No?

would the absence of the diplomatic currency make the game easier? 

GTI wrote:

would the absence of the diplomatic currency make the game easier? 

It would break the early game minor faction interractions completely. In mid game you start swimming in the purple stuff, unless you are UE, so the diplomatic costs aren't that big of a deal. Now having to manage said influence when you don't have a lot of it, makes the game more fun. If you want to go full diplo, but for some reason the influence costs are too much for you, pacifist party is the way to go, that diplomacy discount law is a thing.

Absolutely, Influence resource also enables the usage of such declarations as force peace, force truce and serves as maintanance cost for agreements, along with laws. If everyone had access to those from beginning, many would become no-brainer OP.

Thank you for the explanation people.

Think of it as a fill in for the verity of real costs that go into a diplomatic action. It covers the manhours of your diplomatic corp, it covers the costs in translating documents (if you think translation from english to french is difficult, imagine english to floatingmathballtrappedinroboticbody language. Imagine that it also covers the "political capital" you need to spend internally in your empire to bring the nation onboard with the idea. Even dictators need lackey onboard. Let your imagination fill in the gaps. Hence peace being cheap for peace political parties and war being cheap for militarists.

Thanks Warboss!