PROBLEM
1. Over time, the number of diplomatic relations available to nations always increases, never decreases
No country is ever going to lose diplomatic relations slots. Countries that take Diplomacy will gain slots. Countries that take Expansion will gain slots. Countries that have national ideas which increase the number of relations slots will gain slots. As the game progresses, there will be more and more nations who have a greater amount of available relations slots. More and more nations will go from 4 to 6 to 8 (I'm not sure if any non-human nation is keyed to take both Diplo and Expansion AND has a NI granting +2), and, of course, a human +2 DR NI nation can even get a crazy 13 relations.
Okay, there is one minor exception - the HRE Emperor can lose 2 if he loses the Emperorship, but another nation will gain that +2 from gaining Emperor, which evens it out.
2. Over time, the number of nations in game tends to dwindle
OPMs get annexed. Vassals get annexed. PUs are formed and inherited or integrated. Minor nations are stolen from and then eliminated. Moderate nations are chewed up by multiple opponents. Even major nations can be ground away, particularly when the player is involved.
Over the course of the game, the number of nations present tends to diminish as blobs and alliance blocs form and the underprivileged are destroyed and the friendly are coalesced.
3. Every nation will seek to maximize relations
So if Great Britain is mortal enemies with A, B, and C, they will seek out D, E, F, H, I, and J to ally, even when those alliances are not particularly helpful, make no 'historical sense', and lead to massive world-spanning chains, even potentially leading to mortal enemies being on the ends. GB allied to Ottomans allied to Denmark allied to Russia allied to France? Sure, why not.
To illustrate, here is a typical beginning game alliance:
And here is a typical late-game alliance, including the opposing bloc at war
So why is this a problem?
Because apart from coalitions, one of the major obstacles to getting *anything* done - and in this game, 'anything' generally means conquest, because otherwise you're either sitting around or colonizing (which is basically sitting around) - is how absolutely intertwined the world becomes when it comes to alliances.
Have you ever wanted to attack someone mid-to-late game, and spent ten minutes trying to undo the web of marriages, alliances, and casus bellis to figure out that if you temporarily allied with Country A who is defending Country B who is being attacked by Country C who is allied to Country D, you could enforce peace on the side of A to join the war against B so you could become the leader defending C so you could occupy a province of D in order to conquer it, since you are both allied and married to D? Yeah, I have.
And sure. Figuring out that puzzle can be part of the fun, quite often, like making the perfect Jenga move without toppling the whole shebang.
But oftentimes, it can be amazingly prohibitive, as the answer can frequently come back "cannot be done" like the old farmer telling the lost couple "ya'll can't reach there from here".
SOLUTION
So what can be done? How do you counter the huge globe-spanning alliance web?
Disclaimer - maybe you don't consider this a problem, perhaps the whole thing is WAD, maybe the answer is "it's fine, dealwithit.jpg". If so, well, okay. I tend to find (and I have seen others express this opinion as well) that post 1700 or so I either get bored and quit, take a few provinces and sit around for a decade, or pretty much fast forward through everything while doing much of nothing.
My proposal:
Diplomatic relations slots used should be based on the target nation's size
What do I mean specifically?
Historically, or in "real sense mode" - being involved with a nation of larger size should require much more interaction, bureaucracy, and manipulation than one of smaller size.
In "game mechanics mode" - tiny nations should require less, even a fraction of, your relations slot, while maintaining an alliance with a France blob, for example, should require 2, 3, even 4 of your available slots depending on their size.
Want to ally with a dozen OPMs? Go for it - each one will occupy one half of one relation slot.
In Soviet Russia, does Russian bear want to ally with you? Okay, but it will cost you 4 of your 6 relations slots because they are ungodly massive.
Military Access? A mere fraction - 1/10th of a relation slot.
Fleet Basing? Nothing at all, you're paying money for it.
And what would this do? Make more alliance blocs involving fewer nations late-game, because the nations involved will be larger. More blocs involving fewer nations means more frequent possibility of war between opposing blocs, and less time spent fighting pre-1900 world wars where a dozen nations are on each side so one instigator can take Bamberg.
But how can you have fractions of relations slots?
Okay, instead of integers you could apportion 'relations' to be percentage based - consider what previously used to be "4 relations" to be "100% base", with diplo/expansion/NI adding a +50% to it and Embassy granting +25%. Then say "Making this country a vassal will require 30% of your relations limit" or "Asking for military access from this nation will require 2% of your relations limit".
Well, so what? I go over my relations limit all the time.
Along with this, I believe the penalties for going over relations should be expanded to non-diplomatic MP penalties, beginning with minor, leading to severe.
At 100% relations and want military access? Before it would cost you 1 diplo point gained per monthly tick. Kind of lame. Under this system? Maybe nothing at all, given how low access would be valued in 'relations'.
What should other penalties be? Legitimacy drain, prestige loss, increased revolt risk if you start going heavily over. Something other than "well I don't really care if diplo tech lags behind"
As an aside...
This would help curb 'vassal-feeding' just a bit - not prevent it, but hamper it just a little - since increasing the size of your vassal would increase the amount of relations slot / percentage used by them. Now I'm not *against* vassal-feeding, but I do think it should be cut back just a bit while making straight-up conquest a bit easier.
~~~~~~~~~~
Just mah thoughts.
