I had similar experiences. The Psilons demanded money - so they can do theirs studies instead of war. At some point I refused and to war we went. While bombing out their last remaining colony on Mentar I tried to negotiate a peace treaty. However they refused and when I asked them for their suggestions how such a deal would work, they wanted money, colonies and so forth.
I mean, kinda irrational for Psilons, cause they were doomed, not me.

@schnellerdamon: If you read this. These are my suggestions how I would try to set up the AI.
Let every race compare their overall power to each other.
If one race is three times stronger, than another, war maybe an option. (A risky race may choose this option at a rate of two to one)
If one race gets too big, make the others try to negotiate and form alliances with the second biggest race or other races.
In the calculation, count alliances as single races.

If war breaks out, make a snapshot of the opponents' powers. Compare the development of these powers during the following turns. If the stats develop in favor of the AI it may ask for peace to their terms (ask for money, colonies, etc.). Otherwise they may ask for peace to the terms of the player (offer money, colonies, etc.).

In my last game i was in front of the last human planet of the galaxy with my huge fleet, i opened the diplomatic window and asked them if they want a truce.
Tay said no
Exterminated.
This seems a bit unreal, i suggest to indroduce a "Vassalage" option so races near extinction (for game design it will be every time AI races) by the army of another one (AI or player) has the chance to survive with one or two planet giving a tribute to the winner of the war without any possibility of expansion (scripted).

Colonizing an adjacent system to an Ai controlled one typically provokes the Ai to ask for you not to colonize next to them. The problem is the Ai is ALWAYS quick to settle next to you and in fact will travel a long way around and will settle in a system that you have 3 adjacent colonized systems to and then will make demands that you do not settle near his new and invasive colonized system. Yes I can see the Ai as having such audacity, but there needs to be a way to request/threaten the Ai not to colonize a system adjacent to you.

I am talking about interrupting them from building a colony at the exact moment they move a colony ship onto a planet in an adjacent colony. Common placation methods? Is that you Neville?


In all seriousness the Ai needs to learn to learn manners when it is weak. When the Ai confronts a player who has been expanding their borders beyond what is acceptable to the Ai then the Ai should say something like "We are concerned about your expansion into the neutral zone along our borders instead of making a demand when their fleet's power ranking is half or less of the player's.

Counter offers, and what can make this work should always be available, I hate random popup offers that are accept or tough luck.

Per year tributes do not list for how long, how do I know if its worth it.. it should say 30 per year for 15 years; total 450.

Do not settle near me.. Pop up a map showing what they count as near you, otherwise it's useless, it should also be a two way agreement not a one sided one. I am tired of finding out after I agree that they have recently taken systems that now push on where I was going, also consider having the map Auto show what the game things everyone territories are as they go.. it would be helpful.

Xenorealtionsm can we get some kind of popup telling us when a race develops it? I get tired of checking early in the game to establish a embassy.

When annual payments to you end it says you have stopped paying a tribute.. a bit confusing.

Their is not " I want you to make peace with X" option, maybe a system that pops that up and brings both sides into the trade

Maybe it's way too late for this, but honestly the whole separating everything by race, having to go to each race one at a time, can we just have one screen, maybe it shows all races on screens and you click on each option, then select which race you want to deal with, no back and forth wasting time trading techs between each race, seeking new barters..

Can we get some common sense in the tech trades, no I do not want to give you a tech 5 levers up for your primitive tech and pay you cash. No I do not want to give you a tech 5 levels up from yours for 400 credits when you have 6000.

Not sure what the timer is, but tell us how long until race X that stupidly declared war on us will talk back and we can end it.

I highly agree that a random popup that is always an ultimatum is ridiculous - diplomats NEVER decide and agree on treaties in 5 seconds, and rarely even in 1 full day. For starters, diplomatic requests should show up same a normal empire management items/reports - your should be able to dismiss the issue until you've assessed your empire's situation. You should be able to select ignore as a response, and any time (or turn) you decided to talk to the race making the request, you would have to settle that request before they would engage in any other negotiations - or just keep ignoring, possibly losing reputation if you take more than 2-5 turns to decide (up to 1.5-2 times the reputation loss maximum if you decline, or 5-15% reputation increase reduction if you end up accepting within 2 turns)

I also agree that you should have the option to agree to this as a two way agreement, since when you get this message you've already got a colony ship in orbit of the planet you've probably just spent 10 turns reaching. In addition, if you did decide to agree to a one sided agreement, you should get a reputation increase, while a two way agreement would be a reputation wash, and of course declining either agreement a reputation decrease.

Tech trades should have and show a base (or ranged) value represented in BC or even research points. These values can vary from race to race, and once a certain tech becomes obsolete for a race, the value drops to half trading value (e.g. Fusion Drive is obsolete for race 1 because they already have the Ion Drive). In addition, your current reputation with the trading race should either increase or decrease as a multiplier or percentage the value for your trade attempt - Friendly allows for discounts, while Hostile jacks up the price.

This has to be added, as making (and keeping) peace is the primary purpose for diplomacy! In addition, I believe that there should be a diplomatic means to increase relations between two other races.

