MOO1 diplomacy and number of planets

Diplomacy in master of orion is extremely simple, you start with some predetermined attitude rating, you can bring this up by giving tribute and signing trade agreements, then later non aggression pacts. You bring it down by spying and any conflict, even if accidental unless you retreat right away.

But it also seems that races declare war on you and dislike you more if you are expanded beyond a certain number of planets but I'm not sure what number this is. Is it just more than them? Cus I've had games on huge where we are out of room but AI seems to ignore me if I have around 9 planets and they dogpile me if I have 16 or more. Which seems weird, it seems like they should go after a weaker race first, but they seem to get jealous of my number of planets.

Also does having a large fleet work as a deterrent? I know it can sometimes make them retreat a battle but does it prevent them from declaring war in the first place? I generally have no fleet, instead relying solely on missile bases and planetary shields to save money on fleet costs.

If having less planets does make your enemies less likely to attack you what's the ideal number on say a huge map? Playing klackons, impossible, it seems like once I get over ten my games suffer. It could just be coincidence of being spread to thin, but usually if I get to that many planets everyone hates me and they all vote in some other race as I'll be first or second in population and it makes it the galaxy vs me. If I am at less planets the votes are more split and I have more allies. Trying to figure out why this is. Even with less planets I can usually out produce and win cus klackons are so strong and I beeline production techs while AI wastes time on deflector shields and middling weapon tech.

The first vote is at 2/3 of planets colonized or about 60 planets. The fleet ratio can trigger DoW. At impossible it is 3:1. Leader that is erratic has a 2% chance to DoW. Spying and getting caught.

Owning 25% of the system makes them hate you, even if they also own that much or more. This tends to lead to a DoW. I am ignoring other things, which I figure you are not doing like genocide.

16 systems is not likely to be 25% of a huge map. That should have over 100 planets, some are not habitable though.

vmxa said:

That should have over 100 planets, some are not habitable though.

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108 is the correct number. It is in the manual and I have confirmed it.

I know, I have it as well.

I'm just trying to figure out why I have a tendency to get dogpiled more with my larger empire than my smaller ones. Could just be the universe runs out of room.

Well I would suspect it is due to a low fleet count. At 16, of maybe 90 or so habitable, the available planets are few. So that will be another factor, especially if coids are in the game. They will use all the hostile ones.

You often see the AI have several allies early, so they will jump on you as well. Soon no one has allies as planets are taken, so war is a given.

Add in being one of the lessor favorites, like Darloks or Klacs and tag you are it.

Is it worth having the fleet maintenance to prevent these wars, even if your fleet is garbage with lvl 1 lasers?

Oh and some more diplomacy hijinks. My latest game, klackons huge hard, psilons got gigantic somehow. I mean like they own half the galaxy. But the rest was all separated into two groups basically, me and the sakkaras and humans vs psilons and mrrshan and sakkaras were 2nd in pop so the vote kept splitting 50/50. I lucked out with tech, got planetary shields XX and all the juicy techs- subspace teleporters, neutronium bombs, gaia planets, atmospheric transformation, robotic controls 6. So I just kept fending off psilon attacks cus they didn't have bombs and eventually sent teleporting ships with bombs to kill all their planets while their fleet of 32000 little guys chased me around like morons. I'm thinking, sweet I'll colonize all their planets and win the vote. But as soon as I moved into 2nd place for population, psilons now 3rd with sakkara 1st, the backstabbing psilons voted sakkaras into power! So now I'm feuding with everyone. Still going to win but killing everyone makes it a really long game. I was just shocked that they voted for anyone instead of abstaining because they were at war and hated both of us.

In short, the diplomacy makes no sense most of the time, the races are not strategic with their votes whatsoever.

If you were at war with Sakkara, then the brains are likely to vote for them. An enemy of my is my friend theorem.

I tend to not have much of a fleet, until I am able to take and hold a planet. Just go ahead and let them send fleets for me to shoot at. I cannot afford to make a fleet large enough to make them leave me alone early I the game and still make progress.

vmxa said:

Owning 25% of the system makes them hate you, even if they also own that much or more. This tends to lead to a DoW. I am ignoring other things, which I figure you are not doing like genocide.

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At first I thought you meant biological weapons when you said genocide, but it looks like killing off a race might carry a diplomatic penalty.

Currently playing Psilons at Hard and Huge Galaxy. The map was crazy and we were able to colonize 18 systems early just with Hydrogen Fuel Cells. The Humans DoW'd when we colonized a couple of systems a little close to them. They only had four systems and were quickly exterminated.

This resulted in DoW's from the Klackons and the Silicoids.