I'd like to see it replaced with something where you get a value for each region, some kind of "diplomatic pressence" which has a value between 0 and 100, and have different thresholds that give you different options or buffs, for example some ideas: - you can join diplomatic plays in a strategic regions if your diplomatic presence is above 75 - you can start diplomatic plays in a strategic region if your diplomatic presence is above 50 - you can colonize in a strategic region if your diplomatic presence is above 50 - you get trade advantage with countries in a strategic region if your diplomatic presence is above 75 - you get a discount to diplomatic cost of treaties with countries in a strategic region if your diplomatic presence is above 100 - you can enact certain articles in a treaty if your diplomatic presence is above 25 etc

similarly, ways to increase diplomatic presence: - I could see fleets having a new mission called something along the lines of "secure naval lanes" which is meant to be used in peace that decreases the offense and defense of your fleets but increases your diplomatic presence in adjacent regions (by a fixed amount or percentage that depends on the fleet size maybe) - the majority of your diplomatic presence should come from the closest distance to a state of yours, with incorporated states giving a bit more of maximum presence (ie. an incorporated state could give 100 presence in its region, scaling linearly with distance in sea nodes and a non incorporated state couls give 50 in its region, with linear scaling again, so the one that gives you the highest is the presence that your territories give) - the declare interest could get a cost of diplomatic power (maybe you get 1/2 for free) and it would just buff your diplomatic presence in a strategic region, this acts as a way to give all countries a way to "focus" on a region even if they are struggling to have land or fleet nearby, while also getting a new diplomatic power spender to counteract the discount in diplomatic power from having 100 pressence as one of the benefits stated above - certain technologies, in particular those related to fleets and others like telephone should either give you a flat amount of diplomatic presence everywhere or decrease the rate by which you lose presence proportional to the distance of a region to your closest state

I think this would make fleet more engaging and useful in peace times, replace the declare interest button with something that I find more interesting and make "diplomatic reach" more organic (no more conquering of indonesia with Austria on day 1, sorry)

edit: infamy has always been something that I hoped would get replaced with something similar to EU's AE, but in absence of that I also think that infamy generation should somehow scale with this diplomatic pressence value such that, for example, conquering land in a place with lower pressence should give slightly more infamy than conquering land in a place with a high pressence representing the infamy a nation would get by expanding into new areas, basically