Reputation

[concern]

It drops really easily, especially with inevitable failed intelligence missions, but the opportunities to improve it seem limited. Am I missing something? If I wish to maintain a satisfactory reputation, should I steer clear of active intelligence missions?

[taltamir]

1. avoid FAILED intelligence missions... if you assign said missions intelligently your spies gain experience and are less likely to be caught.

2. Hunt down and kill pirates, that raises your rep a lot.

3. Avoid war, it hurts your rep.

4. If you are in a mutual defense pact, do NOT renege on it if they ask you to honor it. fulfiling it increases your rep (of course, now you are in a war so rep goes down again... so its a lose lose and I don't make such pacts)

[thiosk]

Reneging on a defensive pact should NEVER decrease your reputation.

Period.

unless you broke one defensive pact to honor another

As the economy is updated, i'm sure diplomacy will be as well.

[Wade1000]

ORIGINAL: thiosk

Reneging on a defensive pact should NEVER decrease your reputation.

Period.

unless you broke one defensive pact to honor another

As the economy is updated, i'm sure diplomacy will be as well.

That doesn't make sense to me. If you say that you've got my back, we will help defend each other then you back out when you are needed then I, and others, will think negatively of you; your reputation will lower.

[Gertjan]

Warmongers should never be liked, unless they attack the strongest aggressive race in the galaxy.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: taltamir
3. Avoid war, it hurts your rep.

ORIGINAL: Gertjan
Warmongers should never be liked, unless they attack the strongest aggressive race in the galaxy.

I disagree completely. I don't have any problem with other empires fearing me or disliking me, but...

(1) They should still make self-interested decisions. Don't kick the bear while he is sleeping.

(2) My own people should never ever turn on me while I am winning a war. If I'm losing the war, fine. In DW, however, suddenly all my human subjects are against me because I have a bad reputation for exterminating bugs?

I'm incredulous. That is inserting a universal level morality that I am not willing to accept.

[SiempreCiego]

Your right.

maybe we need to see more. IF you suprise attack another empire, lose lots of ships during the war and in drags on then war weriness should be higher.

If they suprise attack you, you should receive a surge of support from you populace during the (at least) early stages of the war.

Maybe if, like in your game your fighting one of the bug species, then after so much time you could be informed (warned) of a growing movement of insectophiles calling for an end to the war.

[Erik Rutins]

If you do nothing to hurt it, your reputation should gradually rise back to the neutral level over time, but there are many actions that can cause it damage. Reputation is an absolute measure of your trustworthiness in the eyes of the other races and your own people. There are already considerations made regarding who you are fighting and why. I've been in games where I've fought many wars with a Human Republic and never had a Civil War and my reputation stayed up at Noble because of the decisions I made. It's certainly possible to do. There is more we can do here to account for such things, but if you manage your diplomatic and military decisions carefully, even a less warlike government type can survive a long war.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: thiosk

Reneging on a defensive pact should NEVER decrease your reputation.

Period.

unless you broke one defensive pact to honor another

As the economy is updated, i'm sure diplomacy will be as well.

that makes no sense at all. heck this is about the only thing that there is absolutely no question that it should affect your reputation... Your reputation goes from "keeping their word" to "reneges on treaties".
Breaking one to honor another is also not an issue here, because you lose rep from breaking one, you gain rep from honoring the other... it balances out.

just to be clear, we are not talking about going to your allies in peace time and breaking the alliance. that actually is harmless and can be done at any time with no consequence.
I mean when they come and say "we are at war with empire Z, honor your treaty and declare war on empire Z" and you say "no, sorry... its too inconvenient"

[Gertjan]

Cool that this game has so much depth in diplomacy.

[JosEPhII]

Basically with the penalties you get for going to war for even a Good reason your pop revolts switches to another Empire and you die a slow lingering death until an aggressive AI puts you out of your misery.

There is apparently no Sole Survivor victory possibility for this game. Just a "Senate Win" (borrowed from MoO3).

So the underlying premise is: Colonize as fast as you can, hold on to what you do get (play nicey with Everybody), engage in trades that benefit the AI more than you, and then hope you meet one of the victory conditions by being the most econ savy or you managed to populate 1/3 of the galaxy, or you accumulated enough nicey points over a time period to meet another condition.

Hmmm......I think we may have a problem Houston!

JosEPh

[Wade1000]

Could maybe some update adjustments be made then for reputation? Empires should not easily break aprat from revolution due to trying to take part in war.
-Maybe nerf/reduce the overall penalties on reputation and war weariness.
-Maybe nerf/reduce internal reputation and war weariness negative penalties to aggressive empires, especailly ruled by a hive mind race, as they are at war and bombarding
-Maybe nerf/reduce internal reputation penalties and war weariness to their populace of empires that are having successes in a war and bombarding.
-...etcetera...

-Of course, external reputation may/will still lower due to certain actions.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II
Basically with the penalties you get for going to war for even a Good reason your pop revolts switches to another Empire and you die a slow lingering death until an aggressive AI puts you out of your misery.

