AbsintheRed
Deity
So what would make a decent replacement-trigger then? A vote for every other Order-civ? That would still (most likely) be somewhat weaker than one vote for every friendship.
I don't mind it being tied to research agreements.
Seriously nerfing them, and making them a default option in the games would be perfectly fine for me. For now.
Maybe something along the lines, that it gives a much smaller research boost to both civs for 45 turns.
The bonus could be something like 1/10 of the research both you and your partner have
((x+y)/10 for both civs, so they get the same amount of boost in beakers, but not in %, and it depends on both their research)