.  (Yeah, I do have a Corsev, but I doubt it killed and took control of 550 supply worth of ships in the time it took me to look up from the middle of the screen to the supply box....

-Twi

550? It's 100, isn't it? 550 would be really really overpowered. Besides, the real benefit of supply pact isn't the fleet supply bonus, its the like 15% reduction in fleet supply costs, which basically makes your economy like its 1 1/2 fleet supply upgrades before the one you are actually on, while also boosting your supply at the same time.

I remember reading 550.  I'll check again next time we play, maybe I'm thinking of something else.

-Twi

Twilight hasn't gotten caught up with all the patches. It used to be something like 550 but without the supply cost reduction.

Why would it be? You still have to do the research costs, build the envoy ships and more than likely invest in your envoy abilities to get anything but the most basic pacts. And since pacts are an indirect bonus, they will have to be quite good for players to invest time in it versus something that will directly help them kill another player. When you're fighting for your life, fleet supply is too precious to waste on pacts.

Just re-checked, you're right.  I think I was looking at the number it's supposed to change to rather than the amount it gives.  It lists as

100 - 200 Supply

0 - -15% Upkeep.

It's a little more likely that I just missed it with a smaller number like that.

-Twi

Diplomacy might become viable again if they gave you a single "diplomatic titan"--with all the benefits of diplomacy tied to it and it's location.

At present it's too distracting from combat and planning most of the time in MP with too small a return on the up-front investment.

Indeed. The current design also dictates the number of labs determines the cost of the research. Investing in a high tier tech for a pact you might get with a player IF they send you envoys just aint going to happen.

Pacts used to be a lot more important in early Diplomacy, when they were faster to get. Now it's just too time-intensive to bother.

Also, TEC econ players loved the Neruda and its old credits-generating ability before its nerf.

Sorry, Goa, I missed this when I posted my last comment.

The reason I think it would be OP is that despite the fact that Envoys have no combat purpose, they do provide vision of each world the person you send it to owns.  In normal games, just because a person allies with you doesn't mean they want you to be able to see everything they're doing.  That's why Planet Vision is optional.

Yes, I do know that most online games seem to be set teams, but the people who want other types of games like a FFA shouldn't be resticted by that fact and be forced to spend resources on envoys just to have the same advantage.  I would however be in favor of cutting them down a little more, however, to the cost of a colony frigate, as to me, they seem to be just about as useful.  They should cost something in supply, and it's not like you have to build them in mass numbers.  To me, they're meant to come out somewhere between the 3rd or 4th supply upgrade, where a couple of these don't make a massive dent in your supply.

-Twi /)

Going with the bi-directional relationship requirements.

Exactly, and this thread is all about multiplayer. And really planet vision is a pretty easy treaty to get, if that's all you wanted it uses much less fleet supply to leave a scout there instead. I'm sorry, IMO that just seems like such a trivial reason it shouldn't even be considered a factor in single player FFA games.

I wasn't specifying Single Player FFA, I meant FFA in general.  And leaving a scout would only be effective in small-medium games.  On the large or huge maps, you are better off going envoys and planet vision, as long as your ally owns more than 40 planets.  Which can happen pretty quick once other empires start getting knocked out in a 10 empire match.  Yes, dropping a scout does give you the same vision, but the envoy provides additional abilities that the scout doesn't.

-Twi /)

Can't see how any of this relates to why envoys and pacts are NOT used in multi-player. 

It comes down to people not wanting to spend Fleet Supply on envoys.

-Twi /)

I agree this appears to be the real crux of the problem. I didn't really understand why this was put in place at the same time pacts were nerfed.

I would also rather see the majority of Envoy abilities made passive (with a couple exceptions like Cultural Integrity). For example, trying to guess when you get cheaper planet upgrades is in affect is way more micro management then was intended for this game.