I like your line of thought on this.  

Could you expand on this further?

Those two concerns are definitely the most important ones that I've seen brought up to attention. However, you are a bit vague with the terms you are using and it would help if you denfined what you mean by a "strategic threat." The way I'm seeing it is that you would want something akin to Galactic Civilization's "Ascention" resource where, if the player builds a starbase upon them and gather 1000 ascention points they'd win.

...Actually, something like that would solve both of the problems on your list. It would make (what I'm assuming you are defining) as a civic threat, and it would give reason to backstab your allies: to prevent one person from gaining the ascention and take it as your own. It would create suspicion and open up routes to espionage in relation to how far they are in collecting it and ways of sabotaging them to stall the Ascention collection. I guess the problem would lay within what you would use, plotwise and resourcewise, as the "Ascention" resource. Maybe something akin to fighting over the "star system" throne, so to speak?

In addition, it is difficult to picture a scenario in which the civic tech could be used offensively so that you could build more civic labs then military labs, which I believe is what culture is suppose to supplement. Perhaps more cultural options should be at the races disposal that affect military?

THE DEVS ARE LISTENING?!?!?!?!?!?! *succumbs to immense drooling due to mind being immersed in possibilities*

Since culture only goes so far, maybe a building (embassies) could be built in opponents grav wells that spreads the player's dominative organization. Would need civ tech to increase number of planets where it can be used.

The faction doesnt have to destroy the oppenents planets or its improvements they just get the local resources. Very low upkeep costs, but culture cant spread in these worlds. However, only the building needs to be destroyed to liberate the planet and at lower civ tech levels system has a higher chances of failing.

Ex:

Advent- Pure Works Inc, -Planet dwellers forced to serve Advent Empire trough mind control

TEC- TEC Union- Trading Coalition that biasly favours controlling faction

Vasari- Galatic Improvment Organizationn - In reality just slavery

Just some thoughts...

Culture wins could be advanced by halving the tactical slot cost of culture centers, in effect allowing for twice as many centers, even if left at the same strength, the culture over run would start to drain the alligence of the surrounding planets.

If the culture ability were strengthened or modified somehow, this could do several things in addition to simply capitulating the planet. Such as take over current resources or available ships/structures, etc...

Economic wins, and even culture wins to a certain degree if they are relatively weak, would need to have a stronger planet defense system in place to ward off invaders. Lets say a single ring of defense platforms say (5) and a single hangar and a single repair platform can outlast first level pirate raids of up to 9 or 10 light to mid-heavy ships.

Two rings of defense platforms (10) and two hangars and two repair platforms can outlast mid to heavy ships invasions, say 10 to 20 ships, with 5 light, 10 to 13 mid-heavy (cruisers) and 2 caps.

What this means of course is modifying the number of tactical and logistical slots for the home planets. Right now, there are so few we are forced to go off planet to get more resources and out last or out fight the opponents.

If the home planet resources were changed to allow for more than enough resources to siege protect your home planet, we could have more players "hole up" to outlast the other players, surviving such an encounter, might make for an interesting way to win, since right now, there is no such thing, other than beating the other players. Diplomacy I was hoping would change this as well.

Cultural wins, protected by an armored planet, and economic wins, say, first planet to reach a million credits, would effectively constitute a win, but it would have to be done probably by establishing trade routes, (it would be nice to have tradeship escort ships that would defend these ships) and a locked down planet, so that abilities could be used to up the production rate of the resource asteroids.

To balance this sort of thing i'm assuming you would need some balance where military might precludes achieving the cultural or economic win situation, or very little of it. A sliding visible bar, red, yellow, green, that indicated one or the other, with military production lowering the economic/cultural possibilities and the reverse as well, the more economic or cultural resources built preclude a strong enough military force to win the game.

What might be very very nice is to have the game calculate the military/cultural/economic levels of all the players and give the red/yellow/green bar a very precise meaning in regards to your opponents in "this" particular game.

Just some thoughts,

-Teal

Really interested in your post darvin3 as i had an idea for a while that may work.

One flaw of the game was that, even if it considers itself as a 4X game, it lacked depth in civilization building : you upgrade all planets the same way and once you are done, you will focus only on the military.

There is no way planets can be as customized as in GalCiv 2, that's impossible but GalCiv had the bright idea to create Galactic wonders (one for the entire galaxy), civilization achievements (one per civilization) and super planetary improvements (one per planet)

What about civ Techs that allow you to create these improvements in your planet ? Only one improvement by planet (or maybe two on high quality planets like terran ones) and the more powerful the improvement is, the more civ labs it will need to unlock the tech and thus the improvement.

I see it that way :

you click on a planet and next to tactical, logistic and population buttons, you have a planetary improvements button that display a list of planetary improvements that you can build ifyou have researched the proper tech before.

