Part A - The dust is 'paid' in advance to guarantee the conditions of the agreement. It does not need to be dust - it could be something else, given in surety. For instance, a star system. And as such, you don't have a choice about handing it over. It adds an interesting element, where you need to weigh the benefits vs. the costs of violating an agreement.



Part B - Send in UN weapons inspectors? Hahaha! Sorry. I imagined it would be monitored by the game itself, at least for starters. It sounds obvious to me that when such an agreement is entered, some mechanism would naturally be put in place by the parties to enforce it. Also, perhaps it could be "restrict new builds to..." rather than "limits" - this means, no need to dismantle fleets and you or they would keep their 'natural' advantage. These plans can also be imposed or received, if you are negotiating from a good position / or have a good diplomatic relationship.



Part C - It would be nice to be able to secretly build fleets perhaps? I wonder what might happen if no one knew what the other had? Use intelligence services to find out? That could be an interesting mechanic. I can just see myself investing heavily in counter espionage and bluffing my strength.

So, when you deliberately violate the deal in order to build up your fleet and crush the guy who foolishly agreed to such silly conditions, you're going to just hand over dust why, exactly?



Also, how do you know how many dreadnoughts I actually have? Why should I give you that information (or have the information I do give you be completely accurate, for that matter)?



One of the single most annoying things for me about this genre is how all factions somehow seem to know exactly what capabilities other powers have...

Perhaps they could simply be excluded from the mechanic? - no bonuses (as in, they cannot gain approval from this mechanism / engage in this process), and no negatives (they can not be targeted via these means). It's like the feature does not exist for them.

I like this idea, but wouldn't the Cravers be left out with their inability to negotiate? Should there be some way to balance that aspect of having galactic negotiations?