Dev Diary 9 – Diplomacy

[King]

While Divine Wind comes closer to completion we have been working hard on polishing and balancing the game. To this end we have started an office multiplayer game to give the game some serious in house testing. We identified a whole number of minor tweaks from the first session and these little things will add some nice polish to the game.

What makes multiplayer so much fun is the additional diplomacy you can have between players that the AI simply can’t do. This leads neatly onto the subject of today’s developer diary; the additional diplomatic options we have added between you and the AI.

First up - by popular demand - the call allies button. No longer do you have to call in your allies into pointless wars that have nothing to do with them. Instead, you can save them for wars that really matter. Allies will be automatically called when you are the defender, and you also have a check box you can click when you are the attacker to call allies. Otherwise, you can pick who joins your war and when they will do it. You can also bring new allies into a war once it has begun, but only if you are the war leader.

Leaving the Empire is no longer a series of province decisions. Now, you tell the Emperor upfront that you are leaving. All your non-core territory inside the Empire is handed over to the Emperor or released as vassals, and the remainder you keep in your new life free of Imperial interference.

The final diplomatic option we have added is the ability to integrate countries that you are in a personal union with. This functions like a diplomatic annexation requiring high relations, but instead of 10 years you need to be a personal Union for 50 years. Like annexation, the junior partner is free to refuse your just and wise offer to integrate their country into yours.

Now, perhaps these diplomatic changes are not quite on the level of the sort of metagame you can get from a good multiplayer game, especially down the pub afterwards. However, they deepen, what is in my opinion, one of the best diplomatic systems you will find in a strategy game to give yet more strategic choices to the player.

To finish with here is a screenshot from the multiplayer game. Do I call in Kallocain into my little war and would she actually say yes if I did? Well I’ll leave you in suspense on that one, because even I don’t know the answers to those questions.

Chris King
Game Designer

 

[King]

Does this replace the inheritance of countries - or is it in addition to it?

In addition to inheritance

 

[King]

I second the question, also, is there a stability drop involved?

Yup

 

[King]

So it is basically just to speed up the inheritance for the impatient? And in many cases inheritance takes less time than 50 years...

No basically it is designed to give you another strategy when dealing with countries who you are in a PU with.

 

[Besuchov]

Sounds good! Although I hope that PUs are somewhat harder to get by than in HTTT, otherwise the addition of Integrate Country would only strengthen Fabricate Claim spamming. But I count on you to have thought of that

Will AI countries leave the HRE?

"Call on your partner to aid you in this conflict"

What if you're in multiple conflicts?

You will call them into all the conflicts they are viable to join.

 

[King]

OK, but what if I'm playing Denmark and want to move my capital to Berlin so I can become Saxon, form Prussia and then Germany?
Will I be unable to do that in the new expansion?

Same, if I'm playing France and just want to dismantle the Empire. I still want to be able to make my provinces leave the Empire, even if I'm not a principality?

Are you trying to be funny?

 

[King]

Not at all.
You've said that all or most of the province decisions will be gone, and that the leave the HRE decision will be replaced by this diplomatic move.
So if I play a nation outside the HRE, expanding into it, but not wanting to be a part of it, how will it work out?

To remove a province from the HRE via a province decision you cannot be a member of the HRE. To add a province the mechanic is unchanged. I cannot recall anything from any developer about changes to rules for moving your capital so I figured that that part especially must be some sort of joke.

 

[King]

If you issue a call to arms to your ally and they refuse it, do they remain your ally? Or is the alliance broken?

Have you programmed it so that allies usually will accept a call to arms, or that it will be rare? Do they look at the current balance of strength between you and your enemies, or is it solely judged on their relations and trust with you?

Does joining an offensive alliance via call to arms cost infamy?

Nothing has changed with the mechanics of alliances. So dishnounering a call still ends the alliance. Call to arms still only cost stability. The AI logic for honouring calls is still pretty much the same.

