coalitions - let's try for a reasonable discussion.

[unmerged(177849)]

Yeah, I know, several threads on this topic, but all degenerate quickly to uselessness. Probably this one will to, but let me try to frame the debate in such a way that avoids it.

I'll start by acknowledging, despite being one of the people annoyed at coalition mechanics as they exist now, the following:
(1) Some people - very, very few - really do fit the stereotype of the "wah, wah, any limits on my ability to paint the map are bad" complainer. Which undercuts any serious discussion about coalitions, because it allows supporters of the current system to rely on lazy straw mans instead of arguing the merits. (2) Some of the comments, even from the reasonable majority, are a little overwrought. (3) Yes, coalitions WERE too rare in 1.4.

That said, the problem with the "coalitions are fine just as they are" crowd are as follows (trying to be constructive here, not flaming but hoping for some constructive responses):

(1) Mostly ignore the real arguments that are being made. Those arguments all fall under the general category of "coalitions are a fine concept, but the current mechanics suck." They include, but are not limited to:
(a) The peace deal system makes wars against coalitions almost pointless. Fighting a coalition should be hard, but make the rewards for beating it better.
(b) Especially under 1.5, coalitions are perversely a much bigger problem for small nations than for large nations, problematic from three perspectives - reduces the fun of playing smaller, more challenging nations, runs counter to the ostensible point of the mechanic, which is to limit blobbing, and (least important) isn't very realistic.
(c) "Memory" is too long - i.e., many years of peace not enough to end coalitions - seems to be a bigger problem in 1.5 than before, from reports.
(d) Coalitions are particularly bad in the HRE - and yes, this IS a real problem, despite being localized. It makes it almost impossible to play an HRE OPM, unless your idea of fun is staring at a computer screen and watching time go past. (Note also, there are plenty of OTHER limits to expansion within the HRE, including mazes of alliances and of course the presence of the Emperor. In addition to normal limits such as OE/coring).
I've seen little effort to engage these arguments.

(2) This is a corollary of (a) - the typical response we DO get - that there should be limits on blobbing - is a non sequiter. Of course there should be limits, and probably coalitions should play a part in those limits. But it's non responsive to the SPECIFIC problems identified.

(3) Comments along the lines of "hey, it doesn't effect me" are unhelpful and irrelevant. A game should support different play styles. Just because YOUR play style doesn't provoke coalitions doesn't mean that they are okay.

(4) Most of the suggestions for dealing with the problem are unhelpful. "Play on an easier setting" misunderstands the problem. Of course don't even get me started on the troll whose smart a$$ suggestion is to cheat your way around them using console commands (okay, THAT was a flame, but a justified one).

So guys, how about something constructive? Even an acknowledgement that the current system is imperfect but alternatives are worse would be better than what we've been getting from you guys.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. Make coalition war demand cost scale with the size of the coalition --> you get rewards, always inferior to separate wars, but plausible gains for beating giant nations.

2. Limit coalitions to AIs that can participate in coalition wars reasonably --> use range calculation for joining, but let AE hate build so they'll insta-join if you get close enough for them to contribute.

3. Larger nations avoid joining them vs smaller ones, but might declare separate wars.

 

[eugene171]

While not the most elegant post calling for civilized discussion, here goes:

Winning a coalition war has no additional benefit versus winning a normal war. It's just a more boring, lower-stakes version of a normal war.

How to fix this: Add some sort of special benefit for winning coalition wars.

 

[Jomini]

1.) Currently coalition wars are extremely low risk (for both sides) and extremely low reward. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed to make the game fun. When a coalition wins, they should hit you at least as hard as you'd hit them. More personal favorite option is to get rid of the percentage warscore system and just make every province, battle, etc. have some flat value that never changes (aside from province improvements). So totally owning a OPM might just give you 30 WS, but the province might cost 20. Each additional demand made in war results in a proportional cost increase, so say you siege a 40 province opponent or set of opponents with an average province value of 20. You get 800 WS to play with. The first province costs 20, the second say 24, the third 29, and so on; this is an exponential cost curve so big peaces are possible against anyone big, but you the amount you can take grows more slowly than the size of the coalition. This also has the nice thing where you can actually do historical things like Napoleon forcing the Prussians into an alliance.
2.) Give the player (or the AI) a way to hurt/weaken losing coalitions other than taking land/making vassals/releasing nations (particularly with expiring cores). Maybe force people out of the coalition. Maybe steal some monarch points. Maybe nerf the losers manpower & money without making them vassals. As is, coalitions are monodimensional when you face them, once the war starts your strategic choice is to wait it out or go gonzo and wait it out longer, later. This is horrid strategy.
3.) Have major powers do an interest check or something before they join a coalition against a non-major power. Sure Austria might want to go after the upstart in the HRE who is annexing Imperial princes and nerfing the HRE bonuses ... but France shouldn't care that much. The OE should be positively gleeful that a counter to Austria arises. I could see making it a hard cap where anyone bigger doesn't join the coalition, but big weak states (like say Mali) might make that a bit hard.
4.) Make BROT a real strategic choice. Set up some sacrifice you can make (and it can be very expensive) to adjust your BROT rate. For instance, you might allow a diplomatic mission (perhaps even one unlocked by Diplomacy or Expansion) that doesn't "improve relations" but "justifies conquests" so with one or two states you can spend a valuable resource to deal with AE.

