Diplomacy Feature Requests

[thegreybetween]

Greetings,

I've been playing quite a bit of DW2 lately, and it may well be my favorite game at the moment. I know we have some big things coming down the pipeline soon with the new expansion and updates, and I'm excited to see where that goes. I have already started a wishlist thread for more pie-in-the-sky feature hopes (alliances!), but I wanted to put together a quick thread of direct, functional improvements to the diplomacy system that I think are worthy of consideration for possible future development. Discussion is welcome!

NOTE: These are suggestions based on my experience playing the game the way I like to do it. I've read a lot of the excellent community guides (Gessie, Scott, and Nightskies among them), and I realize that Diplomacy systems can create some pretty exploitative opportunities at certain difficulty levels. My aim with this post is to discuss aspects of diplomacy that I think can be readily improved to increase the immersion and engagement with my preferred playstyle. It is very possible that such systems may lead to exploits under conditions that I am not considering. But the goal here is to add more toys to the sandbox for a currently underserved playstyle. It is my hope that any such changes are, like many aspects of DW2, optional/customizable for people who would find such systems exploitable/regressive to their playstyle.

Ok, enough preamble!

REQUEST #1 (QoL Feature): Please add some policy settings to the diplomacy section that allow us to define default behaviors for empire/independent stances. Currently, the AI decides whether the initial stance toward an independent is "Invade" or "Diplomacy" based on some arbitrary and RNG-dependent criteria, such as your initial opinion after the first-contact opinion roll. I regularly have to go in and manually update my diplomacy stance with independents, and if I forget to check, then the AI will be amassing for an invasion that I have no intention of ever approving. Please let us define a global policy of Independent relations with options like: Default to Diplomacy, Default to Invasion, Let Advisors Decide. That way, if I know I'm almost always going to want to peacefully colonize, I can set the default and only have to manually adjust the exceedingly rare time I want to invade.

Similarly, letting us define a default stance with other empires would be great. It's probably too much to ask to allow us to define defaults at the species level ("Default "Close Ally" Teekans; Default "Befriend" Quameno; Default "Undermine" Mortalen, etc"), but any level of control that takes some of the micromanagement out of diplomatic stances would be helpful.

REQUEST #2 (QoL Feature): Please add an ability for either spies or ambassadors to discover and reveal the diplomatic stances of other empires toward each other. We can already see their opinions of others, and I know that diplomatic stances can dynamically change for AI empires, but there isn't a way to currently assess the diplomatic stances of AI empires toward others aside from trial and error. It would be great to assign ambassador missions or intelligence missions to display the diplomatic stance of a target empire toward another. Knowing the enemies of my friends makes it easier for me to support them, or where to build bridges between would-be foes.

REQUEST #3 (New Feature): Please create a new diplomatic stance to allow for Liberation, available at both the empire and independent level. Currently, if you have great diplomatic relations with an Independent, but the colony is conquered by another empire before you can colonize it, poof. That's it. Your relationship is erased, and your only option to acquire that colony is to trigger a war with the opposing empire and invade the colony. Not only is the war considered unjust, but now you're conquering an unhappy world that previously loved you. I would love to see a "Liberation" diplomatic stance, that would allow for the following:
- The system remembers the opinion of conquered independent colonies toward my empire prior to it being conquered (declining at the usual pace, since treaties would be dissolved)
- I can set a diplomatic stance of "Liberate from Conqueror" with any formerly independent colony that was invaded/conquered
- This would allow a targeted war declaration against the conquering empire, explicitly allowing me to invade that colony. This would be considered a justified war (for reputation, weariness/happiness purposes), provided that I limit my activity to liberating that colony (and defending myself as usual)
- Once the conquering empire is removed, I'd have the option to (1) Keep the colony like any other invaded planet, but with initial happiness based on the colony's pre-invasion opinion of me, or (2) truly liberate the colony, reverting it back to an Independent with a big boost to both their opinion of me and my overall reputation

