Introduction

I don't have much time to discuss this in detail, but I feel that there should be more to diplomacy than in previous Civ games. In Civ3 right now you are basically either at peace or at war. Granted there is 'feelings' towards each Civ, but they simply don't play a big enough role. I believe that there should be levels of engagement, such as cease-fire, allied peace, neutral, etc.. I'll go into detail later on.
-TechWins

Summary

Unit trading is a must, as the below illustrates. Civvers really want a lot more in terms of diplomacy options. They want to be able to coordinate with allies, and to trade territory itself. Also, they want computer players to consider massing armies near their borders to be a sign of agression.

Related Threads

Diplomacy (CyberShy aka Robert Plomp)
Occupied Territories (skycommando)

Index

1.0.0 International Diplomacy
2.0.0 Land Control
3.0.0 Treaty Rules
4.0.0 Graphics/Mechanics of Diplomatic Negotiations
5.0.0 Diplomatic Options
6.0.0 Terrorism
7.0.0 General Diplomacy
Conclusion

The Ideas

1.0.0 International Diplomacy

1.1.0 International Peace Conference

Since the world wars are difficult, if not impossible, to end, there should be a possibility to call international congresses (by clicking a button in the diplomacy / shift-D screen).

(See this site for how it should look: )

The central proposition (such as "peace treaty with any other, right of passage with any other"...) must be accepted by all so that the congress is a success. The proposition would make the leaders react, and you can see with their faces if they agree or not. If they don't agree, what to do Bribe them! By double clicking on their face, a specialized diplomacy screen should pop up, where you make propositions only to make them accept the treaty (private diplomacy can be held anywhere else during the game). Naturally, you don't want to pay for the whole world peace. In such a situation, there should be a button when you're speaking to "give to..." an other :

(See this site)

Once you click it, the concessions you ask from your partner don't go to you, they go to another civ. Here's an example:

Let's say the Aztecs have won against the Iroquois, capturing Salamanca, but due to intricated MPPs, this war cannot cease. As the neighbours of the peaceful Iroquois, you don't want the balance to be broken by an unfinishable war. Then, you call a congress between Iroquois, Aztecs, all of their allies. The Aztecs will accept the peace treaty for 20 gold per turn, but you feel the Iroquois must pay: On the congress screen you double click on Hiawatha, choose "give to..." -> "the Aztecs". And then, as you would do in a normal diplomacy screen "gold"-> "per turn" -> "20".

(See this site: )

When you return on the congress screen, you see Moctezuma accepting, because he knows he recieves a compensation. If you definately cannot have everyone accept, you could kick the "rebels" out the congress.Well, I admit managing the other's diplomacy is not easy, so I think such a tool should be completely optional.But useful if you want to influence more directly the others. These multilateral bargainings could be used to make solid alliances too, by asking all those who are MPPed with you to MPP between themselves as well. (or to ask everyone to reduce his nuclear weapons, and so on...)

International congresses should be available once nationalism is discovered, or once UN is built. I don't think the AI could manage such a thing, so only the player could call for one. If the negociations succeed, due to your great diplomatic skill, the invited civs would be a bit more likely to vote for you.
-Spiffor

1.2.0 Sanctions, Etc.

Declare atrocities, sanctions, nuclear arms reductions, pollution reductions
-David Murray

1.3.0 Spies Know Intended International Council Votes

Your spies should know the vote intentions of infiltrated civs (POSSIBLE SPY OPTION??? INFILTRATE PLANNED COUNCIL VOTE???). There should be a way to bribe the other civ to vote for you (HIGLY expensive, and impossible if their spies know you're going to win)
-Spiffor

1.4.0 Third-Party Intervention

In the UN: anyone can ask someone to stop fighting another- useful if you have two potential allies but when you side with one it pisses the other off...
-Cian McGuire

