Coalitions - Anybody know the new dynamics

[windwalker14]

Is there some formula for this. The coalitions going away over time seems to be a bit weird. In my current game, I had one with only Burg that lasted about 7 years. It ended right after i had a War elsewhere and got prestige and no AE as the peace deal. I have another coalition against me now with England. Burg, Hanna, Sweden, and 2 other HRE nations. This one has lasted 20 years and counting. I have had several wars during this 20 year time frame (with some AE gained), but the last 10 years now I have been at peace with no wars, to wait for the coalition to go away.

Does AE for each nation have to be below a certain point before they drop out. Three HRE provs are HOSTILE towards me the whole 20 years. England and Burg have always had neg attitude towards me the whole time. Does attitude have to be positive to leave coalition? Or a combination of the above.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not sure anyone knows the join and leave logic other than the devs. It hasn't been posted here, that's for sure.

 

[Murmeldjuret]

The system is dynamic, so a combined opinion of Threat (hoiw much they fear you), expansion (how much they want your stuff), and size (how much bigger you are) seem to weigh in. Increasing opinions of coalition members make them leave quicker (regardless if positive or negative). Hostile is simply they are too big/small to rival you imo, and once a coalition member leaves (especially a big one) the rest tend to drop out much quicker.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The system is dynamic, so a combined opinion of Threat (hoiw much they fear you), expansion (how much they want your stuff), and size (how much bigger you are) seem to weigh in. Increasing opinions of coalition members make them leave quicker (regardless if positive or negative). Hostile is simply they are too big/small to rival you imo, and once a coalition member leaves (especially a big one) the rest tend to drop out much quicker.

None of that is relevant to his question though. What factors IE in-game checks are being used to determine them leaving or joining.

I've caused members to leave with huge AE immediately after vassaling their nearest neighbor, using them to get a fast 2nd war on said neighbor that I'd have otherwise not have been able to do w/o breaking a truce. Target immediately left coalition at 73 AE.

Was I a threat? Absolutely; I just used them as a pretense to vassal their neighbor and carpeted them for the war score. Was I large? No question; I was the largest empire in Asia by that point. Did they want my stuff? Yes, they had claims on some of it. All that, and target AI left with 73AE against me.

Then, I've seen AIs join off of 1-2 caught claims on another AI while being an OPM, without taking anything. Is an OPM with 4-5 guys a threat to someone with 5+ provinces? Nope. Are they large? No, they're as small as possible. Did they want my stuff? It's hard to say, but considering we didn't share borders and I had no subjects...probably not immediately.

Saying they use such factors is thus worthless. We really need to know what the AI is actually using beyond AE to factor joining/leaving coalitions, and nobody seems to know that that is willing to share said information.

 

[ShadeDragon]

I've noticed that coalition members are likely to leave the coalition after fighting a war with you (especially a failed one). So if any of the coalition members were in that "war elsewhere" you mentioned that might have caused it.

Oh, and to answer the specific question in OP, no, they most certainly do not need positive opinion of you to leave the coalition.

 

[windwalker14]

Thanks for the info. I am France, England has been around -180 to -200 opinion for the last 50 years. There navy keeps them alive along with some very dumb ally naval tactics. Feels like I will scrap this game and turn it onto a test case to guesstimate a solution. Damn.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've noticed that coalition members are likely to leave the coalition after fighting a war with you (especially a failed one). So if any of the coalition members were in that "war elsewhere" you mentioned that might have caused it.

Oh, and to answer the specific question in OP, no, they most certainly do not need positive opinion of you to leave the coalition.

They also will not necessarily leave with positive relations.

I suspect outraged attitude is what's at play, but we'd still need to know the factors for that.

 

[Viperswhip]

It feels better now, but I am not taking oodles of territory through conquest as Gelre, but only a few countries join and they mostly leave after a few years, the ones that stay are the ones who still exist despite me holding one of their provinces. Maybe it helps that me and them are all in the HRE, I don't know.

 

[windwalker14]

I am replaying the part where the coalition formed and found out the systems lies about how much AE one generates. I am planning to become emperor of HRE. I already have 2 vassals in HRE. The current battle with Austria has landed me 1 more electorate vassal and the war continues. I now ( in same war ) vassalize Brandenburg. The game says it will cost me 15 AE points. However the surrounding countries are getting 1.7 times as much AE. Each one of these countries is joining the coalition against me.

I guess I will replay the battle from before I vassalized the first country to see if the AE also increased by 1.7 times as much. This would explain why my AE went crazy. Unforunately England leads this coalition at -200 AE with Burgundy. Both are really below -200.

 

[LastSalian]

Yes, most of your observations are factual.

I would also add, based on my experience, that alternating conquest targets tends to remove coalition members. Haven't got a single coalition war against me and was always overextended for all the game (never beyond 100%, though).

Will post some advise on how to handle AE and coalitions, and be in constant and maximum expansion, but prefer to wait to play Savoy > Italy > WC to double check my material.

Edit.- My current campaign is Ottomans, BTW.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AE gain has multipliers that bleakie documented based on distance/religion/culture (and respective groups). Nobody has the join/leave logic that I've seen.