Right now AE and coalitions are utterly boring. All they do is take a set of decisions I'd make in the same order anyways (90% of the time) and space them out over a longer period of time. They are strategically bankrupt in their present implementation (true tradeoffs don't exist) and they are strictly linear optimization problems. Lastly, when a state reaches the point where they can take on all the countries of the world and win; game is over and strictly ahistorical anyways. There is no need to tediously drag it out just to make the end game long and boring.

 

[WingedLion14]

two things - one, awesome that somebody is finally trying to do a normal discussion; +1

two - without ever having experienced a true coalition and without looking at any of the previous discussions because of the complainers and without looking too deeply into the mechanics, I have an idea.

There are three kinds of "coalitions" - a coalition, a defensive pact, and a regional alliance. A coalition is more short-term, they fight a war or two and are done. They'd form if, say, France seizes a lot of territory from Burgundy, forces a PU on France, and invades the Netherlands - they come together and say, "if you don't stop, we declare war, limited to a select few wargoals. A defensive pact is more of, all of us fear France and its expansionist ways, so we'll tell France, you attack one, you attack all. A regional alliance is basically like the North Italian states say, if any foreigners declare war, we all come together to defend.

I didn't detail anything though, but what do you think

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are three kinds of "coalitions" - a coalition, a defensive pact, and a regional alliance. A coalition is more short-term, they fight a war or two and are done. They'd form if, say, France seizes a lot of territory from Burgundy, forces a PU on France, and invades the Netherlands - they come together and say, "if you don't stop, we declare war, limited to a select few wargoals. A defensive pact is more of, all of us fear France and its expansionist ways, so we'll tell France, you attack one, you attack all. A regional alliance is basically like the North Italian states say, if any foreigners declare war, we all come together to defend.

Just for the purposes of discussion, I suggest that proposed changes be kept simple and within currently in-game mechanics as a practical constraint. Remember, we have a swath of known bugs that even the devs don't debate are such that have made it into 1.5 despite them being known weeks before release, ranging from the manpower display to vassals not calling their masters to war in some difficult to reproduce situation. A major change to a mechanic requires an adjustment of surrounding mechanics - something PI has demonstrably struggled with doing. Simply rolling out protectorates also introduced a host of issues, some of which were patched out in 1.5.

The coding for regional alliances and defensive pacts would be entirely new. While it's not necessarily a bad idea per se' (and neither is increasing cost of war score per demand), I think we've been presented reasonably strong evidence that it's outside PI's practical limitation to introduce major coding overhauls/features. I would argue that such does not reflect well and requires some systemic change to truly root out, but that's a matter for a very different thread or not a thread at all. It is, however, the unfortunate reality we're seeing. Keep that in mind when it comes to suggestions as I don't think anything too complex can possibly be implemented in the near future.

 

[Zander]

I'm not sure that your effort at "constructive discussion" should start out by focusing on how the people disagree with you use "lazy straw mans" and "ignore the real arguments being made". And ending with another shot at how the people who disagree with you have not been engaging constructively. You could have just made your points without delving into those topics.

Leaving that aside, I think the difficulty you'll find is that some people won't agree that all of your points are correct. Personally, I agree with (a): victory against coalitions should have more impact than it does. But I don't agree with speeding up AE decline or nerfing HRE AE. So I don't know that there will really be a middle ground there.

 

[loveactually]

i'm crossposting this from another thread

my current byzantium game. 1.5 and ironman
using methods of taking core of dead nation-release vassal-return core

it was started because france got PU with hungary and then burgundy and her allies declared war with them.
i also don't want a big blue blob suddenly appear near me, so the three of us (byz, lith, bavaria) decided to dow hungary which also pull france into war.
i took 1 province from hungary to minimize the AE (because i read in many threads that AE in 1.5 is hilarious) and released croatia as a vassal.
and then after the truce ended i dow hungary again and made them return croatian cores.

about coalition? I won't waste your time to explain.
look at how many countries in coalition against my poor byzantium



ottomans-poland (had PU with austria and annexed her later)-france (which has PU with hungary)-mantua (which surprisingly huge in my game)-tuscany-mamluks
later naples and also venice joined in but i forgot to take screenshot.

thank you paradox! my game just got more and more interesting!! kudos to you!
*sarcasm

care to explain this OP?
i didn't go napoleon with byzantium, i just can't.

