How do Diplomatic Treaties work?

from GalCiv3 Forums

While I've come to a decent basic understanding of most of the game's mechanics, I'm pretty much at a loss when it come to treaties:

1) I'm unable to predict or even understand which treaties are available in a trade negotiation. A certain level of relations seems to be required, some treaties probably require other treaties and I think some treaties require the other party to have certain diplomatic techs as well, but bottom line is: I'm at a loss.

2) I can't tell which treaties are mutual and which are one-sided. The mouse-over always describes all treaties as mutual, but I've already noticed that several are not. However, how to tell them apart, I have no idea.

Are there some basic rules that I've overlooked? Or is there some detailed description of all the treaties somewhere (I've tried the Wiki, but it has only very basic information on them)?

 

Thanks & Greetings

Kibou

20,608 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I've always been confused by this as well.  

As far as I can tell the technology alliance, military alliance and cultural alliance don't do anything.

The exploration treaty is mutual, but in trade the AI acts as if it is not and will trade a large amount of credits if you offer it and demand a large amount of credits if you ask for it. 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Yeller123, reply 1

I've always been confused by this as well.  

As far as I can tell the technology alliance, military alliance and cultural alliance don't do anything.

The exploration treaty is mutual, but in trade the AI acts as if it is not and will trade a large amount of credits if you offer it and demand a large amount of credits if you ask for it. 

Based on what I've been told but, haven't actually tested it.

Exploration Treaties are mutual but, as Yeller stated the AI acts as if it's one sided and if you offer will provide you a lot of value for the trade, if you suggest they provide it to you, then the AI demands a large amount of things from you.

Non-aggressive Treaties are mutual but, same as above.

Free Trade Agreement, for what I've been told are one sided and only provide bonus to player receiving not player offering.  I haven't tested as typically the AI doesn't have this to offer and I'm just offering.  The human player get's no bonus to economy when offering to AI.  This has been discussed in multiple threads, however, I haven't seen anything official from Stardock either way to say if this is a bug or acting correctly.  It also appears if it does work it does not stack.  Mind you I may have missed some comments.

Research Treaty, Same as Free Trade Agreement.

Culture Treaty, Same as Free Trade Agreement.

From what I can tell it's just on "paper" and, doesn't do anything just something put there to look good and pretend it has value except for Exploration treaties in which in larger maps with many players actually is tied to longer turn times because from what I can tell the way the game reveals FOW, also directly causes choppy ship movement.  Only thing I have seen is they haven't seen this in house but, they don't have time to play larger games and establish exploration treaties with 60 AI at the same time.  I feel for them the game has many possibilities and many players don't play the game the same.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Exploration treaties are mutual? I guess I have to re-check if I get the chance to continue our current game in the evening - last time, I negotiated an exploration treaty with an AI living in largely unexplored territory, and it didn't seem to do anything for me - more than half of their realm is still covered.

For Research, Free Trade etc. I would like to know what preconditions have to be fulfilled for you to be able to request one from the AI. At first I thought they lack the necessary tech, but I gave it to some and the treaties still don't show up.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Kibou81, reply 3

Exploration treaties are mutual? I guess I have to re-check if I get the chance to continue our current game in the evening - last time, I negotiated an exploration treaty with an AI living in largely unexplored territory, and it didn't seem to do anything for me - more than half of their realm is still covered.

This doesn't reveal the map as they have already revealed, it only reveals map based on what they see now and in the future.  So basically it's like you just placed a sensor on all of their ships and planets and from now on as they reveal you get the information.

Quoting Kibou81, reply 3

For Research, Free Trade etc. I would like to know what preconditions have to be fulfilled for you to be able to request one from the AI. At first I thought they lack the necessary tech, but I gave it to some and the treaties still don't show up.

They must love you.  If they are just so, so towards you, have a neutral feeling you can not trade these with the AI, they need to more than like you but, I don't know the exact specs.  Once they love you this should not be a problem.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Alliances are essentially just in there to take up a slot on the tech tree.  They don't actually have any material benefit in game.  It's one of those 'cool ideas' that was added in, just not fleshed out to integrate into the game.  Hopefully this will change in the future.  It's one of the many, many broken pieces of diplomacy right now, although some diplomacy tweaks are coming in the official 1.7 version.

All treaties beyond non-aggression and exploration are 1 sided.  You offer it to them and they get the benefits, that's why they pay you for them.  

The only way to get them to offer it to you is to give/sell them the technology (since they rarely research it themselves), wait for the cooldown period, and then offer to trade them for it.

The only criteria for treaties is diplomatic relations at a certain level.  Essentially, at neutral you can offer non-aggression.  As you go up the scale, you can offer exploration, treaties, then alliances (for which you have to have Close relations).