Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #118 - Power Blocs Round Two

[PDX_Pelly]

This post is saved for developer responses!

Is this new information or did I miss something in a previous dev diary? (The latter is definitely very possible)

It has been announced before (in the original linked Dev Diary on Power Blocs) and in some replies, but yeah, definitely possible you missed it.

Is this new information or did I miss something in a previous dev diary? (The latter is definitely very possible)

We mentioned it in the comments of the Art Diary previously and elsewhere e.g.

Please consider removing the Market Access Price Impact bonus from the Internal Trade Principle Group? All the other modifiers make sense as changes in policy to encourage internal trade, but a MAPI bonus feels magical. I find it hard to believe that expanding my market would eliminate inefficiencies regarding the movement of goods within it. MAPI should primarily be affected by physical infrastructure and technologies, not diplomatic pacts or politics.

We will consider it.
But I will say that I think it does make some sense narratively. Countries reducing the hurdles to trade with each other, e.g. removing customs etc. would naturally increase a state's access to others.

What is the “party whip” in the ideological truths part? Is this something new?

It is an effect that's present in the game already.
If members (IGs) of a party are ideologically conflicting, the party whip effect reduces the penalty that you receive on your legitimacy. The party leader acts as the party whip.
So this principle modifies that value, therefore reducing the penalty on legitimacy further.

Looks good.

On a sidenote for the artists, the Coat of Arms for the starting Power Blocs could use some work. Maybe add some historic symbols as an option, for example, instead of the Russian Empire's symbol being a circle with a flag on top, could you add the Russian two-headed eagle? The British one is trying to imitate the IRL coat of arms, but I don't think the boat does it, maybe add a lion or a harp, or both. The Ottoman's coat of arms looks perfect to me.

We are looking at our historic power blocs emblems.
I can't promise too much (about 100 other things on the plate), but we will try to improve it with other options we already have in the game.

But MAPI isn't about trade between different countries, but about moving goods within a country, so it's a bit odd

Removing borders for goods between France and Germany won't make moving clothes from Britanny to Provence easier

Having rethought about it however, it is a primary principle of a Custom Unions, which implies a unified market. So it could actually kinda kit

Exactly, we're basically implying a unified market. Which is why we felt it was okay to add it.
But as I mentioned we will consider replacing it. But no promises, it's a neat bonus after all.

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I don't like the clear separation between ideological and economic unions that is made here. It seems to me that a liberal customs union would care to some degree about ideological cohesion, as would a military alliance involving an absolutist monarchy. Does this mean a radical liberal republic could be in a bloc with an absolute monarchy without friction, or a council republic be in a customs union with liberal nations without friction?

Also does this mean it would be impossible for an Ideological Bloc to also have a customs union between its members, or have I misunderstood?

Apologies for any misunderstanding, I often find it hard to conceptualise mechanics before I can play them.

You can create a liberal customs union for example by picking the ideological union identity but also picking the market unification principle which will turn your power bloc into a customs union.
So yeah, any bloc can become a customs union when picking the according principle.
Depending on the identity, yes, there could be scenarios where the countries' laws do not have a particularly big impact on the bloc's cohesion. In others (ideological union), it matters a lot more.
Hope that answers your question.

Great DD!

Just two small things (I know its WIP)
Vassalization Principle: I am not entirely sure if giving a flat amount of authority is a good idea. Im not concerned about the number but more about the principle. Encouraging having a bag full of tiny puppets is neither good for performance nor realistic in terms of the consolidation Empires did back then. Or people releasing all kinds of stuff just to have it, especially in MP.
Like imagine gamey UK making 1000 princely states to farm authority. Id rather see see a scaling absolute value but with a cap so you are incentivised to have like multiple medium sized countries around. Countries that by extension warrant you authority given their significance. Having more authority at home because you command the 20 ethiopian states does not sound right to me like I said before.

Thanks for the feedback!
Agree, turning it into rank based authority gain sounds like a good idea. Not sure we'll have time for the release version, but I have taken a note.

Defensive Cooperation Principle: "Cannot start or join wars amongst Power Bloc members". What are you trying to say with the wording?
To me it sounds like you also wont be able to defend your bloc members as the wording basically says any play pertaining to bloc members is off limits for you.
Do you mean Cannot start or join wars against Power Bloc members?

As mentioned on Discord, bloc member cannot declare war against fellow members is what it translates to. That's why we wrote amongst and not against, because you can of course still join plays that are targeting (against) bloc members from the outside of your bloc.

