General Diplomatic Questions

Not specifically, but diplomatic actions now require certain Relations levels before being able to be proposed. (Envoys can be used to relax these restrictions.)

Yes. The immigration bonus has been replaced with a Diplomatic Weight bonus, and at stages II and IV the Interstellar Assembly grants additional envoys.

Yes, there is a new diplomatic action called Improve Relations which allows you to increase an empire’s opinion of you.

AI empires will use the Improve Relations envoy action if they are interested in pursuing other deals, or Harm Relations if they dislike you and either want you as a rival or want to insult you.

No, but you can disable certain types of alerts by shift-right clicking on them. (You can re-enable disabled alert types by toggling that section on in the Outliner and right clicking on them.)

If you are in a federation, defensive pact, or commercial pact with an empire that is a different species, then yes, the xenophiles gain a bonus to ethics attraction. (And contact with an empire that has enslaved or genocided pops of your species provides a xenophile attraction penalty.)

There are no new Ascension Perks, but Galactic Contender now also grants a Diplomatic Weight bonus.

Yes, diplomatic uses for influence compete directly with existing other uses for the resource. This is intentional, we want aggressive empires that are spending their influence on claims to have less freedom in the diplomatic arena than more friendly empires.

As noted in the above response, this is an intentional change that we’ll be watching. The set of diplomatic tools have grown more powerful.

Successfully completing Galactic Foci typically grants some influence, and due to changes with how ethics shift, empires will often have more factions to exploit.

No. (There have been several changes made to the Empire Sprawl system, early iterations were described in Dev Diary #153 .)

Yes. Hive minds get one too (which also reduces the opinion penalty hive minds get with organics). Machines do not.

Diplomatic Corps cannot be taken by Fanatic Purifiers or Inward Perfectionists. Empath cannot be taken by Devouring Swarms (or Terravores). There are no restrictions on Public Relations Specialists, since Megacorps aren’t big on the whole murdering everyone in the galaxy thing.

We intentionally did not put ethics restrictions on them, so your xenophobic empires can have well-trained specialists ready to insult you.

You already do, actually. It’s listed as “Diplomacy with Spiritualist Empires” in the Ethics Attraction tooltip.

It’s definitely something we want to do, but haven’t been able to get around to yet.

When the federation law changes, all diplomatic deals that become prohibited should be removed. Separate Treaties only affects certain deals like Migration Treaty, Research Agreement and Commercial Pact.

No current plan, but it's something we may want to look into.

It’s beyond the scope of this expansion, but it is something we have discussed and would like to change at some point. It’s not the highest priority, however.

You can see favors in the Contacts list and Diplomacy screen. Within the Diplomacy screen you can see how many favors are owed in a tooltip.

We’re looking into if we want to add more of those types of events, but for now we’ve updated existing events where it makes sense.

Diplomatic Stances and Diplomatic Weight

Your empire’s base Diplomatic Weight is a calculation that uses fleet power, pops (modified by pop happiness), economic power, and technology. If you are a member of the Galactic Community, the resolutions that have been passed can drastically alter the effects of each of these categories.



Xenophile ethics, galactic community delegates, techs, civics, and diplomatic stance are just some of the things that can have major effects on this value.

They are likely to have the highest Diplomatic Weight in this scenario (though this is not guaranteed, especially if they hold an Isolationist stance).

It’s possible (but difficult) to outweigh the rest of the galaxy.

No, the primary use of Diplomatic Weight is to determine influence within the Galactic Community. Although it can also be used for federation voting, that is not its primary job.

No, but certain stances, like Supremacist, can loosen other requirements.

Like many policies, the Diplomatic Stances highly encourage certain styles of play. Most stances apply influence cost penalties to different diplomatic actions. Sending an envoy to Improve Relations, for example, costs 0.25 Influence a month if you’re in the Belligerent stance.

The genocidal empire types, dormant fallen empires, and primitives have their own unique Diplomatic Stances that they cannot change. These are largely for flavor purposes.

Here’s the Fanatic Purifier stance:

Awakened empires use the standard set of Diplomatic Stances, but almost always choose the Supremacist stance. The Great Khan always does.

The Mercantile diplomatic stance is available to megacorps or empires with the Corporate Dominion or Merchant Guilds civics.

It’s more the other way around - empires that favor trade are the ones more likely to end up in the Mercantile stance. The only real AI difference is that an empire in a Mercantile stance will be more likely to keep their borders open.

Some factions are pleased by holding some Diplomatic Stances, while others may get upset. The Imperialist Faction, for instance, isn’t fond of the Cooperative diplomatic stance:

Pops are worth a base of 1 Diplomatic Weight, with those that are subject to happiness adding twice their happiness. Criminals, deviant or corrupt drones, presapients, non-sentient robots, and those undergoing purges or assimilation do not add to diplomatic weight.

This does put most gestalt empires at a political disadvantage (with the possible exception of Rogue Servitors.)

We expect that most empires will excel in certain areas while they may lack in others. A diplomatically savvy empire can exploit this. Your diplomatic fleetless player could push strongly to pass Rules of War resolutions, each of which reduce the Diplomatic Weight contribution of fleet power by 20%, while also encouraging The Greater Good resolutions which each increase the Diplomatic Weight contribution of happy pops.

Yes. Diplomatic stances are policies, and thus have the full range of triggers and effects associated with them.

Belligerent, Cooperative, Isolationist, and Expansionist are available at the start for most empires.

Mercantile replaces Isolationist for Megacorps, but is also available to empires with the Corporate Dominion or Merchant Guilds civics as mentioned earlier.

Supremacist is an upgraded, more aggressive version of Belligerent that is unlocked by completing the Supremacy traditions.

No, knocking Supremacists down to Belligerent is explicitly part of Humiliation wars.

