Hello and welcome to the 8th development diary of Grey Eminence!
Today, we’ll take a look at diplomacy, the system through which countries can secure (or doom) their future. Like in real life, diplomacy in Grey Eminence is the art of compromise: very rarely will the situation between two parties be so lopsided that unilateral decisions can be made. Diplomacy almost always happens through negotiations - or their failure, which can escalate to war.
The diplomacy system manifests itself in diplomatic relationships. These are binding contracts that exist between two countries - some with expiration dates, some without - that mandate certain actions or behaviors. There are four types of relationships in the game: subject, dynastic, military, and economic.
Subject
Subject relationships involve one country giving up some of its sovereignty to another in exchange for certain benefits (usually, but not always, protection). There are various types of subjects in the game, each with its own unique mechanics. Not all subject types are available at the start of the game: some more advanced ones, like protectorates or client states, are gated behind certain technologies (this applies to other types of relationships too).
The most common subject relationship in 1356 is vassalage. As we mentioned in the first dev diary, most countries at the start of the game aren’t monoliths, but are instead comprised of multiple layers of vassals. Functionally, each vassal is its own separate country with a vassalage relationship with its liege, which can be configured along multiple parameters. For example, while vassals are expected to pay dues to their liege by default, a particularly powerful vassal may carve out an exemption for their realm - or a liege may offer such an exemption to ensure the vassal’s loyalty.
Another type of subject that’s frequently seen at the start of the game is the tributary. Unlike vassals, tributaries are not (visually) rendered as part of their overlord’s country. They also don’t enjoy most of the protections inherent in the closer types of subjects, beyond the fact that their payment of tribute ensures safety from the overlord itself. Notably, tributary relationships are not mutually-exclusive, so a single country may find itself having to pay tribute to multiple overlords at the same time (as might naturally happen to a buffer state between large empires).
Dynastic
Dynastic relationships are reserved for countries with a dynastic source of legitimacy (and where the ruler is also the head of government). These relationships are unique in that they’re conditional on the maintenance of certain dynastic circumstances between the two countries.
The obvious example of a dynastic relationship is dynastic marriage. This relationship is established when a member of one country’s ruling dynasty marries into another country’s ruling dynasty. A certain degree of relation is required for such a marriage to result in a dynastic marriage: for example, marrying third cousins wouldn’t do the trick. Once established, a dynastic marriage lasts till death (or other circumstances) does the married couple part, though importantly the dynastic marriage relationship between two countries can be maintained by more than one marriage at a time.
Dynastic marriages are particularly important during the game’s first few centuries, when diplomacy between countries was an intensely personal affair. Having a dynastic marriage makes a country more likely to accept further diplomatic proposals; depending on its laws and technology, dynastic marriages might even be a requirement to form stronger diplomatic relationships! Thus, choosing who to marry your ruler’s children to becomes an important strategic decision (and a lack of such children may become a death knell for the unprepared).
Another dynastic relationship with unique mechanics is the personal union. Like dynastic marriages, personal unions are a circumstantial relationship: they occur whenever the same ruler reigns over two or more countries. This might happen diplomatically (more on that later), through war, or via carefully-planned inheritance. By default, the ruler’s original country is the senior partner and all other countries - even if they’re higher in rank! - become junior partners, though you, the player, may force your ruler to migrate to one of the junior partners, assuming residence there and transforming it into the senior partner.
You’ll notice that personal unions are not considered a subject relationship: that’s because they aren’t. Functionally, junior partners remain independent countries with an absentee ruler (which comes with a whole different set of problems, but that’s a story for another time). The ruler might still try to leverage the resources of their junior partners to further the ends of their original country, but that’s far from guaranteed. In general, the elites and population of junior partners will not appreciate being forced to fight and die for conflicts their homeland has nothing to do with.
Military
Military relationships revolve around commitments to participate or defend against armed conflicts. We won’t reveal too much here, since there are obviously a lot of unannounced features relating to war, but in general we’re departing from established grand strategy tradition by separating the general “alliance” concept into individual relationships.
The first military relationship we’ll look at is mutual defense. Under this arrangement, two countries agree to assist each other if either one is attacked. It’s important to note here that this doesn’t necessarily mean that a country will outright join the war on the side of its promised defender. As we mentioned before, not all wars in Grey Eminence are total wars. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: the vast majority of wars during the game are limited in scope. As a consequence, mutual defense treaties may result in a varying amount of support, depending in large part on the scope of the war itself and the strategic interests of the defenders.
