I finally formed an alliance with another race, the Draguul, after a lot of hard work, gift giving, and "serenity". I even successfully got them to agree to go to war against the Sulak who were harassing my survey and outpost ships. So far, so good. Since I was far ahead in all categories, I tried to help them out. They would typically accept my gifts of BC, but not always. What was most surprising was when I tried to gift them a titan, a ship which far surpassed anything else in the galaxy. Their response is was surprised me: "That piece of junk? I'm sure there must be a mistake. Oh it's confirmed? No thanks." "Are you serious? That Titan is worthless to us. I'm afraid we must decline" (missing a period . at end of this by the way) I found this hilarious, but the AI probably shouldn't look a gift titan in the mouth. Especially when their fleet strength is 4 out of 5 and they are my ally.
The AI should be very receptive when they are Congenial towards you. Refusing an offer can happen though, as it was in this case. Do you expect the AI to never refuse an offer for ships? In the same turn they will probably refuse it no matter how many times you try to offer it. However, I suspect they would take the Titan on a next opportunity. Also, accepting a Titan means +7SSP to support. I'm just throwing some thoughts about this.
Thanks for the thoughts, Adam. Here are my counterpoints: You are correct, there are situations where refusing them makes sense. The primary decision to accept a ship should be based on how much the ship will impact their overall fleet strength. If they have a powerful fleet already, and I am offering a frigate, yes they should decline. Another, smaller, factor on whether to accept should be based on if they are at war and if their opponent has a superior fleet. In this case, they were both at war and wielding an inferior fleet to their adversary in war. The Sulak had a significantly superior fleet and the Draguul could have used the help I was offering. The titan could have won the war for them single-handedly and would have dramatically increased their fleet strength (as it did mine, see my Alpha 1b impressions post on this game session). View attachment 941 Also, in this case, what I offered was the most advanced ship in the galaxy, a titan when no one else has one. They should definitely find a way to accept it. If SSP is an issue, they should scrap smaller useless ships like frigates and destroyers to afford it. The AI currently hordes way too many of these later in the game anyway. If it only puts them at -1 or -2 SSP, and they have enough BC, they could also just eat the -10 or -20 BC per turn loss and accept it anyway. In this case the AI had around 7 frigates and 7 destroyers they could have scrapped. Note: As their ally, I can't see their SSP or any of their info. Should some of this info be shared with allied races?
Good points. The SSP issue could be overcome, so this should probably be an offer they couldn't refuse, even taking pride in the equation.
Also I added a note in an edit. Not sure if you saw before replying or not, but what are your thoughts on allies sharing some "deep cover" type information? I hate to spy on my ally to find out how many SSP he has free.
Would there be an issue of accepting, if they did not have the tech? In civ, they could not even capture a unit that they could not build. If they did not know how to build cannons or bombers, the units would just be auto destroyed. Does the AI have the ability to decided to accept, if lacking the SSP and the make adjustments?
The main factor to how the AI decides to accept or refuse an offer is mostly based on their attitude towards the player. Going forward they should also take into account other factors, like SSP, for example. Even if they lack the tech, the AI could accept an offered Titan at the moment.
Yes... and need should play a role as well. In this case that ship would have been a godsend. Value as well, my take is that it was priceless for the AI as nothing could have stood up to it. But I know there is only so much you can do with the time you have before release, and the "to do" list just keeps growing.
