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.
General Diplomatic Questions
Will Diplomatic deals get a similar treatment to Federations, in that they require higher “levels” before unlocking all mechanics?
Not specifically, but diplomatic actions now require certain Relations levels before being able to be proposed. (Envoys can be used to relax these restrictions.)
Will the interstellar assembly megastructure mechanics be changed for the update?
Yes. The immigration bonus has been replaced with a Diplomatic Weight bonus, and at stages II and IV the Interstellar Assembly grants additional envoys.
Will you be expanding ways to improve relations with another empire beyond the current resource bribes?
Yes, there is a new diplomatic action called Improve Relations which allows you to increase an empire’s opinion of you.
Will AI empires that covet my territory try to sabotage relations? In other situations, will the AI try to modify relations to where it thinks they should be?
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.
Will we be able to get custom settings to choose which diplomatic notifications we are interested in receiving, and perhaps nuance to such a system such as "nations of interest" and "nations of total irrelevance".
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.)
Will having any diplomatic relationship bigger than Open Borders still generate Xenophile attraction?
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.)
Will there be some new (diplomacy related) Ascension Perks?
There are no new Ascension Perks, but Galactic Contender now also grants a Diplomatic Weight bonus.
Wow, influence is going to be in high demand! How do the overall costs work out? I assume we still need influence for megastructures, ecus, artifacts, and habitats? Do the various pacts still cost the same amount of influence?
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.
Favors, the Galactic Community, and certain Diplomatic stances impose novel influence costs (and in some cases high ones), and Xenophile empires have traded out their own influence cost reductions for diplomatic weight increases. Have there been any changes in rate of influence gain or ways to manage influence costs?
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.
Are there any new sources of influence?
Successfully completing Galactic Foci typically grants some influence, and due to changes with how ethics shift, empires will often have more factions to exploit.
Do costs scale with administrative sprawl?
No. (There have been several changes made to the Empire Sprawl system, early iterations were described in Dev Diary #153.)
Civic(s) that boost diplomatic weight and envoy count have been previously mentioned. Are versions of these available to Megacorps as well as Standard Empires?
Yes. Hive minds get one too (which also reduces the opinion penalty hive minds get with organics). Machines do not.
Will the new Diplomatic Corps civic have ethic (or other) requirements or is it more of a free pick for any empire type (obviously barring genocidals)?
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.
Is ethics attraction affected by the level of diplomatic relations you have with other empires? If I'm Materialist and I have fantastic relations with 4 Spiritualist empires, will I start seeing some serious pull for my pops towards Spiritualist?
You already do, actually. It’s listed as “Diplomacy with Spiritualist Empires” in the Ethics Attraction tooltip.
Will there be any change to the deals made between subjects and overlords? Such as new subject/overlord types, flexible tributes and obligations, or changes to the current relations?
It’s definitely something we want to do, but haven’t been able to get around to yet.
Federations can choose to allow or prohibit separate treaties. How do you negotiate with a Federation that has prohibited separate treaties? When a Federation whose members you have treaties with moves Separate Treaties to "Prohibited" from "Allowed", are existing treaties affected and if so, how? Similarly, how are existing treaties with a Federation applied to individual members when that Federation moves Separate Treaties to "Allowed" from "Prohibited"?
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.
Currently you cannot invite Federations to join a war you are planning. Will this change?
No current plan, but it's something we may want to look into.
Currently, almost all of the information one would want to know about an empire is revealed immediately upon meeting them. Are there any plans on changing this?
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.
How can you track favors you owe to others and others to you?
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.
Will there be new or revamped events affecting Favors? For instance, the event where you choose between returning minerals or keeping them for yourself.
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
You've described various ways to multiply diplomatic weight, but not how it's base number is calculated in the first place. So how does base diplomatic weight get calculated?
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.
If the player is Overwhelming to all other empires, will they also have the highest(unadjusted) diplomatic weight? Is it possible to have a greater diplomatic weight than the rest of the galaxy combined?
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.
Are there effects or purposes of Diplomatic Weight outside of Galactic Community resolutions and certain methods of Federation voting? / Has diplomatic weight any use beside the galactic community?
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.
Are certain diplomatic actions blocked by stances?
No, but certain stances, like Supremacist, can loosen other requirements.
