I would also think that the sovereigns that are declaring war on you who aren't close to you are doing so at the request of someone else.

And being weak is a reason for them to declare war on you.

If you're weak, they will dow you and send a pretty weak army in attempt to take your cities easily. Although this never work out very well for the AI..

That was my impression as well. And makes me wonder if a perceived weakness is a good enough reason to start a war with someone in all phases of the game. During the early phase of a game this probably is a good idea more often than not. But later it might be more feasible to attack someone who is running away with the game.

Good. It's been my single gretest complaint for months. Not that individual issues haven't been important, but this haws been the gretest area of concentration that has noticeably lagged behind GC II and needed a lot of loving care.

There are several system problems with the current diplomacy machine.

- First and foremost, with alliance being placed soooo late in the tech three, they are effectively disabled. This takes out much of the fun, intrigue and complexity we all enjoyed in GalcivII, with coalitions waging epic wars. In FE (LH), from the mid game the cards are set and its just a constant war everybody vs. everybody (concerning AI).

Suggestion: Move the alliances more to the beginning of the tree (2nd or 3rd tier). Rename current alliances technology as Allied vitory, Unity or something.

- Secondly, trade system is very... poor. It is not clear, what different treaties (economy vs. trade) will bring and its just a matter of clickfest to have them signed, no intrigue behind it, no strategic decision.

Suggestion: Unite existing two econ. treaties in one with clearly defined benefit (road + economic bonus). Limit the number of econ. treaties per one faction (increasable by technology), so player has to take strategic decisions with whom he will trade. This way trade will become strategic diplo feature more than just a clickfest - aka trade routes in GalcivII.

- Diplomatic options are unnecessarily limited. I understand taking out direct tech trading, when there is a single tech tree, but why have you disabled cities and unit trading? Why cant we sign, in game with resources, longterm treaties on resources supply?

Suggestion: Consider adding some of the above mentioned options in the game.

- Caravans are...not functioning well (broken). Not only they have no real role in the game, they are also subject of many problems - AI Wither & Tremoring them and talking about that to player being the most well known.

Suggestion: Reworking the caravan system feels necessary, they are not working well as freighters in Galciv were... maybe swith to Totalwar system, where you cannot attack caravan directly, but placing a unit anywhere on the route means you are disrupting/looting that trade route?

So these are my two cents about the most subpar things about current diplomacy...hope it helps!

In general, I find the relative strength to be what 90% of declaring war is based on.  I almost never have the AI declare war on me without first letting me know that it thinks it is superior to me by asking me for tribute.  If that doesn't happen, I assume it is because I have an unusual and large penalty like if I raze a lot of enemy cities or it is because they were paid off by another AI to attack me.

I don't fully understand why to trade or not trade for research points, but other than that everything mostly seems ok to me.

I don't really see the value of caravans that much and I think they could easily just be eliminated from the game, but that is just a minor point.

I would like to see minimal city defenses come online sooner, but that barely even matters.  It just annoys me that the AI can recapture a city right away for free with one hero if you leave the area.

Diplomacy in this game is so damn lousy and seemingly random, I just ignore it, as if I was playing a game of Risk vs. computer opponents.  It's a shame really, because in Galciv2, diplomacy was one of my favorite parts of the game.  I dunno how Stardock bombed on this one so thoroughly.

N/A

You won't be able to play with the numbers.

@Wetballs, you can see the numbers in FE/LH.  Just go to the foreign policy area and it'll tell you exactly what the pluses and minuses are. 

Here's what causes the problem you experience:

Your current relations with someone might be say Neutral. And if it's neutral, it'll say "Hey, want to have a trade?"  But its feeling towards you (the +'s and -'s) may point to eventual warfare with you and that value can, in a matter of turns, change them from neutral to hostile (it's not instant but it can happen quicker than it seems).

In GalCiv II, the system was much more sophisticated but also very hard-coded. That is, I would have a bunch of IF THEN statements that would regulate these relations and what they might do. But they couldn't be modded by third parties.

I don't know.. basically your interactions with the AI is limited to..

Trade knowledge.

Tributes.

Dowing.

Set up agreements like research, trade, etc.

And for example, Kraxis wants to pay me tribute I told him no thanks, three turns later, he bothers me about it later, I give up and say okay to kraxis.

Then I checked the modifiers, Kraxis now have  new -1 towards me saying "You are forcing us to pay tribute to you."

I was like huh? You're the one who wanted to pay me tribute not me, I only said ok cuz u was bothering me about it.

Even when Diplomacy of FE:LH improves, I have my doubts that I will ever use diplomacy lol

I'm pretty much just chilling on my own. I havent even insulted anyone yet, and that's only because the games refuse to give me a feature where I could insult the ai but gaming companies find it okay for the ai to insult me without me returning the favor. Thus, I disregard all the AIs and do whatever I wanna. If they don't like it for some reason, too bad.

And diplomacy is 100% based on Faction Power score, AI rely on it too much.

Whom your friends is will change throughout the game because the AIs is fighting for their own survival albeit badly.

A weak AI that stumbles it's way into a level 100 village which transforms it's faction score from 5 to 50005 will make the AI transform into the next Hitler but without the army to back up it's imperialistic ambitions and get promptly squashed because he pissed off too many neighbors with his insults.

Or as I have noticed.. a power 500 score Ai will go out of it's way to send several armies to kill an supposedly weak The dead faction at like score of 48 only to have their armies squashed in a single turn by the Puny.

It's a good screen. Personally I think the plusses and minuses should show up as a mouseover tool tip on the relationship bar when interacting with the AI. Ok, you feel Cool towards me, but why is that?

Or, make clicking on the relationship bar from the AI interaction screen take you directly to the Foreign Relations screen.

Maybe something for the fabled user interface patch...