Federation with more than 2 members?

[mcsproot]

As it says.

Whenever I make a Federation, I can never get a third member to join. Usually they either dislike me, the other member, or are too far away.

[mcsproot]

I just wish there was more information available to the player about who likes and doesn't like who besides who are rivals.

Plus as I said, sometimes the empire I want to invite won't join because they apparently don't like me, even though I have 150 relation with them.

Next time I think I'll just liberate someone to my ethics before starting a federation.

Though I bet even then a federation of egalitarian xenophiles will still somehow not like each other.

[zz_tophat]

Originally posted by mcsproot:

I just wish there was more information available to the player about who likes and doesn't like who besides who are rivals.

Plus as I said, sometimes the empire I want to invite won't join because they apparently don't like me, even though I have 150 relation with them.

Next time I think I'll just liberate someone to my ethics before starting a federation.

Though I bet even then a federation of egalitarian xenophiles will still somehow not like each other.

Playing diplomacy based empires is tricky methinks, I advise people to play empires that have a strong military, strong economies and/or empires that have no specific weakness before trying to win a game with an empire that is focused on federation building. I also strongly advice against trying to win with a federation when you are an empire that does not have strong diplomacy because those early game bonuses are so incredibly important.

For example my current game is not even 100 years in and I have effectively won. I am playing a diplomacy race I made (friendly slug people) and before anyone was fielding a fleet with more than 2k fleet power I have a federation of 4 races and a 5th as an associate that WILL be joining later. I did this by first making friends with my first nearby empire before causing border friction, rushing federation and having them join, then adopting the ethics of the next nearby empire by embracing a faction that shared them and using that boost to secure the opinion to get them in the federation. After that I declared war on a third empire that was nearby, liberating them with my federation member that was near them, so they would be friendly and bringing them in to the federation as well.

The associate was a bit farther away but thankfully they were friendly with one of the federation memebers so I made them an associate and that will ensure friendly relations.

With this early federation I can just liberate the entire galaxy in to either vassals or federation memebers one empire after another because there is no single empire that can stand up to my federation this early in the game.

My own empire will never be huge, I spent a lot of very important early game reasources that normally would have been vital to early game expansion and economy basically "diplomacy rushing" my neighbors but that doesn't matter, no one else will have a chance to grow in to a threat now. EDIT: I also gave up my starting ethics, because rushes are an all-or-nothing gambit. My factions are unhappy, my empire is poor and small but I will rule the galaxy reguardless.

It's all planning and execution. This is one of my best diplomacy rushes, normally I can establish a strong foothold early game but this game I am completely dominating thanks to making the right friends at the right time (before anyone has a chance to hate eachother).

[Djynn]

Originally posted by mcsproot:

I just wish there was more information available to the player about who likes and doesn't like who besides who are rivals.

That information is available, if you click the diplomatic map mode then click on an empire you want to know more about you can then hover over other empires which will tell you what opinion the selected empire has of the hovered over empire (if that makes any sense).

Originally posted by mcsproot:

Plus as I said, sometimes the empire I want to invite won't join because they apparently don't like me, even though I have 150 relation with them.

Does it say why they don't want to join you? It could be that you have differing war philosophies, which is usually the reason why empires don't want to join you federation despite their opinion of you.

[Land]

Originally posted by mcsproot:

If there's a way to see what other empires think of each other, I haven't seen it. Sure, I can check who is a rival etc, but I mean like the relationship number.

The bottom right of the screen you will see many view options for the galactic map. one of with is "AI Attutide" click that and whatever empire you then click on you will see what they think of the other empires. green = good, blood red = bad etc

[mcsproot]

@zz_tophat

What did you do to your neighbour that made them friendly?

When it comes to trade, I usually make the deal about even, and generally only go into trade when I need something.

Should I just bribe my neighbours with huge gifts or vastly over-paying for what I want?

In my game, I was Fanatic Xenophile, Egalatarian with Charismatic. You can't get much friendlier than that. Well, except for Authoritarians not liking me much I guess.

[mcsproot]

@skippy

No, there was no obvious reason I could see. I moused over the relations modifier for that empire, and there were no red marks.

[mcsproot]

Example:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198021545252/screenshots/?appid=281990

Oh look, they like me!

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198021545252/screenshots/?appid=281990

Oh wait, no they don't.

EDIT: I spy the 'forbids wars of aggression' part now, but that doesn't explain the -1000 for disliking my empire.

[mcsproot]

Diplomatic map with me selected:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198021545252/screenshots/

Diplomatic map with my Federation partner selected:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198021545252/screenshots/

[zz_tophat]

Originally posted by mcsproot:

@zz_tophat

What did you do to your neighbour that made them friendly?

When it comes to trade, I usually make the deal about even, and generally only go into trade when I need something.

Should I just bribe my neighbours with huge gifts or vastly over-paying for what I want?

In my game, I was Fanatic Xenophile, Egalatarian with Charismatic. You can't get much friendlier than that. Well, except for Authoritarians not liking me much I guess.

My first ally was gained just via guarantee independence, then non-aggression, then defensive pact and finally federation. I use Agrarian Idyll + Beacon of Liberty to help quickly get my starting traditions from the diplomacy tree to help speed the processes. The second ally was chosen from the two other available neighbors as the one more likely to like my existing member, I adopted their ethics to get them to like me and then made them an associate so my ally would grow to like them and watched them like a hawk until my ally did. When they did finally like them I invited them to the federation.

