Thoughts on making Diplomacy useful again

from Sins Forums

Assuming patches remain in the future for this game and not just the past, I humbly suggest that this game could gain a ton of strategic depth if diplomacy (the research tree and in game function, not the expansion) was made viable in MP again. 

I do not believe that this is ever going to be possible by simply offering "stat boosts" thru pacts.  These end up either being too minimal to be worth the fleet support and research costs, or so OP they damage the balance of the game with their existance (old TEC supply pact I'm looking at you). 

I think the way to truly make the game more dynamic would be to devise some "crossover" techs that blend strengths of the two sharing sides to unlock new abilities or possibly even ship types. 

A couple of examples:

"Massive Drive Engine tech" between vasari and either other race that allows the non-vasari player starbases to move within a grav well while increasing the speed of the vasari SB (perhaps also make this use an upgrade slot)

"Phasic torpedos" between vasari and TEC that grants orgovs' torpedos the same level of phase bypass that the vasari currently has, while granting a strong anti-structure torpedo attack to vasari cap ships (or unlocks a vasari anti structure ship)

I can also imagine several advent crossovers that could make culture much more revelant.  The idea is to make pursuing diplomacy for the very nice techs a path to victory at least equivilant to a pure military or economic approach.

This may be a better "sins 2" discussion since I'm suggesting a complete overhaul of the diplomacy tree, new ships, abilities, etc, but I'd like to see this game only get better.

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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

It would be nice to give diplomacy a reason to pursue, I played almost 100 games online now, and I haven't ever seen a human-controlled envoy, only replacement ai's build it..

It should come at a reasonable price and with a balanced outcome, and I like your idea about the crossovers, because that is what diplomacy is supposed to be for, but this game is not the game of high values and big changes, and racial diversity is poor even with the new faction system of Rebellion.. Maybe even without new ships the crossovers would work well, but more ship types or models would be awesome.

A big problem with Diplomacy tree is the location of techs. Pacts start at level4 which is very expensive in a competitive scenario, and it is hard to decide which is worth getting it or not (I think only 1-2 is worth getting it, but we can happily live without them). Another problem is Envoys. They are expensive and take up much fleet supply, it should be revised too I think.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The problem is you have to invest a lot of resources, time, and supplies for returns that are underwhelming, especially since at least 2 parties have to invest so it will gimp 2 people.  An Eco player already has to partially invest in the tree to give resources.

 

My quick fix would be to allow the player that raises relations to offer pacts that can be accepted without them having to have the other player also have high relations.  However, the offering player (the one who invested in diplo tech, if it's unclear) is the only one who will get the bonus.  And since only 1 player invested instead of 2, the halved bonuses would be balanced.  Basically, a Eco player who sends out envoy's to line players can buff them, but get no buff themselves.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

A big part of the problem is that the diplomacy has to be mutual.  In the original Diplomacy expansion, at least in the beginning, it was sufficient if only one player sent envoys, which means that eco spot players could take care of the diplomacy stuff.  The other problem is that it just takes too danged long for the relationship to build up.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I think making envoys invulnerable while in friendly grav wells would help as well.  Some of those planet bonuses are nice but useless when the ship lives exactly 35 seconds into an engagement.