posted 02-23-99 05:17 PM ET        

Almost without fail, the first contact with any faction yields a threat and an attempt to extort about half of my net worth from me. Even when I try to 'just get along', our relationships almost inevitably and relatively quickly deteriorates into 'Seething' contacts with absolutely insane demands. And what the heck is the deal with these guys constantly 'ignoring' me when I could so clearly wipe them from the face of Planet? They should be rushing to speak with me and be plaintively begging my forgiveness for their past transgressions.

What the heck is going on? I'm really an easy guy to get along with (I'm President of the local Kiwanis Club for crying out loud), but the way you guys have the Diplomatic AI set always results in my getting so pissed off that I start launching Planet-Busters at any other bases within 18 squares of my own just to save myself from the aggravation of nuisance attacks.

I think you will find that many of the SMAC players here played MOO2 to death, and I can tell you that the Diplomatic AI there was MUCH more enjoyable and seemed MUCH more realistic than what you have in SMAC. I really enjoyed playing a 'Charismatic' race with all the Diplomatic techs and getting along with everybody (at least until the inevitable time for good old-fashioned genocide later in the game).

I am trying REAL hard to like this game (the cool mushroom-cloud for Planet-Busters almost compensates for the AI problems), but it seems to be completely impossible to keep the AI thinking good thoughts, or to even make them be reasonable.

Please get Barcia over there to give you guys some Diplomatic AI pointers, then fix this darn thing in a future patch.

Thanks heaps and buckets,

Chris Benjamin
State Licensed Real Estate Appraiser
President, Kiwanis Club of West Branch
Nearly New Private Pilot
All-around nice guy

posted 02-23-99 05:57 PM ET            

It is perfectly understandable that certain groups would intrinsically hate eachother, (University of Planet and The Lord's Believers etc...)but I find it absurd that absolutely no one on the face of Chiron is willing to negotiate on peaceful terms.

Even compatible groups such as The Peacekeepers (Humanitarian Democracy) and the Gaians (Green Democracy) always end up in conflict.

Don't get me wrong, I thouroughly enjoy the rest of the game, but when every single communication I recieve or make degenerates into "Give me your technology or I'll crush you" followed by "You are no longer significant" it gets to be somewhat frustrating.

posted 02-23-99 11:58 PM ET            

I guess my complaint is they turn against you before you're #1. Go bash Yang, he's got the best rating! Go accuse the Gaians of expansionist land-grabbing. How could I possibly be a "bloated pig bent on world domination" or whatever when I'm #2? (Or even a close #3?)

posted 02-24-99 12:16 AM ET            

A rival demands a tech, I say only if you give me something in return, they say you won't trade then?, so I say not on those terms, then they say very well but one day you may regret it; usually I can continue negotiations for two or three requests of my own before they grow tired and say they have other business to attend to.

Deirdre's wanted a C5 tech for a B4 and I've usually succeeded in beating her down to a C4
or got a B6 from her. The other four factions are similarly reasonable, and I'm ususally in Pacts or mutual-respect Treaties with all but one or two factions (except I was in Vendetta also with the Spartans right after I back-stabbed them for a more powerful ally) - and even Miriam tried asking me for peace without terms several times - so diplomacy is working for me.

Maybe Morgan - with small cities, low support and drones galore - is considered an easy target for bullies? As a CP (Pacifist) he's always begging for military help against someone or other.

Perhaps the map size makes a difference? I play mostly on Huge maps where everyone has plenty of room to expand. (Except that in the current game the Hive were alone on an island that was sandwiched between me, the Gaians, the Believers and Morgan, so the Hive were constantly trying to conquer their neighbors, particularly me until I got sick of them and chopper-dropped into all of their land cities).

posted 02-24-99 12:30 AM ET            

It seems that if you don't have acceptable social E choices they'll eventually get ticked off and go to war. Once you make the right picks to match them (you can tell what they should be because they'll complain) they may even turn friendly. Playing UoP at Librarian Deidre has stayed very happy with me the whole game except for when I went to wealth/free market to appease Morgan.

When I did that Morgan was all buddy-buddy and we traded at least a half-dozen techs. Then I turned green again (couldn't disappoint Deidre) and he declare vendetta. If I wasn't so busy fighting the planet I'd have wiped the floor with him. As it is I'm gradually gnawing on his cities.

