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I agree while Britian and France allying with the OE at times is okay (though they should prefer allying with Greece) Russia doing it is just utterly stupid and unrealistic, well at the 1836 start date anyways.
 
I agree while Britian and France allying with the OE at times is okay (though they should prefer allying with Greece) Russia doing it is just utterly stupid and unrealistic, well at the 1836 start date anyways.

Absolutely, It has always been a common ambition for Russia to control Constantinople, as Russia considered themselves the Third Roman Empire. It would be social and political suicide for the Czar to ally Himself with the nation that destroyed the Eastern roman Empire. No nation would dare ally themselves with the Ottoman Empire; they were considered the "sick man of Europe" for ages. These types of things need to be taken into account. It would be awesome if someone could make a more realistic alliance mod.
 
The biggest problem with the alliance ai is it should be trying to imitate the concert of Europe, not making massive alliance blocks to then try and dominate anybody not in it with. Sure, Russia and France should ally against Prussia and Austria. But Russia, France, and Austria allying and trying to destroy Prussia is just wrong. Alliances with the Ottomans is fine to thwart Austrian/Russian aggression, but every last country in Europe doing so, including those who would be aggressive with it, is excessive.
 
Once again, missing the point.

A. Failure to get friends? You start off in the UK's sphere, meaning you cannot get any allies other than the UK. And half of the time, the UK will ally itself to the Turk, so you cannot even attack (since the game treats this as attacking your sphere leader indirectly). Furthermore, any ally you get will *not* help you. If you had read my posts or tried playing as Greece, you would know that they will only enforce their own demands. Even the UK or even France (who might pull you out of the UK's sphere), will take a poor piece of land in the other side of the world and ignore your demands. Not to mention the UK won't even send any land forces. The real problem here, and the one you seem to be ignoring, is that in 1836, Greece already had strong friends. Another indication might be the fact that the three available Greek parties at the start of the game are named after the 3 Greatest Powers (French/British/Russian Faction).
If you read wha i ment properly, you will find out that you need the good ally in game.

In a game where a small german sate manages to epand and beat Prussia, the small indian state can challenge the might of UK, and Haiti can be a great power, there is no exuse to whink about Greece.

Develop your industry, reserch prestige techs, become GP yourself, then get allies. It is perfectly fine if Greece takes a few decades of time to get ready.

Also the British and Russians were there for self inerest, and destroying or weakening OE may no be their interest.

And we are speaking about ingame.
I agree while Britian and France allying with the OE at times is okay (though they should prefer allying with Greece) Russia doing it is just utterly stupid and unrealistic, well at the 1836 start date anyways.
They should prefer ally that suits them better.
Absolutely, It has always been a common ambition for Russia to control Constantinople, as Russia considered themselves the Third Roman Empire. It would be social and political suicide for the Czar to ally Himself with the nation that destroyed the Eastern roman Empire. No nation would dare ally themselves with the Ottoman Empire; they were considered the "sick man of Europe" for ages. These types of things need to be taken into account. It would be awesome if someone could make a more realistic alliance mod.
The Russian-Otoman alliance was already mentioned.

Russia ceratinly did wanted to grab the ortodox population of the empire, but other than that and straits they didn`t need anything.

Also there is no guarantee that IRL Russian strategy was good.
 
You haven't seen ridiculous alliances until you're playing Prussia/NGF/Germany/etc. and France, Austria and Russia join together in one big alliance bloc. Then you know you're really screwed. God help you if Great Britain decides to get in on that alliance fun too.

This... In my last (and to date ONLY) Prussia/Germany game - was lucky I survived at all every time goddammed France DOW me for Alsace/Lorraine back. Though I did have UK on my side each time to their credit - sod all manpower assistance but I'd like to think their fleets took out France's.
 
If you read wha i ment properly, you will find out that you need the good ally in game.


They should prefer ally that suits them better.

.

They should and that is why they should ally with Greece. And the "Russian Ottoman alliance" was more a backroom deal that had to do with closing the straits to Russian ships. The Turks didn't even have to send troops. Also, I can understand if the Russian Ottoman rivalry started in 1880 or something but it exsisted years before the game started why should it just be forgotten?
 
This... In my last (and to date ONLY) Prussia/Germany game - was lucky I survived at all every time goddammed France DOW me for Alsace/Lorraine back. Though I did have UK on my side each time to their credit - sod all manpower assistance but I'd like to think their fleets took out France's.

They didn't. UK is just about the most bloody useless partner you can have in wars - it's like a mathematical constant.

I also got really lucky by 1) already being the NGF, thus having a bit more manpower to my name, 2) having superior military tech thanks to completely focusing on it and 3) Russia having a revolution, wiping the alliances clean - and they never re-allied with France/Austria. It was really tough, but I could out-defend France and Austria on two flanks, move in on whoever I don't want anything from, get them to white peace out ASAP and concentrate fire on the true enemy. If Russia was getting in on the fun, there would have been no way I could have 1) stationed enough soldiers on provinces bordering my enemies and 2) kept about 40-70 elite brigades as the strike force moving in to combat the bulk of the enemy army when they do attempt to break the line by sheer numbers - I need to keep a strike force for every enemy that could potentially attempt a human wave assault, and 210 brigades PLUS about 5-10 brigades on every border province was just completely out of the question. The line would have broken somewhere and the grits would have hit the pan, BIG TIME.

