Slitherine

I just played a game with a minor tweak to the settings - I increased each faction's aggressiveness by 0.2 points. With predictable results!

The Ascension were basically in constant war with 2-3 factions at all times. The Imperium lost an early war against Terra Salvum before I took them over. Normally mild-mannered Terra Salvum were demanding tribute from me so I invaded them next, while holding off the Ascension. Togra was the only faction I was on Cooperative terms with so I left them alive at the end.

It didn't result in the best time for the AI - everyone was so busy fighting each other that all I had to do was pick the moment to strike, only fighting weakened armies and getting all the cities.

But getting open borders and trade agreements etc was a bit more challenging and felt like less of a formality. When Togra became "Friendly" I felt like I had actually achieved something (and that ended after a couple of denouncements).

I think the next thing to try is to change the relations modifiers so that just the player's faction is negatively viewed by all other factions. This should make them gang up on me instead of fighting each other.

Interesting. I think there needs to be an element of the show "Survivor." It's been over 10 years since I watched that show, but I remember that they always voted out the strongest players that posed the biggest threat. It made for an annoying reality TV show strategy, but it would work in 4x games. We discussed this in the Diplomacy Feedback thread, but the idea is that factions would come to distrust the faction that is in the lead. Alpha Centauri had this and I loved it. It would work in 4x games because it is assumed that the faction in the lead would be able to take on multiple aggressors because they are more powerful. It makes for a much better end game if you are winning because the second half isn't as easy when everyone turns against you.

The winning is not necesseraly the most hated or attacked.
AI should seem human opponents, and a good diplomat should be able to build a hate against an opponent as a decoy.
At least, I had win many Diplomacy and LegendOfTheFiveRingsCCG (unusual 5 players) games by manipulating the hate of my allied to keep them defending me and even helping me to win as only hope of revenge against the 'devil' player I made against me

jdmillard wrote:Interesting. I think there needs to be an element of the show "Survivor." It's been over 10 years since I watched that show, but I remember that they always voted out the strongest players that posed the biggest threat. It made for an annoying reality TV show strategy, but it would work in 4x games. We discussed this in the Diplomacy Feedback thread, but the idea is that factions would come to distrust the faction that is in the lead. Alpha Centauri had this and I loved it. It would work in 4x games because it is assumed that the faction in the lead would be able to take on multiple aggressors because they are more powerful. It makes for a much better end game if you are winning because the second half isn't as easy when everyone turns against you.

That would be a great feature ....

If the human faction is pulling away in wealth\tech etc... then the other factions (in the best interest of their own survival) should start teaming up to attack the human, bringing him down a notch or two. As it is now the human controlled faction can literally run away with the game while the PC factions squabble amongst themselves and lose.

Taking it further, any faction that is in the lead should be despised by the other factions ......