For example you can have :

super planetery improvements :

TEC : manufacturing center : +  X % ship building speed on that planet

Advent : Mind focusing building : + X % AM regenerating in the gravity well

Vasari : Oppression center : + X % tax income on that planet

and so on...

civilization achievement : race specific, one per civilization : as wonders, they generate culture

TEC : large scale sensor arrays : allow them to see everything on planets next to a planet they own.

Advent : Temple of mind : ability cool down time - X %

Vasari : Repression agency : make this planet impossible to be culturally overcame

Galactic wonder : for all races, only one can be built

Galactic neutral ground : provides a neutral ground to all races for negotiating : + X % relationship bonus

Holy memorial : higly religious place where people from all races and civilizations come to pilgrinage : + X % culture bonus

Quantum buster theory : give your civilization an edge in quantic probability manipulation so your ship have now a X% chance to make a critical hit (damage x5)

Galactic wonders can't be destroyed but you can choose to destroy or to keep the enemy improvements when you take one of his planet.

They are only examples but you can make them powerful enough to give you a real advantage against a military-only opponent.

You can also imagine a condition victory where if you have 5 galactic wonders, you win.

I think it would be great but i don't think the devs has something that intricate in their plans for diplomacy release.

Well, since this has become a thread on specific ideas (not exactly what I had in mind, but it happened) I'll join in and share a few abilities I had dreamed up.  These are just standalone abilities, not parts of any coherent "system" I'm thinking of.  Most of these abilities would require some sort of limitation or counter to prevent them from being used too easily or frequently.

Mercenary Contracting:  Enables you to create allied mercenaries in the current gravity well.  They will leave only when every enemy or every friendly unit has vacated the planet (ie, the battle is over).  This ability costs credits to activate.

Steal Planetary Defense Codes:  For the next 90 seconds, all static defenses in the affected gravity well go offline and will not operate (strike craft produced by hangers continue to fight, but the hangers themselves will not produce new strike craft).  Starbases are unaffected.

Brokered Truce:  No one can commit hostile actions in the target gravity well for the next 300 seconds.  If anyone breaks the truce, their ships are stunned for 10 seconds.

Defection:  All enemy frigates and cruisers in the current gravity well disband.  This ability cannot be used if an enemy capital ship is present in the gravity well, and has a long activation time.

Industrial Saboutage:  Disables all logistical structures in the target gravity well for the duration of the ability. 

I think that a ship black market would be a way for a player with less military tech to keep up against a military powerful foe.

Another thing is the idea of a galactic council, which would fit well in the diplomacy theme. Since all races are tired with the war, and want to get along more, the would correspondingly arbitrate a middle-ground where they can talk to understand each other.

With the idea of this overseer, a player could invest on his civic tree to quickly attain a resercheable tech: 'Associate of the Galactic Council' - or a less silly name.

This would grant the associate several benefits, and some restrictions as well. Association to the Council could cost a contribution fee (a % of the income), but would also boost trade effect, especially if the faction has a a trade port at the star to jump to distant systems. So, while initially it could reduce income, strong trade routes would offset thedifference. A researcheble tech would further reduce the cntribution to the federation and improve the trade bonus. 

Each player would also have a standing with the council, and could receive missions from the council. the mission would likely be in the lines of 'stop trading with X', 'stop attacking Y', or 'help faction Z to defend from enemy'.

Fulfilling Council missions would improve the standing, which would make it easier to make requests to the Council.

One of the actions could be embargo another player. A player could convince the council (which would probably cost resources) to embargo a player. An embargo would be a strong pressure for other races to cancel pacts with the offender. Those who do not comply would have taxes raised and could even face military action.

A civilian protection directive would give relationship penalties against all races for attacking trade/refinery ships and diplomacy ships as well and even trade ports and refineries, as it would be seen as a war crime. For this to work better, there should be an option to have the ships attack military targets only on fleets attack stances. 

Players with the best standing could even request temporary protection of a specific gravwell - a fleet would jump in to the star and move to the specified gravwell. An extreme option would be convincing the Council to help 'liberating' a planet, but it must have been previously owned. 

If a faction repeatedly ignores the council directives and defies it, the council could even pick a planet of the offender  to occupy. The offender would get no income on that planet and all military structures would be destroyed. A series of requests would be placed by the council to give back the planet. if the player fails or refuses to fulfill them, the planet will be razed and re-colonized by the council and would be a permanet base of operations in the system. 

A player in good standing with the council would also be able to purchase ships from it, thereby having 2 connections with external organizations which may provide military services, under different cimrcumstances, for them: pirates and the council. The council would also provide a strong way to influence other empires, and the pirates would provide the black market and ships for hire.

Agree wholeheartedly. Culture is definitely not used to its potential and, if the developers could find some additional benfits to building culture structures, would prove to be more beneficial in 1 vs 1 games where diplomacy is not an option.

