Developer Diary | Peace Conference Roundup

[Cpt.Cross]

i feel like this will benefit mods rather than the main game as after the first major war you're on clean up duty with no post war content at all.

 

[Fede92]

These changes does not seem very impactful with respect to the world war, since no major conflict usually follow it. However, they could be useful for the other ones. For example, a full victorious Soviet Union could enforce a DMZ in Finland. Or a non historical victorious Japan could impose war reparations and demilitarization to China.

 

[Xinamon]

Can there be multiple puppets of 1 country? For example germany and soviets both puppeting poland.

 

[Drewoid13]

Can we get wasd scrolling?

 

[Lamartine]

Can we get wasd scrolling?

A key sticking point of many peace conferences

 

[DroNiix_BG]

That is all cool stuff. Bravo guys!
One thing that I would like to see connected to the peace conference is the ability to somehow make peace with an alliance or a country when war is useless. By that I mean let's say you are Germany and you capitulated all of the Allies and for example there is just one random minor left in Asia that is surrounded with nations that you are not in war with, and you are in state of constant "war". Maybe some sweet addtion to this update will be requesting peace like in EU4.

 

[Whili]

An option to limit the puppet's army

It's something historic and would decrease game lag.

 

[kettyo]

Just to be entirely open about this: we will not be introducing any form of demanding a conditional surrender. The length and content of the game simply is not set up to make this sort of narrative work as a widely available option. If you build a game for this many years with the one, presiding assumption being 'a total, world war', everything begins to break if you suddenly change that core pillar. It fits better in a more open game such as EU or CK, and for the instances where we require it, we tend to use script to match the expected narrative. In short: it just doesn't fit.

'Offer Peace' however has been updated somewhat, and will now allow the sender to offer a conditional surrender based on the current warscore against them. The AI has weights to accept this, but are unlikely to do so if they realistically have any chance of continued success. This will create a peace conference between the parties, with only a certain % of points being distributed (based on warscore).

I understand this but there is at least a single occasion negotiating peace would make immense sense even inside the framework of total world war, the case of three (or more) way wars. In such situation it would make great sense of two major powers which consider each other less of a threat than the third side to peace out with each other.

Let's say the Soviet Union invades Poland and gets into war with the Allies. After that Germany gets into war with both of them. In this case the Allies and the Soviets should peace out as the Axis is more of threat to both at this point. This would open up lend lease possibility and the such. I know scripting this to work with many member factions involved might be tricky but it would improve gameplay a lot.

 

[Feather Prince]

What happenes in a scenario where UK capitulates, but for example Canada was either: not called into the war at all, didn't sustain enough casualties or didn't lose any land so they are not even concidered as a party in a peace deal.
I'm asking because currently, you very rarely get the option to fully annex them (even if they fought in a war agains you), sometimes you might be able to puppet them through UK (before fully annexing The British or you lose the option to), and sometimes you don't even get that choice, so they just stay as part of the allies with other former dominions.

 

[DukofDeth]

Can there be multiple puppets of 1 country? For example germany and soviets both puppeting poland.

That already happens with any country that has other releasable nations within it

 

[$ilent_$trider]

It has been said already, but I really don't get why you would need to puppet a country in order to demilitarize some states or get war reparatoins? It's just weakening your subject.

You don't need to puppet, you can force a change of government (say, from fascist to democratic) and then ask for reparations and DMZ.

 

[Dlin369]

Will there be ways to divide up a country into two puppets dynamically like north and South Korea? Right now dividing East and West Germany requires two premade tags, and if one faction puppets a country another faction can’t create a second puppet of a different ideology

 

[Áurum]

View attachment 868305​

Hello all!
I join you to once again talk about peace conferences. This time we have more info on our changes and features that I was not able to go into last time. Most of these are coming as part of By Blood Alone.

Previously I talked about mostly the structure of the new Peace Conference system. If you have not read that Dev Diary, I recommend checking that out first. The short version is that we are reworking the old peace system into a new one that features simultaneous and blind turns, all conferences actions being contestable, and limited points to use in the conference.

Before we cover new stuff I also want to address some changes to the jargon we introduced last time. We considered changing “demands” to “bids” to fit with the new system. The previous dev diary talked at length about bids. We are instead now referring to all of these as “demands.”

Now for some new stuff! Firstly, I would like to show off our nearly complete UI with a comparison to the old UI.​

Nearly Finished PC UI
View attachment 868316

Old PC UI
View attachment 868300
[Edit: This old shot from the HoI wiki contains modded material. We're leaving it in since it was quoted, but please be aware.]
​

In the new system we have expanded the “Demands” portion to the entire left of the UI while moving all relevant information about victors or beneficiary nations to the right. Part of this was to make the menu more presentable, but another part of this was to handle what is now a more complex system of demands.

As part of By Blood Alone, we are adding five new types of demands to the peace conference. Four of these are a new type of “Additional Demand” which I will go into shortly. The other new demand is “Take Navy.” This will allow participants in the conference to use their participation points to demand enemy capitol ships as they would a single state. This means that players requesting the same ship will result in a contested claim. When the conference finishes, screen ships will be divided up amongst those who claimed capital ships based upon the ratio of capital ship industrial cost claimed. We attempted to find solutions to allow more precise claiming of non-capital ships, but were unable to arrive at a satisfactory interaction flow or a good way to fit it into the larger peace conference system.
​

Naval Demands being issued for the mighty Scharnhorst
View attachment 868301​

As mentioned previously, we now have “Additional Demands” These options all require an underlying demand of puppet or change government to have been applied to a state first. Secondary demands can be applied over the top of a normal demand during the same turn or any subsequent turn.

