Making money is soooooooo EASY

nobody should be so "diplomatic advanced" that he could convince his trading partner to give him 5 bucks in return for 4 bucks!
Never testet this, but if this is true, Diplomacy abilities should be revisited.
In the meantime: Just don't do it

I am not sure if this is an intentional game ability or simply a mistake. If you have very high deplomacy, you can trade money for money and send less than you get. Several things are affected by this though. First they must like you. (warm or close works best) You must also be alligned fairly close to the race in question. (IE... good to good, evil to evil etc). Also, if the race is intelligent or above I have not seen but a few successful attempts. If this is intentional game play then so be it.

Well, I guess your diplomatic rating is : "If you told them that they aren't the droids they are looking for ..."

Its just like a gift, you can ask for money for nothing and they will give you it often if they like you. You are just getting more money from them by giving them some money. Sort of silly on your behalf really.

EG they would give you 100 credits just for being their friends, but if you give them 100, they will give you 200!

I've already reported this to them, just hope they fix it since it's a very tempting "press me to win" button. I just didn't report it here in the forums since no doubt the "omg omg the sky is falling down this is the worst most buggiest game EVAR" crowd don't need more ammo.

Start with a diplomacy based race, research just diplomacy techs (and trade to increase your relations) and suddenly the entire income of the galaxy is going direct to you. Soon you'll be trading 2000BC of your money for 6000BC of theirs - then repeat it to get that 2000 back, and then repeat it for every other race. Oh and then buy all their stuff (starbases, ships) and then use it again to get your money back.

Being able to TAKE 95% of every race's money every turn at no cost is just.... bad. (But oh so tempting if you're in a sticky situation.

Anyone low enough to do this in a metaverse game should be soundly slapped with a haddock.

Its just like a gift, you can ask for money for nothing and they will give you it often if they like you. You are just getting more money from them by giving them some money. Sort of silly on your behalf really. EG they would give you 100 credits just for being their friends, but if you give them 100, they will give you 200!

Not really. gifts only work once or maybe twice before they start calling you names and spitting at you. Since you're offering someof your money they see it as a trade, not a gift, and let you do it until they're bankrupt.

Now... there's at least one more major flaw in the trade that lets you take money from the AI that you shouldn't be able to. This one actually lets you put them into debt from the trade screen whenever you want..............

Damn, I tried this back when I first got the game and it didnt work then, I chuckled once and moved on. Maybe something that has been unintentionally changed in the patch process? Either that or I didnt have Jedi diplomacy skills when I tried it!

Just a thought, but did you own the Galactic Bazaar? That would make it feasible as it increases the value of trades on your side of the screen by 50%.

> Just a thought, but did you own the Galactic Bazaar? That would make it feasible as it increases the value of trades > on your side of the screen by 50%.

Good call, Mag.

I always play with "Jedi level" diplomacy. Loading a previous savegame and giving it a shot right now...


Results:

Nope, doesn't work on Suicidal... In fact, I can't even trade 40 bc for 100... and they're friendly to me. And my diplomacy is *nearly*as high as it goes (Total Majesty, +50% racial bonus, +20% party bonus) , and they only have tech that I traded to them -- no decent diplomacy related techs.

Also tried the same on one of my older Tough games.... again... not even 40 for 100.

Do you have the latest patch? The game is much more difficult with the newest patches when compared to the original downloaded/boxed version.

And what difficulty level do you play at? I wouldn't be surprised if this occured on Normal.

Isn't an Intelligent AI supposed to behave the same way as on Suicidal?

Myeah, in theory But I figured I'd check both to be sure.

EDIT: Or do you mean the OP's sentence: "Also, if the race is intelligent or above I have not seen but a few successful attempts." I've reread that a few times, and I'm not sure what it means.

Well it's about more than just diplomacy skill, it's about overall relations with the other races. IT works on higher intelligence levels, just less so.

If anyone wants to do a quick test, run a new game at max intelligence level with the cheats enabled. Do Ctrl+Shift+R to get all techs (diplomacy), use Ctrl+J to build a load of freighters to set up good trade relationships, and use Ctrl+M to get loads of money to give as gifts. After only a few turns you'll have good enough relations for highway robbery.

Obviously it's harder to get that level of advantage in a real game, but it can be done, and I have done it, even at fully intelligent.

Hold on!

You've got to give the AI loads of money first to convince them to let them swindle you??

I think you've been had mate!!

Drengin Commander: "Sir, we just received *another* delivery of gold from those Terrans!!!"
Lord Kona. "Chuck it in the back with the rest."
Commander: "Any other orders sir?"
Lord Kona. "I know it's hard, but just keep smiling at them in the race relations bar... it's working wonders for our economy!"

lol spearthrower. You're smart enough to know the Yor aren't godlike in their overpoweredness ( ) so I assume you realise it's just a shortcut to good relations (same way that money can buy you 'good relations' on some street corners) to prove it can be done.

With a 5 or more +/- ratio in your relations window and good diplomacy it can be done on intelligent. It's just VERY hard to pull off, but when you do, you almost literally own the other race. Anything below that and any decent player should be able to manage it.


Mind you, if you have rubbish relations a similar problem shows up. Offer the AI 90bc for 50bc of their money. They should take the money and laugh all the way to the bank, but they don't.

Still, at least it's one of those things that only affects the game if you deliberately let it.

lol spearthrower. You're smart enough to know the Yor aren't godlike in their overpoweredness ( ) so I assume you realise it's just a shortcut to good relations (same way that money can buy you 'good relations' on some street corners) to prove it can be done.

ROFL x 2!

Still, at least it's one of those things that only affects the game if you deliberately let it

That's probably the most important point really. Exploits only exist if you use them!

Sorry it has taken me so long to revisit this post.
First to clear some things up. I usually play challenging. When I said "if the race is intelligent or above I have not seen but a few successful attempts" I was referring to the race settings within the setup of the game. Not only can you set the game difficulty levels, but you can also tweak the intelligence of each of the races. When I have tweaked a race to intelligent, they rarely trade money, let alone to my benefit.
When Magnumaniac asked "Just a thought, but did you own the Galactic Bazaar? That would make it feasible as it increases the value of trades on your side of the screen by 50%. " It doesnt matter whether I have a galactic bazaar or not. In fact I rarely do. But thanks for that info, never knew it. I guess I should read my descriptions more.
For those that suggest that this is an exploit, I am leaning in your direction. However, I have seen in some other post that discussed "presumed exploits" that in fact it was part of the game. Soooo, though I think that this may be an exploit, we can not really know for sure until Stardock is heard from on the issue.
One last answer to a question... I have the latest patch available. I cant tell you if this happened before the last patch since I just discovered it recently.
I hope this helps those that were in question better understand my issue here.