100% War Score should mean unconditional surrender

[Novacat]

If France was allowed to surrender completely and for you to annex their territory just like that, the over-extension would kill you before you could bat your eyes. This thread would be replaced by a billion more asking why Paradox would allow you to annex a country when you could never control it in the first place.

If you can't control an oversized country you defeated in war without over-extension killing you, why would Paradox allow you to do it in the first place?

As I said, this thread is basically a symptom of a bigger issue, in that provinces cost too much warscore and that even 100% warscore you have difficulty getting enough provinces to get close to 100% OE... People were able to get around this issue previously by using CBs with cost discounts, but now CBs that discount costs are much much rarer people are forced to deal with the rediculously high peace costs.

 

[Aldun]

I would like to add that going over 100% OE isn't really a big deal. It increases rebel chance and triggers some bad events, the worst of which reduces stability. But given the fact that this blows over in then years, it isn't really a big deal.

 

[Beagá]

As I said, this thread is basically a symptom of a bigger issue, in that provinces cost too much warscore and that even 100% warscore you have difficulty getting enough provinces to get close to 100% OE... People were able to get around this issue previously by using CBs with cost discounts, but now CBs that discount costs are much much rarer people are forced to deal with the rediculously high peace costs.

Indeed.

Did you read one of my suggestions? I think smaller warscore cost if the enemy has negative Stab will be quite nice to improve this issue.

As for going above 100% OE, OE does increase chance of coalitions forming and countries joining it, not to mention it makes trade plummet. So no, how harmless it is depends totally on country and situation and it CAN cripple you.

 

[Caban]

The concept of 100% warscore and the lack of unconditional surrenders are a bit of an abstraction.

In reality, even after what could be considered a total defeat during this era, in the larger nations there would be more than enough population to raise massive new armies if it was that or total annihilation. If they were to implement something like this a few things need to happen... first of all, every nation in the tech group should get an automatic casus belli and there should be enough of a relations hit to form massive coalitions. The balance of power was something that all the major European nations spent massive amount of effort to maintain. And any newly annexed province should have a MASSIVE increase to revolt risk if it is not occupied by a sizeable army. Fully annexing a nation like France or Spain should create a situation that could potentially bankrupt and shatter your nation.

 

[Bragi]

In my opinion, it is just that simple: let the player do it and let him face the consequences. Though on the latter one have to take a closer look..

 

[mcmanusaur]

I formed a coalition of GB, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Denmark PU blob, Poland PU+vassal blob, Bosnia/Serbia/Wallachia, and several HRE minors against France (outnumbering them 350k to 75k), and the most that I could do- even with 100% warscore- was annex a couple provinces or release Guyenne. There's something wrong with that, plain and simple. When there are supposedly already mechanics in the game to limit reckless behavior, there is no reason for warscore to be so arbitrarily limiting. Now, allowing a single country to absorb all of France probably shouldn't be allowed, but you should be able to partition it for example.

 

[CreatureAndrew]

I support the idea, but I think that the penalty for OE should be raised.

 

[Novacat]

Indeed.

Did you read one of my suggestions? I think smaller warscore cost if the enemy has negative Stab will be quite nice to improve this issue.

As for going above 100% OE, OE does increase chance of coalitions forming and countries joining it, not to mention it makes trade plummet. So no, how harmless it is depends totally on country and situation and it CAN cripple you.

Yeah, OE can be an issue, but it only becomes massively crippling above 100% OE, so if your doing massive, quick expansion, its like playing blackjack, you want to get as close to 100% OE as possible without surpassing 100% OE. There may be some strategic situation where you may surpass 100% OE, but you generally want to keep these few and far between as the OE events are very nasty.

I support the idea, but I think that the penalty for OE should be raised.

OE is bad enough, imho.

 

[Saladin Osmanli]

As for going above 100% OE, OE does increase chance of coalitions forming and countries joining it, not to mention it makes trade plummet. So no, how harmless it is depends totally on country and situation and it CAN cripple you.

I thought it was AE that determined that.

 

[neaiskink]

I think Paradox has the solution to the problem with the "add wargoal" mechanic.
I.e. you declare war with a specific CB
win. capture your target have the score tick to a 100% where you can take the wargoal, whatever. if you want to continue, you need TO ADD ANOTHER WAR GOAL
cost of wargoal addition: AE, WarExhaustion and reduction on warscore to 0%. However, if you achieve your next wargoal, you get the warsocre ticking to 100% again. And so on.

Then, it should be impossible to take significant additional land (in addition to wargoal) even with the 100% warscore, release vassals should be unavailable etc.

