Intricacies of Reputation (It's really not explained)

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Author Topic:   Intricacies of Reputation (It's really not explained)

brother copes posted 04-27-99 05:16 PM ET
OK... to the best of my knowledge, not with drawing troops from a Treaty faction's territory is bad for your reputation when the OTHER faction declares war and asking for withdrawal is not bad for your reputation (except you might annoy the guy you want to leave). I might be wrong about that though. What I want to know is: does canceling a Pact look bad on your record? and... does eliminating (or severely harming) a faction after cancelling a Treaty with them mean more harm to your reputation than if you just took over one city?
I don't know who would know this for sure since I can't find it in the Datalinks but maybe if Sid Meier wants to make a post because he would probably know.
R A Spottiswood posted 04-28-99 11:55 PM ET
Basically, declaring Vendetta without what the game considers provocation is bad for your reputation. After Vendetta is declared, you can do anything you want to the other Faction short of Atrocities without doing any damage to your reputation. Also, I think canceling a Pact without provocation looks bad -- I do not actually know, since I have never canceled one myself.
RAS
Bad Explanation posted 05-02-99 01:11 PM ET
I've gotten the impression, from playing the game, that what hurts you is backstabbing.
Your reputation is based on how often you do what you say you'll do. If you swear any kind of agreement, from Blood Truce to Pact, you have to tell them that you're calling off that agreement and declaring Vendetta on them *before* you attack them, if you want to preserve your reputation. Once you formally make you declaration, you can attack as brutally as you like. But if you just take them by surprise, you will suffer a lowered reputation. This is what the other factions do; notice how they almost always tell you that they are declaring Vendetta on you. I'm not sure what happens if you attack someone you have no agreement whatsoever with.
What really bites about this is that if you care about your reputation, sometimes you can't attack a faction, because they won't talk to you! This is really unfair, because the AI can just send you messages at will, but you can't do the same. One trick I found for getting around this: probe teams. If you have the $ and the probe rating to pull this off, you can send a team to mind control the city of an incommunicative faction. Be sure to use "Total Thought Control," or the whole point is ruined; if you pull it off, you will have taken over one of their cities without them even noticing! No pact will be broken and they won't declare war, and your reputation will be intact. But most importantly, they will now talk to you. For some reason, a faction seems to always accept communication after losing a base to you. I've used this trick a couple times, and it seems a bit ridiculous to capture a city just to provoke a conversation, but sometimes I just can't stand it when an ally won't talk to me.
Also, often, factions will urge you to join them against one of your current allies. Accepting any of these deals counts as backstabbing and hurts your reputation.
I find the reputation thing important for trade reasons. I backstabbed a lot one game and then nobody would trade with me.
It says somewhere in the manual how the atrocities affect your reputation, I think, but I haven't used any atrocities yet, so I don't know about that.
Plato90s posted 05-02-99 03:54 PM ET
If you right click on the faction name in the Commlinks, you can communicate even when they won't accept your call. You can demand withdrawl, cancel treaties, etc...
StargazerBC posted 05-02-99 05:44 PM ET
There's also a way to increase your rating. To elaborate on the "do what you say part"--if you agree (with another AI ally) to attack an enemy's base and do attack, your reputation will start to increase after a few attacks. If another faction asks you to defend/aid and you help, it'll also increase. There are a few times when I dropped from Noble and came back up again--so, it does work . It's all about integrity.
sandals posted 05-03-99 03:48 PM ET
Atrocities will hurt your reputation a lot, assuming the UN charter hasn't been repealed. I'm not sure what happens if so - I've never played under that condidtion. Also, once you have committed an atrocity against a faction, they will refuse to accept you has supreme leader.
I still really enjoy sending a surprise PB every once in a while though... Especially against Yang.
BenedictHamilton posted 05-03-99 06:58 PM ET
Mmmm.
I've been staying noble in my current game. And found to my surprise that when an old treaty friend asked me to attack Miriam, and I did so.. I stayed Noble!!?? :/
Atrocities? I've tried a few in other games. Did nothing to my reputation.. but each time I used nerve gas pods, I was slapped with a 30 year commerce income sanction. As I was a poor Gaian in the early stages of the game being attacked by both hive and morgan, it was well worth it though.
Al Gore Rythm posted 05-03-99 10:28 PM ET
Well I'm an evil Hive/Spartan/Believing atrocity using monster so I'll comment
As far as I know, reputation and atrocity use are alittle seperate. Massive atrocity use gives you a reputation hit, but you can usually shave a nerve staple or two and remain Noble. Most of the direct reputation is based on being true to your word.
But, remember, atrocities remain in the mind of the AI players. You will notice them saying "If you ever try to do blah and blah like you did to that poor sucker than I'll beat you down." So be careful.
