Economic Victory Conditions

[easytarget]

I'm at the point now where I'm being turned down when I offer 3-400k, the faction response is still low. I'm offering them 100 times what I will make off their trade ever, and they aren't even considering it.

Eco victory is broken, or working through some mechanic I've yet to decipher...

Oh, and best of all, there aren't 20 factions left in the game that I can even trade with even if they were willing, because a good 1/3 of them say the following: "Sea trade route unavailable".

Question for anyone: have you ever opened up the diplo screen and not been given any option to initiate diplomacy? Example: I currently want to make peace and start trade (of course) with Persia, when I open the screen to ask for peace, there's no box to open up to offer it, you literally can't do anything. WTF?