Ever Play a Powerful nation and you happen to lose 2-3 relations at the same time? Suddenly you get a massive influx of puny nations offering you RM and Alliance. This is the inverse of the same principle. Strong nations such as FR only become increasingly more likely to flip friendly as they gain more relations with fewer strong options.
After playing this game for a long time i really like playing the weaker starts. Like right now i am working on Otomi World Conquest. I dont think ive ever seen anyone ever play Otomi, but it has a very interesting start. You can conquer an animist gold mine, flip to animist, and become the only tag in the new world without a primitive modifier. If you take a drylands province before you do this, then you can easily spawn feudalism and begin taking tech normally. Then you colonize the carribean and spawn a pirate republic. Now you are a former colonial nation and in theory spawn former colonial tags like mexico or texas. And to do this as animist just seems really cool to me.
Musco-dad IS A LIE!!! i still remember my last attempt of going Moldova into Romania, i managed to save Byzantium, eaten Wallachia, Allied Muscovy, got into Bulgaria...Ottomans recovered somehow, attacked me and Muscovy refused the defensive call to arms. i got beaten baaadly.
All the Domination great powers run into painful disasters pretty regularly. Muscovy was probably like 5,000 ducats in debt with -20,000 manpower because fighting the hordes can suck.
@@LibertyMonk yes. they were indeed in debt. mostly cuz of me from the war i took bulgaria xD what surprised me most was that ottomans bounced back so hard. Like, as soon as the truce was over they "saw" Muscovy wont join and declared on me with swift vengeance. It was also in the later patches, 1.28 or 29...
I think the "Italian bias" you describe is based around historical dynamics. Most of Italy was carved up between France, Spain, Austria and later Britain for most of this time period via personal unions or alliances. Italy in-game is somewhat scripted to be fought over by the major emerging nation states as it was historically. Also, the Franco-Ottoman strategic alliance lasted centuries. A lot of these mechanics are not only in the game for game balance reasons but also have a basis in history.
Do you have any proof of this "Italian bias" within the code? The idea that the Italian culture group is predisposed to getting strong alliances purely for being Italian culture group is not represented in any of the relevant files I can think of as an EU4 modder. Perhaps it's hidden somewhere I didn't think to look, but this could easily be a case of confirmation bias. That for other reasons the Italians tend to have strong allies, which you have associated with their culture group.
The term Italian bias did not originate with me. But other users who have ever more experience. The term "hand-me-down" Diplomacy is not in the code either haha. I am trying to explain as to the guidelines that I follow in my head. When so often people ask how my diplomacy game is "so good". And yes I could have a bias and these things could be attributed to other things.
Here are my thoughts about it. The only bias is for same culture group, and theres really only two culture groups where theres a lot of nations so this can be seen: german and italian. German is big enough so the nations can predominantly ally other germans, but italian is small enough so that most italian nations are rivalled or aggressive to enough other italians, you dont see as many alliances comparatively. Therefore you see a lot of italians allying outside of italy, where i see them ally a decent amount of majors and minors. The other group i can think of is irish, but i think theyre too weak and far away for most nations to consider, but you still do see french/northern germans ally irish minors a lot
@@skanderbeg152 It makes sense when wondering why AI Italians are more likely to pull other Europeans as the game goes on. What I would suggest that does not make sense with this explanation. An Irish minor for example cannot simply pull France. And Italian on the other-hand even one as weak and distant as Athens? Well try it out. Haha
@@BudgetMonk I agree with what you said, for some reason italians are given a bias, and the easiest way to describe it is an explicit italian bias. I was just trying to theorize why this may be. Another consideration is maybe france wont ally irish over italians because theyre overseas, i dont know. Just throwing ideas out there. Edit: nevermind, britain/ireland is not overseas for france. Perhaps having no land connection does still have an effect though
The italian bias might come from the argument of manpower/money as well concerning the italians. Primarily money. What Italian nation that you know of chronically has money problems? Exactly. Irish and German minors can potentially have dreadful finances. So you have wealthy italians with a predisposition towards being strong technologically (Renaissance, being not too far from colonialism if the Iberians get it, not being far from printing press probably). THEN, here comes France/Aragon looking for a friend and what do you know? There's a 3-4 province wealthy and usually very tall Italian nation to be buddies with. So there is some evidence of why Italian powers seem to pull diplomacy. @@skanderbeg152
Regarding the “Italian bias”, I think it’s a holdover from the earlier form of the Shadow Empire where the Italians were intended ally one another after leaving the HRE. Also, Florence and Papal States generate tons of prestige compared to the world average, but I doubt this influences Athens
I remember doing the "get 50 universities as Athens" achivement by checking out a video from the monk too. Like just get the ottoman to support your indepence and then use them as an ally. Just don't get too greedy by taking constantinople
The most fool proof strategy in this game is to acquire great power allies. It's not military or economic advantage but diplomatic advantage. Sure, you can exploit in-game knowledge to field a slightly stronger force at the start of the game, but nothing has a larger effect on the AI's ability to hinder you than one or two GP allies.