After my first 2 members I declared war on then other empire in the area, the one that was never going to like my ally. Our fleets were only 1.4k-1.7k at the time which would normally make it hard to even beat a single space station but I just stacked up on an allied fleet and let them move as a blob, which they did, taking one planet, then another quickly ending the war (despite not investing in my fleet I luckily had the strongest one, thanks to having the shipyard event + the cruiser salvage event). I had the ally close to them liberate them so they would be friends and then gifted them materials to make them like me and finally a brief association had them liking my other ally and they were brought in to the federation.

EDIT: should also point out I had my first ally as a buffer between my second ally and the liberated empire so as to avoid friction and give them no cause to hate eachother.

Armed with this federation I am going to win this game, but it took planning and careful management to quickly establish it, it's a combination of timing, the right ethos, government, traditions, knowing which empires to support, which to attack and it all has to be done before their borders start touching.

(I also had no armies, had to rely on my allies for that, thankfully they had armies and used them to take the planets.)

You could say it is gaming the system but I really did invest everything in to this strategy and as far as I know it is one of the only ways to "rush" in stellaris, a game that normally does not support that traditional RTS staple. It also shows how strong diplomacy empires can be if you play them right.

[555strat]

Another option for creating a good sized federation is to create a bunch of empires at startup with similar ethics, and force spawn them into the game.

[mcsproot]

@zz_tophat

Ok, that makes sense. Just a few problems I have.

Border Friction is something that seems to pop up even if I'm in a Defensive Pact. Do some of the more 'gonna conquer the galaxy' type empires react more negatively to shared borders? Perhaps as a mechanism to make them more likely to attack?

Also, I have about half the galaxy as Federation Associates. Yet about 3/4 of them refuse to join the Federation because they dislike me or my ally. I have only found one empire that doesn't dislike me (despite relations over 100) or my ally, and they can't join either because my ally votes no.

I think my problem was I didn't check ethics or who likes who and just jumped with the first person I could. And it turns out not many people like them too much apparently (xenophile, egalatarian materialists).

Heck, I even Liberated another empire (Fanatic Purifiers) to the ethics of my ally, and the new empire refused to join because they disliked my ally. Even though they had the same ethics and we had 100 trust from Federation Associate.

I just don't get how diplomacy works in this game.

[mvffinsandmilk]

Don't be so negative, atleast you have an ally now simply go on and start your conquest of the galaxy together!

[mcsproot]

Originally posted by mvffinsandmilk:

Don't be so negative, atleast you have an ally now simply go on and start your conquest of the galaxy together!

Ahahahaha no.

I don't know if it's a bug or a feature or what happened, but Defensive Pacts were costing me 0 influences. Meaning I managed to Defensive Pact most of the galaxy prior to making a Federation.

As a result of having me as a mutual ally, a lot of other empires became friends as well. So currently, most empires have 3 or more Defensive Pacts. And since Federations have limited diplomacy with those outside the Federation, I can only bring my one ally into the fight and I can't ask anyone else.

Being in a Federation made me weaker in this case.

[zz_tophat]

Originally posted by mcsproot:

@zz_tophat

Ok, that makes sense. Just a few problems I have.

Border Friction is something that seems to pop up even if I'm in a Defensive Pact. Do some of the more 'gonna conquer the galaxy' type empires react more negatively to shared borders? Perhaps as a mechanism to make them more likely to attack?

Also, I have about half the galaxy as Federation Associates. Yet about 3/4 of them refuse to join the Federation because they dislike me or my ally. I have only found one empire that doesn't dislike me (despite relations over 100) or my ally, and they can't join either because my ally votes no.

I think my problem was I didn't check ethics or who likes who and just jumped with the first person I could. And it turns out not many people like them too much apparently (xenophile, egalatarian materialists).

Heck, I even Liberated another empire (Fanatic Purifiers) to the ethics of my ally, and the new empire refused to join because they disliked my ally. Even though they had the same ethics and we had 100 trust from Federation Associate.

I just don't get how diplomacy works in this game.

Border friction always happens unless you are in a federation or one of you is a vassal or protectorate. That is why it is important to establish a federation before friction comes in to play. Once it does, any empires even remotely close to eachother are likely going to hate each other and you won't be able to change that no matter what you do.

The associate opinion is a small bonus and it grows slowly, if they already have a dislike it is doubtful it will be enough to make them like eachother, however if they have no opinion then being an associate will be that small amount of like needed to get them above neutral, they don't have to love eachother to be in a federation, they just have to not hate eachother. So make them like you and make them not hate your allies and you are in. Opinions often start at around plus or minus 10 or 20 due to varying ethics and being an associate for a short time is enough to overcome that but if they have -75 from border friction then it's a lost cause.

Newly liberated empires are going to very quickly dislike anyone that shares a border with them and if you have a large federation you are going to have someone in there that doesn't like their ethics. So just by virtue of distance or ethics it's going to be hard to make them like eachother and that is when you need to get creative with your liberation wars, carefully dividing up empires in such a manner as to have ethics be the only factor that effects like (and thus be overcome by being an associate for a time). Even then you still will have empires that just do not like eachother for some reason or another.

It is really important to pick your starting members carefully, if you did, it should be easy to liberate the rest of the galaxy using them, if you didn't the federation will be more trouble than it is worth.

EDIT: when you find yourself with an empire you know you cannot force in to liking an ally, liberate them under your own flag and then make them a protectorate or a vassal. Newly liberated empires are super weak and when they are surrounded by enemies it is easy to force them in to servitude.

[mcsproot]

The catch 22 of Federations.

If you're too far away, they won't join due to the distance.

If you're too close, they won't join due to a shared border.

Need to have a goldilocks zone before people expand enough to touch borders.