Like diplomacy in 4X games is always half baked, no matter how many updates and DLCs there are. Oh boy I can set up a trade deal or press the Improve Relations button, super exciting.

I am just bitter because diplomacy is like this little morsel hanging in the air and I chase after it hoping it will be good, or hoping the developers will eventually replace it with a meal, and it never happens. Diplomacy is always super basic and never given the same depth as war.

War gets a tech tree, and vehicle/ship designers, and questions of army/fleet composition, and supply chains or at least resource management.

Like the bare minimum would be to let me design diplomats and other staff. Design training. If I’m sending a diplomat somewhere to “improve relations” then that diplomat should have qualities that make them more likeable to the people they’ll be working with. Like you’ve hired a diplomat who has some good qualities, you train them to be even better, but they’re not perfect and you’re running out of money so you send them out. Everything is going well but then 6 months in they say something foolish in a moment of carelessness and now they’ve angered the country.

But that is not enough. I want entire gameplay systems around the creation of art and how that influences people inside and outside the country of origin. This could either happen organically, maybe a new art movement spreads to multiple countries and this shared interest brings citizens of these countries closer together. Or you can set up something yourself and use it as propaganda. Publish a book or TV show and spread it around to try and change the values of other countries. I want the people living in this world to matter more.

But I will never get this from most game developers because this is not what they are interested in so I’d rather they just cut out all the chaff and focus on what they really care about. Age of Wonders 4 seems like it really focuses on conflict. The tactical combat looks fun and you have so much control over how your civilization plays. It actually makes me want to have a war and enjoy it instead of trying to work things out diplomatically and be afraid every time there’s a conflict because I am trying to avoid war and am not prepared for it.