Each country has an opinion of every other country that it knows of, expressed as a numerical value (which ranges from -200 to +200) and a descriptive attitude (which indicates an overall "mood" and general intentions). A country's Relations with another determine how likely it is to hurt or help the other country, such as by entering agreements with it or joining coalitions against it. Relations are shaped by diplomatic actions, the countries' relative power, their proximity, their recent wars, their religions, the casus belli that they have against each other, and events. As such, how country A views country B is sometimes very different from how country B views country A.
- 1 Attitude
- 2 Decay
- 3 Relation modifiers
- 4 Changing own opinion
The player can learn about another nation's view of their nation by hovering over the small symbol in the diplomacy screen next to the numerical representation of their view of the player's nation. Attitudes are affected by a number of factors, including opinion level, aggressive expansion, the distance between two countries and whether they border, and their relative military strengths. For example, a nation usually will not have the outraged attitude towards a nation it has a positive opinion of.
The attitude of a nation affects its willingness to accept diplomatic proposals, manifesting as modifiers that affect the decision of AI nations during diplomacy. For example, nations with the hostile attitude will almost never agree to an alliance even if mutual opinions are positive.
- Neutral: This is the default attitude for nations far away from the player's. If a nation views the player as neutral, war can happen under certain circumstances, however, a good relationship with these nations can often prevent this.
- Hostile: This nation wants to fight the player, either to conquer land or break free from them. Unlike rivalry or outraged, this attitude is more opportunistic, and the nation may switch to another attitude if the player no longer appears as an appealing target. Growing in military strength or improving mutual opinions may change this attitude.
- Rivalry: If a nation sees the player as their rival, they will want to destroy the player and will be very unlikely to change their opinion. In contrast to someone who is outraged or simply in a military alliance against the player, a rival will be the player's enemy for the foreseeable future. A nation will stop being a rival if it becomes either far weaker or far stronger than the player's nation.
- Outraged: If a nation is outraged by the player's behaviour, they will actively seek to destroy the player. These nations are an enemy and will be so as long as the reasons for the outrage are present. They will very likely join a coalition against the player. Then they will revert to their "normal" view of the player. This attitude is linked to a high aggressive expansion modifier towards the player's nation and will change if aggressive expansion decreases.
- Defensive: This nation views the player as an ally in a defensive alliance. They are less likely to join offensive wars, however, unless they strongly dislike the target (especially if they're rivals).
- Friendly: This nation views the player as a natural ally. They will not declare war on the player, and are unlikely to join their allies in a war against the player as long the diplomatic landscape doesn't change significantly, even if relations are bad. These nations will seek to ally with the player. Nations that regard the player as a historical friend are predisposed to hold the friendly attitude towards the player.
- Protective: This nation wants to guard the player's nation—by diplomatically vassalizing them. It will guarantee the player's nation and defend it from enemies, easily accepting alliances though possibly as a prelude to vassalization, but also usually refusing to partake in any offensive wars.
- Loyal: This subject nation views the player positively, has low liberty desire, and will cooperate in times of war and be little inclined to declare independence.
- Disloyal: This subject nation views the player negatively or with hostility, has high liberty desire, and will refuse to defend the player's land or pay taxes, and be more inclined to declare independence.
- Rebellious: This subject nation views the player as weak and unjust, and will be very likely to declare an independence war.
- Overlord: This country views the player as one of its subjects.
- Domineering: This nation feels like the player should be its subject nation, and will pursue any attempt to make it that way.
- Threatened: If a nation feels threatened by the player they will seek safety in an alliance either against or with the player. This happens when the player is becoming relatively stronger than them. Here it is better to ally with them, because even though they fear the player they will often be ready to fight with them in a defensive war. However, they are still the player's enemy and will break the alliance as soon as the power landscape changes.
- Unknown: The nation doesn't know the player's exists, or else the nation is human-controlled and thus unpredictable.
