Embassy Expulsion is Too Potent

Attempting to unify Italy as Savoy. Successfully booted myself into GP status through industrialization and prestige wars. Kicked Austrian SOI out without too much trouble through combination of war and SOI. The remaining country is Papal States, on which the French have an SOI from the beginning. Attempted to pull an SOI coup on it failed. Warfare with French was unsuccessful -- beat them up fairly badly, but overwhelming numbers, dropout of Austria as ally and the ending of the Prussian intervention in Alsace led to an eventual SQAB.

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Taking a SoI from the AI is not as hard as it seems, it only requires patience. Begin by influencing a target country (hereafter Target). Typically, the player will be able to influence the Target to 'Friendly' without the Sphere Leader (SL) taking action. Once the player's relations with the Target are above Friendly, the SL will begin to influence the Target as well. The player can influence the Target up to 50 points as long as the SL does not gain 65 influence, enabling it to Ban Embassy. Once the SL gets to 64 influence, that player should cease influencing the Target and focus elsewhere for the time being. Eventually, the SL will spend its influence in the Target on an action unrelated to the player, bringing its influence back to 0. Thereafter, the player can continue influencing, although after crossing the 50 point threshold the rules change slightly - the SL will now use the Expel action (available at 50 points). Therefore, the player must stop influencing the Target when the SL reaches 49, as opposed to 64. The SL will also use Discredit when it reaches 25 points (and the player has not already been discredited), however, discredit can be seen in this scenario to be only a minor nuisance to the player and a waste of influence by the SL. Eventually the player will outpace the SL and reach 100 points, thereby enabling the player to Remove the Target from Sphere.

In addition, to speed up the process I suggest that the player concentrate all influence priority on the Target when increasing influence (use all three priority bars and do not add priority bars anywhere else). Finally, while not a requirement I find it distracts the SL that when the player is "resting" (not spending influence on the Target due to the SL being at an action threshold of 49 or 64) it pays to influence another of the SL's sphere countries, forcing it to spend influence points there for a time.

I disagree on your proposal to raise the threshold of Ban Embassy to 100 - you view the Ban Embassy as a tool for the Sphere Leader only. However, it should be a tool for a country fighting to establish a sphere over a country not already in its sphere as well. Say, for example, that France and Spain are fighting to sphere an un-sphered Morocco. Why would Spain raise its influence to 100 to ban France when at 100 it could then add Morocco to its sphere anyway? By that time France is likely to have sphere Morocco, as it would likely gain more points there due to its greater military size. Any prior advantage Spain built up in influence points could be easily beaten by France's greater points gain. Also, even if France were to fall behind Spain, it could Expel Spain at 50 points long before Spain could reach 100. I agree that Ban Embassy is a potent tool, but surely not as importnat as adding a country to one's sphere. The 65 point requirement seems fine to me.

Yeah, taking advantage of the idiotic AI is hardly rewarding. This is definitely on my 1.3 wishlist.

Aeon221 said:

I'm fairly certain that Spain would be able to pull off a sphere in any event, as 365 days is plenty of time to build back to 100. Gaming the system through inflection point observation is inane.

Ban embassy is, in its current form, an extremely potent mechanism for eliminating enemy SOI attacks. Playing as other countries, I have myself significantly abused it. It is utterly useless on the offensive due to IHolder immunity. Because it is, in essence, an I-Win button for the holder, it should come with an extremely high cost.

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65 IS an extremely high cost. And it is certainly not a win-button for a SL. Sure it gives you a year's reprieve from 1 GP on 1 minor. That is only a win button if you are uninterested in the overall SoI mechanic. However, the game is played the world over and when a GP is banned in one place, it has great influence in others. I agree that the AI needs to be smarter about what it chooses, but it can be made to be too effective against a human player. The answer is to add more trade-offs to the system, so that France can SoI Portugal and keep Spain out, but that should always be an ongoing battle, not one that can ever be considered complete. Then I can weigh the options of taking Portugal or holding a few South American countries, but probably not both without sacrifice elsewhere.

I'm fairly certain that Spain would be able to pull off a sphere in any event, as 365 days is plenty of time to build back to 100. Gaming the system through inflection point observation is inane.

Ban embassy is, in its current form, an extremely potent mechanism for eliminating enemy SOI attacks. Playing as other countries, I have myself significantly abused it. It is utterly useless on the offensive due to IHolder immunity. Because it is, in essence, an I-Win button for the holder, it should come with an extremely high cost.

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The subsequent posters misread my guide as an endorsement of the system as it currently is. However, is the cost of Ban Embassy is raised to 100, I hardly see when it is worthwhile to use it. Say a player spheres a country - all the player has to do is raise influence to 100. If the AI knocks the player off as sphere leader, all the player has to do is add the country back, instantly. The player then builds up influence again and can always Expel the AI if the AI is getting too close to 100. Why in that situation would the player use Ban Embassy? I've found that once a player retakes a sphered country the AI leaves teh target alone for some time thereafter - sometimes it never returns.

