Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks. This is the Happy Wednesday where we discuss the details of our rather secret game Project Caesar!
Today we will go deep into how the diplomatic system works in Project Caesar. The core of the system is similar to our other grand strategy games, but has much in common with EU4, Imperator and Victoria 2 in particular. Some of you may be very familiar with something we are talking about today, but not everyone reading this has played 5,000 hours in every GSG we made. So there are parts of today's Tinto Talks that will be “wtf man, I know this already” for many of you.
Also when it comes to diplomacy, we have based our interface solutions for diplomatic actions from two paths. First when you have a country selected, you can get the classic way of seeing diplomatic actions related to that country, but we also have the sometimes more useful way of first selecting a diplomatic action and then seeing which countries would accept it.
Diplomats
While this game may not have the immortal envoys of EU4 that limited how much diplomacy you could do at one time, in Project Caesar you have a “diplomatic corps”, or Diplomats as we refer to them as. This represents how much diplomacy a country can do in a given time. Some advances, laws or societal values will increase this amount, and there are also some buildings that will have an impact.
Every diplomatic action you do requires at least one diplomat, and while they are a renewable resource, you may need to ration them.
Maybe we should become an Empire instead?
Opinions
In almost all GSG games we have made, we’ve tracked relations between countries, often in the completely natural and intuitive range of -200 to +200. Early on the relation was a single value, but in EU4 over a decade ago we introduced the concept that Country A could view Country B one way, and Country B could view Country A another way. This game is no different in that regard.
These opinions are calculated depending on the various states between countries, like religion, culture, diplomacy and much more, and can have temporary impacts from actions.
Opinion is how much a country likes or dislikes another country. The difference between trust and opinion is that a high opinion will stop a country from being hostile, but we would need trust to be able to work together.
You have multiple ways to influence this with diplomacy, but the most direct ones you would use often is the “improve relations” & “send gift” diplomatic actions.
Soon our conflicts are all forgotten..
Trust
Trust represents how likely one country finds it that another country will act honorably towards them. Whether friend or foe, Trust is a crucial component in forging lasting agreements.
Trust is hard to get, and easy to lose.
You can always send a diplomat to profess trust, which will increase their trust in you, but your diplomatic reputation will be lowered for the next 5 years.
Favors
Favors represent how much one country has promised, or otherwise owes, to another country. Favors can be spent to ask the other country to do something. If favors get too unbalanced, refusing to do these things can cause a loss of trust or even diplomatic reputation.
You gain favors by helping your allies, and supporting them at need.
You can also use some of your diplomats on currying favors. This will reduce the monthly diplomats you gain each month, but at the same time grant your country favors on the target country, and they get favors on you.
Yes, the numbers feel 100% perfectly balanced..
Spy Networks
This describes the extent to which a country has infiltrated another with a network of informants, double agents, and general turncoats, and thus how much inside knowledge they have of that country. It can be used to perform a variety of insidious diplomatic actions.
You need to use a diplomat to start building a spy network, and while it is then active, you will gain less diplomats each month.
The speed with which your spy network is built up depends on your spy network construction capacity, and the target country’s counter espionage reduces it.
The size of your spy network in a country impacts your siege ability and how much aggressive expansion you get from treating them badly..
Why is our network construction so bad, and why is portugals counter espionage so bad?
Diplomatic Reputation
This represents how highly regarded a country is in international relations. There are advances that will increase it, but it is also increased by your country's prestige and decreased by your aggressive expansion.
AI countries look very much at diplomatic reputation when it comes to accepting diplomatic offers.
If we went really belligerent, we would have NO reputation…
Diplomatic Range
This is a concept we introduced in Imperator, where you can’t just do diplomacy with every country on the map. In earlier games we had this hidden from the player, and it was merely something that the AI kind of used. Now this is something that matters, and it is based primarily on advances and the rank of the country.
Diplomatic Range limits the physical distance our diplomats can travel to conduct diplomacy. The distance to be traveled is from one capital to the other.
The dark gray is where Aragon can not send diplomats in 1337, as they are out of range..
Rivals
In Project Caesar we have the system of rivals, which is fairly similar to the one in EU4, with a few differences.
First of all, the selection of rivals is less opaque and follows a few simple rules. A valid rival is someone within a geographical area that is of a similar or higher rank, or shares a culture group. The geographical area for an empire is the same continent or adjacent sub-continent, while for a county is the same area or adjacent province definition. Of course you can always rival someone that has declared you as a rival.
Secondly, if you don’t pick enough rivals, your actions that increase aggressive expansion will give you more, and your spy networks become far weaker.
Thirdly, you can always create a casus belli on your rivals if you have a spy network built up there.
Finally, there is no cooldown on replacing a rival, but it will cost you 25 stability.
Remember that a rival is a country that is perceived as having conflicting interests, and will block you from having alliances. Any countries that share rivals will get higher opinions with each other.
So these are the possible rivals for Aragon at the start of the game..
