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[USEC_OFFICER]

I'm 95% certain it was a thing in an earlier patch. I remember a string of games long ago where almost everyone had opposing ethics to me, or close enough. If I went fanatic spiritualist, the galaxy would be populated by materialists. If I went fanatic materialist, they'd be spiritualists. Peaceful pacifists? Warlike invaders.

At some point that behaviour was changed. My latest games don't suffer from that problem anymore. I get a much better range of ethics opposing me and can make a few friends more often than not.

[Spehss _]

In my experience it seems every time I play a xenophobe, I'll get a couple xenophile or egalitarian neighbours that form a federation and attack my ass mid game. The rare time I play a non xenophobe that's either a xenophile or egalitarian, I'll get xenophobes and purifiers for neighbours.

How do diplomacy? The first xenophobe neighbor I found in this run, I managed to form a non aggression pact immediately and get their trust up to +50 from -40. The other xenophobe civ I've found was further away at the time of first contact and kept refusing a non-aggression pact. Now due to their xenophobia and border friction their opinion is too low for them to accept any trade I can offer them. It's always stuck at -1000 at the trade screen. And they refuse non-aggression.

I mean, I figure once I have my economy built up I could afford to just go to war with them occasionally instead, but I'm hesitant to initiate war since in the past it seems I always got stomped.

[Biowraith]

If you do it early on a Guarantee Independence doesn't require their acceptance and can get their trust up enough for a NAP once it's been in place a while.  Once they're -1000 though, I think you're looking at a) conquer them, b) ideology war them (my pacifist xenophile egalitarians were ideology warring anyone that wouldn't be friends, ended up with 90% of the galaxy in a federation with just a couple of hive minds as holdouts), or c) wait and hope they randomly change to a more agreeable set of ethics/government.

[Criptfeind]

-1000 trade just means they don't think that's a good trade, you'll have to give more. And hover over it, some things they'll never be willing to trade, but it'll say that if you hover over it.

Generally making friends is most easily done with a Guarantee independence as Biowraith said, followed by a NAP and then a lot of gifts once they hit trust cap, eventually making alliance possible. Xenophobes have a lot of negative acceptance modifiers to more important pacts though, which aren't as easy to overcome as opinion modifiers, they'll have negative relationship from being Xenophobes which gives negative acceptance, and have straight up negative acceptance from being xenophobes, and more often have personality types that have negative acceptance. Overcoming all of that is hard to impossible often, it's rare to make close friends with xenophobes unless there's a existential threat to drive you two together or at least some very close common ground. (Like being spiritualist.) And if possible you'll want to do this before you actually have borders with them, otherwise friction will drive you apart (and right NOW if the AI starts putting claims on your systems that's basically any diplomacy possible with them gone for the rest of the game unless you give them those systems. Having systems claimed by others gives a quite large permanent negative opinion modifier. I hope they add the ability to get others to revoke their claims eventually, preferably though diplomacy.)

[Rolan7]

I think -1000 usually means that something like their stance is preventing the trade regardless of how much you offer.  Like if they're neutral to you, they won't offer their research for love or money.  I've also seen "unwilling to trade a bulk payment for a monthly payment" (paraphrased) or "unwilling to trade away that resource right now".

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I think -1000 usually means that something like their stance is preventing the trade regardless of how much you offer.  Like if they're neutral to you, they won't offer their research for love or money.  I've also seen "unwilling to trade a bulk payment for a monthly payment" (paraphrased) or "unwilling to trade away that resource right now".

Another is a simple 'we don't have what you are asking', such as more minerals per month than what they are actually getting.

[Biowraith]

I misread it as -1000 opinion rather than trade reaction.  But yeah, the trade thing is mostly due to low opinion or if they don't have enough of whatever you're asking for.  You should still be able to gift them stuff through trade at that point, to try and raise relations enough for a more permanent solution, but personally I've not had much success with that (has to be a pretty hefty gift to have much impact in my experience).

One other way to get a decent relations boost to open up treaties is declaring rivalry with their rivals, but obviously that's less useful for more widespread diplomacy unless it's a universally hated rival (purifiers or something).

[Spehss _]

Tried guaranteeing independence for this other xenophobe neighbour. Shortly after that, they announced they were my rival and laid claim to a bunch of systems, immediately souring any and all relations with them. Obviously I ended the guarantee of independence. They're now -300 opinion and openly hostile.

They are a hedgemonic imperialist empire, or something like that. They just keep claiming more and more of my systems. I suspect that's how their AI works, making them greedy land grabbers.

[Loud Whispers]

hedgemonic imperialist

The problem with the plantoid pack is that every plant empire is a hedgemonic imperialist, searching for slaves to trim them into perfection.

The uber-hedge

[Teneb]

Typo jokes aside, Hegemonic (and Hedgemonic) Imperialists are very much not interested in any peace unless they are far weaker than the other party.

[umiman]

Playing another max difficulty game because the previous one was kinda fun. Sure the AI cheats its arse off, but at least it's actually a challenge at all stages of the game now.

Anyway, playing a bunch of Dorfs this time around. I have lots of Dorf slaves and we turn all the other species into food. Been working out so far, but then again I have yet to find any single sort of "negative social unrest modifier" be any sort of problem.

It's been fairly challenging so far. Growth has been limited because like the other posters I'm sandwiched between opposing empires. Two buggers intent on making federations have closed in on my top and bottom, making me an anti-federation canniballistic slavemonger in the middle. Because of the difficulty they're stronger than me in every way, but so far in the wars we've waged I've managed to white peace both times after SIGNIFICANT fighting.

Hell, the first war was crazy difficult. They were sending destroyers at me when I only still had my 20 starting cap of corvettes.

I basically get a short little time to rebuild before the truce ends and I go to war again. So far the only thing keeping me in the battle is the fact that the AI is completely moronic and equipped all their ships to be picket ships. So both empires only field fleets of just AA. I have no missiles. Also they both only use lasers in their regular weapon slots, so I just max out shields.

I highly recommend max difficulty for those who think the game is a super cakewalk. Makes it more interesting.

[Bralbaard]

Just updated to the 2.02 patch. some pretty devastating nerfs for my current empire. I've not looked into all the specific causes, but my empires unity production has fallen from 150 to 88 per month, energy production from +40 to -30 , and mineral income was also reduced by a quarter. Probably makes sense from a balancing point of view but it's quite a devastating hit half way during the game.

 

[Nelia Hawk]

the enegy loss is probably also from the change that outposts have maintanance...
the unity decrease is cause they changed the balance a bit with how the cost increase or such


guess best thing would be to just start a new game with the patch so it doesnt feel like "my everything is lower now"

[umiman]

Not. A. Single. Xeno. Lives.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nothing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not even the bacteria survives the purge.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dorfs forever.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Except Professor Zarg

[Spehss _]

-snip-

Neat. How many years did that take ingame? I don't think I've ever made it past early game, longest game I'd played before losing interest was about 70 years.