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[Rolan7]

Diplomacy, bane of all 4x-types.  Most of it comes down to either: Stupidly exploitable only by the player or everyone hates the player over the smallest things.

Here's hoping for "stupidly exploitable by the player".  Then we can do the cool stuff we want with less pressure to play optimally.

[Zangi]

Diplomacy, bane of all 4x-types.  Most of it comes down to either: Stupidly exploitable only by the player or everyone hates the player over the smallest things.

Here's hoping for "stupidly exploitable by the player".  Then we can do the cool stuff we want with less pressure to play optimally.

Ah right, I suppose I forgot to add in the word 'only' before the by.  (Even in CKII, patches seem to have pushed back on the stupidly exploitable part overtime...)
Which is probably the main reason why devs like to swing it the other way when they can't properly do AI diplo and/or want to make things revolve around the player.

[Azazass]

There is a good chance Federations will work similar to the United Planets in GC, mixed with elements from the Crusades and Coalition mechanics. Maybe waging war against other members of a federation is forbidden or you get some penalties, the other members join the side of who they like more and you full blown civil war in the federation.

And what do you folks think of multiple Federations, are they possible? Will their interaction be only limited to constant war-footing, could they merge? Will the federation represent your nation in all diplomatic interaction with rival federations or could you lead a somewhat independent stance but still be part of a federation?

A war between two large and heavily armed federations should be fun.

[Teneb]

Federations might be the HRE in space, too. I also suppose there is no reason there can't be more than one.

[gimli]

Federations sound interesting. Basically a federal fleet builds ships based on all the best part available to all the member races, potentially thus being much more powerful per ship than the species-spesific fleets. The presidency is circulated among the member species and the president controls the federal fleet.

I think that would be very interesting dynamic in multiplayer if there is intra-federal plotting going, but at the same time some unity required against external foes.

It sounds great for sure....on a side note..hopefully PD will be able to create a good AI [The EU4 AI is bad, the CK2 AI is slightly better] finally, because if the AI will be crap in this game as well..diplomatic options like this will be used as yet another tool to exploit the AI.

And what do you folks think of multiple Federations, are they possible?

Sure, why wouldn't that be possible?

[Majestic7]

Federations are supposed to be dynamic, sort of next-step alliance. Like vassalships in EU4, just with more equality and stuff. Plus yeah, of course there will be multiple federations if the dice fall that way.

[jocan2003]

The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!

[Urist McScoopbeard]

The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!

I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?

[forsaken1111]

The cards just denoted available actions. You spent influence to gain those actions, representing back room deals and political pressure. You could even gain 'intel' actions by spying on other people, which represented you threatening to reveal awkward or embarrassing secrets about them unless they help you.

[Firgof Umbra]

The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!

I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?

Sure, but it'll always be an abstract representation if you follow that system.  If you're looking for something 'more immersive' then it's going to take a whole lot of work and extra detail to justify how you picked up 'Leverage' on another Empire - and why you can't use that outside of the political sphere to damage their empire rather than just use their voice against them in a vote; also, why you only get a certain number of usages of it.  Then we get into 'and who is this mysterious person who put up said leverage' and 'how do we know how damaging it is to that empire without seeing it - and if we're seeing it, how is that not already damaging them'.  Why is the damage only constrained to a vote?  Etc.  The rabbit hole of justifications for such a system goes on for some time and would just clutter an otherwise very simple, easy to use and read, system.

Easier to just drop all the babbling, sometimes nonsense/unjustified pretext and call them what they are: Cards/Actions.  Some game mechanics are game mechanics that you can only partially justify at the best of times.  Why does shooting that particular guy in the face suddenly make you better at reloading; why does discovering a location sometimes allow you to carry heavier weaponry?  Because we suspend our disbelief because we like the XP-leveling-and-choosing-benefits system.

[jocan2003]

The cards just denoted available actions. You spent influence to gain those actions, representing back room deals and political pressure. You could even gain 'intel' actions by spying on other people, which represented you threatening to reveal awkward or embarrassing secrets about them unless they help you.

Exactly, i supposer i could have been clearer(explained better?)It was really in-dept and ranging from bonus to your planet for a while, to renaming a flagship for bonuses to stealing artifact or enforcing non-combat zone or making some planets immune to attacks or some action allowed militia type reinforcement boosting your passive ship creation, now that imtalking about it i feel like firing up the game again dammit...

[jocan2003]

The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!

I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?

Sure, but it'll always be an abstract representation if you follow that system.  If you're looking for something 'more immersive' then it's going to take a whole lot of work and extra detail to justify how you picked up 'Leverage' on another Empire - and why you can't use that outside of the political sphere to damage their empire rather than just use their voice against them in a vote; also, why you only get a certain number of usages of it.

