Cascading alliances in 1.5

[mic-dk]

I'll admit I haven't quite kept up, so sorry if this is common knowledge.

Can somebody explain how alliances cascade? I am allied to Bavaria. Bavaria decides to inflict righteous punishment on Ulm, who is allied to Switzerland. Sure, I'll join, but I won't get out of my chair. Two days later, the Swiss drags in THEIR ally, France... I can't invite any of my allies.

France in neither DoF, Emperor, or allied with Ulm and they are only guaranteeing Genoa. The pop-up said they honoured their alliance with the Swiss. So what are the rules exactly? Does the defender's allies get to call in their own allies? Nothing ruins a good, free, armchair war more than France!

 

[knoddy]

i only learnt this a few days ago, but if they take over as leader of the war they can invite their allies. So presumably, Ulm called in the swiss, who took over as leader of the war because they were bigger, and they then called in their allies the french.

 

[mic-dk]

That is one damn fast answer! If I had an Internet cookie it would be yours now

Thanks, that is likely what happened. Now I'm off to find the correct desk to file my complaint. It makes it pretty impossible to judge the actual state of affairs when being called to war.

 

[mgoetze]

Only the war leader of each side can call in his allies. The war leader of the attacking side never changes. The war leader of the defending side can (usually) change, if one of the countries called in is significantly larger than the current war leader. This could theoretically happen more than once, but that's very rare. There are a few CBs where the war leader of the defending side actually cannot change.

As a tip for next time, you don't have to accept or decline the CtA immediately; you can let the game run for a few days and then check who is in the war before deciding whether to join. If you want to be really nasty you can declare your own war on someone on the opposing side, rendering the CtA void.

 

[Convictuss]

That's why I always like to use reliogious idea CB. It 'locks' our target as a leader and they'll call their allies and eventually emperor and dotf. If you cannot try to look to the size of allies. If one of them is 'great power' and ally is rather small (3-4 provinces) they 'great power' will overtake leader ship nearly always.

 

[StatikShocker]

2 province Crimea is allied to 2 province Persia. This will be easy...
Persia takes over and calls Timurids (HUGE)
call vijanagar, delhi, mewar (all of india) and OTTOMANS
Ottomans take over
call Tunisia, Algiers, Hedjaz

... I won

 

[Thrake]

That is one damn fast answer! If I had an Internet cookie it would be yours now

Thanks, that is likely what happened. Now I'm off to find the correct desk to file my complaint. It makes it pretty impossible to judge the actual state of affairs when being called to war.

There's no set rules, but often times, there is no cascade unless someone is much stronger in the alliance chain. Switzerland should be much more powerful than presumably OPM Ulm. Beware though, If I were you, I would have wondered if France could become war leader; it's rare but sometimes does the cascade twice. When AI declares war, I usually wait a bit to join dangerous wars. You can delay at least a month the call, usually it is enough to see if things go dirty, but you might still have rare but unpleasant surprises even this way.

 

[mic-dk]

Yeah, it was a nice reminder not to assume anything in this game, especially in the HRE France had no allies of note and I could fortunately fight them to a standstill. After both our manpower pools were empty and my army was 2/3 mercs they finally accepted a white peace.

Time to suck to her enemies and get a nice anti-french coalition going

 

[DarkyErinyes]

The war leader of the defending side can (usually) change, if one of the countries called in is significantly larger than the current war leader.

So, does that mean if a nation, that is an ally of the enemy I declared war on, does have a larger province count, it would take over as the warleader?
If so, is there a known cut-off point so cascading / taking over as a warleader cannot happen?

 

[aitaituo]

So, does that mean if a nation, that is an ally of the enemy I declared war on, does have a larger province count, it would take over as the warleader?
If so, is there a known cut-off point so cascading / taking over as a warleader cannot happen?

AFAIK, no one outside of Paradox knows the exact calculation. I've seen OPM Trebizond remain warleader when they were joined by 5 province Georgia, with a gold mine and triple their army size.

 

[DarkyErinyes]

AFAIK, no one outside of Paradox knows the exact calculation. I've seen OPM Trebizond remain warleader when they were joined by 5 province Georgia, with a gold mine and triple their army size.

Thank you for your quick reply, much appreciated
This will at least remind me to be more cautious about who to attack and what potentially could happen.