Sins of a Solar Empire – Diplomacy Tutorial

Diplomacy doesn’t come “easy” in Sins of a Solar Empire. Discord and animosity between the different factions and races must be overcome before Alliances and Pacts can be formed.

When first starting a game, then clicking on the Diplomacy icon, all of the icons will be grayed out and not available except for the Manage Pacts icon.

At that point, it’s logical to think: Okay. Well, I guess I will start with Manage Pacts – only to find out all of the sub-icons under that category are also not available either.

There are also icons to give various resources to other factions. They are grayed out and not available either.

What the heck? How am I supposed to engage in diplomacy when no options are available to me? What am I doing wrong?

Well, you are not doing anything wrong. You just need to start working toward a better relationship with other factions, and do a bit of research, before you can get rolling.

Nothing is going to happen until two things happen. 1. Your relationship/opinion of a rival faction is 2.5 or above. In other words, you have to like them. And, secondly, that rival’s relationship/opinion of you is 2.5 or higher. In others words, they have to like you. It’s a two-way street.

At this point, you can form a Trade Alliance.

The rival may think very highly of you, but your own intrinsic prejudice and predisposition is still very negative toward the other species/faction. For reasons I will go into shortly, the majority of the time it is easier to get the other faction to like you than it is to get yourself to like the other faction.

Sometimes the faction and species alignments are so poor that there is no way to ever have a good relationship with them. So if you notice a rival’s initial opinion of you is negative 10, don’t waste your time and effort trying to cozy up to them.

When you reach a duo relationship level of 4.5, you can form a Cease Fire. This is an important goal you will be shooting for, especially in a game on hard setting, where you don't want to be fighting on two fronts at once.

Note: To my knowledge, it is a waste of time and resources to pursue diplomacy in a two-player game.

This is my suggestion on a setup that allows yourself an opportunity to practice diplomacy.

 Go to the medium map section.
 Choose a map that allows four players.
 Set all difficulty settings to easy or medium.
 Start playing against multiple random opponents to view the different relationships that arise.

Once starting, send out multiple scouts to explore the location of the different factions.

If you want to make things a bit simpler, choose other rival(s) that have the same race and faction as yourself. You will start with higher relationship scores and achieve diplomacy objectives more easily.

Start playing your game as you normally would, maintaining a military presence, as this will assist your diplomatic standing.

Construct three Civic Research Stations so that the first three tiers of Diplomatic research is available to you.

There are two icons at the top of the screen that you will be utilizing heavily.

RELATIONSHIP SCREEN

There is the Relationship icon. Think of this as pure information. No actions can be taken here. You can check the present status of your relationship with other factions, their relationship with you -- and their relationships with each other.

Whichever faction is largest and in the middle of the screen, the values you see are how much the other factions “like/respect” that player, not vice versa. When trying to work toward a relationship, you will have to flip back and forth between yourself and other factions to see all sides of the equation.

Hover your mouse over one of the smaller portraits to see the 14 subcategories listed to the bottom right. This breakdown shows how much they like/respect, that is, their relationship score for the faction represented in the larger center portrait – not vice versa.

In other words, the large portrait in the middle is engaging in a popularity contest. All the scores you see reflect how people view him/her. She is the contestant and everyone else is the “judge.” This offers no clue whatsoever how the faction represented in the large central portrait feels about everyone else.

Ten or so of these subcategories will usually start out at zero. Many will stay at zero unless you take proactive action. Some will change without any conscious effort on your part.

For example, you might go to battle with a faction that a Vasari Rebel doesn’t like, so your Military Actions will reflect a positive number. You might just build your fleet up, intimidating the other factions, creating more respect, and receive a higher Fleet Strength score.

Diplomatic Inclination, Racial Inclination and Faction Relations will have a preset value from the start and will not change throughout the game.

That being said, all three of these values have a bit of randomness built into them. For example, the starting relationship between a TEC Loyalist and another TEC Loyalist could be anywhere between +0.4 and +1.25 or higher.

Any difference in race and/or faction will result in a negative total relationship score.

DIPLOMACY SCREEN

Then there is the Diplomacy icon. Think of this as the action area.

Note: You might want to hit “Pause” while doing this so you can focus on this during gameplay.

On the left side of the screen will be a listing of all the factions in the game. If your icon is chosen, you will be displayed a big lovely picture of yourself and information about where you stand in the game compared to other players.

There will be a Military category in red, Economy in yellow, Empire in light blue and Diplomacy in purple. The colors don’t mean a thing. They don’t refer to any particular faction. It just makes the display more colorful – and confusing.

