Rulers' Diplomacy

[IsaacCAT]

Preface: this suggestion arises from this thread from @Mr.Wiggles asking to improve the diplomacy part of the game

Observation: the game negates the characters importance on diplomacy and only considers national variables to decide the possible outcome.

Suggestion:

Diplomacy shall represent a negotiation table where the nations' current rulers decide about their relations. Thus, I suggest adding personal factors from rulers to the decision process. Moreover, I suggest that negotiations become an uncertain event that will make diplomacy riskier for players:

• Players will have to prepare the negotiation table considering national factors but also its current leader and the other nation leader attributes and relations.
• The outcome is not determined beforehand, there is a chance of failure.
• This system creates unexpected developments as other nations proposals will be decided by negotiation, challenging the player to disentangle unwanted diplomatic relations.

For clarity, diplomacy does not include the following actions: Declaration of Wars, Demand Military Access, Covert Actions and Relation Actions. Because these actions do not require a negotiation between parties.

How:

When a nation ruler makes a diplomatic proposal to another nation ruler, there are three outcomes that are mutually exclusive:

• The ruler accepts and a treaty/agreement is achieved P(A)
• The ruler does not accept and will not listen to the same proposal for five years or until there is a new ruler P(B)
• There is no agreement and negotiations are broken P(C) until next time

Depending on each proposal, each outcome will have a probability function of different variables. First, I will explain every variable. Second, I will give two examples with different scenarios.

1. Variables:

The variables involved in diplomacy can be summarized in personal and national factors:

Personal factors:

• Charisma: represents the character’s ability to charm and persuade others. This factor adds +0.01 * (Charisma points of the ruler making the proposal) to the P(A).
• Popularity and Prominence: represent the fame of both characters and their ability to sell the deal to their people. These factors add +(Sum of Popularity and Prominence of both rulers)/8000 to the P(A)
• Friendship: if both rulers are friends add +0.1 to the P(A).
• Personality Traits: same traits add +0.01 to the P(A). Opposite traits add +0.01 to the P(B).
• Health Traits: if the ruler making the proposal has any health trait, add +0.01 to the P(B) except for Fair trait that adds +0.01 to P(A)
• Status Traits: any status trait adds +0.01 to P(A)
• Fatigue: represents the tiresome feeling to listen to the same proposal. This factor adds +0.05 * (5 – years since last time this proposal was submitted) to the P(B). After five years since the same proposal was presented for the last time, fatigue is 0 and it cannot go negative.
• Corruption: is a measurement of the character’s willingness to engage in underhanded practices and creates distrusts to both parties. This factor adds +(Sum of Corruption of both rulers)/2000 to the P(B)
• Rivalry: if both rulers are rivals, add +0.1 to the P(B)

National factors:

• Influence: represents the power of successful past dealings between the nations. This factor adds +0.01 * (number of successful past treaties between the nations) to P(A).
• Diplomatic Reputation: increases the likelihood that other nations will consider your diplomatic proposal, add +0.01 * (Diplomatic Reputation of the nation making the proposal) to P(A)
• Different Rank: smaller nations will be intimidated by larger nations, add +0.01 If Positive Rank difference to P(A). However, bigger nations will dismiss smaller nations, add +0.01 If Negative Rank difference to P(B).
• Culture and Religion: Same religion add +0.01 to P(A), different religion add +0.01 to P(B). Same Culture Group add +0.01 to P(A), different culture group add +0.01 to P(B).
• Opinion: it is easier to sell an agreement to a favourable public opinion, but it can be done against it, too. Add + (If Positive Sum of both nation opinions)/8000 to P(A) or add + (if Negative Sum of both nation opinions)/8000 to P(B)
• Common Threat: united against a common enemy, add +0.05 to P(A).
• Diplomatic Relations: if our nation has paved the way before with improved opinion or send gift, it can help on the negotiations, add +0.01 to P(A). On the contrary, if we have sent an insult, add +0.01 to P(B).
• Competing power: we have the same interests and working an agreement will be more difficult, but possible. Add +0.05 to P(B).
• Has Border: in some proposals having a common border will factor in the decision, add +0,01 if positive to P(A) or add +0,01 to P(B) if negative.
• Capital distance: in some proposals this can be of importance to decide, add +0.01 * (Capital Distance)/200 to P(B).
• Relative Strength: like different rank, it is an indicator or military might that can intimidate smaller nations but not bigger nations in some proposals. add +0.01 If Positive Relative Strength to P(A). Add +0.01 If Negative Relative Strength to P(B).
• Exceeding Diplomatic relations: exceeding the number of available diplomatic relations will add +0.01 * (Exceeding Diplomatic relations) to P(B).

