Could someone explain to me the coalition AE logic behind 1.5

[Blutharsch121]

I find the AE and coalition logic in 1.5 to be INSANE. I've been trying to make my way to the top as Tuscany and after conquering a single province I find myself the target of a large coalition - this is my fourth try.

For example: I waged war against Provence with my allies Savoy and France. During the war I declared war on Urbino that was left alone. I conquered Urbino (11 AE) and Provence after that (11 AE). This caused both France and Savoy to dissolve their alliances with me and most of Mediterraen nations to pile up on me - (notably, neither Urbino or Provence are HRE). A year later, Austria (with which I have +100 relations) decided to join the coalition against me for no reason (they had -10 relations towards me due to AE) and I find myself fighting a war against half of Europe.

All in all, I found AE in both 1.4 and 1.5 to be ridiculous, from the polar opposite aspects. I shouldn't anger nations by waging war against their enemies (Provence was the rival of Savoy, Venice and Naples and neither of the latter cared about me conquering Urbino).


EDIT: The topic should be coalition AND AE logic

Foul language removed - Seelmeister

 

[lucaluca]

I guess you conquered high tax provinces? But I think they should bring back the size scaling of 1.3, the bigger the nation the more AE and viceversa

 

[Blutharsch121]

I guess you conquered high tax provinces? But I think they should bring back the size scaling of 1.3, the bigger the nation the more AE and viceversa

Well, yes, Provence is 9 and Urbino 5.

 

[lucaluca]

Well, yes, Provence is 9 and Urbino 5.

9 is a lot plus it's a claim of France... Austria I guess had interest in Italy

 

[Blutharsch121]

9 is a lot plus it's a claim of France... Austria I guess had interest in Italy

It's not a claim of France and France was my secondary ally in the war. Makes no sense.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I guess you conquered high tax provinces? But I think they should bring back the size scaling of 1.3, the bigger the nation the more AE and viceversa

Tax doesn't matter. At all. It's based on the base value shown in the peace deal and multiplied based on distance (less of a factor now), religion, and culture.

You can take 300 provinces off a Sunni and nobody in Europe (different religious group + culture group = 0 as a multiplier) will care. If you take 2 HRE provinces after getting caught fabricating a claim, with the "all catholic" Europe at the start + HRE multiplier on top of that you can have AE that will take decades to burn out.

The obvious, though unfortunate, conclusion is to first avoid coalitions via feeding techniques + distant conquests, and then to deliberately declare on new members as they join, allowing you to fight the same target nation w/o worrying about the penalty for breaking a truce.

Example: You're now a superpower, with all of England/France/Spain. You declare on Austria and take 5 provinces. Immediately, some nations join the coalition. You instantly declare on one, Austria becomes WL again, and you again siege out Austria (maybe even assaulting garrisons if you're really powerful) while stomping this puissant minors that show up . Then, you take more provinces, going into OE. Yet more nations join the coalition. You yet again declare right after the war ends, dragging in Austria yet again.

Then before you know it, you have 100's of AE in Europe, none anywhere else, and can release Austria as your vassal. For whatever reason, nations will pop in and out of coalitions to let you do this more despite that they don't have a better target, but you can always piss off native tribes, African nations, or somewhere else to let you chain add people to your coalition to let you continue to chain DoW the coalition w/o worrying about truces or penalties for breaking them.

 

[Blutharsch121]

Tax doesn't matter. At all. It's based on the base value shown in the peace deal and multiplied based on distance (less of a factor now), religion, and culture.

You can take 300 provinces off a Sunni and nobody in Europe (different religious group + culture group = 0 as a multiplier) will care. If you take 2 HRE provinces after getting caught fabricating a claim, with the "all catholic" Europe at the start + HRE multiplier on top of that you can have AE that will take decades to burn out.

This much I already knew. But notably, I have my AE relations penalties on any other nation than Milan (which, ironically, is not part of the coalition) and Naples are under 20. The more bizarre thing was France and Savoy dissolving their alliances than the piling coalitions.

