One thing that bothered me about EU2 was the lack of negotiation. I mean, Civ had it...kinda, even though it was just tossing treaties back and forth.
Congresses...Berlin, Vienna, Aix-la-Chapelle...the Great Powers came together every now and again to sort everything out. In this way, the system maintained some stability because it was ordered enough that statesmen could altogether - rather than in short, quip little letters and telegrams here and there - decide on a point. When everyone's together, they can sort out the details of a crisis, see where everyone stands, and it ought to be clear who would lose if it came to a brawl. These were increasingly important after 1815 - the 1878 congress of Berlin, even through the 1919 Versailles congress, and the spirit lived on through the interwar meetings between the allies in the Second World War.
I would go so far as to say that it was the modus apperandi of the Metternich Peace. Or...well, the Metternich Avoidance-of-Major-European Great Power-Conflicts System. *tries ducking a piece of the argument*
But...that wasn't in EU2, it was primordial in Civ 2, and I'll be damned if you can say that HOI has diplomacy worth two Turkish lire. I think that negotiation - one on one sort of thing as in Civ - is just a short evolution, or...well, a cheap steal from Sid. Congresses, however, are a revolutionary sort of thing, but not one I think that this game can truly go without.
I mean...I'm sure it'd be hard to program the AI to take advantage and use the congress system. But, after all, the AI seriously needs to be drastically improved for this game anyway, with or without congresses.
It surely would make foreign ministers more useful.
Congresses...Berlin, Vienna, Aix-la-Chapelle...the Great Powers came together every now and again to sort everything out. In this way, the system maintained some stability because it was ordered enough that statesmen could altogether - rather than in short, quip little letters and telegrams here and there - decide on a point. When everyone's together, they can sort out the details of a crisis, see where everyone stands, and it ought to be clear who would lose if it came to a brawl. These were increasingly important after 1815 - the 1878 congress of Berlin, even through the 1919 Versailles congress, and the spirit lived on through the interwar meetings between the allies in the Second World War.
I would go so far as to say that it was the modus apperandi of the Metternich Peace. Or...well, the Metternich Avoidance-of-Major-European Great Power-Conflicts System. *tries ducking a piece of the argument*
But...that wasn't in EU2, it was primordial in Civ 2, and I'll be damned if you can say that HOI has diplomacy worth two Turkish lire. I think that negotiation - one on one sort of thing as in Civ - is just a short evolution, or...well, a cheap steal from Sid. Congresses, however, are a revolutionary sort of thing, but not one I think that this game can truly go without.
I mean...I'm sure it'd be hard to program the AI to take advantage and use the congress system. But, after all, the AI seriously needs to be drastically improved for this game anyway, with or without congresses.
It surely would make foreign ministers more useful.
