Diplomacy Points

Diplomacy points are gained when a player's total positive relation bonuses with all other players are greater than the penalties. So, say, if in a 4 player game you have a total of 23 positive points and 18 negative, you'll be gaining points. The greater the difference, the faster the rate of gain. So if you get it to 30 positive and 11 negative, you'll gain points faster.

You can hover your mouse over the current point display to see your overall relations status (positive or negative), and the rate of change of diplomacy points.

I believe the full description was included in the readme file as well (as it didn't make it into the manual).

Not so much, unfortunately. From the Readme:

"A new victory condition has been added to the Game Options to enable diplomatic victories.
When enabled, players can win the game by accumulating diplomatic points, which are gained
by maintaining positive relations with others. The number of points needed to win and the
speed at which they accumulate is based both on the number of living players and the
difficulty level (for AI players). "

while I think this victory conditions is very cool and I hope to get some time to check it out i more detail, I do have an issue: you see, the number of points taken for this calculation can be negative. however, relations as they are displayed can never go below 0. that is a bit strange to me and makes it slightly harder to ascertain where all these negative points come that effectively hinder my diplomatic path to victory. tbh I don't even see the point of why relations have to be capped with 0 and cannot go negative in the normal screen. civ iv has negative values. and if there are negative modifiers in place anyway, it makes no difference. if I have - 3 from missons and -1 from military action and -1 from race relations or the like, then I will need to create 5 points anyway to be at 0, right?

I am also not so sure whether the number of points does indeed vary. I made a map with ais of several levels and we all had the same diplo victory limit. also, in my current game, I already eliminated one opponent and the number of points necessary is still the same. it is lower though than in a game with more players (current game 5 - 1, test game 8). is that intended behaviour?

The line is accurate, but confusing. The number of points is the same across the board, 75 * number of players, but lower-difficulty AIs have slower rates of accumulation. Unfair and up don't get a cheat, so they stay at 1x multipiler. It's the lower AIs that go slow.

As for negative points, it's just a display issue. All the math works with the negatives as you describe, so if you have -3 from missions and -1 from military and -1 from race relations, you do need +5 to get to the actual 0. I'm fairly indifferent on actually displaying the negative as opposed to leaving it at 0. It would make it easier at a glance on the new Diplo screen, but hasn't bothered me much to actually suggest a change during the beta

neither did it bother me, because it had no effect. whether you had 0 or -3 was irrelevant, it meant that you would be be finding an ally with this player anytime soon. now, with the diplomatic victory, it does have an implication, since you want to find out what is giving you so much negative points. those would be a good canditate for wiping out or having wiped out eg via bounties or pirate attacks. I loaded up my present game and tbh, I only saw that I had + 3,6 or so relations in total. therefrom, one gave me + 6,5 and another one some 1.5. so, what about the other two? no freaking idea. the game was nicely along and there were so many factors already working (nice!) that it was just plain hard to calculate the actual number and see where I got the remaining ~ 4.5. I also had trouble determining why some other ais had so good values.

all I am saying is: this is now relevant information and it should be presented as such, i.e. easy to find and process.

oh, and I love how this forms a fairly interesting interplay with some diplomacy research. points bonus or the removing of racial penalties are now not 'just' to make cease fires and alliances easier. they are also a quite direct path to alternative victory.

and because I am in suggestions mode: if there is some content work again, a consideration could be to allow research that improves envoys diplo bonus generation. for example, one might have research to allow for higher per planet vaules than 1.5 or faster accumulation. if the devs ever feel like adding stuff.