Diplomacy, Politics, and the AI. HELP!!

The AI's just screwy about diplomacy. The bigger you get, the less they like you. My first game I only made 2 treaties, and after that nobody would deal with me. I had a few other offers, but they were always poisoned with clauses like "no research" or "no other treaties".

In my last stock game I fared better, but as I got bigger the situation changed. Things have improved, and few if any poisoned treaties are offered in 1.35.

The only advice I can give if you want treaties is to keep your score low.

It is very important to understand that the AI is territorial by system. If you have planets in the same system as another AI, you need a treaty with system sharing or they'll quickly grow to hate you. They don't like your ships in their systems either, unless you have an agreement permitting them.

Another thing: if relations get bad, it's almost impossible to improve them. I suggest you start a new game or just forget about diplomacy and conquer everything in sight. I know you're new, but there's no doubt you can best the AI. Everyone can. That's a big part of the reason we need the mods.

If you've only encountered a couple of AI empires and several others are still out there, you can try and make friends with the new ones you encounter. Don't trespass in their systems, and don't make more than one or two offers. Blockade them out of your turf and be patient - sometimes they'll warm up and offer a treaty. Take what you can get, and be patient with amendments.

If your gifts are important - like you need to give away a planet to keep from trespassing - you can try trading when they refuse the gift. If they AI gets a planet for 2k organics it'll usually think it's ripping you off and take the deal. Even this will start to fail once you get to be in 2nd place. They don't like big humans.

Don't bother with alliances, as they are extremely bugged and hurt at least as much as they help (unless you can get a whole lot of members - but then the alliance is likely to turn on you if they can vote you out).

The mods are easy to install, and even when they're installed you don't have to use them. You just put the mod folder inside the game types folder, and at the start of the game you choose which version of the game you want to play. You don't change any of your stock files, and the stock game is always available. Shipsets are actually harder to install than mods, and they're not bad.

Welcome to the community!

The stock AI prefers to be the one offering the treatys I mostly wait for it to do that and accept the ones I like. The AI in The BM IRM & Stock AI mod is much better as well as being a threat. The best is in the IRM but thats not been worked on recently.

The modders can answer that better than I. Until one of them happens along in a helpful mood, you might investigate

http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Space_Empires_V

I know this stuff can be changed, but I can't tell you how to go about it.

I find that to get something I want from a treaty I usually "sacrifice" a lot at the start. I like having lots of races in my empire, so that the other atmosphere planets are not domed (before I can change the atmosphere).

Early in the game I offer them to migrate to me, and then agree to NOT create: black holes, nebulae, no planet destroying, star destroying etc. Since I do have not researched these things there is no impact on me, yet the AI believes that it is receiving a benefit.

Then let the treaty cook until the mood of that race is higher.