Victoria 3 News

Hello. This is Victoria, and today I will be covering much of the Great Game-themed narrative content which is coming in Sphere of Influence. This will be the first dev diary covering narrative content, with the second covering minor nations in the Great Game and other related content.



Throughout the nineteenth century, Russia and Britain competed with one another for influence in Asia. This period of rivalry was known colloquially as the Great Game, beginning in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and expanding over time to include struggles for influence in areas as far away as Korea and China.

The new Great Game objective diverges from the more sandbox-oriented objectives by serving as a guided tour of this period in history. Whilst much of the content involved in the Great Game is available to owners of Sphere of Influence during every playthrough, the Great Game objective contains objective subgoals designed to guide the player through this content and represent the progress of the Great Game as a whole.

To ensure the best experience, the Great Game objective is only available for the six historical participants specified below—Russia, Britain, Persia, Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar.



Upon launching the Great Game, the first thing one will see is a list of objective subgoals, along with the subgoal which represents the core of the Great Game. The Great Game objective mixes country-specific and generic objectives—whilst both Britain and Russia have the objective of securing influence over Persia or creating an Afghan protectorate, they also have country-specific objectives which will be covered later in the diary.



The Great Game core subgoal is where the progress of each nation in the Great Game is tracked. Completing each subgoal will benefit the nation that completes it, pushing the bar to the right or the left. The bar will also drift in one direction or another each year, according to differences in national prestige and market GDP.

As can be seen here, there are three currently unopened questions in the Great Game—the fate of the Caucasian states, and the struggle for influence over Afghanistan and Persia. These are victories to be had. Both Britain and Russia have made advances before the game’s start, with Britain benefiting from their successful expedition through the Hindu Kush and into Bukhara in 1831, and Russia benefiting from enforcing the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828. In the Great Game, Victories represent conflicts within which both powers vie against one another, and advances represent more technical, military, or diplomatic achievements.



When the journal entry concludes, the position of the bar will determine whether the Great Game has a victor, or whether neither power was able to gain supremacy. The power that wins the Great Game will receive a prestige and Power Bloc cohesion bonus, and the nation which is defeated will be humiliated in the eyes of the world.




Of course, the Great Game does not always have a winner. Contrary to the views of the imperial administrators vying over the territories of Central Asia, the people which reside there have agendas of their own. If, whilst playing as a Central Asian or Persian power, one pushes both Britain and Russia out of the region, the Great Game will be forced to a close with both Great Powers being humbled.

[h2]Generic Content​[/h2]

Whilst both Britain and Russia have their unique national priorities, the core of the Great Game lies in the battle for leverage over Central Asia. Both Great Powers have generic subgoals for acquiring influence in this region.

[h3]Afghanistan[/h3]

In Afghanistan, for example, one may establish a protectorate over all the nations in the region—but the process does not stop there. The power which successfully establishes a protectorate over Afghanistan must keep it for ten years, without any Afghan states slipping out of their grasp.



At the game’s start, Afghanistan’s borders are quite different from what they were at the end of the period. This is owed to the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1895, in which Russia and Britain jointly decided upon the borders of the Afghan state. Once Afghanistan unifies, a journal entry modelling this will appear for both Britain and Russia, along with an objective subgoal for those playing the Great Game.



The Pamir Delimitation journal entry represents the negotiations between Britain and Russia to determine the borders of Afghanistan. Depending on the borders of Afghanistan at the beginning of the process, the journal entry will present a variety of different proposals, permitting the Great Powers to grant or claim a varying amount of land.

Pictured: Britain has decided that Afghanistan’s southeastern border should be drawn along the Indus River, whilst Russia has decided upon giving it some territory in the North.

Once both Great Powers have agreed to a treaty, it is presented to Afghanistan, which has the option to accept or refuse. If Afghanistan refuses, the Great Powers will need to do another round of negotiation, this time with additional coercive measures available to them.




If Afghanistan continues to refuse or the Great Powers fail to come to a deal, negotiations will break down, and overlapping claims will almost guarantee future wars in the region.

Pictured: Some of the shapes that a post-Pamir Delimitation Afghanistan may take. Some of these may prove more viable than others.


[h3]Persia[/h3]

The requirements for successfully completing the subgoal to secure influence over Persia is similar to Afghanistan, with the caveat that the territorial integrity of Persia must be maintained, at least to some extent. The fluid borders and expansionist ambitions of Persia, which will be shown in more detail next week, mean that Persia may take many shapes over the course of a game.



[h3]Himalayan Exploration[/h3]

Throughout the late nineteenth centuries, European explorers constantly attempted to penetrate through the Himalayan Mountains, to chart the Tibetan Plateau and determine the best routes for a military expedition into the interior of China. Sphere of Influence adds a new expedition into the Himalayas, with ramifications for the Great Game if successfully completed.



Whilst your explorers survey the roof of the world, they may come across many things, from mountains higher than any seen before, or fascinating wildlife.



In addition to the risk of losing life or limb to both frostbite and the wildlife’s claws, any European expeditions trespassing into this region will run the risk of causing diplomatic incidents with China. It is best to tread cautiously, lest the expedition be sent back humiliated—or not come back at all.



[h2]Country-Specific Content[/h2]

In the Great Game objective, the majority of objectives are country-specific. In many cases, these objectives are linked to journal entries that are available for a country in any playthrough, with the objectives serving as a way to point out specific journal entries and grant the player points in the Great Game for completing them.