This is (don't qoute me on this one) my guess on how atrocity severity is handled:
Nerve Stapeling your own cities.
Nerve Stapeling captured cities.
Using Nerve Gas on an enemy unit.
Obliterating one of your own bases.
Using Nerve gas on an enemy city (varies on size.)
Retrovirus.
Obliterating a captured city (varies on size.)
Planet Buster Use.
One thing that sort've fits in here is actually having Planet Busters. These tend to intimidate the AI, but also causes it to usually be a little bit more wary with you. Sort've like a very, very low scale atrocity.
About regular reputation, I think it's a rather basic idea of treason. If you attack a truce guy who you hate, it's not as bad as if you frame your beloved pact brother for assasination.
Wolf Dreamer posted 05-04-99 12:37 AM ET
I called up the Spartans when I saw how badly they were losing, and canceled our pack. I lost reputation. Went from 'noble' to 'faithful'.
Darkstar posted 05-04-99 05:50 AM ET
I think you guys are blowing smoke up others waste orifices!
Computer BROKE our pact, and declared war on me. I lost rep. Yes, *I* lose honor. WTF? I was Hive, and had been running Research. AI UoP had pacted with me against a common foe. When I swapped out of Research, UoP contacted me, nulled our pact (with blank screen), and declared vendetta. My Reputation went down. WTF?
I have noticed its next to impossible to keep Noble under version 3. Many times when the COMPUTER is dishonorable, I get the reputation hit. Explain THAT. AI Hive PBed AI Gaian City, I took a hit to Honor. HUH? That was the only "dishonest" event of the turn, and my honor went down? I didn't break any treaties, or alliances, etc etc etc...
During a Sunspot activity, I "Obliterated" a Hive water Base trying to horn in on "my" Monsoon Jungle. Guess what? If I save the game and reload it, my honor has dropped. Apparently, that spotty spy problem is just your own clerks and nothing else. I have seen this repeatily since version 1.
The Honor system has more bugs in it than are believable! Honor. HAH!
-Darkstar
Al Gore Rythm posted 05-04-99 10:20 AM ET
Darkstar:
When you lost rep for the broken pact, did you do anything to instigate this beyond the SE swap? I have noticed that I can take a rep hit if the computer declares war on me after I probe them or somesuch.
When you get honor hits for what the comp did, you wouldn't happen to be allied to the trouble-maker, would you? Allies of those types tend to get looked down upon too. And if you're allied with a "Planetary Monster" you tend to have to share his evil.
When the Sunspot stuff gave you the rep hit, how big was the city? If you commit an extreme enough atrocity (such as PBing) Sunspot activity will not be able to cover it up.
I myself am not concerned with honor much anyway. I prefer to keep the others factions in line through fear.
sandworm posted 05-04-99 10:42 AM ET
I seem to recall having the same thing that happened to Darkstar in SMAC happening to me in Civ2 all the time. If they've been swapping code for SMAC, you'd think -someone- would have fixed that crap. It just doesn't make sense to copy code that doesn't work properly in the first place.
Some of you are saying, "who cares? Just grind them all up", try doing that on thinker or transcend. I like the diplomacy in SMAC (its far from perfect, but it beats Civ2), and reputation affects diplomacy. If Yang breaks treaty with me and surprise attacks, I'd be mighty pi**ed if my pact mates cancelled with -me- as a result of the hit to -my- rep. I may also be hamburger in a few turns without them.
And honor hits when AI betrays another AI?
Stop the insanity.
Just fix it. If some of it truly is old Civ code, like I suspect, it should have been fixed -years- ago.
frustrated,
sandworm
Darkstar posted 05-04-99 12:32 PM ET
Al - I did nothing other than the SE swap. Yet, I took the Honor hit when UoP broke their Pact with me and declared War on me. How Strange.
The sunspot activty was that I obliterated a size 1 ocean base. But as I said, it doesn't matter. EVERYTHING I have ever tried during sunspots would drop my honor, its just that the MFD didn't DISPLAY my current honor. If I saved the game and reloaded it for whatever reason, then my CORRECT level of honor was shown.
-Darkstar
Urban Ranger posted 05-05-99 11:14 AM ET
I have used probe teams to goad another faction in declaring vendetta at me and that doesn't do anything to my reputation. As far as I can tell, almost any probe action works, except for "Infiltrate Datalinks."
So send in a probe team to steal tech or energy (or unit), and watch sparks fly.
Kilroy posted 05-07-99 02:43 PM ET
Here's a little trick with atrocities that I haven't seen posted yet. You can get away with them during sunspoot activity. Only the aggrieved faction is aware of the atrocity, and while they're likely to bear one hell of a grudge, no one else ever finds out about it! While it doesn't make sense to wait for one, if the opprotunity presents itself, take advantage of it.