As a GP, there's no worse situation than sitting in the France/Austria/Russia deadspot, just from the sheer number of provinces you need to defend and the sheer amount of soldiers you need to defend against (especially France - Jesus H. Christ, where do they get all those soldiers from?).
 
If you read wha i ment properly, you will find out that you need the good ally in game.

In a game where a small german sate manages to epand and beat Prussia, the small indian state can challenge the might of UK, and Haiti can be a great power, there is no exuse to whink about Greece.

Greece cannot ally with anybody except the UK, unless they get pulled out of their sphere by France. And if that happens then either: a. you won't get an alliance with anybody, because you're a SP at best b. you get an alliance, they help you a little and get that piece of land in the balkans that borders Russia.

And you won't get anywhere with a 200k starting pop. You can conquer all of North Africa and Johore, but GP status is borderline impossible, unless you get really really lucky, but even then it's too late. Why, you ask, is it too late? Because: a. The Turks will displace Greek pops in your cores and, more importantly, completely wipe them out in Asia Minor b. The Ottomans will get sphered and now you have to have even bigger GPs (because you've had to research prestige techs, while they've been building a real economy and an actual army). Even after one war, they'll drop out of GP status and you'll probably have to break truce if you want to form the byz empire without having to fight the ottos, their sphere leader and his 3 GP allies.
 
I see two problems with the actual alliance system.

1) There is no way to force an alliance to break. Alliance should be valid for 5 years and then need to be renew. Making an alliance should not increase your relation.

2) Most alliance during the Victorian era were defensive alliance. Generally, GP were trying to get defensive alliances in order to protect themselves and keep the balance of power in place. It would not help the case of taking E-L from France but at least it would greatly reduce the amount of world war between France and Germany. Making the distinction between a defensive alliance and an offensive alliance (directed against a specific country) would greatly improve the diplomatic system and reduce ridiculous alliances.
 
The biggest problem with the alliance ai is it should be trying to imitate the concert of Europe, not making massive alliance blocks to then try and dominate anybody not in it with. Sure, Russia and France should ally against Prussia and Austria. But Russia, France, and Austria allying and trying to destroy Prussia is just wrong. Alliances with the Ottomans is fine to thwart Austrian/Russian aggression, but every last country in Europe doing so, including those who would be aggressive with it, is excessive.

given this line of thought - the "concert of Europe" aiming above all fro status quo. We really need exclusively defensive alliances. Because Austria/Russia/France allying to prevent the formation of Germany is fine. Austria/Russia/France allying to aggresively divide Prussia, like Poland earlier (During EU3-period) was divided by Prussia/Austria/Russia is not fine. Too often allies abandon the attacked nation precisely because the attacker is too strong, while this should actually encourage stability of the defensive alliance.
Perhaps some weigthed factors ensuring alliance-stability and formation based on geography and ranking would be in order (e.g. GP nr. 2 and 3 would be likely to ally, to check the power of GP nr.1, similarly GP nr. 4 would be more likely to ally with GP 1, in order to protect themselves from GP 2 and 3? Of course as I said geography figures in too. If Austria and Prussia were GP2 and 3, they wouldn't ally. Perhaps the PC should have a sort of "Long term aim" e.g. "Form Germany" "Take constantinople" etc. which precluded having certain alliances. Given that I think the mission-system of EU3 is rather succesful, this could also be fun.

Tl;Dr: We need balancing and relative positioning to factor more in GP alliance-choices and exclusively defensive alliances would be nice. Ironically this already works well for non-GP's given the AI's eagerness to intervene on behalf of any country it is friendly with, but for GP's something is lacking.
 
Even though they were allied?
Italy and Austria were allied too, despite Italy having loadsa claims on Austria (and pretty much Austria being jerks to Italy as much as Italy had been jerks to them). Then World War 1 happened and we all know what Italy did. This despite having claims in France too (although irrelevant and surely Nice, Corsica, Montecarlo and a couple of mountains in Savoy were not as juicy as Dalmatia, Trentino and Istria).

Point is, they should be surely able to ally with the Ottomans, no problems about that, only they shouldn't be ready to die to defend the Ottomans together with France, Austria and the goddamn British Empire against Greece. That makes no sense. Also don't know, the fact that GPs can sphere them and then defend them to the last man is a bit little silly, since after the crimean war all they did was to try to actively dismantle the Ottomans since they couldn't stand on two legs again (well Italy did help them somehow, but because they were mad at the Greeks).
 