A relationship similar to mutual defense is the guarantee. It too invokes protection against invaders, but only for one side. Crucially, it can be established (and offered as part of negotiations) with subject countries, which prevents both the overlord from attempting to annex them and other subjects from attempting to conquer them. Guarantees tie into the scope of war significantly (unlike mutual defense), but that’s a topic we’ll explore another time.
A different sort of military relationship is non-aggression. It’s not available immediately in 1356, but is unlocked through technology. It provides a way for countries to weasel out of any other obligations they may have committed to under the pretext of avoiding confrontation with a third party. Breaking relationships obviously comes with great diplomatic penalties (countries are less likely to trust you if you’ve got a reputation for dishonesty), yet non-aggression relationships lessen these penalties with third parties.
Economic
Finally, economic relationships exist to facilitate (or enforce) trade and economic transfers between countries. They offer the widest variety of potential uses: from supporting struggling allies (or enemies of enemies) to outright destroying hostile economies. Unlike most of the relationships we’ve described so far, economic relationships usually have a specific duration or time limit.
Coming off of the previous topic of war, the classic example of an economic relationship is war reparations. Upon the successful conclusion of a conflict, each victorious country can extract reparations from the defeated parties in proportion to the costs and damages it has suffered. In contrast to voluntary relationships (like mutual defense) or circumstantial ones (like dynastic marriage), war reparations cannot be dissolved at will. In general, only particularly dire situations - for example, a bankruptcy-induced coup - can clear away relationships that have been enforced through war.
The economic relationship with the most potential impact on the game is the embargo. It mandates the total cessation of trade between two countries, which - depending on how autarkic they are and how enforceable the embargo itself is - can have disastrous and far-reaching consequences. We’ve got a separate series of dev diaries dedicated to the economy and trade, but suffice to say, rerouting trade routes due to embargo can impact the global economy significantly, especially in the later stages of the game.
On the opposite side of embargo is the customs union, which encourages trade between countries by eliminating any tariffs that exist between them. As a side note, tariffs are not listed as an economic relationship because they are present by default in varying magnitude between all countries. While at first glance a customs union might seem like a relationship that’s always beneficial, that isn’t necessarily true in all cases. Removing tariffs on incoming goods may render some of your country’s industries uncompetitive, so it’s something to keep an eye out for when considering such relationships.
Taking the County of Flanders as an example, we can see that it starts the game off with several valuable diplomatic relationships. It has a dynastic marriage with Burgundy, by virtue of the betrothal between Margaret Dampierre and the Duke of Burgundy. The Count of Flanders also rules the County of Nevers in personal union and has secured mutual defense with the Kingdom of France.
Negotiations
Most diplomatic relationships are formed voluntarily through negotiations. This is a process where both countries can suggest concessions towards a common end (the establishment of a specific relationship). One side suggests a specific deal and the other can either accept, reject, or propose an amended version. For example, a small country might attempt to bribe its larger neighbor into a guarantee by offering to take on some of its loans or to provide assistance in other matters at some future date via favors. In the case of AI opponents, you’ll always know how they evaluate a particular offer beforehand, so you can shorten the process significantly.
It’s important to note that negotiations always happen between characters - even when it’s you, the player, negotiating for your side. Thus, character attitudes have an impact on the likelihood of acceptance for both sides and if you force your ruler into a deal they wouldn’t have accepted personally, you might find them undermining your efforts.
Moddability
While we’ve only scratched the surface of Grey Eminence’s diplomacy system and its depth, you’ve probably already realized how it’s structured internally. Relationships between countries can be modded on the content side - e.g. creating new relationships using the existing triggers/conditions we’ve built - and the system side, by writing in new triggers/conditions. The cool thing about diplomacy (and all our systems in general) is that they can be fed information from all other systems. So you can, if you were so inclined, make a relationship that’s conditional on the flow of a particular trade good (which you might use to simulate criminal cartels, for example) and then you can layer further mechanics onto the relationship itself. As always, we’re excited to see what creative ways you’ll discover to break the system or to hijack it for completely unrelated purposes.
Thank you for reading! Keep an eye out for the next dev diary on May 21, and until then make sure you’ve joined our Discord and Subreddit, and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and our website.