Envoy/Pact System: Alright, probably good have been better but it does change up the game a bit.

Revamped Pirates: They were turned off before Diplomacy, I haven't turned them back on yet.

Pirate Missions: Never used them.

Player to Player/AI missions: More useful but still not groundbreaking.

Relationship System: Still confusing, if a bit more detailed.

Diplomatic Victory: I think there needed to be a non-military way to win, but I would have prefered some kind of economic or wonder type win instead.

Maximum Allied Victory: A very good change here, I think this option should be present in ever game without an expansion back.

New AI difficulties: Quite fun to try and deal with despite just a bigger increase in cheating. 

New 'Faster' speed option: Very nice to have.

Indifferent; it's alright, but it definitely could have been done better.


A mess; took the most annoying feature of the game and made it more annoying without dealing with the EBAY bidding system at all.


Meh.


Good in concept, but the numbers are all out of whack.


It works, though the AI can't seem to get any alliances with itself.


Meh.


Definitely a step in the right direction; actually makes unlocked teams playable in multiplayer (not that it happens much).


Meh.


Meh.


Aside from the pirates (Which are turned off anyways) I didn't find anything bad in the Diplomacy expansion, but nothing really all that memorable either.  Nothing like the wonderful, juicy starbases of Entrenchment.

Envoy/Pact System - Nice concept but I agree with GoaFan77. Could be improved upon.

Revamped Pirates - Needs a lot of work. I modded them quite a bit to make playable on DS, but as far as the original I am in agreement with GoaFan77.

Pirate Missions - Game Breaking. Especially against the AI. I beat 4 Viscous AIs with pirates alone.

Player to Player/AI Missions - Never really used them.

Relationship System - ? very confusing

Diplomatic Victory - Meh, its okay. Like Civ's version better. (I-V)

Maximum Allied Victory - Never paid it much mind TBH.

New AI difficulties - Fun for a while, until you unlock the secret. Taking on more then 4 Viscous can be very difficult.

New 'Faster' speed option - Very nice to have. Especially when mod testing.

The Diplomacy expansion as a whole was inconsequential.  Except for one good change:  no feeding untill a tier 3 civil tech is researched.  This greatly leveled the early playing field for multiplayer, and is the main reason Diplomacy is played online.  But it is about the only feature that is used (except for faster speeds).  Pirates have always been ignored - even for most single player games.  And I don't really like them. I find them annoying.  So I question the wisdom in trying to revamp pirates, but good luck.

The Envoy/Pacts add some interesting twists, but ultimately they are rarely worth it, and the AI just doesn't do it well.  Its been my opinion that the higher cheating AI's were needed to get these systems to work.  (You know that Vicious & Cruel are 6X & 4X cheats!).  I've never had a reasonable AI teammate accomplish any of it.  Diplomatic Victory setting is just stupid, and therefore also never used.

The maximum Allied Victors setting is a excellent concept, and I think it has great potenial.  But I've never seen anyone use it online, so I don't even know if it works... and I can't get the AI's to do it. [Edit: I got the AI to do it, but its hard, and maybe impossible in some cases?].

[P.S.  Backstabbing your Allies is also far too easy, and is a major exploit in unlocked team games (both online & in singleplayer).  Penalties need to be added for being a traitor/breaking a peacy treaty.]

 

 

 

Basically, if you set the maximum allied victors to "3", then a team of 4 or more players cannot win.  They must betray each other unitl only three are left standing.  This encourages subterfuge since you know a large team must break up eventually.

Great for unlocked teams, but unlocked teams is not played very often.

Yeah Darvin, I know.  Thanks.

Sorry, I misread "I don't even know if it works" as "I don't even know how it works"

My mistake

The pacts are quite important in multiplayer.  The envoys can really make a small economy much larger.

one strat that is quite effective in multiplayer is if one player goes straight for supply pact with an ally, and never goes above 250 fleet supply.  suddenly you got two players with 1050 supply, and almost no upkeep.  Then they both came at me with almost nothing but carrier cruisers filled with bombers.  It hurt. 

I had 2v2s with my ally dropped early go fantastic for me... untill they got envoys on their worlds, and pacts up... then i just couldnt hold em off.

 

As a guy who only plays online multiplayer PvP, I don't think the Diplomacy expansion was really worth the $10, but online players had to purchase it in order to be able to keep playing PvP.  Most games feel the same as Entrenchment.  Sometimes people will make the pacts.  Things like pirates and AI don't come up.

