Negative relation hits for REFUSING to pay tribute????

[[] ¬ []1 TEFLON DON 永遠のトランプ]

What;s the deal with this? I've got an AI Major trying to shake me down for 3k credits, I told them to go pound sand and of course, the worthless council directors and advisors I have took a -25 relation penalty for refusing. This needs to be changed ASAP!

[ulzgoroth]

Why? Why can't your cabinet think you should pay the tribute?

[maerchen]

I guess it is a profile problem. Some leaders might be in a powerful faction that is peaceful and doesn't want to lower relations with the neighbors. Not paying hurts relations.

[APhoenixSoaring]

It doesn't make sense though. The game is a planetary conquest wargame. It shouldn't actively punish you for being militant.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by APhoenixSoaring:

It doesn't make sense though. The game is a planetary conquest wargame. It shouldn't actively punish you for being militant.

It's got lots of wargame in its makeup, sure, but also a big chunk of politics sim. There are boatloads of 'your leaders get mad at you for dumb reasons' situations. And initiating a war against a regime you don't have established hostile relations with carries a bunch of penalties.

[maerchen]

You can win games with diplomacy alone, conquest of hearts and minds, so YMMV.

Use of Plea of Friendship, Propose Peace, Offer Protection, Offer Client, Unification and Annexation on the minors from a mere cap III foreign affairs director with Propaganda Assistant and Medal of Merit and Non-Agression Pacts with majors, picking them off once you outtech them.

Meritocracies get a flat +25 diplomacy skill bonus early on.
That's how I do it.

[Sgt.Ray]

Your cabinet is full of cowards and they don't think you can take on the major shaking you down. I had a major do the same thing and 80% of my forces were carrying on 2 war fronts on the opposite side...the same situation cabinet members wanted me to pay because i was in a bad situation. Next 5 rounds he tries it again and I am ready for him and my cabinet agreed to tell him to pound sand. I also declared war and ate him alive for him daring to talk to me again thinking he could get more money...it was glorious.

[CHOO CHOO]

Imagine them as a bunch of appeasement politicians. Or maybe they have invested into international business and war would cost them money. Or perhaps they're idealists who think you should give your money to those poor starving people on the other side of the border, after all you don't need it. Or maybe they're all traitors and you should turn them into OHQ commanders and let them play Uriah.

[maerchen]

Both great comments, #6 & #7.

And the 'turn them into OHQ commanders' is my favorite option to get rid of unwanted factions early game, too.

[deMangler]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

Imagine them as a bunch of appeasement politicians. Or maybe they have invested into international business and war would cost them money. Or perhaps they're idealists who think you should give your money to those poor starving people on the other side of the border, after all you don't need it. Or maybe they're all traitors and you should turn them into OHQ commanders and let them play Uriah.

I do this sort of things in a lot of games to flesh it out or rationalise things with my imagination. The difference with Shadow Empire is that if you dig into the reports and other information - especially when you have good spies, you find out that those characters actually ARE doing all those things, have those preferences and investments and histories and loads personally going on, and have legitimate in-game reasons for practically everything they do. Mind boggling, this game.

[CHOO CHOO]

Originally posted by maerchen:

And the 'turn them into OHQ commanders' is my favorite option to get rid of unwanted factions early game, too.

If only it wouldn't cost so many PP to do it, I'd do it a lot more often, too!

[maerchen]

Mid game you should set your SCC to 95/5 PP production/stratagem production. And being a democracy helps a lot with PP production per se.

[CHOO CHOO]

I usually go with 99/1; is there any reason to leave it at 95/5?
But my problem is probably not PP production but that I have too many crap leaders. I keep letting my factions push new people into the reserve pool, and somehow I never manage to kill off any factions I don't like.

[Mortmal]

Originally posted by ¬ 1 TEFLON DON 永遠のトランプ:

What;s the deal with this? I've got an AI Major trying to shake me down for 3k credits, I told them to go pound sand and of course, the worthless council directors and advisors I have took a -25 relation penalty for refusing. This needs to be changed ASAP!

It's worked as intended, those council directors want peace and prefer to pay the tribute, by doing so you hit relation with those.
Same for many decisions in the game, they all have thir own agendas, its not an hive mind. Then they rebel too.

[maerchen]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

I usually go with 99/1; is there any reason to leave it at 95/5?
But my problem is probably not PP production but that I have too many crap leaders. I keep letting my factions push new people into the reserve pool, and somehow I never manage to kill off any factions I don't like.

The 5% instead of 1% lets your leader actually generate some simple additional strat cards, not only train him. Possible good ones or additional to scrap. And 95 instead of 99% isn't hurting your BP production that much as soon as you hit the 100 BP softcap.

Never accept "XYZ demands you hire their candidate" from factions that aren't supporting you after turn 10+ on. Never ever. Show them your disrespect, humiliate them, get rid of them.
At that time you should have an interior council starting to generate adequate candidate cards and retirement cards for your soon-to-be extinct factions. I showcase that in the UI guide.
And by supporting you having I mean at least two profiles matching your general direction, preferrably the main political profile (autocracy - meritocracy - democracy).

It is difficult to make an autocrat faction happy that literally wants to overthrow your dem/merit government and voting setup et vice versa.
Mind that your initial choice after loading the lastplanetgenerated.se file defines your government type. 5.6.12.1., page 232 manual.
I once reloaded a game at turn 1 from said file and got my factions shuffled new, IIRC. Desperate measure, but it worked.

If you play tall and have a low number of conquered cities (read: low governor count), you can get away with never having new factions formed again. 5.8.10.4, page 272 manual.