Italy and Austria were allied too, despite Italy having loadsa claims on Austria (and pretty much Austria being jerks to Italy as much as Italy had been jerks to them). Then World War 1 happened and we all know what Italy did. This despite having claims in France too (although irrelevant and surely Nice, Corsica, Montecarlo and a couple of mountains in Savoy were not as juicy as Dalmatia, Trentino and Istria).

Point is, they should be surely able to ally with the Ottomans, no problems about that, only they shouldn't be ready to die to defend the Ottomans together with France, Austria and the goddamn British Empire against Greece. That makes no sense. Also don't know, the fact that GPs can sphere them and then defend them to the last man is a bit little silly, since after the crimean war all they did was to try to actively dismantle the Ottomans since they couldn't stand on two legs again (well Italy did help them somehow, but because they were mad at the Greeks).

I agree, but these are two separate issues.
 
A nice solution would be the impossibility to sphere countries bigger than tot provinces, which could include sphere to win countries like Brazil and a unified China (also it would work wonders with the new substate mechanic). Basically, if possible, it would make some countries unspherable, and among them the Ottomans and Russia, maybe Italy and even Austria so we won't get players obtaining Greater Germany as of 1848.

Only problem is, I think this is pretty much impossible to do but I still hope some modder is able to pull this out, because the real problem is countries sphereing the Ottomans, not alliances - In my experience, if you are able to put your relationship with Ottomans allies as Greece to 200 they won't intervene and you could be free to lose your war due to infinite turks alone rather than having Austrians come and wreck your s**t with the help of a french naval blockade.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that people are complaining about alliances that prevent them from doing the magical? E.g.

That is my problem in every single game with prussia.
I wonder how i should get E-L from france without a war agains half of europe.
Most of the time austria is in alliance with ottomans or france and russia has sphered sweden.
I try to absorb austrie for a really big german empire througt event (u must tear them down to second power via occupiing the whole austrian state)
But this is nearly impossible because even if austria stands alone - france will starts a war against you and russia and ottomans and the other joins them

these alliances are absurd

No, the goal of trying to create a Hyperdeutschland encompassing the whole of the German Confederation, plus non-German speaking Austria is absurd.

It would be social and political suicide for the Czar to ally Himself with the nation that destroyed the Eastern roman Empire. No nation would dare ally themselves with the Ottoman Empire; they were considered the "sick man of Europe" for ages

That the Ottomans were so weak was why the Great Powers of Europe supported them against Russian ambitions.

I'm just saying that, at the very least, the GPs should let Greece take a shot at it.
It took Greece forty years to make any gains against the Turks, and almost 80 for Greece to reach its recognisably modern borders. Whilst I agree that Greece is currently underpowered (or more accurately, that Russia and the GPs aren't more sensitive to Greek nationalism), Greece should face a tough nut to crack in the Ottoman Empire, and it is only when the Turks' rule over Greeks becomes utterly untenable that Greece should be able to make territorial gains. Could there possibly be a way of inducing sympathy for foreign nations amongst the POPs of the GPs e.g. so Greek revanchism becomes an issue of British/French/Russian POPs, generating CBs?

1) There is no way to force an alliance to break. Alliance should be valid for 5 years and then need to be renew. Making an alliance should not increase your relation.
At the same time, it should be possible to renew such an alliance before the deadline runs out - there needs to be a difference in the AI's calculus between maintaining existing alliances and creating new ones.

We really need exclusively defensive alliances. Because Austria/Russia/France allying to prevent the formation of Germany is fine. Austria/Russia/France allying to aggresively divide Prussia, like Poland earlier (During EU3-period) was divided by Prussia/Austria/Russia is not fine. Too often allies abandon the attacked nation precisely because the attacker is too strong, while this should actually encourage stability of the defensive alliance.

Well, I dunno about the infeasibility of annexing various bits of Germany and splitting her into separate states. I think more important than defensive alliances (and much more difficult to implement) is making the AI anticipate what other AI states will aim to do. So, for example, Germany should recognise that if Austria, Russia and France gang up on it then it will be smashed, and should accordingly seek to placate those countries which it can reach a rapprochement with. Idk if this already happens, but it would really seem to nip such problems in the bud.
 
given this line of thought - the "concert of Europe" aiming above all fro status quo. We really need exclusively defensive alliances. Because Austria/Russia/France allying to prevent the formation of Germany is fine. Austria/Russia/France allying to aggresively divide Prussia, like Poland earlier (During EU3-period) was divided by Prussia/Austria/Russia is not fine.

Erp, not really. For example, the treaty of Sèvres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Sèvres) was up to dismember the ottoman empire just like it happened with Poland. And this after Austria and Germany got pretty much partitioned and their empires shattered, so I can't see a problem with that.
 
Erp, not really. For example, the treaty of Sèvres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Sèvres) was up to dismember the ottoman empire just like it happened with Poland. And this after Austria and Germany got pretty much partitioned and their empires shattered, so I can't see a problem with that.

Your examples are all from WW1, which afaik represents the very point where the concert of Europe broke down, and the entire system became unstable. WW1 of course happened in the game period. But such dismemberments is (partially) handled by the Great War mechanic.