1.5.0 F*** the UN

If the UN is built and other nations have agreed to vote in favour of one of your competitors you have the option to say "F**k the UN!" and go on with your bussiness. This decision would result in all other nations having a casus belli for war with you for a period of 40 turns.
-Mannamagnus

1.6.0 Other Alliances

There should be proper alliances that states can join (like NATO)
-builderchad

Trade blocks (like EU and FTA) that basically equate to increased income for the states involved and better/cheaper access to other members resources etc.
-builderchad

2.0.0 Land Control

2.1.0 Claiming Land

Establishing claims for various tiles or areas
-gopher

2.2.0 Negotiations Among Allies for Property Allotments of Seized Territory in War

Again and again I ask for EU type of diplomacy. It is much clearer; you can understand why somebody does not like you (religion, or you made a war with its friend). EU type of alliances rocks! Negotiations to make peace and decisions who gets what after the war are great! Ability to look at the map how any country treats other countries is very welcome. There are many other aspects that I want to see in CIV game that are in EU diplomacy model.
-MxM

2.3.0 Occupied Territories

I do agree with the occupied territory concept also. One reason of course is to improve the bug in MPP. You lose a city to an invader. Then you retake your lost city which activates any MPPs the invader has. This is not how MPPs should work.

But another reason to have this is to prevent the annoying thing where an ALLY conquers a city that you lost to an invader. I've had this happen to me before and it is very annoying. (I've taken advantage of this too but still its stupid). You could of course declare war on your ALLY to recover the city but an occupied status would remedy this situation.

In this case an ALLY could either temporarily occupy the city until peace treaty to determine final recognized status or it could be hard-coded so that any ally that occupies your city that it be turned over to the recognized owner immediately because your ALLY merely liiberated the lands for you.

Another thing is that occupied status allows even fully dead Civs to be sor t still alive underneath the surface. A dead Civ would flee abroad to an ALLY and the territory would be considered occupied despite it being totally taken over. Such occupied territories could be the source of rebellions and even revival.
-Polypheus

2.4.0 Allies Share Tiles

Allowing allies to share tiles - IE let civs help defend the cities of their allies. I would have loved to see what a Persian+Greek or Iroquois + Zulu alliance could have done if this option had been added to Civ3.
-Kloreep

3.0.0 Treaty Rules

3.1.0 Casus Belli a la Europa Universalis

Give us casus belli and stability to prevent too much backstabbing and making long-term diplomatic planning an option.
-statusperfect

You should be able to get a civilization to sign a peace treaty with another civilization or ask that a civilization stop building certain kinds of units.
Lorizael

3.2.0 Nuclear Missile Ban Pact

3.3.0 Vassalage

You should also introduce some kind of vassalage, that could benefit both parts. The vassal civilization would pay maintenance for all units that the master civ stations in its territory, but the master suffers a great loss of reputation if the vassal loses any city to an enemy.
-Optimizer

To expand upon the whole idea of vassal states and imperialism and suggest, I suggest another diplomatic state to go along with war, peace, alliance, and those things.

You could demand that another civilization become a territory of yours. Once this happens, new diplomatic options are available to you. You would have the ability to gain access to certain parts of your territory's civilization. You could ask to control the construction of improvements, or military units, or their income sliders, their science, and other such things.

This way you could simulate the ways in which civilizations control other civilizations without actually owning their cities.

While writing this I realized that few players (computer or AI) would ever actually agree to a situation like this. Because of that, there must be a way to threaten people during diplomatic negotiations.

