Features of Sphere of Influence

Power Blocs

• As a Great Power or a powerful Major Power, you can form your own Power Bloc centered around one of five central Identity pillars: Trade League, Sovereign Empire, Military Treaty, Ideological Union, or Religious Convocation.
• Each of these provide different opportunities and benefits to its leader with respect to its member countries, and can be developed further with up to 4 of 20 different Principle groups, resulting in over twenty thousand different combinations affecting your strategy for global domination!
• As a Power Bloc leader you can expand your global reach by extending your Leverage over other countries where you have declared an Interest. A large number of factors that can cause you to gain (or lose) Leverage over a country, such as maintaining Diplomatic Pacts, maintaining favorable Lobbies, helping them in their wars, being accepting or discriminatory against their cultures, or making them economically dependent on you through foreign expansion or trade.
• Power Blocs can be expanded peacefully through diplomatic invitation into your Bloc or, if the invite fizzles, through a Diplomatic Demand the country may or may not yield to without an armed conflict.
• The leader of a Power Bloc must maintain its Cohesion by enforcing its shared values across the bloc. Failure to properly manage Cohesion across your bloc may result in internal strife.
• All members of Power Blocs may construct expensive statues to represent its glory, providing a number of benefits to the state it's built in. The leader of a Power Bloc can customize both the appearance of the statue, the Power Bloc emblem, and its name to better represent its ideas and visions for its bright global future.
• Available with Update 1.7: the Trade League Identity and its two Primary Principle groups, Internal and External Trade, are available even without Sphere of Influence and replaces the Customs Union diplomatic pact by enforcing a shared market across the Power Bloc.
• Available with Update 1.7: it is also possible to play as Great Britain, Russia, or the Ottoman Empire who starts with the Sovereign Empire Identity, permitting them to subjugate weaker Power Bloc members, or as Austria whose Power Bloc Identity of Ideological Union permits them to Enforce Regime Change in countries that start flirting with the concept of Republicanism and suffrage. Players without Sphere of Influence may also play a member of the Zollverein, an established Trade League at game start.
• To read much more about Power Blocs, see dev diaries here and here.

Foreign Investment

• With the Foreign Investment Rights or Mutual Foreign Investment Pacts, countries can gain the ability to directly build up another country's resource or manufacturing industries, or offer these rights to another country if they're incapable of rapid industrialization on their own. This right extends to both countries and its investor class, who may use their Investment Pool to construct private industry abroad and gain access to new resources, cheap(er) labor, or both.
• With the Foreign Investment Power Bloc Principles, these rights can also be extended across an entire Power Bloc by default without the need to establish and maintain potentially fragile pacts. With Power Bloc Leverage being informed in part by economic dependence, this can become a great way to maintain control over your Power Bloc members during the extent of the long Victorian century.
• Available with Update 1.7: Ownership is represented by two new buildings, Manor Houses (housing the Aristocracy) and Financial Sectors (housing Capitalists), who can own buildings outside their own states or even their country. These buildings extract the profits produced by building levels they own, leading to much greater variance between productive states and wealthy states.
• Available with Update 1.7: In addition to private ownership through Manor Houses and Financial Sectors, Cooperative Ownership is also possible through the right economic system laws. Cooperative Ownership gives pops working their buildings the fruit of their own labor.
• Available with Update 1.7: State-owned enterprises are also possible, which yield dividends directly to state coffers (or drain them, if unprofitable). Under most economic systems, buildings constructed by the state are put up for sale when completed, making them available for acquisition by private interests (or even other countries, if Foreign Investment Rights are in play). Under others, it's possible for the state to nationalize industries, with or without compensation to its owners - with sometimes grave repercussions, domestic or international.
• Available with Update 1.7: Overlords are always able to construct industries in their Subjects, even without Pacts or Power Blocs enabling it.
• With the Sphere of Influence expansion, it is also possible to nationalize all your country's foreign-owned industries with a Diplomatic Demand - but be prepared to defend your economic self-determination!
• To read more about Foreign Investment and the Building Ownership overhaul, see the dev diary here.

