Indeed, there is already such a crude mechanism in place: AI declared war on you for this national province you hold and did well, capturing that province. Then it decided to continue besieging your various unrelated provinces in the same war. There's greed.
Also consider AI to AI wars. I do not know much about them because I have not studied this with the map visible. The English have endless wars with the Indians. The Portuguese et al have wars with Zimbabwe and so on. These are weak opponents. The motives for such wars must be greed rather than any specific casus belli. Despite this, the AI is not ably equipped to fight over such distances. In a way this simulates the historical relationships of those nations to natives: Good some times, bad at others with many 'skirmishes' over the years. In a way it's just a flaw in AI logic that despite their previous 4 difficult, inconclusive wars with Lenape, in which ducats and WE were expended, another war has a real purpose and a reasonable chance of success. Attrition decides those wars. This is asking too much from the AI - there are more serious logical flaws which EUIII will surely attempt to address.
When the AI is in contact with itself, it is much better able to manage war. Military access can cause awkward situations, but other than that you can basically buy your way a path across Europe to your liking. The AI does not do this...but they love their ships.
Any way, France and Spain are now at war. So they have a border and send their armies in to their enemies' provinces. The war rages for years. The nations drain their treasuries and capture a few provinces. The war is a stalemate. Then, they with whatever irrelevant allies they may have, reach a peace settlement. France pays 17 ducats to Spain as a war indemnity. Now, I do not know exactly how this would work, but in my way of thinking 17 ducats is a deeply symbolic, even insulting sum, because the war clearly cost hundreds if not thousands of ducats to wage. Never mind that it is all France has right now - Spain gains nothing from 17 duats but victory points. Give these two guys a generation or so, and they'll be at each other's throats again. That's fine...but they have to accomplish some thing in these wars. The hundred years war, a good example, would not have lasted 100 years if the English were never able to gain any thing in peace treaties. They persisted in their claims, made progress, and influenced history. Eventually France and England figured out their priorities and did not war randomly. "Relations" at -200 could mean almost any thing. This is highly symbolic. I do not think we will see any changes in such relationships for EUIII, unfortunately.
