Posts: 5,114
Threads: 112
Joined: Nov 2007
Argh! My Humans also started out furious with me (at Discord) when I met them, just a couple years later than you. My guess at the time was, they kept taking offense as I grabbed new worlds and/or increased in population, and due to their Honorableness doubling diplo penalties, time didn't carry them far enough back toward Relaxed by the time I met them. Now I'm not so sure though; the honorable Psilons were neutral when I met them many years (and much unchecked expansion) later, and you didn't expand nearly as rapidly as I did: The Humans met you in 2347 when they took Imra. Thanks to maxing Maalor first and beelining Range 5 as soon as I discovered Artemis, I met them in 2349, having long since taken Imra myself, when I took Kailis! I wonder if our skyrocketing production (due to Maalor's URness) caused the relations penalties....
In any case, it was definitely bad luck having the Psilons vote against you. As for feedback and suggestions:
As Sargon pointed out, more rapid expansion - which in this case, with our corner start, meant pushing for propulsion quickly - would have helped a lot; with this crazy start and careful population management, it was possible to get a veto by the first election (which is insane) and it's always good to get that first election out of the way ASAP anyway (by planting your flag all over the place) - hopefully before all the AI races have even met your election opposition. Once you were at war with Lasitus and met the rocks and brains, you might also have tried asking your not-enemies to declare war on the Humans (and of course to bomb Human worlds if you could) - AIs are usually happy to go to war with anything and everything, long before they're ready to make NAPs, and giant galactic wars are always a good way to keep council votes from lining up the wrong way! (Heh.) Also note that NAP requests require at least Relaxed (or, according to Sargon, at least nearly-Relaxed) relations to succeed. On the other hand, AIs will sometimes propose things that you couldn't get them to accept when it's "your idea." That's how I made peace with the Humans before the 2375 election in fact: I persuaded Lasitus to come to me with an offer of peace, via gunboat diplomacy!
