Foreign policy

[Lord God Jinnai]

I agree with most of your points, however just because you "conquer" a civ doesn't mean that the other nations not allied with you should turn against you. It should depend:
A> who started the conflict (FE: you conquered them because they murdered some of your people)
B> your past policies (not too far back). Whether your an agressive civ or generally peaceful
C> The viewpoints of the countries on the other civ (Perhaps they hated the country and are glad u took it over (course they'd potb perfer it would've been them)
D> Treaties and Political climate
E> Balance of Power. If it is someplace like Europe, they have throughout histroy tried to make sure the Balance of power was as stable as possible. If attacking your civ and freeing the other would drastically upset the balance, they might not do it.
F> Finnaly it would depend on how much of the land you took and which parts you did. If you didn't totally wipe them out or didn't take all their strategic areas they might not attack. Also if you did cripple them a lot instead of going after your country, the other civs may try to finish them off.

Also I haveto disagree with your limits with civs. I dislike having so few civs. Its highly unrealistic. However we can start with only a few and as time goes on they will tend to splinter off.

[Jamir_de_Yard]

Foreign policy

Some details could add a lot of fun to the game.
For exemple it should be possible to agree with allies during a conflict who will get what in case of victory against an ennemy. (Eg if we win against Germany U take the North, I take the South, and you take the East). Empty land attribution could also be arranged at the negociating table.
Other type of agreements could also be made like "make me your favored trade partner and I will defend you against agression." or "give me this technology and I let you invest in my civ".
"Do not" agreements would be good as well like do not trade, share tech or other things with this other civ.
To end up these suggestions I would like to insist on the necessity of the AI player to be proactive. (eg: If you win a war against another civ and completely incorporate it into your civ other nations should turn against you. This would encourage "peace treaties" by which the loser loses some provinces or owes money to the winner.
In Clash a civ (depending on its age and past power) should be very long to incorporate in its conqueror's empire and should often try to secede. Other nations could "free" the captured civ to put a new government favorable to them in place (better accepted by the international community and less risky).
Moreover control of what is happening in remote places of one's empire should be more difficult. The bigger the empire the more decentralised it should be organised.
A last suggestion: it is true that players should not spend their whole time moving units and consequently the foreign policy and the economy get to be the game's central points. Therefore I think that it is not foolish to have the game begin with approximately 30-40 nations (divided into say 6 -8 civs).
Good luck!

[Jamir_de_Yard]

No you do not disagree with me 6-8 civs was a minimum. As long as the AI can handle more and that there can be more than one nation per civ at he beginning I am OK.
Eg At the beginning of the game U may divide greeks into Athens, Sparta, Corith, Macedonia
Thebeus, Troja.
Germany into Franks, Alemans, Goths, Saxons, Teutons and Marconians...
This is not complicated as at early stages AI has less to handle and as the game moves forward many of these 1 province civs will disappear.

[Lord God Jinnai]

OK, but still there should be more than 6-8 civs. Look at today. Usisng your terminology of civs and nations, how many civs are there?

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Jamir:

I agree with most of the things you say, and had many of them in mind already. LGJ's responses are good also. Your comments will be much more likely to be integrated into the final game if you put them in the current Diplomacy thread. You can find it by going to the Diplomacy area of the web page and following the link to the current thread. I will bump up the post that shows the link to the web page, since it has gotten a bit down the page at this point.