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Author	Topic: Intricacies of Reputation (It's really not explained)
brother copes	posted 04-27-99 05:16 PM ET OK... to the best of my knowledge, not with drawing troops from a Treaty faction's territory is bad for your reputation when the OTHER faction declares war and asking for withdrawal is not bad for your reputation (except you might annoy the guy you want to leave). I might be wrong about that though. What I want to know is: does canceling a Pact look bad on your record? and... does eliminating (or severely harming) a faction after cancelling a Treaty with them mean more harm to your reputation than if you just took over one city? I don't know who would know this for sure since I can't find it in the Datalinks but maybe if Sid Meier wants to make a post because he would probably know.
R A Spottiswood	posted 04-28-99 11:55 PM ET Basically, declaring Vendetta without what the game considers provocation is bad for your reputation. After Vendetta is declared, you can do anything you want to the other Faction short of Atrocities without doing any damage to your reputation. Also, I think canceling a Pact without provocation looks bad -- I do not actually know, since I have never canceled one myself. RAS
Bad Explanation	posted 05-02-99 01:11 PM ET I've gotten the impression, from playing the game, that what hurts you is backstabbing. Your reputation is based on how often you do what you say you'll do. If you swear any kind of agreement, from Blood Truce to Pact, you have to tell them that you're calling off that agreement and declaring Vendetta on them before you attack them, if you want to preserve your reputation. Once you formally make you declaration, you can attack as brutally as you like. But if you just take them by surprise, you will suffer a lowered reputation. This is what the other factions do; notice how they almost always tell you that they are declaring Vendetta on you. I'm not sure what happens if you attack someone you have no agreement whatsoever with. What really bites about this is that if you care about your reputation, sometimes you can't attack a faction, because they won't talk to you! This is really unfair, because the AI can just send you messages at will, but you can't do the same. One trick I found for getting around this: probe teams. If you have the $ and the probe rating to pull this off, you can send a team to mind control the city of an incommunicative faction. Be sure to use "Total Thought Control," or the whole point is ruined; if you pull it off, you will have taken over one of their cities without them even noticing! No pact will be broken and they won't declare war, and your reputation will be intact. But most importantly, they will now talk to you. For some reason, a faction seems to always accept communication after losing a base to you. I've used this trick a couple times, and it seems a bit ridiculous to capture a city just to provoke a conversation, but sometimes I just can't stand it when an ally won't talk to me. Also, often, factions will urge you to join them against one of your current allies. Accepting any of these deals counts as backstabbing and hurts your reputation. I find the reputation thing important for trade reasons. I backstabbed a lot one game and then nobody would trade with me. It says somewhere in the manual how the atrocities affect your reputation, I think, but I haven't used any atrocities yet, so I don't know about that.
Plato90s	posted 05-02-99 03:54 PM ET If you right click on the faction name in the Commlinks, you can communicate even when they won't accept your call. You can demand withdrawl, cancel treaties, etc...
StargazerBC	posted 05-02-99 05:44 PM ET There's also a way to increase your rating. To elaborate on the "do what you say part"--if you agree (with another AI ally) to attack an enemy's base and do attack, your reputation will start to increase after a few attacks. If another faction asks you to defend/aid and you help, it'll also increase. There are a few times when I dropped from Noble and came back up again--so, it does work . It's all about integrity.
sandals	posted 05-03-99 03:48 PM ET Atrocities will hurt your reputation a lot, assuming the UN charter hasn't been repealed. I'm not sure what happens if so - I've never played under that condidtion. Also, once you have committed an atrocity against a faction, they will refuse to accept you has supreme leader. I still really enjoy sending a surprise PB every once in a while though... Especially against Yang.
BenedictHamilton	posted 05-03-99 06:58 PM ET Mmmm. I've been staying noble in my current game. And found to my surprise that when an old treaty friend asked me to attack Miriam, and I did so.. I stayed Noble!!?? :/ Atrocities? I've tried a few in other games. Did nothing to my reputation.. but each time I used nerve gas pods, I was slapped with a 30 year commerce income sanction. As I was a poor Gaian in the early stages of the game being attacked by both hive and morgan, it was well worth it though.