Lobbies, Catalysts, and Opportunities

• A Lobby consists of one or more Interest Groups in a country that have a stance on another country in the world. This stance can either be positive, where they wish to form closer relations or imitate its laws and reforms, or negative where the emphasis lies on distancing yourself, forming rivalries, or even crushing them in armed conflict.
• Lobbies have a chance to form in response to a Diplomatic Catalyst, which can trigger for a variety of reasons such as establishing or breaking a Pact, choosing a particular event option, having a revolution, joining or being kicked out of a Power Bloc, inviting or exiling an Agitator, and so on. Whenever something happens as a result of a Catalyst, such as a lobby forming or an AI strategy changing, you will be told exactly the reason why it happened.
• Lobbies will benefit or hinder you in a number of ways, such as increasing a country's AI Acceptance for Diplomatic Pacts due to your close ties, or increasing your War Support when fighting a hated foe. The impact your Lobby has relates directly to its Interest Group membership's Clout, so you have a vested interest in supporting those groups that align with your own foreign policy and opposing those who support your geopolitical enemies.
• Adhering to your Lobbies' wishes will increase their Appeasement, which is another source of Interest Group Approval and leads to political stability at home. Opposing them will of course do the opposite, so think carefully if you can afford to break that pact they like!
• With the Sphere of Influence expansion, Lobbies will occasionally grant opportunities or make demands. These are Journal Entries that incentivize you to go after specific foreign policy goals, or which you ignore at your peril!
• Also with the Sphere of Influence expansion, you have access to a new Diplomatic Action that lets you fund lobbies in other countries by bribing providing much-deserved financial support to the country's elite, increasing the chance that lobbies favoring you (or lobbies that oppose your enemies) will emerge there. If a suitable lobby already exists, the financial support you provide will increase its power and improve the Leverage you gain there.
• Subjugated countries can also be home to two other types of Lobbies - those for or against the country's Overlord, supporting integration or independence respectively. Nurturing or suppressing these Lobbies can provide the necessary political impact you need to nudge Liberty Desire in the direction you want and inform one of four new AI Strategies for subject countries.
• Read more about Lobbies in the dev diary found here. More on Catalysts can be found here.

Subject Interactions

• Sphere of Influence comes with a number of brand-new ways you can interact with your Subjects, or if you are a subject, ways you can engage with your Overlord. Several new categories of Diplomatic Actions have been added which apply only to countries with special relationships: Overlord/Subject, Subject/Overlord, Power Bloc Leader/Member, and Power Bloc Member/Member.
• For example, an Overlord can use actions on their Subject to increase or reduce the weekly payments they must submit, distribute conquered territory between their subjects, share their technological knowledge with them, permit them to control their own market, and more!
• Similarly, Subjects can petition their Overlord to grant them relief in various ways. This often costs them Liberty Desire, a new metric in Update 1.7 that tracks how much the country's elite is in favor of independence. Like Leverage, this metric is informed by a variety of factors, such as Opinion - but also by many Pacts maintained between the countries, their Economic Dependence on the Overlord, relative Prestige, and so on. If a Subject's Liberty Desire gets very high they will start generating more Radicals, prompting them to request increased autonomy from their Overlord; if not granted, it could well result in a Diplomatic Demand for full independence instead. On the other hand, a Subject with very low Liberty Desire can be persuaded to have their autonomy reduced, potentially leading them down the road to full annexation if they aren't careful.
• With the Sphere of Influence expansion, in addition to the many new Diplomatic Actions, it is also possible to support a Subject's independence, causing their Liberty Desire to increase and automatically including you as a supporter in any Diplomatic Play for Independence they launch. Subjects may even support each other, and will rebel as a group if a war for independence is imminent! On the flip side you can also Guarantee Independence for a country that is not yet subjugated, ensuring none of your rival Great Powers can make such a demand unquestioned!
• To read more about Subject Interactions and Liberty Desire, go here.