The Italian bias for sure is made up. If it existed, it would be somewhere in the code, and you can easily see there's no such thing. The rest of the things this video claims is also without any evidence. Is there any evidence of the same culture group effect? This one at least sounds plausible, but I've never seen it anywhere in the code. France, Ottomans, and Muscovy are definitely possible to ally as a small country, but so is every other GP like Austria, Poland, or Castile. Nearby GPs tend to rival each others, and they have plenty of relations slot, so their potential allies tend to be mid-sized countries.
in the code you can easily see... in the scripting, yea; but it could easily be in the opaque binary code, where the actual AI and such behavior are implemented.
I think the only Italian with a real friendship / allyship bias from powerful outside culture having nations mechanically speaking is the Pope. The others are probably coincidental or favored somewhat by the likes of Austria or Burgundy because of their (early game) HRE membership and then Catholic religion during the reformation or threatened status because of the French respectively.
Is there some way you can test this, say by doing runs with OPMs like Athens and testing how it goes being Italian vs another culture? (Athens would be good because you can flip culture immediately.) Because without either testing or evidence from script this seems highly conjectural
Every province has a culture. And every "tag" has a culture. Most often the culture of the tag is the same as the land that they reside in. but not always. Athens are a Lombardy nation despite owning a Greek province.
Good information for the public, but you don´t mention the fact that this information is at most optimal on easy-normal difficulty. The diplo-knowledge and modifiers has a lesser effect when you play on hard and specially very hard difficulty. Thats simple because of the greater military presence from the ai nations and the flatt negative relation modifier for very hard difficulty, and so on. The greatest help you have for geting the alliance you desire on very hard difficulty is if the nation flip friendly. But no matter the latter, thanks for the video!🙂
Hard to explain what I mean in a short comment, sorry for that. But my point is that no where in the code is it saying that these biases exist. What dose exist is a mechanic called reasons. And my point is that reasons is harder to get on very hard difficulty but easy to get on easy-normal difficult. Same thing applies to nations to flip friendly because you need high relations, and thats harder to come up to on very hard. What this concludes to when you are playing the game on very hard is that you will have a harder time geting the biggest nations to ally you/support independents in the early game if you start as a opm or a low dev nation. I hope you can understad my point know😀 @@skanderbeg152
Ever Play a Powerful nation and you happen to lose 2-3 relations at the same time? Suddenly you get a massive influx of puny nations offering you RM and Alliance. This is the inverse of the same principle. Strong nations such as FR only become increasingly more likely to flip friendly as they gain more relations with fewer strong options.
After playing this game for a long time i really like playing the weaker starts. Like right now i am working on Otomi World Conquest. I dont think ive ever seen anyone ever play Otomi, but it has a very interesting start. You can conquer an animist gold mine, flip to animist, and become the only tag in the new world without a primitive modifier. If you take a drylands province before you do this, then you can easily spawn feudalism and begin taking tech normally. Then you colonize the carribean and spawn a pirate republic. Now you are a former colonial nation and in theory spawn former colonial tags like mexico or texas. And to do this as animist just seems really cool to me.