My issues with diplomacy (a few of which have already been mentioned by other people)

Negotiations with races during wartime
-The AI often seem very reluctant to concede things in exchange for peace, even when the odds are stacked heavily against them. I've even had a case where the AI has asked me to cencede systems or ask for an annual credit payment in exchange for peace, after they're fleets have been destroyed and they're left with a couple of planets
-It would be great if there was an option for the AI to surrender to you, to avoid conflict when finishing a war
-Equally, it would be good (as somebody has previously suggested) for the AI to become a vassal to you
--Perhaps even the player could agree to become a vassal to a superior AI, with reduced play options and a greater emphasis based on espionage to regain freedom, either through violence, peaceful protest or assistance from other races?

Negotiations with races during peacetime
-The AI seem to be overly agressive when it comes to territory, becomming hostile should one dare to colonise planets in systems next to theirs, or in the same system
-The AI is very quick to jump in an critisise when you get a peace treaty with a race they don't like
-The AI can appear to turn on you for no apparent reason, making the option of a diplomaticc, peaceful game difficult

Alliances
-I've never managed to get a race to agree to ally with me!

Miscellaneous
-Counter offers
--This would be a really nice option, especially to haggle down races asking too much

I file this under diplomacy, because it's related to war. I don't know if this a bug or intentional design - if it is intentional i would suggest to change it.

Basicly in my last game i attacked the Darloks first, because they were nearest. In fact their home system was bordering my territory so i attacked their capital first.
I did not invade it, instead bombed the colony to the ground. The Darloks was holding at least a second system with two more colonies, that i knew of, but the turn after loosing their capital, they were announced to be destroyed. All their outposts and existing colonies vanished. (And sneaky bulrathi colonising the now free planets before me, because i didn't anticipate this)

A huge empire spanning multiple planets shouldn't just vanish because the capital was destroyed. Morale penalties until the capitol is rebuild yes (like in MoO2), but just vanishing seems outright wrong.

Played as Human last night.

The good:
I was happy that I was able to stay neutral the entire game and avoid conflict. Good job on this. I was able to maintain trade agreements with all of the computer AI even when they were at war with each other. Tech exchanges were reasonably often and mostly instigated by the Ai player.

The bad:
Research agreements. For their return they are too expensive in my opinion. Also the computer Ai in almost every case demanded extra cash in return for the agreement. Many times it was more cash than what I had in reserve.


The UGLY:
As I stated above the Ai would ask for more cash than what I had in reserve when making a research agreement. This is very bad because the game automatically scraps ships and then sells off buildings when this occurs. There needs to be a mechanism that prevents this. On a side note: Scrapped ships should return more money and buildings as well. There is such a small return from ships and buildings that going 100 credits in the hole will result in half your structures being sold off including your space station and auto-factory tat you had just paid 320 to rush build a few turns before.

I'm pretty surprised that we're still not seeing counter-offers added in to the newer builds, this would do a lot to improve many aspects of diplomacy in the game.

With the latest build, I'm still getting ridiculous offers being put to me. To give a recent example that I tested out, I asked the Klackon what they wanted for Alien Psychology (a tech that I was up to researching) - they suggested that I should pay them 726 credits (I had 727 in total, they had 353) up front, an annual payment of 37 credits (my current total annual takings) and cede a colony to them. Their relationship with me was 'Guarded'. I then pushed the relationship up to 'Neutral' and tried the same technology. No difference.

Another test was with a race that I had very poor relations with - we'd been at war on and off and were currently in a truce with a 'hostile' relationship. I asked what they wanted for Microbiotics (another tech that I was about to research). They wanted 872 credits (1 less than my maximum total at that point) up front, an annual payment of 18 credits (my current total annual takings), my star charts, an embassy, two technologies from the same stage (Class I Shields and Deep Scanner) AND a colony ceded to them.

Out of curiosity, I saved and then agreed to their ridiculous demands, figuring that handing over all of this would probably at least make them favourable towards me, but no - that deal was just enough to get the relationship indicator to move from the bottom end of 'hostile' to the top end of 'hostile'.

What's the point in even having the AI make such ridiculous offers? Yes, if the relationship is bad enough they should push the envelope a bit, but they really need to be able to value things appropriately. If I was asked to trade the two technologies for Microbiotics, even with a handful of credits, I'd consider that to be 'fair', in that it's still a bit of a rip-off but representative of the poor relationship. There is no way that these techs, that I could otherwise spend less than 10 turns researching, are worth my entire treasury and an entire planet. If I am dumb enough to hand over my entire treasury and an entire planet, then such a lop-sided deal should also do a hell of a lot more to improve my relationship with a race.

EDIT: To top it all off, it's very hard to tell how serious the AI are about these offers. I asked the Klackon what would make a trade treaty work, and they wanted 600-odd credits. I removed the credits and offered a trade treaty with nothing else, and they accepted.

Yesterday the alkari wanted to buy a tech from me. I didn't needed the money and didn't actually want them to have that tech. But i wanted to be in good terms with the Alkari (the indicator was already in slight green). Knowing that declining the offer (as i couldn't make a counter-offer) would reduce my standing with them i accepted, thinking that it would increase my standing a little bit.
The end effect was, that my standing was reduced a little bit. Which makes absolutly no sense.

Please allow players to make counter offers to AI initiated proposals.

Return to the diplomacy screen after concluding a player initiated audience.

An option to "Make Peace With..."

Having to click "Goodbye" twice when done gets old in a hurry.

Still having issues with stubborn Ai's that will not give in to small demands even when their empire is on fire and extinction is casting its shadow on them.

It seems automatic that a neighbor race will ask me to cede at least one system to them even if I have a stronger fleet.