1. Examples:

We will use the same scenario for two examples:

Personal Factors: Our ruler has 12 Charisma and 195 Popularity + Prominence points. The other ruler has 7 charisma and 125 Popularity + Prominence points. They are not friends nor rivals and share no traits. However, one ruler is lazy and the other one is Energetic. Both have one negative health trait, gout and Depressed. No status traits. The proposal has been submitted already this same year and it was dismissed but not refused. The sum of both leader's corruption is 15 points.

National Factors: we have had no other treaty before; thus, influence is 0. Our nation diplomatic reputation is 3, theirs is 0. There is a positive difference of rank. Culture and Religion of both nations are different. Sum of Opinions is negative 126 points. There is a common threat. We have not improved opinion, send a Gift nor Send and Insult. We are not competing power. Capital distance is 50 but we share borders. Relative Strength is positive. They will exceed their Diplomatic relations limit.

Example 1:

Offer Alliance From our ruler to the other ruler.

The resulting probabilities for each event are the following:

• P(A) = (All Personal Factors + Influence + Diplomatic Reputation + Different Rank + Culture and Religion + Opinion + Common Threat + Diplomatic Relations) = 12*0,01+(195+125)/8000 + 0+0,01*3+0,01+0,05 = 0,25
• P(B) = (All Personal Factors + Culture and Religion + Opinion + Competing Power + Exceeding Diplomatic relations) = 0,01+0,01+0,05*(5-0) +15/2000 + 0,01+0,01+126/8000+0,01 = 0,32
• P(C) = 1-P(A)-P(B) = 0,43

Example 2:

Request for Help from the other ruler to our ruler:

This other example is a new diplomatic action suggested by @Mr.Wiggles in this post that allows a country engaged in a war to try to call in another country to help win the war in exchange of some sort of vassal relation. Because this system is not deterministic, this option will not always produce an escalation to Ancient World War I.

We will consider the same factors as in Example 1, and the resulting probabilities for each event are the following:

• P(A) = (All Personal Factors + Influence + Diplomatic Reputation + Culture and Religion + Opinion + Common Threat + Diplomatic Relations + Has Border + Capital distance) = 7*0,01+(195+125)/8000 + 0+0,01*0+0,01+0,05+0,01 = 0,18
• P(B) = (All Personal Factors + Culture and Religion + Opinion + Competing Power + Has Border + Capital Distance + Exceeding Diplomatic relations) = 0,01+0,01+0,05*(5-0) +15/2000 + 0,01+0,01+126/8000+0,01+0.01*50/200 = 0,33
• P(C) = 1-P(A)-P(B) = 0,41

Implementation:

We have two scenarios:

• The player can make a proposal to another nation. The game tooltip will inform the player with the current chances calculated using the above factors. If the player decides to bring forward the proposal, the system will generate a number [0,1] and inform about the outcome to the player in the next screen.
• The player receives the proposal from another nation. The game can present the odds before the outcome with a nice portrait of the two rulers and nation flags. Then, the system will generate a number [0,1] and inform about the outcome to the player.

Strategies:

Because Influence and Charisma are very important, player will have to pay attention to their ruler and other rulers to increase the chance of success. Also, player will be able to achieve higher rates of success by working over time the influence factor.
The other national factors do not escalate, except for the capital distance for obvious reasons.