- Antagonize: The AI considers them a potential target for war
- Annex: The AI desires complete conquest of them
- Weaken: The AI want to weaken them by releasing countries, allying/guaranteeing their neighbours, etc
- Coalition: The AI want to form a coalition against them (Applies for rivalry attitude if the rival has at least 50 Aggressive Expansion against the target nation)
- Warn: The AI want to send warnings
- Vassalize: The AI want to vassalize them
- Ally: The AI actively desires an alliance with them
- Befriend: The AI want to raise relations with them
- Protect: The AI want to protect them
- Threat: The AI want to protect themselves against them
- Ignore: The AI want to actively ignore them
Manually setting attitude
|Available only with the The Cossacks DLC enabled.|
- Main article: Diplomatic feedback#Managing attitude
Player nations have a default attitude towards other nations based on what the attitude of an AI nation would be. Players may manually adjust their attitude, however, to one of Friendly, Neutral, Hostile or Threatened.
Improve relations modifier
|+50%||for having the native advancement ‘Trade Diplomacy’|
|+25%||with Icon of St. Nicholas as active icon (for Orthodox nations)|
|+20%||with Ganesha as personal deity (for Hindu nations)|
|+20%||with a diplomat as advisor|
|+15%||with "Establish communities" as trade policy, towards the countries collecting/steering in this trade node|
|+0.50%||for each point of prestige|
|−0.25%||for each point of overextension|
Ideas and policies:
Decisions, events and missions:
|−10%||Privateers||Decision: Enlist Privateers||until the end of the campaign.|
|−10%||Anti-Christian Edict||Decision: Anti-Christian Edict||until the country becomes Christian.|
|+10%||Competent Diplomacy||Event: Competent Diplomacy!||for 5 years.|
|−10%||Incompetent Diplomacy||Event: Incompetent Diplomacy!||for 5 years.|
|+5%||Western Wrecked Ship||Japanese culture event: Western Wrecked Ship
||until ruler changes.|
|−15%||Reckless Privateer||Privateer event: A Reckless Privateer
||for 10 years.|
|+15%||Curtailed Privateer||Privateer event: A Reckless Privateer
||for 10 years.|
|+20%||Sierra de la Plata||Seven Cities event: Sierra de la Plata - Mountain of Silver||until the end of the campaign.|
|+10%||Sistine Chapel decorated by Perugino||Papal event: Decorate the Sistine Chapel
||until the end of the campaign.|
|+30%||Bavarian Ambition||Bavarian mission: The Franconian Inheritance||for 10 years|
|Bavarian mission: Claiming the Wittelsbach lands||for 10 years|
|Bavarian mission: Uniting the Wittelsbach Domains||for 10 years|
|Bavarian mission: Drive the Hohenzollerns out||for 10 years|
The ‘Improve relations’ modifier only affect negative relationships. Positive relationships decay at a fixed rate.
This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25.
Aggressive expansion is a game mechanic modeling the negative diplomatic impact on other nations caused by aggressive behavior, mainly when expanding the country through annexing provinces and force vassalizing enemies. If a diplomatic relation suffers from aggressive expansion penalty, it will be listed in the detailed relationship view. When negotiating a peace, the additional amount of aggressive expansion that makes the sum go beyond -50 will be listed in the interface with the notification of countries that might join coalition against the player.
- Annexing provinces: –0.75 per development of province. This may be modified by the casus belli used (for example, the Reconquest CB causes only 1/4 the base aggressive expansion when retaking cores)
- Force vassalizations: –0.5 per development of province
- Declaring stability-lowering wars: –10 per stability
- Example 1: Declaring war without a casus belli: –20
- Example 2: Breaking a truce: –50
- Vassal actions: overlord gains full aggressive expansion penalty from all actions of its vassals
- Diplomatic relations will be reduced by the aggressive expansion penalty. The negative modifier will decay by a base of +2 per year, further increased by bonuses to improve relations.