 

[Thrake]

Tough question. Sometimes, AI only leaves when it has around 2/0 AE, sometimes, it leaves at really high AE. I'm quite clueless as well though; all I can say is it has nothing to do with positivness of attitude. As for no AE in peace deal, I believe that this is when you get your own cores back.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Tough question. Sometimes, AI only leaves when it has around 2/0 AE, sometimes, it leaves at really high AE. I'm quite clueless as well though; all I can say is it has nothing to do with positivness of attitude. As for no AE in peace deal, I believe that this is when you get your own cores back.

The easiest workaround right now is to return a vassal's cores to it then annex it. The initial gain of the vassal is only going to be 15 AE, unless they don't exist and you want them to start bigger (usually not necessary). It's even better if the vassal occupies said provinces since you pay 0 diplo points on those.

For nations that lack cores of a potential vassal, just chew them down with a small regional ally, giving the regional ally the land it occupies in the peace deal. Then, vassal the target, betray your regional ally, and feed the vassal its cores back from your former ally.

Bonus points for breaking the coalition mechanic by joining a coalition against your former ally to get it to return your vassal's cores.

Such techniques can walk over/through even HRE right now, what with Styria inside of Austria and the ability to get nations like the Palatinate, Bavaria, and Bohemia to chew each other down into consumable morsels. You could even just spam wars on OPMs and build them up, though in that case it's easiest just to become emperor since that lets you add them all anyway.

 

[LastSalian]

Sometimes, AI only leaves when it has around 2/0 AE, sometimes, it leaves at really high AE.

This is a partial answer.

Based on my observations, sometimes the AI will leave a coalition to avoid getting stomped by you. For example, Malwa joined Russia's coalition, after I took 4 or 5 provinces from Malwa. Malwa left the coalition as soon as my truce with Russia ended. My guess is that the AI inferred it would be pointless to help Russian in a war.

The opposite is true as well. It's not unusual to see someone joining a coalition with AE 5 or 10 if a truce with them is close to end, or if you have claims on them and they feel threatened.

 

[windwalker14]

In a quick and dirty experiment, I raised the opinion of each prov that joined the coalition to above zero. Then reran the peace treaty ( where i vassalized burg). Nobody joined the Coalition.

I also documented the AE before and after treaty was signed. There where other provs right besided those that always joined the coalition when I restarted the game that never joined the coalition. These provs also had very similar starting AE and opinions towards me before i did the peace treaty and never joined the coalition. I restarted this save 10 times in a row with exactly the same results.

Those that joined always did.
Those that did not join never did.
Those whose opinions I changed to positive values , that originally joined the coalition , did not ever join with these positive value.
Those provs that never joined a coalition against me with similar AE and opinions as those that did join, never did join.
There must be a hidden value, or I am blind. I ruled out distance because two countries are bordering Brandenburg, one always joined and one always never joined, with near identical stats.

 

[Thrake]

This is a partial answer.

Based on my observations, sometimes the AI will leave a coalition to avoid getting stomped by you. For example, Malwa joined Russia's coalition, after I took 4 or 5 provinces from Malwa. Malwa left the coalition as soon as my truce with Russia ended. My guess is that the AI inferred it would be pointless to help Russian in a war.

The opposite is true as well. It's not unusual to see someone joining a coalition with AE 5 or 10 if a truce with them is close to end, or if you have claims on them and they feel threatened.

I would rather give a partial answer than more than I know.

As for how to workaround AE, I don't think it is really the subject of the topic; as I'm concerned, my not too gamey solution is to attack different sectors. For ex, as Ottoman, get pieces of Anatolia, then pieces of Mamlukes, then pieces of GH. It gives little AE with everybody but high with nobody; you get the occasionnal coalition, but it disbands quickly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In a quick and dirty experiment, I raised the opinion of each prov that joined the coalition to above zero. Then reran the peace treaty ( where i vassalized burg). Nobody joined the Coalition.

I also documented the AE before and after treaty was signed. There where other provs right besided those that always joined the coalition when I restarted the game that never joined the coalition. These provs also had very similar starting AE and opinions towards me before i did the peace treaty and never joined the coalition. I restarted this save 10 times in a row with exactly the same results.

Those that joined always did.
Those that did not join never did.
Those whose opinions I changed to positive values , that originally joined the coalition , did not ever join with these positive value.
Those provs that never joined a coalition against me with similar AE and opinions as those that did join, never did join.
There must be a hidden value, or I am blind. I ruled out distance because two countries are bordering Brandenburg, one always joined and one always never joined, with near identical stats.

Has anybody joined without an outraged or rival attitude, or left with it outraged still active?

 

[kuolema]

Those whose opinions I changed to positive values , that originally joined the coalition , did not ever join with these positive value.

This is my (limited) experience too. Will a nation with positive opinion join a coalition? I'm just wondering because I hesitate to say never...

 

[windwalker14]

Has anybody joined without an outraged or rival attitude, or left with it outraged still active?

1 of the provinces had green hearts in their attitude about me. They did have negative opinions about me None had outraged or rival before the vassalization of Brandenburg. What i have walked away with is I got very greedy and vassalized two electorate countries in the same war that where to chose to each other. This would have brought me to four electorates. The other country was electorate Pala ( cant spell from memory). Unforunately England is the leader of coalition at > -200 opinion of me. They are not going away.

The cheat codes dont allow me to experiment to much. The code gives a fixed +100 opinion boost. I would love to found out how much of a opinion boost above -1 I would need to avoid them joining a coalition against me.