AE - A literate and exhaustive rework suggestion

[Alblaka]

I can probably accept the Hansa getting mad at me for other reasons too (I'm disrupting their trade, for example), but those reasons should be independent of joining a coalition against me.

Next patch: Having trade power in a node where another nation connects causes continuous AE buildup.


Back to the topic of HRE AE.
Currently, we just have a modifier to AE for nations already affected. But I think it would be rather important to have a small portion of AE spread across the entire HRE, for the simple fact that HRE princes are by law obligated to care for the existence of other HRE princes.

If we change the conditions for forming coalitions, do you think my change would be less infringing with the concept of 'it's the emperor's job'?

 

[Freudia]

If we change the conditions for forming coalitions, do you think my change would be less infringing with the concept of 'it's the emperor's job'?

It would have to be an HRE-specific change, I think. The HRE behaves as an entity differently from the rest of Europe (what with nations banding together to form an empire being ruled by an emperor elected by prince-electors), so it probably should have AE behave differently. I also don't think it would be just that change that would have to happen; the AI should also be more likely to declare Imperial Liberations as emperor (I don't think I've ever seen the Imperial Liberation CB get used by anyone not a player), and perhaps ceding the provinces in question to the emperor when he demands returning unlawful territory should lower AE with everyone in the empire ("Yeah, sorry. I overstepped. What was just a petty squabble between my nation and his over a trade dispute shouldn't have resulted in me annexing his face.") as sort of a "save face" mechanism, too.

 

[smeggy]

In general a good post, if only for it adressing AE in a more constructive manner. Something I miss is the relation between technology level and AE. AE should be increased by the diplo tech of the nation of which the opinion is adjusted. I mean: a backward tribe hardly cares for what is going on, but a progressed state does. AE should matter more and more during the trip from 1444 to 1821.

 

[perles75]

I haven't played 1.6 yet so I cannot speak for experience but these seem to be good and interesting suggestions without rants (so I'm happy to give a contribution towards the 100 posts for a message to Paradox core team )

Question, why not make a mod out of it? is it possible?

 

[Alblaka]

"Yeah, sorry. I overstepped. What was just a petty squabble between my nation and his over a trade dispute shouldn't have resulted in me annexing his face."

Oh god, this made me laugh so hard

But I agree that the HRE is an issue for any concept simply because it's so different from the rest of the world... and worse, it was even MUCH more different in realism, making every concept regarding the HRE an abstraction.
I mean, you could make a whole DLC just about the HRE.

I support the thought that expansion within the HRE should rather be dealt with by the Emperor then a AE-based coalition.
F.e. one could code an event which can trigger if any coalition forms, that will then message the Emperor and demand his intervention in place ofthe actual coalitioners. Accepting triggers a Liberation CB DOW of Emperor vs offender and gives IA and relations. Refusing costs IA and prestige. Code AI to always accept. Voila. Special case would be Emperor allied with player though.
Which, honestly spoken, is the #1 move of any HRE play

 

[Vishaing]

I have to agree with respect to tech and AE, the lack of a relationship is jarring. For instance, you mentioned AE range. I think it should start off very small, but as you increase your diplomatic tech it should gradually increase. That way tribal landlocked powers don't give a damn about anything happening outside of their backyard, but Britain winds up being the World Police what with their max Dip tech and their Naval Ports everywhere.

In addition, I think the AE range should be based on a mix of Distance from Borders and Distance from Capital. In the beginning, Distance from Capital should provide a much stronger effect, while as Diplomatic Tech increases Distance from Borders grows as well. So in the early game something happening near a country's far flung naval outpost doesn't bother them because its far from their capital, but as their dip tech grows eventually they start to care about everything that happens in the neighborhood even when their capital doesn't move and they don't gain a much stronger presence.

As for AE in relation to country size, the most obvious solution to me is to make it dependent on the size of all three countries involved; the Attacker, the Target, and the Bystander. Make it based on the ratio between Base Taxes, so even if the size of the Target and Attacker would cause a boost to AE, the size of the Bystander could potentially remove that boost or even turn it into a penalty.

So 120BT France annexing 8BT Lorraine would provide major boost to AE. But 480BT Austria next door still won't really care because they're still just kids having a silly slap fight. This would help make Large Empires, lethargic, as it were.

One other idea I've been kicking around, for an "Aggressive" way to burn AE; Any Unspent War Score at the time of peace decreases your AE. This does not prevent you from gaining AE for your conquests, but it does let you mitigate that AE somewhat by 'showing mercy'. On the other hand, it also allows you to smash a Coalition's Teeth in but not take anything, thereby just forcing them to recognize your conquests.

