Role of minor Nations

Discussion on game mechanics, balancing etc.
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Trilarion
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Role of minor Nations

Post by Trilarion »

I feel that this topic needs its own thread. One of the uniquenesses of Imperialism is the haggle over minor nations.

Role of minor nations in the old Imperialism
  • Generator of infinite money due to absorbing any supply of advanced goods
  • Provider of raw materials due to offering raw materials even without any infrastructural action
  • Can peacefully join the empire if relations are good enough.
This means that minor nations are quite important. You need at least some colonies (assimiliated minor nations) or neutral minor nations, otherwise your money flow is dried up. If you conquer minor nations they will not provide money anymore. On the other hand they are fairly easy to conquer. A small army is enough usually. Only problem is to get the army there in case the minor nation is far away. Usually I first conquer all close minors, then befriend the rest. Also money is normally not a problem in the second half of the game because you just sell to your colonies all you have.

New role of minor nations
  • Provider of excess raw materials, because they do not have the capability of processing them themselves
  • Buyer of advanced goods
  • Peaceful assimilation into an empire
However with the introduction of home markets in the big nations and the introduction of a more or less realistic economic model the importance of minor nations would be greatly diminished.

We need to balance importance of minor nations and realistic incorporation into the economic and diplomatic model.

Possible remedies
  • Concentrate raw material ressources in minor countries
  • Make them more difficult to conquer directly
  • Make AIs aware that a third party war declaration on a minor is a serious offense, for example by giving minors the status of: protected by XXX
  • Having more minors in the world
  • Making war more expensive
  • Increase the diplomatic impacts of declaring war on a minor
  • Minor Nations could act synchronized in a way so that agressions towards one minor decreases relation to many minors
So, what do you think?
Xylander
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Re: Role of minor Nations

Post by Xylander »

1. I think that direct or indirect control over a majority of the world's minor nations should be required to win the game.
2. There should be a way to protect minors against agressions. Having a pact with a minor nation should allow stationing troops there.
3. Minors should have different sizes, some may have a lot more territory/resources/population than some major nations (at least in the beginning).

Even with internal markets and realistic economy for minors they'd be one of the game's major elements, if the rules above hold.
Maybe transferring control over a minor nation to another nation as part of a peace treaty should be possible. Even freeing a minor nation should be possible.
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Trilarion
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Re: Role of minor Nations

Post by Trilarion »

Direct control means having conquered another nation? Then sure, the most direct victory is holding a majority of the world's territory either direct or indirect, either major or minor powers. Making the territory of minor nations more valuable than that of major nations seems a bit artificial?

This leads us directly to the question what the differences between minor and major nations are? If they should be strict or somewhat fuzzy? And if we should enforce the separation by having different rules for minor and major nations or if it should come naturally from the situation?

I prefer to have no special rules and no strict separation. Minor nations would be just underdeveloped nations which are hopelessly behind in the global domination race and can at some point decide to resign and join another nation.

Stationing troops sounds like a very good idea. However then some limitations would have to apply, I guess, like no attacks on third nations of troops stationed in minor nations and reduced efficiency because of being stationed abroad. Basically a contract that only operations within this nations area are allowed.

Making minors larger is difficult in the basic scenario (it's only Europe) and also might require larger maps. It's kind of similar to having just more minor powers.
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Re: Role of minor Nations

Post by Xylander »

Trilarion wrote:Direct control means having conquered another nation?
Yes.
Trilarion wrote:Making the territory of minor nations more valuable than that of major nations seems a bit artificial?
Yes. This is not what I intend.
Trilarion wrote:This leads us directly to the question what the differences between minor and major nations are? If they should be strict or somewhat fuzzy? And if we should enforce the separation by having different rules for minor and major nations or if it should come naturally from the situation?

I prefer to have no special rules and no strict separation. Minor nations would be just underdeveloped nations which are hopelessly behind in the global domination race and can at some point decide to resign and join another nation.
I'd prefer a strict separation. Minor Nation AI just does not build factories, build up a trade navy or declare war. This is easy to implement and does the job. It's not completely logical but within our desired economic model there is nothing that could provide a 'natural' solution. In Imperialism there are countries like Sardinia that are very small and hardly more developed than the minors. But they are major powers by definition and so they could be in our game. I see no alternative in reach!
Trilarion wrote:Stationing troops sounds like a very good idea. However then some limitations would have to apply, I guess, like no attacks on third nations of troops stationed in minor nations and reduced efficiency because of being stationed abroad. Basically a contract that only operations within this nations area are allowed.
You mean to prevent attacking from neutral territory? We could demand that minor nations follow their 'protectors' into wars. If a nation, that is at war with nation X, protects nation Y, nation Y has to declare war on nation X, too (or end the pact). I would not reduce efficiency. Don't try to be too realistic :-)
Trilarion wrote:Making minors larger is difficult in the basic scenario (it's only Europe) and also might require larger maps. It's kind of similar to having just more minor powers.
I expect there will be custom maps or even random maps in the future. But you are right - it can't be applied to our standard map where 66% territory is held by major powers. Maybe we could reduce the number of major powers and make at least Sardinia and Ottoman Empire minor powers? Spain could be treated as a minor power, too - during 19th century this country was no major power anymore in our real world.
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Trilarion
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Re: Role of minor Nations

Post by Trilarion »

Strict separation is surely possible. However I estimate that there are some chances that it would also work without. Sardinia if it really would be as weak as a minor probably wouldn't have a chance but as far as I remember coal and iron as well as initial industry, military and initial capital give it an advantage.

I guess we should start with strict separation but lateron experiment with less strict separation. Just for fun we can have only major nations and see what happens. With the realistic economy and the home markets already a big difference has vanished.

Reducing the number of major powers means for me that complexity is reduced in the game. Competing among five nations (England, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia) seems much easier than among 7 or 8 major nations. Once you have conquered two you basically win with 5 majors. The optimal number of majors is also an interesting point to discuss.
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Re: Role of minor Nations

Post by Veneteaou »

Concentrate raw material resources in minor countries
I really disliked the new world luxuries mechanic in Imp2, because it forced the player get involved overseas if they wanted the resources to succeed. Imp1 had concentrated resources in minor nations, but they weren't so stacked that a player couldn't make a legitimate run without getting diplomatic or imperialistic.
Make them more difficult to conquer directly
I don't like this idea, because it's generally unrealistic.
Make AIs aware that a third party war declaration on a minor is a serious offense, for example by giving minors the status of: protected by XXX
I have always though that alliances should extend to minor nations as well. If they were fixed so that they mattered more (than they did in Imp1), major powers wouldn't ally with minor nations they didn't already have locked up diplomatically, and they wouldn't be declaring war on minor nations that had allies.
Having more minors in the world
This becomes a problem though because it would remove the competition for resources.
Making war more expensive
I'm a fan of this idea, although it needs to scale right so we aren't just pushing players into a two-stage, build--->fight generic 4x timeline.
Increase the diplomatic impacts of declaring war on a minor
Agreed.
Minor Nations could act synchronized in a way so that agressions towards one minor decreases relation to many minors
Imperialism tried to achieve this, but didn't do a good enough job. I'm thinking that we might consider implementing a global diplomatic score, or the average amount of diplomatic trust the rest of the world has in the player. Then, we use this number to affect diplomacy, trade partners, and even the council of governors.
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