I've played a few games of diplomacy now and I really like the changes. The whole game seems to move alot faster with the new speed settings and the diplomatic victory is like a time limit of sorts. There were a few things that bothered me though, so I have some ideas:
1) instead of/in addition to the diplomatic point speed setting, why not let people decide the max diplomacy points needed for victory? I say this because I have had some matches where I push to get my ultimate pact used, and I win before I have enough relations with that faction. if i change the speed setting, that only makes it take longer to get to the same scenario. So, if I could set the victory points, I could actually use these awesome pact bonuses to do some damage. Before a diplomatic victory. also the fastest setting for diplomatic points seems a tad to fast.
2) The mini-underground and pirate UI was a good idea, so why not have some way to see who has the most diplomatic points and exactly how close they are to diplomatic victory without having to go to the relations page?
3) how bout a way to link from the relations page directly to the diplomatic page and vice versa? I will often be looking at the relations page, decide I want to try to do something about my relation with a faction and so go to the diplomatic page. you can get some very basic info from the diplomatic page, but a link directly to the other page would be slick and help alot.
4) some way to see what the heck your relations are like while crafting a mission. It tells you what the requirement is, but not your status, which only means numerous clicking and switching.