I was thinking of the possibilty of the a new trait for civs, if they are still using that system.

A political trait makes chances of deals succedding with rivals higher. Also, the people work 50% faster (maybe) and/or are happier under a Republic or Democracy.

Any other factors it should have? Change it maybe?

Lesser warweariness due to spinning, with occasional scandals that increases the unhappyness dramatically for some turns.

If provinces were implimented, and provincial governors were also implemented, then perhaps you could do business through provincial governors (whereas non-diplomatic civs could only talk to the civ leader, not the provincial leaders).

Also, they could have sentiment bonuses. Sentiment is a concept I have been brainstorming in my head for a few days, and will make a thread about in the future. I'll give a basic description here: sentiment is how rival civ's citizens think of you. As opposed to reputation, which how how rival civ leaders think of you. A diplomatic civ would be able to use propaganda more effectively to sway the civ's population to like you. Also, if you were trading luxury resources to the civ, you would get better sentiment, and if you were diplomatic, the bonus would be higher. I don't like this idea, because diplomacy tends to imply interacting with leaders more so than the people, but I put it here anyway.

Civ leaders could be willing to give you cheaper deals, and accept better peace treaties (this fits under deals, but I thought it deserved a special mention).

Diplomatic civs could get higher reputation boosts from right of passage agreements and trades. Also, if they did something "naughty" the reputation hits would be less.

Another idea is that you could trade a single luxury resource to two different opponents.

Okay, that's my brainstorming about what you could add to the idea. Now I'll tell you what I really think of it.

The truth is I really don't like this idea very much. Here's why: it would restrict the way that civ is played. You would almost always want to choose a Republic or Democracy. You would almost certainly want to push for Diplomatic Victory, since you would have better reputation, and it would be even easier to obtain than it already is.

If you notice, the current civ traits don't cause you to lean toward a certain victory type, or government. Industrious is just as useful to someone in a Monarchy as it is to someone in a Republic. The Scientific trait helps culture victories a little, but it's also useful for technology, which helps for domination and the space race. Of all the current traits, I would say militaristic is the most restrictive. Yet, it is useful for anyone, since a Democratic civ shooting for 100k culture still needs to conquer and grow huge.

If I were to list the traits in order of most flexible to most restrictive, it would be: industrious, agricultural, seafaring, agricultural, (these four have no effect on what government I would choose, or what victory type) followed by scientific, religious, (these both favor peaceful cultural victories instead of warmongerers), and militaristic being the most restrictive.

My point is, a diplomatic trait would be more restrictive than any of these. So, if this is to be improved, the immediate should focus on improving versatality.

I would remove the Rep / Demo improvements right away, since any government should be able to be skilled in diplomacy. I don't think it even makes sense. I would say that Hitler was an incredibly skilled Diplomat. He managed to acquire Austria and Czech without even getting into a war. And he managed to take Poland with little loss by making an agreement with Russia to split it in half, which not only made his expansion easier, but removed a poptential enemy (for the moment), allowing him to move his forces back to the western front.

I would also get rid of a 50% worker boost, since that's already used, and it wouldn't be good to overlap traits. (they need to be fully unique)

Anyway, I hope you don't get discouraged. I'm just fairly skeptical of this trait. As always, my belief of "any is better than none" If provinces were implimented, and provincial governors were also implemented, then perhaps you could do business through provincial governors (whereas non-diplomatic civs could only talk to the civ leader, not the provincial leaders).

Also, they could have sentiment bonuses. Sentiment is a concept I have been brainstorming in my head for a few days, and will make a thread about in the future. I'll give a basic description here: sentiment is how rival civ's citizens think of you. As opposed to reputation, which how how rival civ leaders think of you. A diplomatic civ would be able to use propaganda more effectively to sway the civ's population to like you. Also, if you were trading luxury resources to the civ, you would get better sentiment, and if you were diplomatic, the bonus would be higher. I don't like this idea, because diplomacy tends to imply interacting with leaders more so than the people, but I put it here anyway.

Civ leaders could be willing to give you cheaper deals, and accept better peace treaties (this fits under deals, but I thought it deserved a special mention).

Diplomatic civs could get higher reputation boosts from right of passage agreements and trades. Also, if they did something "naughty" the reputation hits would be less.

Another idea is that you could trade a single luxury resource to two different opponents.

Okay, that's my brainstorming about what you could add to the idea.