Easier to just drop all the babbling pretext and call them what they are: Cards/Actions.

So what o.O? It is still a lot better than 99% of the other game. Isnt good enough for you just because it is abstract? Im trying to understand.

[Firgof Umbra]

For some people, no, that isn't good enough.  It hurts their immersion by it existing and therefore they'd rather it be removed as they put their immersion's importance up there next to game-play.

For more of my thoughts on this, specifically regarding how Star Ruler 2 was received, feel free to unhide the spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We got a lot of people who were annoyed that our UI was colorful, that linking planets together to create supply lanes was too simplistic and reductionist [though we actually do have justifications for it], etc.  Beyond that, some people refuse to play the game because there is no human race available in it -- despite it taking place in a galaxy far removed from our own and despite there being a 'distant descendants of humanity' race.

Some people who are in to 4X are in to it because they like the simulationy/roleplaying side more than the war-gaming side - or are wanting a very specific experience which conforms to exacting expectations.
SR2 eschews a lot of junk it could've used to 'justify that it was a simulation'.  It embraces the fact that it is a war-game; that you are playing one; that the other Empires aren't playing to 'exist' or reach some arbitrary goal, they're playing to win; to crush all other Empires under their heel victoriously (though they will surrender and become vassals to other Empires if they feel they can't win without an ally)
It doesn't have Empires which yack idly at you - it has "Artificial Players" who we have programmed to play the game as if they were other human opponents.  If you want to know how they feel about you and why, you hover over a mask in the diplo. tab and you get an exact breakdown.
It doesn't have "Laser Mk I" and "Laser Mk II" - we straight up just increase the damage on a Laser subsystem percentage-wise and call that out in the techweb.
Because of all that, it is more difficult to show its appealing sides to the people in to the more Sim/RP side of 4X; they find it hard to look past how 'dry' it is and how streamlined its mechanics are (despite those same mechanics also being just as complex as any other 4X and other mechanics being even more complex if a little more hands-off).

Also, though I appreciate the compliment I had a hand in designing the system in question (I even made the card art for it); it's certainly good enough for us and I'd argue is good for the genre itself - given how utterly stagnant and banal the Civ model of Diplomacy has become.  I'm just attempting to shed light on why some people may think differently on what you're discussing.

[sambojin]

Much of why I liked the diplomacy system in Stars! There wasn't one.

It would have been massively complicated against the AI, far more-so than most games in this genre.

Against other humans, and MP was where the game really shone, it was perfect. Because diplomacy and agreements were made through negotiations and messaging, not arbitrarily bound to a system. Non-abstracted diplomacy at its finest.

But in a game where you're expected to interact with the AI on some vaguely meaningful level, yeah. Things at some point have to be abstracted. Whether it's cards (abstract diplomacy: SR2), options presented (hopefully with the AI having a "reasonable but wanting to win" and not "chaos-neutral" attitude towards things, even though the player will: Civ/MoO series), buttering up and alliances (Paradox style: EUIV/CK2) or even just the other participants acting "in character" (some people are for/against some things: Alpha Centauri), there has to be abstraction at some point.

Stars! worked well against other humans, because there was no framework to be burdened by. It didn't even bother with the AI. You were at war with them, and that was that.

At least you both knew where you stood diplomatically. AI is damn hard to program, especially the diplomacy and "memory of past actions" part, even more-so if massive wars are meant to be forgiven for the sake of peace and diplomacy sometimes.

[Retropunch]

I don't see what the argument is - at some point it will HAVE to be abstracted unless Paradox have come up with some sort of AI diplomacy machine. All game systems are abstracted. More than that, diplomacy benefits greatly from being abstracted as having it too statistical makes choices bland and too straightforward.

But in a game where you're expected to interact with the AI on some vaguely meaningful level, yeah. Things at some point have to be abstracted. Whether it's cards (abstract diplomacy: SR2), options presented (hopefully with the AI having a "reasonable but wanting to win" and not "chaos-neutral" attitude towards things, even though the player will: Civ/MoO series), buttering up and alliances (Paradox style: EUIV/CK2) or even just the other participants acting "in character" (some people are for/against some things: Alpha Centauri), there has to be abstraction at some point.

I'd love to see a mix of those. Covert/intelligence operations would give you 'cards' you could play, whilst the options presented in diplomacy would be sensible, reasonable and not binary. Similarly, I'd hope for a similar standing system to CK2 (attacking someone just for the sake of it would be bad, casus belli and all that), characters that follow their motives, and some interesting alliance options.

Whilst it sounds like a lot, I feel that it's been severely neglected in 4x games. I'm really hopeful though, as if anyone can do it - paradox can.