3.4.0 Tech Deals

3.4.1 Haggling for Tech

Haggling is nice, but stick a limit on it. Make it so you can haggle 3 times per turn to get it right, and if you do not accept on the third turn, there is a 5-10 turn diplomacy blackout on that matter.-hexagonian

3.4.2 Getting Rid of the Trade Advisor (Making Trade More Difficult)

Get rid of the trade "advisor" who allows you to get the best deal possible down to the last gpt.
-Fosse

3.4.3 Sending only one Diplomatic Delegation per Turn

IMHO, one of the few (the only?) thing MOO3 did right was not making diplo communications real-time. You make an offer, send it off, and the AI civ accepts or rejects it within a few turns. Importantly, you can send off only one such offer per civ per turn. Limits diplo haggling. Something similar could probably be implemented in Civ IV, basing the round-trip time for a proposal on distance. How we'd get around the issue of contact time with civs on the other side of the planet, I dunno: either make the round-trip communication time some large amount of turns, or just limit contact to everyone within a certain range (which the MOO games do).
-Vlad Antlerkov

I don't like the idea of limiting the number of people you are talking to at all. Simply making communications last more than one turn (like MP does with another player in Civ III) would solve both issues you brought up, Vlad.

Plus, I think it would be fun. Diplomacy would have some elements of tension added to it, as offending the other leader with a poor offer could cause him to cancel negotiations that have gone on for two or three turns. Peace treaties especially would be harrowing if you are on the defensive!

The downside: "But then diplomacy would take years, even in modern time! Centuries in the ancient times! Egad, the unrealitic timeframe is horrible!"

My Response: A tank traveling on a road between Chicago and New York doesn't take a year.
-Fosse

3.5.0 More "Locked" Treaties

It seems a good option to extend the idea of locked alliances to other treaties, like locked embargoes or locked mutual protection pacts, …
-Spanish Civ Community (submitted by Kramsib)

3.6.0 Protection Agreements

Protection agreements in exchange for resources (or even possibly luxuries) or other. Similar to what has been in place between the US and Saudi Arabia for the last 60 years where the US guarantees Saudi military protection in exchange for access to her oil fields. This could be done by say making the agreement which would automatically include a RoP and one state has to setup a militray base on the others soil before the access to resources can begin. There would need to be some cleverness to ensure that the agreement was being upheld should hostilities begin however. This might be in the form of a one way Mutual Protection Agreement so it automatically draws the protector into war with any advisaries of the protectee but not the other way round.
-builderchad

3.7.0 Economic Agreements

This is tied to another idea I have about sea based fishing grounds and oil fields so would involve other game changes too. And agreement that would allow friends access to your waters for fishing or to prospect and build oil platforms. All with limits ofcourse.
-builderchad

3.8.0 Different Types of Alliances

Maybe different types of alliances should exist, like a 'defensive alliance', 'research alliance', 'Full alliance'...but maybe that is a bit over the top
-Lambiorix_be

3.9.0 Puppet Regimes

Puppet regimes are of tremendous importance, espescially when it comes to conquer, colonize, or having an imperialist policy.

I believe in a basic "puppet regime" system. For example, if you instaure a puppet regime in a conquered city, it will:

• Have a lower unrest than a blatantly conquered city
• A part of its production will you to your metropolis (other cities)
• A part of its production will go to its formal owner (in form of money, etc.)

The potentiality of unrest will slowly diminish if you maintain a calm situation and give what the inhabitants want. I read that one of Paradox' games (Victoria: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/victoria.asp) has puppet regimes, but I never played it.
-Trifna

3.10.0 Bring back the old truce state.

Units moving out of foreign territory would be seen as a sign of good will. Bringing more in would break the truce. You might even specify the path enemy units must take to leave your land and go back home.
-Harfang

4.0.0 Graphics/Mechanics of Diplomatic Rules

4.1.0 The Bargaining Table

Keep the bargaining table. It was superb.
Optimizer

4.2.0 Show Ways to Increase Relations With Other Nations

Make the game show via the foreign advisor what you can do to increase relations with civs you have bad casus belli with.
-statusperfect

4.3.0 Adjustable Durations of Negotiations

Durations of things need to be negotiable: Why 20 turns for every deal? What if 15 would be better?
-Fosse

4.4.0 Wonders Improving Reputation

You need a wonder (or facility, or something) like the Eiffel Tower or whatever it was that improved your reputation over time. The most annoying thing about Alpha Centauri diplomacy is that there's practically no way to repair your reputation - even for comparatively minor transgressions.

