Constructive criticism and alternatives to the max 1 province annexation rule

[unmerged(3571)]

alternatives to the max 1 province annexation rule

Ok, my idea here is that instead of pointlessly screaming about how poorly/well this rule models history (we'll leave that for another thread), maybe we can try to think of some alternatives that <could> be implemented in the game realistically.

One suggestion was making the rule apply only in Europe.

Another suggestion was making the limit 2 or three provinces (personally I would prefer 2, since that would protect Portugal and a small-ish Netherlands)

My suggestion (which just occurred to me, so I haven't fully thought this out) - maybe it should cost money to occupy territory that you don't own?

I see several reasons for this:

1st - how realistic is it that once you march your 30,000 man army through a city that province is totally under your control from then on? That province will almost never rebel (does it ever?) unless it is an incredibly long war.

Really wouldn't your army be detaching garrisons etc? I know that is abstracted away in the game system, but those garrisons should not be free! At the very least look at the instant garrison the city will receive, usually not insignificant.

2nd - it should be much more expensive to maintain an army in the field than when it is at home. I think that is pretty obvious and doesn't need much explanation.


What I'm suggesting:

Perhaps a warring nation should pay a monthly fee for every province it occupies. The second point could be abstracted into this, or perhaps there could be a higher maintenance cost for having your army in the field.


How this will affect the multi-province annexation debate:

This will make winning a war cost money. There will now be an incentive for a nation to accept less than total surrender and occupying a very large nation could be prohibitively expensive. Combine this with an AI that is a little stubborn about surrender and this will hopefully make the problem disappear.

Obviously I like this idea, but maybe it will throw the balance of the game into question.

 

[unmerged(3970)]

I agree with you that the rule should be limited to at least three province countries, but I disagree with you on the cost of an army occupying an enemies territory. It was much cheaper to keep your army on the lands of the enemy rather than on your own because the army used the resources it found in the territory it occupied. This is the major reason why the russian scortched earth policy was so successful in the Napoleonic Wars when he attacked Russia, because he did not carry all the supplies necessary to maintain his army and relied on conquered lands to feed his army. If he kept his massive army in France all the time, there would have been a huge discontent among the general population because the army would have used their resources. So it is much cheaper to keep your army on the lands of the enemy.

 

[anowack]

Hi!

As I've stated before, the ideal solution would be to use a combination of better bad-boy/more persistent nationalism/dis-economies of scale for large empires/high army maintanance costs/stability hits for annexations/making harder to keep revolt risk at 0 in general to make it not worth the effort to totally annex a large country. However, that's more likely a solution for EU3 than EU2.

My ideal EU2 suggestion would be to make the limit a variable set by the player. A switch on/off would work, but I would prefer a variable limit. Failing that, I would like to see the limit liberalized to the 3-6 range.

Another (probably EU3) idea: make it so that:

a) Occupied territories don't get the benefit of forts. (I.e. the rightful owner would not have to siege the province to recapture it.) OR Destroy minimal forts or reduce to minimal other forts whenever they are captured. (This would also have the advantage that recovering from a war fought on your territory would be historically expensive, but would likely hinder the AI too much.)

b) Strongly increase the revolt chance for occupied territories (while keeping the "feature" of rebels taking an occupied territory give it back to the owner).

Both of these would have the goal of forcing the player to extensively garrison occupied territories, and in combination with high army maintanance costs/strict manpower limits, would make it difficult and prohibitively expensive to fully occupy a large nation to annex it.

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by acetime
I agree with you that the rule should be limited to at least three province countries, but I disagree with you on the cost of an army occupying an enemies territory. It was much cheaper to keep your army on the lands of the enemy rather than on your own because the army used the resources it found in the territory it occupied. This is the major reason why the russian scortched earth policy was so successful in the Napoleonic Wars when he attacked Russia, because he did not carry all the supplies necessary to maintain his army and relied on conquered lands to feed his army. If he kept his massive army in France all the time, there would have been a huge discontent among the general population because the army would have used their resources. So it is much cheaper to keep your army on the lands of the enemy.

You're right if the army is foraging (as it would be early in the EU period I guess), but if facing a scorched earth policy or in less than hospitable terrain then armies would be supplied from a base.

