So I recently got a diplomatic voctory in my latest games, and I was somewhat dissapointed. It seemed to easy because all I really did was sit back and build my diplomacy up to the point that every civ considered mines "friendly" despite the lack of trade or the presence of my starbases or military objects within their territories. Some things I was thinking about to improve on allied mechanics.
Benefits - The idea behind the overall benefit of an alliance should be much more than a simple "I got your back" agreement. I was thinking perhaps you could open up some terms in your alliance. By these terms I speak of things such as the sharing of treasury. Combined Economy would be a better way to describe it, basically both or more civs combine their overall treasury. They share each others spending and income, so two wealthy empires making an alliance could be considered an extreme threat. Another term could possibly be something like the sharing of technology, if one civ posses a tech the other does not, this term could allow both civs to share the tech freely, new or old.
You can generally think of the other possibilties as well, these terms are asked for from the start, so if the civs dislikes one of the terms they can choose not to become apart of your alliance.
Diplomatic Victory Conditions - The idea behind this is that all of the current civs must not only be allied to you, but each other. My previous diplomatic victory I was allied to the Torians, Iconoians and several other races who had ganged up on the Korx. As said all of the races considered me freindly, and I was generally neutral toward the whole thing. I ended the game by simply asking all of the civs, including the Korx for an alliance, no bribes or anything. So I'm thinking it would be a bit more challenging to get all of the remaining civs to ally with themselves before actually achieving a diplomatic victory.
To add some challenge to that, perhaps you can organize "peace talks" of sorts. These peace talks must be agreed upon by each race in the diplomatic/trade window. And it slowly increases "positively" the relations between the two races. To actually persuade these races into partaking in these peace talks is going to be heavily dependant on your diplomacy skills. Peace Treaties may end a war between races for a limited amount of time, this is why peace talks may become vital in maintaining those treaties from falling apart.
Backstabbing - Now wouldn't this be interesting. What if the AI lead you to believe that they were your ally. Under the alliance terms you shared treasury, technology and many benefits together. However the AI's overall goal was to dominate the galaxy in a military manner. Imagine faciing an enemy who knew your weaknesses. That could totally alter the way you play the game. In a quick snap your ally breaks the alliance and moves against you.
I'm thinking some of the real sly civs should be entitled to take such actions, such as the Korx and Drath. This should generally happen if the alliance is not satisfying the AI's interest, or putting a dent in their operations under the alliance "terms". For instance say you bring the alliance to war because you though those pesky Torians were attempting to directly influence the galxy. However the war prolonged for years and proves to be expensive. Your allied with the Korx, and the Korx don't like losing money. So they backstab you. Interesting ain't it? Of course someone like the Altarian Republic should probably best remain loyal to the alliance regardless of the negatives.
So the overall goal is to make alliances more interesting and alot more difficult to achieve a simple diplomatic victory. My custom race "The Republic of Avalon" thrives on diplomacy. I usually take the intiative to research techs in the diplomacy branch, and generally I have games where I play the whole thing without anyone attacking me. Its great and all that my civ is a great bargain buddy and all, but the assets behind an alliance seem to go no further than the simple "We got your back.. sometimes".
Cheers!