Acknowledgements:

I have taken ideas from this thread:

Expansion through diplomacy

We know diplomacy played a very BIG part in roman expansionism. This aspect os completely lacking in game as of now, and seems a complex matter. How would you handle it?

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Other players have identified this issue and have ideas about improving diplomacy here:

The player should control a single family, not the whole state

Basic Concept: I doubt this is a totally new idea here on the forums. I think it's in fact how I thought the game would work in the first place, when I first heard of it. I don't know how far such an has been brainstormed, whether within the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Diplomacy Spitballing

I was initially hesitant to talk about Diplomacy when I saw that a Vassal overhaul was already in the works, but it looks like that has been paused for now. War overhaul could easily stray into Diplomacy itself, but for now I'll assume that...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Herennius]

Interesting and quite worked out system Goes in CK3 direction when it comes to factoring in personality. Just two thoughts:

1) Will the interface tell the player about all involed factors? If not I see a lot of people losing any insight in whats going on and finding bugs becomes impossible; if yes, we will have tooltips brought to a new level in size CK3 factors in a good part of the personal factors as wll, but they are mainly condensed into the mutual opinion about characters on each other. Introducing that in IR too would make this better managable interfacewise.

2) What stops me from bringing up the same proposal over and over to hopefully get it accepted? I recognized the fatigue factor and there is always the risk of triggering P(B)...but itsn't it still the best to try over and over, until getting the deal or hitting that roadblock?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Interesting and quite worked out system Goes in CK3 direction when it comes to factoring in personality. Just two thoughts:

1) Will the interface tell the player about all involed factors? If not I see a lot of people losing any insight in whats going on and finding bugs becomes impossible; if yes, we will have tooltips brought to a new level in size CK3 factors in a good part of the personal factors as wll, but they are mainly condensed into the mutual opinion about characters on each other. Introducing that in IR too would make this better managable interfacewise.

2) What stops me from bringing up the same proposal over and over to hopefully get it accepted? I recognized the fatigue factor and there is always the risk of triggering P(B)...but itsn't it still the best to try over and over, until getting the deal or hitting that roadblock?

1) definitively, on the implementation, the diplomacy negotiation window shall explain all factors involved

2) that is what happens in real life, if you have kidds you will recognize it immediately, they won’t stop until they get what they want. After testing, we can increase chances of triggering P(B) giving more weight to fatigue.

 

[Soot Shade]

I'm really impressed with the effort you put into mapping out the variables that would impact character driven diplomacy. That's already a lot of the work done, regardless of the exact they are used mechanically - and I don't have any particular objection to the suggestion you made in that regard either. I finally finished mapping out my own proposal and posted it:

So this is the first of what is to be several suggestions extracted from this thread of mine:



These will be designed as ideas that can be implemented completely independently of any grand overhaul concept of mine. They will by and large focus on taking systems that already exist in the game but are often underused and, and fleshing them out into fully utilized mechanics, whilst eliminating certain incongruities in the design. Though in some cases I will also suggest more significant overhauls of existing systems, like in the case of diplomacy today.

They will however also generally represent the sort of design philosophy that I think I:R should adopt in the future, of 1) emphasizing the role of characters and families in state functions, 2) fleshing out internal divisions of the state and 3) making management more localized, both for more accurate historical representation, and to make the management choices fewer but more impactful.

I'll probably be posting one or two of these every week. That should give us time to discuss these ideas and come up with possible adaptations before I go onto introduce new ones. Since I've got a whole bunch of these ideas, they would benefit from being scrutinized individually rather than being presented as a grand overhaul concept as in the previous thread. Some of them do still have potential ways to link to each other if both are implemented, and the order in which I publish these suggestions will be based on those links, and the suggestions may at times refer to each other.

Of course, this is also all part of my dastardly plan, to slowly inject these ideas into the game until said overhaul not only becomes too easy to implement for objections regarding feasibility to apply, but also becomes the natural next step for the game to take... Ahem, anyway, enough with the preamble.

