What about agreements over territory. At the moment we see the zone of control be pushed back and forth, couldn't we set up agreements over where our borders lay. I.E. give the AI control of a gold mine resource under dispute, in return you get control of a disputed metal mine.

Can we please make threats towards AI, as they do to us.

Finally can we trade shard access (fire for water etc.)

Yes! Intrigue of the Tudors, Roman Empire etc.

• I would also like the opportnity to divorce my current spouse--woo Verga's wench--either marry her or take her on as a mistress. Let's give it a Song of Fire & Ice/Seanchan/White Tower/Shakesperean/SunTzu flair. Give charisma another dimension. I would relish the chance to convince any King's wife ro Queen's husband to kill their spouse
• The ability to create a harem as a male or female sovereign.
• AI needs to stop sucking up--e.g if I have 20 cities and can squash Tarth, why is Irane (2 cities) asking me to help her kill Altar (one city). How do I benefit? Offer me something! Allow me to counter offer--just spare me the obsequious entreaties.
• benefits & penalties for a sov's altruism or treachery.
• Train offspring in the art of regicide---like a green beret ninja death squad---oh how I HATE Verga! or single assasins that would pose as a hero offering services to an opposing faction to get in for a close kill.
• ability to bribe opposing heroes/units---depending on an INT/DIP?CHA rating of your sov.

just spittballin....

A nice diplomatic option would be cooperative progress towards the Spell of Making or the Forge.

The ability to spend diplomatic capital or resources/gildar to improve your image with a faction or create foreighn population based effects. (gifts, or helping them out when they are in a bind, instilling unrest, quelling an uprising for them). Keeping track of those for bonuses and penalties such as helping out with a food shortage would create a greater feel of conection and impact on the world. The ability to hire npc adventurers (perhaps after having the right diplomatic tech) to do tasks for you, such as attack a certain location, monster or faction or raid for resources (either destroying the improvement or stealing the output/stockpile) or theiving from caravans. (could be used as a bounty or propaganda- help free the people from an oppressive ruler).  The ability to trade control of resources or cities is also an option.  Granted you could implement the resources as a given trade of their output.  Though the other day I had an opposing faction with a one tile city surounded by my teritory.  He had a trade route, but no improvements, nowhere to build, and couldn't cross my borders.  It would have been nice if i could take control by 'buying' it off of him, he would abandon it to get the people back, or i could gain posession like in civ4 thrue cultural saturation. (if that feature isnt already present- not sure as the game crashed not many turns after) I would also like there to be a notice pop up from an advisor or something to let me know before my existing treaties expire so i can renew them or renegotiate.

I agree with many of the suggestions here and see how they could be incorporated with other aspects of the game.

The suggestion of espionage can be linked with the hero/champion system.  I think there is already an "Assassin" hero type.  "Spy" could be added, as well.  These characters would then be able to travel undetected, unless an opponent army moves next to them.  This would give them the ability to travel through opponents territories without the non-aggression pact and without declaring war or an alliance  Also, the "Spy" characters may be able to see other spies/assassins within their range of sight.  "Assassins" kill opponents' heroes/champions, obviously, and spies can steal tech/spells, see what a city is building/recruiting, or a host of other mission types.  The missions will have a chance to succeed based on their level and the mission type and maybe some of their statistics.  There would be possibilites of succeeding, failing and being executed, failing and escaping but the opponent nation knows they work for you affecting diplomatic relationships, or failing but escaping without the opponent nation knowing by whom they had been sent.  This would give us an additional couple of hero types that need neither sit in a city or travel in an army (though they would, of course, be able to do either).

I would like to be able to mix and match my trade offers, i.e., offer money or resources for a tech/trade treaty.

I didn't like the diplomacy in GC2 that much.  It annoyed me that I could dial in all deals to the absolute minimum they would accept.  It seems to me that I've dialed in deals to the minimum that was acceptable in EWoM, and they've refused the deal.  I prefer the uncertainty.  It should be a scale of probability.

I would like to see a relationship points system similar to Empire:  Total War.  (Probably, the first time CA created a good, working diplomatic system for a TW game.)  Each faction has starting point values which reflect their opinions of each other faction, based on historical relationships, similarities and differences.  In EWoM, this could be a positive adjustment if for two Kingdoms nations or two Empire nations and a negative adjustment for Kingdom: Empire.  If AI personalities are implemented (and let's hope they are) these could affect realtionships, as well.  Peaceful nations have a positive adjustment of their opinions toward all other nations, but maybe warmonger nations have a negative adjustment to their opinions towards peaceful nations.  Also, maintaining treaties gives a positive adjustment between the nations involved and the length of time the treaties are maintained affects the total adjustment.  If you break a treaty, it has a strong negative impact on the opinions of you for the nation you betrayed, and it has a smaller negative impact on all other nations who are neutral or allied to the nation you betrayed.  It has no impact on nations who dislike or are at war with the nation you betrayed.  In fact, maybe it has a positive impact on the opions of you for nations at war with the nation you betrayed.  I haven't articulated this well, but hopefully you get the idea.

Sorry for the wall of text.

I really like the world war ideas. What I think would be cool would be some non-trade diplomatic messages. Maybe like a taunt message where you can basically say tell the AI to go to hell, or a relax tensions message for calming tension between factions of the same side. Another thing I would like to see is a method to impose trade sanctions, where you could immediately cut all enemy trade routes to your faction.

Thanks. I think I was synonymizing it with 1.A and 1.B.

To those of you waiting for 1.1 to start playing again, I suspect that once they get the 1.09 beta stability issues out of the way you are going to enjoy this game a heck of a lot more.

It still needs some work, to be sure, but it is actually fun to play now (even with the crashes).

i would like to see if you have a non agression pact you could move straight through there citys

How about you leaked the AI code and the designdocuments for 1.1 of Elemental to Wikileaks? You sure would get a lot of free press

Hum, I agree with a lot of suggestions about diplomacy but I'll go into more detail about the AI leaders.

I'd like them to have basic 'stances' like in Civ (ie expansionist, peaceful, mercantilist, etc)  that are readily viewable by players.  However, one or two extra hidden stances should be added to each AI leader to spice things up (and those would be randomized so you wouldn't quite know what to expect from a given leader in different games).

So let's say that Procipinee starts with Mercantilist and Diplomatic (which everyone can see) but ends up with Treacherous as a hidden stance.  You'd expect her to focus on diplomacy while in reality she'd stab you in the back at the first opportunity that presents itself.

Lots of different stances can be put into the game so that no one game would feel 'same old, same old'.

Hm... I'm not sure if this is in the works, or has been suggested, but how about, if your sovereign is killed, the next in line of heritage takes over, so a kingdom needs to have the entire royal line hunted down or the country can come back.