- Attitudes towards the aggressor may change to outraged, regardless of the original attitude or relation
- Coalitions may be formed against the aggressor by nations with at least –50 aggressive expansion relations modifier. There must be at least 4 nations with –50 aggressive expansion modifier and negative (below 0) opinion about you, and no truce with the player, in order for a coalition to form. If there are 3 such countries, or one of them has positive opinion, it will not form. Coalitions are unlikely to form if the combined power of all potential members is much lower than that of the target country.
The base amount of aggressive expansion incurred for any action is modified by the following factors:
Additional modifiers include:
- 33% when gaining provinces by threatening war.
- −20% for a Catholic nation that is Curia Controller.
- −10% for an Orthodox nation with the Icon of St. Nicholas.
- −10% for a Muslim nation following the Hanbali school.
- −5% for a Hindu nation with Shiva as patron god.
- −1% for an unreformed Nahuatl nation per point of Doom.
- −0.1% per point of prestige.
The degree to which any particular country is affected by aggressive expansion depends on the characteristics of the provinces taken or (for no CB and truce-break) the country declared on.
Border friction simulates the tensions felt by countries with neighbouring territories, due to migration, land rights etc.
- Border friction events can occur, and will fire more or less often based on diplomatic opinion
List of modifiers
These modifiers are non-event based. The Min/max value represents the highest or lowest value available depending on the cause. For example, returning six cores gives no benefit over returning five.
|Hostile relations||−50||War or rivalry|
|Allied to Rival||−25|
|Enemy of Enemy||+1||+20||Ticking from 0-20 when enemy is set. Has no effect on relations with vassals or personal unions.|
|Invasion||−1000||−1000||Only applies to Jan Mayen with in the base game.|
|Same Religion (Republic)||+10|
|Different Religion (Republic)||−5||heathens|
|Heretic Religion (Republic)||−10|
|Neighboring Different religion (Republic)||−10||neighboring heathens|
|Neighboring Heretic religion (Republic)||−20|
|Tolerated Heretics (Republic)||−5||Catholic – Orthodox – Coptic|
|Neighboring Tolerated Heretics (Republic)||−10||Catholic – Orthodox – Coptic|
|Same Syncretic Faith||+10|
|Neighboring Different religion||−20||neighboring heathens|
|Neighboring Heretic religion||−40|
|Tolerated heretics||−10||Catholic – Orthodox – Coptic|
|Neighboring Tolerated Heretics||−20||Catholic – Orthodox – Coptic|
|In war together||+25|
|Have a Core||−20|
|Have a Claim||−10|
|Receiving Subsidies||+1||+15||Ticking from 0-15|
|Have Casus Belli||−15|
|They are excommunicated||−50|
|They are excommunicated (Theocracy)||−200|
|Transfers trade power to||+20||+20||at 100% transfer|
|Getting trade power from||+20||+20||at 100% transfer|
|In Same Trade League||+20|
|Wants your provinces||−15||−200||Varies depending on how much they want and how many.|
|Relative power to liege||−1|
|Brothers in struggle against the infidels||+1|
|They allow us military access||+10|
|They allow us fleet basing rights||+10|
|Converted Our Culture||−30||+1|
|Forced other to give up Claim on us||15||−1||15|
|They liberated us||+300||−5|
|They supported our rebellion||+100||−5|
|They lifted the excommunication against us.||+50||−5||+50|
|They excommunicated us||−100||+5||−100|
|They refused a call for crusade||−100||+5||−100|
|They refused a call for religious unity||−100||+5||−100|
|They refused to defend the empire||−50||+5||−50|
|They refused to join our war||−50||+5||−50|
|They refused to join the war against us||+10||−2||+10|
|They came to the defense of the empire (Elector)||+100||−3||+100|
|They came to the defense of the empire||+50||−3||+50||0 to the prince attacked|
|They claimed the throne of another imperial subject||−25||+3||−25|
