Nation Relations

[m4gill4]

Hi, I'm having trouble finding any documentation on relations with the nations in the game, how to influence them, and what effects they have.  I did find a page where somebody mentioned that selling UFOs will improve relations with the buyer while harming them with everyone else.  Other than that, this aspect of the game is a big mystery to me.  Therefore I wonder can any kind soul attempt to answer the following questions?

1.  How do relations affect the player?  What are the benefits of good relations and the drawbacks of poor relations?

2.  Can anyone list the various ways to influence the relations with other countries, whether positively or negatively?  

3.  Is there some documentation of this aspect of the game that I have missed somewhere?

Thanks to anyone who can help answer and also to the developers of this impressive game.

[TallTroll]

1) Better relations = more funding, and more personnel made available at month turnovers. Also, a very unhappy nation may quit the PHALANX project, and ultimately lead to losing the game (nation unhappiness is one of the primary loss mechanisms)

2) Pretty much as you'd expect, conducting successful missions in an area improves relations, failed missions, or ignored missions reduce relations. Selling UFOs to a nation improves relations. Building bases in an area improves relations. There are probably several others too, but those are the major ones, AFAIK

3) Doubt it. Documentation can be a bit thin for lots of things, partly because few people want to spend time writing docs, and partly because the design isn't finalised yet. It is both the blessing and the curse of volunteer projects that just about any aspect can be changed / removed / added at any time. It's not impossible that the factors going in to nation happiness could change, so documenting them probably isn't a huge priority

[m4gill4]

That all makes good sense, thanks for taking the time to answer.  It makes sense not to document things that aren't done yet, in the meantime this thread may well be the only source for that info anywhere on the net.

[DrewfusMaximus]

Near as I can figure, selling a ufo to a 'content' country can up thier happiness, temporarily.  Everyone seems to want one.  What bothers me is who are they selling them to after they leave my possession.  Are they studying them for research, or just selling them back to the Aliens for advanced technology, like antimatter - matter power sources?

What truly disturbes me is that there is just no way of policing the world without building bases everywhere.  I finally had a country go 'neutral' on me, and it was a wake up call that I needed to be more proactive with hunting down and killing UFOs.  I knew it was commiing, because I was 'letting my clock run.'

This drama plays out in much the same way as it did in X-COM : UFO Defense.  The planet stops funding me, I can't build enough bases, even if I wanted to, and I will eventually lose the game.  My only choice would be to go to Mars and destroy thier home base before I lost all political support at home (according to my buddy, who's a veteren player ).

Perhaps a sort of periodical could be instituted in the game to replace the standard Terror site alert mechanism.  You know, something like Star Magazine, or Variety.  That way, one would have to determine the true from the false, and in the process, get more bases going earlier on in the campaign.

Just a thought.