Point of Diplomacy?

from Sins Forums

I'm a little bit confused, truth be told. The old diplomatic system of Sins consisted of preforming random missions to help appease rivals so they would not gang up on you (like a protection racket). If you did well, you may get some trade going and in the end gang up on someone else. When everyone else died, the two former friends had at it.

The new system, I am not so sure. I've played a 1 vs. 1, 3-way, and 10-way (all bots, all normal). 1 vs. 1 had no diplomacy, which makes sense. The 3-way had some embassy trading going on, but there was still no diplomacy, even as everyone began to max the tech tree and I became the dominate player in the system (I crushed one player without effort and won the game, even though the other player was still alive and intact). Finally, the 10-way. Lots of embassy trading, a rainbow of race relations, but still no missions, no demands, no requests, no alliances. 

This has me somewhat confused. I understand there are more diplomatic factors now, but there have been no noticable change in gameplay, especially long term. This got me curious as to the point of Diplomacy to begin with, since everyone ends up in a big space war in the end, regardless of diplomatic rating. Am I missing something, or doing it wrong, or is this just how the game currently is?

11,580 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

From what I've heard (I don't follow the forums are religiously as I used to, alas) I don't think the AI is 100% implemented, nor are some of the new features.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

So its not just me? That's good. A little strange that it doesn't exhibit any of its previous behavior though...except, of course, pirate biding. They actually seem more...bent on it than usual. I put a bounty of 10000 on one of them, and they matched it. I think I'll try to bankrupt them that way next time.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

they said in other topics that the AI is not programed to give missions in diplomacy right now. This will change soon. This was my first complaint too

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Also too this is a beta and so a lot of the things are not quite right

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Not quite right, true, but its important to know whether the behavior is rare or absent.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

there needs to be more bad things that you can do to your opponent.  it was my thought that now you would be able to almost win a game with very little or no military force.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, but there's always brute force, especially if it'll get you on the good side of somebody else who can provide added bonuses such as protection.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Well, one guy randomly offered me ceasefire, so its at least possible.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

As I indicated in my stickied posts, most of Diplomacy isn't implemented yet and what is there is largely placeholder. ;)

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

There's also a bug. When my cease-fire buddy tavels to my planet in force, he sends a threating message, but does not attack. Is this new?

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

No.

 

:fox:

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 9
As I indicated in my stickied posts, most of Diplomacy isn't implemented yet and what is there is largely placeholder.

Bolded the important part.

That is great news as frankly, what's currently implemented is sketchy at best.

I'm really looking forward to whatever updates to the beta you guys are brewing for us and check these forums here almost daily to see if anything new has come. I don't even bother to 'test' the current beta because I find it of such poor quality. I really don't understand why you went public with it - I think you should have waited.

Crossing fingers here. Hoping there will be time to take another look at perfecting game balance, as well, before you move onto other projects.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

I'm really looking forward to whatever updates to the beta you guys are brewing for us and check these forums here almost daily to see if anything new has come. I don't even bother to 'test' the current beta because I find it of such poor quality. I really don't understand why you went public with it - I think you should have waited.

The features are very limited, but I think there may be several reasons for publishing the game in such an unfinished state. You don't know what changes and additionshave been made to the core of the game. If anything behind the scenes has been improved, the users won't see it. However changes to the main code may result in new bugs, and its always easier to track them when having a larger group of ppl useing the program than just a few inhouse test players. Also its possible that the developers deliberately launched an early unfinished version with just some basic fratures included so that they can see the reaction of the community (=the customers). Since Diplomacy beta is out, there are many feedback threads in the forumin which you can read oppinons and wishes of the users. Stardock won't be able to react to them and implement good ideas if most of the game would be finished already.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Love Stardock Love Ironclad but diplomacy is little more than a new splash screen at this point. Thank God Dragon Age is here for now.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

We released the beta because we needed a large group of testers across a wide variety of systems in order to track down core technical bugs, plus to elicit feedback/ideas from folks. We did point out that this beta was going to be sparse, not fun, incomplete and all around far from spectacular (along with a disclaimer that you shouldn't try it if you didn't want to help). ;)