[h3]The Caucasian War[/h3]

For example, in Russia, the “Secure the Persian Border” objective is tied to a new journal entry that is available for Russia at the game’s start.



The Caucasian War is a conflict that has been raging for some time at the beginning of the game, beginning with the Russian attempt to annex Circassia in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1836, the Caucasian Imamate and Circassia continue to resist Russian domination of the region, making much of the region effectively ungovernable. Russian control of the South Caucasus is exerted primarily through the Georgian Military Highway—a route constantly threatened by the unrest in the North Caucasus. If Russia loses control of the North Caucasus, it is certain to lead to the loss of the South as well.



Whilst the Caucasian War journal entry is active, events will intermittently fire, covering various situations related to the war. The options in these events often increase devastation in the region, which will make things more difficult for the Imamate and Circassia, at the cost of spilling out into Russian-controlled regions as well.




Once Russia has either successfully researched certain technologies or reached the end of its starting truce, the war may be escalated into a full-scale conflict, which permits the use of ordinary diplomatic plays against these nations.



Upon escalating the war, the Russian armed forces in the Caucasus will present the historical Milyutin memorandum to the government. Accepting this memorandum will please the command of the armed forces, but lead to the historical outcome of the Caucasian War—the devastation of the region, depopulation, and the forceful expulsion of much of the Circassian population to the Ottoman Empire.



Circassia and the Caucasian Imamate also have content related to the conflict, which will be shown off in the next dev diary.

The rest of the Caucasian War requires the Sphere of Influence DLC, but the content pertaining to the Milyutin memorandum and brutal depopulation of the Caucasus does not. Whilst this is a gruesome event in history, it is also not something which can in good conscience be overlooked.

[h3]Kazakhstan[/h3]

As of 1836, the Kazakh steppes have been under the Russian Empire for several decades. The power of the Khan has recently been abolished, and the Kazakh zhuzes placed under the command of various Russian-appointed agha-sultans. However, this system of administration is beginning to fray. Early in the game, Russia will receive an event notifying them of the rise of Kenesary Kasymuli, a Kazakh aristocrat who has come to spearhead Kazakh resistance against Russian rule.



When this event occurs, a new unresolved victory appears in the Great Game central subgoal, and a new subgoal, along with its corresponding Journal Entry, appears.



The Pacification of the Steppes journal entry is completed by slowly and peacefully annexing the Kazakh protectorates, and fails if the Kazakh protectorates’ liberty desire rises too high, or if ten years pass without successfully achieving this goal.



Whilst the journal entry is active, events pertaining to Kenesary’s rebels will fire, possibly interfering with the liberty desire of Russia’s Kazakh subjects.



In addition to firing events for Russia, Kenesary will also fire events for the Kazakh zhuzes and the Central Asian khanates, giving them a chance to side with Kenesary when he eventually launches his final play for control of Kazakhstan.



If Russian rule is sufficiently disrupted, and Liberty Desire reaches too high a value, Kenesary will seize control of the Uly Zhuz and launch his independence war against Russia, along with the allies that he’s collected along the way.



If Russia can successfully crush the revolt, they will gain progress in the Great Game—but it has far more to lose than to gain. Whilst Britain is not necessarily aiding Kenesary, his victory will represent a coup for Britain, as Russia now has much more work to do to reach Afghanistan.



If Russia succeeds, it will have an opportunity to menace the other Central Asian Khanates, and, upon researching Civilising Mission, unlock a new journal entry—the Conquest of Turkestan.




[h2]Other Russian Subgoals[/h2]

Throughout the course of a game, Russia will periodically unlock additional subgoals which will advance its position in the Great Game. These subgoals represent various historical aims of Russia, and are exclusive to the Great Game objective.

The Codify the Chinese Border subgoal represents the Russian Empire’s desire for the various territorial concessions in Central Asia and Outer Manchuria signed away by the Qing Empire in the mid-nineteenth century. The acquisition of Outer Manchuria was instrumental to the ability for the Russian Empire to project power into the Pacific Ocean, a situation which eventually led to British concerns over the integrity of their Pacific colonies and their later alliance with Japan.

To complete this subgoal, Russia must both acquire these territories from China, and force China to abandon claims on the territory. If a non-player China has been weakened by the Opium Wars and other calamities, the options to sign the Treaty of Aigun, Beijing Treaty, and Chuguchak Protocol provided by the Ruler of the East Journal Entry are a perfect way to see this goal through whilst minimising both the risk of war and the negative implications of a revanchist China on the border.



The Acquire Manchurian Concessions subgoal also relates to the relations between China and Russia, and is triggered by the Russian acquisition and incorporation of a state in Outer Manchuria. This subgoal encourages Russia to acquire a treaty port in Manchuria, and construct the historical Chinese Eastern Railway, which served as the furthest Eastern branch of the trans-Siberian railway until the opening of the Amur River Line in 1916.



With the Russian acquisition of Outer Manchuria also comes ambitions to secure a protectorate over Korea. Korea was considered to present a risk in the hands of a foreign power as a staging point for the decapitation of Russia’s Far Eastern naval assets. Historically, the Russian Empire contended diplomatically with Japan for influence in Korea following the first Sino-Japanese war, a period which would meet its climax with a Japanese-sponsored coup killing the Queen of Korea and forcing the King to flee to the Russian embassy.

