This.  Amen.  AI should respond to other AI as well as Player actions.

What about agreements over territory. At the moment we see the zone of control be pushed back and forth, couldn't we set up agreements over where our borders lay. I.E. give the AI control of a gold mine resource under dispute, in return you get control of a disputed metal mine.

Can we please make threats towards AI, as they do to us.

Finally can we trade shard access (fire for water etc.)

The AI element in diplomacy I always find lacking is the ability to tell an AI opponent "Do THIS or else I'll do THIS".  In other words, give me city NewCity or I'll take it and two more or I'll declare war and wipe you out.  

Yes! Intrigue of the Tudors, Roman Empire etc.

• I would also like the opportnity to divorce my current spouse--woo Verga's wench--either marry her or take her on as a mistress. Let's give it a Song of Fire & Ice/Seanchan/White Tower/Shakesperean/SunTzu flair. Give charisma another dimension. I would relish the chance to convince any King's wife ro Queen's husband to kill their spouse
• The ability to create a harem as a male or female sovereign.
• AI needs to stop sucking up--e.g if I have 20 cities and can squash Tarth, why is Irane (2 cities) asking me to help her kill Altar (one city). How do I benefit? Offer me something! Allow me to counter offer--just spare me the obsequious entreaties.
• benefits & penalties for a sov's altruism or treachery.
• Train offspring in the art of regicide---like a green beret ninja death squad---oh how I HATE Verga! or single assasins that would pose as a hero offering services to an opposing faction to get in for a close kill.
• ability to bribe opposing heroes/units---depending on an INT/DIP?CHA rating of your sov.

just spittballin....

QFE.  I like just about everything in this. 

I'd also like to see more subjugation options at the end of a war.  Multi-turn resource payments for letting an opponent live.  Territory access.  The ability to put other game conditions on opponents as a criteria for peace.  Say.. no units with metal armor/weapons or no use of cavalry for x number of turns.  No Warfare research for X turns.  Royal heirs/champions all become wards of the conquerer/victor for 5/10/15 years to ensure good behavior.  Etc.  Think of things that might actually be imposed on a dominated society by the victor in a war.  Without trying to start a political argument think of Ireland & Great Britain or the various defeated countries during WWI and WWII for examples of things that may be imposed.  And like those situations the harsher you try to be as the victor the more long term bad will you build up with that society.  

I'd also like to see multi-nation negotiations.  A screen with three or four leaders negotiating an alliance (obviously, more difficult the more people you bring to the table).  But that would recreate an aspect of diplomacy that is missing from nearly every game (I can't think of any at all).  The ability to hold "summits" to deal with big world issues (powerful bad guy nations, monsters, etc) or to forge powerful blocs of countries (NATO/Warsaw Pact) that stand against one another.  This could lead to interesting diplomatic situations where an independent country is wooed by both sides because each blocs fears being underpowered.  Or imagine bringing together all Kingdom players to forge a "clean up the wilds" pact where each side agreed to dedicate part of its military to taking out monsters and making the land safe for travel and trade again.  I want the Elemental version of Yalta. 

I know these are big (probably unrealistic) requests, but everyone else already knocked out all of the nuts-and-bolts diplomacy options I thought were missing so I figured I'd dream big.  

A nice diplomatic option would be cooperative progress towards the Spell of Making or the Forge.

For diplomacy I think it would be great if it was somewhat more realistic.

You don't think you can bother a nation's leader without any problems day and night, do you?

I would *LOVE* to see a kind of Chamberlain or King's Advisor role NPC, that 'picks up the phone' if it were, and that he then decides whether the leader wishes to speak to you.

You can try to bribe him/intimidate etc into letting you speak with the King, but that could work in your disadvantage.

If the position of the Leader is weak, he will want to speak to you immediately, with the ...(I don't know a good term...) Minister? welcoming you in and superpolitely telling you that the King is ready behind that door (or something).

If his position is strong the minister/advisor will just regard you as one of the lesser nobles at their court and tell you the King has other matters to attend to (should be quite a variety in these messages, dependant on the faction, the state of the diplomatic ties, etc etc). Of course the behaviour of King and minister should be different for each faction.

Regardless of the advisor (that you can bribe or offend and thus can have a personal problem with so you cannot have talks with the King regardless of your mutual like/dislike), you have once every 8? turns some kind of 'Open Court' and the King will speak to you immediately that turn.