It could improve your reputation very slowly, and it could be contingent on you not committing more atrocities or breaking any more treaties.

Example:

Suppose your reputation is calculated in the programming as a score between 0 and 1,000, where 0 is pariah and 1,000 is beloved. When you have the wonder, your reputation score increases by one point in every two-turn period in which you do not commit an atrocity or break a treaty.
-Crimson Sunrise

4.5.0 Automatic Reparation of Reputation

4.6.0 Contact Diplomatic State

There should be a diplomatic state between two civilizations when they first meet. It would just be Contact. There would be no formal peace treaty of any sort, and because of that no need for formal declarations of war. Units from these civilizations could attack and destroy the other's units at will without suffering a hit to their reputation, to war weariness, or having to deal with many civilizations ganging up on the attacking civilization.

The caveat would be that diplomatic relations between these two civilizations would be severely limited until a peace treaty was formally written. There would definitely be no trading of strategic resources or of technologies, and none of the other nifty things that come with embassies and such. Yah, and a peace treaty would be required before an embassy could be established.
And one thing would still have meaning in this type of relation. Borders would be respected. Trespassing or taking another civilization's cities would still be considered an act of war.

I think this would allow for early expansion with a bit more flavor to it. You could model the almost continual warfare that occurred then without having to switch to a war footing. Minor conflicts would just be a natural part of ancient civilization and you wouldn't have fullblown wars until your states became more cohesive and organized.
-Lorizael

4.7.0 Diplomatic Information Screen

I thought about an information screen telling everything about another civ. It would be accessed by right clicking the portrait of a foreign leader in the diplo screen. It could look like the attached picture.

(Here I'm commenting the picture. If my post interest you, you should watch it first). The shown resources are everything the foreign civ has at disposal (local + import), not only what they can trade. This way, you know if they can build knights or not at all. The "may want" resources are what they could buy from you. When your cursor is on a resource, you have a small popup which indicates where it comes from, or where it goes to (like "fine chinese silk" in your trade advisor)

The map is here so that you know where are the cities, like at the culture advisor.

The science tab would show all their knowledge, the most recent discoveries they made being at the top (it is useless to know directly they mastered writing when you have to scroll down all the way to know if they have advanced flight).

The buttons in the bottom would make it more practical to go spying (you are directly spying by the French) or comparing their army (you go directly to the defense advisor screen, the French being in the right column)
-Spiffor

A complete information screen about others civs is needed for the civs with which you have an embassy.

It would list the: Government, capitol, relations with other civs (not only war/peace..., but also politeness), trade agreements, treasury, vote intentions, and most important : the knowledges they have and are researching. This screen should be accessed by a right click.

At the beginning of each turn, your foreign advisor "could" pop up (with an option for turning it off), saying in one screen everything which happened (war declarations, discovered technologies, traded technologies, diplomatic incidents...), big deal such as war and peace declarations would be written in bold.
Spiffor

4.8.0 More Civs in the Meeting Room

We need a new format for displaying the meeting room. Only seeing 6 civs is useless when more then 7 civs in game. An option would be to have a box per civ, on which it shows the status they have with other civs in basic symbol form...
-Paddy the Scot

4.9.0 Meeting Room Graphical Gripes

Well, on the subject of the meeting room- I would like to suggest a non-graphics intensive room that doesn't take the player out of the game... I don't really care about seeing the enemy leaderheads- or if I do, then I would rather seem them in a CTPI-like way... on an info-tab... There is no need for Civ IV to be graphic-intensive... it should be streamlined, smooth and simple
-DarkCloud

4.10.0 Seeing "True, Quantifiable" Attitudes of Civs

One thing that bothers me about Civ 3 that could be done better is the ability (or lack of) to see the TRUE attitude of nations towards each other. You can see if they are at war or not. But I want to know if the Romans are angry with the Koreans or if they are life long allies.
-wes77

