Can't get a sensible peace settlement

[Chas]

Lots of things I don't understand here.
- I'm playing Byzantium in GC, very hard/aggressive, v1.04
- I've stomped on Mamelukes who have no allies in the war. I've taken 16 of their 24 provinces and I'm on 99%.
- Taking extra provinces hasn't increased the 99% for some time now (since I had about 10).
- I have their capital.
- I've been demanding 8 provinces worth 86%, all with my shield, all of which I have taken.
- Each demand did reduce their stability by one, but further demands are not causing revolts - why not?
- I am getting some revolts in the occupied territories, but not at the point of making the peace demand.
- Occasionally they make an offer of 6 provinces worth just under 60% which I decline as they are isolated provinces I could never demand, and anywhere it's a bad offer.
- How can I get a decent settlement?
- I am sure I have had 100% before without occupying all of a nation's provinces, as long as I had their capital. What does it take to get 100%?

 

[unmerged(1034)]

as far as i know, the only way to get 100% is to take all their provinces, otherwise, you'll be at 99%.
only advice i can give for good settlements is:
- wait longer, maybe then they'll make a better off or will accept a better one from you.
- try to let their government fall, at which point you get all the provinces you occupy, plus a decent amount of BB, so i don't know if you really want to do this. to get their government to fall, let over half of their provinces that you have not occupied fall under rebel control
- ask for a little bit less

 

[Chas]

Originally posted by Kessar
as far as i know, the only way to get 100% is to take all their provinces, otherwise, you'll be at 99%.
only advice i can give for good settlements is:
- wait longer, maybe then they'll make a better off or will accept a better one from you.
- try to let their government fall, at which point you get all the provinces you occupy, plus a decent amount of BB, so i don't know if you really want to do this. to get their government to fall, let over half of their provinces that you have not occupied fall under rebel control
- ask for a little bit less

I'm sufficiently frustrated that I've considered the government-fall thing, but it's considered an exploit, and I don't want the 3BB per province, I'm going to need all the BB room available when I start seriously expanding outside my shield territory. But anyway, if offers 13% below don't trigger a revolt, I can't see how their government is ever going to fall.

Of course I can ask for less, but then what's the point in decisively winning a war?

 

[Haji]

I'm sure you can get 100% with a few big military victories and all their decent victories.
In answer to the original question though, you'll just have to turbo-annex or go much lower with your offer. Sometimes the idiots still refuse at 30% below.

 

[kurtbrian]

Originally posted by Haji
I'm sure you can get 100% with a few big military victories and all their decent victories.
In answer to the original question though, you'll just have to turbo-annex or go much lower with your offer. Sometimes the idiots still refuse at 30% below.

You can only get 99% with battles

you have to occupoy every enemy provicen for getting a 100% was score

 

[Castellon]

Even at 100% I have had the AI refuse 80% peace. However if you kill off all there navy as well it REALLY helps. The AI seams to regard having any military, including fleets, as a hope that it can turn things around. I would rather have 99% and the AI have no military at all, then 100% victory with the AI having a fleet on the seas.

 

[unmerged(9167)]

I usually totally destroy their military force, then try bestfor offer, sometime, I got lucky, getting everything I want, but another time, just have to wait, sometime enemy will give you more than you could hope for.

 

[Chas]

OK, I settled for 25% below, as war exhaustion was getting serious.

I understand now about the 100%, I was obviously wrong thinking I'd had 100% some time without all the provinces - fair enough.

I still don't understand about how they get away with the refusals though. When it happens to me, every time I refuse (I think the limit is about 11% below) I get -1 stab (which also happened to the Mamelukes) and once I'm at -3 then every refusal causes an immediate revolt. Why doesn't this happen to the AI?

 

[unmerged(9347)]

what annoys me is when you have someone thorougly beaten and make a well below % demand for specific provs, that were your personal war aims, and they refuse repeatedly.

then out of the blue the offer you all you asked for and a pile of cash you didnt

silly huh

 

[Castellon]

When they offer you peace the provences are only worth half what they are when you ask for them. Therfore you tend to get more when they offer you peace.

