Do you protect your enemies for the greater good

[-ALPHA- Kyuss]

HI,
I am in my 3rd playthrough and getting the hang of things. One thing I am wondering though is do people protect their enemies for teh greater good. What I mean is that I am aligned with Anu and the rest are unfriendly. I am at war with new jerico. Anu has attacked Jerico but if they win then that population down. If I defend them though I presume I lose some favour with anu. Since I am aligned now with ani and have all their tech does it even matter if the reputation goes down?

[Artek [General]]

No, losing reputation should not matter anymore since you already got everything from them.
Defending a haven under attack from their forces will hurt the relationships, but not by much.

[-ALPHA- Kyuss]

Once you are at war can you get to friendly again or is that it?

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by -ALPHA- Kyuss:

Once you are at war can you get to friendly again or is that it?

I believe once war is declared - that's it. Never tried testing it though, so who knows.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

I defend anyone from pandorans, but it's mostly to keep havens from dying and farm the resources they give you after. Bonus points if I can stun some pandorans and take them home to see my homemade cannery.

So yes, I will protect for the "greater good." The good of my larder.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

I defend anyone from pandorans, but it's mostly to keep havens from dying and farm the resources they give you after. Bonus points if I can stun some pandorans and take them home to see my homemade cannery.

So yes, I will protect for the "greater good." The good of my larder.

Actually yeah, on the matter of protecting - it's not really optional as resources you get from saving havens is either #1 or #2 source of income, rivaling with flawless scavenging operations. You'd be gimping yourself hard by surrendering havens you could otherwise save.

[GrandMajora]

No, I use them to get the technology I want, then tell them to screw off.

[ElPrezCBF]

Even if you manage to make them all like you, once they declare war on each other, they will drag you into their conflicts whether you like it or not. It's a stupid mechanic unless you decide to ignore them all.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

Even if you manage to make them all like you, once they declare war on each other, they will drag you into their conflicts whether you like it or not. It's a stupid mechanic unless you decide to ignore them all.

More havens attacked = more resources to earn by defending them.
Their "conflict" only lasts like a day or two anyway. If you'll manage to defend all the haven assaults - they'll lose all their aircraft and forces capable of assault and will cease offensive actions because they literally will have no means of carrying them out.

It's a drag and playing same 2 days of in-game time for an entire day of real time doing nothing but protecting havens can get annoying (and it often does), but it's still good opportunity to earn some extra resources and SPs until they stop.

Just make sure to not half-ass any missions against NJ. Out of the 3 factions i find them to be the scariest due to their love of rockets and napalm grenades.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Artek General:

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

Even if you manage to make them all like you, once they declare war on each other, they will drag you into their conflicts whether you like it or not. It's a stupid mechanic unless you decide to ignore them all.

More havens attacked = more resources to earn by defending them.
Their "conflict" only lasts like a day or two anyway. If you'll manage to defend all the haven assaults - they'll lose all their aircraft and forces capable of assault and will cease offensive actions because they literally will have no means of carrying them out.

It's a drag and playing same 2 days of in-game time for an entire day of real time doing nothing but protecting havens can get annoying (and it often does), but it's still good opportunity to earn some extra resources and SPs until they stop.

Just make sure to not half-ass any missions against NJ. Out of the 3 factions i find them to be the scariest due to their love of rockets and napalm grenades.

Playing whack a mole isn't fun and a waste of time regardless of any reward.

[Californiadreaming]

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

Even if you manage to make them all like you, once they declare war on each other, they will drag you into their conflicts whether you like it or not. It's a stupid mechanic unless you decide to ignore them all.

I do wish that the game had more options for diplomacy. It would be cool to have to negotiate a peace treaty between Anu and New Jericho.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Californiadreaming:

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

Even if you manage to make them all like you, once they declare war on each other, they will drag you into their conflicts whether you like it or not. It's a stupid mechanic unless you decide to ignore them all.

I do wish that the game had more options for diplomacy. It would be cool to have to negotiate a peace treaty between Anu and New Jericho.

I downloaded a mod that should prevent them from declaring war on one another but haven't played far enough yet to test if it works. I'm not sure how you would negotiate a peace treaty when the factions differ so much in their ideology and incentives for peace would likely cost you resources, which is very valuable in this game. So I'm not certain this aspect of diplomacy is feasible. However, the game already has basic diplomatic elements like trade, recruitment and optional missions offered by neutral factions. That's good enough for me in an Xcom-like game. If this was a 4x, I'd be more demanding on diplomacy.

