Diplomacy in 2 player games

I'll just share with you my "political system" which is planned for the 2nd expansion of my game "Tradewars - Homeworld".

So in "Code Red" (Yes - I know it's a Mountain Dew flavor - I still like the name...) the idea is for two (2) players, each player maintains a line going from -2 to 0 to +2. So there are five (5) possible "disposition".

Each one (disposition) has specific cards which a player can choose to play. So let's say if your opponent is "Hostile (-2)" and is continually attacking you, you can use a card such as "Temporary Ceasefire" which means for X amount of turns your opponent cannot attack you. Not sure about how many turns, but this is game specific.

So that's what I am doing with "Code Red"... As you can see you can have different actions you can choose from that you would not normally have with the base game. This expansion will "boost" (for lack of a better term) the game's fundamental core and add a new way to play the game...

I agree with Zag24's suggestion of a non-player (NP) faction. I might include a small "NP control deck" of cards which randomly affect the actions and attitudes of the NP faction. Each card would probably have multiple possible effects, with some dependent on the current game state (eg. declare peace if at war, or declare war if a player is within a certain distance/has a certain size army/whatever). Perhaps a new card would be drawn when any of a set of "trigger" events occurs. Is there trading in your 4x game? If so, I would also make it possible to trade with the NP faction if you're not at war with them, but at somewhat random (and probably slightly expensive) rates, so that it might be better to trade with your opponent if they are willing, but you have another option. The trade rates could be one of the things set by the NPC deck and also affected by the player's standing with the NP faction (which should be tracked and persistent, though alterable by events and the NP deck. And trading with the NP faction could also strengthen it if it declares war. There are lots of possibilities along these lines.

That sounds great! Very much in the spirit of what I had in mind, but much more streamlined and elegant, and probably more original. One question: when you say 2-4 mission cards, do you mean that number are in play at any time, or that's the entire deck? If the latter, I might be inclined to increase the deck size (maybe 6-10) cards - which would add a little more variation between games without seriously increasing the playing time or complexity. If they're part of another deck (ie not a dedicated mission deck) then this probably isn't true.

There are several NPC factions, each with a number of votes, AND each faction has certain goods that they supply. You track the level of favor for each player for each faction, and the favor affects the cost of their goods (or even whether they will trade at all), plus whoever has the highest favor for a faction has that faction's voting proxy.

Mission cards are available which increase favor with some factions while decreasing it with others. (i.e. "Build a foundry" makes the dwarves happy with you but makes the elves unhappy.) Missions that are difficult to perform tend to have a net positive opinion, but there are also missions that are difficult to avoid performing, which have a net negative opinion. (i.e. Performed if total Army size is above X.)

The votes are used to activate and deactivate Resolutions, as you said. However, these are not 100% binding. Any player can ignore a Resolution, it's just that he will lose favor with all the factions for doing it. (This is why you need to have a second effect -- the trading aspect -- of the faction favor; because otherwise someone could just ignore all Resolutions all the time.)

It's just a thought. Feel free to use the idea if it makes sense in the direction you're headed, or not (of course).

This sounds exactly like Wizard'z Quest (Avalon Hill, 1979), so either you was thinking about that game or there are two very similar games with similar names.

This might or might not be slightly off-topic, but thinking about two-player diplomacy makes me think of the possibility of having a two-player coop game with a possible-traitor-mechanic. I think that might work as a way to create some meaningful diplomacy, and also make other two-player games more entertaining. Give it say a 33 % chance/risk that the other player is actually not aiming for the same goal that you are and will suddenly backstab you, but until then players keep a straight face and have to try to work together against NPC enemies or whatever obstacles they face.

Have to write that down for a possible future project, eg the bgg 2-player game design contest next year. I am sure you can do something interesting with coop/traitor/diplomacy with 2 players that makes it different from when you are more players. Somehow.

If you assume both players can win, then cooperating is an option.

However is this really 'diplomacy' or a game of trust/don't trust It is debatable.

Not that the concept is bad at all. I just feel it move into a semi-cooperative game.