I have one question and one proposal:

What stops me as a big power to just create a Ideological Union, change some laws and then disband it after im done, and making another PB? Aside from loosing the leverage over my current subjects and all that. Is there a mechanical stopping block for this exploit? Or is it not worth it at all?

Thanks for the feedback!
They need to have been in your PB for at least 5 years and you need 3 times their prestige and they need to be ideologically different enough and your bloc needs high enough cohesion for you to do the regime change.
I'd say there's not really an exploit with that specific idea in mind just due to the time it takes. (I'm sure there are others which we'll discover)

I wanted to ask for ... well, flavour Text, more fitting one at that. My main gripe comes from the "Aggressive Coordination I", which only gives Infamy reduction, but the flavourtext states reagrdless: "Strenghtening the Blocs capabilities to plan offensive maneuvers.", which feels unfitting. Some along "The Members coordinate their diplomatic responses to cover for other members aggression." or something like that would make more sense. Adding short fitting descriptions too all principles is probably a tall order, and its no immediate need, but think about it. (Speaking of which, i believe that "Aggressive Coordination I/II/III" etc. sounds very... well, not fitting into the game world. Same as with "Military Treaty" i believe better words can be found to immerse the players.

View attachment 1137658

Yeah, we have thought about it, but felt like we were running into some inconsistencies. If you have flavor per tier principle, but the effect displays some of the previous tier effects, it feels odd. It also felt odd to not have custom names for the principles when you had custom flavor. For custom names, we'd be losing the feeling of it belonging together with other principles to the same group or at least we'd need to find a different solution on how to tie it together.
All in all, it was not only considered more effort but harder to bring into a cohesive form. So maybe, some day, when somebody finds the time to redo the whole description thing, which is sadly not now :/

Nice! Are you allowed to form a block composed from blocks? Like, in the entente you had two of the countries that are leading a sovereign empire block (GB and russia)

Not for release version at least, no. That would have exploded the scope of this feature.
As I mentioned before, we do see some possibility (no guarantee!) that some pacts between blocs could be established in the future, but that's for another day if it happens.

This DD has a bunch of modding implications that I want to figure out;

First of all - this is the first case of a non-law modifying an institution in vic3. Is this limited to the principles only, or can we hope to be able to apply modification to institution effects through other modifiers in other parts of the game?

It should be possible for you to apply that wherever you see fit. It is a set of country modifiers after all:
country_institution_size_change_speed_institution_police_mult = 0.5
country_institution_cost_institution_police_mult = -0.5
for example for the shown Police Principles.

Secondly - the leverage utilizes a bar with multiple potential fillings. Can modders have access to a similar UI element with an ability to set arbitrary values/script_values and corresponding colors and icons for them (i.e to put in a JE about multiple ideologies in a power struggle?)

That I am less sure about, meaning I doubt it would be possible. I'll poke some folks and get back to you, but don't get your hopes up yet.

Will the influential trade center production method be usable if your trade law is Mercantilism?

Generating massive tarrifs as an absurdly protectionist Trade League sounds rather fun.

I don't think we've put it behind another restriction

I hoped that one of the principles would allow to block trade with countries outside of Power Block entirely. Have you considered this kind of Block isolationism? I think it could be very nice additional option to introduce a need to fight for resources.

We had a few principles with that idea in mind on our tables for a while. Ultimately we decided to focus on others that were going more into a gameplay enabling rather than blocking direction.
Personally, I still like the idea of adding more blocking principles as alternatives. But we'll need to wait and see how Power Blocs as a feature develops in the future for that.

1) The MAPI bonus: Maybe the +5% MAPI bonus could be only on tier II or even tier III? I agree its a neat bonus a I am for NOT removing it entirely. Just make it not that easy to obtain.

Fun fact: It was on tier 3 and 2 for a long time during development because we felt that's where it should go. Then feedback came in that the principle group did not feel very satisfying to play with because of that. We will take another peek at this situation as I mentioned before.

2) Vasallization vs. Exploitation: I thing the balancing could be better. Vassalization gives you +25% income transfer, but Exploitation gives you "only" authority and influence? Shouldnt it be the other way around? Exploitation seems too weak perhaps with the -20 cohesion.

Exploitation also gives you +5% income from all power bloc members. The vassalization merely increases the payments from subjects. Depending on whom you have in your bloc, exploitation can have a substantial impact.
But we'll give it another look. Thanks for the feedback!

