Dev Diary #37 – Market Expansion

[PDJR_Alastorn]

I love your DD style. Certainly funnier and more indepth than others. I am glad the next dev diary still being released by you and I'll be sad for you to move to another project and not get more dev diaries from you in the future.

But thank you at least for confirming the release date is around the corner as the game is in a good enough state to let its QA lead to move to another project

Is this the time where I let you know I'm still technically on the project?
(Sorry to crush your release date dreams)

 

[PDJR_Alastorn]

Great dev diary Paul, I love your writing style. Quick question for you. Custom unions seem great if your primary interest in another country is resources, but I am wondering if there’s a way to help a country along in resource production? Say we’re the US and we just added Brazil into our customs union since they have a lot of tasty resources like rubber and tropical wood. The only problem is our industry quickly gobbles up their supply of resources. Is there a way we can help them along, either by directly investing our money into their buildings, or just giving them money in general? I know they’ll certainly profit from the higher prices, but we don’t want them investing that money in something silly, like a healthcare system

There is at current no way to build in your custom unions/subjects nations outright in the game. While its something that has been considered its also something that deserves a bit more nuance than in Victoria 2 and its thus not been touched upon yet, though where it stands in regards to on release or at some point in the future is not my place to say. What you can do though is bankroll them through a diplomatic action to give them the funds to spend, and assuming that you create a high enough demand of X resource in your market they may seek to expand those resources depending on how much extra profit doing such can bring them.

So right now primary means of engaging in such is limited but you do have secondary means of bankrolling and having the buy orders of your larger market motivate the AIs actions to build more industries and resource buildings to support you.

 

[PDJR_Alastorn]

Questions:

1. How do you leave a customs union as a junior partner?
2. How do you expel a junior partner from your own customs union?

Can it be done peacefully? Are the effects immediate? Is there a cooldown period before you can leave or join again?

Assuming you have not been forced in by obligation or other diplomatic relationship you can just leave... though good luck to your economy in the rebalance.
If you are the senior partner you can expel a junior partner, assuming they didn't utilize an obligation to enter themselves.

This can be done peacefuly for the most part - though if you do just go to war with your senior partner you will suffer the same result.
Right now its a fairly immediate affair with little to no cooldown (other than various other truces on specific diplomatic actions) but the idea of it taking place over time in a neat one.

 

[PDJR_Alastorn]

Thanks for the dev diary. Will there be any way to avoid getting cheeky multiplayer scenarios when someone first gets a favor from your nation, then brute-forces it into custom union when it is entirely blockaded by third party to cause 0% market access in every state and destroy the economy that way?

Don't give favors to untrustworthy partners on the diplomatic stage?
I don't get to make design decisions (thankfully for all of you) but I like the idea of saying no to an "obligated favor" with a giant amount of international backlash seems neat to me.

Two questions here:

1. If obligations can be used to force smaller nations into customs unions, what are the possible actions of the junior partner who was forced into the union to leave the union? Can the junior partner leave the union right away? Is there a time limit or an influence cost?

2. Can the junior nation worsen relations with the senior nation after being forced into a union to get booted from it? Is there a period before this kicks in? My example would be if Prussia forced Hamburg into a customs union with a Play or an Obligation and Hamburg was already at 0 or 1 positive relations with Prussia and started worsening relations to fall below 0 very soon after. What is the time frame that Hamburg manages to get booted from the Prussian customs union? Is this time frame different for obligations and Plays vs. normal offers?

1. Currently its locked in like a truce timer, whether it stays like that who is to say.
2. Pretty sure the obligation would force the nation to stay in until the timer was up and then relations would autobreak that engagement based on not meeting the relations requirement (makes notes to verify that later, again - just in case). Right now there is no timer to the customs union breaking but that's because we have been sitting on the understanding that as a player you would make notice of the diplomatic actions of X nation damaging relations with you, etc. I think this would be a good usage of our current situation/alert system though and will be writing up that suggestion.

 

[PDJR_Alastorn]

Can I destabilize a junior partner by luring them into my custom union, let them build some industries that I have high demand, then outsource that goods via trade route from other nations, and kick them out of the union , then watch their economy collapse?

Now you are thinking with economic warfare in mind .

Theoretically yes, but this is assuming at many points that the AI of this nation or other nations around it are not going to try and take advantage through trade of the situation you have created.

You may not guarantee a crash but you can certainly upset the domestic situation this way.