Diplomacy
| Where | International relations panel, on the President's dashboard |
|---|---|
| Scale | 0 to 100 for each relationship; shown as a bar, coloured green, amber or red |
| Modern set | China, Russia, European Union, United Kingdom, Middle East, Latin America |
| Cold War set | Soviet Union, Communist China, NATO Allies, United Kingdom, Latin America, Middle East |
| Eras | Cold War set in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; modern set in every other era |
| Shown to | Presidents only |
Diplomacy is a panel of six relationship scores on the President's dashboard, each running from 0 to 100, where a higher score means better relations. Which six relationships appear depends on the era: the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s track a Cold War set, and every other era tracks a modern set built around today's major powers and regions.
- The modern set covers China, Russia, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Latin America.
- The Cold War set covers the Soviet Union, Communist China, the NATO Allies, the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Middle East.
Each score is drawn as a bar with an arrow showing how it has changed since the previous turn: green when relations are good, amber in the middle, and red when they are poor. A named historical scenario opens with its own starting figures for all six relationships rather than the usual defaults, which is why, for example, a 1960s presidency opens with a Soviet Union score rather than a Russia score. A workshop pack can adjust these starting figures further without discarding the scenario's own baseline.
Each month, the game weighs the policy the President actually enacted, after any changes made by Congress, the courts and the cabinet, and adjusts the six scores accordingly. A purely domestic policy usually moves them very little or not at all; a policy explicitly about foreign affairs moves them more. No adjustment is made for a statement, a personnel decision, or for any role in Career Mode other than the presidency, because a governor, a candidate or a private citizen has no international relations to manage and no diplomacy panel to see.
Several other things move the scores over the course of a game:
- A war drags down the relationship tied to the region where it is being fought, for as long as it runs, and leaves that relationship permanently lower once the war ends.
- Fighting alongside allies raises the allied relationships a little each month.
- Using nuclear weapons badly damages every relationship, allied or not, and the damage lingers for the rest of the game.
- Certain favours and organised interests can push a single relationship up or down a little each month.
Diplomacy is the one set of national figures that is not reduced by how well the cabinet carries a policy out. A policy's effect on the country's foreign relations lands in full even when the cabinet carries that policy out poorly.