Right.  But what Galactic Civs 2 didn't give you was such an option on the diplomacy screen.  Sure, you could get races to all gather together against a common enemy, but the key here is being able to threaten the foe before going to war, rather than just get everyone to declare war at once without provocation.  That way, you can check someone's expansion with more peaceful options.

Ideally, this kind of scenario would kick into effect against highly aggressive individuals, rather than someone who is simply winning or "powerful."  Basically, these third parties would need ample evidence that they are likely next somewhere down the line.  And of course, an aggressive individual who has been playing his diplomacy cards well won't have to expect his friends to rise against him.

It's a great idea! I've been playing the Total War series a lot, and I've really really missed a diplomacy option like this. I know that TW has never been famous for it's diplomacy (hey... it's TOTAL WAR, right?) but it has really annoyed me, that there simply hasn't been this option.

What I would like to see was:

a ) The diplomacy screen option to barter for peace on behalf of another player:

"Dear Mr. King A

It has come to my attention that you've been burning of Emperor Y's countryside. If You would please stop doing that, I'll give you 1000 gold pieces and this marvellous tech, that let's you pave your roads

Yours Truly

Player Z"

b ) A muliti-diplomacy-screen option where you would be able to open up negotiations in a specific order with a specific agenda in mind. Imagine that you wanted to stop above mentionen Emperor Y from burning more of King A's cities, but you do not yourself posses enough "leverage" to really make a bartering point against Y. You would then be able to open op secondary negotiations with King B and ask him to supply some of the leverage. I've tried to draw my point (image-alert!):

edit: typos, changed image URL

That's actually a pretty good idea, Demi. I would love to see something like this.

This is somewhat like an idea I posted some time ago in one of the diplomacy discussions (but I can't seem to find my original post). I would like the option to negotiate between multiple opponents at once, or be an intermediary between others.

Imagine something like this...

• You (Player A) have two friendly neighbours (B and C)
• Neighbour B is at war with someone (Player D) and asks you to help him.
• Player C has a mutual protection agreement with you, and you'd like him to join in this war as well. But player C has no way to get to D without traveling through your and B's land.
  
• So, you start to negotiate between player B and C to ask player B to give permission to C to travel through B's land and join the war. If the relation between B and C isn't that great, maybe you'll have to give up a few things yourself to get the deal done otherwise it could be a simple 'join war and travel through land for duration of war' deal. Or maybe you can convince B and C to give complete travel rights to each other.

This is just one simple example, but I think the possibilities for such a dimplomatic negotiation are endless... Broker a mariage between two enemies to end a war (with a goodwill bonus to you?)

What would be even better is if you can negotiate through someone else...

• You (Player A) are friendly with B, but pretty much hated by C.
• C has something you really want, but doesn't want to trade (or even talk) with you.
• So, you negotiate with player C through player B (without C knowing it's really you)
• You can convince player C to sell the item to B who just trades it on to you (Again, without C knowing this off course). Maybe with an extra 'administration' cost, or for free if the relation between A and B is very good, just as a token of the enduring peace between you.

Amen!

Thanks!

I really think that we could work with this idea, it's got some great potential! In a 4x game where diplomacy is a rather large part of the game, there's nothing more annoying the concept defeated by poor diplomacy design. I could hope that Elemental would be the game to set a new standard in diplomacy-ing, which I believe that a concept like in this thread would really support.