Are there any plans to add effects for acting contrary to your diplomatic stance in the future?
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.
What are the other unique Stances? Will Civics give you unique Stances (exterminators civics for example) / What about fallen or awakened ascendencies? / Do non-standard Empires (Fallen Empires, Awakened Empires, the Khan, the Dessanu) have their own set of diplomatic stances?
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.
Can we get previews of the 'special' diplomatic stances as well? For instance, Mercantile?
The Mercantile diplomatic stance is available to megacorps or empires with the Corporate Dominion or Merchant Guilds civics.
How will empires with the mercantile stance be different on trade compared to a normal empire? will they be more willing to make long term trade deals or any trade deal for example.
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.
Do you want to give some details on how the diplomatic stances interact with factions?
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:
If number of pops are used to calculate diplomatic weight, do different pops count for different amounts? Eg ruler pops count more than workers, free workers pops more than slaves, slaves or workers count more than robots or gestalts?
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.)
Is there a way to get more diplomatic weight that is not related to civics, fleet power, science output, economy, megastructures or diplomatic stances? E.g. can a diplomatic fleetless player surpass an economically stronger, warfaring one with a huge fleet in diplomatic weight?
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.
Are diplomatic stances moddable and what variety of effects can be applied to them?
Yes. Diplomatic stances are policies, and thus have the full range of triggers and effects associated with them.
You said the "normal set of stances include", so there are more than 6 stances? are more stances unlocked overtime?
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.
Does the "Liberation War" Casus Belli result in changes in the target's Diplomatic Stance like a successful Humiliation War would?
No, knocking Supremacists down to Belligerent is explicitly part of Humiliation wars.
Will vassals, protectorates, subsidiaries, satraps, signatories, thralls, satellites and dominions be limited in the Diplomatic Stances they can select? Will there be any distinct diplomatic stances for them?
No, but picking Supremacist might make your overlord mad at you.
Are Diplomatic Stances limited by ethics? / Do stances shift ethics?
No. Your factions may have certain opinions though.
Authority does though, since Megacorps don’t get the Isolationist stance.
How common will the Supremacist stance be?
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.
Would it be possible to make stances be per-empire instead of all inclusive? For example, if I want to be belligerent to my southern neighbor and mercantile to my northern neighbor?
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).
Do AI choose their diplomatic stance based on AI personality? / What will drive an AI's choice of diplomatic stance? Ethics? Personality? Government type?
Yes. They use a combination of factors like ethics and AI personality.
Are there technologies that improve diplomatic weight? Any repeatables?
Yes. Some old friends have returned.
Diplomatic Relations
Is there anything planned to stop the current polarization of empire opinion? Right now, barring extreme circumstances, it's all too easy for +5 or -5 to escalate to +500 or -500 due to a phenomenon of "I like you, so I do things that make me like you more/I hate you, so I do things that make me hate you more."
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.
How easy will it be to overcome the xenophobe opinion penalty with envoys improving relations? Can I expect to no longer be boxed in with everyone closing their borders to me when playing xenophobe?
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.”
Is this referring to using an envoy to improve relations, or is it possible to bypass the relations requirement?
The various diplomatic actions have Relations requirements. Sending an envoy relaxes the relations requirement.
Is declaring war gated by empire relations, so that you could say prevent another empire from declaring war on you by using an envoy to improve relations?
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.
Currently, the AI Attitude ("Hostile" / "Unfriendly" / "Neutral" / "Wary" / "Friendly") which affect trade and treaty acceptance are based on opinion and the occasional set of other items. How does the AI Attitude interact with the new Diplomatic Relations system?
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.
Can you clarify that the new structure will be: Trust (is a factor of ) < Opinion (is a factor of ) < Diplomatic Relations?
This seems accurate. Active diplomatic pacts will build trust, which will build opinions, which will improve relations.
How do Fallen and Awakened Empires interact with the Diplomatic Relations system?
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
How many envoys can you assign at the start of the game?
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.
How does one get more envoys? Is it limited by empire size, government, technology, traditions and policy, or none of the above? Is there a hard limit on the number of envoys you can get?
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.
Do envoys exist only to limit the number of diplomacy?
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.
How moddable are envoys? Will scripts be able to check what specific envoys are doing? Has introducing envoys meant any changes to how moddable the other leader classes are? Do biological traits affect envoys? Can we give them (leader) traits?
