pootthedestroyer

[quote who="erischild" reply="23" id="3610935"] Although I support the development of diplomacy in the game, any adjustments to accommodate MP seem less than priority to a game that is 99.5% SP. Also, I think that human players in an MP setting are too arbitrary and treacherous and unpredictable for any reasonable AI-usable algorithms or mechanics. I think that Diplomacy features should be mostly ignored or disabled during MP except for flavor behavior for the AI i

[quote who="mrblondini" reply="17" id="3610861"] I'd add that I see espionage being able to undermine this to a certain extent - ie your standing in the Galaxy because of your Diplomatic Skills being downgraded by the Drengin doing something to the Torians and making look like it was you. [/quote] You've got it right. Diplo players need a resource that can meaningfully attack and defend against other players regardless of whether they're h

[quote who="naselus" reply="20" id="3610919"] Alternatively, a cassus-belli system might help - some kind of penalty for attacking other civs if you have fewer diplo points than they do would make these relevant to the human player too. [/quote] That would definitely work, but in a game like GCIII, I think it would make more sense thematically for "dumb conquest" (no offense, unless you're actually a Drengin IRL, then some offense) to be "free" from the

Never came up in the games my friend let me play last week, but IIRC there are buildings that boost planetary defense. One costs a resource. But the tooltips only say conventional invasion. So that leaves some unanswered questions. With real estate being so valuable, and the AI not respecting you unless you have tons of ships, it sort of seems futile. But if you're willing to give up two slots on every planet and you have the resource you need, I guess you could try

[quote who="adamb1011" reply="3" id="3610353"] So let me get this straight. You try as hard as possible to employ every known balance exploit you can find, go for an under-played and thus underbalanced victory type, exploit a brand new and clearly poorly balanced (but cool) new feature, then complain game is too easy? Uh huh. Game might be too easy (I tend to agree with you), but you didnt prove it in this post. Go and post a game where you get a conquest

The GC series has always had a huge problem with starting position being way too important. I mean, fine, the AI is still terrible. You can still win even if you start off at a huge handicap. I mean, that's basically what all higher difficulty levels in 4X games are anyway, right? But you make the *choice* to up the Cheater Meter. You don't make a choice to start off in the corner of the map with only one colonizable world within reach while the AI gets six colonies and a space pony.<

Hey ice, big fan of your work on DW:U. The Alliance issue you're having speaks to some pretty deep problems in GCIII, in my opinion. The whole idea that diplo tech offers bonuses to AI interaction is a rehash of the failed system from GCII, and it makes even less sense now that multiplayer is enabled. Diplo research needs to be more than a sideshow to the standard colony/military spam game. Right now either it's a hilariously easy way to d