Exactly. The current diplomacy system is great for a wargame where everyone is trying to win, but not a "civilization" game. I miss having actual allies and friends I had with previous versions. I would love to see a deep, meaningful diplomacy only expansion to this game. My last hope is that the DLL gets released and it can be adjusted via a mod.
Well, I don't know about you, but at least personally I'll eventually start to consider attacking a friendly AI civ if I think I can handle them, they have something I want and I don't need them as an ally anymore, so it makes sense if the AI does the same thing.
I think that's the real problem in many games where people complain about the diplomacy, they feel that they should be able to trust the AI and that it's a big problem if the AI tend to break alliances if it would benefit it, and forget that they'd do the same thing.
Maybe we can get the AI to adjust its actions based on the players character though by tracking your actions even between games so that you get a reputation that influences how the AI will interact with you, just like we have a rough idea about how each AI nation will act, so if you have a tendency to stab your allies in the back the AI will trust you less in future games and be less likely to work with you and more likely to do the same to you, but if you tend to honor your agreements the AI will do the same.
It shouldn't be a guaranteed thing though of course, so for example you might have a deceitful AI stab you in the back despite a trustworthy reputation, while other trustworthy AI personalities will be honest and keep any deals that you make. You'll have to make a call on if you trust a particular AI based on previous experience and reputation, and the AI would be able to do the same with this system.
The obvious problem is that you could box yourself into a corner where you'll be unable to change play style from game to game, but that could be avoided by introducing a simple RP element where you get to create different characters (nothing complicated, just a name and maybe an icon) and then you select one of them at the start of every game and actions are tracked based on the character. They'd all start out neutral for the first game where the AIs decisions wouldn't take it into account at all, but if you stay honest they'd trust you a bit more in the next game you play with that character, while if you spent that game stabbing your allies in the back the diplomacy would move further towards the Total War style where alliances mean absolutely nothing at all in the next one. If you want to change style at any point, you simply start a new game with an another character selected.
