Spain's protectorate New Spain (question)

[operating1]

Funny diplomatic change going from turn 71 going into turn 72: New Spain went from being a protectorate to being a common ally, How did that happen? The only thing that changed was: New Spain went from "indifference" to "unfriendly" diplomatically. Trinidad is still owned by Pirates. Spain was assigned a mission at the beginning of the campaign to flip the New Spain protectorate regions to common Spanish regions after completing certain tasks that had no time limits, yet part of those conditions included keeping friendly relations. Nowhere did it say that Spain would lose the New Spain protectorate, if the relationship became unfriendly. It's the only reason why I can figure that New Spain went from being a protectorate to an ally...

Has anybody else ran into this situation?

[HazardHawk]

That is exactly why. When I play as Spain, to make things faster, I region swap Flanders with United Provinces for the one they have I need in the Americas. You can go slower from there, but if you go slow it is best to hand them a little something something from time to time. I usually use agricultural technology at a super discount.

[operating1]

To add to the irony: Gifted New Spain Portugal, Iceland and Astrakhan (next to Dagestan). Like many protectorates, New Spain only wants to pay peanuts for techs, so ended up just giving them techs for positive diplomacy points, plus figured what New Spain builds Spain will benefit from later on, including military techs. Could see from map overviews that New Spain did just that, they built all kinds of stuff.

[Big Moustache]

Reload a previous save and see what triggers it. Also gifting them regions, or letting them capture more regions by themselves increases their power rating, and they can than choose to become independant when the protector- protectorate balance of power declines too much.

It can also be diplomacy by other factions, there is a diplomacy option to ask a faction to stop being a vassal, or a protector to cancel vassal state. For example: a faction could have given them money or tech or something, and in return they demanded that new spain cancel its vassal status

[operating1]

OK, fortunately I do a lot of saves and did my homework before posting this thread. When I posted this thread Spain was at turn 76 and had not noticed the change from protectorate to ally till then, although curiously under national summary "Other" income stayed the same from turn 72 to turn 76 at 7168 (4168 over the standard 3000), that 4168 is what New Spain pays Spain for being a protectorate (Spain had not raided any trade routes to show at "Other" income).

Checked both New Spain's and Spain's diplomacy for protectorate status: None shown.

So I thought: "What the heck do I have to lose by capturing Trinidad now"? Sure enough when Spain captured the region, the independent ally New Spain flipped all it's regions over to Spain..!!! All I can attribute this weirdness to is a "BUG" in how information was displayed, or not displayed..

As a side note: That above 4168 figure went away after New Spain flipped, plus Spain lost 6294 that it had in trade with New Spain each turn, grossing a loss of 10462 putting Spain's economy into the "RED". Needless to say went back to a save prior to capturing Trinidad and kept status quo. These missions the game doles out seem to do more damage than good when accomplishing them.

[operating1]

Early in the Spain campaign Spain had France and protectorate New Spain as allies, around this time GB DOW'd Spain, Spain called on it's allies to join the war, which they did. Then UP DOW'd Spain, same thing, allies joined the fight. Early on Spain captured Georgia then gifted Georgia to New Spain, then the Cherokee DOW'd New Spain, however the Cherokee were also in a fight with GB, GB had armies on the march to take Kaintuck, this was too much for the Cherokee, so they made peace with New Spain, in doing so gave Kaintuck to New Spain. GB captures Georgia, while Spain captured the last Cherokee region, then Spain recaptured Georgia and continued up the east coast all the way to Boston (France captured Maine). In the meantime the Iroquoi DOW'd New Spain, naturally Spain joined the fight. Take note that New Spain only provided a few, maybe 3 militias to Kaintuck. Spain bore the brunt of the fighting to prevent Kaintuck from falling into enemy hands. Poland DOW'd New Spain, but for some reason New Spain did not call for assistance. So for the most part New Spain built huge fleets made up with galleons and a couple of 20 stack armies, one which they boarded in a fleet that sat a couple of notches east of Jamaica and did nothing for countless turns.

What I like about this game is: At least you get to kill the rebels and there are no repercussions with political BS in diplomacy or otherwise..

[Big Moustache]

How does Poland wardec new Spain without getting Spain involved? At that point NS where no protectorate anymore? Probably not, NS would not recruit so much under protectorate status

[operating1]

Originally posted by Fragoos:

How does Poland wardec new Spain without getting Spain involved? At that point NS where no protectorate anymore? Probably not, NS would not recruit so much under protectorate status

I'm not sure how it happened, it could of been the Cherokee (which Spain was already at war with) had Poland as an ally when they DOW'd NB (?).

[operating1]

Presently it's turn 84 New Spain is "Hostile" towards Spain. Spain is in it's second turn siege-ing Pirate owned Trinidad. During the ai turn 83 New Spain landed an army on Trinidad's coast (a Spanish fleet was in port) . It was now or never for the Spanish to capture the region, otherwise New Spain was going to capture it at the end of the turn (leaving in doubt if New Spain will remain a protectorate).

Spain captures the region with New Spain's help, with that done "Hostile" New Spain ceased to exist, flipping all it's regions over to Spain. For those of you who might worry about New Spain's diplomacy status with Spain to complete a mission, it's something to ignore (as far as I am concerned).

[Big Moustache]

You should not look so hard into it, the diplomacy is broken AF. The game has heavy anti player bias and will do anything to annoy. The mission can be completed even when at war with former colonies

[operating1]

Originally posted by Fragoos:

You should not look so hard into it, the diplomacy is broken AF. The game has heavy anti player bias and will do anything to annoy

This thread is more about FYI more than anything else. There's been a lot of new game owners, so if they learn something, "they learn something".

[Big Moustache]

https://youtu.be/_q6llV-AlGo

Once they learn this, nothing else matters