Liberation stance with other empires: Currently, if I Befriend(+) an AI empire that is later vassalized by an enemy faction, it immediately cancels all treaties we had, binds the vassal to a defense pact, and effectively renders the old friend into a new enemy. If I want to overthrow the vassalization of the conqueror and allow the other empire to return to independence, I have no choice but to declare war on the conqueror and very carefully (and still somewhat RNG-dependent) whittle them down to something that the vassal is willing to challenge - or just destroy them. But all the while, my war is unjustified AND the empire that I'm trying to save is at war with me to honor the vassal's defense pact. I'd love to see the following:
- A new diplomatic stance of "Liberate from Subjugator", available only when the target empire is a subjugated vassal of another empire
- This would allow a targeted declaration of war against the subjugating empire with the explicit purpose of liberating the vassal. Such a war would be justified (for reputation, weariness/happiness purposes) provided that I am defending myself and the vassal empire (battling subjugator assets within defender's territories or targeting defender's assets).
- The vassal would have a choice to honor the defense pact with the subjugator or to "side with the liberating force" by also declaring war on the subjugator rather than declaring forced war on the liberator. The vassal empire would make this determination based on factors like the relative military strength of the two forces, their opinion of the liberator/subjugator, and so on. But typically, a high opinion of an adequately powerful liberator would cause the vassal to refuse the defense pact and declare a war of independence against the subjugator as well.
- A new option is available in the trade screen to "Release vassal obligation of [Empire X]". Therefore, regardless of whether the vassal joins the war or not, you can force the subjugator to release the vassal as part of the peace agreement. This would grant a large opinion boost for the released vassal and a bump in reputation. Any of the vassal's colonies that we invaded during the war could be kept as usual (for a penalty) or returned to the now-liberated empire.

Adding a pie-in-the-sky idea: It would be awesome to see a special subset of treaties that only vassalized empires can enter. I imagine things like a "Liberation Pact" which clearly makes it so that the vassal will join your war declaration against the subjugator, and more clandestine things like "Underground trade/migration/research/etc" treaties, which would be weaker versions of the usual treaties that a vassal can enter with non-subjugator empires with some kind of serious consequence baked in if the subjugator discovers the treaties (sanctions, invasions, etc). It might be thematically cool to have these deals brokered via intelligence missions between the vassal and the outside empire rather than through ambassadors and normal diplomatic channels.

REQUEST #4 (New Feature): Please allow for some form of peaceful empire integration. In my current game, I have a Zenox empire that is a "Close Ally" with every treaty and they are Euphoric (200+ opinion) with our empire, AND their entire empire exists within the cultural border of our empire (my empire is so culturally dominant that their entire empire exists in space of my empire's color; their color doesn't appear as a border on the map). They regularly give me gifts and such, and I make sure they're advanced enough to do well in any wars I drag them into. But in reality, they're not really an independent empire in all but game-mechanical law. It would be awesome if there was a way for an empire that meets specific criteria to simply "join" another empire, much like a conquered pirate faction's survivors do. This wouldn't be "peaceful vassalization" (that would be redundant because all vassalization does is enforce certain treaties that your close friends already voluntarily enter), but rather "This Zenox empire has joined our empire!" and all of their colonies, ships, etc become yours.

I could imagine such an event might not play nicely with the victory threshold system, and there might need to be some special balance considerations in phasing in the impact on the scoring. But thematically, it makes total sense that a sufficiently outmatched, friendly, and enthralled empire would voluntarily join another in a way that doesn't require conquest and betrayal to do it martially, allowing for a peaceful path toward the victory threshold.



Anyway, that's just some food for thought on diplomacy improvements that I'd personally love to see in the game. Obviously, these could have major (and not necessarily positive) impacts on the game at different difficulty levels and would require careful planning, balancing, and disabling options. But I think the root of the requests contain thematic and mechanical merit that would really enrich the diplomatic aspects of the game, which is where I both love to play and regularly feel a bit constrained.

Thanks for indulging the wall of text. Please share your own thoughts on these or other diplomacy ideas. Cheers!

[PathSeeker]

REQUEST #1 (QoL Feature): Please add some policy settings to the diplomacy section that allow us to define default behaviors for empire/independent stances.

Adding to this request, would be great to split treaty signing automation into two parts: independent colonies and empires. Basically, I always sign everything with independent colonies (because, well, there are just gifts and trade agreements), but I control treaties with other empires manually. I had some issues, when treaties were automated, when I was almost winning the war and conquering another empire, suddenly AI decided to sign peace treaty, which I didn't actually want.

[Schatten]

i want to put here something from my play as Gizurean. I exterminate all alien populations of conquered Planets, you can do it as Gizuraen as you can live at any Planet as soon you have at last 15% Terraforming.

