Diplomatic Relations are a contributing factor to late-game drudgery
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Yeah I like it, good work!
I am fully in favour of anything that increases the strategic choices and weighing up of costs the player might have to do.
I dislike the present monarch point system, because so much is based on something that's almost entirely outside of your control - the stats of your leader. You expand headlong when a random dice roll gave you a good leader; you crawl along when it gave you a bad one. This, in my view, is a poor excuse for 'strategy' - going hand in hand with the over-numerous randomised events, but more serious than that.
So moving diplomatic relations outside of the Diplomatic Points sphere works for me. I think a prime candidate for cost is gold. I see lots of people saying that, later in game, they have far too much gold and nothing to spend it on. I could therefore see that gold could be a great way to boost the number of diplomatic relations.
So say '100 relations points' is base, and an alliance costs 25. You're at your 100 limit, and you want another alliance. That could cost, say, 12.5 gold a month in 1444, and 125 gold a month in 1750 - 0.5 to 5.0 gold per point, per month. The mechanism by which the costs scale would need to be considered, but I think it should scale somehow. 12.5 gold a month in 1444 is an appreciable cost, but it's affordable in most cases if the result is worth it. This leads to some careful thinking - do I really need that alliance? Is this going to dramatically improve my chances, enabling this or that further strategy? Or am I just getting it to soak a bit of AE? Or getting it as a purely time-saving, temporary measure such that I can get Fleet Basing 6 months earlier than with Improve Relations?
I like those sort of cost weighs up. I don't like them so much when they're based on Monarch Points, because so much already is, and because your source MP is mostly out of your control. I also wouldn't like it so much if it drained Prestige or Legitimacy, because again those numbers are not so directly controlled. And in the case of Prestige, it tends to be the case that you either never have much, or you're permanently at 100 cap. True, draining that might resolve the latter case; but it seems to me very hard to balance for different nations at different times in the game. And the main way of getting it back is through yet more warfare - which is far from a finely-grained method of manipulating it.
Gold though works well; there's already too much of it late game, and you have lots of ways to make it. It's something you can actively prioritise - "I need more gold for relationships, so I'm only going to do conquests that improve my trade; I'm going for those gold mines; I'm not going to build those ships; I AM going to build those buildings, because in 10 years they'll give me double the gold and by that point, I will need more relationships."
Lots of opportunities for strategy. I think that would work really well.
This part I'm not fully sure of. I think the principle is very clever, and logical. My concern is from game balancing.
Every important relationship for a small nation is going to be really expensive. The blobs can ally dozens of little nations, but the OPMs can only ally one or two blobs. Although this makes sense, doesn't it also make the game even harder for OPMs and easier for blobs? Which is already the case in a lot of the game. The strong stay strong and the weak get eaten. Unless the weak are played by humans, but even then, I've heard a lot of people say that the game often boils down to "You do really well and can't be beaten; or you lose quickly."
I wonder if this system exacerbates that problem.
But maybe with some tweaking, it doesn't have to. Certainly blob-to-blob alliance could cost a lot to both sides. Maybe OPM-to-blob alliance could get a discount for the first alliance, allowing the OPM to form at least one strategically important, safety alliance.
Then there's the fact that each alliance is a two-sided thing. An alliance between blob and OPM will be costing asymmetrical amounts. The alliance is relatively unimportant to the blob, and costs relatively little; it's relatively important to the OPM, and costs a lot. That of course sounds like it makes a lot of sense. But it again seems to favour the blob getting blobbier and the OPM staying OPM, or eventually dying.
So I wonder if the game could take note of who actually wants the alliance? If the blob sends the alliance to the OPM, then the OPM gets it at 50% rate compared to if the OPM sends it. So if the OPM really needs that alliance, and he has to propose it, he has to pay full whack (maybe with the aforementioned discount for the first one); but maybe he can be smarter, and "butter up" a few blobs, maybe do a couple of cheaper RMs here and there, and hope the blob sends the alliance request to him. After all, the nation that sends the alliance request could be thought of as "doing all the groundwork", thus lowering the cost for the other side.