That doesn't really alter my basic premise though, which is that garrisons are necessary to keep a populace in line and keep control of cities.

Like I said those garrisons are abstracted already with the idea of control and supply routes.

Otherwise you could have to leave 1000 man armies in each occupied province, but that would be a micromanagement nightmare.

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by anowack
Hi!

As I've stated before, the ideal solution would be to use a combination of better bad-boy/more persistent nationalism/dis-economies of scale for large empires/high army maintanance costs/stability hits for annexations/making harder to keep revolt risk at 0 in general to make it not worth the effort to totally annex a large country. However, that's more likely a solution for EU3 than EU2.

My ideal EU2 suggestion would be to make the limit a variable set by the player. A switch on/off would work, but I would prefer a variable limit. Failing that, I would like to see the limit liberalized to the 3-6 range.

Another (probably EU3) idea: make it so that:

a) Occupied territories don't get the benefit of forts. (I.e. the rightful owner would not have to siege the province to recapture it.) OR Destroy minimal forts or reduce to minimal other forts whenever they are captured. (This would also have the advantage that recovering from a war fought on your territory would be historically expensive, but would likely hinder the AI too much.)

b) Strongly increase the revolt chance for occupied territories (while keeping the "feature" of rebels taking an occupied territory give it back to the owner).

Both of these would have the goal of forcing the player to extensively garrison occupied territories, and in combination with high army maintanance costs/strict manpower limits, would make it difficult and prohibitively expensive to fully occupy a large nation to annex it.

One problem with first suggestion is that these annexations rarely happened at all, not that they fell apart afterwards. Your idea over better badboy/worse economics wouldn't really stop a determined player or a stupid AI.

Your (a) suggestion seems like a pretty good idea to me, and (b) too - they are quite similar to my idea, so of course I like them

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by anowack
a) Occupied territories don't get the benefit of forts. (I.e. the rightful owner would not have to siege the province to recapture it.) OR Destroy minimal forts or reduce to minimal other forts whenever they are captured. (This would also have the advantage that recovering from a war fought on your territory would be historically expensive, but would likely hinder the AI too much.)

Bingo!
This was discussed an eon ago in Gen Discussions, and during the recent annexation debate, I couldn't for the life of me remember why wars are so much more effective in EU than reality.

Getting anywhere from 5,000-30,000 free troops after capturing a province allows the field army to move forward and forget it's conquest, no problems with supply lines, and simply move on and siege the next province.

Secondly, after assaults, the fortifications are usualy undamaged, the rare instances where a fort is degraded seems to be after the original owner recaptures the territory.

So, after capture, a province should have a damaged fort, with no garrison. The extent of damage might be random, and perhaps repairable over time if a garrison is left. The simulation of this would be to leave the fortification state modifier somewhere between 6 months and 18 months (figures pulled out of thin air) of a siege.

The occupying army should be able to transfer anywhere from a skeleton garrison, to the max allowed from his field army.

This would seriously hamper the blitzkrieg tactics, and make war far less decisive.

Of course, this would be a major gameplay change, and not something I would expect to see in EU2. There are a lot of features which would need to be incorporated, from repair and garrison of captured provinces, to access for garrison troops to walk home after the war is over.

 

[unmerged(598)]

Wow, I was looking to read my post, and the skeletal hand of a modetator must have stickied the thread

There have been many excellent suggestions for making war less effective, though I hope that revolts and false nationalism would be recognized as an arbitraty and false mechanizm for the period.

While we can come up with many good solutions to the problem, IMHO, the problem itself is not being addressed, and that is:

21st century players attempting to expand and conquer Napoleon-style, but beginning from 1419. Now that might be fine for running over heathen outside of Europe, or Infidel inside Europe, but for a nation to simply conquer Bavaria or Navarre, because it happens to be there, would have been almost unthinkable before the Corsican came along.

The reaction, even in the 19th century to Napoleon's redrawing of borders was not too far removed from Louis XIV's more modest plans to reach the Rhine; almost uniform opposition from the dynasties of Europe.

