A better "bad boy" system, is it in?

[rolfski]

One thing I always considered a missed opportunity in EU I and EU II was the way these games handled excessive conquest behavior. A territory hungry player would face endless "bad boy" wars with individual nations.

However, there was never something of a coordinated attack of hostile nations teaming up in a temporary "Grand Alliance" against the agressor, which is more historically correct and would make gameplay more challenging imo.

Will there finally be such an temporary Grand Alliance event or game mechanism in Victoria?

Personally, I think it's a critical diplomatic feature that should be in. Not only from a historic point of view but also for gameplay reasons (making world conquest a lot tougher)

 

[unmerged(18249)]

Thats a good Idea. What I also disliked was that you would lose reputation with your own allies. I think if you form an alliance, then your friends should somehow balance the bad-boy points out.
Its also ridiculous to get bad-boy points if you sack some backward tribe in africa. Like anyone in Europe would care if a other european power would destroy some african Kingdom and some chieftain is sent into exile.

Maybe there should be some sort of grade-scale of bad-points depending on the level of civilzation, prestige of the conquering and the conquered nation.

What I didn't like in EU2 and HOI was that you would have to conquer ALL territory of a nation, so they would finaly accept defeat or give you the provinces you wanted. comon - as soon as you capture the entire homeland, they should be willing to give up all their colonies just for the sake of freedom. Like the dutch would realy give a damned about their far east colonies if you occupy their entire homeland.

 

[Grosshaus]

Conquering African and Asian minor chieftains did cause "BB" to European nations. Not from any ethical point of view, but just as a reaction from other nation who had also thought of expanding in the same direction. Think about the disputes of Afghanistan and Manchuria as an example, also the French actions in Morocco caused widespread concern. Well, Morocco isn't all that far away, but where would there be such a boundary?

 

[Spruce]

the point is that becoming big and being at war with small alliances, you have nothing lo loose to annex even further. BB value is already at max, and you'll get stronger,


besides the more orderly organised alliances (think about Napoleon) there should be some civil war or uprising events.

 

[Achiles]

Actually Wilhelm II it makes plenty of sense for a colonial power to coninue to fight from it's colonies. Especially like in the case of the Netherlands, where their colony was well develpoed and heavily populated and they had strong allies that were still in the war that might yet beat their opponent and thus free their homeland. Why the heck should the government of the dutch people surrender to you just because you happen to occupy the Netherlands while most of their fleet, all their colonies, and their allies continue to successfully resist your military. You have yet to prove that you can break the might and will of your enemies to continue effective resistance. Cya, bye!

 

[unmerged(2567)]

Originally posted by rolfski
However, there was never something of a coordinated attack of hostile nations teaming up in a temporary "Grand Alliance" against the agressor, which is more historically correct and would make gameplay more challenging imo.

I think part of the issue lies in the difference between "alliance" and "coalition."

People came and went from coalitions, historically, with little more than a thought: the coalitions of the French Revolutionary wars changed every time France went up against one. In the diplomatic manoeuvers of the late nineteenth century, coalitions were tenuous and were worth little more than the paper if a better offer came around.

The idea of a collective security agreement is mainly a twentieth century invention. Most European alliances, historically, were aimed at specific occurences and specific committments; Britain was the most scrutinous about this, making sure that every alliance had very narrow conditions and very strict (or very vague) committments of British involvement. It wasn't just "We'll go to war if you go to war."

In my understanding, alliances would be more correct if:

- The benefits of an alliance were only a CB, and the costs of betraying the alliance were...maybe some BB points and relation losses. Not stability.
- Free exit and entry aside from BB/relation losses

It also seems sensible for countries to be able to join other alliances, and possibly even be committed to multiple alliances. It would be possible to build a real coalition against another country if it were possible to ask countries to leave their current alliance to join yours. Presently, alliance-building doesn't amount to much more than "Get whoever you can."

I think that with a different approach to alliances, it would be possible to engage in far more effective BB wars.

 

[Nikolai]

I hope that the BB-wars as we know them will be gone in Vickie. For the superb gamers, it was easy to manipulate them to aschieve a WC. For mediocre players as I, it was (in EU1) a enjoyment killer, and (in EU2) a reason not to try higher difficulity levels(not that I'd make that anyway, but...) to not ruin the game. It must be possible to do this different!

What about maki8ng it so that you'd get for example higher warprobability, but not endless wars, as those as mentioned 1)makes WC easier and 2)kills the enjoyment of the game? I'm sure btw that people has a lot of better suggestions(hopefully histroically accurate!)!

 

[brandnew70x7]

I think the badboy rating should increase for the majors IF the other major annexes a nation bordering/close to that other major.

(IE, Prussia annexes Strassbourg, France increases)

I think somehting will have to be done to show Switzerlands staunch neutrality. Kinda annoys me when they get carved up in three days.

 

[unmerged(18249)]

Originally posted by Achiles
Actually Wilhelm II it makes plenty of sense for a colonial power to coninue to fight from it's colonies. Especially like in the case of the Netherlands, where their colony was well develpoed and heavily populated and they had strong allies that were still in the war that might yet beat their opponent and thus free their homeland. Why the heck should the government of the dutch people surrender to you just because you happen to occupy the Netherlands while most of their fleet, all their colonies, and their allies continue to successfully resist your military. You have yet to prove that you can break the might and will of your enemies to continue effective resistance. Cya, bye!

The Homeland is the heart and head. Once your have that, it is highly doubtfull that a War would continue. Like if Holland could be reconquered from Curacau or Malasia.

