I had an idea for a potential new mechanic that could be introduced in a future expansion, and figured I'd share it here before I forgot about it.
One thing that's always bothered me is that there isn't any mechanic whereby the great powers of the world strive to achieve any form of status quo. The closest we get is either rivals or coalitions, but I've never felt that those really do anything for my game-play once I've reached a certain size, and they don't give the feel of how the European great powers reacted to each other during the latter half of the EUIV timeline. Specific interactions I'm talking about are those such as the Stately Quadrille, the Partitions of Poland, the wars of Spanish / Austrian / Polish succession, etc., all of which had a lot of extra intrigue around them where third parties were often interested as the balance of power shifted.
My thoughts for a new mechanic for this would be two-fold, a Balance of Power score which only great powers have towards each other, and a series of confrontations which can happen between them.
Balance of Power
As with aggressive expansion, I would see this as primarily coming from expanding your empire - be it through conquest, vassalisation, inheritance, etc. This would represent your deviation from the status quo by the other great powers, and would affect their willingness to support you in any of the confrontations. BoP gained by a target nation after any of your actions would be based on development gained in proportion to the target's development. This would mean that a small GP would be able to proportionally increase their development base by a far greater amount than a large one before they start to disrupt the status quo.
There would also be consideration for allies in wars. For instance, if GB and Austria as allies were to take additional territory in a war, then the BoP score between them would not shift much as long as the territory taken was roughly proportional to their current developments (e.g. if Austria is 50% the size of GB, and land is divvied out at a ratio of 2:1 GB:Austria, then that would not shift the BoP between them, but France would still get a BoP shift towards both).
Likewise, BoP could also be lost (and even turn negative) by losing territory. Negative BoP would represent a desire for other powers to restore your former glory so you act as a better deterrent against their enemies.
As with AE, BoP would also degrade to zero over time to represent the new status quo between the great powers.
Confrontations
Confrontations would be triggered by certain events happening in-game, and would be where all of the great powers would be called upon to decide their stance about certain outcomes. As an example in this case, I shall be using the war for the Spanish succession.
When a confrontation is triggered, a series of outcomes would be presented to each great power, and they would assign a stance to each. By default I envisage three stances per outcome - support, oppose, and neutral. If the confrontation is resolved with war, all supporters would join one side, all opposition would join the other, and all neutrals would lose a small amount of prestige / power projection.
In the case of the Spanish succession, then I could conceive the following outcomes to be available:
Once all great powers have voted (within a specific period of time, e.g. 3 months), Spain would then get to choose their desired outcome, and the opposition leader would get the choice to go to war to protect their claim (with Spain on the defender's side). If the opposition leader chooses not to go to war, then they (and maybe their allies) would lose a larger amount of PP and prestige than they would have if they had stayed neutral.
Unlike with a conventional succession war, this gives the great powers much more agency to influence events. I would also foresee the cancellation of old rivalries for new allies (and old alliances for new enemies) when confrontation wars are declared, therefore causing the political landscape of the world to change in the aftermath of the confrontation as everyone picks up the pieces and adjusts to the new status quo.
Apart from succession wars, other confrontations could be:
One thing that's always bothered me is that there isn't any mechanic whereby the great powers of the world strive to achieve any form of status quo. The closest we get is either rivals or coalitions, but I've never felt that those really do anything for my game-play once I've reached a certain size, and they don't give the feel of how the European great powers reacted to each other during the latter half of the EUIV timeline. Specific interactions I'm talking about are those such as the Stately Quadrille, the Partitions of Poland, the wars of Spanish / Austrian / Polish succession, etc., all of which had a lot of extra intrigue around them where third parties were often interested as the balance of power shifted.
My thoughts for a new mechanic for this would be two-fold, a Balance of Power score which only great powers have towards each other, and a series of confrontations which can happen between them.