Now imagine my surprise as 2 Planets split from their Empire (Rebellion due to extreme War Unhapiness) and...joined me...well welcome new food i guess?
Such things should simply not happen, who in the Wold would join to a Empire thats basically eats everyone even if they also kill many Pirates/Space Creatures and have reputation bonus from here?

[thegreybetween]

Thinking a little more about the liberation mechanisms in terms of the current system in an effort to streamline some of the brainstorming.

Currently, in the "Speak with Them" menu when engaging in diplomacy, there are options like:
- We Declare War on you
- Offer Trade agreement
- Offer [lots of other treaties]
- Never mind

And if you lack the necessary criteria to actually offer the treaty, it is greyed out and offers a tooltip with insights like "We don't like you enough", "Raise opinion by 9", etc.

So, if liberation systems were to be created for the game, I'd imagine it might look like this within the game's system structure:

For each of these examples, let's assume that this is the current political situation:
- We are playing a Human empire, on the right edge of the galaxy
- There is a large empire of Boskarans that we do not like (Stance: Conquer) near the center of the galaxy
- There is an Ackdarian empire toward the left edge of the galaxy, which we do like (Stance: Ally) but do not yet have key treaties like a defense pact in place. The Ackdarians and the Boskarans are at war with each other.
- There is an independent colony of Teekans between us and the Boskarans. The Teekans love us (Opinion 30+) and have asked us to colonize them.

Now, we just received a notification that the Boskarans have conquered the independent Teekan world, just before our colony ship was able to reach them. In the current system, we're out of luck. That 30+ opinion we enjoyed is simply gone, and the colony is just another Boskaran patch of space. If we wanted to liberate them, we'd have to declare an unjust (negative happiness, reputation, and war weariness hit) war and invade the Teekan world, after which they would be unhappy and treat us like any other conqueror, despite the fact that they were clambering to join us just moments ago.

Under the proposed Liberation system, we could now visit the Boskarans and hit the "Speak with Them" button, where we'd see:
- We declare war on you
- We declare a War of Liberation on you ([Teekan Independent Colony Name];[Other Valid Targets, if any])
- We offer [treaties], etc...

If there are no valid targets for a War of Liberation, the option would be greyed out with a tooltip reading "There are no valid liberation targets". But if a valid liberation target exists, the option would be highlight with a list of valid targets that you could select.

Once you declare the War of Liberation, it would be considered a justified war (your people believe in the freedom they're protecting, so positive/non-negative impact on war weariness/happiness). The Boskarans are free to act however they would treat any war enemy, though logically they should plan to defend the Teekan world if they hoped to keep it. Our empire can justifiably invade the Teekan world to remove the Boskarans, and we can defend our assets as normal. But if we launch any offensives into Boskaran space beyond the necessary liberation action, that would convert us immediately to a normal, unjustified war with the full reputation/happiness/weariness hit because we used the righteous cause as an excuse for other ends.

When the Boskarans have been kicked out of the Teekan colony, we would automatically propose to end the war with the Boskarans (defending ourselves as necessary until they accept). We would then have a choice with the Teekans, via an event pop-up screen like any other choice event. "We have overthrown the conquerors of the Teekan Independents! We can integrate them into our empire or return their independence" One button would say "Integrate them" with a tooltip that would let you know their current opinion/willingness (based on our original 30+ opinion, decaying naturally). The other button would say "Grant Independence" and would return the world to an Independent colony with a big reputation and (Teekan) opinion boost for you.

[BRAINSTORM: Allowing you to return them to independents could be great if their Opinion wasn't high enough before the war, or if you prefer to have the trade treaties more than the colonies. HOWEVER, it also creates a potential loop for exploitation, because the independent colony could be conquered again and again, and you could exploit the liberation war to whittle down the aggressor with no penalty.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Do not allow a "Grant Independence" option. Just make it so that when you liberate the independent, they immediately join you at the equivalent of a +30 Opinion (they really appreciate you removing their captor and willingly join you instead)]

Meanwhile, the Boskaran war with the Ackdarians reached a tipping point and the Boskarans were able to subjugate the Ackdarians into vassals. Currently, this would immediately remove all of the treaties between us and the Ackdarians and bind the Ackdarians into a defense pact (among others) with the Boskarans. If we wanted to assist the Ackdarians to recover their freedom, there is no elegant way to do it. We declare war on the Boskarans (which is unjust), which triggers the Ackdarians to honor their pact and declare war on us. Then we need to very carefully attack Boskaran strength and avoid Ackdarian conflicts until the Boskarans are eliminated or weak enough that the Ackdarians rebel. Then we have to rebuild reputation and try to befriend them all over again.

