That's not quite what was said. They've said that diplomacy will be pretty much the same as in Civ V, minus the World Congress, but with additional diplomatic "vectors" or points of conflict, such as the orbital layer, affinities, attitude towards alien life, etc. Don't expect anything new and exciting from the diplomatic system.
http://time.com/59516/sid-meiers-ci...lpha-centauri-sequel-youve-been-waiting-for/#
TIME: Diplomacy’s arguably one of the weaker spots in the Civilization games, framed with fairly limited options and based more on obfuscation and mystery and a sense of algorithmic capriciousness. How does diplomacy work in Beyond Earth?
Pete Murry: We’re still building on where we were at the end of Civilization V, so I think the level of diplomacy that’s going on is going to feel very familiar to a Civilization V player. To some extent, playing a boardgame with a human opponent, they can be capricious too, so some of it’s about keeping that aspect of it. We do the best we can for the audience that we’re trying to reach.
Anton Strenger: We’re definitely adding new diplomatic vectors, like the orbital layer, so your A.I. opponents aren’t going to be very happy if you launch a satellite over their lands. So diplomacy in Beyond Earth is going to be very responsive to all of the new gameplay systems. But at the same time, we’re trying to appeal to Civilization V players, since they’re our core audience, and we want diplomacy to be familiar and transparent. I think transparency’s a really big deal to make an A.I. feel fair.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/12/c...he-new-factions-aliens-technology-and-more/4/
PC Gamer: Have you taken another look at diplomacy? How will interacting with other factions work?
David McDonough: Diplomacy fundamentally is the same as in traditional civ when you call them up and you talk about whatever it is you want to talk about, but there's a lot more to talk about. IN addition to where you're settling and where your borders are, there's your attitude towards the aliens, you're riling them up and attacking my settlements, or there's a lot more covert ops, there's black hat ways to undermine your diplomatic relations. There's the orbital layer, 'don't put sattelites over my territory', and there's the divergence of affinity. As you choose Supremacy and your opponent chooses Harmony, those are not - attitudes are going to mesh, so that's going to lead to increased tensions, increased competition for resources. Your opponents are more oppositional by definition I think, because of the way your trajectories diverge over the course of the game.