Balance of Power
As with aggressive expansion, I would see this as primarily coming from expanding your empire - be it through conquest, vassalisation, inheritance, etc. This would represent your deviation from the status quo by the other great powers, and would affect their willingness to support you in any of the confrontations. BoP gained by a target nation after any of your actions would be based on development gained in proportion to the target's development. This would mean that a small GP would be able to proportionally increase their development base by a far greater amount than a large one before they start to disrupt the status quo.
There would also be consideration for allies in wars. For instance, if GB and Austria as allies were to take additional territory in a war, then the BoP score between them would not shift much as long as the territory taken was roughly proportional to their current developments (e.g. if Austria is 50% the size of GB, and land is divvied out at a ratio of 2:1 GB:Austria, then that would not shift the BoP between them, but France would still get a BoP shift towards both).
Likewise, BoP could also be lost (and even turn negative) by losing territory. Negative BoP would represent a desire for other powers to restore your former glory so you act as a better deterrent against their enemies.
As with AE, BoP would also degrade to zero over time to represent the new status quo between the great powers.
Confrontations
Confrontations would be triggered by certain events happening in-game, and would be where all of the great powers would be called upon to decide their stance about certain outcomes. As an example in this case, I shall be using the war for the Spanish succession.
When a confrontation is triggered, a series of outcomes would be presented to each great power, and they would assign a stance to each. By default I envisage three stances per outcome - support, oppose, and neutral. If the confrontation is resolved with war, all supporters would join one side, all opposition would join the other, and all neutrals would lose a small amount of prestige / power projection.
In the case of the Spanish succession, then I could conceive the following outcomes to be available:
- Spain comes under PU with Austria (France opposes automatically)
- Spain comes under PU with France (Austria opposes automatically)
- A monarch from the Austrian dynasty rises to power (France opposes)
- A monarch from the French dynasty rises to power (Austria opposes)
- Spain gets a PU over a non-GP third country, and gets their current monarch, heir, and regent (inspiration taken from the rise of James IV and I to the English throne, who then ruled from England with PU over Scotland)
Once all great powers have voted (within a specific period of time, e.g. 3 months), Spain would then get to choose their desired outcome, and the opposition leader would get the choice to go to war to protect their claim (with Spain on the defender's side). If the opposition leader chooses not to go to war, then they (and maybe their allies) would lose a larger amount of PP and prestige than they would have if they had stayed neutral.
Unlike with a conventional succession war, this gives the great powers much more agency to influence events. I would also foresee the cancellation of old rivalries for new allies (and old alliances for new enemies) when confrontation wars are declared, therefore causing the political landscape of the world to change in the aftermath of the confrontation as everyone picks up the pieces and adjusts to the new status quo.
Apart from succession wars, other confrontations could be:
- Partitions of a third country with prior agreement between partners as to what land would be taken (e.g. Partitions of Poland), where other GPs would not be allowed to support, but to only oppose (defend target) or stay neutral
- Coalitions (a bit like existing coalitions, but based off BoP not AE)
- Weak heir with a PU (e.g. war of Austrian succession)
- Wars for colonial independence
- Probably others based off historical events I don't know about
- BoP changes should become more extreme over the time frame of the game (maybe as diplo tech increases, BoP shifts are greater), to demonstrate the great powers' increasing willingness to involve themselves in external affairs.
- Different CBs would increase BoP by different amounts - waging a colonial war would not affect BoP anywhere near as much as an imperial conquest of neighbouring countries. This would also mean that CBs other than imperialism / nationalism would be relevant later on in the game.
- Some sort of distance or knowledge modifier would have to be implemented - it would be unfair for Ming to lose prestige / power projection because two countries it's never heard of are having a squabble over an inheritance on the other side of the world.
- BoP gain should not be tempered by being in an alliance. Even your best allies should (rightly) be threatened if you suddenly grow massively in power.
- There are a lot of similarities between BoP and AE, but in general I consider AE to be a very local modifier (generally nobody outside the sub-continent cares), whereas BoP would acknowledge great powers have a larger part to play across the entire world.
- I think this would make it more interesting to play into the late game, as you'd be having to watch your expansion much more closely.
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