Dear Paradox

[radiatoren]

I think the problem is deeper than just UI. Right now, a war will not end until one side is completely wrecked (depleting their manpower/money, losing significant amount of land), or both sides both reaching near wrecked state. In reality in a lot of wars, especially those over a particular region (can be big or small), when one side is clearly losing that region, they will start to negotiate peace to minimize loss, rather than let to war continue until complete victory/loss.

I think CK2's peace system is a bit too restrictive, since one can get nothing more than their wargoal in a war, but EU4's one is way too open, resulting in wars always seeking maximum gain rather than minimum loss. However, the problem is also half in the players, since that's the way most players playing the game.

I do see a lot of merit in making changes to Lenght of War. But for me it would be far easier to be more specific if the UI was better. Right now I cannot be as specific as I would want about what I think is needed since I lack the experience with how the numbers change during a war to give a potential solution.

And more restricting cbs could easily be part of the solution to the admittedly too open "wargoal". But again, I would need more experience with the exact number to suggest a well-founded solution.

Right now I am inclined towards a 0 to 100 scale for war enthusiasm changing according to more or less the same mechanics as now and with some thresholds for when certain kinds of deals may be on the table and at what price.

 

[moscal]

"Dear princess Paradox..."

 

[impspy]

In Victoria II, battles cap at 50% of warscore, and CK2 you can use battles to get to 100%.

I think to address the warscore issue another fundemental issue should be addressed: the ease of conquest. Enemy Core/State Religion/State Culture provinces should be obscenely expensive to demand without a core, so that while border regions could change for less, home territory would be harder to demand en masse. This would allow the warscore from battles to be scaled up so that, as in the Mali example above, the player could reach 100% warscore for stack wiping Spanish armies but still be limited as to how much he could demand from Spain due to the last of a valid CB.

Wars should work more like CK2 (where wars are usually fought to either 100% warscore or white peace) because the AI seems to be unable to grasp the nuance of scaled warscore: its all or nothing for them. If CB's are made more important for conquest, so that taking a province without a CB would be prohibitively expensive, then battles can be more important.

 

[Sindai]

Length of war needs to go. Just absolutely get rid of it. Done, dead, gone.

Then, when you start having AI making insta-peace, figure out why and fix what's ACTUALLY wrong.

The issue is that the second part needs to happen before the first part, and the second part is actually extremely difficult because it requires accurately predicting the future in a way that's intuitive for humans but not easily turned into math.

 

[Dell19]

I'm reasonably okay with the length of war modifier. If a nation has mobilised their armies and declared war over x province then by that point they are probably going to be keen to take more land as well or force extra concessions. It could be a bit gamey if the AI declare war to conquer x province, you see that their alliance is going to win easily so you offer to give up that one province which generates a 5 year truce and time to improve the situation.

As an alternative there could be a demand provinces option as an alternative to wars where the AI might choose to demand a province instead of going to war. The idea would be that a successfully demanded province would generate AE and add a modifier to nearby nations to not accept future demands although I appreciate that it would be difficult to balance.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My primary problem is that we have two layers of warscore: The one shown on the shield and the "war enthusiasm". The problem is that the player cannot see if an enemy is willing to engage in negotiations by looking at the UI, which is why lenght of war is such a target for frustration. They don't understand that the information they get immediately from the game is irrelevant for their goal!

People don't like length of war because it (often) fails to capture a reasonable picture of the war situation or terms. If you want to throw around the "I" word (immersion), it's not very immersive that a country with 0 regiment won't even (white!) peace out because the war hasn't been going on long enough. Fortunately, there are stronger arguments than that. From a gameplay perspective, most wars are AI vs AI and it grinds up resources badly on these wars. It also stays in on long-gone wars far too long...something Wiz himself suggested to a beginner asking for advice not to do.

In other words, it's a stopgap at best. If you remove it, the AI will basically peace out of wars instantly (rendering basically all AI vs AI wars meaningless junk fast white peace deals, and making it easy on the player to speed take provinces). However, it's still quite the rough stopgap. This isn't a UI representation issue; I know perfectly well the difference between war score and the modifiers impacting AI willingness for peace...it's actually less opaque than a lot of other mechanics since you can mouse over and see the negatives for "length of war", "strength of alliances", "making gains" and so forth.