|They used their royal marriage as pretext to claim our throne||−100||+3||−100|
|They used their royal marriage as pretext to claim a throne||−50||+3||−50|
|They refused fleet basing rights||−10||+1||−10|
|They revoked our fleet basing rights||−20||+1||−10|
|They revoked our military access||−20||+1||−10|
|They refused military access||−10||+1||−10|
|They broke free from us||−100||+5||−100|
|Our overlord abandoned us||−200||+2||Cancelling vassalage.|
|They Force Vassalized us||−100||+2|
|They Forced us into a Union||−100||+2|
|They broke free from us (Protectorate)||−50||+1||−50|
|Our overlord abandoned us||−50||+1||−50||Cancelling protectorate.|
|They voted for us||+25||−2||+25||Elector voted for us.|
|They changed their vote from us||−25||+1||−25||Elector stopped voting for us.|
|Returned a province to us||+25||−1||+25|
|Liberated our province||+25||−1||+25||Recaptured a province that was occupied by a hostile third party.|
|Defended our provinces||+10||−1||+20||Defeated an army that was sieging their province.|
|Insulted||−50||+5||0||for 10 years.|
|Revoked our Electorate||−200||+8|
|Revoked an Electorate||−100||+2||same religion|
|Revoked an Electorate||−20||+2||other religion|
|Grant Free City Status||+25||−1|
|Revoked our Free City status||−100||+4|
|Forced Break Alliance||−50||+2||Applies to both the target country and the country they are forced to break alliance with.|
|Broke Royal Marriage||−75||+3|
|Broke Alliance in wartime||−50||+1|
|Declared War||−25||+1||against the country|
|Was at War||−15||+1||−15||against the country|
|Declared War On Neighbor||−10||+1|
|Violated Truce||−100||+1||with the country|
|Violated Truce Against Neighbor||−25||+1|
|Fought to the end||+10||−1||+20||fought a war together to the end.|
|Razed our provinces||−25||+2||−200|
|Conquered province without claim||−5||+1|
|Conquered province of our religion group||−10||+1||−10|
|Conquered our province||−25||+1|
|Conquered Rival Province||+15||−1||(per war)|
|Gave province in peace||+10||−1|
|Declared War on Enemy||+10||−1||Simply entering war against enemy counts.|
|Did Covert Actions||−20||+5||−100|
|Improved Relations||0||−3||+200||Max is +100 for independent countries, +200 for vassals. Ticks down on year change.|
|Enforced Peace against||−10||+1|
|Improved imperial relations||+40||0||for 20 years|
|Released in Peace||+100||−1|
|Removed provinces from the Empire||−50||+1|
|Left the Empire||−100||+2|
|Gave us Independence||+100||−1|
|Illegal War inside Japan||−25||+1|
|Broke Transfer Trade Power relation||−20||+2|
|Revoked March Status||−200||+3|
|Violated Treaty of Tordesillas||−50||+1|
|Abandoned the Holy Roman Empire||−100||+2||25 years|
|Forced us to return land||−100||+2|
|Unlawful territory||−25||+1||Any HRE country after the other country refused the emperor's demand.|
|Land restored to the Empire||+20||−1|
|Annexed a member of the Holy Roman Empire||−25||+1||Members of the empire gain this modifier towards the annexing country.|
|Annexed vassal||−30||+1||Other subjects only.|
|Send Gift||+1||+25||Full bonus lasts for 5 years.|
|Broke free from us||−50||+2|
|Enforced Religious Unity||−25||+1|
|Supported Independence of our Subject||−100||+1||−100|
|Supported our Independence||+100||−1|
|Rejected Support Independence offer||−25||+1|
|Supporting Independence of our Subject||−100|
|Supporting our Independence||+50|
|Broke Support Independence treaty||−50||+1|
|Was not given occupied cores and claims in the peace||−1||+1|
|Same Dynasty after Election||+100||−2|
|Dynasty lost Election||−20||+1|
|Recently Declared Independence||−50||+5||−50|
|Share Advanced Neighbor||+50||+50||updated every month|
|Raided Coast||−25||+1||−100||Modifier is per province, e.g. raiding a single sea tile can max it.|
Historical friends and rivals
Historical friends and historical rivals are pre-set by the scenario's starting conditions, and do not change over time (except by events). These modifiers don't only affect relations by giving −25 or +25 bonus.
