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Chapter 8: Diplomacy

Give a Little, Take a Little

Being a Bastard
Then there's evil. Here's the setup for being a bastard. Let's say there is a rival faction living right next door to your empire. You're pretty confident its military is weak, yet it may still have a ton of valuable research to trade that could improve your economy and build up your cities. A real bastard would enter into a Pact of Brotherhood, putting on the nice guy act as thick as possible, giving the faction whatever it asks for. In turn, you demand all sorts of technologies and on the face of it, everyone is in a win-win situation. When you feel you've bled the faction dry of anything useful, terminate the pact, announce a vendetta, and wipe the faction off the face of Planet. Congratulations, you are now a bastard!

Being a Bigger Bastard
Here's the setup for being a bigger bastard. You've been involved in skirmishes with a rival faction. At first, it was full of hot air, making one threat after another, until finally full-scale war broke out. Fortunately, you're mopping the faction up, taking over one city after another. Eventually, that faction will hail you into some diplomacy, usually offering energy or technologies to bring an end to the conflict. It is here that you put on the nice guy act, accepting the trade. Once you have your bribe technologies, you renew the war and squash the faction!

Buying Votes
Once you have the hailing frequency of a faction, you can call them up and attempt to buy its vote in a coming council meeting. This is usually not cheap, but the payoff can be huge if the vote goes in your favor. The amount of votes you receive from a rival faction is directly related to how big that faction's bases are. The larger a faction is, the more votes it has at its disposal. It is for this reason that you shouldn't trade too much to a small faction whose vote tally may not be enough to be significant.

Begging for Energy
There may be those times when your energy credits are running perilously low. Your only alternative at this point is to call up a rival faction and grovel for energy credits. Once you open this door, you must decide how to grovel. There are several alternatives, and these alternatives hold true for all diplomatic relations, not just energy credits:

1. Offer to make loan payments
2. Offer your goodwill and friendship
3. Let the faction name their price
4. Threaten military action
5. Offer some research data

If the faction in question has energy to spare, offering to make loan payments is the best alternative you have. Goodwill and friendship is a worthy alternative, but don't expect it to work with Yang or Santiago, as they don't value the concept of friends as much as Deirdre or Miriam.

Next - Council Meetings
 
 

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