A.I and Diplomacy

Nope, but this is a known issue, hopefully it will be fixed in a future patch.

Until then, locked teams is the only way to get the AI to be on teams with each other.

As long as the AI is alllied with one person, they are fine to fight everyone else.  If you don't make any alliances with them, THEN they ally with each other. 

Another funny option is to set teams of three but have them unlocked and have no allied victors.  If you pacts with one of your AI teammates, they'll turn on the other AI.  Then you can let them whittle each other down while you position yourself for a brutal backstabbing against the one who is winning.

That's a shame indeed. I find it odd because some of the a.i actually have very good relations with each other but if their fleets meet they attack each other.

I found diplomacy to be a little bit to easy as well, i mean almost all of my allies were due to the a.i offering me them. I know this is probably because i have spent so much time on one map but i have made a very huge map with many,many planets so the a.i not ever allying with each other is a bit of a shame... but hopefully one day they will patch it. 

Although i have read there is another addon coming out perhaps they will fix this issue in that version. 

Cheers. 

Don't count on it. Just expect more bugs...

By the sounds of it i am guessing there are many bugs i am yet to discover? Do the devs have a good record with patches or are they the sort to abandon their games? 

Like i said before i'm new to this game and so far i am enjoying it. 

The devs do a good job of squashing bugs when they find them. They won't abandon us. To answer your question, I have no idea. It depends on what you try to do. Some people just have issues, some don't. I am one of the unfortunate who have issues with mods and such, so I am a little biased for that, but at the same time, it's not THEIR fault. As long as your computer can run Sins, you should be fine.

This game doesn't have a track record of bugs. I've been playing now for around a year or so and worked with the Beta of 1.2 before it came out. There are a few minor issues like every game but these guys have been very good with listening to the community and fixing issues (including some balance stuff).

The fact that this game is a couple of years old and still receives patches is proof of that. 

Both Ironclad and Stardock have excellent patch support reputations, and that has been true for Sins. I'm not sure why he said that, though it is certainly true that sometimes patches do introduce new bugs (as with any software). Though since these patches occasional add more content as well as fix bugs, its quite worth it IMO.

That said, issues like the Diplomacy system that can't be easily fixed by a simple file change usually have to be done in later expansions, though the recent 1.2 patch proved an exception to this (it fixed an AI tendency to always place bounty on the human player, which was maddening to new players. Now its almost worth leaving them on in AI games). So maybe things are changing.

The pirates are good in any non-1v1 game now.  The raids are quite manageable.  To get the most out of them though you need a balance of 3 sides.  That adds layers of uncertainty and tension just not present in a 2-sided skirmish.

Ah, well that's good to hear. Yeah, i have been playing with pirates on and i have seen the a.i place a bounty on many other a.i factions which is good. At the start of the game it was always me and the light green a.i getting targetted but the last 10 raids have all been different a.i. 

I am wondering if i conquer the pirate bases will this remove the pirates from the game or no? 

I hope that they will address the issues with diplomacy in the next expansion, However having played around 11-12 hours since i got the game a few days ago i can honestly say i really do like it. I will certainly be keeping an eye on any future sins type games they release. 

Yes, though if there are multiple pirate bases you have to take them all out, otherwise they will just spawn at a different base. That said pirates can't travel between stars, so if you eliminate the pirate base in your solar system and you get a pirate raid they won't be able to reach you. The pirate raid still forms though, they just stay and guard their base, so if you see a pirate base with hundreds of pirate ships this is why.

Also while you only need to make the pirates lose control of the base (even with novaliths) to prevent them from spawning, they are worth colonizing as all pirate bases have a bonus that give an extra 3.5 tax income. Its also an achievement.

Glad that you like it, though you are only just getting started. Once you've gotten bored with vanilla, there are still mods and perhaps multiplayer for you to explore.

I'd wait until multiplayer is less laggy before trying it, personally.

This is why I continuosly request AI improvements. Now AI players can not manipulate their relations because they have no tool to do so since they can offer missions only to human players. The other diplomatic factors are only indicators of actions a player takes in game (military actions, military strength etc.). They usually attack a player having lowest relation towards them. This leads to worst relations which makes the latter one a more potential target.

This system is unefficient to raise friendships between AI players.

ICO didnt seem laggy for me last night....

Ask DirtySanchezz, or go on when there are more people on. Of course, I don't play multiplayer, but from what Sanchezz has been saying it gets pretty bad.

It's difficult to take what you say seriously if you don't play online multiplayer.  I think you're overstating the problem.

It's still very playable, but sometimes ICO can lag and it can get annoying.  The lag isn't a reason not to play Sins in online multiplayer.  It would be nice if they could reduce it or put an end to it, but it isn't the game killer you suggest.  I use the lag time (like a mini-time out) to do things I might not otherwise be able to do such as check on action elsewhere on the map, etc.  Also, for many people, playing against the AI, an opponent that has one hand tied behind its back and that isn't capable of strategic thought, just isn't an option.

Well, I just go by what I see/read.

I'd love to see the A.I. again make alliances with the other A.I. factions, Hope it gets fixed for Rebellion.

From what I understood the problems with the AI relations and the diplomatic victory were supposed to be addresed in a patch to be released before Rebellion.

What both systems need are a few fixes and then an extensive beta test to tweak them out.  I've written about the problems before and I'd be quite happy to beta the patched versions until they were done.

Finally Sins seems to be moving in the right direction, with the most glaring issues getting some attention.  I had given up on multiplayer because even after the balance patch that dealt with the Skirantra, too much lag had been introduced and the game was unplayable.  However, I've had a couple of games recently and I'm happy to say that they were lag-free, so I can play multiplayer again.  Singleplayer isn't viable without locking teams, as the OP has observed.

Unfortunately we might have to wait for Rebellion for a proper online multiplayer game.  When I began playing online it was before the 5s PUG plague and most games were 2s and 3s, which are a great way to play. The very best Sins games I've had have been best-of-three 2s and 3s between balanced teams who know each other.  I doubt that there has ever been a best-of-three 5s. 

The matchmaking aspect of Rebellion could be another huge step forward for Sins.  I hope that it can be set up right from the beginning, with one set and balanced map for each of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s, enough of the random map nonsense that also plagues multiplayer.  Telescopes not 'scouts'!  Premade teams not PUGs!     

The random maps just need to always spawn an asteroid by each player's homeworld, and make sure that the rings of planets and other stellar bodies don't overlap and cause weird things like overlapping gravity wells and the like, then they will be viable.