How can I thug the other civs?

Hi!

Just ask for 1000BC, no need of politeness. However that never worked in my games.

BR, Iztok

depends on the level you play on I guess.
It worked quite well during my first games (at normal or so, maybe even at tough) when I was military dominating. They sometimes handed over a few bc, but it never was really worth it.

You can't even really use that to push them into declaring war on you.


But then, whenever they try to get mony from me I automatically reject that as well, so it's only fair I'd guess.

In the end I can't really remember that an AI declared war on me directly after me refusing such an "offer", so it doesn't really matter.

I suspect there is some kind of memory of a refusal involved. The only ones that declare war are the ones I have refused, though it may be a few turns later (can't remember either).

I did pretty much prove one theory I had though ... if you have the diplo skills, 90% of the time it's possible to turn around and pay them to attack someone else right after refusing a demand (they're obviously desperate). That's what 'devious' means MuWhaHaHa ... or of course, there's always the drengin or altarians almost always willing to do anything for bc. Pay one of them to attack whoever thugged you, and the thugs should be too occupied to wardec you for awhile. Plus they lose bc and ships while fighting, hopefully.

Its not necessarily always thugging. If you look at the "dialog" on the scren when you ask for something for nothing, you'll see that friendly civs take it as a friendly request. The other civs will view it as a demand. But even your friends will start to get annoyed if you do it a few times.

I don't like risking wars if I'm unprepared. Not paying them always seems to cause a severe drop in relations, usually directly into hostile. : (

Once I accepted a requeste for money from an unfriendly empire, and my relations improved to "warm". From what I can tell, whether you refuse or not will alter your current relations slightly.

I never pay them. But I do turn around and immediately make them a small deal for something, anything, for a hundred bc or so. As long as I still have at least 500bc in working capital.

Following that pattern, I often spend most of the game on "close" or "warm" relations with everybody (though I do recommend that when the time comes you declare your devotion to Neutrality.)

drrider

I had a kind of a hilarious situation in my latest game: I wound up with my research and economic treaties tied up with the runt of the galaxy, Alcont Republic (variant humans, focused on espionage). It wasn't their fault, actually: the game settings turned out to be rare planets, rare habitable (on a huge map, the most planets any empire had was three) and they drew a bad starting position backed up in the corner behind me.

I wound up in a war with the United Mankind (variant humans, aggressive, military focus) and needed their help, but they wouldn't budge (they'd declare war on the Dread Lords, but were too wimpy to fight humans?). In fact, they started sending constructors into my territory and building influence starbases on my doorstep. This was really darn annoying, here I am fighting for my life, and my supposed friends are trying to convince my people to go join up with them.

I decide to give them the benefit of the doubt: we're pretty close, and so I try and propose an alliance, but they're too retarded to realize what that means (durr, alliance?) Actually, it was because they hadn't researched that far up the governments branch yet, and tech trading was turned off so I couldn't teach them.

It's become clear to me that these guys are a pain in the rear, and I need to take them out. The thing is, I don't want to declare war on them: my rep will suffer, and I'm a bit on the edge with the Hania Federation, (mercantilists). So once the war with the UM is over, I decide to start poking Alcont to try and get them to attack me. I put them under a trade embargo. I build military and influence starbases right on their doorstep. I mass fleets right in their territory. I start demanding money from them. Relationships degrade from close to friendly to warm to neutral. Then. . . I can't believe it, relationships rise to warm, then to friendly, and back to close. I've got these guys on trade embargo, I've got spies on literally every inch of their territory, I've got influence and military starbases right in their own darn solar system, I've got fleets of ships massing in orbit around their planet, and these guys still think I'm their friend.

I finally got sick of it, converted a couple of my constructors to Planet Killer Missiles (Spore ships, Cargo Hull, with as many engines as I can stuff in them) and launched them from my home system. I had my fleets take out their orbital pickets just as the missiles arrived. The war lasted about 48 hours. My casualties: three Resii class destroyers that were killed fighting their Frigates. Theirs: over thirty billion colonists. Half their fleet went over to Hania. Mopping up those that went to ground as pirates took about three months.

In short: don't turn off tech trading if you're even considering the possibility of a Diplomatic Victory because the AI doesn't seem to like researching governments. Also, provoking other nations is harder than it looks. Also, despite my alignment, when it comes time to research Xeno Ethics, I'm gonna have to go Evil because, honestly, nuking a bunch of naive cwas a really bastardly thing to do (I have a mental image of the Alcont standing around looking up at the sky as the Planet Killers plummet to the ground with their deadly cargo, going, "Yay! Gifts from our good friends!" )

IMO, there really should be some sort of diplomatic option like "Insult their promiscuous mothers" that serves no purpose but to lower relations, for things like that.

And also the "get your starbases out of my frickin' territory" option we've been asking for, for like months.

There is a pseudo "Get those damn starbases off my lawn. . . I mean out of my territory" option, but since the AI seems to hate selling starbases at any price, it's kind of a non option. They wouldn't even trade me starbase for starbase.

I do like the idea of having "Threaten," "Insult," and "Kiss Butt" as diplomatic options on the trade screen, though. I can see the trade screen now:

"Your skull will make a good ashtray, human. Or you could give me 300 bc to buy an ashtray from the store."

"Your mother is a fat hippo! Har har har!!!"

"Did I mention I love you guys? I really do, I think those nose tentacles are so awesome. And since we're such good friends, how about trading us that influence starbase for 500 bc?"

It would be fun if different dialogue options made different species react differently. . . like kissing up to the Drengin would make them consider you weak and degrade relations, while threatening them makes them respect you more. Insulting the Korx might make them like you better because they think you're a funny guy. Perhaps make this a resource like spies that slowly generates over time or can only be traded off once per dialogue, and you'd probably have to research it up at some point in the diplomacy tree. . . maybe include bonuses or penalties for alignment too. I'm imagining a Good civilization going, "Um, you are a less than civilized being who is very very naughty," or an Evil civilization going, "We like you, so you will be the last of the infidel races to be crushed under our claw. Maybe second to last."

They sometimes ask for money even if your freindly with them, which can be very annoying, e.g. I somehow managed to get off to a good start with the Drengin, next thing I know their asking for money in aid of their "galactic peace efforts" or something like that! Drengin-Peace not likely.