This period of heightened tensions between the modernising Empire of Japan and Russia would cool for a brief period with the establishment of several agreements that would establish a balance of power in Korea. These agreements would come to an end following the end of the Russo-Japanese war, and the later Japanese conquest of Korea. The Secure a Korean Protectorate subgoal represents an alternate route—the ambition of both Nicholas II and factions within his government to establish full Russian control of Korea.



[h2]British Subgoals[/h2]

In the 1830s, British citizens and ships played a role in assisting Circassia against Russia. Whilst Britain was historically unwilling to escalate its involvement in Circassia beyond occasional shipments of weapons or volunteers dispatched by private citizens, it considered exerting influence into the Black Sea to be in its national interest.

The Disrupt the Russian Caucasus subgoal represents the various initiatives amongst British civil and political society to assist Circassia, and react to what they saw as the threat of Russia taking control of the Ottoman Empire if it could consolidate its territories in the Caucasus.



The Expand British India subgoal represents the desire to expand the territories controlled by the East India Company into Burma and modern-day Pakistan. A strong East India Company, or British Raj, may serve as a valuable counterweight to Russian influence in the region, and a centre from which Britain may project power into the remainder of Asia.



The Contest the Russian Pamirs subgoal represents an abortive attempt in 1902 by Britain to seize control of the Pamir Mountains and establish an independent buffer state through a deeply unsubtle method—a direct military incursion with cooperation from Afghanistan.

Whilst this proposition was historically rejected by the British government before materialising, the acquisition of Tajikistan by Russia will present Britain the opportunity to launch the proposed invasion. If Britain can manage to seize Tajikistan or establish a new Tajik state in its power bloc, it will gain a decisive advantage in the Great Game.



The final unique subgoal for Britain is to counter Russian Pacific Influence. This represents the historical Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, which was formed in reaction to the strengthening of the Russian presence in its Far Eastern territories. This subgoal is triggered by Russia developing naval bases in Outer Manchuria, heralding an incoming threat to the British fleet in the Pacific.



Next week, I will cover the content for minor nations involved with the Great Game, as well as how sandbox mode works with the new content. And that is all. Thank you for reading.

Hello and welcome to another Victoria 3 Dev Diary! As we already mentioned, there’s been some changes in the Dev Diary schedule due the release date to Sphere of Influence/Update 1.7 being delayed, so today we’ll be talking about Diplomatic Catalysts instead of the previously planned Great Game dev diary. We’ll be posting a new Dev Diary schedule as soon as it’s finalized, most likely next week.

Right then, let’s get to the topic at hand. Diplomatic Catalysts is a new system added in update 1.7, the role they play in creating Political Lobbies, and the impact they will have on how the diplomatic AI acts towards other countries.

So, what is a Diplomatic Catalyst? Put simply, a Diplomatic Catalyst is a type of diplomatic ‘occurrence’, positive or negative, between two countries. There are many different types of Catalysts, here is a small list of examples:

• Relations between two countries increases by one full ‘level’ (for instance from Cordial to Amicable)
  
• A subject has their autonomy decreased
  
• Two countries end up on the same side in a Diplomatic Play
  
• A country reforms their government and becomes significantly ideologically divergent from another country’s government
  
• A country declares another country their rival
  
• A country breaks off a mutually negotiated Diplomatic Pact with another
  

Each type of Catalyst may result in the creation of a Political Lobby in one or both of the countries, targeting the other country. The type of Lobby and chance for it to appear depends on the nature of the Catalyst (such as whether it is of a hostile nature), the diplomatic conditions between the two countries, and whether the overall conditions are suitable for the creation of a Lobby. For example, a ‘Relations Increased’ catalyst will only create pro-country lobbies, with an increasingly higher chance to do so the higher relations go. Conversely, the ‘Pact Broken’’ catalyst can create both pro and anti-country lobbies and is more likely to do so the more significance the broken pact had for the country that just had it taken away from them. Some catalysts, such as ‘Ideological Divergence’, can result in the creation of either a Pro or an Anti-Country lobby.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as just being a dice roll: the proper conditions must be in place for a Lobby to appear to begin with and there must be at least one non-marginalized Interest Group interested in joining the Lobby. Additionally, the calculation for whether an Interest Group wants to join a lobby or not can depend on the type of Catalyst: For example, if the ‘Ideological Divergence’ catalyst creates a Lobby, Interest Groups calculating their desire to join that lobby will place additional emphasis on their own ideological view of the country in question. After all, just because a country that’s going all in on Market Liberalism has ideologically diverged from your government doesn’t mean your in-opposition Industrialists aren’t over the moon about their new politics.

The signing of a Defensive Pact between Brazil and the USA has resulted in the creation of a powerful Pro-American Lobby comprised of the Industrialists and Landowners

Right then, onto the diplomatic AI. Since this is a topic we haven’t talked about in a while, I thought I’d give a little refresher on how the AI decides its behavior towards other countries, before telling you about how this decision-making process will change in 1.7.

Fundamentally, the most important factor in how an AI country behaves towards another country is their Attitude. Attitude is mainly determined by a country’s Attitude Score and Strategic Desire, which is in turn influenced by their Diplomatic Strategy and other factors such as active Journal Entries.

Confused yet? I’ll try to illustrate with an example: If you’ve ever played Mexico, you should be all too familiar with US aggression. They typically start as Antagonistic towards Mexico and progress to Belligerent after some time has passed. Though these are both hostile attitudes, they differ considerably in which particular hostile behaviors the AI will engage in.