For example:
P(layer) declares on A a war with a Conquest CB for province X.
Player beats some armies, sieges and occupies X.
Within a year, even if nothing else happens, the war score ticks to a 100%, however, the player may take the province X (at 30% war score cost), demand alliance annullment, demand cash demand exit from coalition and that is it. no more options.

Let us assume the player wants to extend the fighting and capture provinces Y and Z in addition X.
Player: add wargoal conquer Y (AE =4xBastetaxY, WarExhaustion = BasteTaxY/2), add wargoal Z
With the NEW wargoal not achieved, the Wargoal score is reduced to 0% (battle and occupation warscore is left) and the ticking begins once the player already has occupied the provinces Y and Z.

Now there should also be a WarExhaustion discount and AE penalty on numerous wargoals if added at the time of initial declaration; there should be a WE penalty for adding additional wargoals if already in a war. I suppose there should also be a AE and "Trust" penalty if you add wargoals you have already achieved.

How is that for a mechanic? Would encourage specific war objectives and prior planning...

 

[Rhysheart]

It's not the 20th century. You CAN'T ask for an unconditional surrender: a big nation will simply tell "no", and it will be no, because you can't occupy it forever.

Maybe not france, but i have occupied the ottomans before as the mamluks. Held the lands for about 10 years as i beat down the ottoman allies to secure a final treaty, after awhile rebels did start to become a thorn in my side. Never once lost the lands held and held nearly all of them for 10+ years of said war. With no allies left what then do the ottomans have to bargain with as i have held them beneath my boot for a decade?

 

[unmerged(466619)]

The concept of 100% warscore and the lack of unconditional surrenders are a bit of an abstraction.

In reality, even after what could be considered a total defeat during this era, in the larger nations there would be more than enough population to raise massive new armies if it was that or total annihilation. If they were to implement something like this a few things need to happen... first of all, every nation in the tech group should get an automatic casus belli and there should be enough of a relations hit to form massive coalitions. The balance of power was something that all the major European nations spent massive amount of effort to maintain. And any newly annexed province should have a MASSIVE increase to revolt risk if it is not occupied by a sizeable army. Fully annexing a nation like France or Spain should create a situation that could potentially bankrupt and shatter your nation.

I agree with this. It might also be a good idea to allow countries to intervene in an on-going war if one side looks like it's doing too well. E.g., if France manages to occupy a large part of Spain, other countries should be able to intervene on Spain's behalf, even if the two sides haven't yet signed a treaty and France has no OE yet. (Kind of like how the Swedes and French intervened in the Thirty Years' War, for fear that, if Austria won, the Hapsburgs would become too powerful.)

 

[Iron Chariots]

Since Wodan9 has established that historical plausibility is 100% irrelevant, I demand the ability to build machine guns, aircraft, and nuclear weapons. You can't use history as an argument against this being possible, because the game is all about changing history. If I want to invent machine guns several hundred years early, that should be possible. If you disagree with me then go read a history book, because as soon as you accept ahistoric borders, you have to throw all history out the window and accept nukes too.

 

[unmerged(465279)]

Since Wodan9 has established that historical plausibility is 100% irrelevant, I demand the ability to build machine guns, aircraft, and nuclear weapons. You can't use history as an argument against this being possible, because the game is all about changing history. If I want to invent machine guns several hundred years early, that should be possible. If you disagree with me then go read a history book, because as soon as you accept ahistoric borders, you have to throw all history out the window and accept nukes too.

This is quite a silly argument

 

[zyphial]

Since Wodan9 has established that historical plausibility is 100% irrelevant, I demand the ability to build machine guns, aircraft, and nuclear weapons. You can't use history as an argument against this being possible, because the game is all about changing history. If I want to invent machine guns several hundred years early, that should be possible. If you disagree with me then go read a history book, because as soon as you accept ahistoric borders, you have to throw all history out the window and accept nukes too.

Yes, yes, we're all impressed with your ability to destroy straw... but anyway I find something quite funny about the "historically plausible" camp. You're arguing that a total war ending in the complete occupation of another country isn't historically plausible, which is fine, but you not only can do this with current game mechanics, you have to for certain goals. While Unconditional Surrender is probably a misnomer, the idea of total annexation or eradicating the nobility (you have all of their castles/infrastructure, if you haven't killed them they're at least easy to replace) to at least attempt to enforce religious/cultural conversion with rebels already built in as a blowback mechanism is hardly implausible. The few times a country had its entire manpower pool depleted, its armies either slaughtered or irrevocably shattered, and every single major fortification stripped from them, it most certainly did end up with a total annexation, partition, or replacement of nobility. From the Byzantines to Poland, and all the other major annexations in between.

