AHD DD3 – War Justifications

[podcat]

Welcome to this weeks dev diary for A House Divided! This time we are going to talk about the new system for declaring war.

Instead of the old system where you either have a casus belli or have to spend infamy to declare war you can now manufacture new casus bellis yourself. This is something that takes time and you can only do one at a time. The time it takes to produce a CB is dependent on a number of factors: relations, national status (uncivilized nations have an easier time to declare war on other lesser countries for example), your governments military policy, cultural tech level and the actual type of casus belli you want all matter. You can no longer declare war without a valid CB, but you will still be able to add more war goals once a war has broken out. If you lack CBs for this you will however accumulate infamy in the same way as before.



While we are working on justifying a war only you and your allies can see what you are up to unless it is somehow detected. There is a daily chance for this in which case it will be know to the world (in a new tab in the diplomacy screen), giving your target time to prepare. During creation several events can happen that modify the speed of completion, both to make it go faster, or to really slow down your efforts. Things like your press reforms matter a lot here, so as a peace-loving democracy with free press don't expect to be able to keep your plans for conquest hidden.




There are still going to be a few random events like border friction, but they will be much less common now with the new system.

While we are on the topic we have also added some new wargoal types, you will for example now be able to declare war on your master as a puppet and fight for freedom. A chance to shake off the shackles of outside control and a quite nasty prestige hit on your old master (prestige effects will now scale instead of being a fixed effect so prestige modifying wargoals should still be quite potent late game from now on).

See you again next week when we will be talking about some new political tools you can use as a player.

 

[podcat]

Fantastic! How will it work for the country that finds out though? Will they be forced to just build up and hope for the best or can they do things to discourage a manufactured CB? Do they get a CB in return?

They cant currently affect it, but it gives them some heads up to focus on defense and perhaps band together with some allies.

First!

How will the status quo wars hadle? Will atacker loose CB if quo enforsed?

Also how would alles react to you creating wargoals?

Will we be able to create sort of "coalition" when country X and Country Y both cook wargoals against country C?

Will we get some general info on what exactly are the AIs dimplomatic intrests?

AI will take this stuff in consideration, so results like that is something we want, kinda a band together and buildup phase before wars. Status quo wars are not changed. you still need to wait for someone to actually declare war before you can intervene. Not sure what you mean about interests exactly, but with this (remember war justifications are always visible to allies even if not detected), looking at how AI uses influence etc around the world you can get a decent idea. There will be some more stuff like this as well in later diaries.

Looks nice. Will the speed of creating CBs increase in every country over time, or will advances help slow down the manufacture of CBs against you?

No, its focused on your own country only, so on one hand if you say get Nationalism tech you can create CBs faster but as you get more reforms there is chance of more events that slow down (and speed up) development.

edit:
oh, and will be there a bonus for the fight of independance ? normally it's hardly possible to beat as minor your master, except with some motivation and maybe an ally ...

well its not supposed to be easy. its supposed to be very hard and you need to wait for the right opportunity. The AI probably wont try to break free at all unless the master completely screws up somehow.

 

[podcat]

Sounds like fun.

yes my hope is that it will make alliance making and scheming even more cutthroat in weekly office multiplayer

 

[podcat]

The time to fabricate CB's is variable, but I am just wandering the range of it, should we expect, several months, years or even decades?

Since I want to know if conquering the world is still possible. Since I saw that Spanish Empire that owned 1/3 of the world (all of SA, Half of NA, most of Africa) I dreamt of doing something similar

we have still to let people play very much with the system so its very open to change based on feedback, but the idea is years. not decades (its very moddable though)

 

[podcat]

I like these improvements a lot

Question though: If the details of a future CB against you are 'leaked' to the world, does it have any impact on your allies too? By that I mean, would they be more likely to stick with you, break the alliance, run away when war starts, etc.?

it depends on what happens. if they notice the target getting a lot of support then they can do that

 

[podcat]

Still creating a CB doesn't necessarily mean you will always get a war right?

no, but its very likely. You dont have to attack with it straight away, but it will expire within a year.

 

[Darkrenown]

Will there be a better way to find colonies that can turn into states and turn them into states? (maybe a map view?).

Is it hard to see? Admin mapmode shows it, and there's a different icon on the list of states on the population view so a quick scroll over it shows anyplace ready for statehood.

 

[Darkrenown]

not sure if this has been hinted at. is multi core suuport being worked into the expansion?

We already posted this, but yes it is

 

[Darkrenown]

One annoying thing that happens in the game all the time today is that Acquire State CBs and other triggered CBs usually spring up during a truce which makes them virtually unusable. Will that be modified for this exp? Otherwise, these become meaningless changes.

Why would you make a CB on someone you have a truce with? Or at least time it so it'll finish when there's less than a year of the truce left.

 

[Darkrenown]

But those events don't affect the CB making feature. Look at the bit he is quoting.

Still if it is about the events, just because you have a truce doesn't mean you don't get annoyed at each other. Them's the breaks.

 

[podcat]

On screenshot, China is ally of France?
and
Whether it is possible somehow to try to force the AI-countries to cancel the CB manufactures?

they are not allied, but the Chinese CB manufacturing has been discovered by france, so it shows in the list after your own (with a darker colored background). You cant force them to stop making a CB, but you could build up and prepare so they might not dare to use it during the time before it expires.

 

[podcat]

Looks really exciting. I'll happily cough up the cash for this. A few questions:

1. Will the speed of formation of CBs be tied to the ruling party's military policy and/or political outlook?
2. Will CBs stop being formed if a pacifist party comes to power?
3. Is this going to use NFs?
4. Is there going to be a mechanism to counter the formation of CBs by a potential enemy?
5. Will the speed of formation of CBs be linked to the overall administrative efficiency of a nation?
6. Will they simply 'cook and fire' or can you save them up for later?

1. military policy
2. they are still formed, but much much slower
3. no
4. no, other than preparing for it, meaning he might not dare use the CB
5. maybe. some reforms already affect it indirectly
6. they cook and fire, then you get to save the CB for one year before it goes away and you miss your chance. so you arent forced to declare war despite getting the CB, but if you are planning to do so (why else create one?) you have a window of time when it must be done.