 

[lucaluca]

This much I already knew. But notably, I have my AE relations penalties on any other nation than Milan (which, ironically, is not part of the coalition) and Naples are under 20. The more bizarre thing was France and Savoy dissolving their alliances than the piling coalitions.

I meant for claim that they have strategic interest in Provence by either a mission or hard coded and savoy probably too. I think conquering Provence and then trying to keep an alliance with France as a small nation is foolish

 

[Blutharsch121]

I meant for claim that they have strategic interest in Provence by either a mission or hard coded and savoy probably too. I think conquering Provence and then trying to keep an alliance with France as a small nation is foolish

Yes, but the hardcoded stuff isn't still written in stone (or.. hardcode). This has worked in earlier games and I've even seen AI "historical enemies" allying for a hundred years.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This much I already knew. But notably, I have my AE relations penalties on any other nation than Milan (which, ironically, is not part of the coalition) and Naples are under 20. The more bizarre thing was France and Savoy dissolving their alliances than the piling coalitions.

There's both the new great power malus to consider (though it's being altered in the next patch, surprise surprise), but also the simple fact that if you own something the AI wants, it wants you dead...even if you were long-time allies.

 

[Blutharsch121]

There's both the new great power malus to consider (though it's being altered in the next patch, surprise surprise), but also the simple fact that if you own something the AI wants, it wants you dead...even if you were long-time allies.

Great power malus would explain nothing as I was only allied with France and they dissolved it way before Austria decided to join the coalition for no apparent reason.
The later issue was already discussed. Besides, in earlier tries I also conquered Provence and not a care was given in Île-de-France

Foul language removed - Seelmeister

 

[lucaluca]

Great power malus would explain nothing as I was only allied with France and they dissolved it way before Austria decided to join the coalition for no apparent reason.
The later issue was already discussed. Besides, in earlier tries I also conquered Provence and not a care was given in Île-de-France

Foul language removed - Seelmeister

Well as u said it's not hard coded so on this particular game they wanted Provence I guess

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Great power malus would explain nothing as I was only allied with France and they dissolved it way before Austria decided to join the coalition for no apparent reason.
The later issue was already discussed. Besides, in earlier tries I also conquered Provence and not a care was given in Île-de-France

Foul language removed - Seelmeister

The -100 penalty to great power can apply because *you* became a great power. Because of its reliance on score/score rate, and that some actions give even weak minors score, it is possible for the game think you are a "great power" even if you're using complete trash (IE I've seen Bahmanis consider me as Adal a great power by the mid 1450's --> that's some impressive power!), which would cost you the alliance. I'm not saying it necessarily happened in your case, but it might have.

 

[Silversweeeper]

I don't know about Austria joining the coalition, though I suppose that they might not like a HRE prince tripling its size very quickly (large princes tend to dislike reforms and have a larger chance of becoming the emperor, so that might be seen as bad), but Provence is quite likely to be a high-priority target for both France and Savoy, given its location. Most likely it was a case of you taking stuff your allies wanted for themselves and they decided that that was not something that they would permit.

Urbino was likely a planned target for every Italian nation nearby, so they would probably be upset. Venice, the Papal State and Naples (assuming the PU with Aragon has been broken) would all like to grow in the area, and since a coalition war being started by a member of the HRE would not call the emperor they might join for that reason.

How quickly did you take the two provinces? In 10 years? 25? If you get a lot of AE very quickly, it is more likely that it will make other nations join a coalition against you, especially if there is little AE from other nations to compare with. If no one else in Italy has grown, I am not surprised that other nations would be worried about your growth.

 

[Blutharsch121]

I don't know about Austria joining the coalition, though I suppose that they might not like a HRE prince tripling its size very quickly (large princes tend to dislike reforms and have a larger chance of becoming the emperor, so that might be seen as bad), but Provence is quite likely to be a high-priority target for both France and Savoy, given its location. Most likely it was a case of you taking stuff your allies wanted for themselves and they decided that that was not something that they would permit.