 

[Alblaka]

As for AE in relation to country size, the most obvious solution to me is to make it dependent on the size of all three countries involved; the Attacker, the Target, and the Bystander. Make it based on the ratio between Base Taxes, so even if the size of the Target and Attacker would cause a boost to AE, the size of the Bystander could potentially remove that boost or even turn it into a penalty.

So 120BT France annexing 8BT Lorraine would provide major boost to AE. But 480BT Austria next door still won't really care because they're still just kids having a silly slap fight. This would help make Large Empires, lethargic, as it were.

This sounds like a rather interesting suggestion.
Albeit, wouldn't this cause a triple AE overdose if a large nation annexes a small nation with small bystanders?

One other idea I've been kicking around, for an "Aggressive" way to burn AE; Any Unspent War Score at the time of peace decreases your AE. This does not prevent you from gaining AE for your conquests, but it does let you mitigate that AE somewhat by 'showing mercy'. On the other hand, it also allows you to smash a Coalition's Teeth in but not take anything, thereby just forcing them to recognize your conquests.

The concept of 'asserting dominance' by winning against a coalition without actually conquering anything was already thrown around in the forum before.
But the general idea of reducing AE by 'showing' mercy sounds interesting to me. It's kind of exploitable though, if you just pick weak targets, cause 100% WS and peace out.

 

[Vishaing]

Possibly. Perhaps, smaller nations should also get a penalty on their AE range? As they are minor powers their backyard will be considerably smaller. So when France starts to expand into the southern Germany it will be the small states that freak out the most, which makes sense, while North German States will freak out less.

Alternatively/Additionally, perhaps Size of the bystander only ever reduces AE gain, when the bystander is larger than both parties involved.

I would assume Showing Mercy would have similar scaling factors for size. So getting in a war with a massive coalition, beating them handily, and then peacing out for nothing more than "Concede Defeat" would give a major AE reduction. Perhaps you should only be able to 'burn' AE off like this in defensive wars, otherwise unspent war score can only be put towards reducing the AE from whatever you do take in that war specifically, not removing AE you already have.

 

[AledlePieux]

Love the idea. Will be insanely complex, but now that the tooltip dispays the exact AE per cou try, it should be manageable. According to what´s written there, we will stick to the idea that the province location is more important than the country location. Seems fair from an historic perspective but can be easily abused by the player using multiple fronts to fight on o e side then the other to wear off AE (what OE do but with different culture / religion)

 

[Alblaka]

Love the idea. Will be insanely complex, but now that the tooltip dispays the exact AE per cou try, it should be manageable. According to what´s written there, we will stick to the idea that the province location is more important than the country location.

Actually no. In this suggestion, ephasis put is on diplomatic relation and power balance, not only distance.

 

[panionios]

Good ideas, though I have the feeling that this is what PDS has been trying to do all along and for various reasons has been unable to achieve. Maybe it's not that easy.

 

[Sir Iain]

Oh god, this made me laugh so hard

But I agree that the HRE is an issue for any concept simply because it's so different from the rest of the world... and worse, it was even MUCH more different in realism, making every concept regarding the HRE an abstraction.
I mean, you could make a whole DLC just about the HRE.

I support the thought that expansion within the HRE should rather be dealt with by the Emperor then a AE-based coalition.
F.e. one could code an event which can trigger if any coalition forms, that will then message the Emperor and demand his intervention in place ofthe actual coalitioners. Accepting triggers a Liberation CB DOW of Emperor vs offender and gives IA and relations. Refusing costs IA and prestige. Code AI to always accept. Voila. Special case would be Emperor allied with player though.
Which, honestly spoken, is the #1 move of any HRE play

The Emperor should start to care about expansion after a few reforms.
During Frederik III's reign, there were many localized feuds were neighboring princes dealt with the aggressor. The Wars in Bavaria, Franconia, the Palatinate and Pommerania were all fought without the Emperor actively intervening, although he did support some participants diplomatically.

After the reforms, Landfriede was declared, and feuds almost ended. Localized conflics would be solved in court of law and breaking the peace meant trouble with the emperor.

(During the wars/feuds of the 15th century there surely was direct conquest of lands, but those bits were too small to be represented on EUIV's map. )

 

[Alblaka]

(During the wars/feuds of the 15th century there surely was direct conquest of lands, but those bits were too small to be represented on EUIV's map. )

Well, this is a bit off from the topic of AE, but this could be realized by offering HRE members with a claim on another HRE members provinces an alternative wargoal 'minor expansion'. This CB would prevent switch of warleaders and prevent the Emperor from interwening, but you can't conquer provinces eitehr. However, if you reach 100% warscore, you can 'enforce territorial transfer', which transfers 1 basetax from all the HRE's provinces that are neighbouring your country and gives +1 basetaxe on an equal number of your provinces bordering theirs. This would represent 'making minor gains', that are too small to actually flip a province. And would cause much less AE.

