NPC Factions RANT

[DragonZee]

The hard part is getting up to a virtuous reputation, due to the player AI's tendency to force you into wars or just attack you because they either think you're an easy target or too powerful. It's almost impossible to become virtuous without several pacts with several different AIs, but none of them ever play nice with each other. So you form one defensive pact or alliance and that AI calls you into wars against everyone else.

Yep, it's hard to consistently keep the virtuous rep. I don't quite remember how I did it, but I belive I made alliances with most AI, and let them destroy each other. I think I needed to manipulate them a bit with delaying my responses to join a war against someone etc. I belive there are also specific doctrines that help you with it (of Celestian or Syndicate origin I assume? Plus the ones you get from Empire quests). But sometimes the AI simply doesn't want to join an alliance with you, even if you have really high "positive" relations with them. Triumph plans to expand the level of information you get in diplomacy screens moving forward (they mention it in the newest stream), so maybe it will be more clear on how to build relations with AI players for the diplomatic victory.

That said, the game isn't exactly about diplomacy so I treat the diplomatic victory as a curiosity. I achieved it once just for completionist sake, but I doubt I will ever try it again. When playing bigger maps I like to secure some allies to sorta create buffers around my domain, so the hostile AI first needs to pass through those domains to reach mine.

 

[Ericridge]

Just came back to the game after a long hiatus to see if things were any better, and man, this is STILL BROKEN!!! The NPC factions' demands and ridiculous war mechanics are so not fun that it makes this game almost not worth playing.

There's NPC Dwelling Mode setting to tinker with in the ingame setting. I haven't really used it as passive cuz its boring if i do it that way. I like it when NPCs is feisty.

And if the stacks is too powerful for you to try battle 1v1 like a mano, just bumrush it with whatever you have and outnumber them and they go down quick/easy. Think of it this way, if you can shoot at them 18 times in a turn, they shoot back just 6 times. Its gonna hurt the outnumbered side greatly.