That is getting a little complicated, and maybe there's better ways. But I do feel there needs to be careful attention to balancing between blobs and OPMs. Of course it's meant to be harder to function as a small nation, and it's OK for it to be so: but that's already the case throughout the whole game, so I don't think this mechanic should make it harder.
On an aside - I agree that IF straight-up conquest is made easier, we could limit vassal feeding a bit. But I have a huge worry about anything that suggests hampering it, in case it happens without the associated changes to direct conquest. I therefore as a general principle never propose anything to harm the current mechanics, but will start doing so if/when we do actually get, first, the corresponding, necessary direct conquest changes.
You remember InnocentIII's thread "We need to nerf vassal feeding", the whole point of which was "it's silly we have to do this - direct conquest should be easier." Johan made one single comment in that thread, which was "OK well if the community wants us to nerf vassal feeding I guess we can.."
It's stuff like that I worry about, that they might get half the message and not the important bit!
I am fully in favour of anything that increases the strategic choices and weighing up of costs the player might have to do.
I dislike the present monarch point system, because so much is based on something that's almost entirely outside of your control - the stats of your leader. You expand headlong when a random dice roll gave you a good leader; you crawl along when it gave you a bad one. This, in my view, is a poor excuse for 'strategy' - going hand in hand with the over-numerous randomised events, but more serious than that.
So moving diplomatic relations outside of the Diplomatic Points sphere works for me. I think a prime candidate for cost is gold. I see lots of people saying that, later in game, they have far too much gold and nothing to spend it on. I could therefore see that gold could be a great way to boost the number of diplomatic relations.
So say '100 relations points' is base, and an alliance costs 25. You're at your 100 limit, and you want another alliance. That could cost, say, 12.5 gold a month in 1444, and 125 gold a month in 1750 - 0.5 to 5.0 gold per point, per month. The mechanism by which the costs scale would need to be considered, but I think it should scale somehow. 12.5 gold a month in 1444 is an appreciable cost, but it's affordable in most cases if the result is worth it. This leads to some careful thinking - do I really need that alliance? Is this going to dramatically improve my chances, enabling this or that further strategy? Or am I just getting it to soak a bit of AE? Or getting it as a purely time-saving, temporary measure such that I can get Fleet Basing 6 months earlier than with Improve Relations?
I like those sort of cost weighs up. I don't like them so much when they're based on Monarch Points, because so much already is, and because your source MP is mostly out of your control. I also wouldn't like it so much if it drained Prestige or Legitimacy, because again those numbers are not so directly controlled. And in the case of Prestige, it tends to be the case that you either never have much, or you're permanently at 100 cap. True, draining that might resolve the latter case; but it seems to me very hard to balance for different nations at different times in the game. And the main way of getting it back is through yet more warfare - which is far from a finely-grained method of manipulating it.
Gold though works well; there's already too much of it late game, and you have lots of ways to make it. It's something you can actively prioritise - "I need more gold for relationships, so I'm only going to do conquests that improve my trade; I'm going for those gold mines; I'm not going to build those ships; I AM going to build those buildings, because in 10 years they'll give me double the gold and by that point, I will need more relationships."
Lots of opportunities for strategy. I think that would work really well.
This part I'm not fully sure of. I think the principle is very clever, and logical. My concern is from game balancing.
Every important relationship for a small nation is going to be really expensive. The blobs can ally dozens of little nations, but the OPMs can only ally one or two blobs. Although this makes sense, doesn't it also make the game even harder for OPMs and easier for blobs? Which is already the case in a lot of the game. The strong stay strong and the weak get eaten. Unless the weak are played by humans, but even then, I've heard a lot of people say that the game often boils down to "You do really well and can't be beaten; or you lose quickly."
I wonder if this system exacerbates that problem.
But maybe with some tweaking, it doesn't have to. Certainly blob-to-blob alliance could cost a lot to both sides. Maybe OPM-to-blob alliance could get a discount for the first alliance, allowing the OPM to form at least one strategically important, safety alliance.
Then there's the fact that each alliance is a two-sided thing. An alliance between blob and OPM will be costing asymmetrical amounts. The alliance is relatively unimportant to the blob, and costs relatively little; it's relatively important to the OPM, and costs a lot. That of course sounds like it makes a lot of sense. But it again seems to favour the blob getting blobbier and the OPM staying OPM, or eventually dying.