Under the proposed liberation system, we'd have options. When speaking with the Boskarans, we'd once again see the option for "We declare a War of Liberation on you ([Ackdarian Empire])". This would again be a justified war, and would allow the Boskarans to do whatever they wanted in war as usual. The Ackdarians would then have a choice (which would be decided by the AI based on factors like their opinions of us/Boskarans and the military strength of us/Boskarans): They can honor the defense pact and fight us, or they can refuse the defense pact and declare a war on the Boskarans. Regardless of the outcome, the war commences. So long as we limit our targets to (1) Boskaran assets that are targeting us/Ackdarians or (2) Boskaran assets in our/Ackdarian territory, then the war remains just (otherwise we take the rep/happy/weary hit as usual). We also now see a new item when negotiating a deal with the Boskarans: "Release vassal obligation of [Ackdarian Empire]". Assuming the war score is high enough, the Boskarans would be willing to accept this deal as part of a peace agreement. Now the Ackdarians are once again a free empire and we can resume building our relationship with them as we see fit.

[BRAINSTORM: In an ideal world, we'd have new treaty options with the vassalized Ackdarians. If their opinion was high enough/our military strong enough, they could enter into a "Liberation Pact", which signals to us their willingness to refuse the Boskaran defense treaty and join our war for their freedom. I imagine other treaties too, like "Underground trade/migration/research agreements", that are weaker versions of the full treaty and can be discovered by Boskaran spies. If discovered, the Ackdarians would be subject to sanctions (invasions, resource raids, etc) by the Boskarans. Given that these "underground" treaties are secret, we would form them through intelligence missions rather than through normal diplomacy (which vassals are not allowed to do).]

Anyway, that's a deeper dive into how the system might work within the current game structure. Having the ability to liberate people adds a wonderful new layer to the diplomacy game, and allows you to really roleplay the galactic peacekeeper/freedom fighter empire at a level that the current system just cannot support, and that opens up some exciting new playstyles and stories in the DW2 universe. Good times.

[PS: BRAINSTORM: It probably makes sense for a liberation target to only remain valid for a finite amount of time. If an Independent is just conquered, the memory is fresh and there would be local and galactic sympathy for a freedom fight. But after enough time has lapsed, the colony resigns itself to fate and the galaxy stops caring, so a liberation stance is no longer valid. Maybe 10 years max?
Vassalized empires would always be a valid target for liberation, but the longer they've been a vassal, the more it should weigh on their decision to join the liberating force]

[thegreybetween]

UPDATE Re: Request #4 - Peaceful Integration

Apparently, peaceful integration is a thing that CAN already happen (I just did it!) but it all happened under the hood and wasn't at all clear. I suddenly got a message that "You have completely eliminated the Zenox Empire", immediately followed by a message stating that their capital had revolted and the people (and 429 ships) joined our empire.

They used to have several colonies, but since their border color was overpowered by mine, it was never easy to see on the map how well they were doing. Over time, they apparently had their colonies revolt. These were never announced to me, but I do now remember a few late-game independent colonies of Zenox popping up near my core sectors that I couldn't have missed in exploration, so this must have been their colonies falling off. They eventually were reduced to just their capital, and capitals probably can't rebel to neutral/independent, which is when they finally "joined me" (I "defeated them"), since it was my influence that triggered their revolt.

So, good to know! That said, here are some related suggestions:
- It would be nice to receive a notification when a colony of a (non-player) empire (especially friendly ones) revolts and separates from their parent, just to keep a clearer picture of the emerging narrative.
- It would be nice to see options in the "Negotiate a Deal" screen that allowed us to offer things like "Join our empire" (which would effectively be a "concede" button), that had a tooltip letting you track your progress with that objective. I was looking for peaceful integration via the Diplomacy area of the UI, but apparently that had nothing to do with it. Some clarity here would be awesome.
- Silly, but it would still sound better that "Zenox Empire joined us!" rather than "You have eliminated Zenox empire". Functionally, it is the same thing. But these were our allies, and context should matter a little, IMO.

Anyway, good times.

[MaximKI]

Thanks for the feedback! We'll consider these for future updates and improvements.