Expanding Peace Negotiation Options Beyond Settlements
In Civilization VII, peace negotiations are strictly limited to exchanging settlements (keeping or returning cities/towns). While the introduction of the Influence economy and resources via trade routes creates a distinct diplomatic loop, limiting peace treaties strictly to land transfers feels restrictive. It forces players into binary choices: either conquer/cede territory, or settle for a blank White Peace.
Proposed Solution:
- Gold Subsidies: Add the ability to demand or offer a lump sum of Gold or Gold-per-turn as war reparations. This allows a victorious player to cripple an aggressor's economy without cluttering their own settlement cap.
- Influence Transfers: Allow a defeated empire to cede a portion of their stored Influence or grant the victor a passive Influence-generation bonus for a set number of turns.
- Forced Trade Agreements: Allow players force trade statuses during a peace deal, forcing the defeated civ to give up luxury or strategic resource for a certain amount of turns.
- Demilitarization / Treaties: Introduce options to force the target civilization to disband units or promise not to build military units near borders for a set duration. If the civ does not comply it allows the player to declare war with additional war support and military attack bonus.
- Religion/Ideology change: It may be more challenging but the player may force the other civ to adopt their religion in Exploration age or Ideology in the modern age.
- Civ Opinion: If a civ is antagonistic a war may be utilized in the peace talk in moments of decisive victory to force the civ to have a friendly opinion of the player.
Why this improves Civilization VII:
- Protects the Settlement Cap: Currently, taking a city in a peace deal can severely penalize a player's settlement cap. Gold or Influence reparations provide a viable alternative reward for winning a war.
- Historical Realism: Throughout history, peace treaties rarely just involved land swaps; financial indemnities and forced diplomatic concessions were the norm.
- Dynamic AI Behavior: It gives the AI more options when it is losing a war desperately, allowing it to save its core cities by offering deep financial or diplomatic concessions instead.
Allowing players to integrate other core economic and diplomatic currencies into the peace deal interface would make war and especially diploymacy more feasible. Especially in games where the player is trying to play tall but still want to punish Civilzations that harass them. Some the proposed ideas maybe a big ask but even a few such as gold, influence and resources would be huge improvement.