The issue is further complicated by dynastic claims, and the rare justifiable attempts to annex another nations. England's claim to France springs to mind, as does their claim on Scotland. Although pre-EU2, Edward I did not incur the wrath of all Europe for his vassalizing/annexation of Scotland (it's somewhere in between the EU2 concepts,) and conquest of Wales. Similarly Louis XII's temporary annexation of Milan was an acceptable claim to the territory, France though had to fight the equivalent of an EU style Badboy war to keep that territory and press her claim in Naples.

So, IMHO we have two distinct situations which might drag neutral dynasties into wars to prevent aggresion. The first is when a monarch might do the unthinkable and simply absorb another nation with no claim, or a tenuous claim to the land. The second, might be the reaction to a nation's legitimate wars, and the prevention of that State from growing too powerfull, (ie) a medieval-style balance of powers.

Through events, or a complete dynastic model, historic and random claims to the throne could be assigned to nations. This is different from a CB, in that it entitles the nation to rule that nation. Without a genuine claim, a nation which annexes another should be turned upon by almost all Europe. I say almost, because even Louis and Boney had voluntary allies as well as those pressed into service.

Seperate from this, should be the desire of status quo, that when a power looks like it will tip that power, it becomes very hard to keep allies, and a very likely target of war by the other major powers. This does not mean Cologne unilateraly DOW'ing on France a la EU, and from what we have read BB seems to work better in EU2, do I'm confident that the new style BB wars will be effective.

Finally, a word on nationalism. Though I am quite adamant that it should not be included in EU in it's current form and disguised as culture, there are some quite specific examples of nationalism during the period. Rather than simply assigning all Europe to behave like the Dutch, or just assigning the Dutch ferrocious nationalist tendencies, perhaps an absorbed province might trigger a nationalist test. A random, or semi random check to examine whether the current generation of province x have achieved nationalist thinking. If they have, then a serious tide of revolt should break out. Not 30,000 men with pitchforks, but a well led (or badly led) organized revolt which requires more than a simple mouse click-sending of troops to put down. If crushed though, that should be that for at least another generation, rather than kamakaze waves of revolters every 6 months.

Finally, I don't think the current rules are going to ruin the game, it will still no doubt drag far too much of my time, but it would be nice to see some of the fundemental issues of EU1 solved rather than a rush for new features in EU3.

 

[Achiles]

Well my major gripe was not with the rule its self but with its implementation. I really would be fine if they bumped the limit up to 2 and they would please even more people if they made the rule optional like forced annexation is in EU. It could get really anoying trying to annex 2 province minors because you can only take one province and then you have to wait 5 years before you can take the other. You may not even be able to take the other province as someone might annex it in the interem and suppose that someone is MUCH stronger then you and also suppose that one province was the one you really needed and not the other one and now your screwed. All because of this rule. So I think the simplest solution and one most likely to please the most people but still acheive the desired effect would be to make the rule optional and bump the limit up to 2 or 3.

 

[State Machine]

Excellent! I'm glad to see a thread for getting good ideas on discussing potential solutions for this issue. Ideas expressed on this issue, and now in this thread are being discussed in the beta forum to come up with a good recommendation to Paradox.

The way things tend to work in the beta forum is that someone brings up an issue (this is a problem because of x, y, and z). Someone else concurs or disagrees. Someone else agrees and offers a solution. Someone else offers a different solution, etc. These discussions are very condensed and focused. Johan or Greven or somebody may enter the thread at some point to explain why it is the way it is, or to say "yes, great!" Often, it just shows up in the next patch, "The AI for accepting loans have been completely rewritten."

The arguments against this rule are already well known, and a number of good solutions have been proposed. Solutions are good. So post away! I or other betazoids will pass on the suggestions (note, this saves Paradox from having to read a lot of posts instead of programming).

 

[Japan]

I don't like the annexation rule at all, but in order to be a constructive member of this forum I will put in my opinions of at least changing it.

My idea is maybe you have to leave behind a certain number of provinces dependent on how big the nation was to begin with.
e.g
1-3 prov.-can be annexed in one war
4-6 prov.-must leave behind at least one province
7-9 prov.-must leave behind at least two provinces
10-12 prov.-must leave behind at least three provinces
and so on...

