Talking to leaders
When you open a country's panel you are talking to its leader through concrete offers — alliances, pacts, coercive demands — and whether they say yes is a calculation of relations, leverage, and their persona.
How it works
Friendly overtures (alliance, non-aggression pact, defensive pact) are gated by relations. AI leaders reciprocate through their persona's ally weight once relations clear the threshold; a Defensive leader (ally 1.6) warms to you fast, while an Expansionist (ally 0.7) is a reluctant partner. Full alliances need relations of 50.
Coercion is the other half of the conversation. A demand's acceptance is driven by leverage: military leverage from your power edge (up to 0.7) and trade dependency (up to 0.75). The chance is roughly 0.08 plus 1.5× your effective leverage, minus the demand's severity, plus a war-exhaustion bonus. Mild demands like reparations (severity 0.12) land easily; a coerced vassalage (severity 0.58) needs overwhelming leverage and a power edge above 1.8×.
Refusal has teeth. When a leader rejects a demand, relations sour (−22 for military-backed demands, −14 otherwise), they log a grudge in their memory, and a cooldown of 24–36 ticks blocks you from re-demanding. So the 'conversation' is stateful: push too hard and each future exchange starts from a colder place.
Formulas
clamp(0.08 + leverage×1.5 − severity + warExhaustion×0.3, 0.02, 0.95)clamp((yourPower / theirPower − 1) × 0.28, 0, 0.7)coerced tributary needs your power > 1.8× theirsKey numbers
How to play
- ▸Build leverage before you demand — a power edge or their trade dependency on you is what actually moves the acceptance number.
- ▸A refused demand costs relations and sets a 24–36 tick cooldown, so don't fish for a 'yes' with low leverage; wait until the odds are real.
- ▸Match the ask to the persona: a Defensive leader will ally readily, but coercing a proud Expansionist usually just earns you a grudge.