Good city improvement of civilization espionage of the krynn and iconians of da. Leader base. Good colonist management in civilization. Civilization four civics.  Great wonders like in call to power. Customisation. Flexible user interface. Creature building in spore. Good tech like in civilization. Individualised tech and racial abilities like in galactic civilization. Ship customization like in galactic civilization. Great people. Leaders. Skill advancement like in panzer general. Upgrading units like in panzer general.  Good ai like in civilization 4. Tough ai's like the Thalan in toa. Great random events like in galactic civilization. Jagged knife needs to be functional. Rebellions pirates good resource management. Good micromanagement. Good artifacts. Galactic civilization approval modifier. Good resource management. Leveloping options like in civilization four or sins of a solar empire. Turn based. Good diplomacy like in galactic civilization. The galactic council in galactic civilization. The Vatican and un wonders in civilization. Big maps never big enough except in teturkministan scenario in civilization three call to power or distant worlds. Requiring you to bring in income like in civilization. Great expansion.

I am sure there is some great feedback here. to answer your questions as briefly as possible

1) Diplomacy, generally hate it. Most games the AI will beg, grovel or threaten you out of what ever it can. long term "friends" you have built up with will stab you in the back the moment it suits them. Its far to easy to fleece the Ai out of nearly everything by trading one against the other, or giving them useless (to them) stuff, etc etc. Ai's are far to predictable, only in it for themselves unless its "teams" vs. even so called allies are a general pain in the butt, attacking the wrong Civ at the wrong time and expecting your help.

first thing I do in all games is to turn off tech trading and the like, and just let them do whatever so I can get on with winning.

2) Game length, as long as possible, again first thing on new games. select most massive map I can find, turn all tech research to Very slow and other such options. a good game will last weeks or even into a month or 2. don't like the turn limits game ends on turn 500 or whatever. if its good I want to be playing for 1000s of turns

3) memorable games, I enjoy playing the underdog and fighting my way upwards. this usually involves some careful thought, and some really clever ideas to gain an advantage.  surprise attacks, using the maps to the best possible advantage., dragging armies to the edge of there supply lines, then cutting them so they have nothing to fight with. giving away territory to an enemy ai that will really upset the apple cart of those around me. letting the Ais fight for me while I sit back and laugh at its stupidity.  I enjoy a game which allows me to "think outside of a box" coming up with some weird and wacky ideas that sometimes pay off with fantastic results, and if they fail then its so funny to watch it all go wrong in a big way....

Thank's for asking Frogboy...

#1 

The diplomacy in Civ 5 is quite ok, but I'm using some mods which enhanced it quite much with adding more steps then the usual war/neutral/peace you found in most games. There are many many steps in between which levels this part into a challenging machine. I also do support a setup where all races in a sci-fi surrounding could shoot each other without decleration of war at first contact. They should need a 'formal' treaty (like founding official embassys) which condemns hostility between two races and sets relation on neutral. Of course you'll need tech for universal translator at first ^^. 

(Just a note: I suggested in a prior post to have new founded 'colonies' to be set as outposts instead, till they reach a certain level of population to form a true colony with all further aspects like expanding zones of influence. Outposts should be nowhere-land without true ownership till they reach colony status. With this idea you could easily bring a challenging feature how to claim borders as even with a formal treaty, neighbours could take over unwanted outposts without punishment.)

Also if you have signed a peace treaty, you might not be willing to accept all steps your 'friend' undertakes. So, before breaking up friendship treaty into total war, there should be some forms of interactions that work against your neighbours moves. Like sending spies as in Civilization:BE which could perform a lot of trouble. Add some more specific tasks that reflect on the current issue and you'll get very vital diplomacy.

Same as when you face an overwhelming evil neighbour and you just want to survive. Open up possibilities to withdraw to them for a limited time till you re-gain your power. There is nothing more depressing in a game if you encounter an overwhelming neighbour who kicks you out of game. Another time I'm inspirated by Civ5, but here regarding a mod called 'Civilization IV diplomacy mod' which allows several trading of tech (allready in place in GC3) but also allows vassalage to an overwhelming foe. This might cost you a price in goods, planets or money, but you survive and you are able to re-build your empire. Once you are strong enough or have made enough of your neighbours supporting you in it, you break away and declare war against your suppressor. With such move, you stay in game, and could still use your diplomacy or shady tools to manipulate the games outcome. 