1. Over time, the number of diplomatic relations available to nations always increases, never decreases
No country is ever going to lose diplomatic relations slots. Countries that take Diplomacy will gain slots. Countries that take Expansion will gain slots. Countries that have national ideas which increase the number of relations slots will gain slots. As the game progresses, there will be more and more nations who have a greater amount of available relations slots. More and more nations will go from 4 to 6 to 8 (I'm not sure if any non-human nation is keyed to take both Diplo and Expansion AND has a NI granting +2), and, of course, a human +2 DR NI nation can even get a crazy 13 relations.
Okay, there is one minor exception - the HRE Emperor can lose 2 if he loses the Emperorship, but another nation will gain that +2 from gaining Emperor, which evens it out.
2. Over time, the number of nations in game tends to dwindle
OPMs get annexed. Vassals get annexed. PUs are formed and inherited or integrated. Minor nations are stolen from and then eliminated. Moderate nations are chewed up by multiple opponents. Even major nations can be ground away, particularly when the player is involved.
Over the course of the game, the number of nations present tends to diminish as blobs and alliance blocs form and the underprivileged are destroyed and the friendly are coalesced.
3. Every nation will seek to maximize relations
So if Great Britain is mortal enemies with A, B, and C, they will seek out D, E, F, H, I, and J to ally, even when those alliances are not particularly helpful, make no 'historical sense', and lead to massive world-spanning chains, even potentially leading to mortal enemies being on the ends. GB allied to Ottomans allied to Denmark allied to Russia allied to France? Sure, why not.
To illustrate, here is a typical beginning game alliance:
And here is a typical late-game alliance, including the opposing bloc at war
So why is this a problem?
Because apart from coalitions, one of the major obstacles to getting *anything* done - and in this game, 'anything' generally means conquest, because otherwise you're either sitting around or colonizing (which is basically sitting around) - is how absolutely intertwined the world becomes when it comes to alliances.
Have you ever wanted to attack someone mid-to-late game, and spent ten minutes trying to undo the web of marriages, alliances, and casus bellis to figure out that if you temporarily allied with Country A who is defending Country B who is being attacked by Country C who is allied to Country D, you could enforce peace on the side of A to join the war against B so you could become the leader defending C so you could occupy a province of D in order to conquer it, since you are both allied and married to D? Yeah, I have.
And sure. Figuring out that puzzle can be part of the fun, quite often, like making the perfect Jenga move without toppling the whole shebang.
But oftentimes, it can be amazingly prohibitive, as the answer can frequently come back "cannot be done" like the old farmer telling the lost couple "ya'll can't reach there from here".
SOLUTION
So what can be done? How do you counter the huge globe-spanning alliance web?
Disclaimer - maybe you don't consider this a problem, perhaps the whole thing is WAD, maybe the answer is "it's fine, dealwithit.jpg". If so, well, okay. I tend to find (and I have seen others express this opinion as well) that post 1700 or so I either get bored and quit, take a few provinces and sit around for a decade, or pretty much fast forward through everything while doing much of nothing.
My proposal:
Diplomatic relations slots used should be based on the target nation's size
What do I mean specifically?
Historically, or in "real sense mode" - being involved with a nation of larger size should require much more interaction, bureaucracy, and manipulation than one of smaller size.
In "game mechanics mode" - tiny nations should require less, even a fraction of, your relations slot, while maintaining an alliance with a France blob, for example, should require 2, 3, even 4 of your available slots depending on their size.
Want to ally with a dozen OPMs? Go for it - each one will occupy one half of one relation slot.
In Soviet Russia, does Russian bear want to ally with you? Okay, but it will cost you 4 of your 6 relations slots because they are ungodly massive.
Military Access? A mere fraction - 1/10th of a relation slot.
Fleet Basing? Nothing at all, you're paying money for it.
And what would this do? Make more alliance blocs involving fewer nations late-game, because the nations involved will be larger. More blocs involving fewer nations means more frequent possibility of war between opposing blocs, and less time spent fighting pre-1900 world wars where a dozen nations are on each side so one instigator can take Bamberg.
But how can you have fractions of relations slots?
Okay, instead of integers you could apportion 'relations' to be percentage based - consider what previously used to be "4 relations" to be "100% base", with diplo/expansion/NI adding a +50% to it and Embassy granting +25%. Then say "Making this country a vassal will require 30% of your relations limit" or "Asking for military access from this nation will require 2% of your relations limit".
Well, so what? I go over my relations limit all the time.
Along with this, I believe the penalties for going over relations should be expanded to non-diplomatic MP penalties, beginning with minor, leading to severe.
At 100% relations and want military access? Before it would cost you 1 diplo point gained per monthly tick. Kind of lame. Under this system? Maybe nothing at all, given how low access would be valued in 'relations'.
What should other penalties be? Legitimacy drain, prestige loss, increased revolt risk if you start going heavily over. Something other than "well I don't really care if diplo tech lags behind"
As an aside...
This would help curb 'vassal-feeding' just a bit - not prevent it, but hamper it just a little - since increasing the size of your vassal would increase the amount of relations slot / percentage used by them. Now I'm not *against* vassal-feeding, but I do think it should be cut back just a bit while making straight-up conquest a bit easier.
~~~~~~~~~~
Just mah thoughts.
Last edited:
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