The fundamental issue is therefore *not* UI in this case. It's that too often AIs being taken to the cleaners will refuse to peace out for even the most paltry of demands, at its own expense.

 

[lolada]

Length of war modifier does its thing but it is often very crude and inflexible. It looks a bit too artifical at times and introduces "unfun" waiting mechanic, where we wait for war score to tick up and length of war to tick down...

One of the great thinks in CK2 is that once you wipe an enemy few times your warscore is 50-100 points, no need to siege too much or wait. In EU4 you have to siege everything - which can be quite annoying depending on nation size - or just wait a long time.

 

[yerm]

The issue is that the second part needs to happen before the first part, and the second part is actually extremely difficult because it requires accurately predicting the future in a way that's intuitive for humans but not easily turned into math.

Small AI nations declare war on blobs when they see the blob is engrossed in multiple losing wars. Why does that blob not see the same thing, and try to weasel out of some of said wars earlier? It has to be able to tell its losing for the exact same reason the AI across the border can tell that it is losing so badly it's worth attacking. The logic IS there already, it's just not being applied to the war properly.

Length of war is a complete and total crutch. Just remove it, run a few QA games, and make the necessary adjustments. You can even scale other variables based on length of war, for instance, have relative power's impact on peace negotiations trickle down over time, have strength of alliances trickle down, have occupied and besieged values trickle up, relative strength of ALL opponents factored in, etc.

Again, though, the logic is there already and just needs length of war to get the hell out of the way so it can be used as the primary determining factor in AI peace calculations.

 

[Andredie45]

My primary problem is that we have two layers of warscore: The one shown on the shield and the "war enthusiasm". The problem is that the player cannot see if an enemy is willing to engage in negotiations by looking at the UI, which is why lenght of war is such a target for frustration. They don't understand that the information they get immediately from the game is irrelevant for their goal!
My suggestion would be to show an indication of both your and the enemys enthusiasm instead of warscore on the shield and make it easy for the player to understand when the opponents are softened enough to negotiate in good faith or when the player is getting in danger of a disaster from not getting out of a losing war! The warscore and by that I mean how much they are willing to give up or take in the deal would still require sending a diplomat, so my suggestion is mostly a UI-change.

The warscore % on the shield should be replaced by the max warscore peace deal the AI is willing to give.

 

[doktorstick]

If you want warscore to be the only factor in war, I assume you'd be fine with AI being able to enforce peace deals for their exact warscore on you at any given time then?

The real problem is--and I think most would agree--that it's very frustrating when your enemy calls in an ally that NEVER (and I mean the literal "never") contributes to the war and thus prevents peacing out an otherwise 100% warscore. Maybe their ally doesn't have military access, or maybe the AI decides it would be suicide to come, or maybe it's just too damn far away. Regardless, you sit there for the mandatory five years until the score pops to 100%.

It makes no sense. The AI will gladly tick up to 20.00 WE even though their ally will never, ever help.

 

[SolSys]

... In other words, it's a stopgap at best. If you remove it, the AI will basically peace out of wars instantly (rendering basically all AI vs AI wars meaningless junk fast white peace deals, and making it easy on the player to speed take provinces) ...

I still remember the threads people made about wars being too short (and too easy). Now, they complain about them being too long.
[sigh] Don't they know by now that the good ol' folks at Paradox are so enthusiastic they have a tendency to fix things to the extreme?
On the plus side, I do enjoy the dev-diaries.

 

[SolSys]

The warscore % on the shield should be replaced by the max warscore peace deal the AI is willing to give.

Not as helpful as it sounds since it gives you at a glance a rough idea on the war progression. You would trade one QoL issue for another.
Maybe leave the current war-score at the bottom and add the other one at the top.

EDIT: It was late and apparently I misunderstood your post. It did led me to brainstorm a little while about a QoL system based on what you suggested.
I will flesh it out a bit more and post it tomorrow. I think you will be pleased.

 

[Orctavius]

I think you need a war score of at least 10% before the AI would consider making concessions?

