[Taqwus]

Agreed. Diplomacy is pretty good compared to many older games (which often boiled down to, "You're in the lead, so bribe us every other turn -- and don't lie, we know exactly how what you have! No? Then die!"), but could be improved.

Perhaps checkboxes/toggles, like (in no particular order)

a) production trade
b) research trade
c) intersettlement allowed
d) resupply/refit/repair allowed
e) cargo transfer (for, eventually, giving immobile units w/o giving the transport)
f) star charts shared
g) full line-of-sight shared
h) aggression / non-aggression / cooperation
(e.g. agree to trade, but don't mingle)

Complicated, probably excessively so. Probably also nasty for an AI to deal with, or for a human player (UI issues), although the existing treaties are basically pre-set combinations of these choices. But it's granular.

One other aspect of diplomacy -- I don't recall the AI ever offering trade / gifts of any kind (Why would it ever offer a gift? To placate the player, or alternately to demonstrate contempt -- e.g. "You primitives don't have Foo yet? Have some of our obsolete primers. They're for mentally-challenged children; hopefully your brighter scientists will understand them."). Allies don't ask for tech, either, do they?

I practically always have to make the first move, except for its ubiquitous treaty offers. It rarely even makes counter-offers when it rejects a trade.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night