The Great Game

• Throughout the nineteenth century, Russia and Britain competed with one another for influence in Asia. This period of rivalry was known colloquially as the Great Game, beginning in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and expanding over time to include struggles for influence in areas as far away as Korea and China. In Sphere of Influence you can play out this crucial "cold war" between these two dominant but very different Great Powers from several perspectives: Russia, Britain, Persia, or one of three countries - Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar - that will form the country of Afghanistan during the era.
• The Great Game can be experienced by playing one of the six countries in question in any regular game, or through the new Great Game objective which provides a quickstart into all the new features of Sphere of Influence. You will naturally also experience the conflict from the sidelines while playing as any country in the world, and can get involved to help or hinder any of its participants. Many regions adjacent to the Great Game also have their own unique narrative content relating to it, such as the Caucasian War, the Donghak Rebellion in Joseon/Korea, and the expedition to Tibet.
• The Great Game is designed to make full use of all new features in Sphere of Influence, and you can be sure that your skills in maintaining your Power Bloc, expanding your Leverage, supporting your foreign Lobbies, expanding your economic reach through Foreign Investments, and interacting with your Subjects will be tested in the process!
• To increase the historical accuracy of the Great Game, the map of Central Asia has been greatly improved, with several new countries and cultures added as well as regional Interest Groups, twelve new Companies, and more.
• To read much more about the experience of playing as one of the Great Powers in the conflict, see the dev diary here. Even more details on what might be in store if you play as a Central Asian nation is available here.

• 'Great Empires' papermap theme
• New main menu
• 2 new loading screens
• 10 new event illustrations
• Late-game European military uniform character outfit as well as late-game female military outfits
• Added Necklaces, Capes, and Sashes for different Power Bloc identities, to be worn by Heads-of-States in those Power Blocs
• Persian military outfits, Landowner clothes, and royal character outfit and jewelry
• Cossack and Cuirass character outfit
• Greatcoat character outfit for some characters to wear during winter
• Zulu character outfits
• Cigars and Smoking Pipes
• Distinct appearances for many British historical figures, such as Joseph Chamberlain, John Maynard Keynes, Provo Wallis, David Lloyd George, Douglas Haig, Arthur Balfour, Friedrich Engels, Lord Palmerston, and Rotha Lintorn-Orman
• Distinct appearance and new character assets for Empress Myeongseong, Klemens von Metternich, George Curzon, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, Amir Kabir, Sattar Khan, and Abdul Hamid II
• Distinct appearances for certain Interest Group leaders
• Updated appearance for Tsar Alexander III
• Sphere of Influence Coin 3D asset for papermap object
• Cutty Sark Trading Ship 3D vehicle for Trade Leagues
• Royal Carriage 3D vehicle for Sovereign Empires
• Hot Air Balloon 3D frontline asset for Military Treaties
• Rolls Royce Silver Ghost 3D vehicle for Ideological Unions
• Ornate Carriage 3D vehicle for Religious Convocations
• Voice of the People, with Sphere of Influence: Added a late game uniform for France
• Voice of the People, etc.: Updated the Divided Monarchist journal entry and several other complex journal entries to use the new progressbar system
• Colossus of the South: Implemented an additional South American clothing set

Achievements

• Durran Durran: As Herat, form Afghanistan, own all the historical states of the old Durrani Empire, and do not be a member of any power bloc led by any other country.
• Hyperpeace: As any country, have both Finland and Korea in your power bloc.
• Bootlicker: As a subject, have the pro-overlord lobby at max appeasement.
• I'm the Captain Now: Look at me. As a member of a power bloc, win the struggle for power bloc leadership.
• The New Order: Have a fully decked out power bloc.
• Great Game no re: Complete the Great Game Objective.
• Honor and Life: As Circassia, complete the Honor Before Life journal entry.
• Iranzamin: As Persia, complete the Eastern Frontier Journal Entry, and have a literacy rating of 80%
• For Twelve Years You Have Been Asking: Privatize all buildings and prevent them from being state or worker-owned for 12 whole years.
• Can't Touch This: As a country with at least 10% of your GDP owned by a foreign power, nationalize all buildings and prevent them from being privatized for 12 whole years.
• Standard Oil: Own at least 30 levels of oil rigs in foreign countries.
• Diplomatic Victory: As a Great Power, have a pro-country lobby for your country in every other Great Power.
• Hermit Kingdom: As Korea, act on the Donghak movement's petitions.
• Cult of Reason: Pass the State Atheism Law and be the leader of an ideological power bloc with at least 10 members.
• Declaration of Independence: Starting as a subject nation, break free from your overlord.