Really, the only argument you can make that's justified by historical plausibility is the one others have been making: make it logistically impossible to occupy all of France/wherever and remove the requirements to do so in to get a few border provinces. Leaving things as they are is not only historically implausible, but also outright silly.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Yes, yes, we're all impressed with your ability to destroy straw... but anyway I find something quite funny about the "historically plausible" camp. You're arguing that a total war ending in the complete occupation of another country isn't historically plausible, which is fine, but you not only can do this with current game mechanics, you have to for certain goals. While Unconditional Surrender is probably a misnomer, the idea of total annexation or eradicating the nobility (you have all of their castles/infrastructure, if you haven't killed them they're at least easy to replace) to at least attempt to enforce religious/cultural conversion with rebels already built in as a blowback mechanism is hardly implausible. The few times a country had its entire manpower pool depleted, its armies either slaughtered or irrevocably shattered, and every single major fortification stripped from them, it most certainly did end up with a total annexation, partition, or replacement of nobility. From the Byzantines to Poland, and all the other major annexations in between.

Really, the only argument you can make that's justified by historical plausibility is the one others have been making: make it logistically impossible to occupy all of France/wherever and remove the requirements to do so in to get a few border provinces. Leaving things as they are is not only historically implausible, but also outright silly.

I would very much support making total occupation much more difficult, but unless that can be achieved, it is obviously better to have other mechanics to help enforce historically plausible outcomes than to make it stupidly easy to WC. With OP's proposed change, there would be zero challenge in a world conquest, ever. When you start a game, it would always be a question of when, not if, you managed a world conquest.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I see both sides in this thread. Clearly, the total occupation and annexation of large countries was effectively impossible in the era. While there are a few remote examples - Poland in 1795 comes to mind - it just isn't something that happened. So, it is quite right that we as players should not be able to annex large countries. However, the disjoint here is that we as players can completely occupy large countries, which we shouldn't be able to. What's stopping us from total annexation is not the fact we can't occupy an entire nation, but the fact that we're stopped by an effectively arbitrary war-score.

What should be the way it happens is that the total occupation of entire large countries should be much, much, much more difficult than it currently is, but war-score costs should be lowered dramatically. As such, the "total wars" which EU4 currently sees take place would be replaced by the border skirmishes for territory exchange that were the mainstay of the period. Theoretically, if you did occupy an entire country, you would be able to annex it - but that would be a terrible idea for two reasons. The first is that the kind of war necessary to occupy a large nation completely should destroy your own country, in terms of manpower, stability, revolt risk, wealth, and so on. The second is that even when that nation is annexed, holding on to it should be near impossible - there would be mass rebel uprisings for decades afterwards.

 

[iamjmph]

It's not the 20th century. You CAN'T ask for an unconditional surrender: a big nation will simply tell "no", and it will be no, because you can't occupy it forever.

Napoleonic France would like to have a word with you, as the above statement (conquer large country, annex, release as vassal) is pretty much how Napoleon rolled until he finally bit off more than he could chew in Russia.

As would William the Conqueror. As that's what William did. He came, he conquered and when the war was won, he annexed all of England. Were there revolts, yes. Did the English Nobles say "No, You have conquered us and your armies rule our land, but you can only have cornwall." No, no they did not. He took what he wanted because he could. When revolts sprang up, he supressed them... It's just too bad the game doesnt have some mechanic that would simulate that... oh wait, my bad it does....

Yes that's a before the games time period, but the original quote seems to say that this type of victory is a modern idea. They didn't say, "that type of victory only happened before and after the time period of this game..."

 

[WeissRaben]

As would William the Conqueror. As that's what William did. He came, he conquered and when the war was won, he annexed all of England. Were there revolts, yes. Did the English Nobles say "No, You have conquered us and your armies rule our land, but you can only have cornwall." No, no they did not. He took what he wanted because he could. When revolts sprang up, he supressed them... It's just too bad the game doesnt have some mechanic that would simulate that... oh wait, my bad it does....

Yes that's a before the games time period, but the original quote seems to say that this type of victory is a modern idea. They didn't say, "that type of victory only happened before and after the time period of this game..."

He didn't annex England to Normandy. He became the king of England. The difference is huge and not really doable in EU4.

 

[highsis]

He didn't annex England to Normandy. He became the king of England. The difference is huge and not really doable in EU4.

That's totally incorrect. Normandy nobles replaced English nobles and the ruling class. He did annex England to Normandy while sticking to the title king of England.