That hasn't been my experience, as I mentioned above. If you are playing a peaceful/passive race and government type and you go to war without good reasons, then yes, that's what happens. But if you stick to fighting "honorable" wars then you can do quite well and not take a reputation hit. With peaceful races/governments, it's the reputation hit on top of the war weariness if you fight like a warlike race that ends up causing those civil wars.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Wade1000
Could maybe some update adjustments be made then for reputation? Empires should not easily break aprat from revolution due to trying to take part in war.
-Maybe nerf/reduce the overall penalties on reputation.
-Maybe ner/reduce internal reputation negative penalties to aggressive empires, especailly ruled by a hive mind race, as they are at war and bombarding
-Maybe nerf/reduce internal reputation penalties to their populace of empires that are having successes in a war and bombarding.

There may need to be some adjustments, but right now with the current system a warlike/aggressive race with an appropriately warlike government can do quite well. Sure they will take a reputation hit, but they will not suffer much on the war weariness side. It's when you get both war weariness and the reputation hit together that things start to fall apart.

[Malevolence]

Obviously 4X is explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate

This is the designers game and it's shaping up to be a classic (IMO). They have inserted their own morality in the diplomacy system, which is their right to do.

[Wade1000]

I suppose, as a peaceful govenment at war for a long time, or planning to be at war for a long time, it might help to switch to a government that helps reduce negatives to war wearinesss and reputation.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II

Basically with the penalties you get for going to war for even a Good reason your pop revolts switches to another Empire and you die a slow lingering death until an aggressive AI puts you out of your misery.

There is apparently no Sole Survivor victory possibility for this game. Just a "Senate Win" (borrowed from MoO3).

So the underlying premise is: Colonize as fast as you can, hold on to what you do get (play nicey with Everybody), engage in trades that benefit the AI more than you, and then hope you meet one of the victory conditions by being the most econ savy or you managed to populate 1/3 of the galaxy, or you accumulated enough nicey points over a time period to meet another condition.

Hmmm......I think we may have a problem Houston!

JosEPh

it is entirely doable if you carefully maintain your rep... destroy pirate home bases as you find them, make peace ASAP, avoid wars against races who comprise a large portion of your empire, win wars rapidly, etc...
I have been dominating the galaxy without a problem that way. Just remember that your reputation is your most important value, never let it dip and you shouldn't have problems with revolts.. heck, you will have planets joining your empire as they rebel from other empires...

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: taltamir
it is entirely doable if you carefully maintain your rep... destroy pirate home bases as you find them, make peace ASAP, avoid wars against races who comprise a large portion of your empire, win wars rapidly, etc...
I have been dominating the galaxy without a problem that way. Just remember that your reputation is your most important value, never let it dip and you shouldn't have problems with revolts.. heck, you will have planets joining your empire as they rebel from other empires...

The point is tltamir, not everyone wants to play a nice guy. If there is one overriding path to victory, it's not much of a game worth playing... at least more than once or twice.

[Wade1000]

Well, I like the idea of balancing a game based on reputation. Distant Worlds seems to have achieved this idea well. I'm just thinking maybe some important adjustments might be needed.

I like that it is difficult for any one empire to steamroll/dominate all other empires too quickly. Like Taltamir and Erik Rutins, states it is still doable to make war regularly and maintain your reputation. You just have to take heed of all the factors affecting repuattion.

Reputation will go from negative back to neutral over time.

So then, consider conquering small chunks of an enemy empire then try to use diplomacy to make peace. Wait for more reputation, then maybe be ready for another war with the same opponent or another.
Wars on our planet in our history have been constant on and off struggles, including cold wars of weapons races and espionage.

War and diplomacy tied together that way is interesting. It makes dipomacy as important and viable tool as war.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

ORIGINAL: taltamir
it is entirely doable if you carefully maintain your rep... destroy pirate home bases as you find them, make peace ASAP, avoid wars against races who comprise a large portion of your empire, win wars rapidly, etc...
I have been dominating the galaxy without a problem that way. Just remember that your reputation is your most important value, never let it dip and you shouldn't have problems with revolts.. heck, you will have planets joining your empire as they rebel from other empires...

The point is tltamir, not everyone wants to play a nice guy. If there is one overriding path to victory, it's not much of a game worth playing... at least more than once or twice.

I am aware, I also don't want to play a nice guy, I was just saying its doable... and if you fight your wars quick while doing "good" things on the side (pretending) you can be plenty evil... just not get penalized for it.. fight one war at a time, maintain lots of free trade agreements, and crush your enemies fast while maintaining peace with other empires (aka, avoid multi fronted wars).
My point was that conquest victory is doable, it just requires knowing how to "game" reputation.

I have personally complained how reputation ruined me the first time around... i had a 300 planet empire, second biggest was 60, then a 30, then a dozen under 5 planets empires... Well, I didn't know how to maintain my rep so i got into war with ALL of them at once, then 60 planets split off into a rebel empire... my morale went into the crapped because for the first time i was fighting other humans, so planets all over my empire went into rebellion... yea, it was terrible. But know i know to "game" it so i can play right... and in my current game I am in a similar situation and just finished exterminating a few empires entirely AND I don't even have way of anicents! I managed to exterminate enemy empires as a democracy... and my reputation is the best in the galaxy.