Diplomacy broken: neighboring empire is too friendly

[eugene_bond]

Posted this on Steam but want to cross post here in case you guys also think it's a bug and want to look into it.

I've downloaded the latest DLC and started as United Nations of Earth. On year 2214 I discovered my first neighbor: an Autocratic / Fanatic Militarist empire who are Hegemonic Imperialists and who have Overwhelming fleet power and Superior naval capacity. They almost immediately closed borders with me and I replied with the same.

I've started copy-pasting corvettes in an attempt to weather the obvious things to come. But in an unexpected turn of events they very soon gave me 1k energy credits. I actually first thought they were demanding credits from me but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw they are giving me those credits. Soon after that, they offered a non-aggression treaty and soon after that a research agreement that is a bit disadvantageous to them. They are not Fallen, not Advanced Start, not Protective of me (and Protective empires in the past never did things like that anyway).

Unless I am missing something, this feels very broken. I've played almost every version since the first release and didn't have interactions that were that much off, so I thought that may be it's some kind of bug int the latest versions.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

Send in the friend ships!

 

[Zemurin]

Can we see a screenshot of them please?

 

[Wizzington]

It's not a bug. They just decided that they like you after all.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

It's not a bug. They just decided that they like you after all.

Like, actually LIKE you, or are now able to pretend to like you until the army is ready?

 

[eugene_bond]

Thanks for reply @Wiz! Just curious: how does it work, is there a small chance now that an empire would decide to be friendly to you even if they hate everything you love and love everything you hate? If it’s the case, it might be nice actually and might add some variance to different games. My main worry was that AI has gone the Civilization series way and would do completely random irrational things now (love that series in general but can’t play it much because of horrendous AI).

I’ll post screenshot in the evening, on my way to work right now.
—
Update: ohh if they are pretending, that would actually be super cool and advanced. Although don’t know if giving cash is very smart in this case. Better to pretend by giving stuff like research agreements.

 

[Rafss]

I had never seen this before. Gifts? From the AI? But all the times this happened I decided to play along and we became peaceful neighbours. Not all neighbours were like that though, many of them hate me (I'm xenophobe/fan.auth).
I like it, I felt immersed, thanks Wiz and team.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

My experience has been that AI that are close to neutral opinion modifiers (0, maybe like, -20) will gift you resources and become interested in NAPs or even Defence Pacts.

I like it- clearly they've tweaked the AI to be similarly proactive to players in trying to win over its neighbours.

 

[Drinko]

Not sure how you ended up meeting a empire with overwhelming fleet strength, but I have gotten 1,3k energy from another empire for no reason. Maybe they wanted friendship but every empire seem way more diplomatic friendly in the 2.1 patch.

 

[Wizzington]

Thanks for reply @Wiz! Just curious: how does it work, is there a small chance now that an empire would decide to be friendly to you even if they hate everything you love and love everything you hate? If it’s the case, it might be nice actually and might add some variance to different games. My main worry was that AI has gone the Civilization series way and would do completely random irrational things now (love that series in general but can’t play it much because of horrendous AI).

I’ll post screenshot in the evening, on my way to work right now.
—
Update: ohh if they are pretending, that would actually be super cool and advanced. Although don’t know if giving cash is very smart in this case. Better to pretend by giving stuff like research agreements.

AI empires have a hidden, weighted random attitude towards other empires, meaning that sometimes they will try to patch up a bad relationship if their hidden attitude changes to positive, or break a NAP or defensive pact if it changes to negative. It doesn't happen past certain opinion thresholds (your +250 opinion Federation ally isn't going to suddenly turn on you) but relations can change when it's not as clear-cut as that.

 

[Veras]

I had the same experience yesterday when my slaving despot Military Junta (Fanatic Militaristic and Authoritarian) neighboor just gifted me with 700 energy before asking for non-agression, active sensor link and research agreements. While we don't have any conflicting ethics (in fact I'm a xenophile spritualist), I never saw this kind of behavior even on friendly AIs.

My other neighboor, however, is an Erudite Explorer and he's fairly indifferent to me.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

AI empires have a hidden, weighted random attitude towards other empires, meaning that sometimes they will try to patch up a bad relationship if their hidden attitude changes to positive, or break a NAP or defensive pact if it changes to negative. It doesn't happen past certain opinion thresholds (your +250 opinion Federation ally isn't going to suddenly turn on you) but relations can change when it's not as clear-cut as that.