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:
As a side side note, will the charismatic trait have any bearing on diplomacy like it once did? Perhaps it could increase envoy effectiveness?
We have no current plans to change the trait.
What are envoys from a script/modding perspective? Can I write a mod to assign them to any scope I like? Imagine an event chain that has you assign an envoy to one of your ships, then bring it safely to a destination like so many Star Trek plots.
As noted above, they’re treated as leaders in script, so you should have most of those tools available to you for your experiment.
If we do have the ability to assign envoys to any scope, would this be possible for other characters? Assigning scientists to observation stations, for example.
That is currently not possible.
Will we have ways to worsen relations between two enemy empires? / Will we be able to also use envoys to improve or harm relations between another empire and a third party? Can I use envoys to agitate and impair other empire factions?
No, that lies beyond the scope of the expansion. However, it’s something we may want to expand upon in the future.
Does the diplomacy interface have an icon that lets you know immediately that player empire envoys have been dispatched? Is there a way to know which empire the AI empire is sending envoys to?
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.
Do any civics specify bonuses to envoys, like with Civic A envoys do more or you gain envoys faster?
Not currently, but the Cooperative Diplomatic Stance improves the rate at which your envoys Improve Relations by 50%.
Can players or AI empires reject envoys who came to the empire?
Only indirectly, through a declaration of war.
Can we send envoys to Enclaves?
Not at this time.
I see that there is a cooldown on reassigning an envoy to a new mission. Is there also travel 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.
Can envoys be used to gather some sort of intelligence, either allowing you to view other empire's trade deals with the empire hosting your envoy, if you can't already, or gating that knowledge behind such a requirement?
Not at this time, but it’s something we would like to expand upon at some point.
Can envoys act in manners of industrial/political sabotage, causing unrest, decreased stability, or decreased productivity on planet(s) throughout the host empire?
No. Envoys are currently focused on mostly cooperative actions. Only the future will tell how that could come to change.
Do envoys still give +\- 400 opinion?
Yes, the diplomatic actions Improve / Harm Relations have caps of 400.
Can envoys hosted by one or more warring parties be used to broker third-party peace between host party and their war opponent?
No, but it's a cool idea. Perhaps assigning an envoy could increase status quo peace acceptance.
Will, there be any scandal events? I.E. envoy found smuggling, with a xeno mistress, selling information, stealing information, killing/blackmailing people, etc. / Do envoys stand a chance to die in a deal gone sour? / Are there any new diplomatic events? Even with Envoys being "mini-leaders", it seems like a good opportunity for some immersive events. If not, are there any plans for some?
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.
Will empires handle Envoys differently depending on their type of government? For example, could an imperial state send the successor to the current ruler as a glorified envoy?
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
Can we close our border from a fallen empire? Could envoys be assigned to FEs/AEs?
Fallen empires do not take orders from or listen to the pleas of upstart civilizations.
Can border be closed right after a war?
No changes have been made to post-war truces.
Will there be the option to form one-sided versions of pacts? One might imagine giving access to one's databanks as a gift, or as a form of payment, or demanding such access to another nation's databanks as a prize in war, without reciprocity. Likewise with trading rights, migration rights, etc.
No current plans to make certain diplomatic actions one-way deals.
Can we still insult other empires to lower opinion? If yes: What's the point of having envoys harming relations?
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.
Any changes to migration treaties?
They require positive or better relations, or an envoy Improving Relations.
Is trading locked behind certain Relation requirements, like neutral, positive and excellent.
No. Trade deals are currently not locked behind any relation level, but AI Attitude is still involved in acceptance.
Will there ever be a time when AI empires are willing to trade away systems?
No.
Will vassal creation be more customizable? (For example it is really painful that as a Megacorp, I can only create other Megacorps.)
Not right now, but it may be something we want to look into in the future.
Will we have new treaty types to negotiate? Example, a treaty to allow science ships to pass across borders but still preventing other ships from crossing. / Will there be a civilian only open borders?
There is currently no such treaty, but it may be something we should look into in the future.
Are there any plans to increase the options for trade? Open borders, relics, fleets and armies seem like they could be fun trade items. Our fleets are ready to raid Dwamak!
Nothing concrete, but we will be looking for what the community wants the most, and focus on improving those aspects.
