Diplomacy¶
Diplomacy is the non-combat way to deal with factions: open relations, complete deals to raise standing, and progress through three relationship tiers that unlock rewards. It runs in parallel with Rival Colonies; you can use both.
Where to find it
Open your roster with the G key and click the Diplomacy tab.
Each known faction is a row showing its current standing and any offered
deals.
Opening relations¶
Before you can deal with a faction, you have to be on speaking terms. There are two ways relations open:
- They send an envoy to you. Friendly and neutral factions occasionally send a diplomatic envoy that appears near your town hall. Right-click it to hear them out and accept — relations open on the spot.
- You send an envoy to them. On the Diplomacy tab, press Send Envoy for a faction. You can attach a gift (it's taken from your inventory and earns a little goodwill). After about a day, they reply: if your standing is high enough, relations open. If not, they decline — but asking costs you nothing except the gift.
Race matters
Some factions are picky about who they'll deal with. The Holy Empire and its allies court humans readily but will never reach out to a majin — if you've gone down the majin path, you'll have to send your own envoy, and they're a harder sell. A few factions (schemers and the truly aloof) never send envoys at all, but may still open relations if you make the first move.
Deals: the heart of diplomacy¶
Once relations are open, a faction offers deals — tasks in exchange for items and standing. Each faction offers tasks themed to it, and completing deals is the main way standing rises.
A deal asks for one of:
| The faction wants… | You fulfil it by… |
|---|---|
| Supplies (e.g. 64 iron, a food bundle) | Pressing Deliver on the tab — the items are taken from your inventory |
| A building at a certain level (e.g. a Library L3) | Building/upgrading it in your colony |
| A population (e.g. 15 citizens) | Growing your colony to that size |
| Happiness (e.g. average ≥ 7) | Keeping your colonists content |
| Lent citizens (see below) | Sending some colonists to work for them a while |
Every deal has a deadline. Complete it in time and you collect the reward and a bump in standing; let it expire and your standing takes a hit (failing stings more than never accepting in the first place). You'll see a progress bar on the active deal, and a faction's row shows its current deal at a glance.
Lending citizens¶
Some deals ask you to lend a few citizens with a particular skill. When you accept, a picker opens so you choose exactly who goes. Those colonists leave your workforce for the agreed time — their jobs genuinely go unstaffed, so it's a real cost — and when the deal pays off, they come home trained, returning with that skill noticeably higher than when they left.
Your citizens are never lost
Lent colonists are always returned safely — even if the deal is interrupted, the colony they came from is gone (they'll join another colony you own), or relations break down mid-loan (they come straight home, untrained but unharmed).
Relationship tiers¶
Relations progress through three tiers, each unlocking more.
The entry tier. You can take deals and trade. Earned standing decays slowly while the relationship is idle (no active or in-progress deal), and a large enough drop in standing ends relations. An active relationship does not decay.
Reached by completing a faction's Alliance Pact deal, offered once your standing with it is high. An alliance survives standing drops that would end Diplomacy, and unlocks:
- No raids from the faction — its monster events won't target your colony.
- An alliance buff — an ambient effect themed to the faction (Dwargon Haste, Tempest Regeneration, Luminous Resistance, etc.), active while the alliance holds.
- A daily trade caravan — claim a bundle of that faction's items once per day.
- Caravan Home — teleport to your town hall.
The top tier. After Alliance, standing rises slowly toward a Covenant threshold; crossing it unlocks the faction's unique milestone deal. Completing it forms the Covenant and grants that faction's unique reward, for example:
- Dwargon — a daily generator of industrial goods, plus a masterwork forging recipe.
- Milim — the Drago Nova, a one-use area blast (once per real-world hour).
- Luminous — starter elemental spirits (only if you have none).
- Falmuth — stronger faction reinforcements during raids.
- Clayman — advance notice of incoming raids, and a tame Orc Disaster to kill without penalty.
Covenant also reduces supply-deal costs and increases raid reinforcements.
Two ways to a faction's skill
Each faction teaches a Tensura skill as the reward for its hardest deal. You can earn it through diplomacy, or by conquering that faction's settlement — both grant the same skill.
Ending relations¶
Two things end relations:
- Decay — idle Diplomacy-tier relations decay and can lapse. Alliances decay much more slowly, but a fully abandoned one eventually breaks.
- Standing crash — a large drop in standing (e.g. killing one of the faction's marked bosses, or declaring war on it) resets relations to none, cancels active deals, and returns lent citizens.
The Rite of Atonement¶
If a faction is pushed far enough that it refuses to deal with you at all, it offers one deal while in that state: the Rite of Atonement. It costs a tribute of diamonds plus the sacrifice of your strongest named subordinate (the subordinate must be present). Completing it reopens relations at the lowest standing — you restart from near zero rather than recovering the prior relationship. It is repeatable; each performance costs another subordinate.
Quick reference¶
- Open the Diplomacy tab: press
G, then click Diplomacy. /diplomacy— shows your current relations and active deals for every faction.- Reroll offers: if you don't like a faction's current deals, the tab has a reroll button that swaps them for a few high magic crystals (with a cooldown).
- The entire faction layer — diplomacy included — can be turned off in the config if you'd rather build in peace.
Want the full list of factions and their flavour?
See the Factions reference and the Quest Catalog.