In the past I encountered a really fresh and inovative diplomacy structure in Star Ruler 2, which comes up with a very unique kind of diplomacy cards. You earn some form of 'influence points' from your colonies and could buy those cards which have different costs regarding to their use. Then you are able to start or react on different issues or tasks...like installing an universal sience university in one of your colonies. A vote about is starting and everyone could throw in his diplomacy cards for a given ammount of influence costs in favor or against any vote. You have to decide weather the vote is necessary to throw in your cards, so you may end without any power for the next upcoming vote. A very challenging and lively system never seen in other games before. 

#2 

Depends on the game and if I get boring by continiously repeating moves every turn. There has to be the possibility for different outcome no matter how many turns I do play. In Civ 5 I tendend to play without ever thinking of an end, if there is still an option to win or to be in a position to decide who should win. 1000-5000 turns and more are not uncomon for an interesting game. 

#3

To stay in the sci-fi surrounding, I'd start with Stars! which brought my interest into 4X or former 3X games... It is a simple and multiplayer focused game, but created new and unexpected outcomes every single time I played it. There certainly wasn't an InGame diplomacy...instead players contacted each other with email in real, but it lived by a very alive diplomacy part to reach the self-declared goals.

There shouldn't be too much favor for the 4th X - Exterminate, as most titles in current times have only one goal...exterminate the enemy. Most companies do not even think about creating a game in which once enemys could be turned into friends/vassals/supporters. They only go for total war...how boring. If your only reason to exist is to exterminate all your neighbours...the game gets boring quite soon. As soon you found the exploit pattern you crack the game and then you'll not play it any longer.

It is a matter of design patterns to make a game fun and challenging to play. No need to have a huge budget or pling-pling eyecandy, you should have an accountable background with which players could feel comfortable with. The more players empathize with their race, the more they try to build a roleplay upon. Ok, if one likes to exterminate...no problem, but I guess most players just want 1st not get kicked out of the game without a chance, 2nd get in a powerful position and 3rd reach self declared goals. If you guys set all goals for players on 'exterminate all others'...you are trapped in a infinite circle. Winning a game could also be considered to reach a certain level of understanding in the science of life itself or to reach a new level of beeing (in fact I think about ending the game by transforming into a new higher life-form and ... start a new game by leaving the old behind.). So...I'd say open up the 4th X to a more interesting GC3 instead what could be found at current state.

The more you come up with an easy way to alter race, ship designs, individual tech trees, different habitable planet choice, the more fun and 'immersion' players will get with GC3.

The less individuality the game offers, the less fun people have.

You defenetly should integrate Steam workshop and open up GC3 to modding, so players could offer their ideas and inspiration to alter parts or even the whole game to what they think is a good game. Have a good look on the Civ5 workshop and you'll find out why. You'll be surprised about and probably you'll find that kind of creativeness I'm sadly missing in GC3 at current state! 

1. What specific features of diplomacy do you traditionally like the most? I want you to be as specific as you can be. Which parts of diplomacy from any game do you like the most? What parts do you remember long after playing the most?

(A) - Diplomacy is BS in any game, they either love or hate you depending on if you are good or evil.

2. Looking back, how many turns do your favorite games last? This is important to know the specific number of turns the game in Question lasted.

(A) - Time and turn limits suck to any self respecting gamer. You either win or you lose.

3. Consider all The 4X strategy games that you have ever played. How do you define what is a good strategy game or a bad one? To you what makes one strategy game good fand another one bad? Consider different memories you have of those games can you remember the parts that made you enjoy that game the most?

(A) - Games were the primary focus is on strategy and tactics, with a clever AI that does the unexpected. BUT, never cheats.  House keeping and baby sitting killed the great game way-back-when.

Most importantly, make it personal, give the characters names, unique looks and even some form of personality if possible.  Remember Minsc and his hamster?

1. My favorite thing in diplomacy is those turns where one player accidentally launches the galaxy into an immense war. I remember one game where one turn there were no alliances or wars and just a turn later everyone had at least 1 ally and 3 rival alliances were all at war with each other.

2. As long as the game stays competitive. I start to lose interest after it seems i have definitely won. 

3. The AI is ultimately one of the most important things to me. GC2 excelled in this; if you sat back and played the isolationist/.colonizer for a little while, you'd quickly find yourself pitted against a civ that has had half the map surrender to them.