The various victory conditions are a must, as well. Again, I don't feel the need to do any Machiavellian scheming or backstabbing if I can't benefit from it in the long run. There definitely has to be some more features to make diplomacy feasable than what is currently being offered.

What about research that gives bonuses only in gravity wells you control(I know some mods do this by giving researchable passive abilities to planets)?  For example:
Hull and shield regeneration for everything in a gravity well you control:  The bonus would be halved if there are enemies in the gravity well and totally negated for everything that is under attack.
Strikecraft build speed increase and anti-matter cost reduction:  Would only work when there are no enemies in the gravity well, but would provide a large bonus otherwise.  Say a 5% cost reduction and a 10% build speed bonus per level of research with techs for it every other lab.
Anti-matter cost reduction:  Cost of anti-matter for abilities of units/structures/starbases is reduced as long as there are no enemy units in the gravity well.
Both of those could be explained as local forces prviding emergency supplies to military forces. 

Range boost:  Provides a range boost to all units/defense structures/starbases in your gravity wells.
Speed boost:  Provides a speed boost to all units in your gravity wells.
Both explained a using existing civilian sensor/communication networks to help coordinate military forces.

Capital Experience:  All your capital ships gain increased experience when fighting in a gravity well you control.


If Ironclad's plan to let players give pirates missions stays, then there could be several technologies that modify it.  Such as:
Pirate relations: The amount of forces pirates send on missions you give them increases and they ammount of forces sent against you on missions for other players decreases.  The cost of giving missions to the pirates is also decreased.
There could also be research to let the player give pirates a defense mission.  There would be a certain amount of pirate ships defending a gravity well the player controls with more comming to replace those destroyed.  However, the resource income of the gravity well defended would be reduced by a percentage.  The amount of pirates defending and the percentage cost could be modified by the pirate relations idea above.

Another idea is having research that decreases the cost of capital ships and starbases.  This would reduce the cost to build capital ships and the cost to use the starbase construction ability in gravity wells the player controls.  It could be explained as hiring civilian experts that have knowledge of constructing very large scale projects.

I agree that artifacts should get a boost.  Maybe a technology that lets you share benefits with your allies.  It could also require both players to research it to get the full benefits.  Such as if only one player researches it, they get 50% of the bonuses of every artifact their allies control and their allies get 50% of the artifact bonuses that the player has.  However, if one of the allies also researches the technology, both would share 100% of the bonuses provided by artifacts they control.
The artifact tree could also get an overhall by giving artifacts levels that must be researched.  Artifacts could start out at half their current power, but be improved so they are 2 or even 3 times their original power.  Artifact upgrades could be at 2/4/6/8 civic labs.

1. To make the diplomacy system more robust in my opinion the alliances and pacts you make need to be more binding. Alliances at the moment are to easily put to an end and there is no consiqueces for ending one other than you may loose a bit of trade money and ship vission etc. Stuff that was the case beforehand, pre diplomacy. When you ally with someone a friendship bond forms between the people of the allied cultures. The longer an alliance exist the stronger these bonds become to the point that they almost are one new culture part of the family. It would be good to have some sort of effect like this with alliances/pacts etc. For example if you have had an aliance for X amount of time and you are the one to break it, then X amount of research, ships etc. is lost to the ally betrayed. Y amount of time, then Y amount of research/ships, resource and population. Maybee even a planet or 2.

2. Some new reseach could be made that could tie in with point 1. For example, a reseach could be done like "under mine ally". An espionage ability once you have allows you to back stab that ally without loosing any research/ships etc. Perhaps there could be another research to be done that would counter this, making the desicion to betray a risky one.

I would have to agree, there is no reason, other than to win the game when there is only 1 opponant left, or even just because they are the biggest threat at the time. Unless the victory conditions are changed and a cultural / allied victory is brought in. But what would cause you to betray someone? Suspecting that they were underming your standing perhaps, or maybee just because they have something you want/need of great value.

I guess, seems that its a game of stratagy, tactical advantage is the thing that comes to mind, however that may be achived. Maybee a way to achive this without making the sacrifice of trade is needed. Perhaps there needs to be away to insist trade is ceased between factions. For example opponant 1 has a tade treaty with you. Opponant 2 wants to but insist you stop trading with 1 first, 2 is more lucrative so you are very tempted to end it with 1.  Then 2 could insist you break all treaties with 1 to continue relations and so on.

What I'm trying to say, I believe, was an elaboration of your statment above. Which I totally agree with by the way. My suggestion may not be exactly what you had in mind, and I may be wrong in that you ment that an "opponant's strategic position" as in enemy. And yes it apears that I am wrong also with victory conditions. To be honest the games I have played allies seem to go as easily as they come. I have had an opponant want to become an ally straight after I bombed his planet.  A little odd I thought.

So to undermine an enemy diplomaticly, would pretending to be an ally then undermining them be more of what you had in mind.