Diplomats

Diplomats are the people through whom a country acts abroad and works on its own politics at home. Every diplomat is a persistent, fictional character with a name, an age, a gender, a background, traits and a hat, and every one can do any kind of work. Ambassador, Spymaster and Agitator are not classes but three parallel branches of experience and talents: a diplomat who spends years infiltrating foreign ministries becomes a skilled Spymaster, and can still be sent to arrange a cultural exchange.

A diplomat does one thing at a time: a posting (optionally running a mission), or one treaty negotiation. The Diplomatic Service view, opened from the top bar or by clicking a diplomat in the outliner, lists the roster with each diplomat's work, target, next result and progress.

The roster

Every country starts with two diplomat slots. It earns more for its standing: in each of the prestige, economy and military rankings, first place adds 5 slots, second 4, third 3, fourth to sixth 2 and seventh to tenth 1. Government type and permanent modifiers (Diplomat Slots) adjust the total, and the superpowers' focus chains add permanent slots, the American chain beginning with a 1946 foreign-service reform. At the start of 1946 the United States and the Soviet Union each field five authored diplomats; everyone else's starting roster is generated.

Recruitment costs 180 political capital, adjusted by Diplomat Cost, and presents three candidates; if you do not choose within seven days, one is picked for you. Candidates are 22 to 45, favouring recent graduates. You may recruit beyond your slots, but each excess diplomat costs one political capital a day.

Diplomats age, and death and retirement come through events, likelier as they grow old. A diplomat can also be lost to defection or dismissal, or barred from a country as persona non grata. Departed diplomats keep their records for inspection.

Branches and experience

Each branch advances from level 0 to 8 on the same curve: 1, 12, 25, 60, 104, 160, 226 and 304 experience. The first level costs a single point, so a new diplomat earns a first talent choice with their first completed mission cycle in that branch. Most missions award one experience per completed 30-day cycle, so full mastery of a branch takes about 25 years of work; speed bonuses and completion rewards shorten it. A signed treaty awards its negotiator 4 Ambassador experience.

Experience itself grants nothing but levels. Cancelled or unfinished cycles earn nothing, and fractional experience carries forward.

Talents and doctrines

Every level grants one talent choice, which can be banked. Each branch has its own free-form tree, laid out like the research and focus trees: 27 Ambassador, 27 Spymaster and 35 Agitator talents. Talents give numeric bonuses or unlock missions (technology theft, election organization, military liaison, backchannel contacts, faction funding, arms and advisors, broadcasting, reconstruction aid and more). Choices are permanent; there is no respec, though events can grant or remove talents.

Each branch offers one pair of mutually exclusive doctrines, available once both of the branch's root talents are owned. A doctrine is a commitment with a cost, and opens its own options in mission incidents:

Traits

A generated diplomat has one positive and one negative trait. Traits give modest, concrete differences:

• Positive: Patient Listener (better mediation), Careful Planner (funding efficiency and espionage speed; never Careless), Discreet (lower discovery risk, more deniability), Persuasive (treaty acceptance and agitation), Multilingual (faster diplomatic missions), Resilient (more durable networks), Well Connected (espionage effectiveness and funding), Principled (mediation, treaty acceptance, and certain honourable options), Crossdresser (deniability and lower risk).
• Negative: Easily Flustered, Overconfident, Careless, Indiscreet, Rigid, Unreliable, Politically Naive, Attention Seeking and Loose Cannon, which trades mediation and discovery risk for sharper agitation.

Temporary conditions come and go with the work: Exhausted reduces effectiveness for 60 days, Under Suspicion raises discovery risk until the mission ends, and Tropical Disease slows all work for 90 days. Missions also carry their own conditions, such as Trusted Local Contacts or a Compromised Route, which end with the mission.

Backgrounds (consular service, university research, regional trade, broadcasting, military liaison, labour organizing, legal affairs, journalism) are flavour only. Regional affinity with a capital such as Washington, London, Paris, Berlin or Beijing gives bonuses for work there.

Character development

Rare versions of mission incidents let a diplomat grow: acquire a strength, overcome a weakness, or pick up a bad habit, always shown before you choose. Such a change needs at least two years since the diplomat's last one and grows rarer with each. A few explicitly dishonest choices, such as burying verified financial evidence or using fabricated election material, cost a Principled diplomat that conviction. Every lasting change is written into the diplomat's permanent record.

Hats

Each diplomat wears a hat, rolled once at creation and shown beside their name: fedoras, homburgs, a bowler, a trilby, a panama, cowboy hats, a flat cap, an officer's cap, an ushanka and a beret among the men's styles, cloches, pillboxes, a picture hat and a fur shapka among the women's. Traits tilt the roll: a Loose Cannon nearly always wears a cowboy hat, a Discreet diplomat something understated.

Mission speed and modifiers

Each mission belongs to a pace family. Its duration is divided by one plus the sum of the country's and the diplomat's matching speed (Diplomatic Mission Speed, Espionage Mission Speed or Agitation Mission Speed). Speed changes timing only, never odds or gains. Effectiveness modifiers multiply successful gains; Espionage Discovery Risk adds probability points; Treaty Acceptance adds flat points at the negotiating table.

What diplomats do

• Missions abroad and at home: Diplomatic Missions
• Goodwill undertakings with other governments: Goodwill Missions
• Infiltration and covert operations: Espionage
• Sponsoring factions abroad: Foreign Backing
• Talks on flashpoints and in standoffs: Stand-offs and Flashpoints
• Negotiating Treaties

The AI spends its talent choices by authored preferences, sends every free diplomat out each month, and at war keeps one diplomat free for peace talks. It never sees a foreign diplomat's private traits, talents or history.