Al Gore Rythm	posted 05-03-99 10:28 PM ET Well I'm an evil Hive/Spartan/Believing atrocity using monster so I'll comment As far as I know, reputation and atrocity use are alittle seperate. Massive atrocity use gives you a reputation hit, but you can usually shave a nerve staple or two and remain Noble. Most of the direct reputation is based on being true to your word. But, remember, atrocities remain in the mind of the AI players. You will notice them saying "If you ever try to do blah and blah like you did to that poor sucker than I'll beat you down." So be careful. This is (don't qoute me on this one) my guess on how atrocity severity is handled: Nerve Stapeling your own cities. Nerve Stapeling captured cities. Using Nerve Gas on an enemy unit. Obliterating one of your own bases. Using Nerve gas on an enemy city (varies on size.) Retrovirus. Obliterating a captured city (varies on size.) Planet Buster Use. One thing that sort've fits in here is actually having Planet Busters. These tend to intimidate the AI, but also causes it to usually be a little bit more wary with you. Sort've like a very, very low scale atrocity. About regular reputation, I think it's a rather basic idea of treason. If you attack a truce guy who you hate, it's not as bad as if you frame your beloved pact brother for assasination.
Wolf Dreamer	posted 05-04-99 12:37 AM ET I called up the Spartans when I saw how badly they were losing, and canceled our pack. I lost reputation. Went from 'noble' to 'faithful'.
Darkstar	posted 05-04-99 05:50 AM ET I think you guys are blowing smoke up others waste orifices! Computer BROKE our pact, and declared war on me. I lost rep. Yes, I lose honor. WTF? I was Hive, and had been running Research. AI UoP had pacted with me against a common foe. When I swapped out of Research, UoP contacted me, nulled our pact (with blank screen), and declared vendetta. My Reputation went down. WTF? I have noticed its next to impossible to keep Noble under version 3. Many times when the COMPUTER is dishonorable, I get the reputation hit. Explain THAT. AI Hive PBed AI Gaian City, I took a hit to Honor. HUH? That was the only "dishonest" event of the turn, and my honor went down? I didn't break any treaties, or alliances, etc etc etc... During a Sunspot activity, I "Obliterated" a Hive water Base trying to horn in on "my" Monsoon Jungle. Guess what? If I save the game and reload it, my honor has dropped. Apparently, that spotty spy problem is just your own clerks and nothing else. I have seen this repeatily since version 1. The Honor system has more bugs in it than are believable! Honor. HAH! -Darkstar
Al Gore Rythm	posted 05-04-99 10:20 AM ET Darkstar: When you lost rep for the broken pact, did you do anything to instigate this beyond the SE swap? I have noticed that I can take a rep hit if the computer declares war on me after I probe them or somesuch. When you get honor hits for what the comp did, you wouldn't happen to be allied to the trouble-maker, would you? Allies of those types tend to get looked down upon too. And if you're allied with a "Planetary Monster" you tend to have to share his evil. When the Sunspot stuff gave you the rep hit, how big was the city? If you commit an extreme enough atrocity (such as PBing) Sunspot activity will not be able to cover it up. I myself am not concerned with honor much anyway. I prefer to keep the others factions in line through fear.
sandworm	posted 05-04-99 10:42 AM ET I seem to recall having the same thing that happened to Darkstar in SMAC happening to me in Civ2 all the time. If they've been swapping code for SMAC, you'd think -someone- would have fixed that crap. It just doesn't make sense to copy code that doesn't work properly in the first place. Some of you are saying, "who cares? Just grind them all up", try doing that on thinker or transcend. I like the diplomacy in SMAC (its far from perfect, but it beats Civ2), and reputation affects diplomacy. If Yang breaks treaty with me and surprise attacks, I'd be mighty pi**ed if my pact mates cancelled with -me- as a result of the hit to -my- rep. I may also be hamburger in a few turns without them. And honor hits when AI betrays another AI? Stop the insanity. Just fix it. If some of it truly is old Civ code, like I suspect, it should have been fixed -years- ago. frustrated, sandworm
Darkstar	posted 05-04-99 12:32 PM ET Al - I did nothing other than the SE swap. Yet, I took the Honor hit when UoP broke their Pact with me and declared War on me. How Strange. The sunspot activty was that I obliterated a size 1 ocean base. But as I said, it doesn't matter. EVERYTHING I have ever tried during sunspots would drop my honor, its just that the MFD didn't DISPLAY my current honor. If I saved the game and reloaded it for whatever reason, then my CORRECT level of honor was shown. -Darkstar
Urban Ranger	posted 05-05-99 11:14 AM ET I have used probe teams to goad another faction in declaring vendetta at me and that doesn't do anything to my reputation. As far as I can tell, almost any probe action works, except for "Infiltrate Datalinks." So send in a probe team to steal tech or energy (or unit), and watch sparks fly.
Kilroy	posted 05-07-99 02:43 PM ET Here's a little trick with atrocities that I haven't seen posted yet. You can get away with them during sunspoot activity. Only the aggrieved faction is aware of the atrocity, and while they're likely to bear one hell of a grudge, no one else ever finds out about it! While it doesn't make sense to wait for one, if the opprotunity presents itself, take advantage of it.