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.
General Diplomatic Questions
Will Diplomatic deals get a similar treatment to Federations, in that they require higher “levels” before unlocking all mechanics?
Not specifically, but diplomatic actions now require certain Relations levels before being able to be proposed. (Envoys can be used to relax these restrictions.)
Will the interstellar assembly megastructure mechanics be changed for the update?
Yes. The immigration bonus has been replaced with a Diplomatic Weight bonus, and at stages II and IV the Interstellar Assembly grants additional envoys.
Will you be expanding ways to improve relations with another empire beyond the current resource bribes?
Yes, there is a new diplomatic action called Improve Relations which allows you to increase an empire’s opinion of you.
Will AI empires that covet my territory try to sabotage relations? In other situations, will the AI try to modify relations to where it thinks they should be?
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.
Will we be able to get custom settings to choose which diplomatic notifications we are interested in receiving, and perhaps nuance to such a system such as "nations of interest" and "nations of total irrelevance".
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.)
Will having any diplomatic relationship bigger than Open Borders still generate Xenophile attraction?
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.)
Will there be some new (diplomacy related) Ascension Perks?
There are no new Ascension Perks, but Galactic Contender now also grants a Diplomatic Weight bonus.
Wow, influence is going to be in high demand! How do the overall costs work out? I assume we still need influence for megastructures, ecus, artifacts, and habitats? Do the various pacts still cost the same amount of influence?
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.
Favors, the Galactic Community, and certain Diplomatic stances impose novel influence costs (and in some cases high ones), and Xenophile empires have traded out their own influence cost reductions for diplomatic weight increases. Have there been any changes in rate of influence gain or ways to manage influence costs?
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.
Are there any new sources of influence?
Successfully completing Galactic Foci typically grants some influence, and due to changes with how ethics shift, empires will often have more factions to exploit.
Do costs scale with administrative sprawl?
No. (There have been several changes made to the Empire Sprawl system, early iterations were described in Dev Diary #153.)
Civic(s) that boost diplomatic weight and envoy count have been previously mentioned. Are versions of these available to Megacorps as well as Standard Empires?
Yes. Hive minds get one too (which also reduces the opinion penalty hive minds get with organics). Machines do not.
Will the new Diplomatic Corps civic have ethic (or other) requirements or is it more of a free pick for any empire type (obviously barring genocidals)?
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.
Is ethics attraction affected by the level of diplomatic relations you have with other empires? If I'm Materialist and I have fantastic relations with 4 Spiritualist empires, will I start seeing some serious pull for my pops towards Spiritualist?
You already do, actually. It’s listed as “Diplomacy with Spiritualist Empires” in the Ethics Attraction tooltip.
Will there be any change to the deals made between subjects and overlords? Such as new subject/overlord types, flexible tributes and obligations, or changes to the current relations?
It’s definitely something we want to do, but haven’t been able to get around to yet.
Federations can choose to allow or prohibit separate treaties. How do you negotiate with a Federation that has prohibited separate treaties? When a Federation whose members you have treaties with moves Separate Treaties to "Prohibited" from "Allowed", are existing treaties affected and if so, how? Similarly, how are existing treaties with a Federation applied to individual members when that Federation moves Separate Treaties to "Allowed" from "Prohibited"?
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.
Currently you cannot invite Federations to join a war you are planning. Will this change?
No current plan, but it's something we may want to look into.
Currently, almost all of the information one would want to know about an empire is revealed immediately upon meeting them. Are there any plans on changing this?
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.
How can you track favors you owe to others and others to you?
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.
Will there be new or revamped events affecting Favors? For instance, the event where you choose between returning minerals or keeping them for yourself.
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
You've described various ways to multiply diplomatic weight, but not how it's base number is calculated in the first place. So how does base diplomatic weight get calculated?
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.
If the player is Overwhelming to all other empires, will they also have the highest(unadjusted) diplomatic weight? Is it possible to have a greater diplomatic weight than the rest of the galaxy combined?
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.
Are there effects or purposes of Diplomatic Weight outside of Galactic Community resolutions and certain methods of Federation voting? / Has diplomatic weight any use beside the galactic community?
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.
Are certain diplomatic actions blocked by stances?
No, but certain stances, like Supremacist, can loosen other requirements.
