Christophe.Barot wrote:be sure we've been- staff and playtesters - working on it for some time - it's one of the main focus of the era and my personal main interest
there's of course a balance to find between the desirable and the possible, but be sure that, whenever the cursor will end, you sure won't be disappointed
- I guess Philthib, Pocus and many others will agree with me
still a bit patience
Any chance you could share some of what you've been cooking up? I've long thought that the traditional model for this type of game for relations (+200 to -200) is a really irrelevant method of diplomacy. It's shunted around by the injection of cash rather than based on any political considerations. In the real world alliegences are formed and relations conducted on the basis of alignment - it's all a question of who you want to be aligning with. E.g. in 1914 Austria was aligned strongly with Germany. Through most of the 19th century the Ottomans aligned with the British and French (or vice-versa, it was to combat Russia anyway).
There could be a division of nation types, for example you could have as in Victoria satellites and dominions, but also you could set status for varying degrees of influence or alignment for those countries that aren't considered Great Powers. So for example, in the late 19th century a policy of alignment by a weakening Austria (i.e. an Austria that is no longer a 'Great Power') towards Germany will see Austria move gradually under the sway of the Germans - determined by dependency, and the sway under which the lesser partner falls. There could be several statuses to pass through depending on the situation. It would be a much more elegant and nuanced system than the simple 'vassal', 'alliance', 'peace' and 'war' relationship system with a pointless number attached.
For the statuses, I was thinking perhaps something along these lines;
Neutral - the country tries to pursue a policy of non-alignment, e.g. Switzerland, Sweden.
Pro-X - the country is supportive of country X (where X is the country with closest alignment, could potentially be pro-several countries), examples abound.
Aligned with X - the country is actively aligned with country X, but is not dependent upon them.
Satellite - the country is 'independent' in theory, but in practice relies on another state to maintain its sovereignty. This can be an economic dependence or a military one. Weak Austria regarding Germany is an example, or for a modern example the Warsaw Pact nations relationship with the USSR (one could make a similar case to varying degrees for NATO countries and the USA)
Puppet of X - the country is ruled through a puppet or a governor or some-such, it's basically part of X but with some self-government, e.g. the British in Egypt or India.
Dominion of X - basically a puppet but without the connotations of being a de facto defeated state - more for those areas of an empire of a similar ethnicity/culture etc. that have been granted self-government e.g. Canada.
Just ideas anyway, thought they could be chucked on the mixer - I'd be interested in feedback just for the sake of them being game ideas for the period...