@Misguided Caveat*, I loved the Griftlands diplomacy, and far more so than the Griftlands combat to the point that I preferred it in every scenario in which there was an option to choose between them.
That said, the “diplomacy” here is very different. For one, it has a hard timer, a strict number of turns before you auto-lose, so you have to shoot for efficiency and cannot turtle.
Second, there is generally less going on. Each turn you play your cards, one, two, three, and decide whether to buy from the tableau or bank whatever empathy you have built up. The trade-off is that you begin with a card that reduces ‘rage’, which is the win / lose metric, that costs 5 empathy to play . . . the first time. Next time 6 empathy, after that 7 etc.
So you play a tight little game of finding a way to reduce rage via buying new and better cards and waiting for them to cycle back for benefit, or banking and trying to ‘rush’. Oh yeah, negative cards start getting added in, but you can also buy cards that draw and discard or delete, so you can counter them.
In sum, much shorter, somewhat simpler than Griftlands diplomacy fights, but still with challenge.