 

[unmerged(9494)]

They did it on purpose to make sure the computer doesn't end its wars the moment they start. However they way they chose was about the worst they could have thought up. It is a very serious failing of the game and reduces my enjoyment more and more every time I play. I mean it's just badly designed.

 

[jpd]

Originally posted by Chas
OK, I settled for 25% below, as war exhaustion was getting serious.

I understand now about the 100%, I was obviously wrong thinking I'd had 100% some time without all the provinces - fair enough.

I still don't understand about how they get away with the refusals though. When it happens to me, every time I refuse (I think the limit is about 11% below) I get -1 stab (which also happened to the Mamelukes) and once I'm at -3 then every refusal causes an immediate revolt. Why doesn't this happen to the AI?

It's my experience that the revolts DO happen to the AI just as they happen to you.

There are a few things that you must take into account though. When the AI is at -3 stab, it pours it's entire budget into stability. So it could have gotten an increase to -2 at the time of the peace offer refusal. When the AI subsequently refuses the offer, stab drops back to -3, without causing a revolt.

The second alternative is that the refusal DOES cause a revolt, but in a province that already has a revolt going. Then the number of revolters simply increases.

Jan Peter

 

[Chas]

Originally posted by jpd


It's my experience that the revolts DO happen to the AI just as they happen to you.

There are a few things that you must take into account though. When the AI is at -3 stab, it pours it's entire budget into stability. So it could have gotten an increase to -2 at the time of the peace offer refusal. When the AI subsequently refuses the offer, stab drops back to -3, without causing a revolt.

The second alternative is that the refusal DOES cause a revolt, but in a province that already has a revolt going. Then the number of revolters simply increases.

Jan Peter

Hmm, I really don't think this was what was happening. There are two outside possibilities:
- of the 8 provinces that I had not captured, I could not see 2 of them (the ones to the west of Qattara). But I made probably 15 offers after they were at -3 and I can't see that all the revolts were in those 2 provinces
- The revolts are not triggered the instant the refusal is made, but a little later. As I said, I was getting plenty of revolts in the occupied provinces, just not at the right time. But I can't see how it's this, as I'm sure that when it happens to me the revolt is at the instant of refusal.

The idea that they were boosting their stab so getting to -2 before each refusal is sensible, hard to disprove, but extremely unlikely for all the refusals I got. They would need to be able to get a stab step in a month. Also, whilst I didn't hover over the capital every time to check their stab, you can tell from the little picture in the circle whether they are at -3 and they definitely were most of the time.

What I honestly think is that for some reason either refusal was not triggering a stab decrease (13% is enough, isn't it?) or that there's some fix so that the AI doesn't get automatic revolts.

 

[sirbruce]

The AI doesn't receive war exhaustion revolts on Very Hard (or they are much less reduced).

Bruce

 

[Castellon]

SirBruce we are talking about revolts due to losing stability when you are at -3 stability.

First, the loss of stability when rejecting a peace seams to me to be random on a sliding scale. I have seen them lose one at 96/100 and not lose one at 76/100.

Second, I also have not seen revolts when the lose stab at -3. I usually have control of all thier provences at that point though. So I am wondering if what is happening is this: The lose of stab triggers a revolt in one of thier owned provences, the computer selects a provence for the rebelion but that provence is controlled by you, so the rebelion does not happen.

Also just hover the mouse over there capital at it will tell you what thier stability is before and after you offer peace.

 

[InnocentIII]

Even at 100% I have had the AI refuse 80% peace. However if you kill off all there navy as well it REALLY helps. The AI seams to regard having any military, including fleets, as a hope that it can turn things around. I would rather have 99% and the AI have no military at all, then 100% victory with the AI having a fleet on the seas.

