Back in the beta I remember someone posting about diplomatic capital having no real value. It can be accumulated it can be traded and that's it... Of cause it is a useful tool, but I think we can improve on this.

There's an old game called Master of Orion. To be honest my knowledge of it is meager at best, but I do remember them having so called "orion senate".

This is what got me thinking - what if use diplomatic capital as an actual measure of influence? Atm this is more of an imaginary influence a player can't really use it for anything other than trading and without a real value why would another player want it over his resources?

A simplified example:

"A" asks "B" for 500 gold in exchange for his 500 influence.

"B" agrees.

Later "B" wants to sign a treaty with "A". He proposes a treaty and offers some influence. "A" refuses, saying that he'll only take gold.

"B" is now screwed because he is left with influence which he can't use.

So next time "B" is proposed a trade he will want something with real value in return.

Every currency must have some sort of insurance to it.

What I propose is to build a sort of world senate - an institute that passes rules and restrictions over its members by taking votes. Diplomatic influence then can be used to affect those votes.

It may have some bonuses like inter-something trading rules which let's say increases gold income for every member as a passive bonus. Or restrictions which lets say forbids it's members to advance past certain adventure level or to use certain spells. It may also force diplomatic decisions like forcing it's members to declare war on a certain country or on contrary forcing it's members to cease hostile activities.

I'm probably being to vague, but there's to many ways to implement it to be able to give any specific idea.

I'm just trying to point out that there's a promising direction for a later diplomatic expansion.