Ulm
Musco-dad IS A LIE!!! i still remember my last attempt of going Moldova into Romania, i managed to save Byzantium, eaten Wallachia, Allied Muscovy, got into Bulgaria...Ottomans recovered somehow, attacked me and Muscovy refused the defensive call to arms. i got beaten baaadly.
All the Domination great powers run into painful disasters pretty regularly. Muscovy was probably like 5,000 ducats in debt with -20,000 manpower because fighting the hordes can suck.
@@LibertyMonk yes. they were indeed in debt. mostly cuz of me from the war i took bulgaria xD
what surprised me most was that ottomans bounced back so hard. Like, as soon as the truce was over they "saw" Muscovy wont join and declared on me with swift vengeance.
It was also in the later patches, 1.28 or 29...
I think the "Italian bias" you describe is based around historical dynamics. Most of Italy was carved up between France, Spain, Austria and later Britain for most of this time period via personal unions or alliances. Italy in-game is somewhat scripted to be fought over by the major emerging nation states as it was historically.
Also, the Franco-Ottoman strategic alliance lasted centuries. A lot of these mechanics are not only in the game for game balance reasons but also have a basis in history.
Brilliant video Monk, really helpful to learn some of these hidden/less-known mechanics. Thank you!
top tier content as always from BudgetMonk
Do you have any proof of this "Italian bias" within the code? The idea that the Italian culture group is predisposed to getting strong alliances purely for being Italian culture group is not represented in any of the relevant files I can think of as an EU4 modder. Perhaps it's hidden somewhere I didn't think to look, but this could easily be a case of confirmation bias. That for other reasons the Italians tend to have strong allies, which you have associated with their culture group.
The term Italian bias did not originate with me. But other users who have ever more experience. The term "hand-me-down" Diplomacy is not in the code either haha. I am trying to explain as to the guidelines that I follow in my head. When so often people ask how my diplomacy game is "so good". And yes I could have a bias and these things could be attributed to other things.
Here are my thoughts about it. The only bias is for same culture group, and theres really only two culture groups where theres a lot of nations so this can be seen: german and italian.
German is big enough so the nations can predominantly ally other germans, but italian is small enough so that most italian nations are rivalled or aggressive to enough other italians, you dont see as many alliances comparatively. Therefore you see a lot of italians allying outside of italy, where i see them ally a decent amount of majors and minors.
The other group i can think of is irish, but i think theyre too weak and far away for most nations to consider, but you still do see french/northern germans ally irish minors a lot
@@skanderbeg152 It makes sense when wondering why AI Italians are more likely to pull other Europeans as the game goes on. What I would suggest that does not make sense with this explanation. An Irish minor for example cannot simply pull France. And Italian on the other-hand even one as weak and distant as Athens? Well try it out. Haha
@@BudgetMonk I agree with what you said, for some reason italians are given a bias, and the easiest way to describe it is an explicit italian bias. I was just trying to theorize why this may be. Another consideration is maybe france wont ally irish over italians because theyre overseas, i dont know. Just throwing ideas out there.
Edit: nevermind, britain/ireland is not overseas for france. Perhaps having no land connection does still have an effect though
The italian bias might come from the argument of manpower/money as well concerning the italians. Primarily money. What Italian nation that you know of chronically has money problems? Exactly. Irish and German minors can potentially have dreadful finances. So you have wealthy italians with a predisposition towards being strong technologically (Renaissance, being not too far from colonialism if the Iberians get it, not being far from printing press probably). THEN, here comes France/Aragon looking for a friend and what do you know? There's a 3-4 province wealthy and usually very tall Italian nation to be buddies with. So there is some evidence of why Italian powers seem to pull diplomacy. @@skanderbeg152
Regarding the “Italian bias”, I think it’s a holdover from the earlier form of the Shadow Empire where the Italians were intended ally one another after leaving the HRE. Also, Florence and Papal States generate tons of prestige compared to the world average, but I doubt this influences Athens
Map staring expert 100.