Are there any plans to add effects for acting contrary to your diplomatic stance in the future?
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.
What are the other unique Stances? Will Civics give you unique Stances (exterminators civics for example) / What about fallen or awakened ascendencies? / Do non-standard Empires (Fallen Empires, Awakened Empires, the Khan, the Dessanu) have their own set of diplomatic stances?
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.
Can we get previews of the 'special' diplomatic stances as well? For instance, Mercantile?
The Mercantile diplomatic stance is available to megacorps or empires with the Corporate Dominion or Merchant Guilds civics.
How will empires with the mercantile stance be different on trade compared to a normal empire? will they be more willing to make long term trade deals or any trade deal for example.
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.
Do you want to give some details on how the diplomatic stances interact with factions?
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:
If number of pops are used to calculate diplomatic weight, do different pops count for different amounts? Eg ruler pops count more than workers, free workers pops more than slaves, slaves or workers count more than robots or gestalts?
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.)
Is there a way to get more diplomatic weight that is not related to civics, fleet power, science output, economy, megastructures or diplomatic stances? E.g. can a diplomatic fleetless player surpass an economically stronger, warfaring one with a huge fleet in diplomatic weight?
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.
Are diplomatic stances moddable and what variety of effects can be applied to them?
Yes. Diplomatic stances are policies, and thus have the full range of triggers and effects associated with them.
You said the "normal set of stances include", so there are more than 6 stances? are more stances unlocked overtime?
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.
Does the "Liberation War" Casus Belli result in changes in the target's Diplomatic Stance like a successful Humiliation War would?
No, knocking Supremacists down to Belligerent is explicitly part of Humiliation wars.
Will vassals, protectorates, subsidiaries, satraps, signatories, thralls, satellites and dominions be limited in the Diplomatic Stances they can select? Will there be any distinct diplomatic stances for them?
No, but picking Supremacist might make your overlord mad at you.
Are Diplomatic Stances limited by ethics? / Do stances shift ethics?
No. Your factions may have certain opinions though.
Authority does though, since Megacorps don’t get the Isolationist stance.
How common will the Supremacist stance be?
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.
Would it be possible to make stances be per-empire instead of all inclusive? For example, if I want to be belligerent to my southern neighbor and mercantile to my northern neighbor?
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).
Do AI choose their diplomatic stance based on AI personality? / What will drive an AI's choice of diplomatic stance? Ethics? Personality? Government type?
Yes. They use a combination of factors like ethics and AI personality.
Are there technologies that improve diplomatic weight? Any repeatables?
Yes. Some old friends have returned.
Diplomatic Relations
Is there anything planned to stop the current polarization of empire opinion? Right now, barring extreme circumstances, it's all too easy for +5 or -5 to escalate to +500 or -500 due to a phenomenon of "I like you, so I do things that make me like you more/I hate you, so I do things that make me hate you more."
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.
How easy will it be to overcome the xenophobe opinion penalty with envoys improving relations? Can I expect to no longer be boxed in with everyone closing their borders to me when playing xenophobe?
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.”
Is this referring to using an envoy to improve relations, or is it possible to bypass the relations requirement?
The various diplomatic actions have Relations requirements. Sending an envoy relaxes the relations requirement.
Is declaring war gated by empire relations, so that you could say prevent another empire from declaring war on you by using an envoy to improve relations?
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.
Currently, the AI Attitude ("Hostile" / "Unfriendly" / "Neutral" / "Wary" / "Friendly") which affect trade and treaty acceptance are based on opinion and the occasional set of other items. How does the AI Attitude interact with the new Diplomatic Relations system?
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.
Can you clarify that the new structure will be: Trust (is a factor of ) < Opinion (is a factor of ) < Diplomatic Relations?
This seems accurate. Active diplomatic pacts will build trust, which will build opinions, which will improve relations.
How do Fallen and Awakened Empires interact with the Diplomatic Relations system?
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
How many envoys can you assign at the start of the game?
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.
How does one get more envoys? Is it limited by empire size, government, technology, traditions and policy, or none of the above? Is there a hard limit on the number of envoys you can get?
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.
Do envoys exist only to limit the number of diplomacy?
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.
How moddable are envoys? Will scripts be able to check what specific envoys are doing? Has introducing envoys meant any changes to how moddable the other leader classes are? Do biological traits affect envoys? Can we give them (leader) traits?
