What did I missed from Dom I.? -> DIPLOMACY!

[licker]

Woah Nellie!

Why would people not play MP? Yeesh there are a bazillion reasons why, some people simply cannot play MP (no internet maybe? no friends interested for LAN or hot seat?) Some people don't have the time, or don't want to spend the time (time over a period of weeks or months) to play MP.

Look the MP experience (usually) is going to be superior to the SP experience for reasons beyond the ability to have some form of diplomacy, but that doesn't mean that every wants to, or indeed is able to, engage in MP.

I for one play almost entirely SP. I will try the odd PBEM, but that's about it, I don't have flexible enough time to be able to set aside 5+ hours for a LAN or internet match, so its really not much of a choice for me.

Anyway, some diplo rules or settings would be nice, but I don't think the system has to become overly complicated. Simple things like trades (GalCiv and Civ3 do this pretty well) and NAPs could work well. NAPs would have to have the penalty that if you break one no one else will NAP you for a fixed time, if you break a second one, make that time longer, if you break a thrid... no one will ever NAP or trade with you. Simple things are best, non of this sharing provinces, granting rights of passage, esentially anything that would require the existing code to be modified to incorperate new rules.