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Diplomats as the Vehicle of Diplomacy:

The basic concept is that in order to conduct diplomacy, or other adjacent actions such as fabricating claims, you will have to deploy a character into that country. This character, with their characteristics, then a has a significant amount of influence in the outcome of your diplomatic overtures, which can vary from successful or failed negotiations to completely incidental occurrences during them. This is not only an effort to make it not only make diplomacy more focused characters on and interpersonal elements, but also to introduce a level of unpredictability and instability that is completely missing from the current diplomacy mechanics.

Mechanically, before being able to take diplomatic or adjacent actions towards another country, it should take the diplomat some time to first travel there and then establish diplomatic relations. Once they are maintaining diplomatic relations with a country, they can not only initiate more specific diplomatic missions, but will also maintain certain already established diplomatic relations like military alliances that can't be otherwise be maintained for long – though there should be some time in which a diplomat can be replaced if necessary, before negative consequences occur. Requiring this upkeep, in the form of occupying a useful character, could possibly be used to replace the current diplomatic relations soft cap, and diplomat usage in general could take over from the abstracted political influence costs of certain actions.

Likewise time durations need to be allotted to negotiations, but not in the same form of a progress bar like with the current improve relations and fabricate claim actions. Instead during this time certain unpredictable events can occur that change the course of the negotiations, such as events representing the interpersonal relations of the negotiators. Likewise, a diplomat in the process of maintaining established diplomatic deals may trigger events that affect your continued relations either positively or negatively, so that even established relations evolve over time due to unforeseen reasons. Even whilst you aren't engaging in any particular diplomatic relations with a country, you may wish to maintain a diplomat there in case you consider them part of your sphere of influence, and thus want to be able to quickly react to events by using the influence actions you unlock as a larger power.


Diplomacy as Interactive Negotiations:

Whilst the major part for determining the outcomes of negotiations happens without direct player input after the diplomatic mission has been sent, they can easily be given character in the form of events that trigger during negotiations, where the player can also give some further direction to the their diplomacy, whether it's directly with a foreign diplomat visiting their ruler or regarding a diplomat they have sent to a different nation. In the former case, they should have more ability to directly impact the negotiations, whilst what they hear back from foreign lands should be more descriptive of what is going on and in reaction to the results.

The diplomat's Charisma stat should have the biggest direct effect on their negotiations, putting them in a similar role to generals and governors for expanding the uses of said stat. You should be picking the characters to handle diplomatic negotiations based on their skills and how much importance you place on them succeeding, but more obscure factors like their character traits could lead to less predictable changes in diplomatic relations.

I'll also be mentioning a few other factors that can affect outcomes when I go into the examples of how particular diplomatic actions would work, but someone else has already done a much better job of collating a list of variables that should affect the outcomes of diplomatic negotiations directly, which you can refer to here:



Likewise from this suggestion it's worth noting the importance that ruler characters should have in diplomacy. For what I am suggesting as well, the rulers should be the other most important characters when it comes to conducting diplomacy, alongside the diplomats themselves. The formula suggested in that post could well serve as the main mechanical basis for the system I am suggesting here as well. Both in terms of the mechanics of the negotiations themselves, and for themes of the related events, the results of diplomatic efforts should come largely from the interaction between a diplomat and the ruler of the target country, as well as perhaps a lesser impact, possibly through events, from the ruler of the home country of the diplomat.


Specific Diplomatic Missions:

Alliances are an excellent example to start with, because they are important and often long terms relations. The course of negotiating an alliance could take a long while, during which you can arrive on a set of terms that both sides find acceptable, or have one side break off negotiations due to unacceptable demands on one side – as a player you would definitely have a direct say on whether you sign off on the final terms.