 

[King]

Call Allies is great, but what about the other most sought after diplomacy addition, buy province? Will that be added, or is there some sort of feature that makes it not viable

There will be no buy province feature for two reasons, partly because the AI is rather poor at that kind of thing, but mainly because not much of that went on. Selling Bavaria so you can go and build more castles is more of a 19th century thing.

 

[King]

Alright, thanks
No, I just used it as an example...

So, essentially you've made it easier for a member of the HRE to leave it. Will it be possible for electors to leave the Empire too?

Anyone but the Emperor can leave.

 

[King]

I really appreciate the call to arms, but the rest is mostly stuff that Paradox would have delivered threw patches in earlier days.

I suppose we could of reduced the number of features in the expansion and shipped it sooner to get money in earlier and then add them in patches later. Then of course you would all be delieghted with the content in the patches and scored some points that way but I feel that is simply ripping you off.

 

[King]

Just a simple question:
Does the new diplo option to integrate a junior partner of PU also gives cores on same culturegroup provinces?

No cores it is a diplomatic annexation not an inheritance.

 

[King]

Will Multiplayer be touched so that there is less out of synch? Perhaps like in Victoria 2, the game slows down in order to prevent someone for OOS.

We have ported over the V2 slow down code into DW so it will do that. If we ever get an OOS in our weekly MP game we will track it and fix it.

 

[King]

I like this personal union annexation mechanic. But I wonder: If I as Tiny Little Cologne(tm) get into a PU with France (as the leader of the PU ofc) and wants to annex, will I then be Huge Enormous Cologne(tm), or will I perhaps get the choice to become France + Cologne in the process?

You are assuming that huge France will not insult its way out fo the PU with Cologne. Still if you do somehow manage to maintain high relations with France and the French AI actually accepts the offer of annexation then you will be Cologne.

 

[King]

What is more serious than playing the game?

There is nothing more serious than playing the game as a player would. When success earns you office bragging rights there is no place for sitting on your arse and admiring your creation. It is amazing the little things you notice when you play in that environment. Things you might overlook otherwise.

 

[Captain Gars]

...you still haven't fixed the massive problem of Waterford not being a part of Leinster

Thanks, this made my day

 

[Birken]

Hehe, I knew that this part would catch your attention.
But I would have appreciated it a bit more if you would have eased my worries about the diluted asian focus. The diaries only tell us that Japan mimicks the Empire, while China will concentrates mostly on itself. As mentioned, I can't rate how greatly you overworked those countries, thus I would love to hear more details on those.

Japan is far from being a mirror image of the HRE.
It's more of a vassal relation between the daimyo, where who is the overlord changes (ie the shogun) and the strength of the relation can be weakened to allow for civil war.
Countries like Manchu and Korea have gotten some new content too.
The horde-mechanics affects both europe and asia as well as forming a bridge between the two (ie are the hordes occupied with one or the other or divided between both).
But sure, the expansion is a lot more than just asia.

 

[Birken]

Also, can we expect Vic2 style naming on the map? like English north America, Bohemian Asia and so on?

And final question, what does that button do?

Don't know what you can expect, but I remember seeing Spanish South America somewhere.
The button opens a new interface that has nothing to do with paradox achievements.

 

[Birken]

Sweeeeet! British India here I come

A new interface huh?

Interesting... how about a hint?

Did you play SF?

 

[Captain Gars]

Simple testing of setting the decision up with debugging commands/cheats and then trying to take it would have caught it in a matter of minutes though.

Then multiply those minutes of "simple" testing by the number of new and rewritten events/decisions/missions/provinces/achievements/position fixes/research/bug fixes in the game and divide by me...

I of course test things, and so do our betas, but there's a limit to what can be done. There's also the problem of using cheats to test something. It just tells you that the cheat-version of it works, so there is still a small risk of something not working as designed when actually encountering it in a normal game.

Charging people retail price to beta test for you is a bit sketchy.

That's been Paradox's business model for years.

Releasing a game that turns out to have a number of non game-breaking bugs and then patch it is not the same as a beta - and no, it's not our "business model". I bought EUIII when it came out and every expansion after that and I've never felt any of them to be "broken" or being some sort of rushed, semi-finished beta.