Yadda Yadda Yadda, look two up
Hi Ser, first of all: BIG FAN!
Thanks! It means a lot!
Now, it's true that I may be misreading it, so would love a clarification from Steve, but the way I read this bit:
If diplomatic relations are above the hostile level (-100), then even a single point of damage through combat will reduce relations to that point.
This seems to me that ANY point of damage is enough to bring relations from +whatever to -100 instantly. This means that a fully maxed out alliance would instantly turn into total war if a single shot is exchanged between the two of you.
Since -100 is Total War, this means instant hostilities, which means mines trigger on that empire. Mines means uncontrolled damage to any civilian shipping in the area. Which means more negative diplo rep. Now you have to start digging, but the AI is at war. It wants to start attacking you. So you now have to fight off attacks, dealing more damage, causing further diplo losses.
However a period of mutual non-interaction following a small clash will probably return the diplomatic status to neutral.
HOW, exactly, are we supposed to not engage in hostilities if the AI is sending attacks at out colonies? How are we supposed to dig our way out of -200 or -300 diplo points before the AI sends another attack, especially if they're right next door?
That's why I suggested having ship damage not reduce diplo rep if you're already at war - to give you a chance to dig your way out of it, without self-defense heaping more negative rep onto you.
1) even if you drop a colony it will not be enough for the AI to bails out and it will take for you several years before reaching a level where the AI is leaving the place and good luck with your commercial and or logistic effort in getting that colony going with all the AI sparrows around.
2) this is the most likely scenario you are going to face and honestly, I believe is quite accurate. You are pretty much trying to form Israel in Palestine. We all know how this ends.
3) it will not work as per the first mechanic and also for the one discussed at the beginning.
1) Entirely true, but something you have to deal with and hope you have enough positive diplo coming in to counteract the refused demands in the meantime. Also beyond what I'm talking about because the ideal outcome is no war at all.
2) we agree with.
3) This not working is exactly what I'm talking about - You can't shoot any of their ships without triggering total, empire-wide war.
Steve and you mentioned "Small Clash" and "Small Skirmish". There IS no "small" anything when any damage causes war, which causes the AI to send ships at you from everywhere that you then have to blow up. Every dip below -100 that doesn't IMMEDIATELY get back above -100 and out of hostilities will snowball, especially if there's trade and minefields.
I'm willing to give C# a shot as Steve has it and see if I'm misunderstanding the post, or if there are other mechanics that he hasn't mentioned that already deal with this issue, but this is a serious concern for me - that any damage between ships, no matter how small or insignificant in the grand scheme of things, between even the longest and strongest of allies, is going to ultimately descend into total annihilation of one of the two parties, and no way for the player to resolve this.
I mean... it won't stop me from playing it and purging them anyway if I have to, long-time allies or not... but it's still something I'd like to see with a proper solution and I think my local/global + NPR target rep is a good mechanism to fix that problem if Steve doesn't have something better in mind.