Just finished downloading the new patch, I'm giddy to explore diplomacy (again.)
Edit: Played a game with the new patch. Egypt declared on me while being 'Friendly' after amassing a nice looking army on my border a turn after signing an open borders aggreement AND a research agreement, which was bad for them seeing as it bankrupted them while I was able to buy some units to fight.
They failed to take my city close to their capitol, and after I lifted the siege, Egypt sued for peace offering 2 of their cities, a majority of their gold, 5 GPT, open borders, and their iron surplus (we were in the medieval age.)
Seeing as I didn't pose a real threat to their homeland (had about 3-4 units near their border) and wasn't even close to taking an important city I have to believe this isn't intended. I'll chalk that up to crazy A.I. that has to be fixed going forward.
Speaking of crazy A.I., I declared friendship with Germany to test out the new feature. He expectantly asked me for a nice chunk of gold, which I agreed to send him. I was expected to see though that there seems to be no escalation of good diplomatic relations beyond 'Friendly'. Bismarck even asked for my entire treasury and my resources when I asked if he would help against Egypt (once again testing seeing as the war would have been over with me conquering Egypt by the time he could get his army there.) I hoped with the friendly relations/diplomacy aspect of the patch I'd see something along the lines of the A.I. offering to help the player in a war, or at the least giving the player a good 'discount' when negotiating entering a war on your side.
I'll give feedback on the other additions/changes of the patch later on.