Historical rivals will almost always rival each other and if that's no longer possible, they will never make an alliance. If historical rival country is a vassal or lesser partner in personal union, it will have +50% liberty desire modifier. For example: Oirat and their vassal Mongolia, Denmark and Sweden after The Scandinavian Constitution event.
Historical friends on the contrary will gladly and often make alliance with each other. If historical friend become a vassal or lesser partner in personal union, it will have -50% liberty desire, which makes this relation very stable. A good example for this is Polish-Lithuanian union. Historical friendship can be removed by Growing Animosity event, that can occur when historical friends are fighting each other.
List of historical friends in 1444:
- Austria – Hungary
- Bosnia – Serbia
- Bremen – Hamburg
- Bremen – Lübeck
- Bremen – Riga
- Castile – Portugal
- Denmark – Norway
- Hamburg – Lübeck
- Hamburg – Riga
- Kochin – Vijayanagar
- Lithuania – Poland
- Livonian Order – Riga
- Livonian Order – Teutonic Order
- Lübeck – Riga
- Portugal – Spain
- Theodoro – Trebizond
- Venice – The Knights
List of historical rivals in 1444:
- Arawak – Carib
- Austria – France
- Austria – Ottomans
- Byzantium – Ottomans
- Cocomes – Xiu
- Great Horde – Kazan
- Malindi – Mombasa
- Mongolia – Oirat
- Muscovy – Novgorod
- Poland - Teutonic Order
There are several diplomatic actions available if a country want to improve relations with another country.
- Improve Relations action is the most direct way. A country can get up to +100 relation points with another country. It takes time and ties down a diplomat.
- Send Gift will get a country up to +25 relation points for a one-time gift of money. The relation bonus will last for 5 years, effects from several gifts do not add up, only the last gift will affect relations.
- Give Subsidies will transfer a specified amount of money each month to the target country for a certain duration. Maintaining subsidies will improve the target country's relations with the subsidizer each month, up to a maximum of +15. This will disappear entirely once subsidies stop, unlike Improve Relations which ticks down over time.
- Offer Military Access to the target country, allowing their land armies to pass through the territory of the one who offered. Acceptance will raise the target country's opinion of the offering country by +10.
- Transfer Trade Power ask a target non-subject nation to transfer a percentage of its trade power to the requester. Grants a mutual relation bonus of +20 per 100% of power transferred. (only with Wealth of Nations enabled)
- Influence Nation gives +25 with the target country for one time their yearly income, if you are Great power and the target nation is not. Lasts for 10 years and for that duration the target country receives a monarch point on whatever category it has the lowest influx of. (only with Rights of Man enabled)
- Take on foreign debt improves relations by +10 for every loan of debt the target country has that you take over. Requires being a Great power while the target is not.. (only with Rights of Man enabled)
The following actions will tie down Diplomatic Relations point.
- Royal Marriage may arrange royal marriages with others. This will improve relations by +25 while in effect. Only available to monarchies, Noble Republics and Dutch Republics.
- Proclaim Guarantee will call the nation that guaranteed into the war if someone declares war on the guaranteed country. Grants the nation that guaranteed +10 relation points.
- Offer Alliance proposes to form an alliance with the target nation. Grants +50 relations if accepted.
Changing own opinion
Although human-controlled countries do not have game-defined attitudes toward other nations (except their rivals, subjects and overlords), they still have numerical opinion values which enable or affect diplomatic options. For example,
- In order to form an alliance, opinion in both directions must be positive.
- Declaring war against a country viewed too positively hurts stability.
- In order to take the decision to Revoke Restraint of Appeals, the country must have +100 opinion of the Papal State.
If Austria was to improve relations completely with France. France would like Austria +100 and Austria would like France +50. One way to raise one's own country's opinion of another country is to ask for military access. Other opinion modifiers work both ways: a royal marriage, having the same dynasty, rival modifiers and religion modifiers affect both countries' opinions.