Treaty is a fairly popular game mode and deserves more QOL features and improvements.
Issues with potential fixes and improvements:
Decks: This is a massive issue with the game mode right now. Because of the nature of treaty, decks are the most important thing to get somewhat right. Without a treaty orientated deck, the game simply isnt competitive. Right now, because players cannot see each others decks before the game starts, you have to wait until the game begins to check if a player has a competitive deck or not, often after the first shipment when they pick a deck. Frequently, games need to be rehosted, sometimes multiple times, before everyone in the game has a treaty deck which is highly frustrating and a massive waste of time.
Fix:
1. Allow players to see each others decks from within a lobby.
2. Include default decks specific for treaty that has been premade for every player. By default, there needs to be 3 decks for treaty: Land, Native and Water.
If you ask the community, I’m sure many would be willing to help make all rounder decks for treaty for each civ.
Filtering and differentiating Treaty from the main game mode: Many players do not actually know they are in a treaty game. Right now, the strategy is to interrogate every player that joins the lobby and see if they know whether its treaty or not. This is also difficult when dealing with players that do not speak the same language. Again highly frustrating and tedious.
Fix:
1. Allowing players to see decks within a lobby would help this issue too.
2. Add filtering options for Treaty in game browser.
3. When pressing “Browse Games” after clicking on “Multiplayer” from the main screen, have 2 clickable options “Supremacy” and “Treaty” that after choosing one, brings you to a game browser only showing the game mode of choice. Essentially splitting the 2 game modes completely so they are not grouped into the same browser. Could also be used to separate “Deathmatch” and “Lightning” if that’s still a thing.
Reconnecting to Games: This is an issue for all game modes, but its especially punishing for long Treaty games. The level of frustration a player goes through after microing their eco for >90 mins to have a player disconnect, often from loosing connection, before the game really begins is possibly the worst feeling ever in this game, especially for those that do not have alot of time to play games in the first place. We have the ability to pause games, being able to reconnect to them would sync up nicely with it and a huge QOL upgrade from TAD.
Fix:
1. Add a way to reconnect to games for disconnected players.
Make the “Half Map” rule a togglable feature within the game: Ever since way back in 2005 when I first started to play treaty, there was swiftly a “Half Map” rule where players would have a gentlemen’s agreement to not cross into each others side of the map mainly for resource and starting army positioning advantages. General fair gameplay. Players sometimes forget this agreement and it causes arguments and rage quits within the game.
Fix:
1. Add a physical invisible wall exactly half way through the map so that players from each team cannot cross into each others territory. The wall is then removed when the treaty ends.
Remove build radius restriction for trade/native posts and docks on water maps: Due to the RNG nature of maps and starting positions, sometimes a team can build trade/native posts and docks on water maps where the other team cannot. This is a huge advantage purely due to RNG and it is not fair. Regarding building on all trade/native spots, read the fix below.
Fix:
1. Remove the build radius restriction for trade/native posts and docks. However, a rule must be implemented to stop players from opposing sides from building in each others sides of the map until after the Treaty ends.
I would absolutely love to see these changes for Treaty as it would vastly improve the experience of players within the game mode. Thanks for reading!