 

[Mamluke]

Good ideas, though I have the feeling that this is what PDS has been trying to do all along and for various reasons has been unable to achieve. Maybe it's not that easy.

lol, they have avoided dynamic AE since relase, dynamic AE is exactly what the system needs. as the OP state, only static modifiers IS NOT enough.

 

[Sir Iain]

Well, this is a bit off from the topic of AE, but this could be realized by offering HRE members with a claim on another HRE members provinces an alternative wargoal 'minor expansion'. This CB would prevent switch of warleaders and prevent the Emperor from interwening, but you can't conquer provinces eitehr. However, if you reach 100% warscore, you can 'enforce territorial transfer', which transfers 1 basetax from all the HRE's provinces that are neighbouring your country and gives +1 basetaxe on an equal number of your provinces bordering theirs. This would represent 'making minor gains', that are too small to actually flip a province. And would cause much less AE.

That would be interesting, although there should be some limit, so Berlin wouldn't grow to BT 15 while Leipzig has only 1 BT left after some wars.

 

[lordmichael95]

Actually, I think I answered by own concerns when writing this post when I got to (2). So unless I think of something I missed please disregard.

I think there are a lot of good ideas in here, covering many different topics (like in the HRE). But I think there is one situation that has so far been missed regarding the HRE: the player being the Emperor.

Currently, if the player is not the emperor, mid-level or large HRE nations can quickly become Emperor. Now if if all/most of these ideas are implemented, becoming Emperor won't be as easy (which should be the case), but will still be possible. So far, at least as I understand it, most of the AE HRE specific ideas boil down to: (1) the Emperor needing to do his job (the AI Emperor using the CBs to break up large HRE states and bringing back Ulm) or (2) if failing to do so, receiving option penalties that will cause him to lose the throne.

 

[stinebot]

I agree 100% that if a nation declares war on one nation to get one province the nation shouldn't be able to get other provinces or at a high cost of AE.

In that case, if I have claims on 3 provinces of my target, my CB should be able to encompass all the land I want rather than forcing me to pick just one.

 

[Freudia]

In that case, if I have claims on 3 provinces of my target, my CB should be able to encompass all the land I want rather than forcing me to pick just one.

I'd be ok with this because I tend to claim everything I actually take for myself anyways. Even if I intend to release it as a vassal later.

 

[Karkento]

My god, this would be such an absolutely awesome overhaul to AE. Don't really have anything to say that hasn't been said but posting to show support (come on PDX, notice this!)

 

[Vishaing]

If anyone is interested, I have been tweaking the Outraged AI Attitude in my current game and I think I have an interesting balance, but I need help testing it as I tend to not go on massive conquering sprees.

My version of Outraged is based far more on Threat and Relative Strength rather than AE. Countries that are stronger than the target will generally not enter into a Coalition, if they are vastly larger they almost assuredly will not. Also, the further away the Target is the less likely a country is to enter into a Coalition.

I just recently added a block of HRE specific checks that make HRE states both more likely to join a coalition just as a baseline, but also more likely to join against people who own non-core HRe land. This goes doubly for Foreigners and Doubly for The Emperor Himself! In fact, HRE states are more likely to join Coalitions against Foreign Countries and the Emperor in general. Please pay attention to how this impacts Burgundy, because by the time I implemented it the inheritance event had already fired. I will be paying attention to how the states react to me being the Emperor. And pretty soon I'm going to see how they react to me annexing two Dutch Vassals....

Also I completely and totally stole the Ignore Attitude from Veritas et Fortitudo. Credit where its do, that is a very elegant way of creating a distant modifier.

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So far the effects have been interesting. England and Provence are in an effectively permanent Coalition against France, with me (Austria) being allied to both. The Ottomans haven't expanded much but even when they annexed three provinces from Byzantium they only got Hungary into a Coalition. Now Hungary has been beaten down and The Mameluks are alone in a Coalition against them. Sweden and The Hansa were in a Coalition against a massive Denmark for a while. Oh and when Serbia annexed Bosnia they got no Coalition, and even after taking a chunk of Croatia from both Hungary and Venice they didn't get a Coalition. All of their neighboring powers are too strong to need a Coalition (The Ottomans) or are focusing on The Ottomans (Hungary). Italian states? They didn't give a damn (well Venice probably did but I was occupying them completely and they were alone in a Coalition against me so they didn't really have any opportunity to do anything).