Distant Worlds 2: this time, your space spreadsheet has a 3D engine!

I’ve had empires randomly declaring war on me, then accepting peace, then declaring war five minutes later, ad infinitum. It’s one of the (many) reasons I don’t play it any more.

The bane of so many 4X existence. Why is a consistent diplomacy AI so difficult?

Lack of effort. I don’t mean they’re lazy, I just mean that they don’t devote enough time/resources to it.

The example Paradroid mentioned should be able to be addressed. If they’ve recently accepted peace, there should be a lot more weight placed against a future war declaration that decays over time.

I think, too, that they can’t create much of an AI until the game is fully baked.

I’ve reached acceptance of bad AI, but horribly cheating AI drives me to drink.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s the problem Stellaris wrestled with for years as they reworked core parts of the game. Things finally seem to be improving there, at least. Maybe DW2 gets to that point as well. They don’t have the resources that PDS does but they also probably have a lot more solid understanding of what DW2 is or is supposed to be. :) Especially since it sounds like the sequel didn’t really change much from the original.

This patch included the Harmony framework that enabled the modding communities in RimWorld and Oxygen Not Included to thrive, to name a few. That is very good news.

I’m cruising to a victory in my first game. I haven’t had anybody declare war on me. What were your game settings as far as orneriness of the galaxy? I left mine as default. I also had the good fortune to not meeting any mean aliens until I was in a fairly strong position as compared to them.

I was in 4th or 5h place until I understood the importance of terraforming on your economy. Fixing that led to an expansion boom and my climbing up to second place. Having run out of prime planets to colonize, I decided to start a war with the dino aliens next to me, who were much weaker.

I was pleasantly surprised, despite my poor war planning (I’d just recently shifted from expansion to extermination) that the AI did a pretty good job with running my war. I mostly just OK’d their suggestions and they proceeded to destroy enemy installations. I’d neglected my troop transports, so after the first invasion with fairly heavy casualties, I allowed them to build more transports. That got the ball rolling to pick up almost half their colonies. Some of my allies piled in and picked up a couple more planets. By the time my war weariness had climbed to 16 (theirs was over 100), I took their offer for peace.

However, with the war weariness so high for them, I was able to pick up a few of their former planets that had rebelled. Again the AI managed all that for me, as I was already starting to expand again with my newly acclimated dino citizens to nasty desert planets I couldn’t colonize earlier for economic reasons.

After a year or two of desert colonization, my admirals asked if they could go to war with my spider neighbors. I knew it was a bad idea, as my fleets were still getting redistributed though my territory. But, what the hell.

Maybe I was talking out my butt. Some warmonger declared war on me and I was decently happy about the state of my navy and tech. Apparently, however, my empire was waaaaaaay too spread out and he hit me in several locations with nasty fleets and armies. Next time: don’t expand so far, I guess.

I was playing this as a “semi-serious” learning game & my next game will be more serious.

edit: the AI empire had at least one repaired high tech ship & that’s annoyed me (it was a destroyer and it had the firepower of maybe 4 of mine). I’ve disliked this part of DW as it allowed me to amass serious fleets.

Yeah, the stupid dino neighbors of mine had one, so I didn’t think of starting a war until I finally had a fleet able to take on his 6K-battleship.

I know there’s lots of room for improvement, but the AI does a fair few things pretty well — both when it’s working for me (exploring, suggesting new mines) and against me (fighting me). I’m not even close to winning. Still having fun with it.

I’d like to try a larger galaxy but I don’t know if my aging GTX980 can handle it.

Hey folks,
I’m probably dumb but where can I find my reputation? Beyond inter empire rep there seems to be a general rep that effects your peeps and galactic wide perceptions. I kinda know why it falls but where is it quantified? What’s the duration and how can it be rectified if it can be?
Thanks

Ah hell, thanks Shuma. That helps a bunch. I must have poured over diplomacy and empire tabs a dozen times and completely missed it.

I started a bigger game and found I’m missing at least one technology, and only realized it late. After Star Fighters on the left, there is another one named “Light Star Fighters” that lives between Light Interceptors and Light Bombers. I want to research Advanced Star Fighters but I cannot because the prerequisite (Light Star Fighters) simply isn’t there. I have to admit - I’m sorta stuck. I don’t want to continue to play a borked game but I’ve also loath to start over.

On edit: maybe this is normal? I’ve chosen Random Research Paths, so maybe this is expected behavior.

no, I think this is a ‘problem’? I had a slightly similar issue in that I had a prerequisite tech hidden in an unseen tier. I had to guess which tech to research to see the prerequisite tech before researching it to gain the tech I wanted.

I don’t think the techs are being properly mapped on random.

It is possible for some techs to be fully locked out if you used random research paths. I think this is working as designed, but it is the subject of some controversy on the official forums as this doesn’t fit everyone’s expectations.

Thank you. I find their forums somewhat difficult to navigate and search. Some people are helpful, but these answers aren’t very easy (for me) to find.

Can anyone tell me what the lines between my colonies represents?

Also, the AI seems significantly worse at managing my fleets than in DWU - all my invasions fleets target the exact same planet, my defense and attack fleets won’t really bother with enemy fleets and instead target random mining stations.

It’ll get better, but from now on I think i’ll stick to much smaller galaxies so I can be more in charge.

I rarely trust automation in any game, and this one is no exception. When I’ve put my fleets on full auto, they always attach a fuel tanker and it seems like that causes chaos.

Woah boy - Factorio must SUCK for you.

Sounds too much like doing factors in math. Flashbacks to high school! Ahhhh!!!