Unhealthy reaction to loosing.... interesting. I admit I am not the best player in the world at anything, I do enjoy thinking outside the box. in a game with many players I tend to give a player a boost by giving them resources and so forth from the first turn, giving him a good head start if he wins then I feel like I have too. its nice when they help me out later but its not required ( I do expect them to attack and take the rest, but that's part of the gamble). that way it don't matter if I "loose" I have done my bit to help another

1. Get the AI to haggle, if you can. You never get a counter offer from the AI.

2. Doesn't matter, as long as well defined victory conditions are in place.

3. Variability is the best trait of 4x games. You don't won't to get stuck doing the same thing over and over again. There should be no "ultimate" strategy to win. I'm still playing Civ V, but  you can count on the AI players to do the same thing over and over again. Victories, other than a military victory, never seem possible because of the irrational behavior of the AI players. The best 4x games I've played have been multi-player, with a few AI bots thrown in for fodder, because no AI is as devious and cunning as a human player.

1. My top two diplomacy systems are #1 emperor of the fading suns, and #2 twilight imperium (the board game). In both cases it ibecause diplomacy is as far different as possible from the civilization model, which I despise. Fading suns in particular is brutal, like Hapsburg and England brutal.

The game is a 4x,but it is primarily won via diplomacy. Military is just a means to get the votes to win. Empty imperial throne, five nobles warring for the crown, aliens at the gates who can extinct the human race if the civil war gets too vicious add in a Spanish inquisition style church and merchants guild that just crushed the empire and won equal standing to the nobles. First goal is to get voted in as regent, then declare yourself emperor then hold on to power for ten turns for the win. Each player starts with five votes, the church and merchants also have five but abstain unless bribed or at war with one contender.

Each vote is represented by a physical sceptre, capture someone's sceptres and you get their votes. You must have a noble on the imperial capital to cast your votes or you abstain. No battle is possible on the homework except for assassins. Until someone declares themselves emperor, then all bets are off. If all your nobles die you lose and you can't get more then you start with. Assassinations hurt, bad.

Being regent you give three layers minister positions. Promising these is typically how you get the votes to be elected. One is the imperial intelligence. They have a slew of assassins and spys on the capital and every home world. Usually people take those out. Fast while the ministry is empty (before the first vote), but sometimes you get lucky and can wipe out an enemy layer by killing all his nobles with this ministry. Second is the stigmata Garrison which starts with almost every tech in the game in?ocked, but he eds all their resources to man the only jump gate bottlenecking the aliens outside of the human Lands. If they get past planet stigmata, sometimes all the players lose and people use the threat of letting the aliens get loose as a "nuclear" deterrent in diplomacy. As in, "vote for me for emperor next election or I like the a!ones out and we all die, but you're three jumps closer to them than me." The third, is the imperial fleet ministry which has the largest warfleet in the game, easily able to exterminate any player and equipped with the best weapons and tech the game has. However, half is at stigmata keeping the aliens out (supporting the Garrison who are the ground troops) a small bit are near the unexplored southern border and about a third are guarding the capital.

Given you can only take one for yourself which two do you promise to get votes? Do you trust the person with a massive army of dreadnaught not to bombard your homework to rubble and force you to vote for him after giving him the fleet or will another player give it to him if you don't and he uses it on you anyway? Or do you promise to give him the fleet then really give it to someone else? Or are both of you trustworthy? Do you pull away a few of stigmatas sersoldoers and launch a surprise raid on an enemy home world to try and steal their sceptres or kill their nobles? Do you protect yours by hiding them in a remote slum of the capital or by building walls of troops to hide behind so assassins have to fight their way to you? Do you keep your nobles and sceptres all in one place or spread them out and risk losing them in transit?

I have never experienced anything like it. It is exquisite and the backstabbing and the loyalty both inspire much tears and laughter. Best diplomacy ever.

The aspects of diplomacy I like the least are trading, its boring and overly simple and lame. I also dislike how it all boils down to "you're smaller than me so I hate you a d want more." Now you're bigger then me so I hate you and want more. Now I just dislike you forever so I want more. You have nothing I want so piss off. Now you have lots that I want so gimme. Its like theres no way to ever make the ai like you or treat you fairly in the long run. the complex relationships that america and canada or sweden and norway have are impossible in all games because the ai always hates you and always acts selfishly and with short-term goals only.

The parts I like the most only happen in multiple human games and those are formining coalitions and joint long-term strategy, like "you research these trees and I'll research those and we'll share". Or, " you take these stars and stop, I'll take those and stop. Then the final two between us we'll divide based on who is behind or how good or bad the world's are." Or, "I'll build beam ships, you build railguns or missiles, then we both declare war on the drengin together." Etc. Where fading suns hit it so well is that even an ai will react to the power of a ministry or a promise of a ministry for votes. And that has long-term results not just one-off short term results.

