So in a bit of curiosity, I loaded up the 1820 start, just because I wanted to see if something I figured was true was actually true. Unfortunately, it was.
Man I hate always being right.
So yeah...Poor Britain. I didn't know conquering India permanently crippled their ability to advance in Naval Technology.
So one of the ways in which the game provides a cost to certain actions is via the Relationship Limits like this one, which prevent you from having too many alliances, vassals, etc. Fortunately, the Developers realized this could throw a wrench in a game as the Holy Roman Emperor with the penultimate reform. Passing this Reform gives you those vassals as free vassals, and a cursory glance over the code, I don't see anything in there specifying the Vassals you get as any different from any other vassal. This suggests the exception is hard-coded into the engine, unless I'm just missing something.
Unfortunately it seems the Devs forgot about Britain's conquest of India, leading to the above situation. Now obviously they could just program another hard-coded exception, however I think a better solution is to expand upon the basic idea of certain situations giving you Free Relations with other countries to deepen the strategy involved in diplomacy. And export it to a text (common\free_relations.txt) file so we can add our own.
For instance, for the India thing, the text file should look something like this;
Essentially, Root is the country that gets the free relation, From is the country they get that relation with. The effect block is optional, but if the effect block is there it means you can specify which relations you get upkeep free. If blank, you get all of thim.
The above, will mean that any Western European country with an India Trade Company will get the ability to vassalize any Indian country without upkeep, but only so long as that country remains under 6 provinces in size. This, combined with Coring Costs, should encourage Europeans to vassalize their way through India, breaking the existing states into smaller pieces to do so and no longer needing to annex them to move forther inward. If the Europeans try to engage in mutual diplomacy with a powerful state, such as getting an Alliance with a Large Mughal Empire, they will still have to pay the upkeep.
Another sample
This simple one represents the French Estates General, and gives France free relations with all of its French Vassals. This way France will actually be able to conduct diplomacy in the beginning without needing to annex some of their vassals first.
And the simplest;
This one is the simplest, and gives you free relations with any country you share a dynasty with. Since by definition both countries in the pair would satisfy this, the effect is mutual, although from a coding standpoint it is applied independently to each.
There are plenty of other places this could be used. China for instance could be reduced to 0 max Relations so long as they have the 'Inward Perfect" modifier, but then could have a series of Tributary States, denoted by other country modifiers, that they could conduct Free Diplomacy with. Japan could have a similar situation but only receiving Free Relations with their Daimyo Vassals. The Informal Empire of the Ottomans in North Africa could use some of this as well.
And I could Really Use it when I get around to redesigning the MM House of the High Lords system for EUIV.
Just Sayin'
Thoughts?
Man I hate always being right.
So yeah...Poor Britain. I didn't know conquering India permanently crippled their ability to advance in Naval Technology.
So one of the ways in which the game provides a cost to certain actions is via the Relationship Limits like this one, which prevent you from having too many alliances, vassals, etc. Fortunately, the Developers realized this could throw a wrench in a game as the Holy Roman Emperor with the penultimate reform. Passing this Reform gives you those vassals as free vassals, and a cursory glance over the code, I don't see anything in there specifying the Vassals you get as any different from any other vassal. This suggests the exception is hard-coded into the engine, unless I'm just missing something.
Unfortunately it seems the Devs forgot about Britain's conquest of India, leading to the above situation. Now obviously they could just program another hard-coded exception, however I think a better solution is to expand upon the basic idea of certain situations giving you Free Relations with other countries to deepen the strategy involved in diplomacy. And export it to a text (common\free_relations.txt) file so we can add our own.
For instance, for the India thing, the text file should look something like this;
Code:
indian_empire = {
trigger = {
ROOT = {
capital_scope = { continent = europe }
technology_group = western
OR = {
has_country_modifier = india_trade_co
has_country_modifier = dutch_india_trade_co
has_country_modifier = portuguese_india_trade_co
}
}
FROM = {
capital_scope = { continent = india }
NOT = { num_of_cities = 6 }
}
}
effect = {
free_relation = vassal
free_relation = guarantee
free_relation = warning
free_relation = military_access
free_relation = fleet_basing
}
}The above, will mean that any Western European country with an India Trade Company will get the ability to vassalize any Indian country without upkeep, but only so long as that country remains under 6 provinces in size. This, combined with Coring Costs, should encourage Europeans to vassalize their way through India, breaking the existing states into smaller pieces to do so and no longer needing to annex them to move forther inward. If the Europeans try to engage in mutual diplomacy with a powerful state, such as getting an Alliance with a Large Mughal Empire, they will still have to pay the upkeep.
Another sample
Code:
french_estates = {
trigger = {
ROOT = {
tag = FRA
capital_scope = { region = french_region }
culture_group = french
}
FROM = {
capital_scope = { region = french_region }
culture_group = french
vassal_of = ROOT
}
}
}And the simplest;
Code:
dynastic_politics = {
trigger = {
FROM = {
dynasty = ROOT
}
}
}There are plenty of other places this could be used. China for instance could be reduced to 0 max Relations so long as they have the 'Inward Perfect" modifier, but then could have a series of Tributary States, denoted by other country modifiers, that they could conduct Free Diplomacy with. Japan could have a similar situation but only receiving Free Relations with their Daimyo Vassals. The Informal Empire of the Ottomans in North Africa could use some of this as well.
And I could Really Use it when I get around to redesigning the MM House of the High Lords system for EUIV.
Just Sayin'
Thoughts?
