posted 02-19-99 03:57 PM ET        

I feel (and I will keep this short and sweet since I have discussed it elsewhere) that:

1) the penalties for refusing to give something away for free are too great (usually a drop of 2-3 friendliness levels, if not an outright vendetta after a mere two refusals!).

I think the penalties for refusing should be minor or nothing, with some bonuses for agreeing to the "gift".

2) too often. Every single time the computer talks to you they ask for something for free.

3) especially touchy about asking it to leave your territory.

4) if nothing else, the computer should at least give into to your unreasonable demands now and then (least preferred option since it is highly abusable).

As stated before, this minor problem does rob heavily from the atmosphere of making it seem like you are playing against something/somebody intelligent (going beserk for no good reason). Also, it makes it far to easy to goad the computer into declaring all wars and hence only really harms the computer players ultimately. Lastly, it really does only make sense that the computer should expect you to refuse such a demand, afterall I am sure there isn't a lot of freebies given away between human opponents in multi-player.

I hope Firaxis can include this in the next enhancement, or at least in some future enhancement (I'll even accept taking it as part of a expansion pack!).

Thanks greatly.

posted 02-20-99 09:53 PM ET            

Not to say the diplomacy in SMAC or Civ2 for that matter is/was bad. It is good, I just think it needs a bit of tweaking and then I really think it will dethrone MOO2 in my heart.

Played a few more games. Met UoP, traded three techs with him, refused to trade on tech for free and he was obstinate. I sent him a gift of 100 energy credits (hardly a laughable amount of money), and he didn't budge an inch! Several turns later we traded another tech, I refused to give him another free one and he was seething. He declared vendetta shortly thereafter. *sigh* Wierd thing was I wasn't even set to Wealth values, but knowledge (trying to get some extra tech). Again, everything seems to point to this simple refusal.

Playing against Yang (I was police state purposefully to keep the peace with him), refused a pact he dropped from cooperative to seething (also refused a free tech trade too). Again, *sigh*. I gave him 300(!) energy credits, he didn't budge in feelings towards. Instead declared war several turns later. Again, *sigh*.

I want to make it clear too though, that I don't think it makes the game too hard (as before usually this touchiness of the AI is a hinderance to its own efforts not mine). It just hurts the illusion and I am VERY confident that the folks at Firaxis can do better. SMAC is too good to be shackled with this weird diplomacy thing (again all my opinion). Perhaps the ultimate fix would be to have the diplomacy stuff be in one of those text files then I could tweak it all I want and anybody who loves the "erratic" computer could just keep it.

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The Bernard Industries Challenge

Get and maintain for an extend period of time (100-200 turns) a Treaty of Friendship. Not a pact, you can get those very simply but giving in to the computers "unreasonable" (or using real cheesey strategy by trading dummy bases) demands. Try just maintaining the status quo.
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Maintaining the status quo should be a viable strategy especially for the Morganites. Why takes sides when you can be friends with everybody?

I am not saying maintaining the status quo is impossible, but needlessly difficult. Sensibly the status quo should be maintained by having a productive and fair relationship with each other.

Which reminds me, refusing a pact probably shouldn't have such serious repercussions either. Firaxis, please allow somebody to play fairly neutral (look at it this way, if by playing neutral the "Switzerland" will ultimately get attacked by everybody for being too strong, which is okay).