I assume everyone here is playing on hard difficulty? The general trend in 4x games with respect to diplomacy is that at the hardest level of difficulty, everyone hates your guts and is out for blood. I'll admit it gets pretty tough, I was in a medium map with 3 other AI's in a "free for all" that quickly became a back-alley beating as massive AI fleets sailed by each other into my planets.

Maybe bump this kind of thing up to "very hard" setting for those of us that enjoy some punishment every now and then, and fix up the diplomacy in hard difficulty to something more logical, like 50% starting diplo, starting cease-fire and less aggressiveness by AI's several solar systems away.

Well so far (I have only played massive maps) I find that the best thing to do is start the game with allies. Keep teams unlocked, but group the people into teams at the beginning (I do it by race, but its not nescessary). I've found that this stops the AI ganking (For some reason when they have allies, AI bloody hate each other.) I have always lost the allience with the original guy. And you get a 2 for 1 deal because tewams tend to givce you the same quests. One wants you to kill ships, the other structures.

Also, of utmost importance, learn what AI is close to you. Some people say ignor the resource missions. That is a bad idea. By the time the kill missions are out you'll probably be already fighting the AI and will loose any benefits you do gain if the Ai is remotely close to you. If it isn't then you can go ahead and ignor the resources. Though I still tend to due the resource giving quests.


Finally choose an ally. Don't try and pander to them all (Because they all want each other dead). Go for 1 (on smaller maps) or 2 (On larger maps) and build them up, ignoring the others. And remember to research diplomacy. It doesn't make a big difference initially, but when fully researched it will make sure your alley stays an ally for a lot longer.

Ben, take a look at the Quest Adjustment mod I put up. Link is in my post above this one. It really helps out.

I just finished a huge map with 4 medium opponents, and I really don't understand how people had such a problem with diplomacy. I guess if you never researched the diplomacy techs it would be alot more difficult, but if you research those to full (doesn't take that much resources) you get 32% for completing a mission, and only -8% for failing one. i chose the AI living in my home system to be my ally, and just pandered to every mission he gave me. I failed quite a few, but he generally gave me a mission for whatever faction i was fighting every third time, so i could take a hit down to 84% before the completing one that would set me full. By the end i was fighting two factions in the same star system, and he would alternate kill missions for each. Though it was annoying, i just turned my forces to the other front.

For people having troubles with the game, theres been some good advice here but ill throw some more out anyways:
o Choose one ally off the bat, and only work with another race if it doesn't conflict with that first ally. Once you've made an ally (who should be the strongest guy out there) his fleets will occasionally come to your aid during a fight, or he might start fighting the same enemy that you currently are. certainly a huge help

o Allying with a race right next to you eliminates a front that you have to fight and defend on, though you should make sure that planetary defenses are strong anyways

o someone mentioned having a 'fortified front line.' This is exactly what i did and it worked like a charm. Max out the defense vs bombardment thing to give your planets 6k health, put up a shield generator, then max out tactical slots and build atonne of hangars full of fighters. They will autodefend your system, and this should hold even a large fleet off for long enough to pull one back off the front.

o when starting the game, do a few missions for everyone and get a trade alliance started. trade outposts are KEY to survival early game, as they give you crazy amounts of income. having a trading alliance with everyone seems to make them like you a little more too.

o once you have trading alliances and have picked a permanent ally, get a cease fire signed with him asap. you can even offer cease fires to everyone. once you get a cease fire with him and complete another mission or so, if you have diplomacy techs he should offer you an alliance, as well as ship/planet vision sharing. shouldnt be too hard to keep him at 100% from here

o occasionally (happened to me twice) you will fail one too many missions (fighting off pirates, too many fronts, lots of reasons to do so) and he will drop below i think its 80%. if this happens you automatically go to war for like 1 1/2 minutes. just wait it out, don't attack him, then as soon as that expires get a cease fire and a trading alliance. he should sign these instantly, then the rest are fairly easy to attain again.

o i found fighting on one front with one giant blob was the best strategy. using a variety of capital ships is important. with tec i used the capital ships that have a heal ability, and with that maxed out they took good care of the other capital ships. only lost one capital ship the whole game, and that was my second one right at the beginning.

o try micromanaging a fleet during a battle to focus fire. if you leave them to their own devices they all pick a different target, but if you focus fire they all insta-gank one ship at a time, and your enemies numbers dwindle much faster than yours (since their ai spread out fire too).

yeah, 9 opponents are terrible
started a map of 5v5 with locked teams. Figured I'd have myself a big galactic war. After about an hour, my allies had made a bunch of demands, like attack an enemy I could not reach. After awhile all my allies had turned on me, and now a combined enemy fleet of 100s of ships is camping my doorstep....

