Create an option during game creation to allow Diplomacy or not.
Create an in-game mechanism to form various diplomatic negotiations with other players.
Specifics/Details:
Allow players to send proposed treaties to other players in the game. The options for the treaty would be selected from menu's with no typing on the user's part.
Selection 1: Whether the treaty is global or specific to certain territories. (There are instances when you wish to declare a truce with a player or merely a peace on one border with them.)
Selection 2: Select for how long the treaty is to last. (I would assume that a number of rounds would be the only useful mechanic)
Selection 3: Select the actions that may not be done. This should include deployment and reinforcement (obviously only for truces dealing with specific territories) or assaulting.
There would probably be a need for two columns of the above selections (one for each player's part of the treaty).
Hopefully, a mechanism will be devised for canceling an offer, amending an offer, and a counter-proposition.
All of the above would be posted in the game log for all players to see.
A mechanic would be set in place to make it impossible for a treaty to be broken.
All diplomacy in games without this feature would be against the rules. Diplomacy through currents means with this option as a part of the game should remain legal.
How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
Diplomacy in games would be set in stone. People could now have an assurance that they would not be back-stabbed.
People who wish to play games without people organizing against one another would have a way to do so.
No one would be forced to use this feature as it would be completely optional and could be ignored even in games with it enabled.
Forming a truce with another player would be a lot simpler as many people do not read the chat every time they log in to play or do so after their turns.
The "human" aspect of the game would greatly increase as many more people who do not currently do so would choose to use diplomacy as a part of their strategy.
I'm opposed to this idea, for the simple reason that banning diplomacy in games without diplomacy is unfeasible.
In standard and multiplayer games, teaming up on the strongest player is simply the correct course of action. With experienced players, you'll see that happening all the time without any comments in game chat. When there are less experienced players around, you might see a comment like "say blue, don't you think yellow is getting awfully strong lately?" From there, we get in the gray area of comments like "say blue, can you please stop attacking me for a while so that I can keep yellow in check?" and "interested in trading cards on F11?". Some players won't consider these comments diplomacy, others would cry foul.
Implementing your suggestion would require an enormous amount of rules to state what is and isn't diplomacy. Making sure these rules aren't broken would require the moderators to delve deeply into the game to determine the intention of the players. That's simply not worth the effort.