4.11.0 Occupied Lands

Occasionally, i find myself wanting to fight a war for reasons other than territorial gain. perhaps i want trade concessions, or maybe just two or three cities along my border. but in order to do this, i have to destroy as much of a rival civilzation as possible. indeed, until a peace treaty ends a war, all captured territories should be considered 'occupied lands.' while resistance may end there, you have not established full political control over the territory. you may not even WANT full political control over the territory. when you sign the peace treaty, withdrawal from all occupied territories can be one of the negotiating points. in addition, with an improved united nations, the un could issue a resolution insisting that you return occupied lands to their rightful owners. and if you retain it, those captured territories would never fully lose their identity as 'english' or 'german' or whoever they were taken from. neglect them sufficiently and they'll rebel. has the parent civ already been destroyed? doesn't matter: they could actually start up again!
-skycommando

4.12.0 Long-Term Diplomacy

Implement long-term diplomacy, in which you discuss several matters over several turns, in which you try to get your oponent slowly on your site
-CyberShy

4.13.0 Global Diplomacy

Global-diplomacy with multiple civs at the same time.
-CyberShy

4.14.0 Military Collaboration Among Allies

There should be closer military collaboration among allies, perhaps also the SMAC method of suggesting targets for your allies, and also perhaps being able to walk into your allies' cities for defending or combined stacks...
-Master Zen

4.15.0 Suggest Tech Research Goals to Allies

Suggesting tech research goals should be in (come on now, you ought to be able to coordinate techs with your AI partners!
-Trip

5.0.0 Diplomacy Options

5.1.0 Multilateral Diplomacy

Multilateral diplomacy is a MUST. Both as a UN in the late game, and as three or more at one table throughout the game.
-Fosse

5.2.0 Surrender

Surrender needs to be put back in (from SMAC)
-Fosse

5.3.0 Unit Trading Among Allies

Allow unit trading between allies.
-general consensus

5.3.1 Unit Trading For A Limited Time

Unit trading for a certain number of turns
-gopher

I fully agree with unit 'trading' and not lending as lending doesn't really happen in reality. Or at least I dont think it does.
-builderchad

5.3.2 Valuation of Traded Units

The AI should value this unit about : the unit's modernity, the unit's experience, the civilization's military needs.
-Spiffor

5.4.0 Ask Civs to End War vs. 3rd Parties

Ask another Civ to end a war against a third civ.
-Kyle

5.5.0 Ask Civs to Start Wars vs. 3rd Parties

Players should be able to bribe other civs to declare war to others, without getting directly involved, like in Civ2. With this tool, you really can play a puppet-master kind of game : weakening your ennemies, and direclty helping your friends, without waging a war.
-Spiffor

5.5.0 Pressure allies to Break Treaties/Stop Wars

Ability to pressure allies/others into breaking treaties/stopping war
-Raleigh

5.6.0 Unit Removals from Your Territory

Toned down requests for unit removals; or require the enemy to hurry their unit's movement through your lands
Examples: Ask them questions: ""Well, what is that unit doing here? Where is it going? How long will be be within our borders?""
-Kolyana

5.7.0 Coordinate Actions with the AI

I'd like to be able to co-ordinate actions with the AI from time to time, rather than just have him running around doing his own thing.
-Kolyana

5.8.0 A Return Of Peace-Treatied Members Units ONLY RETURN To Lands Under Threat of War

There must be some way of demanding that the units NEVER RETURN to your lands
-Kolyana

5.9.0 Expirable Non-Agression Treaty

An expirable, non-revocable non-aggression treaty. This would fix trading between agressive and non-aggressive countries.

Example:

A Civ is agressive but needs some resources. Right now, the other Civs won't trade with them, likely due to security concerns. Why give oil to the enemy war machine?

But - a non-aggression treaty involved with a mutual trade that expires after 20 turns would allow the non-aggressive Civ a sense of security and give the aggressive Civ an opportunity to obtain trades and enjoy the diplomatic aspect of the game.