All of the numbers in the category headings and subcategories refer to what place you are in compared to the other factions. If there is a number 1 by capital ships, that doesn’t mean you just have one capital ship, etc.

At the beginning of the game, quite a number of the values will be dashes. For example, if none of the factions have engaged in culture (that is, setting up a Broadcast Center to emit propaganda) or have sent envoys, there will be a dash present.

Choose any of the other faction’s icons and there is a totally different screen presented. You will be given an action screen in order to engage in diplomacy. Again, at the beginning of the game, none of these actions are available.

After clicking on any faction’s icon, besides your own, a relationship score is also reflected about how this faction feels about YOU. Just remember that this score doesn’t necessarily reflect how you feel about them.

Faction and race are huge factors. You can take a –7.55 hit on just faction alone.

It is interesting to note that TEC may be more offended by Vasari than the Vasari are offended by the TEC. The same thing applies to faction.

If you listen carefully during the game, you will receive oral notifications that a mission is currently available to you. If you miss it, the Diplomacy icon will be flashing when there is an unviewed mission available.

It doesn’t matter how much a faction despises you. They are still willing to send you missions -- even though at the beginning of the game you cannot send missions to them. But that is going to change shortly.

Research, Research, Research

So this is all fine and dandy, but what can I do RIGHT NOW to start engaging in diplomacy? I am still locked out of the Diplomacy action! Just a bunch of useless book learning up to now!

The easiest thing to do is to start engaging in research.

Before going on, I just want to warn you that research alone probably will not be enough to reach that first goal of a mutual 2.5 for a Trade Alliance, but it’s a great first step.

After building the prerequisite number of Civic Research Stations, go to the Diplomacy Section (under Research) and research consecutively Tier 1 Cultural Relations, Tier 2 Cultural Affinity and Tier 3 Cultural Mastery, both levels.

Cultural Relations will increase your “Self Relationship” by .3.
Cultural Affinity will increase your “Self Relationship” by .3.
Cultural Mastery – Level 1 will increase your “Self Relationship” by .6.
Cultural Mastery – Level 2 will increase your “Self Relationship” by .6.

After researching all of these areas, you have permanently improved your “Self Relationship” with all other factions by 1.8. That’s huge.

So what is “Self Relationship”? This means you have, through much inner contemplation, overcome your own internal prejudices and learned to “like/respect” other races and factions. This is not as easy as it sounds. Have you ever spent the weekend at a Vasari hostel? Their manners. Their eating habits. Don’t even get me started.

They may think you are the best thing since fried Baluvian jumping squid, but before this spiritual meditation and training, you may absolutely hate their guts.

There is a secondary benefit. You have also improved all other factions’ opinion of you by a total of 1.2 -- .2, .2, .4 and .4 respectively.

If another faction also independently conducts this line of research, the Cultural Outreach subcategory can reach 3.0-ish for both parties.

Note: If you look at the icons of Cultural Relations, Cultural Affinity and Cultural Mastery, you will see the duo listing of “Relationship Bonus” and “Self Relationship Bonus.” Now you know what these mean!

Note: Because the terms “relationship,” “your relationship,” “my relationship” can imply a two-way street with regard to feelings, and many of these improvements are only a “one-way street,” I will occasionally use the terms “I like/respect them” or “they like/respect you.” I am not trying to be flippant.

BOUNTY HUNTING, UNIVERSAL NEGOTIATION AND POLITICAL KICKBACKS

So what else can you do RIGHT NOW to improve relationships?

Research Bounty Hunting and then Universal Negotiation, also in the Diplomacy Section of Research.

After researching Bounty Hunting, the Offer Mission icon will be lit and available for use. If it’s not lit, it’s because you have not “made contact” with this faction yet. So be sure to set your scouts to exploring, either by manual direction or by the auto-explore setting.

Universal Negotiation will light up and enable the Give Credits, Give Metal and Give Crystal icons. The description says you can “offer and demand gifts.” “Demand” is a bit of a strong description, as these “demands” will often be denied.

The more the other faction likes you, the more likely they are now willing to give you resources if you request them.

When trying to obtain the best relationship possible, keep giving them resources until you notice your relationship quits improving. Or, a bit more economically, notice when the Resources Given subcategory reaches 3.0.

You can bump this number up to 4.0 by researching Tier 3 Political Kickbacks.
You can bump this up to 5.0 by researching Tier 3 – Level 2 of Political Kickbacks.

This deteriorates over time, so in a real-game situation, you may want to use a bit of timing when giving resources.

So by maxing out research on all of the six diplomatic categories listed above and giving away maximum resources, other factions would like you 6.2 units more BUT you ONLY LIKE THEM 1.8 units more – solely because of the three “cultural” research categories.