From the guide it's apparent that at the last 2 levels the cps are much more prickly. Even in this game everybody else hates me too, though except for Morgan they can't get to me.

posted 02-24-99 07:39 PM ET            

In the first game i had almost all of my bases located on high ground but pollution was ripe and the polar caps were melting so i proposed to launch solar but Yang who was elected council leader vetoed the proposal ignorant of the fact that all his bases was threathened by rising sea.

In the second game only UoP(me) and the Gaians were left after i had used planetbusters and Deidre was located on very low land.

posted 02-24-99 08:30 PM ET            

Last night I tried a TINY map on the easiest level as UNIVERSITY and within 20 turns or so I had 3 PACTS and 2 TREATIES and 1 faction not contacted yet. The PACTS were not pushovers ... one was easy ... the other required some wheeling and dealing ... and the third PACT with the Believers took me three tries to get ... I had to give her three techs as GIFTS (to soften her up) before asking her the third time.

Of course, as the game progresses, each gets upset with SOMETHING about your set up, but that is negotiable much of the time.

My favorite difficulty level to play on is LIBRARIAN because that is the EVEN level (no benefits to the computer AI and no extra bonus to you either).

Perhaps what we need is a reference chart showing which things make each faction HAPPY or MAD (do I show my preference toward charts here??)

Best Regards,

posted 02-24-99 09:03 PM ET            

It gets a wee bit harder to make and keep treaties at the upper levels. The step from Librarian to Thinker is a noticeable one. Citing an example from the _lowest_ level, as you did, is a bit irrelevant.

posted 02-24-99 09:26 PM ET         

Even accepting the obvious fact that AC was designed ( sadly )as much more of a _pure_ Wargame then either Civ 1 or 2, the Diplomantic behavior of the other Faction Leaders to the player, in terms of declaring War _and_ their timing, is just totally irrational most, if not all of the time.

This is especially frustrating in the contex of the AC "story line" , small bands of castaways land on a fairly hostle planet and then proceed to do their best to kill off each other as fast as possible, then stop again, then start again, then Ally with you, then fight their former ally and on and on.
All for no obvious reasons, at least to me.

In at least two games they decided to melt the Polar Caps, drowning themselves as well as me. AND, this is when they were well ahead in the race!
Im my last game, playing as "Green ", and making nice all the time, Deirdre decides to extort all my $$$, then when I offer 1/2, all I`ve got, she say`s NO and starts a War.

I could go on all night,but you get the point,this is no fun. It leads to the old Civ 1 & 2 higher game level strategy, build fast and big and kill em all ASAP. Game Over.

The Faction AI is totally Psychotic ( or porked ), and compares not at all well with the more rational, IMHO at least, AI of the the Civ 2 leaders.

posted 02-25-99 02:26 AM ET            

Blackjack is puzzled why a castaway remnant of humanity would engage in mutual slaughter.

Have you read the story of the Bounty mutineers? They settled in an idyllic island paradise with their beautiful native wives, then started quarrelling. When the British Navy located them years later, the first generation, the mutineers, had killed themselves off.

Five out of seven of the factions are mutineers (all but Lal and Miriam), so they fit the pattern. The main incongruity is that Lal and Miriam don't behave according to the Unity storyline.

posted 02-26-99 12:19 AM ET            

Play a game where your pretend it's poker: Bluff everyone into hating one guy, then pull it out. I held an entire continent, without colonizing it greedily, for 100 year. I was behind, But I had it secured.

I promoted infighting, I traded techs, I seemed weak. When they least suspected it... I controlled a HUGE empire and no one could STOP me, because they had all weakened themselves! MMMMMbhahahahhahahahah

posted 02-26-99 08:10 PM ET            

1) If you aren't playing on at least 'Thinker' level (which is the most fun level, IMHO), then don't waste our time. If you can only handle the candy-ass levels, then the stuff the rest of us are talking about will not apply.

2) I have played 3 more full games as Morgan at 'Thinker' level, and have come to the conclusion that this MUST be a bug. The computer AI starts out at 'Obstinate' and immediately is at 'Seething' NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU KISSED UP TO THEM ON THE FIRST CONTACT! This can't possibly be based on my Societal Engineering choices, since nobody has had a chance to make any yet!

