How Diplomacy Could be Better (After 427+ Hours Played)

[espana33]

Besides the already documented issues with the AI and sectors and buggy things like too many primitives popping up, diplomacy lacks the dynamism to really make for a fun mid-late and late game. At the risk of tl;dr...

I think the following added options should be possible with the engine and would add a lot to the fun, thoughts?

1) Creation of neutral zones

2) More than 2-way diplomacy for things like research agreements (e.g. 3 or more empires signing a treaty together)

3) Demanding systems peacefully; (e.g. if the other empire has 0 likelihood of prevailing in a war and are on your border they should be very close to either vassalization or giving up systems to placate you, unless the empire has some insane personality traits)

4) Demanding evacuation of systems (not "cleanse")

5) Selling ships/armies/expeditionary forces

 

[Stempz]

Diplomacy was on of the things i defiantly felt was lacking in the original release of Stellaris and even in the current build... Good ideas but needs more specific detail.

Spoiler: Rationale

As of now the diplomacy has defiantly improved (removal of embassies which made it easy to get relations up, liberation wargoal, tributary vassal status, AE vassals (awakened empire), etc. But it defiantly needs a lot more work til its up to snuff of eu4 or ck2 but it will get there eventually. That being said these overall see like good ideas but the execution of these idea is the crux of the issue. All things you've said seem like very simple additions to Stellaris that would greatly improve the experience as a whole. As well as not being too much of a radical department from the usually concurrent fare. Although i do have my gripes about a few of your points.

1) Creation of neutral zones

Agreed but this is already a thing that you can do in a roundabout way.

Spoiler: Rationale

Having a vassal in between you and someone else (probally someone you've released) will make sure you no longer generate border friction and will reduce threat gain. This kind of vassal already fills the niche role of neutral zones (usually want to do this with a soon to be ally to reduce threat preventing federation but without giving him territory).

But it does seem like an interesting concept since a lot of these neutral zones tend to pop up to act as a buffer. (e.g. Belgium is a proxy between France and Germany because without them the area of the lowlands would be a ripe invasion grounds. Being as it is a generally speaking flat plains with no major defensible positions like the Pyrenees mountain range in the south of France in between Spain.)

2) More than 2-way diplomacy for things like research agreements (e.g. 3 or more empires signing a treaty together)

Agree'd but it'd probably have to be a new kind of mechanic akin to bilateral trade agreements such as the ones that occur today.

3) Demanding systems peacefully; (e.g. if the other empire has 0 likelihood of prevailing in a war and are on your border they should be very close to either vassalization or giving up systems to placate you, unless the empire has some insane personality traits)

Neither agree nor disagree; as the constant warring for territory is a grind and anyway to lower this tedium would be greatly appreciated. But it defiantly needs to be heavily limited somehow as a massive negative opinion malus to prevent it a second time.

4) and 5) i agree on but meh i really don't much to say about either or.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I think maybe an interesting way to do a "neutral zone" would be a "shared sector"- something where you can designate border-systems which neither you nor the bordering civilization can make use of. An intentional way of creating a "disputed zone", basically.

 

[Stempz]

I think maybe an interesting way to do a "neutral zone" would be a "shared sector"- something where you can designate border-systems which neither you nor the bordering civilization can make use of. An intentional way of creating a "disputed zone", basically.

And we shall name these glorious new neutral zones as "demilitarized zones". And in due time they will become the most heavily militarized locations in all of open space.

HUZZAH

WE SHALL ALSO PURGE ALL HERETICS IN THE RELGIOUS FREEDOM ZONE

 

[Wyrm]

I'd like to be able to ask/beg/demand actions between empires. Such as make peace with ..., try to improve relations with..., stop being so darned friendly with my enemies, tell your bloody vassal to stop sending me insults or I'll bring my fleet over and glass their home planet.

such things

 

[Ronish]

Neutral Zone...love that idea.

One small thing diplomacy needs:

Automatic closed borders to military ships. I'm fine with borders defaulting to open, except it makes no sense that any empire would want another's fleet moving through their colonies without permission. In fact I kinda figured open borders didn't include military ships until I noticed my friendly neighbor had wiped the hostile crystals from my system and had just finished scanning the whole place for anomalies. Bastards.

