RimPacts - Diplomacy Overhaul

Diplomacy, trade and the struggle for hegemony begin!

RimPacts adds a diplomacy system to RimWorld where diplomacy, trade, war and hegemony all connect. Build trust with each faction to sign treaties, open trade routes, win over courtiers, and go to war alongside your allies.

Key features

• A trust system that works separately from goodwill
• Non-aggression, trade, passage, tribute and defense treaties
• Ordering specific goods through the comms console
• Faction-specific market prices and settlement specialty goods
• Trading companies, trade routes and monopolies
• Regular aid, relief, road building, embargoes and ultimatums
• Court diplomacy: envoys, gifts, bribes, marriage, hostages, assassination
• Wars and peace between NPC factions, national power, hegemons and coalitions
• Real settlement conquest and razing, faction absorption and extinction
• Watching battles and joining them yourself
• Player notoriety and anti-player coalitions
• Imperial tributary status, wars of independence and joint wars
• World map settlement buildings
• World events and international events
• Isolation, Mercantile, Hegemony and Mediation doctrines

Trust and treaties

Where goodwill shows a political relationship, trust shows how much a faction believes your promises. It rises as you keep treaties and meet obligations, and falls on unpaid tribute, refused aid, betrayal and broken pacts. With a just cause for war, breaking a treaty no longer costs you trust with third parties. Factions will offer treaties of their own, and accepting waives the signing cost. Before a treaty runs out an expiry warning appears, and from that point you can renew it.

Trading companies and trade routes

Found a trading company with research and capital, then raise its level for more routes and higher income. An open route pays out regularly, and a monopoly lets you buy certain goods cheaply. You can also build roads to a faction's settlement within 45 tiles.

Ordering goods

Name the goods and the amount to a faction you have a trade agreement with, and a day or two later a caravan actually arrives carrying them. Your order joins the caravan's stock and is highlighted in the trade window; higher trust allows larger orders and better quality gear. The order premium disappears while you hold a monopoly.

Faction markets and specialty goods

Prices differ from faction to faction by tech level, disposition and whether they are at war. Factions at war pay more for weapons and medicine, and NPC settlements have specialty goods drawn from their terrain and biome.

The court and personal diplomacy

Every faction has a leader plus a chancellor, marshal and steward, and you can build personal favor with each of them. High favor improves trust, reinforcements, trade prices or signing terms depending on the role. When a leader dies a succession follows, and if trust is low your existing treaties start to wobble.

Intelligence bureau

Invest silver to found an intelligence bureau. It upgrades through five tiers, and each tier lets you run more spies. Other factions send spies to your settlements too. Without a bureau you cannot root them out properly, and one you miss may steal research or cut your power grid.

Diplomatic doctrine

You may pick one of four diplomatic paths. Pick none and nothing changes at all. Hold a path and act in line with it, and progress builds, unlocking tier bonuses and path-only actions.

Puppet state

You can found one country that follows you. A puppet state holds real settlements on the world map, wars with other factions, and grows through the tech eras. A proxy war fought by your puppet does not raise your notoriety. You can tilt the balance of power without destroying a single settlement yourself.

Faction wars

Factions go to war and make peace with each other, and their national power rises and falls with the outcome. When a war breaks out you can back one side, and you are rewarded if the side you backed wins. These wars do not end with numbers going up and down. The attacker really goes after enemy settlements, and a win either changes who owns a city or wipes it off the map. You can also mediate wars, guarantee the independence of weak factions, or fund a breakaway from a large one. With Ideology you can send missionaries to convert another faction's religion.

Watching and joining battles

Click a settlement that has been announced as a target and you can watch the battle yourself. Choosing to watch generates a real battle map there, where both factions' forces fight it out. You can simply observe, or send a caravan or shuttle to join one side. Joining makes the other side hostile, and treaties you hold with them may break.

Hegemons

A faction whose power grows very high is declared a hegemon, and pressuring its neighbours brings a counter-coalition against it. If its power falls far enough it loses hegemon status.

Imperial tributary and the war of independence

With Royalty installed you can begin a new game as a tributary of the Empire (changeable in the mod settings). While you pay tribute the Empire will not attack you, and extra tribute requests may arrive that grant a colonist honor. Break the bond yourself and every treaty with your overlord dissolves, leaving you to survive raids for a set period. During the war you cannot improve relations or sue for peace; survive to the end and you are free, and other factions come to trust you. If a battle goes badly you may instead surrender before ruin, on the condition of becoming a tributary again.

Settlement buildings

From the world map settlement tab, spend silver and construction time to unlock permanent buff buildings. Buildings upgrade through three tiers and grant bonuses to work, farming, medicine, research, combat, trade and more. With Odyssey installed you can also fit dedicated buildings to a gravship.

Q1. Does this work with your other mods?

With EES installed you can hand intel on enemy outposts, gathered by scouting and infiltration, to friendly factions. You can also configure your puppet state's outposts directly. Dedicated EIP images are supported as well.

Q2. CE?

None of the mods I make are incompatible with CE.

Q3. Is it compatible with other diplomacy/faction mods?

Some major mods are detected automatically and the overlapping features are disabled. For details please see the Compatible Mods List in the Discussions tab.

Q4. Can I add this to an existing save?

Yes, you can. Removing the mod mid-playthrough is not recommended, however.

AI disclosure

This mod used some AI assistance, limited to image generation and code writing. The final implementation, review and testing were all done by me.