Diplomatic Capacity
As suggested by many of you back in Tinto Talks #12, we changed the diplomatic relation slots system to become a diplomatic capacity system instead, where the cost for an alliance depends on the power of the ally, and similarly, subjects cost different things depending on their type and size.
Aragon only has 1 vassal at the start, but it's not that small..
Diplomatic Action and Treaties
Today we will not talk more about unions or subjects, as they will be covered in a later Tinto Talks, we will however thoroughly discuss as many as possible of other types of diplomatic treaties and actions. A diplomatic action costs a diplomat to do, but not all of them create a treaty.
A Treaty is something that lasts over a period of time, and can be anything from an alliance to food access for your armies.
Friendly Actions
This category of actions also include some of the ones mentioned above, like improving opinions, professing trust and curry favors, some of the other friendly actions include the following.
Some of the friendly actions include the following..
For just 50 favors, you can get any country to not send privateers near you …
Hostile Actions
These are the actions that tend to be rather offensive to the receiving part, and damages the opinion and trust. Some of these include..
Covert Actions
These are the actions that you need a spy network in the target country to be able to do. While you could view them as hostile, they are a bit more sneaky here. Some of these include the following.
Economy Actions
These tend to be actions that are more of a gray zone between totally friendly and totally hostile, and are more or less related to the economy part of the game. Some of these actions include..
There are 3 types of access here, Military Access, where you can march your armies through another country's territory. Food Access, where you can have ýour armies supplied in another countries territory, and Fleet Basing Rights, where you are allowed to base your ships in their ports.
All of them have the option to offer it to another country and request it from them, while military access can now also be requested to be bought.
Of course there are many country specific diplomatic actions, but they will be talked about after christmas when we start with the flavor talk, and the subject actions will be talked about in the Tinto Talks about Subjects.
Stay tuned, next week will be something completely different…
Today we will go deep into how the diplomatic system works in Project Caesar. The core of the system is similar to our other grand strategy games, but has much in common with EU4, Imperator and Victoria 2 in particular. Some of you may be very familiar with something we are talking about today, but not everyone reading this has played 5,000 hours in every GSG we made. So there are parts of today's Tinto Talks that will be “wtf man, I know this already” for many of you.
Also when it comes to diplomacy, we have based our interface solutions for diplomatic actions from two paths. First when you have a country selected, you can get the classic way of seeing diplomatic actions related to that country, but we also have the sometimes more useful way of first selecting a diplomatic action and then seeing which countries would accept it.
Diplomats
While this game may not have the immortal envoys of EU4 that limited how much diplomacy you could do at one time, in Project Caesar you have a “diplomatic corps”, or Diplomats as we refer to them as. This represents how much diplomacy a country can do in a given time. Some advances, laws or societal values will increase this amount, and there are also some buildings that will have an impact.
Every diplomatic action you do requires at least one diplomat, and while they are a renewable resource, you may need to ration them.
Maybe we should become an Empire instead?
Opinions
In almost all GSG games we have made, we’ve tracked relations between countries, often in the completely natural and intuitive range of -200 to +200. Early on the relation was a single value, but in EU4 over a decade ago we introduced the concept that Country A could view Country B one way, and Country B could view Country A another way. This game is no different in that regard.
These opinions are calculated depending on the various states between countries, like religion, culture, diplomacy and much more, and can have temporary impacts from actions.
Opinion is how much a country likes or dislikes another country. The difference between trust and opinion is that a high opinion will stop a country from being hostile, but we would need trust to be able to work together.
You have multiple ways to influence this with diplomacy, but the most direct ones you would use often is the “improve relations” & “send gift” diplomatic actions.
- Improve Relations - This uses some of your monthly diplomatic actions to improve the target country's opinion of you over time.
- Send Gifts - This gives you an instant opinion increase for a sum of money.
Soon our conflicts are all forgotten..
Trust
Trust represents how likely one country finds it that another country will act honorably towards them. Whether friend or foe, Trust is a crucial component in forging lasting agreements.
Trust is hard to get, and easy to lose.
You can always send a diplomat to profess trust, which will increase their trust in you, but your diplomatic reputation will be lowered for the next 5 years.
Favors
Favors represent how much one country has promised, or otherwise owes, to another country. Favors can be spent to ask the other country to do something. If favors get too unbalanced, refusing to do these things can cause a loss of trust or even diplomatic reputation.
You gain favors by helping your allies, and supporting them at need.
You can also use some of your diplomats on currying favors. This will reduce the monthly diplomats you gain each month, but at the same time grant your country favors on the target country, and they get favors on you.
Yes, the numbers feel 100% perfectly balanced..
Spy Networks
This describes the extent to which a country has infiltrated another with a network of informants, double agents, and general turncoats, and thus how much inside knowledge they have of that country. It can be used to perform a variety of insidious diplomatic actions.
You need to use a diplomat to start building a spy network, and while it is then active, you will gain less diplomats each month.
The speed with which your spy network is built up depends on your spy network construction capacity, and the target country’s counter espionage reduces it.
The size of your spy network in a country impacts your siege ability and how much aggressive expansion you get from treating them badly..