Any way of allowing a slim chance for that to happen? It could be fun to have a federated ally suddenly turn on you for its own ends (Brexit anyone?) and create some mid game chaos.

 

[eugene_bond]

I don’t know people, I would be very hesitant to introduce too much randomness in these things. I think it goes against the very core of the game: simulating how different intentions, goals, processes, etc work out long term and instead reducing this to random flips of a coin.

My experience and the examples people are posting are pretty immersion and game breaking. I mean, that empire’s lore says that they see themselves as ruthless rulers of the galaxy, they don’t like me (egalitarian vs authoritarian), they are much stronger, we even have compatible planet preference (oceanic vs continental). I am basically begging to get my a** kicked. I don’t see what can motivate an empire in this setup to be friendly to me and start beefing me up with freebies.

Even using the above mentioned Brexit example, it kills all the fun if you simulate this as a random coin flip. I mean everything has reasons ultimately: voters didn’t come and vote based on randomly generated numbers, and simulating these things is something that can make this game deep. Like your ally can drop out of alliance if they suddenly have a rise of xenophobic faction, or you did something to upset them (eg they are pacifists and you’ve been doing non pacifist things) or even they have a ruler with one of those negative traits (arrested development?). This way you play and you have a story to tell instead of having a bunch of irrational random based events.

 

[tinculin]

Of course you don’t know what would make them want to be your friend because you don’t know the full scenario.

They could have a much bigger threat on another border they need to focus their concern on. They could be bordering someone with opposing ethics compared to having no conflicting ones with you.

There are many reasons & you’re a fool to pick enemies on multiple fronts if you can avoid it - Perhaps the AI is recognising this.

 

[Penguin Zero]

Any way of allowing a slim chance for that to happen? It could be fun to have a federated ally suddenly turn on you for its own ends (Brexit anyone?) and create some mid game chaos.

I think something like Brexit would work better as an event chain that can fire off in democracies and maybe oligarchies, with several potential branches and maybe some ways for fellow Federation members to react. (Maybe the UK decided to not spend influence on the matter, thinking the chance of the bad result was low enough not to worry...)

I also feel like this sort of thing could tie in well to an eventual espionage system, when Paradox has the time to get that worked out. Focus your espionage on a rival empire, and it gets an increased chance of bad event chains happening. Maybe something Brexit-like, maybe strengthening factions opposing the government's ethics, maybe events that represent corruption or infighting in the government... At the most extreme, you could have a chance to install (through rigging elections in democracies, or maybe by assassinating heirs in a monarchy, or the like) a new ruler who has a permanent zero skill and several unique negative traits that cripple your nation's resource production, diplomatic relations, and internal stability, and who greatly strengthens factions opposing the government's ethics...

 

[eugene_bond]

That’s the thing - being so early in the game, I am fairly certain that I am their only contact so far and we have literally nothing in common, even ethics are incompatible. That’s why this situation felt so much off. If I met them mid game, there can be other factors in play that could cause them to be friendly. But even then, if your motivation for being friendly is fear of war on two fronts because your newly discovered neighbor is very different, I find it very strange to start feeding this new neighbor with freebies to make them even more ready for the potential war.

 

[Astax]

I wish they chose to patch things up with torpedo corvettes

Aggressive Grand Admiral AI with advance start (Advance neighbors on), and I haven't had a war that made me sweat since 2.0.4.

Though I do like it how they gift me things.

 

[Roddo]

Suddenly AI is giving away presents?

I'd have sweated like mad after some event as that and my mind would have gotten stuck in overdrive screaming internally "The end of the galaxy is nigh!".
Yep. This is as weird as it gets in Stellaris. Never happened to me, that's for sure.

 

[eugene_bond]

Yeah I was thinking about spying a lot too, this system has a lot of potential. From more complex things with government example above to much simpler ones like using spies to asses a neighbor: it’s kind of super un realistic how you meet a random species in space and suddenly immediately know their power, etc. There can be a whole separate mechanic for gathering this info with spies to assess when to send friend ships. Or even buying it from other spying empires. Think of all the potential for hilariousness: like your spies incorrectly assessing fleet power, or you payed money to other empire for the info and they give you wrong info on purpose.

 

[terrycloth]

Be careful. Eventually they'll like you so much that they'll want to formally make you a vassal to protect you.