Antagonistic AIs will tend to oppose you in diplomatic plays and use hostile diplomatic actions like rivalry and embargo, but will rarely attack you outright. Even if they do attack, they will do so using wargoals aimed at weakening you or at worst snatching away subjects they have an interest in: they want to keep you in check but they don’t have any interest in taking your land.

Belligerent AIs, on the other hand, are very much interested in taking your land. They may be after just a single state, or a handful of states, or they may in fact be seeking outright annexation. Regardless, when a Belligerent AI comes over for a visit, you’d better hope that your army and its allies are up to the task of seeing them off.

So why does the AI pick one over the other? It all comes down to the aforementioned Strategic Desire, which represents their long-term diplomatic goals towards a particular nation. The US tends to start with the ‘Antagonize’ Strategic Desire towards Mexico, and change to ‘Conquer’ once they research Nationalism and unlock the Manifest Destiny Journal Entry. If these sound like they line up directly with Antagonistic/Belligerent, it’s because they do! In some cases, a Strategic Desire will translate directly into a particular Attitude unless offset by the Attitude Score, while in others it’s more nuanced. I don’t want to go too on too much of a tangent into Attitude Score, but you can think of it as the AI’s calculation of whether it’s willing to set aside its long-term diplomatic goals for short-term reasons. I.e., ‘we do want to conquer a state from the Ottomans, but at the moment we need them to protect us against Austria’.

‘Maintain Balance of Power’ is one of the more common Diplomatic Strategies, and has the AI pursue more moderate diplomatic goals, avoiding excessive infamy and preferring weakening their rivals to expanding their borders in most cases.

When the AI is prompted to select a Strategic Desire towards another country, they look at the pool of available and achievable desires, assign them a score, and then select through a weighted random process. As mentioned above, Diplomatic Strategy plays an important role here: A country with the ‘Acquire Colonies’ strategy needs no particular reason to select the Conquest desire towards a juicy Unrecognized target, while a country with ‘Defend the Borders’ will only consider picking it to retake lost territories, and even then they’re reluctant to do so in an offensive war. Journal Entries also factor heavily, as we saw with the Manifest Destiny example above. There are of course many more factors in how the AI scores different desires: as an example, AI countries tend to pick more hostile desires towards a country going full-in on radical leftism if they themselves are not pursuing a similar path.

But enough with the long-winded explanations, let’s get to what has actually changed in 1.7. I mentioned above that the AI selects a Strategic Desire ‘when it is prompted to do so’, and here is the crux of the matter. In the current version of the game, the AI uses a system that you could call a ‘reroll progress bar’. For each country, it tracks the progress of said bar, which increases slowly over time but can also make larger jumps from certain occurrences, such as the country selecting a new Diplomatic Strategy or the two countries suddenly ending up opposed in a play, essentially a much simpler version of the very Diplomatic Catalyst system we’re going over in this DD.

Once the reroll progress bar hits 100, the AI will re-roll its strategic desire, often with an additional weight towards ‘staying the course’, particularly towards a country they have long-standing diplomatic pacts with. This may seem like a fairly sensible system, but the problem is that it’s entirely opaque to the player. You simply aren’t told that your long-standing ally just turned hostile towards you because they had a massive ideological shift in their government or picked up a new Journal Entry - at best you may get a custom notification that gives you a hint, such as the one for the French Borders Journal Entry.

This, of course, is where the Catalysts come in! As of update 1.7, the ‘re-roll bucket’ is gone, and replaced with a system of weights similar to those used for Lobby creation, which allows for the AI to adjust its long-term goals in a way that’s far less arbitrary and most importantly, which can be explained to the player. Just like different Catalysts have different weights and conditions for creating Lobbies, the way they potentially alter an AI’s diplomatic strategy is also tailored to the specific Catalyst.

To give you an example, ‘Country Bankrupt’ is a Catalyst that triggers for all of a country’s diplomatic ties when they go bankrupt. For most AI countries, this is of little significance and won’t result in any change in Strategic Desire, but if an AI thinks it’s in a position to take advantage of the bankrupt country’s momentary weakness, particularly if they are pursuing a strategy of Economic Imperialism, a recalculation may trigger in which the AI picks a new desire towards the bankrupt country, which will always be of a more hostile nature than whatever they had before. Other catalysts (for example ‘Relations Improved‘) may only ever change their Strategic Desire in a friendlier direction, while yet others (for example ‘Diplomatic Strategy Changed’) can potentially change it in any direction that makes sense at the time.

By declaring bankruptcy to deal with their crippling debt problems, Ashanti has displayed their weakness to the world and become a tempting target for Great Britain

So what does all this mean? Essentially, what it all boils down to is that the AI is now much more transparent and comprehensible in its behavior, and that the diplomatic relationship between two countries will flow much more from the actions of those two countries. Your AI ally will no longer turn on you just because some dice rolls behind the scenes told them to, they will turn on you because you broke a Trade Agreement they saw as vital, or because you pushed your Infamy too far, or because the ideologies of your governments simply became too incompatible. Similarly, befriending an AI is no longer just a matter of keeping relations high and praying for a re-roll, instead you can actively work to improve their Strategic Desire (and thus attitude) towards you by acting in a manner that benefits them: Make enemies of their enemies, support them in diplomatic plays, and so on.