Why is our network construction so bad, and why is portugals counter espionage so bad?
Diplomatic Reputation
This represents how highly regarded a country is in international relations. There are advances that will increase it, but it is also increased by your country's prestige and decreased by your aggressive expansion.
AI countries look very much at diplomatic reputation when it comes to accepting diplomatic offers.
If we went really belligerent, we would have NO reputation…
Diplomatic Range
This is a concept we introduced in Imperator, where you can’t just do diplomacy with every country on the map. In earlier games we had this hidden from the player, and it was merely something that the AI kind of used. Now this is something that matters, and it is based primarily on advances and the rank of the country.
Diplomatic Range limits the physical distance our diplomats can travel to conduct diplomacy. The distance to be traveled is from one capital to the other.
The dark gray is where Aragon can not send diplomats in 1337, as they are out of range..
Rivals
In Project Caesar we have the system of rivals, which is fairly similar to the one in EU4, with a few differences.
First of all, the selection of rivals is less opaque and follows a few simple rules. A valid rival is someone within a geographical area that is of a similar or higher rank, or shares a culture group. The geographical area for an empire is the same continent or adjacent sub-continent, while for a county is the same area or adjacent province definition. Of course you can always rival someone that has declared you as a rival.
Secondly, if you don’t pick enough rivals, your actions that increase aggressive expansion will give you more, and your spy networks become far weaker.
Thirdly, you can always create a casus belli on your rivals if you have a spy network built up there.
Finally, there is no cooldown on replacing a rival, but it will cost you 25 stability.
Remember that a rival is a country that is perceived as having conflicting interests, and will block you from having alliances. Any countries that share rivals will get higher opinions with each other.
So these are the possible rivals for Aragon at the start of the game..
Diplomatic Capacity
As suggested by many of you back in Tinto Talks #12, we changed the diplomatic relation slots system to become a diplomatic capacity system instead, where the cost for an alliance depends on the power of the ally, and similarly, subjects cost different things depending on their type and size.
Aragon only has 1 vassal at the start, but it's not that small..
Diplomatic Action and Treaties
Today we will not talk more about unions or subjects, as they will be covered in a later Tinto Talks, we will however thoroughly discuss as many as possible of other types of diplomatic treaties and actions. A diplomatic action costs a diplomat to do, but not all of them create a treaty.
A Treaty is something that lasts over a period of time, and can be anything from an alliance to food access for your armies.
Friendly Actions
This category of actions also include some of the ones mentioned above, like improving opinions, professing trust and curry favors, some of the other friendly actions include the following.
Some of the friendly actions include the following..
- Defensive Leagues - Some of you may recognise this from Imperator, but it's basically a defensive alliance.
- Guarantees - In this game you can also ASK a more powerful country to guarantee you.
- Propose Ruler - If you got adults of your dynasty that are not your current ruler, you can propose that they become the ruler of another monarchy, if they are in a regency without any valid heir.
- Share Maps - This allows you to give the maps of an area to another country, if they have not discovered it.
For just 50 favors, you can get any country to not send privateers near you …
Hostile Actions
These are the actions that tend to be rather offensive to the receiving part, and damages the opinion and trust. Some of these include..
- Intervene in War - Any Empire can join in on the defenders side in a war if the opinion that the country has of you is high enough.
- Isolate from Allies - This will make them break an alliance they have, but this will cost you a fair amount of favors.
- Send Insult - Reduces their opinion of you, but they will get a casus belli on you.
- Threaten War - If you got a casus belli for a province you can use this to threaten with a war, and they have a chance of accepting it. Only Kingdoms and Empires can do this.
Covert Actions
These are the actions that you need a spy network in the target country to be able to do. While you could view them as hostile, they are a bit more sneaky here. Some of these include the following.
- Corrupt Officials - Reduces the effectiveness of their cabinet.
- Infiltrate Administration - Removed the Fog of War over their country for a set period of time.
- Steal Maps - For when you really really want that map of the Caribbean.
- Support Rebels - This is something that unlocks in the Age of Renaissance, that can help you truly weaken your enemies.
Economy Actions
These tend to be actions that are more of a gray zone between totally friendly and totally hostile, and are more or less related to the economy part of the game. Some of these actions include..
- Block Building in Country - This will block them from building buildings in your locations, which can be useful when you don’t want some English Trade Offices in all your cities.
- Embargo Nation - This will reduce the market attraction of their markets on your locations, making them more likely to trade in other markets. Their trades will no longer be allowed to enter your territory as well.
- Request a Loan - This is something you usually send to a banking country, so you can get money from them..
There are 3 types of access here, Military Access, where you can march your armies through another country's territory. Food Access, where you can have ýour armies supplied in another countries territory, and Fleet Basing Rights, where you are allowed to base your ships in their ports.
All of them have the option to offer it to another country and request it from them, while military access can now also be requested to be bought.
Of course there are many country specific diplomatic actions, but they will be talked about after christmas when we start with the flavor talk, and the subject actions will be talked about in the Tinto Talks about Subjects.
Stay tuned, next week will be something completely different…
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