Diplomatic Victory is mostly meant as an alternative way to play FFA games. When you turn it on, the goal becomes to earn a certain number of victory points (75 * number of players). What it does is sum up your total relations modifiers across all the other players (or if you prefer to think of it another way, takes all your positive relations and negatives, then compares). If the result is positive, meaning you have more positive relations than negative total, your points go up. If it's negative, they go down. The higher the number in each direction, the faster you'll gain or lose points.

You can view progress towards victory in two places:

1) In the old treaties screen, select yourself and there's new general rankings for your empire which will tell you your placement in diplomacy points (if you're 1st, or 3rd, whatever).

2) In the new diplomacy screen, the current number of earned points is displayed under the main portrait in the middle.

Rejecting missions is a welcome addition, since in an FFA you only take a small standings hit for doing so, compared to failing one. Relations rewards from missions work quite differently now, so failing a mission is Very Bad. The rewards are no longer cumulative, and your "relations from missions" modifier is the outcome of the last mission. If you succeeded, your modifier is +3 (or whatever that mission type awards on victory, +3 is most common). If you failed, it's -1.5 (or again, whatever the mission was set on). That means if you succeed on a mission and then fail the next you will lose 4.5 total relations with that player since you'll go from +3 to -1.5. So if you get a mission you really can't or don't want to do, rejecting it instead will just incur a small but cumulative penalty. Rejecting a mission while at 0 (beginning of the game) will not move you into negatives.

Beat them to it, screw with their envoys to deny them a pretty large positive boost.

You can see where other players are getting their Diplomacy Points by clicking on their name on the list on the left side of the new Diplomacy window.

I just played a game, and had a computer player win by diplomacy.  I noticed that all the computer players had a +10 boost to my relations with them.  Meaning they got points as if I was an ally, but they hated me so I got no points.  I'm not sure if this is intended to balance something, perhaps computers can't give missions to each other.  It mainly just bothered me that I couldn't do anything about it.  If I failed missions or attacked them, they hated me more but I still loved them.

What is the function of "Allied Victory"? Does it mean you have to be allied with a certain number of players before you can win Diplomaic victory?

Thanks My manual for diplomacy does not open so I am fumbling through the learning curve, I am also trying to figure out what all the different factors on the Relationship infocard stem from, like what "Diplomatic Inclination" at the top is calculated from. Is there a good resource online that explains these?

Diplomatic Inclination is just a random number assigned at the start of the game that never changes. It can go from -2 to +2, always in 0.5 increments. Most of the others are pretty self explanatory. Racial relations is -1 between Vasari and Advent/TEC, -2 between Advent and TEC, +1 between same race. Mission bonus and mission rejection scores relate to the missions AIs give you. Fleet Strength compares the relative power of your fleet to theirs, can go from -3 to 0. The stronger the AI's fleet is compared to yours, the lower the score will be. Then there's resource donations score, Envoy bonus score, and the basic relations score that goes from 0 to 3 when you research the +1 relations techs.

I've only seen a "-0.00" for Rejected Missions, probably because its a negative value too small to be shown with two decimal places.

As to how Envoy Bonuses can be negative, I'm at a loss.

thanks! great info!

Huldu you do the missions to achieve neutrality first, I dont know of any other way to approuch for an ally. But never again the npcs offered me mission, maybe is that because I set diplomacy victory off? I dont think thats it, but they don't offer missions to me anymore.

Thanks, finally got it to work.

I do have some huge problems however. The problem with these "missions" that they give you is that they always want you to head to the other side of the galaxy to do something. I mean... what the hell is it a joke? The biggest problem is if you decline or fail the missions they hate you even more. Its annoying as hell anyway, especially when im in a war. To be honest i have only completed one mission so far, the rest have always been "go to other side of galaxy and do this". Bugs the hell out of me.

The problem here is that i just dont see a reason for diplomacy with missions like this, it would be easier to just crush them one by one. I am a bit disappointed as i write this.

There is always the possibility of locked teams and skiping to envoy which can still be fair game by giving the AI one or going against a difficult AI. In FFA tough I think its better it hard then anything else because thinking of it, you are not only getting an ally but thats also eliminating an enemy. Tough I don't know how complicated it is, Im still going to test it, I hope I can see the missions again (Ill have that in mind, thanks Annatar). I had a bad start with the diplomacy as two NPCs wanted ceased fire with me and trade and then both of them simple broke it saying there wasnt benefit in it. I though maybe I had to send envoys (since they sent to me ) but I was In a battle with the pirates tough I still dont know if that is the reason.

Um... yeah... I just finished playing a game where I had 4 TEC allies and me (TEC) vs. 1 Vasari on Vicious. I got a "Diplomatic Victory", but I don't see how it's much of a victory, because the Vasari were still aggressive and now I couldn't do anything with my allies.