So I wonder if the game could take note of who actually wants the alliance? If the blob sends the alliance to the OPM, then the OPM gets it at 50% rate compared to if the OPM sends it. So if the OPM really needs that alliance, and he has to propose it, he has to pay full whack (maybe with the aforementioned discount for the first one); but maybe he can be smarter, and "butter up" a few blobs, maybe do a couple of cheaper RMs here and there, and hope the blob sends the alliance request to him. After all, the nation that sends the alliance request could be thought of as "doing all the groundwork", thus lowering the cost for the other side.
That is getting a little complicated, and maybe there's better ways. But I do feel there needs to be careful attention to balancing between blobs and OPMs. Of course it's meant to be harder to function as a small nation, and it's OK for it to be so: but that's already the case throughout the whole game, so I don't think this mechanic should make it harder.
On an aside - I agree that IF straight-up conquest is made easier, we could limit vassal feeding a bit. But I have a huge worry about anything that suggests hampering it, in case it happens without the associated changes to direct conquest. I therefore as a general principle never propose anything to harm the current mechanics, but will start doing so if/when we do actually get, first, the corresponding, necessary direct conquest changes.
You remember InnocentIII's thread "We need to nerf vassal feeding", the whole point of which was "it's silly we have to do this - direct conquest should be easier." Johan made one single comment in that thread, which was "OK well if the community wants us to nerf vassal feeding I guess we can.."
It's stuff like that I worry about, that they might get half the message and not the important bit!
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Personally, before going off the rails and changing everything about how relations work, I'd start by reducing/eliminating some of the ideas that add relations. You could also boost the malus for distance between nations to make some of the more ridiculous combinations you see in-game go away, possibly countered somewhat by an increase in the bonus for military strength so things like OE-France alliance could still happen but Sweden-3pm Tripoli or GB-OPM Meissen etc. are less likely.
You're forgetting that if they do so, they wouldn't be allying with other blobs themselves.
A nation worth 70% relations that vassalizes 6 nations worth 5% each would be identical to a nation worth 5% that manages to ally with a 70% nation as well as 5 other 5%'s.
Hmmmm. This is an interesting idea. Although I must admit I consider the actual "criticism" of both nested alliances webs and cascading alliances to be completely unfounded and one of the things pushing the EU series away from both historical accuracy and compelling diplomacy and warfare as it has further reinforced a rigid war system that revolves almost entirely around some rigidly defined "War Leader" when such a thing didn't exist in the defined way that it does in EUIV while also meaning that there is virtually no way to join a war unless you have an alliance with one of the parties and are called in at the beginning when in reality the membership of a war was constantly changing throughout the course of the war, especially in the early period of the game's time span, while in the late game nations would join a war simply because it was going on in what they considered to be their Area of Interest.
That said it is actually pretty accurate that smaller powers tended to either band together into large coalitions of other smaller powers, or go for having one major 'sponsor' such as the Bavarian Relationship with France for most of the game period, while Great Powers tended to only have 1 or maybe 2 other Great Power allies at the same time.
I am interested in getting a more nuanced distinction between the costs of different types of relations. Military Access taking as many relations as a PU, or a full Alliance-Marriage-TradeRights-Access-FleetBasing combo is kind of ridiculous. I would combine the Percentage System with size based differences with individual relations types having their own individual costs, with a base 5% cost for having a relation to begin with. Certain Ideas, Event Modifiers, buildings etc. could then provide modifiers to the Relationship Cost, or the base relationship cost or push the cap back further.
That said it is actually pretty accurate that smaller powers tended to either band together into large coalitions of other smaller powers, or go for having one major 'sponsor' such as the Bavarian Relationship with France for most of the game period, while Great Powers tended to only have 1 or maybe 2 other Great Power allies at the same time.
I am interested in getting a more nuanced distinction between the costs of different types of relations. Military Access taking as many relations as a PU, or a full Alliance-Marriage-TradeRights-Access-FleetBasing combo is kind of ridiculous. I would combine the Percentage System with size based differences with individual relations types having their own individual costs, with a base 5% cost for having a relation to begin with. Certain Ideas, Event Modifiers, buildings etc. could then provide modifiers to the Relationship Cost, or the base relationship cost or push the cap back further.