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:
As a side side note, will the charismatic trait have any bearing on diplomacy like it once did? Perhaps it could increase envoy effectiveness?
We have no current plans to change the trait.
What are envoys from a script/modding perspective? Can I write a mod to assign them to any scope I like? Imagine an event chain that has you assign an envoy to one of your ships, then bring it safely to a destination like so many Star Trek plots.
As noted above, they’re treated as leaders in script, so you should have most of those tools available to you for your experiment.
If we do have the ability to assign envoys to any scope, would this be possible for other characters? Assigning scientists to observation stations, for example.
That is currently not possible.
Will we have ways to worsen relations between two enemy empires? / Will we be able to also use envoys to improve or harm relations between another empire and a third party? Can I use envoys to agitate and impair other empire factions?
No, that lies beyond the scope of the expansion. However, it’s something we may want to expand upon in the future.
Does the diplomacy interface have an icon that lets you know immediately that player empire envoys have been dispatched? Is there a way to know which empire the AI empire is sending envoys to?
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.
Do any civics specify bonuses to envoys, like with Civic A envoys do more or you gain envoys faster?
Not currently, but the Cooperative Diplomatic Stance improves the rate at which your envoys Improve Relations by 50%.
Can players or AI empires reject envoys who came to the empire?
Only indirectly, through a declaration of war.
Can we send envoys to Enclaves?
Not at this time.
I see that there is a cooldown on reassigning an envoy to a new mission. Is there also travel 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.
Can envoys be used to gather some sort of intelligence, either allowing you to view other empire's trade deals with the empire hosting your envoy, if you can't already, or gating that knowledge behind such a requirement?
Not at this time, but it’s something we would like to expand upon at some point.
Can envoys act in manners of industrial/political sabotage, causing unrest, decreased stability, or decreased productivity on planet(s) throughout the host empire?
No. Envoys are currently focused on mostly cooperative actions. Only the future will tell how that could come to change.
Do envoys still give +\- 400 opinion?
Yes, the diplomatic actions Improve / Harm Relations have caps of 400.
Can envoys hosted by one or more warring parties be used to broker third-party peace between host party and their war opponent?
No, but it's a cool idea. Perhaps assigning an envoy could increase status quo peace acceptance.
Will, there be any scandal events? I.E. envoy found smuggling, with a xeno mistress, selling information, stealing information, killing/blackmailing people, etc. / Do envoys stand a chance to die in a deal gone sour? / Are there any new diplomatic events? Even with Envoys being "mini-leaders", it seems like a good opportunity for some immersive events. If not, are there any plans for some?
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.
Will empires handle Envoys differently depending on their type of government? For example, could an imperial state send the successor to the current ruler as a glorified envoy?
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
Can we close our border from a fallen empire? Could envoys be assigned to FEs/AEs?
Fallen empires do not take orders from or listen to the pleas of upstart civilizations.
Can border be closed right after a war?
No changes have been made to post-war truces.
Will there be the option to form one-sided versions of pacts? One might imagine giving access to one's databanks as a gift, or as a form of payment, or demanding such access to another nation's databanks as a prize in war, without reciprocity. Likewise with trading rights, migration rights, etc.
No current plans to make certain diplomatic actions one-way deals.
Can we still insult other empires to lower opinion? If yes: What's the point of having envoys harming relations?
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.
Any changes to migration treaties?
They require positive or better relations, or an envoy Improving Relations.
Is trading locked behind certain Relation requirements, like neutral, positive and excellent.
No. Trade deals are currently not locked behind any relation level, but AI Attitude is still involved in acceptance.
Will there ever be a time when AI empires are willing to trade away systems?
No.
Will vassal creation be more customizable? (For example it is really painful that as a Megacorp, I can only create other Megacorps.)
Not right now, but it may be something we want to look into in the future.
Will we have new treaty types to negotiate? Example, a treaty to allow science ships to pass across borders but still preventing other ships from crossing. / Will there be a civilian only open borders?
There is currently no such treaty, but it may be something we should look into in the future.
Are there any plans to increase the options for trade? Open borders, relics, fleets and armies seem like they could be fun trade items. Our fleets are ready to raid Dwamak!
Nothing concrete, but we will be looking for what the community wants the most, and focus on improving those aspects.