Great bit of advice.

Another problem with AI negotiations, even though the AI offers are often better than anything they'd accept if you offered, is they always seem to offer up your CB provinces. Sometimes I'd rather keep my CB and take other provinces, but the AI wants to avoid legitimate war with you later.

Also, even if the AI frequently gives up more in its own offers, at least they can be sure to avoid the tricks that the crafty player would pull. I especially like cutting off provinces from the enemy capital, then they seldom suppress the revolts, and voila, free provinces (well, free provinces for someone).

 

[Chas]

Originally posted by Castelion
SirBruce we are talking about revolts due to losing stability when you are at -3 stability.

First, the loss of stability when rejecting a peace seams to me to be random on a sliding scale. I have seen them lose one at 96/100 and not lose one at 76/100.

Second, I also have not seen revolts when the lose stab at -3. I usually have control of all thier provences at that point though. So I am wondering if what is happening is this: The lose of stab triggers a revolt in one of thier owned provences, the computer selects a provence for the rebelion but that provence is controlled by you, so the rebelion does not happen.

Also just hover the mouse over there capital at it will tell you what thier stability is before and after you offer peace.

This interpretation looks pretty good to me, and certainly accords with my experience. Yes I know about the hovering and did it a lot, but after aobut the 20th time I got bored with it, and anyway you can tell from the intensity of the flames in the capital circle what the stability is, if you're used to it.

Originally posted by Innocent III

Another problem with AI negotiations, even though the AI offers are often better than anything they'd accept if you offered, is they always seem to offer up your CB provinces. Sometimes I'd rather keep my CB and take other provinces, but the AI wants to avoid legitimate war with you later.

Also, even if the AI frequently gives up more in its own offers, at least they can be sure to avoid the tricks that the crafty player would pull. I especially like cutting off provinces from the enemy capital, then they seldom suppress the revolts, and voila, free provinces (well, free provinces for someone).

Well, I agree that both these are normal. And in the Byzantine example that I started the thread with, they were only offering me shield provinces. But I'm now playing Timurids (well, Mughals now) and Delhi just offered me 7 provinces including one non-shield province, so it's not invariably true.

Also, whether the AI is being tricky or not, I'm not sure, but in the Byzantine example that started the thread the reason I kept refusing their offer was that they wanted to give me 2 isolated provinces. And Delhi has just offered me as Timurids 2 separate isolated provinces, as well as some that were on the 'frontier'. But I suspect it's just the AI offering provinces in it's own preferred order.

 

[JG1Beck]

Since we are on the topic of peace offers, I would like to know just exactly what happens with the province % values suddenly being halved in negotiations. For example, I was playing as Ireland, and captured Meath, and it was a 16% value. After some more sporadic warring I finally got up to 20%, went to negotiate for it, and it was shown as 8% value. How does this work and why? There seemed to be no good reason for this.

 

[Chas]

Originally posted by JG1Beck
Since we are on the topic of peace offers, I would like to know just exactly what happens with the province % values suddenly being halved in negotiations. For example, I was playing as Ireland, and captured Meath, and it was a 16% value. After some more sporadic warring I finally got up to 20%, went to negotiate for it, and it was shown as 8% value. How does this work and why? There seemed to be no good reason for this.

Are you absolutely sure it wasn't like this:
Before you had actually captured Meath it showed on the peace settlement screen, because it's a shield province for you, at 16%. After you had captured it it was 8%. This I have seen, i.e. captured provinces worth half of uncaptured shield provinces - which is fair enough, if you think about it.

 

[JG1Beck]

Originally posted by Chas


Are you absolutely sure it wasn't like this:
Before you had actually captured Meath it showed on the peace settlement screen, because it's a shield province for you, at 16%. After you had captured it it was 8%. This I have seen, i.e. captured provinces worth half of uncaptured shield provinces - which is fair enough, if you think about it.

That may have been it. I will have to pay more attention next time, but that does make sense.