Even if you missed the notification informing you of an Attitude change resulting from a new Strategic Desire, you can always tooltip the Attitude of an AI country to discover the reason that they adopted their current Strategic Desire towards you. You can even use this to discover why two AI countries are enemies or friends with each other by using the Attitude filter on the diplomatic map mode!

That’s all for today! Next week we’ll be switching topics and talking about the content side of Sphere of Influence, starting with The Great Game. See you then!

Hello Victorians, this is Martin here with an update on the release date of the Sphere of Influence expansion.

A few weeks ago we announced we were planning to release the expansion and its accompanying update on May 6th. Since that time we’ve unfortunately come to the conclusion that both the update and the expansion are in need of more time for bug fixing and polish. Both update 1.7 and Sphere of Influence contain several fundamental changes to how the game functions, particularly in the form of the Building Ownership Revision and Power Blocs, which has resulted in bugs, as well as balance and technical stability issues.

While we are happy with the features on offer in 1.7/Sphere of Influence, we simply do not believe that sticking to the original release date will allow us to deliver those features in a polished and balanced state, and we frankly do not want your enjoyment of them to be marred by excessive bugginess, crashes or general lack of polish. We believe that a delay will allow us to release the update and expansion in a state that both we as the developers and you as the players will be much more happy with.

The new release date will be Monday the 24th of June. We will continue releasing weekly dev diaries up to that point, as there is still quite a lot to cover with both the DLC and the update. We know many of you are eagerly anticipating the expansion and apologize for the extended waiting that this will create, but we really want Sphere of Influence to meet your expectations and for this release to be one that we can be proud of as a development team!

Hello and welcome to another Victoria 3 Dev Diary! Today’s topic will be Political Lobbies, which is a new feature added in the Sphere of Influence expansion with some elements made available for free in the 1.7 update.

So, what is a Political Lobby? Put simply, a Political Lobby is a collection of Interest Groups pushing for the implementation of a specific foreign policy agenda in their country. Superficially, this may appear quite similar to Political Parties, but there a couple key differences in how they function:
Political Lobbies always form for a specific reason, often due to a Diplomatic Catalyst (more on those and the precise conditions for how they can create lobbies in next week’s dev diary) and pursue a specific long-term agenda that does not change over time
Interest Groups can be members of multiple Lobbies, so long as those Lobbies do not have directly contradictory goals

The agenda of a Political Lobby is always in relation to a specific foreign power, and there are four types of Political Lobbies being added in 1.7/Sphere of Influence:

• Pro-Country Lobby: This Political Lobby seeks to promote and advance the interests of their target country, both in relation to their home country and in a more global sense
  
• Anti-Country Lobby: The opposite of the Pro-Country Lobby, this Lobby seeks to hinder the interests of their target country and ‘take it down a peg’ whenever possible
  
• Pro-Overlord Lobby: A Pro-Overlord Lobby can only form in a subject country, and will always target the overlord. It seeks to promote loyalty towards and closer integration with the overlord.
  
• Anti-Overlord Lobby: The opposite of the Pro-Overlord lobby, this lobby is also only for subject countries and wants to become less dependent on the overlord, and ideally secure independence for their home country if the opportunity arises.
  

Interest Groups can join Political Lobbies for a variety of reasons, such as ideological alignment with or opposition to the country they target, or in pursuit of an overarching goal, such as the Industrialists joining a Pro-Country Lobby for a wealthier, more advanced country in the hopes of securing foreign investment capital.

Lobbies have an Appeasement score, which goes up when you take actions that the Lobby feels aligns with their goals, and goes down when you take actions that they consider to be contrary to those goals. Appeasement acts as a modifier on the Approval of their constituent Interest Groups, which means that your foreign policy actions can now directly help or hinder your internal political goals.

For example, are those staunchly Anti-French Landowners doing the Landowner thing of blocking those voting rights you want enacted? Simple! Just declare your opposition to France in a Diplomatic Play and humiliate them, and the Landowners will be so busy celebrating their victory over the perfidious Gallics that they will graciously let you have this one little reform.

On the flipside, you might find that the very pro-British Industrialists are not at all pleased with your continued alliance to a British rival, and that your previous plan of working to strengthen them in order to enact Laissez-Faire has now backfired, as they refuse to work with you until you break said alliance, forcing you to choose which of your two goals is more important to you.

Anti-American sentiment is strong among the Armed Forces and Trade Unions of Mexico, and both have been appeased by declaring an embargo on American trade, though of course the Americans aren’t likely to be too pleased with this action…

Lobbies, of course, do not only affect Interest Group approval but have direct diplomatic benefits or drawbacks depending, once again, on whether the actions you take align with their goals. How large these effects are depends on the combined Clout of the Interest Groups that are part of the Lobby.

For example, having a Pro-Country Lobby will make it easier to conduct diplomacy with that country, both by increasing their AI acceptance for proposals and by lowering the Influence cost of any friendly pacts you maintain with them, but increasing the cost of hostile actions (such as Embargos) and lowering the Influence you gain from rivaling them. As you might expect, Anti-Country Lobbies have the opposite effect, making friendly diplomacy harder and hostile actions cheaper. Anti and Pro-Overlord Lobbies also significantly influence Liberty Desire, as mentioned in the previous dev diary.

Lobbies also have a secondary effect on AI behavior, as an AI country with a Pro-Country lobby will be more likely to adopt a friendly attitude towards the target of said lobby, with the opposite effects for an Anti-Country Lobby, with the Clout of said lobbies once again determining how likely the AI is to fall in line with them. All of these effects, as well as the actual creation of Lobbies themselves, will be available to everyone as part of the free 1.7 update.