I could be mistaken, but isn't religious conversion only possible if the culture and religion (edit: only culture needs to be accepted) of a pop is not discriminated? At that point, mechanically speaking, there's little point to actually convert. The Sikh Empire for example is notorious for being a minority religion with potential expansion to Afghan/Persian territory full of non-Indians (aka, discriminated pops) - most of the nation's population receives discrimination.

I think a religious bloc should do two things:

1. All pops of the religion are accepted, regardless of culture
(edit: I should clarify so as to not make this overpowered, I think all primary cultures of bloc members belonging to the religion of the bloc should be accepted. So if in the highly theoretical world where the Sikh Empire and Persia form a religious bloc, then Sikh Persians should be accepted in the Sikh Empire, and Punjabi Sikhs should be accepted in Persia)
2. It should be mechanically possible to convert an unaccepted pop to the bloc religion

(If only one of those could be achieved, I'd prefer #2)

Click to expand...

The forced conversion action that religious blocs have access to does not require acceptance.
Fulfilling a few basic conditions (5 years in PB, Cohesion above 50, Prestige high enough), you can basically just set another country's state religion to yours and suffer a cohesion penalty.

Will atheist countries be able to use Religious Convocation and force State Atheism on all its members?

I'm afraid you cannot as fun as it sounds.
You need to have either State Religion or Freedom of Conscience to form a Religious Convocation Power Bloc.

In description it says that it reduces Tardids on internal trade, yet later levels increase them. Is it more of placeholder or...?

Good catch, that text was from a previous iteration!
Will note it down to fix, thanks

My only minor gripe with power blocs right now is that they appear to require a leader, and that leader receives extra benefits. It doesn't allow for a theoretical "alliance/treaty of equals".

I would say a trade league with either one of their primary groups does not provide drastic leader-only benefits.

I'm really hoping for a Leverage Map mode or another easy way to see your leverage over the world. Instead of having to maybe click several buttons on every country.

There is

Will there be a mechanism which allows certain members of the power bloc to launch a leadership play against the bloc leader?

Not quite.
If you are familiar with HoI4, we have a mechanic called Power Struggle that works very similarly. If a country has 20% more Prestige than the current leader, they automatically trigger it. If they stay above 15%+ more Prestige, they will overtake as the new leader.

This looks brilliant. This has probably already been answered, but is there any way for a member to leave a block peacefully?

You can leave peacefully if the Leverage of your Power Bloc leader on you is low enough

One question I had on power blocks was whether it affects crises and power plays.
If it involves one member, will it pull in the other members?

a bloc, and membership thereof should have be a gamechanger for these. It would also move us into the direction of WW1... (hopefully coming, Paradox)

By default PB members do not have to join one another. But using the correct principles (as shown in the Dev Diary, e.g. tier 3 of aggressive coordination group), yes, you can force your members to join you.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Is this new information or did I miss something in a previous dev diary? (The latter is definitely very possible)

It has been announced before (in the original linked Dev Diary on Power Blocs) and in some replies, but yeah, definitely possible you missed it.

 

[PDX_Pelly]

Is this new information or did I miss something in a previous dev diary? (The latter is definitely very possible)

We mentioned it in the comments of the Art Diary previously and elsewhere e.g.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Please consider removing the Market Access Price Impact bonus from the Internal Trade Principle Group? All the other modifiers make sense as changes in policy to encourage internal trade, but a MAPI bonus feels magical. I find it hard to believe that expanding my market would eliminate inefficiencies regarding the movement of goods within it. MAPI should primarily be affected by physical infrastructure and technologies, not diplomatic pacts or politics.

We will consider it.
But I will say that I think it does make some sense narratively. Countries reducing the hurdles to trade with each other, e.g. removing customs etc. would naturally increase a state's access to others.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

What is the “party whip” in the ideological truths part? Is this something new?

It is an effect that's present in the game already.
If members (IGs) of a party are ideologically conflicting, the party whip effect reduces the penalty that you receive on your legitimacy. The party leader acts as the party whip.
So this principle modifies that value, therefore reducing the penalty on legitimacy further.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Looks good.

On a sidenote for the artists, the Coat of Arms for the starting Power Blocs could use some work. Maybe add some historic symbols as an option, for example, instead of the Russian Empire's symbol being a circle with a flag on top, could you add the Russian two-headed eagle? The British one is trying to imitate the IRL coat of arms, but I don't think the boat does it, maybe add a lion or a harp, or both. The Ottoman's coat of arms looks perfect to me.

