The new trust system is great for maintaining existing alliances, but it can lead to serious problems for creating new ones. In particular, it makes the sort of shifting alliances that characterized European balance of power politics during the EU timeframe almost completely impossible.
The reason is a sort of catch-22 that occurs once you lose trust with a nation by going to war against it: With low trust, the nation will not accept an alliance offer. But without an alliance, there is, as far as I can tell, no way to raise trust.
Guarantees don't raise trust. Nor does forcing other nations to return cores to or give up claims in the nation you want to ally with. Trust does seem to increase naturally over time, but the rate is so slow (1 point every 10-20 years, from what I can tell) that it doesn't allow for nations to play the balance of power game.
This can lead to really crazy situations, both in terms of gameplay and historical plausibility. For example:
The reason is a sort of catch-22 that occurs once you lose trust with a nation by going to war against it: With low trust, the nation will not accept an alliance offer. But without an alliance, there is, as far as I can tell, no way to raise trust.
Guarantees don't raise trust. Nor does forcing other nations to return cores to or give up claims in the nation you want to ally with. Trust does seem to increase naturally over time, but the rate is so slow (1 point every 10-20 years, from what I can tell) that it doesn't allow for nations to play the balance of power game.
This can lead to really crazy situations, both in terms of gameplay and historical plausibility. For example:
In the screenshot, you can see Denmark (AI) is friendly to Novgorod (me), has common rivals, etc. but will not accept an alliance offer because of low trust (30). It has 120 positive reasons to accept an alliance, but low trust gives it -2000 negative.
At the beginning of the above game, Denmark and I (Novgorod) were rivals, and I supported Sweden's independence and helped it win its independence war. As a result, Denmark's trust dropped to below 30. Shortly afterwards, however, Sweden broke the alliance with me (Novgorod) and set me as a rival. Now Denmark and I are no longer rivals, and we are both rivals and enemies of Sweden. This is a situation where makes perfect sense for Denmark and Novgorod to overlook past hostilities and realign against Sweden. But the trust system is preventing that. The AI won't accept an alliance because of trust. And there's no way for the player to increase trust.
At the beginning of the above game, Denmark and I (Novgorod) were rivals, and I supported Sweden's independence and helped it win its independence war. As a result, Denmark's trust dropped to below 30. Shortly afterwards, however, Sweden broke the alliance with me (Novgorod) and set me as a rival. Now Denmark and I are no longer rivals, and we are both rivals and enemies of Sweden. This is a situation where makes perfect sense for Denmark and Novgorod to overlook past hostilities and realign against Sweden. But the trust system is preventing that. The AI won't accept an alliance because of trust. And there's no way for the player to increase trust.
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