Although Russia’s government currently has a positive attitude towards Austria and wishes to pursue closer relations, the powerful Anti-Austrian Lobby in Russia makes it more difficult for them to agree to any proposed new Diplomatic Pacts

For those with the Sphere of Influence expansion, Lobbies can also make their will known through an opportunity or a demand. Opportunities generally come in the form of some diplomatic groundwork done by the Lobby that may allow their parent country to sign a diplomatic pact that is otherwise difficult to get, or even out of reach entirely. For Pro-Country Lobbies this usually involves dealing with the target country directly, while Anti-Country Lobbies will instead work to create opportunities to cooperate with the target’s enemies and rivals. Opportunities can be declined without any penalty, and will only result in a loss of Appeasement if accepted but not followed through on. Accepting and following through on the Opportunity will of course increase their Appeasement.

Even though Great Britain is Cautious about France and thus not willing to sign a Trade Agreement under normal circumstances, the acceptance bonus granted by the opportunity created by the Pro-British Lobby should be enough to secure the deal

Demands, conversely, is when a Lobby believes that the government isn’t doing enough to pursue their agenda and well, demands action. A demand generally comes in the form of a specific action that the Lobby wishes to see taken either against the target country, or against a country relevant to them (for example, a rival or ally). A demand can be declined, but doing so will significantly decrease the Appeasement of the Lobby (though not as much as accepting the demand and then failing to follow through on it).

Feeling that the French government isn’t doing enough to foster closer ties with Britain, the pro-British Lobby demands a grand gesture of enmity with Britain’s Russian enemy

Also available for those with the Sphere of Influence expansion is the new Fund Lobbies diplomatic action. This action works in a fairly similar way to Bankroll, in that it transfers money from the treasury of the initiating country, but instead of the money going to the target country’s treasury it is paid out among the target country’s Pops instead, with who gets what share of the money dependent on the target’s political setup and how much power sharing is going on - when trying to Fund Lobbies in an Autocratic country, nobody is going to bother spreading money around to poor laborers who have no say in politics whatsoever.

The precise effects of Fund Lobbies depends on whether a Pro-Country/Pro-Overlord lobby targeting the initiator already exists in the target country. If one does not exist, the money goes towards promoting the creation of such a lobby, with a weekly chance for this to happen. If such a lobby already exists, or once one is created, the pact switches to supporting that Lobby by increasing the Pop Attraction of Interest Groups that belong to the boosted lobby, which over time will increase the combined Clout of the Lobby’s Interest Groups, which in turn translates into greater mechanical effects and impact on AI decision-making.

Seeking to tighten its grip over their junior Personal Union partner, Sweden begins to spread some money around among the politically influential Norwegian Pops

Finally, I want to wrap up this dev diary by talking a little bit about the moddability and extensibility of the Lobbies system. Besides the Pro and Anti Country Lobbies mentioned above, the system also comes with built-in support for ‘neutral’ Foreign lobbies that have a goal relating to another country which is neither directly friendly nor antagonistic, and even for Domestic lobbies that pursue an entirely internal agenda in the country they are created in. The entire system of forming, appeasing and applying mechanical effects from lobbies is completely moddable, and we definitely intend to use this system to create new and interesting types of lobbies in future updates!

That’s all for today! Since this one ended up pretty long, and we actually have a bunch of semi-related things to go over as well, we’ve decided to change the Dev Diary schedule so that next week’s dev diary will be about Diplomatic Catalysts and the Diplomatic AI. We also still want to talk more about Power Blocs, and will find a way to fit that in before release. See you then!

Happy Thursday, it's time for more Sphere of Influence / Update 1.7 news!

One of the many benefits of being a Victorian-era Great Power is that you might get to lord over not just your own people, but other nations as well. Whether acquired through brutal conquest, colonial machinations, or willing subserviency, countries subjugated under your leadership can benefit your empire in a number of ways:

• they expand your market
  
• they provide you with a share of their Prestige
  
• they may compensate you with taxes in exchange for your protection
  
• they may join your wars
  
• etc.
  

This doesn't mean subjects will always just lie back and accept you exploiting them. Overlords that see their subjects as nothing but buffer zones and cash cows could in time come to learn that patience can run thin, leading to calls for independence. And in this era of nationalism, your subject declaring their autonomy could prove the perfect pretense for your worst rival to upset the balance of power.

We're introducing a number of enhancements to gameplay around managing your subjects, or indeed managing your own status as a subjugated nation if that's more your speed. These enhancements are meant to improve interactivity and AI responsiveness, while also introducing a number of quality-of-life features and highly requested additional mechanics. Some features below are available in the Sphere of Influence expansion, while others will come to everyone as part of Update 1.7.

[h2]Liberty Desire[/h2]
The first and most obvious feature you will encounter relating to your subjects in Update 1.7 is Liberty Desire, a measure of how pressing the issue of autonomy and independence is to the people (particularly the ruling class) in the subjugated nation. At high levels, an AI subject could become rebellious and might make some terribly rude demands of their overlord; at low levels, they will be complacent and cooperative, enabling their overlord to relax and maybe squeeze them a bit more, as they please.

