AI and also treaties

I seem to be able to sign treaties early on, but after finding most of the other AI players, they won't ever sign a treaty, no matter what I do. And forget trying to give them a gift, they get very mad at me for offering a helping hand.

AI's often make Treaties with each other which prevent Treaties with others. AI's also don’t have any way of calculating what is in there best interests that I am aware of either so they will refuse gifts and treaties of benefit to them just because they dislike your empire.

The later in the game the greater the chance of these exclusive treties which exclude you

If the empire offers to share its communications channels then that’s what will happen as all the empires the AI has made contact with and made similar treaties with

How does an AI determine whether or not it's "afraid" of you? I usually respond to the AI treaty requests (Balance Mod) with outrageous one-way demands, and even stronger empires will accept them. Right now I'm getting one Murderous to see if he'll break free. I know the next BM version will improve diplomacy, and of course these things need time. It'll get there.

There is no mechanic for fear yet and an AI will not fear you and accept a peace if it’s just suffered a major defeat it will just hate you for destroying its battle fleet and fight on even with nothing. The one thing from GalCiv I miss is that the GalCiv AI will make peace after a good drubbing or at least attempt to do so even if it hates you and only does it to rebuild its shattered fleet. I would like to have this happen in SEV as it makes limited wars more possible further it makes the game more realistic. It also prevents all wars from becoming genocidal us or them actions.

In Civ III (haven't tried IV) as well, the AI's would accept humiliating terms after a thrashing, while continuing to hate you. I wouldn't want to model much else on that game (bored with it after one victory) but that was one nice feature.

But it does understand score. Unfortunatly, the stock score rating is next to useless as it doesn't weight what really matter to determine who is stronger than who. It's also why they never surrender...

Actually, although it is scripted to understand score, the score functions are messed up and always return 0. That's why it won't surrender...

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Watch for my mod - codename: Dimensions - coming by Summer, 2007!

It would be good if these where fixed as it would help the AI a very great deal if it could not only understand its score but change its actions accordingly

Actually it does understand score contrary to what I've reported before - it's likely a mistake elsewhere in the surrender script that is causing the problem - I'll have to investigate further.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

That the good captain being wrong about any thing SEV is truly shocking.

But back on topic if the AI understands score that’s good but it needs to do something with that awareness, preferably modify its behaviour accordingly. Which is what a human player would try to do? It would add to the event memory I feel the game needs and the concept of fear counterbalancing anger.

I will note that the AI's in mods are getting better and I am considering lowering the AI bonus to give me a chance with the Interrelated mod and Balance Mod as given my typical rubbish starting positions I am beginning to need it

The score comparison can easily be converted into a fear-type variable. For example you'd have a range of percentage score difference statements that will set a variable to modify the acceptable anger levels for various treaty provisions. I've integrated this somewhat for the Balance Mod AI's propose treaty algorithm (for Protectorates or Subjugation treaties) but I haven't used it yet as a modifier for the AI to accept such treaties yet - but it's on the v1.03 to-do list.

It the stock scripts, a score comparison is used to calculate the message's tone (either pleading or demanding) but I don't think the message's tone is ever conveyed in-game.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I already implemented something like that in my next version of my mod (still trying to see how it goes in game). But what does the "value" thing in the treaties? Is it how much the proposing AI want it or is it the value the receiving AI will see it? It seem to me it's the value of the receiving end, but i haven't played far enough in my test games to see if it works that way... And what was the problem with the treaty spamming? Why the AI always send two treaty request, but the second one always worst than the first?

Each treaty provision has an attached anger as set in the AI_GlobalSettings.txt script. This is the maximum anger amount against the other player (sans modifiers) for the race to accept the provision. The stock AI will randomly generate the terms based on its anger levels towards the other player. The Balance Mod works a little bit different because treaties come in packages with narrow ranges of provisions for a given treaty type but only counter proposals will take the anger level for a provision into account. This is why sometimes an AI in the mod will counter-propose something like 5% trade instead of 10%. In the Balance Mod case, I would apply the "fear" modifiers to the anger level that determines the type of treaty to propose - meaning a strong AI could force a higher level treaty (or even negative treaty) on a weaker AI.

Treaty Spamming was caused by a boolean variable to propose a treaty that starts off as true - if the false conditions are not met (AI teams, Mega Evil, couple others), the AI would always send a proposal. Since it takes a couple of turns to propose/accept, the AI always sent a second message. The Balance Mod script adds a random variable to this process making the AI proposal rate average about 3-5 turns when no treaties exist and the anger level is acceptable for treaty making.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Is there something wrong with how the score is calculated, not just how the AI uses it? Because in my current game (with IRM .54d) I'm ranked #1 even though the only number in which I lead is Units... in terms of Tech levels, ships, colonies, pop, etc, #2 is in the lead.

I also posted something in Fallen Haven's mod thread regarding AI and treaties, which I think I'll move here.

Not a programmer, so no idea if this could work. It regards not the treaties directly, but the anger level.

AI attitude should never get warmer than Indifferent until you sign a treaty with it, or (even better) only if the treaty includes Trade. Logically, if two races have no contact at all, they should remain indifferent, not feel friendly just because of a lack of open war.

There's a lot more to do from there, but it seems like a sensible and realistic baseline.

A thought, that seems apropriate to this topic.... A non agression treaty would seem to be to me a higher level of trust than a trade treaty.....
Non Intercourse(Neutral space non agression) makes sense below those two, but you would want to start trading with someone before you decided to allow their warships to orbit your planets in my way of thinking, especially since breaking a full non agression treaty doesn't require your ships to be at home first, so it's,..... abusable to say the least against the AI.
If trade comes first, that would make a player think twice about loosing the trade balance at least before they go ahead and break the treaty.