It just raises the question of whether there needs to be a direct limit to diplomatic relations at all. Yes, there should be a (probably financial to cover the diplomat's upkeep) cost associated with each additional diplomatic relation, but why an abstracted/arbitrary limit at all? Yes, obviously you don't want everyone allying with everyone, but this is something that didn't happen historically, and there didn't need to be any arbitrary restrictions for that to be the case. If the behavior of alliances and other diplomatic relations were improved sufficiently then you wouldn't have to limit the number of diplomatic relations at all. You should be able to have as many alliances or whatever else as you can reasonably maintain, and there should be punishments for making alliances that you can't possibly honor. This probably isn't going to make all the gamists happy, but it would move things closer to historical simulation. The question we should be asking is how to improve the behavior of diplomacy, not how to limit it in order to hide its shortcomings.
I would be cool with that. I do think we need more budgetary costs than what we've got, which is currently just Army+Advisors. But I would be more interested in an Administration Cost to replace Overextension.
I agree with the OP that a dwindling numbers of nations combined with expanding numbers of relationships is the main cause of grid-lock later in the game, & that a gradual dwindling in the number of nations is all but inevitable, even if disappearing cores are eventually made more long-lived.
In EU3 the AI would not accept an alliance offer if the target nation already had two allies (regardless of size). But now there is no hard cap, merely a soft cap of monthly diplo-points reduction. CORRECTION: OK there may be a hard-cap for AI only, of limiting alliances to the available relationship slots BUT it still apparently always keeps one additional one available for the player to utilise (an unnecessary sop to the player & exploitable IMO - just keep alerts on for breaking alliances to take up potential opportunities).
I would suggest re-introducing a fixed hard-cap on alliances of 2, regardless of the overall number of other national relationships allowed. These alliances would obviously still count towards the soft-cap count of total relationships along with other vassals, RM's, Guarantees & Accesses. This would then allow nations to still accumulate multiple vassals for diplo-annexing.
I also get the impression that, compared with EU3, the AI now rarely uses guarantees (except during a truce to protect their own future target of agression). But will instead spam (free) warnings on other potential predators at no cost in relationships.
In order to restrict multiple warnings further contributing to the late-game gridlock, I would consider making warnings also cost a relationship (even though this would be a positive cost to maintain a negative/threatening relationship). Or at least restrict their use to a nation's rivals (change rivals, & any existing warning would be automatically revoked).
By way of some compensation for any additional cost for these warnings, I think that getting Access should NOT cost a relationship unless made during peacetime. Accesses requested when at war should be cost-free (if AI is willing to grant) but be revoked automatically at end of conflict (especially as they are not required to return orphaned units home anyway).
There is also the major issue that Defensive alliances can cascade, while Offensive ones do not, due to the Declarer remaining the Offensive war-leader. This further contributes to the late-games entrenched cold-war gridlock. This is not properly alleviated by the apparent willing suicidal declarations made by AI nations which, when the smaller partner in an alliance, are very vulnerable if their larger allies are unable or unwilling to fully contribute to an offensive war. This is further exacerbated as the target of their war-goal is further protected if they themselves do not become the defensive war-leader.
I don't have a simple solution for the above situation. Even if Wiz can make the AI more reluctant to declare when the significantly smaller partner in an alliance*, that would just make the grid-lock worse. But I suggest defensive cascading alliances need to be nerfed (i.e. a new/cascaded defensive war leader may call in their vassals, but not their allies), especially as coalitions have now taken over a large part of the cascading defensive alliances previous role in deterring aggression.
*i.e. AI should not declare war if reliant on willing larger allies, unless said willing allies have a direct border with the war-goal target nation, or one with the potential defensive war leader.
Sorry for the brain-dump, just trying to make some positive (if simplistic?) game balance suggestions. Feel free to shoot them down, but please better still improve on them.:unsure:
In EU3 the AI would not accept an alliance offer if the target nation already had two allies (regardless of size). But now there is no hard cap, merely a soft cap of monthly diplo-points reduction. CORRECTION: OK there may be a hard-cap for AI only, of limiting alliances to the available relationship slots BUT it still apparently always keeps one additional one available for the player to utilise (an unnecessary sop to the player & exploitable IMO - just keep alerts on for breaking alliances to take up potential opportunities).