I remember doing the "get 50 universities as Athens" achivement by checking out a video from the monk too. Like just get the ottoman to support your indepence and then use them as an ally. Just don't get too greedy by taking constantinople
The most fool proof strategy in this game is to acquire great power allies. It's not military or economic advantage but diplomatic advantage. Sure, you can exploit in-game knowledge to field a slightly stronger force at the start of the game, but nothing has a larger effect on the AI's ability to hinder you than one or two GP allies.
I get personal unions with PLC and Muscovy frequently.
every time I play trebizond muscovy breaks alliance when the ottomans declare
For some reason when i play Albania I manage in almost games to ally Austria France Bohemia Poland and Castille/Aragon and even England once
Your guides/explanations are handy 😁
The Italian bias for sure is made up. If it existed, it would be somewhere in the code, and you can easily see there's no such thing.
The rest of the things this video claims is also without any evidence. Is there any evidence of the same culture group effect? This one at least sounds plausible, but I've never seen it anywhere in the code.
France, Ottomans, and Muscovy are definitely possible to ally as a small country, but so is every other GP like Austria, Poland, or Castile. Nearby GPs tend to rival each others, and they have plenty of relations slot, so their potential allies tend to be mid-sized countries.
in the code you can easily see... in the scripting, yea; but it could easily be in the opaque binary code, where the actual AI and such behavior are implemented.
I think the only Italian with a real friendship / allyship bias from powerful outside culture having nations mechanically speaking is the Pope. The others are probably coincidental or favored somewhat by the likes of Austria or Burgundy because of their (early game) HRE membership and then Catholic religion during the reformation or threatened status because of the French respectively.
Is there some way you can test this, say by doing runs with OPMs like Athens and testing how it goes being Italian vs another culture? (Athens would be good because you can flip culture immediately.) Because without either testing or evidence from script this seems highly conjectural
tldr : Cultural bias exist in EU4 but it's a quite hidden mechanic
I think it is generally too easy to ally the big nations. Makes every game a cake walk.
VH gives -20 reasons. So pretty big difference based on difficulty.
hm interesting.
once , playing PLC, i created unholy alliance , muscowy and ottomans allied against me (they declared , and won the war...)
Explain how Athens is Italian and Livionian Order is German?
Every province has a culture. And every "tag" has a culture. Most often the culture of the tag is the same as the land that they reside in. but not always. Athens are a Lombardy nation despite owning a Greek province.
10:24
Good information for the public, but you don´t mention the fact that this information is at most optimal on easy-normal difficulty. The diplo-knowledge and modifiers has a lesser effect when you play on hard and specially very hard difficulty. Thats simple because of the greater military presence from the ai nations and the flatt negative relation modifier for very hard difficulty, and so on. The greatest help you have for geting the alliance you desire on very hard difficulty is if the nation flip friendly. But no matter the latter, thanks for the video!🙂
Bro the entire point of the video was explaining that nations will flip friendly more often based these biases, i dont get what your point is.
I mean, he was showing the successful diplomacy in very hard difficulty so I don't quite get your point here.
Hard to explain what I mean in a short comment, sorry for that. But my point is that no where in the code is it saying that these biases exist. What dose exist is a mechanic called reasons. And my point is that reasons is harder to get on very hard difficulty but easy to get on easy-normal difficult. Same thing applies to nations to flip friendly because you need high relations, and thats harder to come up to on very hard. What this concludes to when you are playing the game on very hard is that you will have a harder time geting the biggest nations to ally you/support independents in the early game if you start as a opm or a low dev nation. I hope you can understad my point know😀 @@skanderbeg152
Yes I am aware, but these topics are not mentioned in the video.@@Turamwdd 😀
@@niclasavasjo788Did you watch the video?