Envoy/Pact System

Pacts were okay.  Gave you more reasons to get civilian labs.  Some weren't very well thought out though.  Envoys however largely sucked, with only a couple abilities being worthwhile.  Advent one was particularly useless.  Both could be fine with some rebalancing.

Revamped Pirates

I like the idea of a nasty neutral force, but Diplomacy took them from one extreme to the other making them once again a non-issue as everyone turned them off.  Patch looks like they finally might have met a happy medium here.

Pirate Missions

Interesting gameplay mechanic, but failed for the same reason as above.  Again, people are reporting this is working well in the patch.

Player to Player/AI missions

Sounds good in theory for single player, but I don't think anyone used these.

Relationship System

Broken.  Too easy to make peace with AIs, while AIs have serious problems joining other AIs.

Diplomatic Victory

Worst idea of the lot.  Doesn't work in a RTS environment.

Maximum Allied Victory

Sensible, makes unlocked FFAs playable.

New AI difficulties

Doesn't hurt anything, but making the AI play better at non-cheating difficultly would be better.

New 'Faster' speed option

Necessary evil to keep multiplayer game length reduced to one session.  The game feel just right on 'Fast' though IMO.

Envoy/Pact System: I'm not partial to having to waste 72-96 supply on a single "ally" to be able to use the pact system. Furthermore, I don't like the pacts... some of them are lame and some of them are OP (I'm lookin' at you, Supply Pact - cuz yer ridiculous), there's no good reason to make certain pacts so ridiculously good. However, because many of them are that good - you're somewhat forced into using them.

Revamped Pirates: Revamped? You're joking right? These things were a mess. Hopefully they will be better after this upcoming patch.

Pirate Missions: Seems kind of redundant, but I suppose if the pirates are ever fixed it might be useful.

Player to Player/AI missions: The missions to the AI are useless, no amount of incentive will make them betray an ally. No dynamism. Unclear on how it affects multi-player.

Relationship System: Also useless... until relationships become interlinked and a relationship w/ one empire affects the relationship and missions w/ another empire - the system is just there to look at. As it stands each relationship exists in a vacuum and that's just plain silly.

Diplomatic Victory: I'm sure some people like it... personally I don't see the point, since diplomacy in this expansion is almost non existent. Not to mention bribery works impossibly well.

Maximum Allied Victory:  *shrug*

New AI difficulties:  Not really new difficulties... just more cheating. Instead of improving resources, etc, they would have been better served making the AI choose Cap Ships more responsively (AI seems to stock up on Marauders/Akkans/Raptures to a retarded degree), make more intelligent use of special abilities... make use of Super Weapons... and make use of special abilities on Star Bases (I'm lookin' at you, Transcensia). POINT IN CASE: Before making the AI cheat, please make the AI use *all* of the abilities they have at their disposal.

New 'Faster' speed option: I don't use them much, although they are nice to use at the beginning of the game because even with quick start the game feels slow at first. I'm glad they are there for people who like the game to be zippy, though.

Overall: Diplomacy feels like an amateur attempt at a sloppy mod. There are people in the community who produce better work for free. Sorry IC, but you guys really dropped the ball on Diplomacy. Vanilla and Entrenchment were the bomb though. I'm still hoping you guys make a good sequel - or even a decent expansion, but if you're going the expansion route - Diplomacy really needs to be cleaned up before you do.

-Itharus

PS: Thanks for the response template, GoaFan77

This reaction is exactly the reason why I created this thread before I made a decision on buying Entrenchment and Diplomacy.

As much as I like all of the new diplomatic options that it gave, I still had a diplomatic system that was similar to the Total War series or perhaps Sid Meiers Civilization in my mind. Where you maybe had to send a diplomat to negotiate deals with other races and convince each other to Open Borders, Peace Treaties etc. While the TW and Civ Series are turn-based I thought that they might create a Real-time version for it. But apart from that I didn't have many other issues with the expansion. I liked the New Difficulty settings for the AI and enjoy watching them tear each other apart, leaving me to pick up the pieces (If I survive), and setting up Allied Missions instead of being their B**ch and doing all the work for them.

I'd like to see what the community thinks of Diplomacy as a whole. (Bugs excluded.)

 

In short i really enjoy it and looking forward to the next expansion.

Keep in mind the mechanics:

Envoy/Pact System - 95% of the time never use it, do to harsh supply cost (just my 2cents)

Revamped Pirates - Over powered but getting better with the patches

Pirate Missions - Enjoy them but needs a bit of a balance as it can be over powered.

Player to Player/AI missions - Enjoy them when i need someone put in thier place till i can deal with them later.

Relationship System - Never been very good at following this.

Diplomatic Victory - Like it but rarely turn it on.

Maximum Allied Victory - Like them but rarely get it. More of a kill everything that moves player.

New AI difficulties - Never use them but glad they are there.

New 'Faster' speed option - Great

Envoy/Pacts = Meh. I agree with most of the views here. Seems like a waste to me. AI spams the hell out of them neutering the factions already bad AI's. Not worth it to me to research the pacts.

Revampd Pirates.. In the begining i was thinking "Finally a challenge" since the Pirate AI is the only AI that is a challenge in Sins. However the pirates became too OP. I lost a game because of the new pirates. That was a good thing to me, but to new players they would just wind up turning them off, because they were "too hard". At least the AI is ebaying bounty on each other now.

Pirate Missions.. I agree could be better. In a way that they help you, but cant win the game vs the AI solely by using pirates.

Dont play MP PvP so cant comment on PvP missions.

Relations is confusing. You cant really tell what exactly you need to do to improve your relations with another factions.

Dip Victory. Used it only on AI games. Helpful but unnecessary.

Max Allied victory.. Never used it.

Speeds usefull, but i never used it.

Diplomacy was an attempt to make Sins feel more 4X than what it was. Since many complained it was not 4X enough. Unfortunetly i feel that Diplomacy failed in that aspect. The diplomacy system doesnt really work like i think it was intended to. Some dont bother to use it.

correct! Where it faild the most was to provide a trade system so that AI players really felt like Opponents, not a borg collective hunting the human players. Where are the option to give planets/ships/techs/... to other players? As exchange for treaties? Or Pacts. Where is the option to set a minimum time for treaties so that one can have peace treaties one cannot break until time x elapsed?

To be precises, I liked Diplomacy, but was still very disappointed with it.

     How would you like to be the guy who thought Diplomacy was the way to go, then the announcement for the next expansion says:    the time for diplomacy is over. It's probably how Ironclad feels. I dont want to make friends, if I want an ally I'll lock teams with an ai.