 

[DaveDash]

Ridiculous.

It's not ridiculous. European nations don't want you encroaching in Europe.

Simple as that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not sure that your effort at "constructive discussion" should start out by focusing on how the people disagree with you use "lazy straw mans" and "ignore the real arguments being made". And ending with another shot at how the people who disagree with you have not been engaging constructively. You could have just made your points without delving into those topics.

Leaving that aside, I think the difficulty you'll find is that some people won't agree that all of your points are correct. Personally, I agree with (a): victory against coalitions should have more impact than it does. But I don't agree with speeding up AE decline or nerfing HRE AE. So I don't know that there will really be a middle ground there.

Focus on what the mechanic is intended to accomplish against what it currently does or does not accomplish, and then the changes to reach the disparity. Support your position about what it should accomplish within the framework of the game's other elements and design.

 

[randomscribbles]

i'm crossposting this from another thread

my current byzantium game. 1.5 and ironman
using methods of taking core of dead nation-release vassal-return core

it was started because france got PU with hungary and then burgundy and her allies declared war with them.
i also don't want a big blue blob suddenly appear near me, so the three of us (byz, lith, bavaria) decided to dow hungary which also pull france into war.
i took 1 province from hungary to minimize the AE (because i read in many threads that AE in 1.5 is hilarious) and released croatia as a vassal.
and then after the truce ended i dow hungary again and made them return croatian cores.

about coalition? I won't waste your time to explain.
look at how many countries in coalition against my poor byzantium

ottomans-poland (had PU with austria and annexed her later)-france (which has PU with hungary)-mantua (which surprisingly huge in my game)-tuscany-mamluks
later naples and also venice joined in but i forgot to take screenshot.

thank you paradox! my game just got more and more interesting!! kudos to you!
*sarcasm

care to explain this OP?
i didn't go napoleon with byzantium, i just can't.

I got you WAY beat, ironically with a very similar situation, and also cross-posted from another thread. I'm Ottomans, attacking Hungary and Venice. I arrogantly take all Croatian cores and release a vassal directly rather than do it your method. 5 years later, Hungary attacks and the coalition is this big:

.

Needless to say, I think this ironman game is done

I have had no contact with any Christians other than Hungary, Venice, Bosnia, and a few Italian OPMs that joined Venice once.

 

[loveactually]

I got you WAY beat, ironically with a very similar situation, and also cross-posted from another thread. I'm Ottomans, attacking Hungary and Venice. I arrogantly take all Croatian cores and release a vassal directly rather than do it your method. 5 years later, Hungary attacks and the coalition is this big:

.

Needless to say, I think this ironman game is done

I have had no contact with any Christians other than Hungary, Venice, Bosnia, and a few Italian OPMs that joined Venice once.

ikr?
sweden, england, castile, burgundy are too far for that.
this coalition thing is broken.

well..
i don't know people who are against it and saying that we are exaggerating, already try that by themselves or just trolling as usual.

 

[bleakie]

Perhaps this shows the need to roll back the halved effect of distance on AE, so that distant countries would not be pissed off by the turnover of distant countries as much.

I would say this is another example of the tendency for Paradox to double fix things: a plain additive +50% to AE (a stealth change, probably unknown to many) is already enough to reverse the problem of countries never gaining AE in 1.4 (particularly when this means doubling AE for same religion, different culture group countries), and the change in the effect of distance on AE became an overkill to distant countries.

EDIT: Though I have to admit that the fact that randomscribbles is not trying to manage AE in his case weakens my argument somehow.

 

[Morgan Wight]

Perhaps this shows the need to roll back the halved effect of distance on AE, so that distant countries would not be pissed off by the turnover of distant countries as much.

I would say this is another example of the tendency for Paradox to double fix things: a plain additive +50% to AE (a stealth change, probably unknown to many) is already enough to reverse the problem of countries never gaining AE in 1.4 (particularly when this means doubling AE for same religion, different culture group countries), and the change in the effect of distance on AE became an overkill to distant countries.

So when you say halved effect of distance on AE, do you mean that value of AE_DISTANCE_BASE has been cut in half? I guess I'd like to understand the practical effect that changes to that variable have on the overall formula.

 

[sunsterson]

What's the point of another new thread

 

[bleakie]

So when you say halved effect of distance on AE, do you mean that value of AE_DISTANCE_BASE has been cut in half? I guess I'd like to understand the practical effect that changes to that variable have on the overall formula.

I have not studied the effect of distance on AE, I was just referring to the patch notes for this one.

Since I cannot find a way to get the exact distance between 2 arbitrarily picked provinces, it is difficult the start a study that gives high precision results.