Changelog

Improvements

• Removed the Directly Controlled Investment Game Rule from the game, as it is incompatible with the new Building Ownership Rework/Foreign Investment mechanics
• Added fifteen new events that fire as a result of having an active, non-revolutionary political movement
• Added a universal Journal Entry for unrecognized countries permitting them to peacefully achieve recognition over time, and a diplomatic action to speed it up
• Removed the Force Recognition wargoal and diplomatic play, as it has been replaced by the new Journal Entry
• Added an Afghan Reunification journal entry for Afghan contenders
• Added scripted Journal Entry progress bars, allowing Journal Entries to track more than one progression value and display them on separate progress bars that can be visualized in a number of different ways
• Overlord can now join a revolutionary country against their subject
• Reworked the map of Persia, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, with new state regions, countries, and cultures
• Truces can now be unidirectional (preventing a country from attacking another without restricting the target country in a similar way) as well as bidirectional
• Investors now have a chance of finding resources in countries they invest into, even if that country doesn't have technology to do so on their own
• Removed Ownership PMs from most buildings, since the new ownership model introduced in 1.7 is used where applicable instead
• A huge number of Diplomatic Catalysts have been added to facilitate Lobby creation, AI Strategies and "memory", cooldowns, and other functions
• Added Grant and Take State Overlord Actions
• China, Korea, and Vietnam now all start as Confucian nations. Starting laws and pops have been updated to reflect this.
• Serfdom law now blocks both Internal and Mass Migration for Peasants
• Land Reform law now blocks Internal Migration for Peasants (but does not impact Mass Migration)
• Reworked Russian state regions and populations
• China, Korea, and Vietnam now all start as Confucian nations. Starting laws and pops have been updated to reflect this.
• Declining a call to arms will now break off any alliance, defensive pact or guarantee you have against the country calling you in
• Society techs now give more maneuvers for plays with each era
• It is now possible for countries that join a play due to a call to arms to add a war goal themselves, so long as that war goal would cost 25 maneuvers or less to add under normal circumstances (does not actually cost maneuvers for the primary participant)
• Added decaying modifiers that massively nationalization cost & radicals generation from nationalization in newly conquered/liberated states. Recently conquered states also suffer decaying penalties to tax collection, pop political strength and conscription rate.
• Added new diplomatic action Guarantee Independence which functions like a one-sided defensive pact that doesn't require approval
• It is now only possible to impose laws on Puppet, Dominion, Vassal, and Personal Union subjects (Protectorates and Tributaries are too independent) unless you're in a Power Bloc that permits it
• The 'Cut Down to Size' wargoal now also removes all wargoals held by the target in other diplomatic plays/wars (but keeps any wargoals targeting them in those plays/wars)
• Demands for imposing a Law on another country are now handled with events and a journal entry, similar to Interest Group Petitions. Notifications are triggered when the other country takes action.
• It is now possible to make Diplomatic Demands even though you're already in a Diplomatic Play (or at war), as long as it's not against a country you're already targeting or a country on the same side as you in another Play / war. You also cannot make additional Diplomatic Demands while already dealing with a Diplomatic Play you initiated until that Play has escalated into war.
• Added Karelian, Mari, Buryat, Bashkir, Chechen, Mordvin, Chuvash, and Udmurt cultures
• Added numerous new releasables to Russia
• Added 6 new companies
• Commercialized agriculture law now makes Financial Districts more likely to invest in agriculture, ranching and plantations
• The Homesteading law now makes agriculture buildings convert themselves to 50% self-ownership over time
• Expanded the Monuments Effect game rule to include Power Bloc Statues
• Buildings with several unstaffed levels and that are at least 50% privately owned will now autonomously reduce their privately owned levels if they fail to hire for an extended period of time
• Economy of Scale now scales against the
• employed
• levels of a building, so empty building levels no longer grant throughput bonuses. Additionally, Economy of Scale now starts granting bonuses immediately at level 1, so a half-employed level 1 building will get +0.5% throughput, for example.
• Added a Seminole Wars Journal Entry to USA, present at game start
• Added a 'Give State' diplomatic action
• Added diplomatic actions for increasing and decreasing autonomy in subjects
• You can now impose a Law on another country even if they are currently trying to enact something else (they have an option to cancel the current law or defer enacting it until later) or do not have any support for this law (you will now see their chances before issuing the demand)
• Changed the time to respond on Diplomatic Proposals from 14 days to 30 days, the AI will still respond in the same amount of time
• A country can now only ever have one diplomatic proposal pending towards a given country
• Changed the required tech unlock for Steam Powered Fishing and Whaling Production Methods to Gantry Cranes instead of Ironclads, allowing a smoother distinction between civil and military usage of steam powered ships (thanks to "WOWZA 'Mr. Rework' Scrooge" for the suggestion!)
• Increase Autonomy and Independence Diplomatic Plays now have Liberty Desire requirements
• Added an event referring to the Australian Emu War
• Added new Russian Republic and Russian Soviet Republic names to Russia
• Reworked the way we display pact influence costs to be more consistent and to always have breakdown tooltips
• Implemented more characters for Central Asia, East Asia, Britain, and Africa
• Added the Yat'siminoli, Salish, and Pannakwati to North America
• Added the Wati and Mirning peoples to Australia
• There is now a 1 year cooldown between attempts to impose a Law on another country if they outright reject your demand. Otherwise you will have to wait until they enact (or reject) the law you previously imposed on them.
• Servicemen now gain Officer qualifications faster while deployed in active wars
• Added additional state traits to Russia
• Added historical interest group leaders to Australian colonies
• Added starting pro- and anti-country lobbies to various nations in 1836
• Added silk as a potential resource in Lebanon, and a starting silk plantation to model the historical Lebanese silk industry
• Added the Mount Lebanon state trait to Lebanon, increasing the state's silk throughput
• Forming the Free States of America now requires you to have abolished slavery
• Made the South Bessarabian retrocession borders more historically accurate.
• Updated migration concepts for clarity
• Henry Temple is now referred to as Henry Palmerston
• Added a historical ruler for Indian Territory at game start
• Adjusted Tasmanian population to reflect the historical situation
• The Baltic strategic region has been renamed to Scandinavia, due to Finland becoming its own region

