Q: I'd be interested to know about the attempts to capture a more detailed/intricate version of diplomacy. Knowing CA, they've probably tried many, many iterations of this, and we've only seen the few that got released.

Always struck me as a weak spot in the TW experience. Relations between factions are terribly binary, none of the frenemy/unreliable ally/trust-but-verify stuff that actually went down. Curious to hear about any game mechanics that have been attempted (but discarded).