As to the other example, why would a player ban an embassy for 100 points when it can add a country to the player's sphere? If the player is worried about the AI getting too close to 100, again, the player can just use Expel. Ban Embassy has to be lower than 100 for it to be worth the cost.

I understand the point that a sphere leader has great benefits when defending a sphere - but that's exactly the point. It shouldn't be easy to dislodge a sphere leader - think of what that represents in the time period. An uncivilized monarch or chieftain is being advised by the sphere leader's ambassador, sold the sphere's goods, and under the sphere leader's sword. That puts a lot of pressure on the sphered country.

Dislodging a country from another's sphere should be a tough process. Head-on influence gain should attract notice of the sphere leader and be dealt with - unfortunately the AI doesn't get the idea that stored influence for the player doesn't go away, so over time it can grow. However, one could chalk this up to clever diplomats gradually wooing the target while feinting interest in another area.

I'd give a couple real-life examples when a Great Power should lose a sphere:

1. Revolution in the sphere (already modeled in game)
2. Great Power falls in status (again, in game)
3. Through war with another GP (modeled, but flawed if there is a truce with the new sphere)
4. Concerted diplomatic effort (see below)

By concerted diplomatic effort I mean either A) two or more GPs gathering together to pull a sphered country out of a third GPs sphere or B) combined pressure across a GP's sphere by multiple players that force it to prioritize which spheres it will keep and which it will lose. This, unfortunately, cannot happen in the current version because of the shortcomings of the AI. I've read all too many times about a player trying to unseat a GP from a sphere, only to have a third GP discredit, expel, or ban the player's embassy, thereby negating both the player's and the third GP's efforts. In addition, the AI does not prioritize which spheres it wants to keep - it simply determines the player is always the biggest threat to its sphere. The AI UK will spend all its efforts defending a sphered Bhutan from the player while other AI GPs knock China out of the UK's sphere.

The system right now is hindered by the lack of nuance the AI can understand. I'm not sure that will be improved in current iterations or not. I disagree, however, that raising the cost of Ban Embassy is the solution - it would tip the cost/benefit of that tool too far to the worthless.

It's so annoying trying to get Wurtemmberg in my sphere as the NGF. They are the last nation I need but unfortunately Austria consistently seems to fully prioritise them (they only have 2 other nations i their SOI ). I think I might just try that explout, it's totally ridiculous trying to do it in a normal fashion. I have no other priorities for influence, so I just try to get them by putting them to 3 bars and seeing what happens. Becasue I have a high level of market technology I get a bit further each time before they get to 50 and expell my advisors, but it took 6 years for me to take Hosltein from Russia that way.

I disagree with the embassy expulsion not being costly enough and with it being too potent. In my opinion, it's just about right, even if Sphering is the main part of this game that reinforced my hatred of the French. (LEAVE BRAZIL ALONE! WHAT, NOW USCA!? I WANT SARDINIA, GIVE IT TO ME!)

this has happened all too many times to me. Even if i have friendly 25 the SL bans me (why?) a second GP reduces my statusto cordial a third reduces me again to neutral than SL discredits me (while i'm banned) during this time GP 2 has 99 friendly and unseated SL

Brin Milo said:

Even if i have friendly 25 the SL bans me (why?)

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Because the SL has accumulated 65 points and sees your influence is climbing. Turn your influence off when another GP has enough points to target you, resume as soon as they've shot at someone else. The AI will never target you while your influence is off, regardless of how many points you have accumulated. You become "invisible" to the AI as soon as you switch influence off.

Once you've understood that, the influence game becomes dead easy.

Aeon221 said:

Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, out and out stupid. I get that it'd be computationally intensive to have 7-8 actors checking each nation's fixed influence counter in addition to checking delta, but come on.

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What it needs to do is look at the inactive levels when it is looking anyway - so instead of saying "I have 65, France is influencing at neutral with 5 points so I will ban France." instead it should be saying "I have 65, France is influencing - but Russia has 90 saved at friendly and France is only neutral so I will save my points.

Furthermore, without exploiting deficiencies in the AI, defending a SOI feels too easy for an incumbent who starts the game with a large sphere. It costs 300 points to grab an SOI, and a mere 65 to defend it. Upping the cost from 1/6th to 1/3rd seems fair to me.

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It only costs 200 to grab a sphere - 2x50+100, and you only loose a maximum of 100 when banned. So you are upping the cost from 66% to 101%, of the benefit, for a player assuming they can time it perfectly (may not be possible in multiplayer when a player can't pause just to get the timing right) - and as the AI only fires about twice a month even if it held off until the last moment you are increasing its cost from 72% to 111%