"Reports" from AI races, shared due to treaties

Hi Blood-Phoenix, and welcome to the forums, there are a lot of guys here that know what they're talking about and are willing to help any way they can, as you have probably noticed by reading the forums. Unfortunately I might only fall into the second category, but I do know a little bit.

You can see the battle reports of empires you are allied with, I only found it in a Play by Web game that I'm in recently. I'm pretty sure that it is one of the tabs down the side of your log. I'm sorry that I can't remember, if I had them in front of me I might be able to have a guess. Maybe try the history tab, and then sort the results by the tabs at the bottom, ie research, communications, etc. I really can't remember at the moment, I hope I've led you in the right direction, and you might be able to find it. If not I'm sure someone more knowledgable will come along to help you out.

You're thinking at too sophisticated a level to understand the AI's diplomacy. They don't look out for their own self-interest. They just go by how well they like you or hate you. (There's actually 2 parts, 'cause they have some sort of anger level also.)

Anyhow, if they're not too upset with you, there's a chance they'll propose or accept an agreement. And if they get too mad there's a chance they'll declare war.

Going into systems they've colonized upsets them. Killing their ships & attacking their planets upsets them. Of course the treaties help once they take effect. If you get the 'peace in all systems thing' you're usually free to go about as you please; but unless you have agreed to colonize in each others' systems they'll get mad over any systems you share (these colonies would have to be in place before the treaty, but it happens...)

Basically, the farther away you are the easier it is to stay on good terms until a solid treaty can be established.

They like to start with simple treaties with only a few elements and low trade. As time goes on this can be improved upon.

The AI doesn't think in terms of consequences. They don't hesitate to go to war, no matter how stupid it would be. If anything, they find stupid wars more appealing (well, it seems that way).

You can ignore their protests, and just answer 'yes' to any request they make. They don't check to see if you follow up or not - except of course when they say 'get out of our system'. That's one of the few things they're actually aware of; and they'd be just as much aware even if they hadn't sent the warning. It's fun to pretend these messages have meaning, but they don't.

The whole Mega Evil Empire thing came up on another thread recently & Fyron told how to disable it.

http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/4141

A few patches back the AI got mellowed a little. Since then I haven't had any problems getting treaties early in the game. And that's in stock. Balance & Unnamed's mods have even friendlier AIs. But sooner or later a war should come up.

But my first couple of games I only got a very few treaty offers, and they all had sucker conditions I couldn't accept. I learned early that you can survive just fine on your own.

The diplomacy just doesn't make too much sense. In at least 2 games, I tried giving away a good number of ships to 'friendly' empires in order to let them fight of agressors. After 3 -5 gifts, they start to refuse them. It's like there's some sort of stupid limit. My workaround was to 'sell' them the ships for like 1k minerals. That works a few times, and then they'll refuse any more deals.

Bottom line: the AI doesn't know what it's doing. I has no clue whatsoever. It just follows a simple formula or two, and tries to talk like it's... Well, the messages are just pseudorandom garbage, but they let one image something's happening.

Now I've seen alien battle reports in 1.44, and if you read the fine print they say where the battles take place. This wasn't alway so, and you may be playing an older patch. They won't say who they were fighting, or how the battle turned out. It's a lot less than you get in your own battle reports. Or there may be a bug I haven't encountered.

Enjoy your game. There's never another one like the very first.

When you get combat reports from the AI races, they appear underneath all the messages from the current turn. So keep scrolling down past all this turn's reports highlighted in gray, past your own combat reports from last turn which are not highlighted any more and are black, and you'll see the combat reports from the AI. Note they will send you back reports of your own combats if they saw them.