The advisor should know how much you have spoken to the King and remember the results. If you just pressed 'offer peace', saw the cost, and exited a few times just to check, he may next time say "You're not sincere... how often more will you ask questions of the King without answering him yourself? No, you will not waste the King's time like that." and abort contact. He should also become even more angry if you then try it again that turn or the next two after.

Basically... diplomacy should feel like it matters what you do all the time (not too strict, we're not a diplomacy sim here). Makes it a LOT more realistic and fun in my book.

Also: I as a player can initiate diplomacy whenever I want, and they never seem to unless they're about to be crushed. This makes diplomacy feel unreal as well. I would wish for them to send you an ambassador or such asking you if their Faction Leader may speak with you. Begging if they're weak. Bribing just to speak if they fear you a lot. And that they ask for technology or such things.

I hope this will be considered, it would really be fantastic I think. Just explore the idea in your mind, don't go nitpicking details because that's not what matters yet.

The ability to spend diplomatic capital or resources/gildar to improve your image with a faction or create foreighn population based effects. (gifts, or helping them out when they are in a bind, instilling unrest, quelling an uprising for them). Keeping track of those for bonuses and penalties such as helping out with a food shortage would create a greater feel of conection and impact on the world. The ability to hire npc adventurers (perhaps after having the right diplomatic tech) to do tasks for you, such as attack a certain location, monster or faction or raid for resources (either destroying the improvement or stealing the output/stockpile) or theiving from caravans. (could be used as a bounty or propaganda- help free the people from an oppressive ruler).  The ability to trade control of resources or cities is also an option.  Granted you could implement the resources as a given trade of their output.  Though the other day I had an opposing faction with a one tile city surounded by my teritory.  He had a trade route, but no improvements, nowhere to build, and couldn't cross my borders.  It would have been nice if i could take control by 'buying' it off of him, he would abandon it to get the people back, or i could gain posession like in civ4 thrue cultural saturation. (if that feature isnt already present- not sure as the game crashed not many turns after) I would also like there to be a notice pop up from an advisor or something to let me know before my existing treaties expire so i can renew them or renegotiate.

If you guys are keen to keep the 99 turn non-aggression pact, then i would like you to add diplomacy option called "right of passage" or something which is simply open borders for 10 turns or so.

I agree with many of the suggestions here and see how they could be incorporated with other aspects of the game.

The suggestion of espionage can be linked with the hero/champion system.  I think there is already an "Assassin" hero type.  "Spy" could be added, as well.  These characters would then be able to travel undetected, unless an opponent army moves next to them.  This would give them the ability to travel through opponents territories without the non-aggression pact and without declaring war or an alliance  Also, the "Spy" characters may be able to see other spies/assassins within their range of sight.  "Assassins" kill opponents' heroes/champions, obviously, and spies can steal tech/spells, see what a city is building/recruiting, or a host of other mission types.  The missions will have a chance to succeed based on their level and the mission type and maybe some of their statistics.  There would be possibilites of succeeding, failing and being executed, failing and escaping but the opponent nation knows they work for you affecting diplomatic relationships, or failing but escaping without the opponent nation knowing by whom they had been sent.  This would give us an additional couple of hero types that need neither sit in a city or travel in an army (though they would, of course, be able to do either).

I would like to be able to mix and match my trade offers, i.e., offer money or resources for a tech/trade treaty.

I didn't like the diplomacy in GC2 that much.  It annoyed me that I could dial in all deals to the absolute minimum they would accept.  It seems to me that I've dialed in deals to the minimum that was acceptable in EWoM, and they've refused the deal.  I prefer the uncertainty.  It should be a scale of probability.

I would like to see a relationship points system similar to Empire:  Total War.  (Probably, the first time CA created a good, working diplomatic system for a TW game.)  Each faction has starting point values which reflect their opinions of each other faction, based on historical relationships, similarities and differences.  In EWoM, this could be a positive adjustment if for two Kingdoms nations or two Empire nations and a negative adjustment for Kingdom: Empire.  If AI personalities are implemented (and let's hope they are) these could affect realtionships, as well.  Peaceful nations have a positive adjustment of their opinions toward all other nations, but maybe warmonger nations have a negative adjustment to their opinions towards peaceful nations.  Also, maintaining treaties gives a positive adjustment between the nations involved and the length of time the treaties are maintained affects the total adjustment.  If you break a treaty, it has a strong negative impact on the opinions of you for the nation you betrayed, and it has a smaller negative impact on all other nations who are neutral or allied to the nation you betrayed.  It has no impact on nations who dislike or are at war with the nation you betrayed.  In fact, maybe it has a positive impact on the opions of you for nations at war with the nation you betrayed.  I haven't articulated this well, but hopefully you get the idea.

