Prestige Rating and Diplomacy

[jccoluz]

Hi,

I'd like to know if prestige rating has any influence on diplomacy : as Japan, I just overtook the British ( it's 1883 in my game and I'm now the n°1 in prestige ) and it seems that my relations with other countries are degrading faster than before !

I've got a hard time keeping all the countries with whom I have a commercial agreement ( and where I invested in farms and mines) over 25 relation while it was quite easy before.

Lucky for me I have a Defensive alliance with the USA and relations between our countries stay at 100 ( I own 24 coal mines there !! )

But France and Brazil among others are being a bit difficult and itchy and I'm spending a lot of my diplomats there in fear of losing all my investments if relations drop under 25 !!

So, am I dreaming or is there a kind of " Badboy rating" when you become n°1 ?

By the way, I think that, compared to anything else, industries produce far too much prestige !! This really unbalance the game and makes it too easy for the player : The whole British empire brings less prestige than 3 Luxury plants !!

TIP : The most precious ressource in the game is not Gold or Gems but COAL !!!

[loki100]

Esp post 1880 I agree with you about the importance of coal, I often build mines in other countries, even if I lose them. at least the production is in the global system

I don't think there is a #1 penalty, but purely off observation I formed the idea that some phases of the game, relations get worse, if I recall as Italy everyone loved me in the 1870s and there was a global dip in the 1880s.

you probably know this anyway, but lowering tariffs is a painless way to a steady +ve impact on relations, while its an easy source of money, if you have your economy running you can risk some domestic problems and shift over to direct taxation

certainly once you get the third generation of factories up and running, industry driven prestige can be substantial. But if comes at quite a cost in terms of the upgrades and being able to afford to keep it all open (which takes you back to coal)

[jccoluz]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer Loki. I agree with you that Plants Level 3 produce a huge amount of prestige (Esp with the administrative rating of emperor Meiji and the Japanese being at 100% contentment since the beginning of the game ) and I still think it's a bit too much compared with other sources of prestige. Would need some balancing if ever there is a PON 2 one day !

I do not really agree that this is balanced by the cost of building your industries or railroad either : money (both state funds and PC ) comes too easily and becomes meaningless post 1880. I don't really know what to spend my money on by now !
(And yes, I know about tariifs which I left at 0% since Meiji Era ).

Only bottlenecks for me were coal and manufactured goods but It's under control by now : I built all 36 available coal mines (untill I get some more with the next generation) and produce an excess of 280 goods per turn which is more than enough for my needs at the moment.

As for diplomacy ratings dropping steadily I guess I found some answer : for the last few years I hadn't noticed that most of the countries I'm used to deal with were nearly all at WAR at the same time. I guess that diplo ratings go down for everyone when at War and this might have been one reason ! Now that Brazil and France are at peace again it started going up again. However, Mexico, Ottoman Empire and Persia are still involved in some conflicts so I'm spending quite a few diplomats to keep them in my diplo sphere !!

Bye