Allow us to trade security for goods - it makes sense and benefits both parties.
-Venger

5.10.0 Massing Units at the Border

Amassing troops next to A.I. border should be considered hostile and they should prompt you to demilitarize the area or declare war if they are outnumbered more than 5:1.
-YahMon

5.11.0 Different Conditions for Conquered Territories

- Conquered territories conditions (different states of "conquered")
-Trifna

5.12.0 Demands/Requests/Ultimatums

Demands, requests and ultimatums
-Trifna

5.13.0 Brotherly Bonds and Souring Relations

I think that if you should be able to form brotherly bonds in the game. Real world example: America and Britain. It would take a heck of a lot for us not to be allies now days. I can't see in the forseeable future us not giving each other 100% if the other was threatened. Relationships like that should be possible in the game. Right now it seems like no matter how much you "give" to another nation thru out the ages it can turn on you in an instant. For example, a game I'm playing right now France was getting stomped by the Romans and asked me to join in a war against them so I did. I went to war with the Romans and captured back all the french cities that france has lost. I GAVE the french cities back to france (ALL OF THEM) (Imagine liberating French cities eh Anyway, a mere 20 turns later and France is just as grumpy with me as anyone else. (What gives ? ?)

Also when A nation turns grumpy with you, there needs to be better explanation as to WHY the nations attitude towards you has begun to sour. What have I done wrong ? And then give me the opportunity to fix it before the nation "hates" me . ..
(Honest you can send in your weapons inspectors!) haha
-wes77

Occupied territory should stay occupied until a formal peace treaty is signed. THere should be cease fires and peace treaties, so we can see situations where countries are not at war, but the world community still recognizes land (that may be fully integrated into its new home otherwise) as occupied.

Occupying someone else's "rightful" land would cause tensions with that country, and with any third countries who like them more than they like you.

If revolt models are implemented (and there are some good ideas out there) then occupied land could be treated as a whole different entity in those, so you might see a swatch of occupied territory rebel against both its oppresors and its former leader!
-Fosse

5.14.0 Different Types of War

Indeed, the Civ3 war setting of all or nothing is frustrating. We should be able to wage wars for trade (may be on demand of our "private sector", as someone said in the trade thread) or technological cooperation, etc, and not only for land and cities.
That would give you a nuisance power, which is completely neglected in the game as it is. If other Civs want you to remain peaceful, then they'd better spoil you with trade and gifts, etc... or crush you if they can.
But definitely for this and other features, the AI would need a complete reconception to stop being as dumb as it is.
-grap1705

right. maybe different 'types' of wars? border conflict vs. total war, skirmish vs. engagement. attacking an enemy unit should mean a declaration of war: it should remain up to the nation that was attacked to declare war or, if it so chooses, to fight an 'undeclared' war. this way you could aid your allies militarily in a war without declaring war on their enemy (pershing's rifles in wwi, for example).
skycommando

5.15.0 Free Cities of Allies

What is needed is a better alliance model in which you can free the cities of your allies and give them back to them. (or they automaticly become theirs again.)
-CyberShy

5.16.0 Loaning Units

Loaning units is a good way of give technologically backward nations a helping hand in a war without giveing them the technology or means of production.
-Dauphin

Perhaps you could charge something for each lent unit that was lost
-Trip

5.17.0 Allied Bases/Airfields

Bases/airfields on allied soil
-builderchad

5.18.0 Disarmament/Rearmament

I thought of a simple system for disarmament and armament limit (so you can limit "Cold War" style and so on).

An anglo-japanese treaty was done where it was agreed that each country would have a navy corresponding to a given ratio between countries.

For example,
English 5 : USA 5 : Japan 4
This means that if English has navy which strength is equal 25, then USA has 25 and Japan 21.
 