I would suggest re-introducing a fixed hard-cap on alliances of 2, regardless of the overall number of other national relationships allowed. These alliances would obviously still count towards the soft-cap count of total relationships along with other vassals, RM's, Guarantees & Accesses. This would then allow nations to still accumulate multiple vassals for diplo-annexing.
I also get the impression that, compared with EU3, the AI now rarely uses guarantees (except during a truce to protect their own future target of agression). But will instead spam (free) warnings on other potential predators at no cost in relationships.
In order to restrict multiple warnings further contributing to the late-game gridlock, I would consider making warnings also cost a relationship (even though this would be a positive cost to maintain a negative/threatening relationship). Or at least restrict their use to a nation's rivals (change rivals, & any existing warning would be automatically revoked).
By way of some compensation for any additional cost for these warnings, I think that getting Access should NOT cost a relationship unless made during peacetime. Accesses requested when at war should be cost-free (if AI is willing to grant) but be revoked automatically at end of conflict (especially as they are not required to return orphaned units home anyway).
There is also the major issue that Defensive alliances can cascade, while Offensive ones do not, due to the Declarer remaining the Offensive war-leader. This further contributes to the late-games entrenched cold-war gridlock. This is not properly alleviated by the apparent willing suicidal declarations made by AI nations which, when the smaller partner in an alliance, are very vulnerable if their larger allies are unable or unwilling to fully contribute to an offensive war. This is further exacerbated as the target of their war-goal is further protected if they themselves do not become the defensive war-leader.
I don't have a simple solution for the above situation. Even if Wiz can make the AI more reluctant to declare when the significantly smaller partner in an alliance*, that would just make the grid-lock worse. But I suggest defensive cascading alliances need to be nerfed (i.e. a new/cascaded defensive war leader may call in their vassals, but not their allies), especially as coalitions have now taken over a large part of the cascading defensive alliances previous role in deterring aggression.
*i.e. AI should not declare war if reliant on willing larger allies, unless said willing allies have a direct border with the war-goal target nation, or one with the potential defensive war leader.
Sorry for the brain-dump, just trying to make some positive (if simplistic?) game balance suggestions. Feel free to shoot them down, but please better still improve on them.:unsure:
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If mass alliances is what happened historically then we should stick to that basis. To make the game more fun though instead of restricting alliances there needs to be greater rewards for defeating those big alliances.
I'm afraid I really dislike this idea. I hate hard caps of any kind.
I can understand the sentiment, and maybe there should be scaling costs to alliances such that the first one or two are normally/reasonably priced, but from the third onwards they are much more expensive.
My view is that soft caps are almost always preferable. They gives the player more options, more chances for strategising. If there's escalating costs he's still quite likely to stick to two alliances for cost reasons, but he still has the chance to pay over the odds to get a third (or more) when that cost is strategically warranted.
It's about weighing up risk/reward, pros and cons, about giving the player the chance to make that decision according to what he expects to gain and what he's willing to risk. I believe that hard caps limit that ability far too greatly.
I really like that in EU4, nearly everything is a soft cap. Overextension, for all its faults, is one example: you really want to keep it under 100, but you're not prevented from going over. It's possible to survive at least up to 200 OE, but with dramatic risks and disadvantages. The player can thus choose to go over 100 if he thinks he can handle it, or more likely when he knows he's only going to do so for a few days or a month before bringing himself back under. I think it would suck if that option were denied him and it was hard capped at 100 (even if it were capped higher than 100.)
Also I think hard capping alliances at two would cause a big outcry from the Historical Plausibility faction, and we'd be spammed with endless examples from history of nations that had 47 alliances
Agree with your criticism entirely from an historical perspective, & that soft-caps are preferable if consequences are severe, understood & accepted.
I was trying to limit myself to suggesting relatively simple game changes that wouldn't require a complete rework of the Diplo-Relationship mechanic. If going for more substantial changes, I think the OP is on the right lines with variable costs of relationships based on relative size of participants & the type of relationship.