For AI countries, Liberty Desire will strongly influence their strategy with respect to their overlord. Four additional AI strategies have been added:

• Break Free: the AI attempts to become independent from their overlord
  
• Increased Self-Reliance: the AI attempts to increase their autonomy and become less dependent on their overlord, but will not seek outright independence
  
• Maintain Autonomy: the AI wants to maintain their autonomy and relationship with their overlord just as it is
  
• Integrate with Suzerain: the AI wants closer integration with their overlord and will loyally comply with their wishes
  

But Liberty Desire is not just for the AI, it also informs what human players can do, and the level of Liberty Desire can have a direct effect on the country and its pops as well. The current level of Liberty Desire is visualized much like Legitimacy, as a tiered meter with different effects at different levels. Unlike Legitimacy it is never static - Liberty Desire is always either increasing or decreasing, the question is at what speed and what you (as overlord or subject) will do about it.

The British East India Company, with its largely self-sufficient economy and powerful standing army, could become a problematic subject for Great Britain unless relations and lobbies are kept in check, and concessions may have to be granted to keep them loyal to the crown.

A multitude of factors play into Liberty Desire, providing you with a lot of different strategies for how to keep it under control (or perhaps increase it, if you're the subject).

• Relations: obviously, high relations will lower Liberty Desire and vice versa
  
• Relative Prestige: the greater the difference in Prestige between overlord and subject the lower the Liberty Desire. The less autonomous your subject is, the greater the Prestige difference you need to maintain to depress Liberty Desire.
  
• Economic Dependence and Lobbies: explained in greater detail below
  
• Market Isolation or supply problems: if you cannot provide your subject with effective access to your market, they will be more inclined to demand sovereignty
  
• Change Rate scaling: the higher or lower Liberty Desire gets, the slower its rate of progression, giving you more opportunities to manipulate it with Diplomatic Actions (which we'll discuss soon)
  

[h2]Economic Dependence[/h2]
Another metric introduced in Update 1.7 is Economic Dependence, which measures exactly what it sounds like: how dependent country A is on country B's economy. Economic Dependence doesn't do anything directly, but feeds into other metrics such as Liberty Desire and the Cohesion of Trade League-type Power Blocs.

A major aspect of Economic Dependence is how much of the nation's economy is owned by the other country through foreign investments, either directly or through pop investors. If you want to make your subjects dependent on you, make sure you provide all of their good jobs.



If you do not share a market with the other country, the secondary aspect of economic dependence consists of the value of trade between your two nations. But in most cases where Economic Dependence matters, you do share a market, which introduces another few factors.

First off, the difference in GDP between the countries in the market has an impact.

But much more interestingly, how much your economy provides for the other nation's pops - and how much they are able to provide for themselves - is a crucial factor. As a market leader, you're considered to be providing anything the market member does not provide for themselves, in this case luxuries like Opium, Fruit, Luxury Clothes, and Tobacco.

The more you're able to provide for yourself, the more you can offset this factor. In this case, Columbia produces most of the Grain they consume, which is their dominant demand. As a result they more than offset the luxuries provided by membership in the British market.

As a result, from the viewpoint of Great Britain, if I want to increase Columbia's economic dependence on me I should consider producing an excess of the goods they aren't able to fully provide for themselves, such as Liquor. Thinking longer-term, I could also try to take measures to make their domestic staple industries unviable, making me the dominant supplier of (for example) Grain or Clothes or Furniture throughout the empire, while my colonial subjects' economies consists of producing cash crops for the benefit of my own people or industries.

Note that this part of the calculation is currently WIP and may be altered for legibility and consistency before release, but the principles will stay the same.



[h2]Lobbies[/h2]
In the Sphere of Influence overview we mentioned Lobbies, which are also crucial to keeping Liberty Desire under control across your empire. We will go deeper into Lobbies next week, but for now I can mention that subject nations will almost always have two Lobbies relating to their overlord: one of them a proponent of closer ties with the overlord, while the other is opposed to the overlord and devoted to independence. The relative power of these Lobbies depends on which Interest Groups support them, how powerful those Interest Groups are, and whether or not they are currently in government, which directly feeds into Liberty Desire as well.

As an overlord, with the Sphere of Influence expansion you will have some indirect influence over this by sponsoring the creation and maintenance of lobbies in other countries, which we will learn more about next week. As a subject, you have more direct control: if an Interest Group supports ties with your overlord, you can try to suppress them, remove them from power, even incite them to revolution and defeat them to keep your Liberty Desire high (though beware this could rouse your overlord into supporting their side!).

[h2]Subject Actions[/h2]
So as a subject, why would you want your Liberty Desire to be high? You actually probably don't want to keep it high, since it can mean less stability in your country (as reflected by greater risk of Radical generation, as people demand their freedom). But when your Liberty Desire has reached a high enough level, you can make demands of your overlord which are hard for them to ignore.

Increase Autonomy: previously available only as a Diplomatic Demand, you can now more gently request an increase to your autonomy when your Liberty Desire is high enough. Should the overlord decline this request the subject can demand full independence, so the stakes are quite high. If the request is granted, Liberty Desire will drop to much more manageable levels.

Demand State: if your overlord controls a state that is both adjacent or a homeland to you, directly or through another subject, you can demand they give you that state under certain conditions.

Request Payment Relief: you can request that your overlord reduce your payment burden. (Sphere of Influence only)

Request Support for Regime: a pact where the overlord provides overt support for your rule, granting you Legitimacy. This is reversible, so the overlord can grant this pact on their own if they wish. (Sphere of Influence only)

Request Knowledge Sharing: a pact where the overlord provides the subject with a tech spread boost, letting them catch up to the state-of-the-art quicker than usual. This is also reversible, letting the overlord display their benevolence unprompted. (Sphere of Influence only)

For example, you might wish to demand an increased level of autonomy, or relief from excessive payments.

