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[forsaken1111]

Official trailer's out.  We're releasing March 27th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OFhVtqfDBQ

Just a suggestion: Wipe the steam workshop on release. There are a lot of mods on there made for old versions and it would be good to do a fresh start IMO.

[Majestic7]

So does the game have actual, working diplomacy or is it a mess of psychotic AIs doing random things as most 4Xs?

[forsaken1111]

So does the game have actual, working diplomacy or is it a mess of psychotic AIs doing random things as most 4Xs?

The diplomacy system is centered around influence and action cards which you play. It is far and away the most nonstandard diplomacy model I have ever seen. There is none of the standard diplomatic options you see in games like Civ. Its more like you're all part of a galactic council playing actions and influence against each other, on which everyone votes or uses influence to alter the outcome.

[Sinistar]

Yeah, diplomacy is definitely interesting. While for better or worse it starts with all players "seeing" other empires via diplomacy screen from the very start of the game (at least from I can tell), this does mean the already mentioned non-standard diplomacy can commence relatively early and at full speed. Personally I think it's great because I like how SR2 handles the diplomacy.

To expand a little on forsaken's post - during the game, you generate influence point by various means, either planet resources, iirc some special buildings etc. You then, in turn, use this points to buy diplomacy cards. A fixed amount of cards can be seen and bought by all players in the diplomacy screen and every 30s a minimum of one new is generated. If no cards are bought in the current interval, the oldest gets scrapped and is replaced by a new one. If more cards are bough, the same amount of new ones are added, but only at the end of interval. The cards that are not scrapped or bough have their IP price reduced with the next interval. So in theory you can get initially very expensive card relatively cheap if you wait a few minutes... only if AI/other player doesn't snatch it before you.

So when you have this cards you can play them. Each card, in addition to having "buying" price, also has "using" price - you have to spend IPs again, to use them. Helps limit the card spam, you see. Anyways, cards range from "name a planet" (which names target planet in your empire and gives it boost in certain areas for few minutes), spying on other empires, to "annex system" which does exactly what it says on the tin. Now, you can't just go around annexing systems on your whims though. See, when someone plays mentioned annex or spy or just about any other card that also interacts with other empires, this count as a "proposal" in galactic senate. Players may either agree or disagree with such proposals, and you do that again with cards, like "negotiate" card and such. You can play as many as such cards on a proposal as you have IPs and actual cards. Depending on a final yes/no score the proposal is either rejected or accepted. So all in all not far from real life senate, hehe.

In the end you get diplomacy that is a kind of a mini-game within a game and requires some actual planing and occasional twitch card buying, far from your standard, static "give me 200 gold for this tech" you get in games like Civ. It also helps mitigate the problem of AI acting like a robot just going along it's scripted "does this player have strong military? If not ATTACKATTACKATTACK" pattern, the problem that plagues oh so many 4x games. This is all veiled behind the senate play, and with diplomacy being seen to everyone, also negates either the feeling of AIs having better deals between each other than towards player AND also gives feeling the player is not a center of all attention. All in all, I like that, I like that a lot.

This is a thing with SR2 as well as SR1 - this games are full of neat ideas. The guys behind them are not afraid to try something new and different. While both games lack some polish in certain areas, imho this just makes you love them more - like a child that might not be amongst top 10 MIT graduates, but you can see he was given a lot or even more than usual amount of love by it's parents regardless.

But that's just my opinion I got since I recently purchased SR2. Been a while since I payed more than 10€ for game, and an early access to boot (iirc last time I spent big moneys on a game was when Distant Worlds: Universe came out). Not regretting one bit of it though. 

[Majestic7]

Thanks for the diplomacy explanation, it sounds interesting. As long as it is connected to what happens on the galactic map scope too, it might be very fun. (Some games in the past have had the problem of diplomatic AI and the campaign map AI not speaking to each other, resulting in psychotic action.)

[Firgof Umbra]

We liked it so we put a ring on it.

Two more days until we go into feature-freeze.  Then it'll be a week of debugging and polishing the smaller bits of SR2 - and then we launch!

There's lots going on lately behind the scenes.  We got Scott Manley interested in doing an overview on the game, for one.  An interview with eXplorminate, some reviews in the works, and the two new shipsets, the orbital model replacements, and so forth are coming along nicely.  All in all things are looking good for launch - we don't think we'll be able to pack in everything we wanted to before the game goes live - but we're already past the lion's share.

Speaking of: If you have a Let's Player who you'd think would enjoy the game, give us a shout!  I've got a stack of keys looking for a home and I could use your help in searching out all the best people to send them to.

We'll talk more specifically about post-release content and updates when we get closer to our launch date.

[forsaken1111]

Stellar construction is in?! Holy shit!

Are rings the limit or can we make a dyson sphere? swarm?

[Firgof Umbra]

Ringworlds are the present limit (though you can also build artificial worlds and star-driven forges and so on now).  Who knows what an expansion or two might bring?

[forsaken1111]

Ringworlds are the present limit (though you can also build artificial worlds and star-driven forges and so on now).  Who knows what an expansion or two might bring?

