The US was taken much more seriously as a global power after thrashing the Spanish. It's not just Japan, but people have a hard time with the idea that the US should start unrecognized, so one of the two prime cases for it in-game isn't even able to use it since they start recognized.
Taken much more seriously =/= going from unrecognized to recognized. Japan should be considered 'recognized' from the Sino-Japanese War (1895) because they later participated in the suppression of the Boxers, which means they had a recognized sphere of influence. After Shimonoseki, several western powers also intervened to keep Japan from gaining too much influence.
Too easy to achieve with most goods except for high-tech ones, where it is again about technology simply.
As a point-giving thing, good idea.
Too easy, especially for Qing/Japan.
Too easy to manipulate.
Yeah, why not.
Instead of the ally thing, perhaps joining in a customs union, a defence pact and an obligation could sweeten the deal?
Joining a customs union would prevent a nation from ever becoming a great power as they're technically a subject, which is bad because becoming a GP from an unrecongized start is half the fun.
And if it has any glaring bugs more than a month after the DLC's launch it'll get fixed when a DLC gets mostly-negative reviews and a few free updates suddenly appear like in hoi4.
You're making a distinction without a difference. Recognition is the process of being taken more seriously with equal geopolitical situation, and the acquisition of the Phillipines didn't tangibly change the US geopolitical situation so much that it accounted for the shift in how people treated it.
But that still doesn't make much sense, because Spain had just been sitting around in civil unrest for half a century. They're hardly even close to as much a great power as post-1848 USA. It really doesn't look nearly as much like a 'recognition war' as simply the United States deciding to take part in global imperialism rather than stick to their plot of land in North America. And considering that the US themselves spent a very long time mired in internal conflict and drawn out wars with the natives that makes a lot more sense to me.
Great, because that is the point I'm trying to make. The war of 1905 is really exaggerated after that dev diary on recognition - forgetting the Boxer protocol, the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the Tripartite intervention. An exact mechanic would ideally take all factors into account, but sways in return for recognition/supporting recognition is a great start. I just very much like the Tripartite intervention because not only is it participating in imperialism, but it is also becoming infamous and getting 'contained' by the GPs after the fact. That makes it much harder to claim that 1905 is a good cutoff for mechanical reasons.