Once one of these demands have been accepted your Liberty Desire will decrease, reflecting the diplomatic impact of the concession your overlord agreed to.

[h2]Overlord Actions[/h2]
Most of the new options are available for overlords towards their subjects, but follow the same principle - if Liberty Desire is low enough you can demand more from your subject, although this is likely to increase Liberty Desire and maybe even cause it to increase over time. Similarly, you can grant special privileges to depress Liberty Desire.



The following actions will be coming in Update 1.7 / Sphere of Influence:

Increase and Decrease Autonomy: when Liberty Desire is particularly low, the overlord can force a decrease to their subject's autonomy without making a Diplomatic Demand for it. Full annexation is possible only for Puppets / Vassals, and still requires a Diplomatic Demand.

Grant and Take State: a much requested feature, as an overlord you can now benevolently decide to grant territory to your subject. The state you select must belong either to you or another one of your subjects, and must either be adjacent to the subject or a homeland of one of their primary cultures (and in that case, it cannot also be a homeland for another subject that is adjacent, and therefore a better fit). Granting a state will of course reduce Liberty Desire, often by a substantial amount, especially if it's a homeland. Transferring a state from another subject will of course increase the Liberty Desire of the subject you transferred it from. In the case of Puppet or Vassal subjects, you can even transfer their states to yourself if Liberty Desire is sufficiently low (not their capital though).

Exempt from Service: for subjects that are forced to join the overlord's Diplomatic Plays, this pact lets overlords exempt the subject so they stay out of the conflict.

Grant Own Market: cuts the subject off from your shared market and makes them run their own. This could be useful in cases where you want your subjects to be a trading partner rather than fully integrated with your economy, limit migration, or reserve your convoys.

Reduce or Raise Subject Payments: for Subject Types that must pay a tax to their overlord, these "add-on pacts" allow you to either decrease or increase the amount paid in exchange for a change in Liberty Desire progress. (Sphere of Influence only)

Appoint Colonial Governor: lets the overlord select a new Head of State for the subject. The options the overlord has available depends on their laws vis a vis who the subject is - under some laws you could permit a local governor to take charge, while under others only hopefuls from the empire's capital are permitted. (Sphere of Influence only)

Evangelize: spreads the overlord's state religion in the subject, increasing conversion rates. (Sphere of Influence only)

A nifty cheat sheet to remind you of the effects of different subject types and compare between them has been added to the Subjects tab UI, where you also have easy access to the Liberty Desire values of your subjects, sort functions, and a list of the Overlord actions you can issue for each subject. If the symbols aren't self-explanatory to you, they're of course tooltippable!

[h2]Support Independence[/h2]
Support Independence is a new Diplomatic Pact, which a country can establish to commit to support another country's subject if they declare independence from their overlord. Once the Diplomatic Play has been declared, any supporters will automatically join on the subject's side. As a side effect this pact also increases Liberty Desire progression in the subject, so over time supporting a subject's independence may lead to greater autonomy if not full independence.

Supporting the sovereignty of your subject's rivals is a common strategy among aspiring imperialists, and subjects looking to become independent can also cozy up to other nations and ask for their support, hypothetically speaking of course.



[h2]Improved Imposition of Laws[/h2]
We introduced the ability to impose laws on your subjects in Update 1.5, but at that time the implementation was so rudimentary it was almost like an easter egg for the few who discovered it. In Update 1.7, you can now impose laws on your subjects directly from the Subjects tab.

When you start imposing a law, the other country will get an event where they can respond to the demand. They can choose to outright refuse, which they might do if their Liberty Desire is high or their chance of passing the law is very low.

You will now also be told what their chances of passing the law is before you commit to it.

They can also choose to start enacting it right away, giving them a +10% enactment chance for the duration, or deferring it until later. If they are already passing a law at the time you send the demand, they can choose to cancel their current law at no penalty in favor of your request, or wait until the time is right. While they're committed to enacting the law, they cannot cancel it until it's complete. They can however abandon the attempt, and may do so if they've made no progress after several years, but this will hurt relations with you.

As a player, your AI overlord may make these demands of you as well, and you have the same options to deal with them.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
These new interactions with your subjects (or your overlord), informed by the Liberty Desire metric, Economic Dependence system, and Lobbies, is meant to add more difficulty, depth, and interactivity to your imperialist projects - or as a subject, give you the ability to plan for your eventual independence. While most of these mechanics are available in Update 1.7, several of the new interactions are a component of the Sphere of Influence expansion. Some of the mechanics, such as imposition of laws and diplomatic actions limited to countries you have special relationships with, also integrate with the Power Bloc mechanics in Sphere of Influence to give you a more unified way of interacting with countries in your sphere, whether they're subjugated to you directly or merely in the same Bloc as you.

These features also add exciting new potentials for more targeted interactions with specific countries without cluttering up the lens interface where more generic actions are shown, permitting for more custom interactions between countries to be added in the future. Modders should also be able to make good use of the new options we've added to Diplomatic Actions, such as modifier support.

As mentioned earlier, next week Wiz will be back to go into more detail on Lobbies, and what they provide for the upcoming Sphere of Influence expansion. Until then!

Overview for all upcoming Dev Diaries: