Annexation of Orphans

[Sidney]

Orphans is the best name I can get for provinces that are part of a state but not really attached to it in any meaningful way. My best example of this is a game where I, as Brandenburg, had designs on Pommerania but Spain nabbed one of the provinces first. Well I was at a loss, I could not evict the Spanish from that province since all i could do was capture it but could do no more and could never get enough stars to win. There are other example of this: England with Calais, Alscace for Austria, the Ntherlands will have this if they can evict the Spanish out of all but one province, Bosnia when Saxony conquers it..etc. Right now taking Calais as the French is a no brainer but GETTING Calais in a peace deal requires me to launch a full scale invasion of England becuase England will never give me Calais since I can't get enough of a peace star advantage.

I know that the way to help fix thisis to not give the AI one "invisible" star when a war starts (else you get the mighty immediate white peaces) but can we not get another mechanism for making the AI avoid peace? Myabe have a flag trip for "Will Accept Peace". That flah is set to no when war starts but "Yes" once any of the following occur: another DoW (i.e. they face the prospect of a two front war and want out of yoours), battle is fought or a province is gained or lost. Only at that point will the AI start evaluating its peace options since it now has something to go on- wins/losses or provinces gained/lost as opposed to giving it an automatic advanatge that would, for example, not only stop it from giving up orphns but also from getting out of one war on neutral terms to fight another, perhaps more presisng, war.

[Sonny]

After all the bitching and moaning I'm sure Paradox will handle this situation better in EUII than in the original game - maybe even using some or all of the methods you describe. They shound very workable.