[flintfakeer]

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

I downloaded a mod that should prevent them from declaring war on one another but haven't played far enough yet to test if it works. I'm not sure how you would negotiate a peace treaty when the factions differ so much in their ideology and incentives for peace would likely cost you resources, which is very valuable in this game. So I'm not certain this aspect of diplomacy is feasible. However, the game already has basic diplomatic elements like trade, recruitment and optional missions offered by neutral factions. That's good enough for me in an Xcom-like game. If this was a 4x, I'd be more demanding on diplomacy.

Maybe a faction specific political capital resource? Spend X NJ capital to boost their relationship with another faction by Y and maybe some other fun options. Might also be interesting to move some pops(, and tech?) from defeated haven to the victorious one so you could theoretically have a single faction planet.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by flintfakeer:

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

I downloaded a mod that should prevent them from declaring war on one another but haven't played far enough yet to test if it works. I'm not sure how you would negotiate a peace treaty when the factions differ so much in their ideology and incentives for peace would likely cost you resources, which is very valuable in this game. So I'm not certain this aspect of diplomacy is feasible. However, the game already has basic diplomatic elements like trade, recruitment and optional missions offered by neutral factions. That's good enough for me in an Xcom-like game. If this was a 4x, I'd be more demanding on diplomacy.

Maybe a faction specific political capital resource? Spend X NJ capital to boost their relationship with another faction by Y and maybe some other fun options. Might also be interesting to move some pops(, and tech?) from defeated haven to the victorious one so you could theoretically have a single faction planet.

If you mean influence points, that's a whole new resource and I'm not sure it'd work here either. PP's mechanics are unfortunately paradoxical/nonsensical. You steal haven aircraft yet they expect you to rescue them and reward you for doing so. Each time you improve relations, random events happen that negate that or you are forced to take sides by doing special missions to improve faction relations, yet that damages relations with the target faction like in Saving Helena. Now convert all I said above from diplomacy points to influence points and you'll see why it won't make this a better game. Moving pops between factions would also be problematic since they hate one another.

[flintfakeer]

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

If you mean influence points, that's a whole new resource and I'm not sure it'd work here either. PP's mechanics are unfortunately paradoxical/nonsensical. You steal haven aircraft yet they expect you to rescue them and reward you for doing so. Each time you improve relations, random events happen that negate that or you are forced to take sides by doing special missions to improve faction relations, yet that damages relations with the target faction like in Saving Helena. Now convert all I said above from diplomacy points to influence points and you'll see why it won't make this a better game. Moving pops between factions would also be problematic since they hate one another.

All of those are optional though? Do you have to be friendly with the foreign military occupying your country? I think PP's mechanics are atypical in a few ways, but I find them sensible. Really feels like your dealing with a "faction", or "ideology", and not just a single person. Can't please everyone.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by flintfakeer:

Originally posted by ElPrezCBF:

If you mean influence points, that's a whole new resource and I'm not sure it'd work here either. PP's mechanics are unfortunately paradoxical/nonsensical. You steal haven aircraft yet they expect you to rescue them and reward you for doing so. Each time you improve relations, random events happen that negate that or you are forced to take sides by doing special missions to improve faction relations, yet that damages relations with the target faction like in Saving Helena. Now convert all I said above from diplomacy points to influence points and you'll see why it won't make this a better game. Moving pops between factions would also be problematic since they hate one another.

All of those are optional though? Do you have to be friendly with the foreign military occupying your country? I think PP's mechanics are atypical in a few ways, but I find them sensible. Really feels like your dealing with a "faction", or "ideology", and not just a single person. Can't please everyone.

We're not talking about being friendly to foreign armies in a country. It's the paradox of turning to those who raid you for help and rewarding them when they do even if they raided you multiple times. It's also not about pleasing everyone but the pointlessness of improving relations when time is wasted from conflicting relations mechanics that nullify your efforts to some extent. This is most noticeable in lost trade opportunities even if relations are mildly negative. There's no middle ground where trade volume may vary across a neutral relations point bar. Of course it's possible to eventually ally with all factions in PP, but by the time that happens, you'd have wasted much time due to the fickle nature of the relations mechanic here.

Choosing which faction to please first also isn't really meaningful because no single faction offers anything unique besides certain soldier classes and weapon advantages. Techs unlocked from better relations are more sidegrades rather than linear upgrades since different factions' weapons excel in different areas. This conflicts with the relations mechanic that's tilted toward siding with a certain faction much more than others early to unlock their specialized techs quicker. Of course, you can also capture/scavenge weapons to research them but that depends on luck. Basically, PP is designed to be a time sink because of the fickle diplomacy, heavy resource focus and whack a mole cat and mouse with aliens worldwide.