AI

• Major work done on the economic AI, both to allow it to use the new features in 1.7/Sphere of Influence and improve its overall ability to grow its economy
• The AI now always has a concrete reason for changing its Strategic Desire (and Attitude) towards another country, based on the new system of Diplomatic Catalysts. For example, increasing relations with a country may result in the adoption of a more friendly attitude, while breaking a pact or triggering a diplomatic incident can result in the reverse. This is now shown to the player in a notification when a country changes their attitude, and you can tooltip the attitude of an AI country to see what caused them to adopt that attitude.
• The AI is now much less willing to accept reverse-sways if it has an overwhelming advantage in a play, even if there are undecided participants who can potentially be a challenge for them
• The AI is now much less willing to accept reverse-sways that involve giving something up (subjects, states etc) if they don't stand to lose much from the enemy wargoals
• Most Diplomatic Demands now have an upper bound on AI acceptance, ensuring a small-to-moderate chance you won't get your way
• The AI is now willing to take on more infamy later in the game
• The AI is now generally more keen to add war goals rather than wasting maneuvers, so long as they don't take on excessive amounts of infamy
• AI subject countries will now have a chance of accepting a Diplomatic Demand for full annexation when their Liberty Desire level is at Loyal
• USA will now want to take Colorado from Mexico
• Acceptance scores for Annexation and Loyal Subject have both been decreased in impact
• Call Ally now grants a +25 AI acceptance bonus when used as a sway
• Subjects now have access to four new AI strategies to placate or break free from their overlord
• Overlords now consider Obligations owed to them by Subjects more important for purpose of AI diplomatic acceptance score calculations
• Fixed an issue that would make the US not care about Kansas when manifesting their destiny