In the last Diplomatic Method dev journal, Yarlen walked you through all of our new Diplomatic stats like Patience, Trust, Rivals, and other racial and factional modifiers.

In the Diplomatic Agreement window you can see a breakdown of all of the factors going into a AI player’s willingness to accept deals. Each field has a tooltip that will tell you what’s contributing to those percentages or an explanation of what they are.

Under the new Diplomatic system, Patience is an important thing to keep in mind. You shouldn’t spam AI opponents with shoddy deals because you will exhaust their patience (until it recovers over time). However, Patience is a resource you can intelligently spend. It’s okay to roll the dice on a 50% acceptance offer when you’ve got 3 Patience, but probably risky if you’re down to 1 Patience and need the deal to go through.

At the start of the game, deals are harder to get because of the base Species and Factional relation values, but through your actions on the map you can move that needle by increasing Trust. Successful trades and agreements with the AI will gain you Trust, but bribes can work too. While gifting the AI will gain you Trust, the Patience stat will keep you from being able to “love bomb” a player and then get a favorable deal. A single large gift is better in the long run than several smaller gifts. Different factions value different resources more: One might guess that the TEC love credits the most, but the Vasari value metal more than credits given their alien motivations, while the Advent favor crystal.

The AI opponent's Rival is the player who has the highest Hate score and is still alive; it can and will change over time. If you have a particularly large battle with an opponent or take their planet, you could become their Rival. If you’re trying to win someone over, it’s wise to limit the amount of conflict you have with them. However, attacking a player’s Rival will gain you Trust. So, if you’re looking to be diplomatic, being aware of who hates who is necessary, so you can plan your next moves.

The new Diplomatic system allows for Item and Influence trading now as well. You can trade Minor Faction items and Artifacts. Artifacts are valued highly by the AI opponent. We’ve had some internal test matches where being able to trade items bought through Influence came in clutch helping a teammate defend themselves from an aggressive AI.

Breaking alliances will incur a tough Trust penalty, reducing your Trust with all players. Everyone pays attention to untrustworthy actions, and it will become harder to secure new agreements the more you break them.

Finally, the AI will now reach out to you with deals as well, for resource trades, but also for ceasefire agreements and more! We hope you enjoy this update to Sins II’s Diplomacy system and have fun playing v1.50!

We've released a minor hotfix to address issues that have been reported since the initial v1.50 release. Change notes are below:

TEC

Extractors are somewhat over performing for all factions, so have been reduced in income. The TEC meanwhile, struggle a little with both Credit costs and the relative value of Trade in the middle stages of the game. Increasing the Credit income from Trade should help smooth the economic progression for the faction. With the Javelis now somewhat more in check in the mid and late game, the TEC need a little more potency in the higher tier combat units - specifically the Harcka. Some economic and defensive improvements should help them to act as a more easily massed durable main line combat unit.

• Harcka Heavy Cruiser

  • HP changed from 1050 to 1100

  • Armor changed from 1150 to 1250

  • Price:

    • Metal changed from 250 to 200

    • Build time changed from 42 to 40 sec.

    • Supply cost changed from 15 to 14

• Regional Government Office Planet Item

  • Max allied population bonus changed from 0.5/1.0 to 0.1/0.25

• Crystal Extractor

  • Changed base extraction rate from 0.5 to 0.4

• Metal Extractor

  • Changed base extraction rate from 0.5 to 0.4

• Trade Income

  • Changed base trade income rate from 1.5 to 2.0

Advent

Like the other two factions, the Advent Extractors are somewhat overperforming, and have been reduced to a lower standard. Advent have also had an unintended power spike from the lack of unlock tech for the new Planetary Shield Projector item. This is a powerful item - designed to help the Advent hold on to their high investment worlds and keep their critical population alive under bombardment... But it should arrive at the appropriate time, not in the beginning of the game when bombardment has no hope of ever overcoming it.

• Added - Planetary Shield Projector Blueprint (Research)

  • Tier 3

  • Price:

    • 800 credits, 250 metal, 600 crystal

    • Research time: 225 sec.

• Crystal Extractor

  • Changed base extraction rate from 0.6 to 0.48

• Metal Extractor

  • Changed base extraction rate from 0.5 to 0.4

Vasari

Vasari extractors are overperforming quite considerably, presenting very strong returns for a very low price. This is similar to the other factions, however, Vasari do not need credits and so grow their early economy linearly with extractors. Therefore, they require not only a reduction of income, but also a cost increase to slow the return rate on extractors. Meanwhile, they have benefitted more than the other factions from necessary corvette speed increases, and so must have the speed of these units toned down a little. The Tosurak Raider is receiving a larger speed reduction to control its impact on the economy in the early game, and ensure that other faction corvettes can still have a chance of catching up with it even when it is under the effect of Phase Resonance. Finally, Dark Fleet Tower has proven somewhat more accessible in the new research and exotic conditions, and so must be moved later in the tech tree to mitigate the impact of rushing multiple copies of it near enemy territory.

• Crystal Extractor

  • Build cost changed from 0/90/0 to 0/120/30

  • Base extraction rate changed from 0.5 to 0.4

• Metal Extractor

  • Build cost changed from 0/90/0 to 0/120/30

  • Base extraction rate changed from 0.6 to 0.48

• Dark Fleet Tower Blueprint (Research)

  • Tier changed from Tier 3 to Tier 4

  • Price:

    • Changed from 0/420/600 to 0/600/660

    • Research time changed from 420 to 660 sec.

• Decreased max speed on Vasari (non-scout) corvettes.

Minor Factions

With Influence and Minor Faction Range slightly more available and massable via trade, we are keeping an eye on offensive raids. We have some plans for these in the future, but for now the Jiskun Expeditionary Force Phase Raid requires some access restriction to keep it appearing later in the game when it can be dealt with more practically.

• Jiskun Force

  • Changed attack raid Influence cost from 6 to 8

  • Changed cooldown duration from 480 to 600

• Improved Plasma Storm tooltip

• Fixed bug that would block incoming diplomatic offers when patience was dropping below 1.

• Fixed bug that caused some mods to crash when enabling/loading.