The Importance of Embassies

Yes, I do agree that embassies need bigger roles. Providing a tiny relation boost isn't enough. Using all diplomatic options on the player or AI should require an embassy.  

Great post.  

/signed

I really like these ideas, and I would like them to be explored, and perhaps even expanded upon.  For instance another option to lessen the influence of the people on the economy funding an unpopular war could be through the use of media hubs/propaganda.  What if you could spread propaganda upon your own populace about a specific opposing faction, either positive or negative?  This could be included in the specific research you were suggesting.

Of course this could backfire as when you decide to accept a ceasefire with a faction you have been spreading negative propaganda about. this could also negatively affect income until you change the message in your "propaganda machine".

This would obviously require a more constant monitoring of your planets, your own communication with your populace and the opinion of the people regarding other factions.

I guess what it comes down to is that I think that propaganda should play a larger role in the diplomacy expansion and could be used as a "weapon" against the effects of embassies belonging to other players.

I think abilities for Embassies aren't implemented yet - I recall reading that they were going to have special abilities after you create them.  As to their current immediate benefit, they provide +10% relations with an AI just for dropping one on their planet.

they... also alow some really cool pacts (that dont work atm iirc)

I hope this is true, because as they stand they're quite pointless. When I built my first embassy, I expected some new options to appear if I selected their planet. Hopefully more will come out as the beta continues.

erm... new options appear (err... become not greyed out) on the diplomacy screen.... (assuming you also have required techs)

As far as I can see yes, The only benefit is the 1.00 increase in diplomatic relations and the later ability to have a pact with another empire.  I'm hoping these special abilities are awesome.  Maybe something like "peace talks" which give you a timed ceasefire, allowing you to refortify or focus on another opponent (but ability cannot be actived during combat or when you have military conflict greater than -5.00?)

I think an embassy could be something like an star base, with levels to upgrade. The diplomatic ship would be consumed as well.

There should be also a requirement to build an embassy, like at least being at a truce. Once the embassy has been established, then it can be upgraded to perform certain acts such as the espionage and allegiance stuff. 

The current embassy system has been scrapped in order to give Envoy ships a more long-term role in the game.

I think this is the best solution present. Since the previous add-on gave us these massive starbases to defend our sub-systems, having an embassy over a homeworld that you can customize and upgrade in various ways would be ideal and warrant the $9.99 purchase. Right now, the +1 bonus to relations is *extremely* weak.

Yarlen, are you at liberty to say how the role of the embassy has been incorperated into the Envoy ship? Is it maybe that the ship itself act as a diplomatic link (giving the +1.00 to relations while it's in the gravity well) or that it has an ability to the effect of "Send Diplomat" which acts the same way.  Is the Capital planet still the only planet diplomatic relations can take place at or is it now at a planet by planet basis?  I can understand the change, because once you establish a embassy on everyones world, they ship loses a lot of it's importance (since the counter espionage isn't much more useful than normal culture push and completely useless without the help of culture spread) and the embassy can be easily be nullified by simply transfering your capital  (people would be doing that  constantly in online games I would think).

Basically we came to the same conclusion and in the original design (the ones you guys have), the Envoy cruiser dead-ends itself pretty quickly. So we decided to axe the embassy as it is now as a "fire and forget" mechanic and instead have integrated that into the Envoy cruiser itself as a buff. In the next beta, you'll see/use the Envoy more as an active tool towards accomplishing your diplomatic/strategic goals. You'll be able to put it in opponent's gravity wells and use one of its abilities to slowly increase your relations over time with that faction (for as long as you maintain it), or research a new ability for the Envoy to accomplish some other task (each race's envoys will have different abilities in addition to the basics).

But won't get they get automatically destroyed after the "destroy envoy ability" has been researched as defences/ships will attack them automatically?

Yarlen: Hou about having interactions between the envoy cruisers? Since both have diplomats, the +1 buff could affect the empires of other envoy cruisers in the same gravity well(maybe to a lesser extent).

I also think abilities like armistice would fit in, at least as a race-specific, as an envoy cruiser skill. 

An ability specific to disable other Envoy Cruiser's abilities (Halt Negotiations) would also fit.

I think the Envoy cruisers should be able to engage in a 'warfare' of sorts against each other, only it's not with actual weapons. 

No, all of that stuff has also been removed. You won't want to send an envoy in generally until you have a cease fire agreement in place with the other faction. The immunity is really only there to help protect the envoy from neutral ships it encounters along the way or to get out of a gravity well when things go south diplomatically.

Unfortunately the game doesn't currently support modifying the abilities of ships/structures with researched buffs/debuffs. I'm not convinced that this would be advantageous even if it were possible.