In the game it realy didn't matter. It was just a nuisance. Once you had the homeland, they couldn't build troops or engage in diplomacy, trade anyway. I liked the percentage system when you would negotiate peace. I just think that Homelandprovinces should take up much more % and colonies less, specialy if they are farther away. And of course - it should be possible to expell the old colonisators and to resettle the colony with your own people.
I didn't like that after a colony reached a certain siize, it would then permanently stay and grow within that ethnic and cultural setting. If you capture a province with 1200 dutch and then send over the years 3000 Germans there, you would then have a city of 4200 dutch.
There should be a pssibility to Nationalize a province, regardless how many natives or other colonials live there. New Orleans, California, florida were turned into anglo-saxon lands eventually.

 

[unmerged(10945)]

an interesting solution I've thought of is the idea of Spheres of Influence. They wouldn't be the national shields of eu or the homelands of HOI, but if a power did expand into an area's SoI it would almost certainly respond harshly. The problem with this is realistically depicting throughout the game how the SoIs of a nation would expand or decline depending on the state of the empire. Perhaps using prestige? I don't know enough about the game engine to discuss how feasible it would be, and if I did know I'd be under contract to shut my damn mouth anyway.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

It would be nice. For example, after defeating China, the Japanese were forced by Pressure from France, Russia, Great Britain and Germany to give up most of their gains around the turn of the century. Perhaps some kind of mechanism for forming massive temporary alliances against those who disturb the peace.

 

[Grosshaus]

Aren't there supposed to be national claims? If these are less than EU3 cores, then they would be like spheres of influence.

The importance of colonies should also reflect the size of, in case of European powers, the European population. Loosing control of Nigeria wouldn't have been as big a loss to Britain than loosing control of Canada or RSA. Of course it's a matter of economical importance of colonies also and usually it went hand in hand with the size of the settler population. Also for Britain loosing the British Isles should not mean a definite killing strike, if one has built impressive colonies in Canada, South-Africa and Australia. There you might have had enough will of resistance and resources to keep on fighting, in case there were powerfull allies to aid you.

 

[Deaghaidh]

As I understand it, the system used will be less 'bad boy' and more 'balance of power', that is that nations (particularly in Europe) will form coalitions against countries that seem to be getting to powerfull and threatening to change the status quo-i.e., England and France and Russia allying against Germany as the latter pushed for more overseas empire and began building a large navy. Likewise it makes sense for Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans to ally against Russian expansion. Hopefully the AI will be smart about recognizing threats to its interests and common enemies.

 

[unmerged(17523)]

Originally posted by Deaghaidh
As I understand it, the system used will be less 'bad boy' and more 'balance of power', that is that nations (particularly in Europe) will form coalitions against countries that seem to be getting to powerful and threatening to change the status quo-i.e., England and France and Russia allying against Germany as the latter pushed for more overseas empire and began building a large navy. Likewise it makes sense for Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans to ally against Russian expansion. Hopefully the AI will be smart about recognizing threats to its interests and common enemies.

This sounds like a pretty good improvement. The most critical factor should be how large (and thus threatening) a country as grown as a result of conquest, how bad its reputation has become during the process of conquest is still though less important IMHO.


What AI is concerned:

First, count the number of provinces a nation has in relation to its neighbours, the more this relation is unbalanced the more the chance for a DOW should be. (threat out of lack of balance of power)

Second, remember the original size of a nation since the last diplo-annex, the more a nation has grown and the faster a nation collects these provinces, the higher the chances for a DOW. (threat out of aggressiveness of a nation)

(preferably, both DOWs in an alliance of course)


Ideally DOW IMHO should be based upon these factors (more or less in order of importance):

1) compare a nations size to its neighbours size. Inbalance of power> more chance for a DOW
2) Measure how fast a nation increases in size, the faster the more chance for DOW
3) trade competition
4) military strength of nations involved
5) wether or not there is a CB
6) relations
7) BB
8) The fact that it has to give up military acces
9) WE level
10) neighbouring provinces of the country considering DOW should have more influence on DOW when captured
11) What the relations were between the country considering DOW and the countries DOW upon by the agressor.
12) the things I forgot

It would also be nice if other nations think you are behaving to aggressive or are building up to many troops, you get a warning before a DOW.

But to be honest I don't really know what determines DOW now so I should shut up

 

[Grosshaus]

Also the sheer amount of troops should have an effect. After all Britain was fairly unhappy with the German buildup of ships even before they were used.

 

[unmerged(17523)]

Originally posted by Grosshaus
Also the sheer amount of troops should have an effect. After all Britain was fairly unhappy with the German buildup of ships even before they were used.

Yep good point I'll edit my post

 

[unmerged(11633)]

Spheres of Influence are different from claims in my opinion. Britain wouldn't like other European colonies near their strategic interests. If Germany grabbed all of the land directly adjacent to Hong Kong, their'd be a problem, but Germany grabbing Tsingtau wasn't a cause for war.

Obviously, the AI will have to be very good.

 

[unmerged(17523)]

Originally posted by Gjerg Kastrioti
Spheres of Influence are different from claims in my opinion. Britain wouldn't like other European colonies near their strategic interests. If Germany grabbed all of the land directly adjacent to Hong Kong, their'd be a problem, but Germany grabbing Tsingtau wasn't a cause for war.

Obviously, the AI will have to be very good.

Don't keep bringing up good points don't want to keep editing my post

Hey just kidding.