We are looking at our historic power blocs emblems.
I can't promise too much (about 100 other things on the plate), but we will try to improve it with other options we already have in the game.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

But MAPI isn't about trade between different countries, but about moving goods within a country, so it's a bit odd

Removing borders for goods between France and Germany won't make moving clothes from Britanny to Provence easier

Having rethought about it however, it is a primary principle of a Custom Unions, which implies a unified market. So it could actually kinda kit

Exactly, we're basically implying a unified market. Which is why we felt it was okay to add it.
But as I mentioned we will consider replacing it. But no promises, it's a neat bonus after all.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I don't like the clear separation between ideological and economic unions that is made here. It seems to me that a liberal customs union would care to some degree about ideological cohesion, as would a military alliance involving an absolutist monarchy. Does this mean a radical liberal republic could be in a bloc with an absolute monarchy without friction, or a council republic be in a customs union with liberal nations without friction?

Also does this mean it would be impossible for an Ideological Bloc to also have a customs union between its members, or have I misunderstood?

Apologies for any misunderstanding, I often find it hard to conceptualise mechanics before I can play them.

You can create a liberal customs union for example by picking the ideological union identity but also picking the market unification principle which will turn your power bloc into a customs union.
So yeah, any bloc can become a customs union when picking the according principle.
Depending on the identity, yes, there could be scenarios where the countries' laws do not have a particularly big impact on the bloc's cohesion. In others (ideological union), it matters a lot more.
Hope that answers your question.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Great DD!

Just two small things (I know its WIP)
Vassalization Principle: I am not entirely sure if giving a flat amount of authority is a good idea. Im not concerned about the number but more about the principle. Encouraging having a bag full of tiny puppets is neither good for performance nor realistic in terms of the consolidation Empires did back then. Or people releasing all kinds of stuff just to have it, especially in MP.
Like imagine gamey UK making 1000 princely states to farm authority. Id rather see see a scaling absolute value but with a cap so you are incentivised to have like multiple medium sized countries around. Countries that by extension warrant you authority given their significance. Having more authority at home because you command the 20 ethiopian states does not sound right to me like I said before.

Thanks for the feedback!
Agree, turning it into rank based authority gain sounds like a good idea. Not sure we'll have time for the release version, but I have taken a note.

Defensive Cooperation Principle: "Cannot start or join wars amongst Power Bloc members". What are you trying to say with the wording?
To me it sounds like you also wont be able to defend your bloc members as the wording basically says any play pertaining to bloc members is off limits for you.
Do you mean Cannot start or join wars against Power Bloc members?

As mentioned on Discord, bloc member cannot declare war against fellow members is what it translates to. That's why we wrote amongst and not against, because you can of course still join plays that are targeting (against) bloc members from the outside of your bloc.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

I have one question and one proposal:

What stops me as a big power to just create a Ideological Union, change some laws and then disband it after im done, and making another PB? Aside from loosing the leverage over my current subjects and all that. Is there a mechanical stopping block for this exploit? Or is it not worth it at all?

Thanks for the feedback!
They need to have been in your PB for at least 5 years and you need 3 times their prestige and they need to be ideologically different enough and your bloc needs high enough cohesion for you to do the regime change.
I'd say there's not really an exploit with that specific idea in mind just due to the time it takes. (I'm sure there are others which we'll discover)

I wanted to ask for ... well, flavour Text, more fitting one at that. My main gripe comes from the "Aggressive Coordination I", which only gives Infamy reduction, but the flavourtext states reagrdless: "Strenghtening the Blocs capabilities to plan offensive maneuvers.", which feels unfitting. Some along "The Members coordinate their diplomatic responses to cover for other members aggression." or something like that would make more sense. Adding short fitting descriptions too all principles is probably a tall order, and its no immediate need, but think about it. (Speaking of which, i believe that "Aggressive Coordination I/II/III" etc. sounds very... well, not fitting into the game world. Same as with "Military Treaty" i believe better words can be found to immerse the players.

View attachment 1137658

Yeah, we have thought about it, but felt like we were running into some inconsistencies. If you have flavor per tier principle, but the effect displays some of the previous tier effects, it feels odd. It also felt odd to not have custom names for the principles when you had custom flavor. For custom names, we'd be losing the feeling of it belonging together with other principles to the same group or at least we'd need to find a different solution on how to tie it together.
All in all, it was not only considered more effort but harder to bring into a cohesive form. So maybe, some day, when somebody finds the time to redo the whole description thing, which is sadly not now :/

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Nice! Are you allowed to form a block composed from blocks? Like, in the entente you had two of the countries that are leading a sovereign empire block (GB and russia)

Not for release version at least, no. That would have exploded the scope of this feature.
As I mentioned before, we do see some possibility (no guarantee!) that some pacts between blocs could be established in the future, but that's for another day if it happens.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

This DD has a bunch of modding implications that I want to figure out;

First of all - this is the first case of a non-law modifying an institution in vic3. Is this limited to the principles only, or can we hope to be able to apply modification to institution effects through other modifiers in other parts of the game?

