but outside of war (which you'd only want to be in with one race at a time)
Nothing wrong with going to war against multiple factions at the same time. I don't play with victory conditions, and for the sake of stability, or so that I can take over some clusters without completely eliminating a faction, I often transplant factions from one area of the galaxy to another. Multiple-front wars expedites this.
After years of Civ III diplomacy, I'm pretty happy with the GC3 diplomacy. As for possible changes/improvements:
1) I very much like the idea of random incidents that have an impact on relationships.
2) Favor anything that makes diplomacy more involved/complicated.
3) Increasing the scale for relationship modifiers is a fine idea. But you need to have a 'random' factor in there too, otherwise no matter how complex the relationship system is, its no different than just building a bunch of diplomacy star bases.
One thing I think that could be looked at is a formula that involves faction power and faction physical location in relation to other factions, through the lenses of trading partners, past relations, and ideology. For example:
> Player is in a relationship with Faction 1 and Faction 2. Player is ranked 1st for power, and benevolent. Player is 2 range limits away from Faction 2, but 6 range limits away from Faction 1. Faction 1 and 2 are both pragmatic and trade partners.
So, Faction 1's standing towards Player is wary because Player could potentially threaten a trade partner. The wariness is lessened due to the range distance between Player and Faction 2, but not greatly lessened (2 range limits is not that far). Also, Player is Benevolent, so does not get the standard Malevolency penalty to trust (until Player acts malevolently by declaring war or breaking a treaty without cause). Power rank makes Faction 1 more wary too. However, Faction 1's random trust roll at beginning of game was high, so it is more trusting of the player. Its Forgiveness roll was low, so if Player breaks a treaty, Faction 1 will not easily forgive Player. And on a turn when the relationship is checked for some reason, say, Player 1 enters an alliance with Faction 3, which is right next to Faction 1, and Faction 1 and 3 have a negative relationship, when the impact of that new alliance on Faction 1's regard for Player is checked, the in-game random roll determines that the result, positive or negative, is amplified by 20%, so since negative, it has a +20% negative outcome.
Diplomacy ranks would add a bonus to or reduce the damage from diplomatic decisions (and the random events) that impact relationships, never dictate the actual regard that a faction has for the player.
Also, the present status of a relation should behave the same as ranks in diplomacy (affecting the size of the impact of diplomatic decisions). So severe hate might severely hamper any positive outcome, and great love would inhibit negative - although love should be easier to decay than hate is to heal... in diplomacy. With the exception that a faction will always accept aid in war, but won't enter an alliance with a repeated treaty/agreement breaker.
( edit: in re: the exception, Faction 1 would be highly inclined to give aid to a Player who was at war with a faction that Faction 1 hates, even if Faction 1 had a strong dislike for Player. War should greatly increase the % chance for success or failure of a diplomatic outcome depending on the Faction-being-negotiated-with's relationship with any other Faction (including the player's) that is involved with the war or impacted by it - even if indirectly. The closer the diplomatic event is to a current war, the more exaggerated the war's affect on the diplomatic out come should be.
I'm surprised this hasn't all been coded already. Seems like it would be fun to do.)
(edit 2: I would limit the diplomacy ranks bonus to diplomatic events to +25% to positive, and limiting the reduction to negative to -5% or -10%. Each diplomatic outpost/building or tech contribution to diplomacy ranks being limited to 1%, 2%, or 5%. State-of-War bonus to events I would limit to -100% to positive and +100% to negative. Loving Relationship maybe +15%/-5%, Hate -25%/+25%. And preclude any impact on relationship from ever being reduced to 0. A scale of 1-1000 would probably be a nice minimum for a range of relationship ranks, with a base standard adjustment of 10 (ha ha, unless a Faction rolls up a 'touchy' designation at the beginning of the game, and the standard is doubled to 20 in regards to that race).
The question begs, though... should the Faction warn the Player that such and such a deal would have such and such an impact on their relationship?
I can see a faction opening a diplo menu just to say: 'Please mend fences with that other guy, cause we like him.'
end edit 2)
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If there is one aspect that bothers me, it is how the AI, any faction, seems to go to war with a player if the player doesn't have defenses. Or threatens them. That doesn't make sense to me. What should happen, is a benevolent faction offering to protect another benevolent or pragmatic faction... maybe for a price, or maybe out of kindness. And instead of a threat, maybe say "Hey, Player guy, we hear the Nefarions are near by, and they have a mighty fleet and can't be trusted... you may want to build up a fleet... but we can sell you some cruisers for 5k." Which is sorta sorted with the expansion coming out.
