Treaties

They give the race you give them to a bonus to economy or research equal to 1/10 of yours (you don't lose that 1/10, they just get the bonus out of nowhere). However there is a limitation in that you can only give it to one other race at a time, and once given it can only be revoked by entering war with the recipient, or by their death. At that point you can then give the treaty to someone else.

It works the same way for an AI giving them to you or another AI.

Does that mean you can only receive one treaty at a time as well? If not, then a clever diplomat could wangle a treaty from each other race, giving them a super boost to economy or research. Would that be unbalanced?

Unbalanced? Sounds like fun!

Does that mean you can only receive one treaty at a time as well? If not, then a clever diplomat could wangle a treaty from each other race, giving them a super boost to economy or research. Would that be unbalanced?

It seems you can receive as many treaties from different races as you would like (one from each) and they do stack, at least in Beta1 anyway. This can be a great boon early game as your econ will skyrocket and you will quickly outpace the AIs in resarch (I've only been playing the beta on painful so far so its not all that hard to outdo them). On the insane levels, suicidal/masochistic, does it give you 1/10 of thier insane boosted econs...?

One thing I would like to see added to treaties: If you GIVE a treaty to another race it should give you a big relation/diplomacy bonus with that race, much like trading with them would.

a clever diplomat could wangle a treaty from each other race

I'm midway through a long 1A game, started with 9 rivals and "random" minors (three so far), humbly still on Tough. For many, many turns my top-dog economy was entirely from econ treaties that were far too easy to get; same for research. No other AI managed to score a treaty and I picked up most of the minors as well.

But that's not my real concern with this fascinating new feature. I suspect the code is already moving along too well, but I really don't understand why the things are one-way and why they are so nearly permanent. That doesn't seem to fit with the word "treaty," except in the sense of war reparations as part of a peace treaty.

To brake the threaty should not need declaration of war in my opinion also. If you brake a threaty it should hurt your relationships badly, nothing else in my mind.

ps. About the diplomacy. This aspect of the game has been tweaked countles times but there is no clear readme/faq about the issue. How much and what should you give to AI to improve relationships considerably? Giving a tech or two time to time seems to do nothing in GC2 and latest DA beta.

Alright, it appears that no one else has yet had a strong balk at the one-way aspect of the treaties. In hopes that at least one dev-type appreciates my quibble, I humble suggest that the UI text be changed from "X treaty" to "X Aid Agreement."

This would make the label of the active UI element more accurately reflect the effects of the choices on the Diplo-Trade page.

Is that what it does? I was hoping that it meant we automatically traded technologies. I guess not .

I guess I'm not getting the point of this feature, then. It seems like a very odd thing to do, and the idea that the extra research/economy magically comes out of nowhere bothers me. It's got no real life equivalent, and doesn't seem to make any sense.

Personally, I think it should be something like agreeing to automatically trade technologies or something similar.

the idea that the extra research/economy magically comes out of nowhere bothers me.

I can see where the extra research would come from, say they send researchers over to observe your more advanced techniques. As far as the econ, might just be giving them penny pincher courses.

I would like the Treaties to be breakable also, aside from war or death. Both options seem a little extreme.

I think treaties should be breakable too. I shouldn't have to go to war with a race just because I changed my mind. The AI should be able to break treaties as well if it thinks it's in it's best interest.

I've said elsewhere that a big part of how I approach this game is telling myself stories while I click around. That, together with some of my "professional" training, is why I balked hard earlier in this thread.

I'm still a tad leery about the near-permanent duration for the treaties, but I'm beginning to think I have a lot more thinking to do about how a particular diplomatic agreement, say the Treaty of Versailles or NAFTA, has some results that no gov't can undo despite the fact that it took at least two gov'ts to make the deal.

If you (the fool who believes you're an autocrat) open trade routes or start exchanging scholars, your traders and/or scholars will never again be the same, even if you put a shooting war in the middle of the relationships you helped them establish.

What a fool I am too! I also assumed it means we automatically trades arbitrary tech or resources. I actually like this araingment where you only give away some little magical, out of think air bonus to someone else, schmoozing grease as it were!
Anyway, The breaking it off only upon death or war is a bit extreme, since politicians are extrememly moody fellows that give and take over a few buck or plane tickets!

Yeah, it's definitely confusing at first, especially since every other game I can think of that has similar treaties requires them to be mutual.

Once you understand how they actually work, they're not a bad idea, just confusingly named.

My first impression is that the AI sort of overvalues them early on, and undervalues them later (i.e., they'll trade their "aid" to you rather cheaply, and the other AIs don't seem to put any great emphasis on acquiring them from each other.) Another impression I have is that having these treaties, whether they're mutual or one-way, seems to give a sizable boost to diplomatic relations. In my first couple games, it seemed almost absurdly easy to form alliances with whoever I wanted to.