Diplomacy

Diplomacy can secure a border, strengthen your Credits income, or deny a wealthy rival the trade it needs to finish an economic victory.

Status: non-aggression pacts, Trade Agreements, and alliances are available now, alongside Galactic Council elections and diplomatic victory.

Managing diplomacy

You handle all of this from the diplomacy panel in-game. It opens to a relations list — every civilisation you’ve met, with its current standing (anywhere from open war to a full alliance), your relation score, and a trend arrow showing which way things are heading. Tap a civilisation to open its detail view: a shared-history timeline, the treaties currently in force between you, and any standing offers.

From there you can:

• Propose a treaty — choose a non-aggression pact, a trade agreement, or an alliance, set how long the offer remains open, and send it.
• Answer an offer — accept it, reject it, or counter with another offer.
• Declare war or break a treaty — both ask you to confirm first, and spell out the relations cost before you commit. Declaring war also clears any unanswered offers between you and that civilisation: you can’t accept an old peace offer from someone you’ve just gone to war with, and they can’t accept yours.

The panel adapts to your screen: a bottom sheet on a phone, a slide-in panel on a tablet, a docked rail on desktop.

Relations

Every civilisation tracks a relation score with every other, from open hostility to close alliance. Relations settle toward neutral when nothing is happening; events push them up or down:

• Border closeness: small negative drift (proximity breeds tension).
• Successful trades: positive drift over time.
• Won battles against them: negative drift.
• Shared enemies: positive drift.
• Faction-specific bonuses can make trust easier or harder to build.

Relations show whether a partnership is improving or deteriorating. The current panel lets you propose any available treaty while the two sides are not at war.

How rival civilisations judge you

Computer-controlled civilisations don’t all think alike. Each one has a personality that shapes how it reads the galaxy — and how it reads you.

What makes you look threatening

Every rival leader is constantly weighing five things about your empire:

• Shared borders. Colonies pressed up against theirs are the oldest cause of war in the galaxy. The closer and more crowded the frontier, the more nervous they get.
• Military muscle. A fleet much stronger than theirs is a threat even if it never moves. Rough parity is tense; overwhelming force is alarming.
• Diverging research. Civilisations that research the same fields feel familiar and trade well. One whose science went a completely different direction is unpredictable — and unpredictable reads as dangerous.
• History. Broken treaties, declared wars, and attacked fleets are remembered. Honoured deals and steady trade slowly buy that history back — but never at full price. Betrayal is always remembered longer than kindness.
• Economic momentum. A civilisation approaching the Credits target is no longer just a good customer. Rivals may reserve more of their own Credits, refuse a new Trade Agreement, or break an existing one to slow the leader.

Personalities

How heavily each of those five weighs depends on who you’re dealing with:

• A warlord watches your borders and your fleets, holds grudges for generations, and assumes the worst about everything in between.
• A recluse mostly wants space. Stay off its doorstep and it barely notices you; settle next door and it never relaxes again.
• A merchant cares about your track record above all. It forgives quickly when forgiving is profitable — but beware: the friendlier a merchant acts, the more carefully you should count its warships.

Postures

Based on that judgement, each rival settles into a stance toward you: friendly trader (seeks deals, avoids conflict), cautious competitor (trades with one hand, garrisons the border with the other), or hostile aggressor (openly preparing for war).

Stances shift gradually. A single tense turn won’t flip a friend into an enemy — but a real invasion fleet on their doorstep will, instantly. And climbing back down is always slower than escalating: once you’ve made a rival hostile, expect to spend many quiet, well-behaved turns earning your way back to civility. Distance heals, trade heals, time heals — just not quickly.

Influence

Influence is your empire’s political reserve. A larger stockpile gives you more delegates in the Galactic Council. It’s produced by:

• The Vanguard Nomads’ faction bonus (+10%).
• The Founders’ Beacon.
• Research (Xenolinguistics and each faction’s diplomacy path improve influence production).

Every 50 influence adds one delegate, and holding at least 75 completes the Council’s influence-reserve objective for one more. Influence is only one part of a delegation, so a large reserve cannot replace population, trust, and working relationships on its own.

Current treaty proposals do not spend Influence.

Treaty types

Three treaty types are available:

Non-aggression pact

Both sides formalise a peaceful relationship. Breaking it damages relations.

Useful when you’re focused on a different border and don’t want a second front.

Trade agreement

While the agreement is active, both sides receive the same fixed percentage increase to the Credits they earn that turn. A newly accepted deal starts paying during the following economy step. The agreement also strengthens each partner’s Council delegation.

Useful for funding Trade Hubs and building toward an economic victory, but the benefit always flows both ways. A computer-controlled partner can refuse or break the agreement when your wealth becomes a threat.

Alliance

The strongest current treaty. An alliance improves relations and gives each partner a larger Council bonus than an ordinary treaty. Allies still cast their own ballots: an alliance helps a coalition, but it never awards victory by itself and does not force partners to vote together. Keep watching an ally’s fleets, income, and victory progress.

The Galactic Council

The Council unlocks on turn 80. The first election unfolds across three turns:

1. Turn 80 — nominations. Any surviving civilisation with at least four delegates and a non-hostile average reputation may stand as a candidate.
2. Turn 81 — commitments. Each civilisation can publicly promise its delegates to a candidate or announce that it will abstain. The panel totals these promises into a projected result and warns you if a rival is on course to win.
3. Turn 82 — ballots. Each civilisation votes for a candidate or abstains. The ballot, not the earlier promise, decides the result.

If nobody wins, another election follows every eight turns, with nominations and commitments reopening before each ballot.

How delegates are counted

Every surviving civilisation receives two base delegates, then gains more from the state of its empire when the Council meets:

• one delegate for every five population;
• one for every 50 influence;
• one for every 20 points of positive average reputation;
• one for each active treaty, plus two more for each distinct alliance; and
• one for each Council objective completed: reach 10 population, hold 75 influence, maintain an average reputation of 25, keep two active treaties, or maintain an alliance.

Eliminated civilisations contribute no delegates, cannot stand, and cannot vote. Several allies may support the same candidate, but their alliances are counted separately and every civilisation still controls its own delegation.

Winning the election

A candidate needs at least 67% of all eligible delegates, not merely 67% of votes cast. That makes abstention consequential: delegates that abstain still raise the threshold, but support nobody. A tied ballot elects no one, and a leading candidate below the threshold also fails.

Commitments are public forecasts, not binding contracts. A civilisation may promise support and then vote for somebody else—or abstain—when ballots open. The final result identifies these betrayals, so read the projected totals as a warning rather than a guarantee. Computer-controlled rivals can negotiate, form alliances, stand for election, make commitments, vote, abstain, and break their promises too.

Strategy

Four principles:

1. Open with non-aggression. A quiet border gives relations time to recover and creates the first link in a Council coalition.
2. Build trust and ladder up. Move from non-aggression to trade to alliance. Population and influence give you delegates, but poor average relations can keep you off the ballot.
3. Watch the economic race. A Trade Agreement can be worth keeping while both partners are developing, then become dangerous when one approaches the Credits target.
4. Treat projections as provisional. Secure more promised delegates than the displayed threshold and keep alternatives ready in case an ally changes its vote.

Faction notes

• Vanguard Nomads favour mobility, exchange, and influence, making them a natural choice for a treaty-heavy opening.
• Nyx Collective can protect its research plans by turning a tense border into a stable relationship.
• Orion Hegemony benefits from keeping its diplomatic commitments focused while its fleets pressure a different frontier.
• Terran Directorate can use reliable production to support both commercial infrastructure and diplomatic flexibility.