Diplomacy in SoSE!
I enjoy the diplomatic and political aspects of 4x games immensely. So let's talk about diplomacy / politics in SoSE:Rebellion!
So apart from interacting with the language violence and force these are the options I think:
- A trade alliance with another player
So most diplomatic interactions are a function of the diplomacy rating between two players. I think a trade alliance is the diplomatic action that requires the lowest rating to establish. If I recall correctly, signing this pact means that trade ships consider your ally's systems as part of the trade route. This can mean a lot more money for both factions trade ships (since trade incoming is a function of # of contiguously connected systems).
There are only two real considerations here:
1.) it is possible to have a trade alliance without having a cease fire (meaning your trade ships get shot at / destroyed -- providing the enemy with free experience [or salvage given the right research]).
2.) a trade alliance might benefit one player a lot more than another if one side has more trade ports (e.g. more trade ships) to trade with.
- Cease fire
Usually you get the required amount of diplomatic favour required for this by completing offered missions. There isn't really too much intricacy here. I think a cease fire can be broken without ramifications.
- Envoys
In order to get into any of the diplomacy options, you basically need envoys. Envoys generate favour as a function of the population they're interacting with.
Envoys can be upgraded to do lots of interesting things (like preventing planet bombardment, healing structures, etc.). However, I've found that I only use envoys to generate political good will. The actual abilities in themselves have never been too crucial although I can see very situational usage (e.g. prevent your allies planet from being sniped by using envoy abilities).
The actual envoys cost fleet cap cost an average amount of resources to make. There is no large negative ramification of destroying envoys AFAIK.
- Peace treaty
With high enough diplomatic favour on both sides, you can make a peace treaty! Basically making you allies. You can even finish the game together or as a team. I'm not sure if interactions with one faction spill into the next. e.g. I ally with blue. Blue is killing red. Does red hate me since I'm allied with blue?
While under a peace treaty, you cannot attack your ally until you break the treaty. When someone does break the treaty, I think both sides have to wait exactly 3 minutes before they're able to attack each other.
- High-level pacts
These differ on a per faction basis. Things like, both players can purchase from the black market at a cheaper price to interesting stuff like faster phase travel & extra attacks for all ships. A lot of these are extremely powerful. You do have to be careful though, since you empower not only yourself but your ally as well.
You can only have one type of treaty active with any other player at a time. This promotes diplomacy with different factions (e.g. vasari w/ advent to get their different pacts) although you do get better starting relations within the same faction.
- Offering missions to other players
To be perfectly honest, I've never used this at all ...
- Offering missions to pirates
Putting bounties on players is anonymous so it is a good way to make sure you're ally doesn't get too powerful (or just to plain hinder an enemy you plan to invade). One thing that I end up being mindful of is what routes the pirates will take to get to their destination; sometimes it is in my best interest to send pirates to the other side of the galaxy so that they don't bother me.
You can also offer pirates to go on missions. I found that an 'overwhelming' pirate fleet can be pretty effective in destroying a weak-to-moderately defended system, but can be mopped up quite well by someones main fleet / titan / etc. You have to be careful here because if you send in the pirates and they just die to your enemy, you're essentially feeding the enemy exp.
- Black market price manipulation
Just buying or selling resource off the black market can help manipulate prices (e.g. make resources boom / crash as required) but this is only really actionable if you know exactly what your allies / enemies need / want.
- Selling resources to players directly
This is ... okay. I've always preferred the black market to this since the black market is immediate ...
And I think that's it! Overall, diplomacy is incentivized by being able to ally with another player to finish the game, or to sign mutual pacts that help both factions out immensely. It is a shame that diplomacy doesn't have more intricate things (like super weapon policy control, limiting certain types of ships or build up of forces, quarantining / blockading systems, etc.).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on diplomacy on SoSE and how you've used it to make interesting stories happen in your games.
Posted Dec 5, 2012, 3:13 AM UTC