The English initiated such a treaty when they saw they could not stay the major navy power with their economy going down. So they asked for restraining the weapon race.
To which extent would an AI be able to judge of its advantages and disardvantages with such ratios?
What do you think of such an idea, and which problems do you see with this?
-Trifna

5.18.0 "Open-Market" On Techs

2. Rather than only being able to enter into negotiations for resources with one civ at a time, why not allow an open market once a certain tech (call it 'International Trade') is achieved. This would allow the civ with IntTrade to have open negotiations with all of its potential trading partners by declaring "I have furs to trade. What am I bid?" or "I'm in the market for coal. Let's hear some offers." Of course you can do this now, sort of, by going to each civ individually and seeing their deals and then going back to the best offer. What IntTrade would allow is to do this more easily, and secure better deals because the other civs know they are in competition. Only civs with IntTrade would have knowledge of the other offers. Private negotiations would still be possible. IntTrade combined with Espionage would also allow a small wonder called 'Trade Mission' which allows the civ to possibly 'listen in' on trade negotiations involving civs where you have an embassy and an option to step into the negotiation to interfere by offering a better deal ("France is offering 10 gpt for your coal? I'll give you 250 gold up front.") or possibly making one of the parties an 'offer they can't refuse' ("That's a really nice city you have there on my border. It would be terrible if buying Espionage made something bad happen to it."). Maybe make the chance of listening in fairly high but the chance of interfering somewhat less. Having a Trade Mission would also lower the probability of other civs listening in on or interfering with your negotiations.
-patcon

5.19.0 Accrued trade à la SMAC.

More gold in your coffers for being nice.
-Harfang

5.20.0 Additional Items for the Bargaining Table

a) Unit trade: when buying the unit you must specify the location/city where it should be delivered.

b) Build city improvements: this is for having one civ build an imp "x" in it's city "y" for another civ's city "z". For example, suppose I cannot build a hospital yet but the chinese can. I can offer to pay them 100 gold for one of their cities to build a hospital in one of my cities. When a city is building an imp for another civ's city, in the queue a message will appear indicating this ("Hospital, 15 turns, for city x of the chinese"). When the imp is finished, the imp will appear in the other city and a message will appear. Ofcourse, the production cost of building imps for other cities will increase depending on the distance between the two cities.

How about 50 Gil and they give you the tools you need to build 1 hospital (you pick the city). Rather like my unit idea.

c) Production/food trade: shields/food should be tradeable from one city to another. For example, I offer the Spanish to locate 100 shields per turn from Athens to Madrid in exchange for 200 gold.

d) terrain tiles: This way, the terrain tile chosen will become part of the civ's territory.

Border agreements where the nations can trade land for units or land for cities, etc. and can basically carve out borders between each others nations

This would have to be balanced with Culture in some way, I think.

e) military bases: Have a civ allow the installation of a millitary base (fortress) in one of their tiles in exchange for x gold.

-Drachasor,
-J-S,
DarkCloud

6.0.0 Terrorism

Terrorist actions could be something to sponsor, much like sabotage in some past games like MOO2. You can also have such actions in cities under occupation- asd for what could be done:

Maybe make a building non-functioning for a while, damage units and so forth. The effects should be an annoyance but in general aren't life threatening. Such actions should also have political consequences, usually negative.
-GePap

6.1.0 Terrorism and War-Weariness

Well, if 'terrorism' is to be implemented it would somehow have to be connected to the concept of war-weariness.
-Tripledoc

6.2.0 Terrorism and Eliminating Food

I think that you should be able to sponser foreign terrorism and do your own-through the espionage screen, and also possibly as a terrorist unit-though I am now less certain about the latter!
If used to kill people, a terrorist act/unit should not eliminate a population point, but should instead destroy units of 'food'-to represent lost population (given that a single pop point can account for as many as a few hundred thousand people!
-The_Aussie_Lurker

6.3.0 Terrorism Increases Unhappiness

I think the primary effect of terrorism would be to increase unhappiness, war weariness and reduce tourism revenue. It could also be used to destroy key commercial and industrial buildings and terrain improvements!
-The_Aussie_Lurker

