Any Diplomacy Advice?

[New Moon On Monday]

I am having trouble figuring out how to use Diplomacy to establish some long-term peace with neighbors. I have been playing on Normal difficulty. In both games I have played (as Vaulters), my neighbors perpetually hate me. They want me to give up everything I have to make any deal. If I give up everything I have to make a deal, the deal ends in 10 turns and I'm back to square one.

I managed to establish Peace with 1 neighbor once, the Mezari. I gave a Compliment per turn for about 5 turns in a row. Then I made the Peace deal, though it was expensive- I had to give up just about all of my resource reserves and throw in a technology. After establishing Peace, I made a commerce deal (I think I had to give up a couple of more technologies to do it), hoping that ongoing commerce might maintain relations.

After burning through all that Influence, wiping out my resource reserves, and giving away sevreral free tecnologies, Peace lasted I think about 10 turns or so, then went right back to Cold War.

One game the Tatur banned me from the Marketplace, and I make an expensive deal to lift the ban. I don't remember how many turns that lasted, but it wasn't too long before they just banned me again. It's much easier and much more efficient to just send some armies to wipe out their empire than to use Diplomacy to lift the ban (which is what I did in my second game).

What are the secrets to Diplomacy?

[PhilkIced]

They respect power and that's it, the more you gave up and became economically weaker then the other side the more they were agressive towards you, have a high population, many cities, advanced tech, lots of gold and many huge armies and every single AI in the game will beg for you to sit next to them during lunch.

[Gilmoy]

Some trade items just aren't worth squat. Resources and low techs are like pennies; they barely move the needle. High techs (esp. those that the AI cannot research yet) are worth a lot. Truce, when you're kicking the AI's butt, is worth a whole lot to that AI.

The elephant in the room is your military strength. If the AI's score is about 3-5x your score, it will break any treaty at its whim, and send you snide/unflattering messages that are actually hilarious to read. You cannot be weaker and negotiate, or maintain, a peace. If you're equally strong, and you help an AI tag-team a 3rd, it may love you so much it offers you Alliance, and stays allied all game until you win together. If you're stronger and you're beating that AI in a short war, it will pay you 2-3 techs and a city for a truce. (If you're stronger and mean, you can milk all of the AI's techs for free, then next turn promptly break that truce and eliminate the AI.)

To negotiate on level terms, the general solution is to build up your own strength and plan to fight 1 ground war (and win it). Just follow your faction quest. I think every faction's quest has a point, around Chapter 4 or 5, where you must capture some other player's city, or similar. It's always another player's city. So you must fight (and declare) at least 1 war.

That's actually good prep and training; it gives you a concrete target to shoot for. Now you can revise your tech path, expansion, and build orders to produce 2 groups of 6+hero and have them arrive at the quest city in good time. That's a big part of the game, and it's worth learning.

Do that, and at least one AI (that one :) will respect you, and trade in your favor. Probably if you're stronger than one AI, you're at least equal to a few other AIs.

[New Moon On Monday]

According to the graphs at the end of my game, my military strength started outpacing the rest of the field by a significant gap at about turn 100, but it didn't seem to make a difference when negotiating with the AI.

When I have that much of a military advantage, I feel like diplomacy becomes moot anyway. In my last game, I wanted to end the Tatur's market ban on me so I could pick up an extra hero. They were asking too much, they wanted resources and tech that took me at least 20 turns to build up, and that would just be to temporarily lift the Market Ban for about 10 turns or so. I figured I could probably capture their 3 cities in less than 10 turns, take all of their resources for myself, and end the Market Ban permanently. So that's what I did.

Also in my last game, I discovered an interesting point about the Faction Quest when it comes to destroying or capturing an enemy city. Apparently, my faction does not necessarily have to be the one that completes the task. When I got to that point in the quest, I had not even found the enemy city on my map yet. Not too many turns later, I still had not located the enemy city when that part of the quest just suddenly cleared. I assume an AI faction destroyed the city, though I have no way of knowing what actually happened.

[New Moon On Monday]

How many diplomacy concepts from other 4x games apply to this one as well? Do trade treaties gradually improve relations? Do you get permanent demerits for taking certain actions like destroying a city, or doing "dishonorable" things?

It appears that certain diplomatic actions must be unlocked via technology. Do both factions need the particular techology for my faction to take particular diplomatic actions? Does it make sense to give/trade diplomacy technologies to everyone else?

In what sense does an action like Compliment make other diplomatic actions cheaper- are they cheaper just in Influence points, or in the resources/technology that the AI will demand as well? Do the effects of Compliments stack up, so that it makes sense to make multiple Compliments in one turn, or make a Compliment per turn?

[Gilmoy]

Diplomacy probably shares some general features with Endless Space :) I think every AI keeps a point score for its relationship with every other player, and actions do give +/- points. Hover over an AI's standing with you and EL shows you a list of diplomatic factors, but not their point values. (In ES1, it shows you the point values, a numeric score, and a trend arrow.)

Yes, you lose points with a neutral AI if you just harvest pearls 2 hexes outside their border. They claim those, even if they never move to take them. You get big + points with AI #1 for killing units of AI#2 if #1 is at war with #2.

Only one side needs a diplomacy tech to offer that status to any player. Yes, you can trade Peace Treaty to an AI, and it might thereafter use it to make peace with other AIs.