 

[unmerged(1302)]

I like the idea of provinces occupied by you rebelling. It is silly that even though you occupy the province they apparently still live under the old rule and never rebel against occupation. Sure this should depend on cultural groups and stuff like that, but having a 3-10% revolt risk in occupied provinces would require to dispatch extra troops to maintain the order, as a province controlled by rebels will not count towards the peace settlement.

Cheers

 

[unmerged(436)]

I think that the rule should be abolished but two important changes made to make the game more historically correct.

1. There should be NEGATIVE tax values for ALL conquered provinces. These negative tax values would slowly increase towards the positive value. This would be historicalyl true and would reflect the cost of converting a province into a beneficial addition to your country, as well as replacing garrisons and rebuilding structures. A period of 10 years between initial conquer and full tax value does not sound too unreasonable. Maybe after 5 years you hit a zero tax state. Notice that only the tax value should be negative, the trade value shoul;d ramain positive 9though could suffer an initial 50% reduction, slowing increasing back to full value over 3 years).

2. If a previously conquered province rebels and remains in a state of rebellion for a reasonable period of time (>1 year) then it should either form an independent state or MERGE with a neighbour (possibly giving a temporary CB against the neighbour), especially if it originally belonged to the neighbour. In EU1 it was completely unreasonable that large numbers of provinces could constantly be in rebellion, but would never form independence or reattach to their mother country.

These two changes should make the one province rule obsolete as it becomes prohibitly more expensive to conquer large territory (especially high population territory) and improves the likeliness of that territory freeing itself in later rebellions.

Paul.

 

[Sorcerer]

Although I don't like this new rule, I can see that it was implemented to slow the swallowing of states in a war, which didn't happen until Napoleon. The original way to prevent this was the BB value, but obviously it didn't do its work. Perhaps the negative effects of a high BB should be increased, such as dropping your relations really low with every state, even your vassals, so that it will cost you much money to repair the damage. Also, there should be earlier BB wars, they now occur when the Bad Boy is usually strong enough to win them.

 

[unmerged(6277)]

Hello all,

Apologies for a newbie (and EU virgin*) coming in on a contentious issue but I thought I'd comment on what I thought was OK about the 1 province limit. I am basically coming from a game play/representation perspective. I agree that it could be done better but I wish to point out a couple of other points.

Second apologies for convoluted argument but it's a professional hazard for anyone who works with me.

My first reaction was this looks like the restrictions that were in place in Empire in Arms, modelling Napoleonic strategy (though they put upper limits rather than remnnant requirements).

I noticed from the board that not being able to gobble up entire entities in one fell swoop was the major concern - historical examples 'abounded'. This agrument is persuasive. The beta testers didn't notice it - and awaiting psychological profiling and cluster analysis I can't comment on how representative these worthies are EU's market. This is also persuasive.

I then wondered whether the remnant province did something else. If we ignore for the moment the fact that the single remnant province is (until conquered again) independent, what does it infer about control of the country assuming now that in fact that you have conquered and control the entire entity and this is just a mechanism to achieve some simple effects on your control.

One, for five years (?), you do not get anywhere near the full production from your new conquest.

Two, you are required to maintain some level of military presence which is modelled by requiring you to conquer the remnant again in five years time. During this time, the capital can represent the destination of foreign intrigue and destabilisation) in newly conquered entities.

Three, there are different effects depending on the previous size (and shape) of the conquered entity (this one I've just started thinking about). For a large entity with a centrally located capital, for five years access must be through your territory which may safeguard it (for you). But here's the interesting bit. For small entities, there is a possibility of the best? bit of teh entity sitting out to be cherry picked by a rival. Under this arbitrary rule are you likely to attack the target entity unless you can guarantee that you will be the only beneficiary? Wars will be about picking small targets you can be the main beneficiary. (Perhaps, it will lead to a tactic of annexing all but two provinces and therefore forcing someone else to take the second last one to leave the capital.)

I haven't thought through** the implications of retaining this rule but allowing alliances to annex all but single entities not - that would seem odd.

Aside from this, I like the suggestions about increasing the cost of holding newly won provinces. Realising that your next province may be a 'Spanish ulcer', should deter war for territory sake.

To reduce the benefits of taking swags of land, perhaps revolt risk should be multiplicative for contiguous territory (there's a lovely programming addition). Say if 3% normally in each province for two contiguous provinces will give 9% in each not teh mathematically correct 0.09%. I apologide if I've stolen this - I read the 9 pages of discussion in one hit and everything is spinning around.