I was trying to limit myself to suggesting relatively simple game changes that wouldn't require a complete rework of the Diplo-Relationship mechanic. If going for more substantial changes, I think the OP is on the right lines with variable costs of relationships based on relative size of participants & the type of relationship.
I've thought the exact same thing and I agree completely.
For instance it would be far more interesting, gameplay-wise, for an OPM to have the choice between:
A) Allying with multiple other OPMs to form a pseudo-coalition.
B) Allying with one large power, like Austria, to be your "patron".
In the late game, you have to take on big alliances if you want to expand by war. But you can also *form* big alliances, so it evens out. If your game has ground to a standstill because you didn't invest enough in diplomacy, that's your own fault.
That's a bullshit answer. I don't care if I have ZERO allies late game, they are useless when it comes to fighting wars by then anyway. It's the web of OTHER nations that is the problem.
Has anyone bothered to consider that maybe the problem is not the web of alliances, but rather the fact that most countries end up blobbing to some extent?
Yeah those sentences you quoted I didn't express very well.
The point I'm making is that while the actual cost of a given set of alliances/relations is the same - a blob can ally, say, one blob + 5 OPMs; and an OPM can ally the same one blob + 5 OPMs - what's not the same is the relative value of these alliances to blob and OPM.
A blob does not really need alliances with other blobs, or indeed with anyone - at least not for safety. The OPM on the other hand absolutely does need alliances for safety, preferably with at least a couple of blobs.
The costs are the same, and allow the same exact relationships for both nations, but the value of those alliances can be greatly different.
This is also of course true now with the current DipRel system. But the difference is that currently many alliances are allowed regardless of destination nation size, DipRel scales throughout the game, and the cost of going over DipRel is pretty small. So the OPM is not prevented from using all four of its starting DipRel in allying blobs, and it can probably afford to go over that limit and ally with 5 or 6 such nations. Under your proposals, the OPM would be prevented - or heavily penalised - for allying more than one blob (or more than X, whatever it is - but fewer than now.) And being an OPM, is unlikely to be able to afford the penalties of going over that limit.
To make things worse, whatever per-relationship over-limit cost you come up with - whether it be prestige, legitimacy, gold, or MPs - the blob can much better afford it than the OPM can. And simultaneously, the OPM can much less afford not having those relationships. So it's a double edge sword. Or to use a cliche, it's "cheap for those who can afford it; very expensive for those who can't."
You might have a situation where Flanders can only afford to ally with one blob, but desperately needs more. France can afford to ally with three blobs (paying whatever overlimit charges there are,) but for them these are purely nice-to-haves. So Flanders' position gets weaker and France's gets stronger.
That's why I was suggesting some kind of sliding scale. A blob allying a blob could cost a lot. But an OPM allying a blob costs less - or at least it does for the first couple of such alliances. This could be relative to province count, like some other mechanics in the game are.
I do very much like the idea of differing costs for differing relationships, and clearly allying France is very different to allying Flanders and it would be great if that were modelled. I just think it needs to also take into account the impact this will have on OPMs and other small nations, who are already at a big disadvantage in many areas. It's fine if that disadvantage is not affected, but I don't think it's good if it's made worse.
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Yep, if you look back at the OP that's exactly one of the listing reasons I gave for this problem arising. It's a combination of diplo relations going nowhere but up while number of nations in the world almost always going down.
Okay I see what you mean now.
That's easy enough to alter - make the size of your country multiple the cost of any relationship, in addition to the previous larger-nations-cost-more as a target change.. So if you're much larger, any given relationship will cost you a lot more than it would for a smaller nation.
So say you have A, size 10 base tax, and B, size 10 base tax, and C, size 50 base tax, and D, size 50 base tax.
A - B would cost (made up numbers) 25% relations for A
A - C would cost 50% relations (higher because C is large and valuable) for A
C - D would cost 100% relations (higher because D is large and valuable and because C itself is large) for C
Of course, then the whole idea set starts to get relatively complex and potentially inelegant. But at least it would be something.
Maybe fixing the cores bug will help with a lot of that. A huge reason why blobbing is so prevalant is because all the cores dissapear, leaving many countries with only having one core on its territory thus making it highly unlikely for a country to balkanize or break apart. FYI, Nationalists will not spawn without cores.