6.4.0 Getting Caught With Terrorism

Commiting terrorist acts should bring with it a HUGE reputation hit if you get caught-especially with civs outside of your culture group!
-The_Aussie_Lurker

7.0.0 General Diplomacy

7.1.0 Requests to Allies

You need to be able to ask for anything in diplomacy.
-Lorizael

7.2.0 Automatic Foreign Relations Manager

Be able to have your foreign advisor manage the general aspects of the relations with other civs automatically, giving him general indications. For example, instruct him to "maintain good relations with the chinese". Then, if the chinese for some reason are beginning to distrust us or just start of as neutral, a message will appear advising the player to give them a gift, etc. Another function could be "negotiate trade of extra resources for best price", always confirming with the player to finish the transaction. As in, I have an extra iron on my hands, and the foreign relations manager would automatically negotiate with every civ the best possible price for that extra resource.

It's really tedious to have to check every turn for relations with each and every civ... and eventually I end up not talking to them unless it's for a get-that-damn-settler-outta-my-territory declarations.
-J-S

7.3.0 Major Civs Carving Out Minors' Territory

If there are going to be minor civs- I would suggest that if two or more major civs discover the minors and if they are at peace with each other, be allowed to carve out the land of the minor civ between them
-DarkCloud

Make it so you can do this with MAJOR civs as well (in reference to DarkCloud's above idea)
-Skywalker

7.4.0 Claim Lands As You Explore

The ability to claim lands as you explore them. Other Civs could then recognize those claims and
a) Let you settle it
b) Take it for themselves (another reason to go to war)
c) Recognize your ownership, and purchase the claim.
This would make exploration slightly more powerful, no?
-Mrmitchell

7.5.0 Combine Diplomatic System with the Subversive Units

It seems to be good to combine the Civ III diplomatic system with special units to carry out the dirtiest covert operations
-Spanish Civilization Community (Submitted by Kramsib)

7.6.0 Reasons Behind War

7.7.0 Joint Armies With Allies

ake joint armies (not the cIIIv armies) that can be controlled by one party. ie. my best friend is in war, I don't want to join that war, but I want to give him 50 tanks to use in this war. After the war is over I want them back. He'll be in total control over the tanks.
-CyberShy

7.8.0 Allied Cities

The use of allied cities would be very usefull also to heal your units.
-Master Zen

7.9.0 Why Should the Allied AI Penalize Me For Winning A War?

What I want is for the AI to stop accusing me of breaking an alliance when I win the war. Here's an example: In a WWII scenario, I am America, allied with England, France, and Russia against an alliance of Germany, Rome, and Japan. I completely conquer one of the enemy civilizations. As the CivIII AI is set up, I get accused of breaking my alliance because the civilization that we were allied against has died. I do not think that it is unreasonable to ask that the game should not penalize you with your allies for winning such a war--isn't winning a war supposed to be the top reason for forming an alliance in the first place?
-Ijuin

7.10.0 Replace Popups with the "Green Folder"

Instead of the pop-ups informing me of who is just started a war and who has ended a trade embargo against me, how about a "green folder" at the beginning of every turn to show me what the other civs were up to during their turns. Sure would save a lot of point and clicking, and allow me to wander off and feed my kids (or some other trivial, distracting "need" ) between turns without having to check back at the PC to click on another pop-up.
-wotan321

Conclusion

What is needed for Civilization IV is a streamlined diplomacy room and bargaining table that emphasizes showing information and not based on intense graphics. Allow more indepth deals that hold more meaning between not just two civs but two or more civs at one time. Make it possible to trade units between several different civs. The relationship between two or more civs should play a larger impact and be more broad. Territory and borders need to be negotiable between two or more civs. All of this combined to provide a more distinct, strategic, and exciting diplomatic part of the game.

Special Thanks:

-Drachasor for his comments
-DarkCloud for listmastering and formatting and titleing