Sorry for the wall of text.

You guys should do a new interview with Three Moves Ahead! I bet that would also help sales!

I really like the world war ideas. What I think would be cool would be some non-trade diplomatic messages. Maybe like a taunt message where you can basically say tell the AI to go to hell, or a relax tensions message for calming tension between factions of the same side. Another thing I would like to see is a method to impose trade sanctions, where you could immediately cut all enemy trade routes to your faction.

There are a bunch of good suggestions in this thread re Diplomacy already, so I am just going to comment on something in the OP with which I disagree: anyone not prepared to wait a few seconds between turns - if that means an excellent AI - probably should not be playing TBS games. While your approach is excellent, I think that maybe you have applied unnecessarily limiting objectives on AI development. But Kudos to Stardock for working so hard on improving this game.

Thanks. I think I was synonymizing it with 1.A and 1.B.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be nit-picky, but just wanted to remind everyone that we are getting more updates in addition to the expansions.

To those of you waiting for 1.1 to start playing again, I suspect that once they get the 1.09 beta stability issues out of the way you are going to enjoy this game a heck of a lot more.

It still needs some work, to be sure, but it is actually fun to play now (even with the crashes).

frogster, the AI is still sending unprotected pioneers through my territory during war time.  fix it!  i mean, will you please fix it?  also, Capitar is sending wave after wave of the same 4 units to attack my city with 10 units in it.  fix it!  i mean, will you please fix it?

i would like to see if you have a non agression pact you could move straight through there citys

Ok so I was recently playing and found myself wishing I could simply diplomatically combine my nation with that of one of the minor factions. Sadly, I could not so I was forced to attack this tiny city with virtually nothing simply because they were in a strategically good position for my faction.

How about you leaked the AI code and the designdocuments for 1.1 of Elemental to Wikileaks? You sure would get a lot of free press

heh, this is great (but then just about everything on this thread is)

I would love to be able to ally with the minor factions (but they stay independant), hire'em to attack others or defend your lands, hire units from them, be able to support them with money/goods/items/units (perhaps even a city?), maybe have them able to ally with one faction only (would make for interesting game play)

& I too support minor factions being 'just like' major factions but no pioneers

THANK YOU FOR BRINGIN ON THE MODDING EXPERT

oh & I need someway of spending more money on this game, bought it with the two expansions free & have alot of people asking me what I want for the holidays

Hum, I agree with a lot of suggestions about diplomacy but I'll go into more detail about the AI leaders.

I'd like them to have basic 'stances' like in Civ (ie expansionist, peaceful, mercantilist, etc)  that are readily viewable by players.  However, one or two extra hidden stances should be added to each AI leader to spice things up (and those would be randomized so you wouldn't quite know what to expect from a given leader in different games).

So let's say that Procipinee starts with Mercantilist and Diplomatic (which everyone can see) but ends up with Treacherous as a hidden stance.  You'd expect her to focus on diplomacy while in reality she'd stab you in the back at the first opportunity that presents itself.

Lots of different stances can be put into the game so that no one game would feel 'same old, same old'.

There is one. 

Make "diplomatic capital" more than just a way to steal stuff from the Ai. Make the AI use the diplomatic capital you've sold it... in its own way. You could, for instance, let it buy roaming monsters. Or you could give it specific items it could buy with the capital. Anyway, give a consequence to the inconsiderate overuse of diplomatic capital, and give to the AI a motive to accept it in a trade.

Hm... I'm not sure if this is in the works, or has been suggested, but how about, if your sovereign is killed, the next in line of heritage takes over, so a kingdom needs to have the entire royal line hunted down or the country can come back.

Diplomacy suggestions

1. Demand percentage income of (insert commodity here)

2. Dowry for marrying daughters

3. Technology trade (in this regard a faction with a higher ranking of tech in one field (civ for instance) can assist with a major boost in points - 25% of something of needed tech requirement

4. Spell trading

5. Lets make a supprise attack - attack in # of rounds vs # faction