Urbino was likely a planned target for every Italian nation nearby, so they would probably be upset. Venice, the Papal State and Naples (assuming the PU with Aragon has been broken) would all like to grow in the area, and since a coalition war being started by a member of the HRE would not call the emperor they might join for that reason.

How quickly did you take the two provinces? In 10 years? 25? If you get a lot of AE very quickly, it is more likely that it will make other nations join a coalition against you, especially if there is little AE from other nations to compare with. If no one else in Italy has grown, I am not surprised that other nations would be worried about your growth.

To be honest, I would think the AI is this clever (the question of Italy), at least I haven't noticed it before. Otherwise this would make sense.

I tried once again and now the problem was Austria's attitude shift towards me from friendly to domineering. Is there any way to prevent this?

 

[HansBaer]

Most of it was already said, but i think your specific problem has two reasons:
Taking Provence has always made France hate me, for a time at least. I guess it is because it is their culture group, it's just the same if you play a dutch minor and take Calais or something similar. Especially once you are a threat to them, i don't know what the specific Taxbase or Province limit would be, roughly once you reach Bohemian scale.
For example, when i play Genoa, i ally France or Austria or both in earlier version and try to take Provence asap because it is awesome and almost doubles your wealth for a single AE increase. They usually go with it for a time, but once i conquer my way across Italy's west coast, France will at some point go hostile.

Now, for Austria:
First off, i don't think Urbino made much of a difference, could have been anything else. The Emperor, Austria at game start, always goes mad and joins every single coalition once you reach a certain size since 1.5. At first, i hated that, too. But if you think about it, it really makes sense. Why would they ever want any of their "Underlings" to grow? It's practically a core of Habsburg foreign policy to keep everyone small and resulted in the 7 years war later on.
If you are honest, it was far too easy to contest them in earlier versions: Grow a bit and/or ally France/Burgundy than crush Austria and vassal-feed syria. There you go, emperor for life.

 

[Blutharsch121]

If you are honest, it was far too easy to contest them in earlier versions: Grow a bit and/or ally France/Burgundy than crush Austria and vassal-feed syria. There you go, emperor for life.

I completely agree with you, but I think it works in a bit of a wrong way now - as many have pointed out.

In my latest attempt, after 50 years of bloody struggle I finally claimed most of Northern Italy (Naples' territories are unchanged, that's the border in the south) in a very realistic way, actually. Nations going mad over minor stuff, but this time also in my favour. The ownership of Liguria and Parma changed many times. It was amazingly fun, actually, and in a historical aspect, very accurate (in general, not in Northern Italy during those years).

However, this rose a couple of new questions: Why did the emperor or other parts of the empire not care? Three or four nations constantly annexing same newly-risen states should (and did) give a huge relations and AE penalty, but nobody intervened - unlike nations like Brittany, Aragon, Lithuania and Castile.

Foul language removed - Seelmeister

 

[Korashy]

I've had Poland join a coalition against me (Ottoman) after accruing the mighty high number of 9 AE. Nine, as in single digit.

 

[Mixxer5]

Coalitions are- in general- retarded. It should be a way for smaller nations to defend against bigger ones. Playing as Byzantium, coalition against me is composed of:
-Georgia: they blobbed as hell, capturing more provinces than me...
-Papal States- I've never been at war with them, hell I don't even own Serbia
-various muslim states bordering with me- that's fine
-Bulgaria- 2 province minor, able to field 2k troops, left alone by me because they didn't bother me... until now
-Hungary- not even bordering with me...
-Genoa- they joined after losing their last Black Sea provinces. Tactical genius
-Brittany. No, not island- the one directly bordering with France, able to field 5k troops. Unless they can really somehow predict that someday I'm going to restore Roman Empire, it's rather a strange way to wage war...

 

[HansBaer]

I've had Poland join a coalition against me (Ottoman) after accruing the mighty high number of 9 AE. Nine, as in single digit.

I would happily join every serious Anti-Ottoman coalition as a Poland player. Though a mere 9 AE really seems a bit harsh for making the AI to join in.