Thus an alliance could become a more complex arrangement than a simple military pact, including other, possibly unequal, obligations on each side, which could include already existing diplomatic actions like monetary payments or military access or new ones that don't yet exist in the game. This level of implementation would of course require an AI with the sophistication to identify the relevant interests of the negotiating parties to some degree. It's not necessary, but would be a welcome addition to better represent the complexity of diplomatic relations.

In the long term, maintaining the alliance would be its own challenge. Renegotiations could occur at times if either side grows dissatisfied with the conditions – perhaps you'll eventually convince a smaller ally to become your subject instead. Diplomats could interacts with the host courts in unfortunate ways as well, that could to not only them being imprisoned to sent away, but also to relations breaking and even giving one side a war goal on the other over diplomatic insults. Cultural and religious differences between a diplomat and a host country could have interesting consequences in particular, not only in terms of causing trouble, but because this could cause further dealings between nations, like pops on one side or the other adopting cultures.

Though fabricating claims doesn't fall directly into the realm of diplomacy, this is something that should be handled by diplomats nonetheless, since they are in the position to handle such manners in a foreign state. A discovered attempt at such a mission is naturally not going to be good for their chances of survival, causing another example of the uncertainties that such interactions should include.

To be specific though, I think this action could be replaced with a broader one to create war goals. There could be several different types of war goals that could be generated relatively randomly by a diplomat, and such an objective should not necessarily be as clear cut as fabricating a claim on the piece of land that you are eyeing. Getting one from a diplomatic insult would be easier than a claim on a province, particularly the one you want, and there could also be more interesting ones as well, like being called to support a rebellion in a disloyal province.

It might be a frustrating aspect for a player to not be able to get the particular war goal that they want, as CK might tell anyone, but I think that is another additional bit of complexity that would make the map a little more dynamic. Indeed, I think it would be worth it to diversify war goals in general a little and make the demands which they are associated with more limited, to follow EU4's example. But as the player you can maintain a diplomat on this task for as long as they don't get caught, so you are eventually likely to have a war goal to your liking as long as your diplomat is competent.

---

Oh dear, I did it again. It's barely any smaller than the previous wall of text I did to suggest a much bigger overhaul, and I didn't even get to the other idea that I had thought to bring up with this. Whilst it is a much smaller idea, I think I'll add it to the next set of suggestions I plan to make instead, but here's the context in which it relates to this topic: I think adding priests, as officials that use Zeal as their primary state, would be way to round out the group consisting of generals/admirals, governors and now diplomats if this idea were to be adopted. By way of being assigned to provinces, like governors, they could also be a way to move towards a more localized way of representing religious functions, getting away from the rather unwieldy way of administrating religion through a single small national pantheon. In general, with my next set of suggestions I'll try to hash out how the management part of the game could be focused more on the provinces, making it more detailed whilst making the player's work less tedious at the same time.

I think the basic idea that I'm proposing can be implemented largely with a similar mechanical basis as you are suggesting here, so I didn't feel the need to get too specific myself because I could refer back to this, but in turn I also branched out into some more broad goals in expanding the functionality of diplomacy.

 

[Bovrick]

Just so I'm 100% clear, is the core proposal that players/AI cannot 100% determine their foreign policy, that everything goes through the above probability check? For example, if I'm a Great Power that has placed a guarantee in a Minor, that Minor will have to convince my leader to actually be called into the war, rather than me (the player) selecting whether or not to intervene? Likewise matter such as leaving a Defensive League, how would something like that work?

Massive kudos for scoping out the various effects that could play a wider role in diplomacy though! I'd potentially slide the makeup of Factions/Faction Objectives into the mix as another potential factor on the National side too.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Just so I'm 100% clear, is the core proposal that players/AI cannot 100% determine their foreign policy, that everything goes through the above probability check? For example, if I'm a Great Power that has placed a guarantee in a Minor, that Minor will have to convince my leader to actually be called into the war, rather than me (the player) selecting whether or not to intervene? Likewise matter such as leaving a Defensive League, how would something like that work?

Massive kudos for scoping out the various effects that could play a wider role in diplomacy though! I'd potentially slide the makeup of Factions/Faction Objectives into the mix as another potential factor on the National side too.