Yea, I'm doing a 10 way FFA on the randomly generated 102 planet map, past 7 hours right now and I've only cleared two, with three of them having like one planet in some remote system. When I started, I cleared out my next door neighbor which everyone seemed to hate for some reason, managed to get an ally from it. Later though, everyone seems to hate my ally, and I lose all the respect I managed to gain from killing off the first faction. A bit later, my ally says that I've become too big a threat and proceeds to attack me en masse. Needless to say, that was the first AI to lose everything to my fleet. Too bad they had some random colonized planet in some other star system, now it's hunting time.

Point is, the diplomacy is rather weird, but we've already pointed that out in this thread.

Cya

I seem to need at least three fleets to stay alive (let alone win) at this game: (1) a home defense garrison, (2) an expeditionary force to take new worlds, and (3) an IMF (Impossible Mission Force). The IMF is dedicated to completing missions from my Allies. I don't bother with missions from any other entity other than the empire with whom I have already made an alliance, or with whom I am attempting to make an alliance.
As much as I originally thought that the diplomacy system sucked, I realized that having a powerful ally was a very potent tool, in that their fleets actually DO come to my aid, and with more amassed force than the amount of force that I have dedicated to completing their mission requests. So sending the IMF out to do the bidding of my ally ends up being a smart investment, even if I have to send them deep into enemy space to do so.
I came to this conclusion when I was playing a game in which I was holdng my own (medium galaxy with 3 other AI empires), and I had one ally. When I had to let the ally's disposition toward me slip by not completing a couple of requests, not only did I lose the alliance, but it became an enemy. I suddenly had hell rained down on me by three empires, and went down in flames quickly. I then reloaded an autosave game before the point of losing the alliance, and went out of my way to fulfill the ally's requests, even to the point of sacrificing defense of one of my planets, and the game has progressed much more favorably.

im a veteran ok if ur advent heres what you do you need to build 2 frigate factorys at front line worlds you own and then have a small defense at each one but have a MAIN fleet with GOOD ships then start takin one empire down and if u have a mission to do if there is no planet of that empires next to you make your own path taking the plantes as you go along and building it and givin it tactical defense and when done with the mission give the planets take some defense so you have a good defense and a good offense (use 5 cap ships and max supply so you can do it easier!)

Try to just focus on being friends with one AI, otherwise you will just end up hurting one of your relations trying to help annother.

But, since the game is about managing all parts of the game, fleet, economy, reserch, and diplomancy. If you are failing at one or two of thease is will hurt your ability to do the others.

Example: You can use hide behind diplomacy while you try to tech up and build the Uberdeath fleet. Your weak fleet will not be good enough to do the missions and you will fail. Once your diplomacy sheild fails you die.

I do belive that you should be able to ask AI's to do missions for you.

Fortunately though, they give you ten minutes to do the task, generally enough to make a fleet and attack their assigned target.

Cya

My stategy is to avoid diplomacy. Eventually I will start to knock the stuffings out of the AIs and 1 of them will become my friend. Culitivating a friendship is dificult because you might get a mission you can't complete (detroys defenisve structues when there are none).

Focus instead on the basic game play. The AI gets a resource bonus to make up for stupidity. you have to compensate for that.

1. REX (Rapid Exspansion) in the early game while avoiding exposed far flung colonies.

2. Don't waste resources in the early game. Don't buy what you don't need now.

3. Capital ships are best for early game. Buff their hull and keep them repaired. Get a second one if possible.

4. Frigates are fragile and could easily be a waste of resources. The credits may be better spent on another capital ship, or hull and armor research. My first fighting frigates typically support the cap Ships. IE. Point Defense and the Hosiko.

5. Home worlds get a tax bonus. Consider raising the infrasturcture level from 3 to 4 or population cap research when max'ed out. When to do this is a balancing act. It takes a while to recover the investment, but it can be done earlier and cheaper than space ports.

6. The AI gets a resource bonus, SO MAKE THEM WASTE IT! Kill the targets of opportunity, especially CAP ships. Draw their cap ship in to battle with yours. (You did buff the hull, or armor, or shileds?) They will stay and fight if there is hope. Wait till its weak to pounce with reinforcements of light frigates and then pursue it to death.