I dunno about stacking Compliments. I think nothing will actually change the trade values of goods. (Do an experiment: make the same trade offer to 2+ AIs, and see if they value things the same way.) I suspect that all AIs value all things roughly in proportion to how many turns it would take for them to produce/research/develop it. So if it has a surplus of something, it values more of yours low. One big tech, from an Era it hasn't reached yet, can be worth more to an AI than 5-8 of its own low techs.

I agree with your conclusion about Tatur's unreasonable demands: it's faster, easier, and way more fun, to declare war and wipe them off the map than it is to negotiate. (But I tend to think that about every diplomacy system in every 4X :) Yes, eliminating Roving Clans AI lifts its market ban.

[Iceberg]

Compliments don't stack, they don't affect relations except in terms of the costs of other actions over a 10-turn period. If they stacked you'd just get outrageous influence cost reductions on friendly diplomatic actions. It's mainly used to make declarations of war more costly for the recipient. It does not affect their determinations of value.

When I play as my Draconians custom faction (Drakken which gain happiness per peace / alliance, among other traits), the first thing I do is gift other factions the diplomat's manse technology in exchange for peace. If you're trying to build a multi-empire alliance, giving that tech to your favored allies will be necessary if they don't already have it. Giving everyone access to the marketplace benefits the Roving Clans due to the 8% tax they receive on marketplace transactions.

Trading technologies seems really good at first, because you don't actually lose the technology, but if you give them too many techs you're actually boosting their level of technological advancement and can push them into higher eras, at which point they may turn around and consider you to be an inferior nation, equip better gear, and crush you militarily.

You're going to want to make sure that you're improving your relationship with them when you give them things. Giving small things which barely move the valuation gauge will not affect their opinion of you significantly. Howevever, certain highly-valued gifts or trades can move you from indifference past trustting into blood brotherhood, which takes quite a while to degrade. Proposals are evaluated based on their relative value for the recipient. Experiment with different proposals before comfirming to see what they may desire most at that time.

If you're banned from the marketplace, you either have to trade them something in exchange for its removal, wipe them out entirely, or get them to accept a truce on the condition that they remove the ban.

[New Moon On Monday]

I am still having trouble figuring out how to use diplomacy. In my current game as the Drakken, I have been working on the Tatur, primarily to avoid the Market Ban. I went from Compliment, to a rather expensive Peace, to a Map Exchange, to a Science treaty. So I thought I was working up some good relations. But a few turns after the Science treaty, I got slapped with the Market Ban.

What can I do to make them happy? I can take an army to them and kick them around a while, but that seems to defeat the point of all the peaceful diplomacy.

[Iceberg]

You're talking about the roving clans faction. Their attitude toward you should show in the diplomacy screen and if you mouse over it, it should tell you the reasons why they feel the way they do. You said you have a science treaty so that must mean there is also border friction between your empires wherever you've settled. You just have to smooth that sort of thing over with mutually beneficial agreements. The treaties aren't conributing to this positive valuation of your diplomatic relationship, they're only contributing to your science income.

[ElPrezCBF]

Don't trade techs or strategic resources. Trade luxury items you have no use for instead (or those you have a huge excess of) and if you have enough influence to offer different luxury items, you can limit the amount offered so the other side doesn't get too much of any one item to give them any significant advantage. E.g. Instead of offering 200 grapes, you can offer 20 grapes, 20 redsang and 20 gold. I don't think factions value all resources equally, so you'll have to observe the negotiation bar to see if they would accept your offer and adjust accordingly.

If you're too weak, other factions might exploit it and declare war. If you're too strong, they might grow "envious" even if you're at peace. Picking pearls and settling near rival factions is a source of friction even if you're at peace with them. So keep that in mind and never trust your neighbor unless maybe you're allies.

[Nefrogitis]

Don't include the Shadows tribe in your playthroughs if you want to win by diplomacy, their AI is broken when it comes to trading for technology, and any clan can manipulate them into relinquishing everything they have for only one tech.

[Iceberg]

I just made a rule for myself that they won't trade for tech as AI, they only steal it.

[Davadin]

I'm in a game where I don't have any diplomatic techs. I have a few questions...
1) If you have unlocked more advanced diplomatic techs, is there ever a reason to grab a lower-tech one?
2) I can't trade at all. Will any 1 diplomacy tech open that up, or is it a specific one?
3) I've been at war with an empire, destroying it mightily. It had not offered me a truce, and I can't offer it one. Is this due to a lack of diplomatic tech? Which tech would I need? If I have the tech, but they don't- will they be able to contact me for a truce?

[Iceberg]

If you can't trade at all you must have the pitiless trait (necrophage), in which case none of the diplomatic techs will do anything.

Alliance is better than peace by some measures, but it's more costly to achieve and maintain, so there's that.

[Davadin]

Originally posted by Michael Stevens (Educator):

If you can't trade at all you must have the pitiless trait (necrophage), in which case none of the diplomatic techs will do anything.

Alliance is better than peace by some measures, but it's more costly to achieve and maintain, so there's that.

Hmmm. No. In that game I'm the Vaulters...
(???)

[New Moon On Monday]

I do not think Hospitality Den subsumes Diplomat's Manse. If you have Hospitality Den but not Diplomat's Manse, you could offer Alliances, but you cannot offer Peace.

You cannot trade resource for resource unless you are in Peace or Alliance. In Cold War or War, you can only give or trade resources as part of a treaty.

I don't know why you wouldn't be able to ask for a truce, unless you are lacking Influence (I'm pretty sure even a Truce requires influence).