2. I don't care about length, twilight imperium goes like a couple dozen turns, some others go hundreds. What matters instead is that there is a chance to win. When it is clearly over, the game needs to end. If Kasparov tells you cjheckmate in five, making him play those five turns just to prove it is rude. Game is over. No 4x game has ever recognized this, and as a result I almost never see a victory window because I don't enjoy the boring slog to the finish line when there is no way things will turn around.

3. The best parts are having many options and figuring out how to win. The carrying it to completion I find boring and frustrating. I loved how different the races were in master of motion, with the "omniscient" (that really wasn't) or the aquatics etc. I loved alpha centauri and galciv one/two for the multiple victory conditions. I love twilight imperium for the different races and how we all have different goals, like I might need to kill a certain number of enemy units to win but you need to control specific p!anets and someone else just needs to get a fixed number of specific units into play.its not just there are different ways to win but not all of us have access to the same ways to win. Replay ability really. Also just doing things totally uniquely, for example, the little game star traders 4x by the trees brothers inverts diplomacy. You cannot talk to the ai at all, it is a monster hell bent on exterminating you at all costs. Instead you play three factions and have to keep them happy with each other so you can face the ai as a united front. Trying to keep your world's from going to war with your other world's is so different an experience that it is hugely fun.

I'm still reading through this thread, but lots of cool replies so far.

No just you performing necro on a thread no one had spoken on in over 6 months. Good post though. And you have marigold responding, but marigold responds to almost everything.

1. I admit, i use rarely use diplomacy and i use it as tool only, but i hate it when AI have diplomatic options i haven't. And as people said it's nice to have an AI with "Personality", AI that react so same events differently.

2. I like my games loong 300+... 500+ turn, but i barely finish my games - as soon it's clear that i'm a top dog, i loose interest.

3. Diverse gameplay with a lot of possibilities and aspect instead of excess focus on a few elements. AI that can scale well with difficulty and can entertain player - it's okay if it's not the smartest AI around, as long it could put up a good fight without flashing his "special" powers (like "clairvoyance"  ) too obviously.

Here are some thoughts on diplomacy. This is an outline of what could make diplo a little bit interesting and relevant.

• It should be possible as a strategy to colonise a few planets and still dominate. How? By growing to be a techno research giant and by out sourcing large parts of production. 
• You can outsource either to race or specific planets of a race (like trade ships today).
• You will need to develope specific diplo skills in order to be able to outsource effectively. At each level of this skill (along a tech tree for this purpose) you will be able to outsource more and better.
• What can you outsource? Production of goods and services. This includes social production (special trade goods) and military production (ships).
• In order to produce factories, trade goods, ships you must have researched the particular technologies. For example you want large hull ships with harpoons etc on them. You must have researched large hulls, harpoons etc in order to be able to outsource manufacture of the same.
• Your maintenance cost becomes income for the race you outsource production to.
• Social factories will produce trade goods. Trade goods generate money (you dont trade them - you presume they are sold). Each type of trade good has a life cycle. Its economic output increases gradually for say 5 turns and then accelarates for 20 turns and then declines over the next 10 turns. Which means that unless the next level of trade goods is researched you will no longer have income from outsourcing.
• Military factories (or allocation to military) will produce ships. You can assign delivery location for ships at specified rally points/planets. The time to produce will be exactly as though you were producing it on the specific planets if you were doing your own production. You can also outright purchase ships if you have the money 
• You need to build research facilities. Since you wont have enough social manufacturing you will have to buy the facilities - either over x turns or rush buy if you can afford it.
• You will also need to build farms and housing facilities for population growth. Again if you cannot produce them then you have to buy them.
• Which means that you need lots of money. Which means trade goods. Which means outsourcing. Which requires diplomacy.

• As mentioned earlier trade goods generate a variable income over time 
• Social factories are not on your planets. So unrests to the race/planets can affect your trade good output.
• Sourced relationships can abruptly negate outsourcing arrangements.
• The civ that you are outsourcing to can become so rich that they themselves start becoming major powerhouses and can become a challenge to you.
• This means that you will have to manage and balance your outsourcing and risks to make this strategy effective.

This whole strategy of course becomes interesting to power gamers, only if it can produce viable and powerful civilisations . So the numbers and balance has to be carefully fleshed out such that some options generate substantial resources.