I do like the Faster speed setting and the option of being able to have tougher AIs (Cruel, Vicious) was a good addition.  Obviously the pirates are all cocked up right now.

One thing that bugs me is that when a player on your team drops, you still don't have very good control over its AI, which makes it essentially useless (other than serving as a militia-like buffer to your opponents).  If the dropped player's AI is between allies ("eco spot") then it's almost entirely useless.  I'd like to see an option where allied human players can take complete control over a dropped ally's AI.  At least make it so the AI will absolutely listen to basic orders.  (Defend this planet.  Attack here.  Feed all resources and credits to Player X, etc.)

Diplomacy's problem is that the diplo techs are beyond boring to research and there's just way too many of them. New ships and upgrades and Starbases are on a completely different level of fun. Building envoys and sending them out is a chore and I'd much rather use that fleet supply for some warships that actually do something other than just find a parking spot.

Somehow it just feels that Sins is about blasting your enemies out of the sky rather than intricate diplomacies. There is room for diplomacy but it should be kept simple and involve far less techs.

Diplomacy was a failure. Entrenchment did just as the name said it would, add items in order to entrench.
But diplomacy? Where is the diplomacy? I have yet to see any socalled "diplomacy" in the game.
Does "diplomacy" promote diplomacy during gameplay? No, you make pacts, but the pacts are shitty and comes too late in the game to have an affect imho, so you really just don't care wether you form 'em or not.
You could have added diplomacy to the game. Something like The Guild 2 mechanics, or even Sid Meiers Civilizations  form of UN, But no.

Envoy/pact system - is a fail. I don't use it, I rather dislike having to spend resources on building a ship that does nothing for me. Atleast the TEC's envoy generates money for them, good for them, but I tend to play Vasari. I do love hunting those envoys in the end, though. Free XP.

Revamped Pirates - Pirates were actually something that was a bit fun. Made for some epic battles.

Pirate Missions - No personal opinion on this subject as of yet.

Player to Player/AI missions - Giving a mission to an AI makes me feel sad and hollow. I just feel that they do not take it as seriouse as I do.
Player to player on the other hand is... a waste. Why would I give a mission to my enemy? He'll ignore it. Why would I ruin my reputation with one of my allies?
If there was a hint of RolePlay in this game, I can see how missions could be fun. But it is no RP in the game.

Relationship System - 10/20 makes little difference imho. getting AI to sign cease fire is too easy. and why would I want to have 20 in a relationship with anyone? Pacts you say? Don't make me cry...

Diplomatic Victory - never tried it. It doesn't sound tempting.

Maximum Allied Victory - never been a issue for me.

New AI difficulties - I love the last two difficulties, or well, mainly just the last one. Bit sad that the AI need to cheat all over the line in order to feel like fun playing against. It makes it feel less like an AI and more like a little kid with a big gun. he doesn't have to aim, 'cause he'll hit just about anything anyway.

New 'Faster' speed option - I got 'em all on the fastest except culture and ship movement. They are stuck on normal.


Considering what one got in Entrenchment and that it delivered exactly what the title promised - Starbases, mines etc - Diplomacy felt like a scam. I just can't stress one point enough when it comes to Diplomacy - Where is the diplomacy people!? Come on!

Since I don't play it in single player at all, I can't really say whether I think the Diplomacy expansion was a failure.  I think it's merely "OK".  It did add the harder AIs and a Faster speed setting, which is nice.  The insane pirates part was definitely a failure since it (presumably) chased many new players away from the game after they threw their hands up in frustration.  The pact system and having to research feed is OK, I guess.

Perhaps one of the worst things about it is that it creates a new barrier to online multiplayer PvP.  Now it's not merely necessary to buy Entrenchment (which proved to be a great expansion) but now people need to buy Diplomacy.  For someone who only has standard Sins and wants to try Sins online, the barrier is now $20 instead of $10.

$20 instead of $10? I just checked impulse last night and its $20 +$10 + $10

Researching feed is great. I really didnt like spending more time in the lobby than in a game due to 1 team feeding 1 player and them stomping the n00b in the 1st 2 mins. Very lame.

I mean, if you already own Vanilla Sins, the barrier to playing online is $20 since it's $10 for each expansion (to get Diplomacy).

Ah yes, TY.