The first secondary demand we have is “Demilitirized Zone.” this prevents the target nation from placing troops in the selected state. This is a pretty classic part of many historical peace conferences and serves as a way of keeping troops off of borders.

DMZ option
View attachment 868302

The next two secondary demands are both economic. These are “Resource Rights” and “War Reparations.” To make resolving contested demands fit into our system, both of these demands target single states. Resource Rights gives access to the resources in a state. War Reparations gives control of local civilian factories in a state. Both of these last for a period of time the length of which is still TBD.

Resource Rights and War Reparations options
View attachment 868303

Our final new demand, coming with BBA, is “Dismantle Military Industry.” This will remove military factories from the targeted state. This can be used to tear down a heavily militarized state’s mic and help slow down re-militarization postwar.

Dismantle Military Option
View attachment 868304

That’s all we have for today and I thank you for stopping by. Next week, we will be talking about modding. Stay tuned! o7​

I like all the new options about demilitarizing and removing military factories of defeated enemies, but what's the point if I've puppeted that country? Am I not hurting my own faction by making a new ally weaker?

Demilitarizing would make sense if having puppets were costly and sometimes leaving former enemies as independent countries would be beneficial.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

I like all the new options about demilitarizing and removing military factories of defeated enemies, but what's the point if I've puppeted that country? Am I not hurting my own faction by making a new ally weaker?

Demilitarizing would make sense if having puppets were costly and sometimes leaving former enemies as independent countries would be beneficial.

You can demilitarize nations that you forced a change of government as well.
And I assume doing this is cheaper than taking control of the state.
We have to remember now that there's no pass turn to acquire more points.
Once you have ran out of points. That's it.
It can be quite possible for Germany to win an early war against UK and France and not be able to puppet even one of them.

 

[Cpt.Cross]

You can demilitarize nations that you forced a change of government as well.
And I assume doing this is cheaper than taking control of the state.
We have to remember now that there's no pass turn to acquire more points.
Once you have ran out of points. That's it.
It can be quite possible for Germany to win an early war against UK and France and not be able to puppet even one of them.

That sounds terrible tbh.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

If the Axis fight against the Allies ends up by 1941 and the amount of resources spent was quite low compared to what happened historically, I don't see how Germany could have the capacity to enforce the same terms the UK applied to them.

 

[fighting_falcon93]

We have to remember now that there's no pass turn to acquire more points.
Once you have ran out of points. That's it.

What? So if I play as Germany and defeat France and Britain by total conquest and without inviting anyone else to the war, I might lack the points to be able to annex them fully? That does indeed sound horrible and I honestly doubt that's how it's going to work.

 

[Toybasher]

Just to be entirely open about this: we will not be introducing any form of demanding a conditional surrender. The length and content of the game simply is not set up to make this sort of narrative work as a widely available option. If you build a game for this many years with the one, presiding assumption being 'a total, world war', everything begins to break if you suddenly change that core pillar. It fits better in a more open game such as EU or CK, and for the instances where we require it, we tend to use script to match the expected narrative. In short: it just doesn't fit.

'Offer Peace' however has been updated somewhat, and will now allow the sender to offer a conditional surrender based on the current warscore against them. The AI has weights to accept this, but are unlikely to do so if they realistically have any chance of continued success. This will create a peace conference between the parties, with only a certain % of points being distributed (based on warscore).

I know the entire peace deal system is being changed (no pass to gain extra points, etc.) but can there be a bit of ticking AI conditional surrender acceptance if you occupy your war goals? Especially if factions are not involved and it's a smaller clash similar to a border dispute?

I find it really obnoxious how currently every war has to be a total war. If I'm South Africa and I declare war for Madagascar, I have to capitulate France by invading the French mainland. I can't for instance, occupy Madagascar, and hold it for like a few years and eventually try to sue for peace. Under the current (PRE-BBA) system I'd have to make it to an actual peace deal, which, as France often joins the Allies, means I must have France + the UK and puppets capitulate, and by which point I might as well annex as much as possible, not just Madagascar.

It makes stuff like justifying claims, etc. less meaningful. Yes, the game is built around WWII but many peace deal stuff seems designed for ahistoric play, but when playing ahistorically you still run into wars for tiny pieces of territory escalating into WWII because the target suddenly joined a faction, endless wars because of a stalemate, etc.

 

[safe-keeper]

Can we get wasd scrolling?

Or at the very least the ability to bind keys like in most other video games, especially ones this complex. I'd make a beeline for the control options to change camera movement to WASD.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

That sounds terrible tbh.

What? So if I play as Germany and defeat France and Britain by total conquest and without inviting anyone else to the war, I might lack the points to be able to annex them fully? That does indeed sound horrible and I honestly doubt that's how it's going to work.

Here

At this point you may be thinking “Yeah OK, but I get points each turn, how does the conference end?” This leads us to the final major change: limited points. This is pretty self explanatory. Each participant will get a fixed amount of points over the course of the conference based upon war participation score. The way we do this is by distributing a percentage of those points every turn until all points are distributed. Most of the work here comes down to rebalancing war participation and finding what we consider a good point ceiling for a conference. Limited points will mean, in some cases, that loser nations survive more intact than they did previously, but this should not be a common case. In general, we think this creates a fun and somewhat tense conference experience.

So, it might be the case that Germany defeating UK and France by itself might be able to conquer them, but that depends if the points given are always based on the total amount to annex them in uncontested bids.