Thank you!

About your question, no, foreign policy is not 100% outside your control. As @Herennius has spotted, you can boost your variables and finally get your objective if you play wisely. If you have already a Guarantee treaty, no need for a negotiation, you will enter the war immediately. The negotiation happens before to enable the guarantee pact.

Leaving a defensive League is not a negotiation, it is an unilateral decision, like going to war, these are not included in a negotiation table.

 

[Bovrick]

Ah, so the probablistic element is essentially the replacement for the Positive/Negative calculations on existing Diplomatic Actions? To put it excessively simply, any button that doesn't have a Tick/Cross next to it now would remain unilateral/deterministic?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Ah, so the probablistic element is essentially the replacement for the Positive/Negative calculations on existing Diplomatic Actions? To put it excessively simply, any button that doesn't have a Tick/Cross next to it now would remain unilateral/deterministic?

I believe so.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Introducing that in IR too would make this better managable interfacewise

You can always solve this on screen by the fantastic pie charts loved by everyone but @Lord Lambert with a hover over tooltip showing all factors contribution like this: (mind that I have put all P(B) factors possible and to maximum value, do not correspond to value in Pie chart)

 

[Yuanshu]

Great proposal The only thing I didn't see is marriage proposal between countries, many times some countries were "forced" to marry with another country to ensure that the Alliance was accepted by the other party.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Great proposal The only thing I didn't see is marriage proposal between countries, many times some countries were "forced" to marry with another country to ensure that the Alliance was accepted by the other party.

Indeed, we could add this as a feature for alliances between monarchies. In I:R there are political systems that do not rely on royal families (republics, tribes) and even in Monarchies, I do not find sources for long lasting alliances through marriage in ancient times. Maybe someone could shed some light on this issue.

 

[Pirarucu]

Indeed, we could add this as a feature for alliances between monarchies. In I:R there are political systems that do not rely on royal families (republics, tribes) and even in Monarchies, I do not find sources for long lasting alliances through marriage in ancient times. Maybe someone could shed some light on this issue.

Even in these other cases, there were alliances between people through marriage, like Pompey marrying Caesar's daughter. However, I don't think I:R is in condition to simulate alliances between characters that much, so for the moment it's probably best to focus on the nations diplomacy

 

[EricMN93]

Very good ideas, this system could also be used to put on and take off puppet rulers

 

[IsaacCAT]

Very good ideas, this system could also be used to put on and take off puppet rulers

Thank you!

We are trying to simulate a negotiation table. What would you negotiate with a puppet ruler? How do we simulate that? In what cases would that happen? I like the idea of having more than vassals states, like governors but independent. But if they are our puppets, we do not have to negotiate, do we?

 

[EricMN93]

Thank you!

We are trying to simulate a negotiation table. What would you negotiate with a puppet ruler? How do we simulate that? In what cases would that happen? I like the idea of having more than vassals states, like governors but independent. But if they are our puppets, we do not have to negotiate, do we?

In the game there are 2 interesting but little used mechanics.

1-Covert actions.
2-Succession crisis.

Covert actions.

There should be an option to support suitors (in a monarchy), support an important person (in a republic), or support a clan (in a tribe).

This basically assumes that you are externally helping x character. If that character has a lot of power base he will start a civil war / war of independence and you will automatically go to war to help him.

Succession crisis

It is the same as the above but without continually giving resources to x character, just take the opportunity.

Upon winning the war, that character x will be grateful to the outside power and will be very willing to negotiate anything for x time.

You can take advantage of that negotiation to do what you want.
If you are more powerful than the puppet, you will have unique diplomatic actions, such as asking to go to war against civilization x.

Over time the puppet will lose opinion and interest, you can help him stay in power (through gifts and diplomatic actions) or pass it all.

Estado del cliente - Client state - abcdef.wiki

es.qaz.wiki

List of Roman client rulers - Wikipedia

es.qaz.wiki