Be gentle (and thank you to anyone who actually read all of this).


* First became aware of EU in Jan/Feb (mainly following the IGC ... threads) but as I was still the proud owner of a P166, I thought I would wait until I had a machine that would allow better than one-to-one time compression before I bought. When I finally upgraded, news of your upgrade was out, so ... I'm still waiting.

** Straight line.

 

[Yasko]

I would love to contribute to this topic since i really hate this new rule. But in order to make any suggestions, i feel that i have to know the reasons for making this "max 1 province annexation" rule. And please no speculations!!!! Whats the "official" reason to implement this rule? Portugal? HRE countries? Saving majors from being annexed? If we really know the reasons, than we can start debating the alternatvies.

 

[unmerged(5934)]

That one-province rule shouldn't be abolished: it shouln't be necessary. The fact that Paradox conceived it reveals that wars of conquest are too profitable. Up to this point we are all thinking along the same lines, I hope.

We have two facts somewhat contradictory:

a)European states weren't annexed by another just like that. Only Napoleon did that, and he ended having such a BB value that everyone and his mother declared war against him. Not even the strongest european country, with the best army, commanded by the best general, could succeed.

b)Annexations _did_ occur, sometimes of quite big countries, like Hungary. And we shoudn't forget the case of Poland, swallowed by their three neighbours!

Solutions:

1)Make war less profitable. Maintenance costs should ver _very_ high, so much that you, the player, don't enjoy being always at war with someone. Occupying enemy territories... sometimes was done with profit, like the period of the Thirty Years War, but at a price: destroying prosperity so much that annexing the province wasn´t worth the effort. Etc, etc, there is many historical ways of achieving this, but I favor an stronger Bad Boy effect: when Charles V asked Milan and Champagne to France after Pavia, just two provinces, he lost all his allies, for example.

2)A better 'dynastical' model. It was far easier to annex foreign peoples, with different religion AND republics! (like Venice, or Poland, which did choose kings by polling of the nobility...)

 

[Twoflower]

I like the concept of this feature because it decreases the number of annexations in Europe that was ahistorically high in EU 1.
This system should only be more complex, in the way that Japan suggested. It reflects the historical fact that all princes justified their rule by god, they claimed that god made them kings. If a christian nation annexes another, it thereby questioned this religios legitimation in the eyes of the other princes. For this reason, they simply did not annex christian unless they were really small. It was not considered that bad if an unimportant one province minor like Milan was annexed, but it was still a provocation (which is reflected by the increased badboy value).
As I pointed out, the rule as such is not bad or ahistorical, but IMHO it should only apply for countries with the same religion. Nobody had any scruples to deprive "heathen" kings of their regency,in fact there are plenty examples for a country being annexed by a nation of a different faith, the most prominent example being the annexation of the aztecs and inca by spain. Regarding this rule, christians and muslims should both be considered one group (I do not want Sweden to annex Russia or Turkey to annex Persia).

 

[celedhring]

Regarding this rule, christians and muslims should both be considered one group (I do not want Sweden to annex Russia or Turkey to annex Persia).

But we DO want Turkey annexing the Mamelukes and Austria annexing Bohemia, for example. Nah, I think that the annexation system is troublesome. Historically there were not many full annexations but THERE were some. I suppose that the new culture rules and imporved AI (so BB wars will be something to fear) will make less beneficious to annex every country you war with, so annexations will be less common. If you look closely, it's the human player the one who makes more 'unhistorical' annexations. The AI usually annexes little.

 

[unmerged(485)]

Originally posted by Philj
...
... ... (Perhaps, it will lead to a tactic of annexing all but two provinces and therefore forcing someone else to take the second last one to leave the capital.)

...

This is certainly something to think about for the human player but I'm not sure the AI would catch on. So while it seems good to me, it also seems like another advantage to the human player. It also does not seem to historical.

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by Sonny


This is certainly something to think about for the human player but I'm not sure the AI would catch on. So while it seems good to me, it also seems like another advantage to the human player. It also does not seem to historical.

The AI manages to annex just fine.