 

[Stempz]

Neutral Zone...love that idea.

One small thing diplomacy needs:

Automatic closed borders to military ships. I'm fine with borders defaulting to open, except it makes no sense that any empire would want another's fleet moving through their colonies without permission. In fact I kinda figured open borders didn't include military ships until I noticed my friendly neighbor had wiped the hostile crystals from my system and had just finished scanning the whole place for anomalies. Bastards.

Yea this needs to be a thing, because i was unable to obtain crystalline auxiliary research because my neighbors kept killing them

 

[SadeRat]

3) Demanding systems peacefully; (e.g. if the other empire has 0 likelihood of prevailing in a war and are on your border they should be very close to either vassalization or giving up systems to placate you, unless the empire has some insane personality traits)

Agreed. Back in Alpha Centauri you could demand something like a city or a technology or money. When the opponent asked what you would give in return you could either come up with a trade or you could straight up say "to refrain from crushing you like a bug."

 

[TheAtlantean]

And we shall name these glorious new neutral zones as "demilitarized zones". And in due time they will become the most heavily militarized locations in all of open space.

HUZZAH

WE SHALL ALSO PURGE ALL HERETICS IN THE RELGIOUS FREEDOM ZONE

The funny part is, it's true.We all pretty much do that if such a thing happens. XD
But it would be an awesome feature, and make borders a bit more meaningful to someone like me and other things.

 

[Crissa]

Something else we need:

1) Continuing agreements. It should take an actual act to make an agreement lapse, not just a timer. That way it's easier to continue dimplomacy

2) 'optimize' buttons on each type of resource being traded. Clicking a bajillion time is annoying. Especially when #1 means they laps so easily.

Neutral Zone...love that idea.

One small thing diplomacy needs:

Automatic closed borders to military ships.

3) A better result to closed borders than ejection to the nearest star in your space. It should just be the nearest star. And 'military' ship needs to actually be, ya know, actual stacks of ships, not just a single ship. Bouncing a ship that's exploring diplomatically because it has fast engines and a gun and isn't a science ship is silly. We need a definition between a stack of warships and science ships.

 

[Cannes]

Besides the already documented issues with the AI and sectors and buggy things like too many primitives popping up, diplomacy lacks the dynamism to really make for a fun mid-late and late game. At the risk of tl;dr...

I think the following added options should be possible with the engine and would add a lot to the fun, thoughts?

1) Creation of neutral zones

2) More than 2-way diplomacy for things like research agreements (e.g. 3 or more empires signing a treaty together)

3) Demanding systems peacefully; (e.g. if the other empire has 0 likelihood of prevailing in a war and are on your border they should be very close to either vassalization or giving up systems to placate you, unless the empire has some insane personality traits)

4) Demanding evacuation of systems (not "cleanse")

5) Selling ships/armies/expeditionary forces

Why would this short post prompt a tldr. response?

 

[The Founder]

Besides the already documented issues with the AI and sectors and buggy things like too many primitives popping up, diplomacy lacks the dynamism to really make for a fun mid-late and late game. At the risk of tl;dr...

I think the following added options should be possible with the engine and would add a lot to the fun, thoughts?

1) Creation of neutral zones

2) More than 2-way diplomacy for things like research agreements (e.g. 3 or more empires signing a treaty together)

3) Demanding systems peacefully; (e.g. if the other empire has 0 likelihood of prevailing in a war and are on your border they should be very close to either vassalization or giving up systems to placate you, unless the empire has some insane personality traits)

4) Demanding evacuation of systems (not "cleanse")

5) Selling ships/armies/expeditionary forces

1, 3, 5)
All these need the one thing Computer Game AI can not do. Never could do. Propably never will be able to do:
Planning even one step ahead.
For players they would be nice. But adding stuff that only serves 1/2 of the game at top is not a good deal.

2) I thought about re-introducing the Alliance as a form of 3+ Party Defense Pact.
And adding "Federation Treaties" to the Federation Diplomacy (Federation Reserach and Migration Treaties for example).