Very exciting.

[Majestic7]

Banter in this thread convinced me to buy it. While having many awesome features, I think the game could do with a more interesting tech tree. Maybe some racial technologies or the like? Right now most of the tech is just plus percentage to X -kind of stuff. Unlocking new buildings, more weapons with different tactical options (not just numerical superiority), that sort of stuff is sorely lacking.

The diplomacy system is quite awesome, regarding the cards and all, but the one-to-one interactions are bland. There is zero character and no explanations regarding why a faction refuses a deal, accepts a deal or declares war. Messages/events about those things would be nice. ("Intelligence report states that Hoonans are worried about you grabbing all the stars and start preparing for war", that kind of stuff.)

I like fleets, the whole thing about automated smaller ships following the lead of a capital ship. Much easier than microbuilding fleets by hand, while still allowing you to customize them if you like. Have there been any talk about putting in fleet experience levels? That would give some further distinction between fleets, if you could choose them special trainings or the like.

Espionage coming it at any point? Leaders and/or internal political systems?

[Sinistar]

Thanks for the diplomacy explanation, it sounds interesting. As long as it is connected to what happens on the galactic map scope too, it might be very fun. (Some games in the past have had the problem of diplomatic AI and the campaign map AI not speaking to each other, resulting in psychotic action.)

A bit of an update to diplomacy:

So I've played a bit more and figured out I've completely missed in my first few games how you actually declare war and such on someone. And it's very simple but also a tiny bit basic. In diplomacy screen, when you meet a new empire, you can click on them and either declare war, offer/demand subjugation, offer gift (all resources, including cards) or offer treaty (alliance, mutual defense, trade agreement, vision). Personally I feel like this puts SR2's diplomacy in a bit peculiar situation. On one hand you have the senate system which is one of the better and more fun ideas of diplomacy option I've seen in recent years in games, but on the other you have sort of a separate, bare-bones alliance/war system. Which is not to say the later does not function, it's completely ok. But being spoiled by senate voting and cards, I'd LOVE to see even mentioned trade pacts and such somehow be implemented in senate play, be it straight voting issue like others (don't personally think that would work) or in some sort of a closed door agreement between two or more parties... which tbh is kinda what happens now... but I'd love if it could be expanded on with cards somehow. But yeah, not completely sure how that would work. If you lock ALL interactions to cards you can get yourself in situations like "oh you feel like waging war? Well, play a card. Don't have a card? Well, that sucks for you." But would it make sense if you'd get a "declare war" card for free if you chose more war-like political system like empire (since you already get different cards according to political system)? Or even have few areas in tech tree that would yield such cards (like you have few for other cards now)? Dunno, maybe?

As I am a lazy git so I haven't been following either the developer's blog or official forums to see what is Blind Mind Studios' vision on this so maybe there will be more diplomatic options down the road. Which, I have to stress out again, is not to say diplomacy outside senate doesn't work - it does the job just fine. On one hand, I do miss the more life-like interaction you'd get in, say, Civ games, with leaders being all passive-aggressive over certain issues and spouting empty rhetoric left and right. But on the other, that facade is quickly brought down when a civ on a completely other side of the world declares war on you because you refused to give them free tech so maybe sometimes it's better for a game not to even try to make AI opponents human-like (then again in SR2 you don't usually play against humans in the first place... but I digress).

Also, you CAN expect, sooner or later, the AI to declare war on you without any obvious provocation. Once empires can't expand anymore into neutral territory, you have to expand to neighbor's...

edit: And while I've been writing, I see you've actually ninja'd me yourself, basically saying exactly what my thoughts were! I was about to post this, but left for breakfast. If I didn't, I'd actually ninja you... talk about chances. 

[Majestic7]

You could have one-on-one diplomacy use the cards in the same way as, say, a Zeitgeist vote does. When proposing a trade deal, you could use negotiation cards to make the deal somehow better for the other party. The same with peace negotiations and what not. There could be special cards that end the negotiations immediately, but otherwise if you agree to negotiate on trade agreement in the first place, you are stuck in the negotiation game.

Declaring war on someone could be a one way to end a negotiation for demanding something from someone or the like, the ultimate "NO!" to how the negotiations are going.

Basically the diplomacy cards would work as they do now, plus there'd be some specific one-to-one cards and senate cards.

[Sinistar]

Yeah, I've been thinking that too, like, having a rider-like "if this passes, we are at war" card. Maybe attach a leverage action towards you on it, to spice the things even further.

As for other - hm, never though about this could be made like a Zeitgeist vote, but I could see this working. I like it. To the SR2 forums, then!

p.s.: I for one like how tech tree is made... but to each his own. Some racial tech would be nice though, yes. Oh, and fleet exp would be sweet.

[Majestic7]

Feel free to copy my ramblings on SR2 forums if you feel like it, I'm on too many forums already to register on yet another one. I agree that the structure of the tech tree is fine, I'd just like to see more options getting unlocked rather than just old options getting better.

[Sinistar]

Ok thanks, might as well, I should have an account there back from SR1 days after all.