Diplomacy should not be a researched feature

I totally agree. I think its fine to have tech provide bonuses to agreements, bonuses to likability with particular personality types, or increase the chance of gifts from your supplicants. The following should probably not be tech locked.

1) Non Aggression Pact (Temporary)

2) Open Borders (note, that if you don't have this with a empire, destroying their ship within your territory should not be considered a act of war, but decrease relations)

3) Declare War on X

4) Make peace with X

5) Peace Treaty (permanent version of Non Aggression Pact)

6) Military Alliance (go to war for each other, does not qualify for diplomacy victory)

7) Cultural Alliance (game-winning version of alliance)

#7 is the only one I'm okay with being tech-locked. I also think its okay to have a "integration" treaty for minor races that gives you ownership ostensibly, and that can be tech locked too.

I will also reiterate, that I don't think diplomatic trades and agreements should be "absolutist" there should be a chance of rejection from the other party, despite what you offer, and increasing costs for each failure. Techs could then be employed to great effect to improve your chances, the values of trades, etc. and be specific to personality types or morality, making for strategic choices of "Who" you will be good at talking to. As it stands, it is trivial to become beloved by all races simultaneously with the right investments (embassies). 

No.

Going down the political tree shows a political effort more than just researching the treaty itself.

I'm inclined to agree with Ashbury76. From a gameplay point of view it would imbalance the alliance victory and make it too easy to obtain (a problem with galciv) as well as render diplomatic progression a meaningless part of the game as you'd dilute diplomacy research to just 'gain +'x' diplomacy' maybe with an embassy upgrade. 

From a lore / immersion perspective, if you met an alien species, their method of governing would need to be studied in order to have some kind of success. You couldn't just meet an alien species and be like 'hey, hows it going? Let's ally with each other despite knowing nothing about each other's cultures or ways of doing things'.

Take the Altarians. according to the games lore, their planet can't sustain other life forms for long periods of time on their home worlds. If you wanted to set up an embassy there, along with citizens from your own civ, how do they cope? Do they have to leave for periods at a time? Can you develop some form of life support for them? Do you have them operate in a self contained biosphere for these periods? How would they develop policies between species in this way? Without research, you're just sending people to their deaths.

The tech tree and the time it takes to research these things represents that 'getting to know you' stage, along with the logistical elements of drawing up inter-planetary treaties etc. 

I agree with Ashbery here. The entire line would be meaningless if there were not things to work for. 

When it comes to things like Universal Translaters, they should only really work with Civilizations that have already been discovered. They should need recalibrating with new Aliens Civs unless another known Alien Civ can give us the language profile of the newly discovered Civ.

 So, no, you shouldn`t even be able to sign a peace treatry or declare with an unknown, newly discovered Civ (and neither should it)- just be peaceful or go to war until you research the language\culture protocols.

In fact the game tells you when a Civ goes to war with you without a UT, which I think it shouldn`t even do. Just let the Civ attack and the Player to figure it out.

@seafireliv : Cool idea, and I'm all for having to spend research time to speak to any given race, its neat, though, perhaps enabled if one or the other party spends the time.

In general, my issue is that the current system is a system of barter, and an absolutist one, and the only choice you really have to make are research choices. This notably, makes diplomatic victory another version of research victory, and not a fully unique victory type. That is okay it doesn't need to be completely unique, but it is way too heavily linked to research only, at the moment.

My choices, should be both tech, planet developments, and player input/actions. For example a Tech could be "Spiritual Respect" giving me a distinct boost for races with the Spiritual trait, despite being of a different ideology choice. That bonus, shouldn't be 'automatic' though it should enhance the boost I get when I do something for the AI, such as give them a gift.

For example:

Without tech, gift giving grants me +3 relationship points from the race. With that tech, the gift gives +5. Or some such, and modified by other factors such as ideology choice. not just an automatic +1 or +1 per turn to ALL races.

Right now, you choose to do Diplomacy Tech or NOT, and the fact that these bonuses apply to all races is huge. I don't ever to DO anything to make everyone like me, I've never had to give the AI a gift, and he doesn't begrudge me for making EVERY deal perfect trades for ME. I get the right techs, spam embassies, and I can be as genocidal a warlord as much as I like and everyone will love me again within 30 turns, easy.

Naselus has quite rightly pointed out, that the system's values could be adjusted to reduce the absurdity, for example, making Embassies a wonder (they are +X per turn, on a 10 point scale). The scale system alone would improve things, if increased to 20 or 100.

But this still doesn't link diplomacy to player actions.

Why should it be linked to player action? Well I don't have a objective answer to that. Something feels wrong about simply "spending" (directly through trade or by research/planetary structures) to create good will. Real diplomacy and real history is always deeper than that, and I think player's need more interesting choices than "do I need to get new treaty options and diplomacy bonuses, or better lasers right now?".

I'm not precluding the role of techs, but they currently have a super-power status in the equation, when that should really be the place of player actions, such as wars, gifts, respecting borders, and general attitudes in trade (how much you nickle/dime the AI in a trade should give a small bonus or penalty).

Many of us really don't like what is a basic feature in many games, being "teched". For another example, look at military subsidies project, tech locking that did not help anyone wean off of the infamous econ wheel (per planet). 

My 2 cents. Thanks for reading.

What if diplomacy was improved by simply doing diplomatic things? (trade, gifts, etc).

Kind of like an experience system.

This way, xenophobic knuckleheads lag behind, while gregarious hobnobbers gain more "experience" which they can leverage later in the game.

I would like a mini game in Diplomo as well. If you can arbitrate peace say between Altarians and Drengin either through gifts or threats to either than you gain exp and increase kinda like  how you acquire ascension points. You would also need to achieve various set of reqs to win via diplomacy...

• Elected to chair the UP and hold it for X turns.
• Brokered peace between 2 or more factions X number of times or be given exp for doing so.
• Enabled the growth or expansion of a minor race to major status.
• Distributed food and medical supplies to a Major or Minor race affected with plague (would require event trigger, first to get/deliver supplies gets credit, special transports used.)
• Increased UP revenue either through trades or threats.
• Increased trade routes for all UP members.
• Achieved 10,000 diplomacy points.
• Allied 4 majors, 1 of which MUST have opposing ideology. 

Lots of ideas here to improve diplomacy. It is  noted I am NOT a game coder and I have no idea how hard this would be to implement. 

As others have stated, it makes sense that a civilization would need to do some research into alien diplomacy. It's not a case of literacy but rather one of figuring out what makes other civilizations tick. That being said, the diplomacy system does need some work and if rumors are true it will be addressed in the 1.5 update.

It still wouldn`t work with a new alien Civ that you`ve never met. Like some have said, it`s not just about literature or even understanding trading. It`s about understanding how an Alien society works.

For instance, just approaching an Alien civilization for the first time could be very dangerous. Then you have to somehow tell it you want to trade. How would you do that without knowing if you`ve offended it? Throw gifts at it? It might take your approaching and the leaving of strange objects as a surprise attack and immediately kill your emissaries. Or it may be hugely insulted because of your etiquette which is opposite of theirs or vice versa. What you consider correct behaviour may be total different to them, hence Alien.That`s just the tip of the first contact iceberg.

That`s why diplomacy should be carefully researched with Alien races  (in my opinion it should be with each new Race met) before you can even stretch out your Human hand in greeting without it being cut off!

On a side note, I`m always amazed how people always imagine Aliens through Human eyes, expecting them to be like Humans but with funny heads, Startrek style, when the reality would likely be very, very different.

*changes topic*

is it just me or is my universal translator broken??