Diplomacy Quirk

[Armageddon]

I've noticed that interactions between AIs don't seem to take into account their special characteristics. In my current game, the first empire I met immediatly declared war on me, and has refused all attempts at peace despite having had its attitude towards me rise to receptive, thanks to several gifts. The second empire I met (The Texrak(sp?), herd animal aliens) is friendly enough, but immediatly starts to get angry whenever we have any treaties.

The strange thing is that the third empire I met, with whom I am now in a partnership, has been able to maintain trade allainces with the two other empires. If they were following the same characteristics with that empire that they were following with me, then they shouldn't have been able to do that, especially since I doubt my AI ally has been courting them in the same way I have, with small resource donations every turn.

There obviously could be other factors which are allowing my allies (The Phong) to be more successful than I in talks with these two empires, but it seems unlikely. I am playing a modifed Terran Empire with a Political Savy of 130%, so I should have a much higher advantage.

So what do y'all think? Are the AI characteristics only being used when dealing with humans, or have I missed something?

I am using Sundevil's mod BTW.



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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

[Talenn]

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a 'per other war' modifier to the AI's diplomatic routines. Basically, I believe this causes the AI to be 'friendlier' to people it meets when it is already at war with one or more other players.

Most likely, the hostile races are encountering you, declaring War etc, and then meeting others. The modifier for being at war with you is allowing the other races to get treatys with the 'hostile' race.

That would be my guess anyways.

Talenn

[Armageddon]

Interesting...that does actually make sense. I'll keep researching it and see if it holds true in other cases. Thanks.

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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

[Tomgs]

The political Savvy of 130 does not help you maintain or get into treaties in this game. As far as I know it only gives you higher income from the treaties that you get.

Quote from the CD manual:
Political Savvy: Determines the political ability of your race. Increasing this value will improve the amount your race will earn from trade.

[Daynarr]

They take into account their special characteristics, anger files and politic files. However, Phong are pacifist race to the extreme. They have even managed to get peace with my new Xi'Chung race, which are genocidal, psychotic and xenophobes. They DO get in war with Abbidon (which is another peaceful race btw.) on regular bases as if they can't stand them organically.

Note that race relations have two sides of the same medal - your attitude toward them (you don't see it on diplomacy screen, but you can see it if you take control of that empire) and their attitude toward you (mood on diplomacy screen). These two are usually not the same and the AI makes decisions regarding both. On their attitude toward you (the one you can see) depends what treaties they will accept from you, and on your attitude toward them MOSTLY, but not only, depends what will they offer to you (or what treaty level they will offer to you). That makes a diplomacy a little more complex since now is usually not enough to have 1 aggressive empire to make war. The peaceful one (Phong for e.g.) will bombard the aggressive one with peace offers until they accept them (this is what happened to Xi'Chung). Of course the aggressive one may declare war few turns later if the reasons of their angry on the other empire still exist (like territorial dispute). That usually shows a little erratic relationship between two empires that can be seen quite often - they are at war for a few years, then they make trade alliance, and few turn later they are at war again.

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 03 February 2001).]