1. As a casual player, I always thought that playing as the Drath in GC2 and making people go to war was hilariously fun. Being able to manipulate the AI and then see the drama that played out was great. I used to create little stories in my head about the wars going on. The fact that the AI was great and UNPREDICTABLE, for me at least, made the games play out differently each time. Sometimes I'd be more warlike, others cultural and still others tech turtling. It also helped that the AI could react to my weapons and fleets pretty well since there's nothing that takes you out of a game like an AI that doesn't know how to play even on a basic level like adjusting their defenses to my weapons. 

2. I think my favorite games lasted about 100-150 turns. By that time, you could see which way the wind was blowing. 

3. I think the best AI is one that knows how to play the game. I never bought Endless Legend because the AI sucks. It doesn't even know how to use basic things like the market or even making its armies varied. How that game ever got rave reviews, I'll never know. But I do know this. Playing Galciv and seeing they AI react logically or in Legendary Heroes (I love this game, community patch plz!) is what keeps me immersed. Not that it can beat me necessarily, that's a close second. As long as the AI knows how to play the game and use the same resources the players do, I feel like I'm immersed. Not like I'm playing a different game than the AI who can't fathom weapon defense. 

 The mega events DLC is exactly the kind of cool randomness I like! For the next few patches, I hope AI and only AI will be worked upon. 

Bit late to this, but i`ll add my bit.

1. On diplomacy. The more Human it can be the better. One of the things I particularly like about GC3`s diplomacy is when a beleagured AI Faction calls me and asks for help saying that another Faction he`s at war with is destroying him. I have wanted this in so many games. In other games a friendly or even Ally AI Faction will just suddenly die and I had no idea and so could do nothing for him. Now in GC3, I actually try to help a friendly AI faction when he calls me! I think this is the only game that does it! Well done on that.

Also, I notice the AI will sometimes ask for money that I don`t have. Again another nice touch, this gives the impression that the AI doesn`t know how much money I have. In most games, they always seem to know exactly how much cash you have.

I also like how a friendly faction will surrender to the Player (or closest friendly) rather than let the enemy get it. Can`t think of another game that does this.

ok, what else I would like to see:

A, I would like to be able to ask the AI, `What do you want for that?` and for him to give me an answer to it. If there`s nothing he could say, `Nothing. Or I do not have enough for it.`

B, I`d like to see the AI sometimes ask to borrow a ship and if the ship is lost, they pay for it in extra cash. But perhaps this can only happen if Allied?

C, I`d like to be able to plan military targets with Allied AI and when to carry them out, with the AI making its own attacking suggestions as well.

D, A little more chit chat about other Leaders and his opinion on them would be good, depending on how close the two factions are.

E, Slightly more variety to some warnings and answers instead of just, `Always.`

F, more sounds of the Faction leader, even if just a `Hmm...` from the Terrans and a robotic `Bzzz` from the Yor.

G, To simply insult a Faction leader as one of my responses, even if that Faction has been nice.

2. I always forget to check my Turn number, but they usually go all the way until I am the winner or defeated, I dunno 100-200+ turns?

3. Ok, the best 4X strategy games for me are  those that are the most immersive and can put me there.  I want to feel that the Leaders of other factions are not just 2D cutouts but have a certain `humanity` or alien `life` to them. I want to hear the chatter of civilians as I visit the planetary surface and decide the next improvements.  It would be nice to hear people cheer if I do well and boo if not. I want to see the space battles as they take place and feel a little sorry for the people dying under my leadership; For example I want to hear the words of the commanders as they go to the attack, see the spaceships break apart as they explode with the screams of those poor souls within and watch as debris float by during the rest of the battle. Land invasions would also help greatly here as well.

I love the `Ideology` events.  For me, a real leader has to deal with the unexpected and often there`s no obvious indicator telling him what the outcome will directly be. I really like the 3 Ideologies in the game, but would love it if the consequences were not so obvious. I mean I don`t want to see exactly what the numbers are. I simply want to use my common sense on whether an Ideology is the right one for me at the time.  I would like the consequences `hidden`. The numbers should simply reveal themselves in the general game. Please add more Ideology varieties. Perhaps make the hidden variety optional as I know some people like knowing every single thing and hate `random` events.

Also the Ideologies are written in a very smart and witty way. I like the one about the fish that get smarter the bigger the group, and I always laugh at the `evil` third options!