Giving away credits doesn’t cause you to like other factions more. That makes plenty of sense.

This is why it is easier to get others to like you than for you to like them.

DEMANDING GIFTS

So this is where the next important step comes in.

You have researched up to six categories of Diplomacy.
You have given away enough resources to max out their feelings of “respect” toward you.

The other factions absolutely adore you. But after all of this, you have only raised your personal “respect” of other factions by 1.8. If you started with a relationship score of -2.0, you are now close to zero and you have 2.5 units to go to form that first trade alliance.

You have got to LIKE them or all is for nought.

Building a large fleet will continue to kick up their respect toward you, but you are still feeling pretty “meh” about your competitors.

That’s why the following is so important.

Even though you may feel “funny” asking for things from strangers, do it! Keep offering “missions” that request other factions to give credits, metal or crystal to YOU – NOT to other factions!

Just keep going from faction to faction asking for credits and see what happens. Keep doing this until you are rejected. If they don’t want to give you actual credits, sometimes they will give you metal or crystal, so shake things up a bit and experiment.

If you have previously done everything suggested above, the other factions should be slobbering all over themselves to make you happy in return and you should receive enough credits to raise your “respect” for them up to 2.5.

When “offering a mission” asking other factions to give you credits, metal or crystal, you should receive a reply as to whether they will accept or reject within about five seconds to ten seconds. The acceptance appears near the bottom of the screen and the denial appears closer to the top of the screen. If you ask a faction to go on a mission to destroy something within, let’s say, 15 minutes, you will not be able to offer another mission to them within that 15-minute period.


After completing a successful Trade Alliance, you should be well on your way.

RECEIVING AND GIVING MISSIONS

Remember to listen for audio clues during the game to notice when missions are available.

Pay attention to when the Diplomacy icon is blinking, indicating a new mission is available.

Be more proactive in rejecting these missions if you cannot or do not wish to fulfill them. If you reject a mission, there is no relationship penalty. If you fail to reject a mission by the half-way point and don’t fulfill it, you will receive a relationship penalty.

Some missions will request the destruction of X number of enemy ships. As you partially fulfill the mission, the “new” number of ships necessary to be destroyed is then listed. (You may not see the mission until you have already halfway accomplished it, so you may “think” the mission was just to destroy two enemy ships.)

It’s helpful to know that any of those tiny construction frigates or trade ships that you can barely see on the screen count as enemy kills. Plus any enemy trade ships destroyed give a small credit to your account!

If you notice two factions are side by side, they are probably fighting for space, even if you haven’t personally observed it. Offer a mission that includes destroying some of their neighbor’s property. Then offer the opposing side the same deal. (They don’t have to know.) The factions may fulfill the mission without even meaning to and you will have a newfound “respect” for them.

What else can you do RIGHT NOW to improve relations?

Attack other factions. Anyone you attack, there is bound to be someone out there who hates them and they often give MASSIVE bonuses in the Military Action category for doing them this “favor”.

You can either do this strategically or just notice the results that occur by happenstance. Because of this, in future games, you may pay less attention to intentionally improving relations and just “see what happens” and then act accordingly.

Attacking a faction will have some negative consequences on your relationship with that particular group, but it can definitely be overcome.

After you have a Trade Alliance with a faction, things can really take off.

Research Tier 1 Neruda Prototype under Diplomacy, then construct and send envoy ships to your trading partners. This will raise your relationship level significantly. You will be absolutely rolling in positive relationship bonuses!

Note: Don’t send envoys before forming a trade alliance or they will be destroyed.

The other factions, on their own, may also send envoys to your colonies. Things will just get better and better!

With all of the moving parts you have helped put in place, hopefully by now you have reached a mutual 4.5 relationship level with one of your neighbors so you can offer a Cease Fire.

On the “hard” setting, this can be the difference between winning and fighting a losing war of attrition on two fronts, driving yourself just a little bit, shall we say, “kuckoo” ferrying your limited troops back and forth, staying up too late at night trying to resolve the, shall we say, “SITUATION,” making mental fatigue errors at work the next day and being just a little bit too rude and – shall we say – “HONEST” with that no-good, lazy, brown-nosing Ms. Sally Know-it-all Two Shoes, winding up in a FRIVILOUS BULL-S*** EEOC investigation, and I mean BULL-S***, getting fired, losing your home and beloved family, then spiraling into a decadent, shifty and morally ambiguous life on the streets with poor Internet reception.

And that’s all I’m saying on the subject.

I will try to add a bit more to this guide as I get more experience with the other pacts that are available, but only after you reach a mutual 10.5 or higher relationship score.

Stay tuned!