No, but picking Supremacist might make your overlord mad at you.

No. Your factions may have certain opinions though.

Authority does though, since Megacorps don’t get the Isolationist stance.

It depends on the makeup of the galaxy, and the empires within it.



Here's a general breakdown of how AI empires will treat it:

Pacifists will never pick it. Awakened empires and the Khan will almost always use it.



Militarists and Authoritarians are attracted to it. Civics like Nationalistic Zeal, Warrior Culture, Warbots and Private Military Companies increase attraction to it. Conqueror and subjugator AI personalities will be attracted to it.



They will also be much less likely to select it if they are aware of another Supremacist empire that has overwhelming fleet power relative to them, or if they’re not the strongest empire in their local vicinity.

No, we decided to not make stances an inter-empire status, but rather a measurement of how your empire conducts its foreign policy (generally speaking).

Yes. They use a combination of factors like ethics and AI personality.

Yes. Some old friends have returned.

Diplomatic Relations

While empires do still frequently end up with their hated foes and beloved allies, the relations and envoy systems give you more flexibility than before.

This largely depends on what you do. If you take a cooperative Diplomatic Stance and send envoys to Improve Relations with the nearby empires, you may be able to overcome your natural loathsomeness. Your Supremacist faction might disapprove.

“Diplomatic Actions now have Relations requirements - you can't make a Defensive Pact with someone you barely know, for instance, unless you assign one of your limited Envoys to seal the deal.”

The various diplomatic actions have Relations requirements. Sending an envoy relaxes the relations requirement.

Wars are not explicitly blocked by empire relations, but AIs will typically behave in accordance with their AI Attitude. You could try to steer an empire’s attitude by flooding them with diplomats attempting to sway them towards friendship.

Your envoys will, however, be expelled if war is declared.

As noted above, AI Attitude is still used to help determine the goals of the AI. They’ll still need to meet the relations requirements of whatever diplomatic action they’re pursuing, but will attempt to use the new tools as needed.

This seems accurate. Active diplomatic pacts will build trust, which will build opinions, which will improve relations.

As normal. They have extremely restricted diplomatic options, however, and relations based restrictions on actions against them (such as insulting them) are relaxed. (Since they won’t accept envoys.)

Envoys

Currently, empires start with 1 envoy, but we're in the middle of trying out the balance for this. It will be a number between 1 and 3.

Regular empires, megacorps, and hive minds each have a civic that gives 2 additional envoys; Inward Perfection reduces the number by 2. You can gain 2 more for having a completed Interstellar Assembly, and there are techs that unlock Empire Unique buildings that can give an additional 2. Finally, if you are the president of your Federation and it has unlocked the associated perk, you can have 1 more. We're currently experimenting with adding more Envoys for xenophile empires.

There’s no explicit upper limit.

Envoys exist to give you an interesting choice whether you seek to manipulate relations directly with an empire, increase your pull in the Galactic Community, or improve your Federation. Thematically, it also felt nice to send an envoy over to an empire to deliver an official diplomatic insult.

Envoys are treated as leaders, so all of the standard leader related triggers should be available. The biggest exceptions are that they have no costs or upkeep, and they are automatically replaced when a position opens up.

We don’t give them traits, levels, or XP due to some of these gameplay decisions, since we treat them as “mini-leaders”, but events and other systems that target leaders (like faction membership and elections) work with them.

Mods could add traits to them, though with the warning that envoy UIs aren’t fully supportive of it at the moment:

We have no current plans to change the trait.

As noted above, they’re treated as leaders in script, so you should have most of those tools available to you for your experiment.

That is currently not possible.

No, that lies beyond the scope of the expansion. However, it’s something we may want to expand upon in the future.

You can see what empires have sent envoys to influence relations with your empire or maintain your Federation. You can also see how many they have sent to the Galactic Community. You cannot directly see what they’re doing with their other envoys, but you may be able to insinuate it indirectly.

Not currently, but the Cooperative Diplomatic Stance improves the rate at which your envoys Improve Relations by 50%.

Only indirectly, through a declaration of war.

Not at this time.

There is a 360 day cooldown when you send an envoy on a mission. We did not include a travel time, since immediate feedback felt better than delaying all of your diplomatic actions.

Not at this time, but it’s something we would like to expand upon at some point.

No. Envoys are currently focused on mostly cooperative actions. Only the future will tell how that could come to change.

Yes, the diplomatic actions Improve / Harm Relations have caps of 400.

No, but it's a cool idea. Perhaps assigning an envoy could increase status quo peace acceptance.

Not right now, but it's something we’re looking into. We don’t want to add events that feel too spammy, or are too uninteresting. We need good reasons to add them.

Your imperial state won’t send their successor off as an envoy, but your envoy may win the presidency of your democracy. They can also lead factions.

Existing Diplomatic Actions

Fallen empires do not take orders from or listen to the pleas of upstart civilizations.

No changes have been made to post-war truces.

No current plans to make certain diplomatic actions one-way deals.

You can still insult other empires, but require poor or worse opinion, or an envoy harming relations to deliver the insult. Harm Relations is especially useful if you want to rival an empire.

They require positive or better relations, or an envoy Improving Relations.

No. Trade deals are currently not locked behind any relation level, but AI Attitude is still involved in acceptance.

No.

Not right now, but it may be something we want to look into in the future.

There is currently no such treaty, but it may be something we should look into in the future.

Nothing concrete, but we will be looking for what the community wants the most, and focus on improving those aspects.

Greetings!As a part of the Q&A series we're doing , we will be answering your questions related to different topics. Last week we asked you to post your questions related to diplomacy , and we want to thank you for all the questions we've gotten.Before we jump into the questions, I'll take the opportunity to mention that the Q&A series will continue next week as well, and you can already post your questions about Origins