Faction Relationships

from Elemental Forums

I have played several games since FE has been released  and it dawned on me that every game so far is like watching a Demolition Derby. Every game turns out to be a free-for-all.
 
This begs a few questions:
 
1) What relevance does factors in "Relationship with us" really have?
  * They seem to have very little or no impact on relations due to all games ending up in a free-for-all
2) What good does it do to enter a non-aggression pact and treaties if the AI does not ever honor them?
  * If the AI declares war on me the turn after I agree to a non-aggression pact then I have to assume the AI treats other AI's the same way
3) Why have Allegiance's if Allegiance's are meaningless?
  * It seems to make no difference whether you are the same allegiance or not
4) Is the "Alliance" tech too deep in the Tech Tree?
   * It seems the best way to avoid all games ending up in a Free-For-All would be to move the Alliance Tech up in the Tech Tree
 
It just seems that games would be more interesting if "Relationships With Us" would have more relevance and impact.
 
Employing the Strategy of "Turtling-Up" and watching the AI's beat up on each other similar to watching a Demolition Derby gets old.
 
Surely this can be improved.
 
FE is a great game, I think Stardock is inches from hitting this title out of the park and they deserve a great deal of credit
 
Diplomacy is lacking however. I am hopeful they will improve on this.
18,694 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

You are the only one caring about diplomacy in the game. AI's ignore it completely fighting everyone weaker than them, and thus it ends up being FFA every time. (even if it's borderline retarded declaring on you when there is one other AI topping the power score and the AI is fighting him too)

So alliances is only for you to use with weaker AI's if you feel like being nice ;)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sjaminei, reply 1
You are the only one caring about diplomacy in the game. AI's ignore it completely fighting everyone weaker than them, and thus it ends up being FFA every time. (even if it's borderline retarded declaring on you when there is one other AI topping the power score and the AI is fighting him too)

So alliances is only for you to use with weaker AI's if you feel like being nice
End of sjaminei's quote

 

This is exactly why the mid to late game is weak. The game holds your interest in the early game only. If diplomacy were to be improved on the mid to late game would be as interesting as the early game. Or play one-vs-one all the time b/c by mid to late game it's one-vs-one anyway. If this is the case then why all the bells and whistles in diplomacy?

 

 

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The only thing AI's ignore are NAPs and Tribute treaties*, they do actually care about relationships. The problem is the game is heavily weighted so that everyone will eventually declare war on each other. Some of the negative "feelings" AI's have are set to increase drastically in severity as the game goes on, while things that add a positive are set to decrease. Other things are heavily stacked against the player who tends to use intelligent unit design (lower numbers of powerful units) rather than a zerg, the AI usually always thinks their zerg is several times as powerful as your trained elite and there's a stacking negative relationship hit attached to that.

I made a similar post about this in another thread recently, but what I have done is taken the CoreAIDefs.xml file, copied it, then dropped it in my mods folder where I have been tweaking the relationship values to make the AI less war happy. You can change the values of things like allegiances or treaties so that some AIs will stay friendly with you throughout the game, and make them less likely to declare war on one another. It works (with mods turned on) and is pretty easy to do.

 

*Actually I haven't tried an alliance yet, it would not surprise me if those didn't function either.

+1 Loading…
Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sanati, reply 3
The only thing AI's ignore are NAPs and Tribute treaties*, they do actually care about relationships. The problem is the game is heavily weighted so that everyone will eventually declare war on each other. Some of the negative "feelings" AI's have are set to increase drastically in severity as the game goes on, while things that add a positive are set to decrease. Other things are heavily stacked against the player who tends to use intelligent unit design (lower numbers of powerful units) rather than a zerg, the AI usually always thinks their zerg is several times as powerful as your trained elite and there's a stacking negative relationship hit attached to that.

I made a similar post about this in another thread recently, but what I have done is taken the CoreAIDefs.xml file, copied it, then dropped it in my mods folder where I have been tweaking the relationship values to make the AI less war happy. You can change the values of things like allegiances or treaties so that some AIs will stay friendly with you throughout the game, and make them less likely to declare war on one another. It works (with mods turned on) and is pretty easy to do.

 

*Actually I haven't tried an alliance yet, it would not surprise me if those didn't function either.
End of Sanati's quote

 

This is the part I don't understand, why should I have to go into any games files and change anything? I feel the game in Foriegn Relations/Diplomacy is lacking. Now you are saying it's up to me to fix it?....Really?.......

That notion seems like a nightmare......

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

So you'd rather just sit on your thumbs and not play at all, or deal with the garbage system the way it is? I'm not saying the diplomacy system isn't stupidly broken or doesn't need heavy work, I'm just telling you how you can spend 3 minutes in a text file to fix it the way you want it in the meantime. If you'd rather stay here and cry about be my guest, just keep in mind that there are glaringly obvious issues with the game that have been around and repeatedly reported in the support section for over a year without any acknowledgement from SD. The chances of the non-functional diplomacy system being fixed any time soon is extremely slim. For now, yes it really is up to you to fix it.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sanati, reply 3
The only thing AI's ignore are NAPs and Tribute treaties*, they do actually care about relationships. The problem is the game is heavily weighted so that everyone will eventually declare war on each other. Some of the negative "feelings" AI's have are set to increase drastically in severity as the game goes on, while things that add a positive are set to decrease. Other things are heavily stacked against the player who tends to use intelligent unit design (lower numbers of powerful units) rather than a zerg, the AI usually always thinks their zerg is several times as powerful as your trained elite and there's a stacking negative relationship hit attached to that.

I made a similar post about this in another thread recently, but what I have done is taken the CoreAIDefs.xml file, copied it, then dropped it in my mods folder where I have been tweaking the relationship values to make the AI less war happy. You can change the values of things like allegiances or treaties so that some AIs will stay friendly with you throughout the game, and make them less likely to declare war on one another. It works (with mods turned on) and is pretty easy to do.

 

*Actually I haven't tried an alliance yet, it would not surprise me if those didn't function either.
End of Sanati's quote

 

This.  The diplomatic AI is severely broken.  Since neither Brad nor Derek have discussed it, I strongly suspect it won't be fixed in any substantive way until the DLC comes along.  But I know they must be aware of this, since Brad's responsible for the very good diplo-AI of GC2.