It should be possible for you to apply that wherever you see fit. It is a set of country modifiers after all:
country_institution_size_change_speed_institution_police_mult = 0.5
country_institution_cost_institution_police_mult = -0.5
for example for the shown Police Principles.

Secondly - the leverage utilizes a bar with multiple potential fillings. Can modders have access to a similar UI element with an ability to set arbitrary values/script_values and corresponding colors and icons for them (i.e to put in a JE about multiple ideologies in a power struggle?)

That I am less sure about, meaning I doubt it would be possible. I'll poke some folks and get back to you, but don't get your hopes up yet.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Will the influential trade center production method be usable if your trade law is Mercantilism?

Generating massive tarrifs as an absurdly protectionist Trade League sounds rather fun.

I don't think we've put it behind another restriction

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

I hoped that one of the principles would allow to block trade with countries outside of Power Block entirely. Have you considered this kind of Block isolationism? I think it could be very nice additional option to introduce a need to fight for resources.

We had a few principles with that idea in mind on our tables for a while. Ultimately we decided to focus on others that were going more into a gameplay enabling rather than blocking direction.
Personally, I still like the idea of adding more blocking principles as alternatives. But we'll need to wait and see how Power Blocs as a feature develops in the future for that.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

1) The MAPI bonus: Maybe the +5% MAPI bonus could be only on tier II or even tier III? I agree its a neat bonus a I am for NOT removing it entirely. Just make it not that easy to obtain.

Fun fact: It was on tier 3 and 2 for a long time during development because we felt that's where it should go. Then feedback came in that the principle group did not feel very satisfying to play with because of that. We will take another peek at this situation as I mentioned before.

2) Vasallization vs. Exploitation: I thing the balancing could be better. Vassalization gives you +25% income transfer, but Exploitation gives you "only" authority and influence? Shouldnt it be the other way around? Exploitation seems too weak perhaps with the -20 cohesion.

Exploitation also gives you +5% income from all power bloc members. The vassalization merely increases the payments from subjects. Depending on whom you have in your bloc, exploitation can have a substantial impact.
But we'll give it another look. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

I could be mistaken, but isn't religious conversion only possible if the culture and religion (edit: only culture needs to be accepted) of a pop is not discriminated? At that point, mechanically speaking, there's little point to actually convert. The Sikh Empire for example is notorious for being a minority religion with potential expansion to Afghan/Persian territory full of non-Indians (aka, discriminated pops) - most of the nation's population receives discrimination.

I think a religious bloc should do two things:

1. All pops of the religion are accepted, regardless of culture

(edit: I should clarify so as to not make this overpowered, I think all primary cultures of bloc members belonging to the religion of the bloc should be accepted. So if in the highly theoretical world where the Sikh Empire and Persia form a religious bloc, then Sikh Persians should be accepted in the Sikh Empire, and Punjabi Sikhs should be accepted in Persia)​

2. It should be mechanically possible to convert an unaccepted pop to the bloc religion

(If only one of those could be achieved, I'd prefer #2)

The forced conversion action that religious blocs have access to does not require acceptance.
Fulfilling a few basic conditions (5 years in PB, Cohesion above 50, Prestige high enough), you can basically just set another country's state religion to yours and suffer a cohesion penalty.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Will atheist countries be able to use Religious Convocation and force State Atheism on all its members?

I'm afraid you cannot as fun as it sounds.
You need to have either State Religion or Freedom of Conscience to form a Religious Convocation Power Bloc.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

In description it says that it reduces Tardids on internal trade, yet later levels increase them. Is it more of placeholder or...?

Good catch, that text was from a previous iteration!
Will note it down to fix, thanks

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

My only minor gripe with power blocs right now is that they appear to require a leader, and that leader receives extra benefits. It doesn't allow for a theoretical "alliance/treaty of equals".

I would say a trade league with either one of their primary groups does not provide drastic leader-only benefits.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

I'm really hoping for a Leverage Map mode or another easy way to see your leverage over the world. Instead of having to maybe click several buttons on every country.

There is