4) Where would those pops "go" too?
In all likelyhood there will be no place to put those people. We first would need a Food/Migration/Pop growth system that supports evacuation of a planet. Not to mention happiness (just look at Israel removing Illegal Settlements). Not seeing that comming for 1.5, maybe 1.6.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

1, 3, 5)
All these need the one thing Computer Game AI can not do. Never could do. Propably never will be able to do:
Planning even one step ahead.

The AI doesn't need to be able to plan ahead- plenty of games simulate complex behaviour without that ability.

Establishing a neutral/demilitarized zone could be a response to a certain density of border friction, parsed through the personality type- Militarist empires are less likely to try reducing border friction, Pacifist more so, etc.

We already have an option to give systems in trade deals- we just need an option to request them, and some parameters that make AI's do so tied into relative power etc.

Selling units (presumably meaning either getting cash back for disbanding them or maybe the ability to sell them in trade deals) is a pretty basic functionality- I can't see why the AI couldn't be programmed to make use of it.

 

[Kai Lae]

How about declare war on my enemy?

 

[Magdaki]

#1, #2, #4. Total agreement.

#3. This is rarely done very well so I'll come down with a maybe but need more detail.

#5. In true Blorg fashion, I have no strong feelings about this.

 

[Elothan]

Would love more diplo actions, like mentioned the make peace with x, non war methods of getting systems. The more the merrier.

 

[CurseUppl]

I'd like to see more possibilities of creating satellite states/states aligned to your ideology that can fight wars for you, while you them give minerals and energy. The resources you send these states are ear-marked for military spending, meaning they can only build warships and stations with them, so in theory a very small state can take on a far larger one, so long as the sponsor keeps sponsoring. Maybe give them a portion of your fleet cap, as well, to represent you sending them expertise.

Other empires can't see who's sponsoring them, though there could be some obvious tells, as well as chances of defectors that reveal what is happening.

The war goals can be set by the sponsoring state (whilst the sponsored state chooses whether to accept or not), and the goals themselves are far more limited, say a planet, or destruction of mining stations, retraction of cultural influence/borders, prestige (get an opinion boost with other militarist empires, etc).

Basically the Cold War, and sort of a middle ground between conflict and peace.

I should add that, you can share military technology with them (that is, they can build ship-types from your design pool) but that would be risk/reward factor, since others can salvage the wrecks of your ships. It would be interesting then, since you could choose to send "monkey models" to the state in question, ships more powerful than what he could produce, but not cutting edge designs that can be salvaged by the opponent.

 

[BIGTEX285]

Give me all the tools, for diplomatic intrigue please! It's pretty much all I want from my space games.

 

[The Founder]

I'd like to see more possibilities of creating satellite states/states aligned to your ideology that can fight wars for you, while you them give minerals and energy. The resources you send these states are ear-marked for military spending, meaning they can only build warships and stations with them, so in theory a very small state can take on a far larger one, so long as the sponsor keeps sponsoring. Maybe give them a portion of your fleet cap, as well, to represent you sending them expertise.

This is partially in now. "When a Empire (A) is at war with a Rival (B) of a AI empire (C), the AI Empire (C) should gift the Empire (A) resources now." (cited from memory)
But a more deliberate version might be nice

Earmarking for Military Spending? I doubt the AI supports that. The Economic model even less so.
I noticed the AI seems to work a lot better with Monthly Payments then lump Sums. Especially in military spending, where the Upkeep maters.

Interestingly the Inverse is somewhat true already:
A Militarist can hold numerous Pacifists as Tributiaries (integration would only give him unruly, pacifist pops). They give him resources, without joining the war. As such thier Pacifist Bonus never stops.
Maybe that could be adapted to a "Battle Thrall" mechanic, with inverted resource flow but control over the Warfare of the Thrall?
With the new Ethos/Faction System that might be possible to balance (having a Battle Thrall pushes you towards Militarist, but less then doing the war yourself)

Give me all the tools, for diplomatic intrigue please! It's pretty much all I want from my space games.

Then you should maybe try "Pocket Space Empires":
http://store.steampowered.com/app/446000
Much less space, much more intrigue.

 

[Madzai]

4) Demanding evacuation of systems (not "cleanse")

The reason of 90% purges in Stellaris.
I mean the "cleanse" is basically the purge, but you don't get the planet. So, if you need a planet or space around it the only way is to cede - purge while relocating some of your POPs there.