In my current game, I have given the Hive and the Spartans every thing they have ever asked for, but they always and inevitably attack me anyway. Actually, it is generally in Morgan's best interest to become a 'Master of Butt-Kissing' anyways, since in my current game, I was getting over 100 energy a turn from commerce with just the Hive and Spartans before they went psycho.

It's still incredibly annoying that there is no way to play a diplomatic game like in MOO2. The game shouldn't force these types of things on you, but allow you to play the way you want (with plusses and minuses, of course, and without making you choose a lower difficulty level). I want to be a friendly guy and try to get along (until it's time to wipe them all out), but the AI seems hard-coded to FORCE you to engage in warfare as soon as possible.

I am still enjoying the game, but some seriously toned-down AI hostility would make it MUCH more fun. I enjoy blasting that tree-hugging bitch Deirdre and that commie pinko bastard Yang as much as the next guy, but I should NOT be FORCED into it by a poorly programmed AI. And there's really little excuse for this, as Firaxis clearly has the talent to change this for the 3.0 patch.

Thanks for listening to my ranting,

posted 02-26-99 11:56 PM ET            

This is probably the thing that is most overlooked about the AI which also causes Morgan to be, in my experience, one of the weaker AI races. Morgan gets commerce bonuses. BIG TIME. Any time Morgan gets a treaty, BAM more money goes into his coffers. The easiest way to prevent this, of course, is to make sure that you don't deal with him all that much. This is what _I_ do with Morgan, on any difficulty - I'm not going to get into a treaty with him so he can use one of his best traits! Why would you expect the AI to do any differently? Would it make sense, if the AI knows about who has what in abilities, to say, "well, that Morgan fellow sure is being nice. I'll give him a treaty, in spite of his ability to double any money we give him". IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. In fact, in every game I've seen played with Morgan, the computer players are mercilessly pounding the crap out of Morgan, almost always at war with him for one reason or another. I've never seen Morgan crack the top five, and I'm betting it's because of a bias vs. Morgan, not vs. the player.

Also note that other characters have not had this problem - theirs is more faction-oriented than anything else. I've basically seen it divided up into two main factions - UoP/Gaians/PK and Hive/Spartans/Believers, with Morgan thrown in for the fun. If I'm playing one of these factions, chances are I can make friends with the other two, and will have enemies of the other faction. But as UoP, for instance, I've never had a game where Dierdre didn't like me (except near the end, of course), and the PKs were also usually friendly. Yang almost always declares war immediately, and Santiago does so eventually. But Morgan always seems the odd man out.

However, it does sound like the AI is programmed to do this poorly. Instead of simply saying "to hell with him, I'm just not going to give him garbage" as the standard response, they seem to have elected to go with Morgan == bad relation, no matter who it is. Which makes a certain amount of sense, from both the storyline and from his abilities, but diplomatically it seems somewhat...wrong. You don't declare war on someone just because you don't want to trade with him after all. Anyway, perhaps the denying of Morgan's abilities is the main crux of the AI's naughtiness towards you.

posted 02-27-99 01:34 AM ET            

After that he's unstoppable.

I doubt the AI is programmed to "know" this; more likely an unfortunate coincidence of SE preferences wrecks The Mogul's political career. At his "computer-preferred" settings of Democracy / Free Market / Wealth, he has only 1 friend in the world: The Peacekeepers [Democracy].

At the "scalability breakpoint" where "Green" becomes the economy of choice only Deirdre and Lal are natural allies. (Green / Democracy)

And lastly, when your military is prepared to deal with Planet's counterattacks and you've bought the HK Algorithm, Free Market / Knowledge makes you buddies with Zakharov but doesn't sit well with Skye.

As a final thought, after reading "Advanced Concepts" I realized that my playing on "Transcend" level skews my perspective; for instance, environmental damage is less on lower levels, and the "scalability breakpoint", where efficiency must be used to counter the bureaucracy penalty, is at a much higher number of bases.

posted 09-07-99 02:43 PM ET            

Often, I'm started right next to a potential enemy. So it's good to get them before they get you. In my last game, I was Morgan sharing a border with Santiago. Of all the people in the world....