However, the truth is I really don't like this idea very much. Here's why: it would restrict the way that civ is played. You would almost always want to choose a Republic or Democracy. You would almost certainly want to push for Diplomatic Victory, since you would have better reputation, and it would be even easier to obtain than it already is.

If you notice, the current civ traits don't cause you to lean toward a certain victory type, or government. Industrious is just as useful to someone in a Monarchy as it is to someone in a Republic. The Scientific trait helps culture victories a little, but it's also useful for technology, which helps for domination and the space race. Of all the current traits, I would say militaristic is the most restrictive. Yet, it is useful for anyone, since a Democratic civ shooting for 100k culture still needs to conquer and grow huge.

If I were to list the traits in order of most flexible to most restrictive, it would be: industrious, agricultural, seafaring, agricultural, (these four have no effect on what government I would choose, or what victory type) followed by scientific, religious, (these both favor peaceful cultural victories instead of warmongerers), and militaristic being the most restrictive.

My point is, a diplomatic trait would be more restrictive than any of these. So, if this is to be improved, the immediate should focus on improving versatality.

I would remove the Rep / Demo improvements right away, since any government should be able to be skilled in diplomacy. I don't think it even makes sense. I would say that Hitler was an incredibly skilled Diplomat. He managed to acquire Austria and Czech without even getting into a war. And he managed to take Poland with little loss by making an agreement with Russia to split it in half, which not only made his expansion easier, but removed a poptential enemy (for the moment), allowing him to move his forces back to the western front.

I would also get rid of a 50% worker boost, since that's already used, and it wouldn't be good to overlap traits.

I don't want to discourage you. I just feel fairly skeptical of this trait. My belief of "any idea is better than none" still holds here. :)

I second wakiki's model.

The main benefits should be international---reputation (spin) and treaty negotiation success (basically treaties will cost you inherently less, after any reputation bonuses are applied).

Except that Democracies are inherently skilled at diplomacy, since it's a part of how they operate internally. I second Seriphyn's idea that this makes citizens happy, leading to increased worker productivity. The increased trade of Democracy is probably due to actual increased freedom---so Diplomacy shouldn't particially help there.
Probably a more modest increase in productivity (labor union spin), like maybe +20%-+25%.
Also possibly a very small decrease in War Wearines.

Hitler's example also suggests either and optional Tech or a city improvement---Diplomacy school (International Studies). Possibly a "diplomacy" mission in the Espionage screen that aids the success of your Civ's next treaty/trade negotiation. Arguably, the west was very easy to buy for Hitler, since most people didn't want another world war (some kind of pacificism creep due to things other than Hitler's "charming persona").

"Diplomatic" would be useless in multiplayer games, seeing as it's your perogative to deal with any nation any way you want -- regardless of whether they've been your ally for centuries or your worst enemy.

But if they do what some other people have been talking about with the seperation between the player and his people... diplomatic could be how your people respond to changes in foreign relations. That is, they hold grudges for shorter amounts of time, but are more opportunistic about their allies. They're less likely to urge you to take sides in some kind of conflict. Of course, this assumes that Civ 4 has people that urge you to take sides in the first place.

It could also be useful for provinces, as others have mentioned. Diplomatic civs do a better job of getting along if they're multi-ethnic, or multi-cultural. Of course, this assumes that Civ 4 actually models multi-cultural empires, and makes multiple ethnicities and cultures into a challenge!

That's true. Perhaps a simplistic fix would be that in MP games, the human players get Civ2-"Senate" like warnings against declaring war against a "Diplomatic"-trait civ----with the punishment for doing so an increased War Weariness.

dh_epic
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"Diplomatic" would be useless in multiplayer games, seeing as it's your perogative to deal with any nation any way you want -- regardless of whether they've been your ally for centuries or your worst enemy

True, even if you don't seperate the player from his people like some people suggest, you could at least boost war weariness for people attacking political civilizations. And decrease war weariness when political civilizations make attacks themselves.

Call the idea stupid, but if we make a POLITICAL civ trait, shouldn't the instant-government-switch ability be transfered from religious to political?

Call the idea stupid, but if we make a POLITICAL civ trait, shouldn't the instant-government-switch ability be transfered from religious to political?

Yes. Da. Dui le. Ja. Sensible in any language.

The idea seems a bit overpowered.

This is kind of similar to an idea I posted for Civ 3 of a trait called "Bureaucratic" to replace expansionist which I found rather useless. It would give all the same bonuses as expansionist (the scout works more as a diplomat early in the game anyways as you seek to establish contact with ovther civs) as well as cheaper courthouses and other corruption lowering buildings.