Great Power Score Rebalance

Overhauls how Great Power score is calculated to produce a more dynamic, historically grounded ranking throughout the campaign.

In vanilla, raw economic output and sheer population dominate the Great Power score. A rich but militarily irrelevant nation can sit at the top of the rankings, while a disciplined military power with a modest economy gets overlooked. The formula is also static: the same weights apply in 1337 as in 1600, despite the massive shift in what makes a nation powerful across these centuries.

Tax base, trade income, and merchant capacity all use square-root or sub-linear scaling. Being wealthy matters, but doubling your income doesn’t double your score. The first 200 ducats of trade income count far more than the next 200.

Army and navy strength contribute to Great Power score with weights that shift across ages. In the Traditions era, standing armies and navies barely register because military tradition matters more. By the Discovery age and beyond, professional armies and ships-of-the-line become the defining measure of a Great Power. Levies lose relative value as the game progresses, while regulars gain it.

Heavy ships, light ships, and galleys are weighted differently depending on the period. Galley fleets dominate early; heavy ships take over later. Galley contributions are hard-capped in later eras to prevent Mediterranean galley spam from inflating scores.

Army and navy tradition provide increasing Great Power score as the game progresses, reflecting how institutional military expertise became more decisive over time.

Population contributes only 0.01 per controlled pop, a fraction of its vanilla weight. Large population alone won’t sustain Great Power status without the economy and military to back it up.

High legitimacy, republican tradition, devotion, horde unity, and tribal cohesion all grant significant Great Power score. Stability also contributes. Internal strength is rewarded.

Each embraced institution grants score that is exempt from forfeit, providing a steady baseline that technological nations can rely on even during crises.

Empires receive a forfeit exemption bonus, duchies receive a penalty. Kingdom rank sits in between. This makes rank a meaningful factor without being overwhelming.

All subject types transfer a portion of their Great Power score to their overlord. Most subjects transfer 4%, but colonial nations (20%), trade companies (22%), and upgraded Indian vassals scale higher, reflecting the real geopolitical weight of colonial empires and trade networks. HRE members also transfer score to the Emperor.

Forts no longer contribute to Great Power score. Defensive infrastructure is important, but it doesn’t make a nation a Great Power.

• Compatible with EU5 version 1.2.*
• Should be compatible with most mods that don’t directly modify Great Power score formulas
• Uses INJECT/REPLACE blocks, not full file overrides

This mod builds on ideas from Great Power Score Adjustment [Nonlinear Score update] by Geass. Their work on non-linear economic scaling was the starting point for this rebalance.

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• Stability nerfed: max stability now contributes +15 Great Power score (down from +45). Previous value was outsized; +0.15 per stability point reads as significant but not dominant.
• Rank adjustment rebalanced: Empire +25, Kingdom +10, Duchy unchanged (vanilla 10). Previous values were calibrated against EU5 1.1’s larger rank baselines (200/100/40); EU5 1.2 quartered those, which caused duchies to score higher than kingdoms with the old offsets.
• Duchies no longer penalized: prior versions reduced the duchy rank baseline; duchies now keep their vanilla rank GPS contribution.
• Internal namespace renamed from GPSA_ to GPSR_ to avoid file-load collision with Great Power Score Adjustment by Geass. The two mods still cannot be used together, but they will no longer overwrite each other’s files at load time.