Increased Defection Times and German Formables

[Count deMonet]

Has there been a change made to defection events that greatly increases the time it takes for a province to switch to its new owner? I have seen several patriot rebel held provinces take over 6 years to defect, and I've noticed several surrendered_timer flags(on Wallachian and Ruthenian provinces held by the horde) in 1392 that have a date in 1397-99. When the timers take this long, I am seeing the AI accepting white peace or concession of defeat long before the province can be reclaimed from the horde.

I have a question regarding formable nations in the HRE, namely Hannover and Swabia. I noticed that Swabia is particularly difficult to form, requiring 10 provinces in the Swabia region(there are only twelve total, and 4 of them are free cities or theocracies which almost never give CBs against them) Hannover, on the other hand, only requires 8 provinces to form, and there are 14 provinces in the Old Saxony region. Is there a reason for making Swabia harder to form?

[Ikenos]

It may be that the AI is declining, in which case the timer jumps up a bunch. But I'd be also curious to know if any changes have been made. I'm not noticing a difference in the east.

[DDRJake]

Since vassals add to your claim_variable, swabia isn't -that- hard to form.

the AI can refuse to take provinces by defection. In my experience they refuse too often.

Rebels taking too long? Not sure about that. There have been reports of it taking inconsistant time in vanilla too.

[Count deMonet]

It will often take several years before the surrendered_timer flag appears in a province, but once it does, the time between appearance of the flag and the timer date is 1 or 2 years max. In my current game, it is 1393 and there is a province with a surrendered_timer with a date of 1399. This is a difference that I have never seen before, which is why I think something has been changed. I also sponsored alemannisch rebels in Sundgau, and they took 6 years to defect to Alsace.

Since vassals add to your claim_variable

This is equally true for Hannover, and any other formable. It isn't particularly hard to form either if you are aggressive. I am asking about relative difficulty, however. The closer the ratio of provinces required/provinces in the region is to 1, the fewer choices you have. That ratio for Hannover is 8/14=0.57 Swabia is 10/12=0.83 There are theocracies and free cities(neither of which tend to form alliances or have conquest missions against them) in both, but it is easier to work around them to form Hannover.

My question is whether it is intentionally harder to form Swabia. And if so, why?

[DDRJake]

And there's an answer only the one who made up the code could give. If I had to hazard a guess it's because Swabia is a "what-if" country while Hannover is historical, but I'd be surprised if comparing other formables would back up my idea. Great Britain is relatively easy to form but North Sea Empire and the Celtic Empire are pretty tough, I think.

[Count deMonet]

And there's an answer only the one who made up the code could give.

Indeed.

If I had to hazard a guess it's because Swabia is a "what-if" country while Hannover is historical, but I'd be surprised if comparing other formables would back up my idea.

I don't think 'what-if' is totally accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Swabia

[Ikenos]

Yeah, Swabia is only 'what-if' if one looks forward to the historical future. It had only disintegrated 50-100 years before (though it started disintegrating about a century or so before that). Same (sort of) holds true of the North Sea Empire if one looks at Canute's empire(though that's even older).

[gigau]

1/ Formable nations : claims required are usually of about 2/3 of the designated area. It seems that i need to re-read the decisions and check them all again.

2/ War Dynamism : I'll have to check the factors calculating the AI's choice.

3/ Defecting rebels : didn't do anything recently about that.

[Tallfellow]

Talking about formable nations, to form Javapeh you need a claim_variable of 30 and 5 or 6 specific provinces, is that WAD?

[gigau]

If i recall correctly (i'm at work), yes. The specific provinces is to ensure that you have a foothold all over the archipelago.

[Count deMonet]

3/ Defecting rebels : didn't do anything recently about that.

Hmm... Might be a side effect of some other change then, since I have yet to see a surrendered_timer with less than 6 years lead time, and in previous versions it was never more than 2. It makes reclaiming captured or rebel-held territory much less urgent though.

[gigau]

Hmm... Might be a side effect of some other change then, since I have yet to see a surrendered_timer with less than 6 years lead time, and in previous versions it was never more than 2. It makes reclaiming captured or rebel-held territory much less urgent though.

The surrendered_timer only works in provinces controlled by an enemy, not by rebels.

[Tallfellow]

If i recall correctly (i'm at work), yes. The specific provinces is to ensure that you have a foothold all over the archipelago.

Can see the reason behind that, but as you need a claim of 30 to form them you need to be fairly spread out anyway to form them

[DDRJake]

in a test couchin game, I had my vassal occupy a bordering,cored, same-religion some-culture province from a heathen with no core and a different culture. They got a 1-year surrender timer, refused to take it then got a 7 year surrender timer. For one, that kind of option should be a no-brainer for the AI, secondly, 7 years!? Mental.

[Count deMonet]

in a test couchin game, I had my vassal occupy a bordering,cored, same-religion some-culture province from a heathen with no core and a different culture. They got a 1-year surrender timer, refused to take it then got a 7 year surrender timer. For one, that kind of option should be a no-brainer for the AI, secondly, 7 years!? Mental.

This is exactly what I have been seeing!

1. AI countries declining province defections when there should be no reason for them to do so.
2. surrendered-timer taking 6-7 years
3. AI nations accepting white peace or concession of defeat while they are holding provinces with the timer.

2 is new to 5.3.3 somehow. 1 and 3 are not new, but are exacerbated by the longer timing of 2.

[Ikenos]

well, event 911392 has a 50/50 (technically, the modifiers for culture and religion make that different) chance of accepting or declining. What do you think would be reasonable? would 75/25 fix it at all, or should the timer be reset less?

(Not that I have any say in changing it, of course)

[DDRJake]

I think it should be 50/50 but with massive modifiers for if it's a border core.

[Count deMonet]

I think it should be 50/50 but with massive modifiers for if it's a border core.

And slightly less massive(but still big) modifiers for a border non-core(which would only have the timer if there was a culture or religion difference that favored the occupier)

[gigau]

The AI will not take in account the timer... it means nothing to it (it's not been coded to react to it). So the white peace has nothing to do with the timer.

The timer is the solution i found for you not to be spammed after refusing the province. But i'll reduce the said time.

I've reduced the modifiers affecting the AI's choice, but changed it to 75/25. I'll upload the file for you to test if you like it better.

[SirkTheMonkey]

I apologise in advance if this is considered resurrecting a dead thread but I found some errors in the Province Gained event (#911392) that might be causing the reported odd AI results and I don't think they have been pointed out yet.

The "primary_culture = FROM" modifier (line 1366) is broken and always returns false. The 'FROM' in the event refers to the province in question, but 'primary_culture' is something that provinces don't have, only nations. The province equivalent is merely called 'culture'. The corollary to this is that the "NOT = { primary_culture = FROM }" modifier (line 1406) always fires because not false is true, therefore always making the AI twice as likely to not take the province.
(EDIT) I did some more experiments today and FROM = { culture = THIS } does the trick for comparing the controller's culture to that in the province.

The other modifier I'm worried about is the "FROM = { any_neighbor_province = { NOT = { owned_by = THIS } } }" modifier (lines 1426 to 1430). Based on the other modifiers being opposites of each other, I assume that it is meant to mean that the controller doesn't have any bordering province. The way that is is written logically makes it trigger if any bordering province isn't owned by the controller, so the AI would need to own every surrounding province not to have the 5x 'no' modifier fire. Assuming this isn't working as designed, the solution should be to move the NOT before the any_neighbor_province.