In any event, deciding when to make peace when you're loosing is tough even as a human, sometime you can make a comeback by taking loans and hiring mercenaries or hold out for a distant ally to send support, but other times its better cut your losses and sue for peace. Any AI peace making algorithm is going to be flawed in one direction or the other. Its just too complicated.

 

[SolSys]

The warscore % on the shield should be replaced by the max warscore peace deal the AI is willing to give.

Based on your suggestion here are the basics of the QoL peace deal system I thought of the previous night.

In addition to the Current war-score at the bottom of the shield add another value at the top of the shield. This value will represent the Needed war-score [at the moment] for the AI to accept peace deals. The Needed value will tick down as the war progress [in your favor].

When the Needed value is equal [or lower] than the Current value the shield will be highlighted to let the player know the AI is ready to accept peace offers. At this point the Needed value can change to an icon indicating the type of peace deal the AI is ok with. At first it will be a white flag icon [for a white peace] and as the war goes on it can change to a coins icon [for monetary concessions] and so on. Hopefully this can also be used in some way to reduce the AI spamming its unwanted peace deals.

The system can be further improved upon by tying it to war demands [provinces, humiliate, trade transfer etc.]. If you have set war demands the Needed value will take that into account [meaning it will be higher than what is needed for white peace]. In case your current demands somehow exceeded 100% the value will change into a red X mark icon to indicate the AI will never accept those terms at any point. In case your demands are fine and you have achieved enough war-score for the the peace deal, but there is something specific preventing the AI from accepting, it will change to indicate that. For instance, an icon of a fort with red diagonal line over it for unoccupied fort near a province you want.

After all the conditions for your demands are met the icon will change into a green v mark [this icon is only when you set demands so not to be confused with AI peace offers]. You can now click the mark to quick-send the peace deal at its current state or open the peace screen deal for further analysis.

I believe this system can increase QoL and remove unnecessary clicking and opening of the peace screen deal just to check if 'we are there yet' [which in late game wars can lead to performance issues when warring with continental empires].

I can try to polish the system further and add an example if you folks need to. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

 

[Shaaaq]

weight battles more (a nation losing lots of battles is not in good shape and should be looking for an out as war leader).

This should not only apply to warleaders but also to allies.
Especially allies.
The individual warscore of the non-warleader countries should include battles with a proportional warscore equal to the % of their forces in the battle.
Stack wiping a hostile ally should almost always make them willing to accept a white peace.

What reasonably intelligent ally would join a war, get crushed but refuse to give in to favorable terms simply because their allies with the war leader?
Moreover AI should be far more willing to give white peace/kind peace deals to those that they have zero interest with? An example would bethe portugal/english alliance resulting in portugal being obliterated by the French but France not removing portugal from the war until they completely obliterate them (this is also why I don't call in allies to wars unless I have to..).

 

[Chat]

The real problem is--and I think most would agree--that it's very frustrating when your enemy calls in an ally that NEVER (and I mean the literal "never") contributes to the war and thus prevents peacing out an otherwise 100% warscore. Maybe their ally doesn't have military access, or maybe the AI decides it would be suicide to come, or maybe it's just too damn far away. Regardless, you sit there for the mandatory five years until the score pops to 100%.

It makes no sense. The AI will gladly tick up to 20.00 WE even though their ally will never, ever help.

There does need to be a non-participation modifier that contributes solely to white peaces. If they haven't been involved in a battle or siege for 2 years, they should be willing to white peace then.

 

[SolSys]

There does need to be a non-participation modifier that contributes solely to white peaces. If they haven't been involved in a battle or siege for 2 years, they should be willing to white peace then.

Sounds good, but 2 years seems too low. Maybe 3~5 years would be better.

 

[yerm]

Sounds good, but 2 years seems too low. Maybe 3~5 years would be better.

No, 3-5 years is intolerably long and wars should not drag out to such a length without other reasons.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sounds good, but 2 years seems too low. Maybe 3~5 years would be better.

Before making this claim, do you know how far an army can travel via marching in 2 years? Shipping is even further. A nation that does literally nothing in this timeframe can alter the outcome of a war in not participating and has clearly shown it is either unwilling or unable to participate.

I've toyed with the notion of penalty to non-participants, but something would have to be done about through-TI wars.

 

[SolSys]

Before making this claim, do you know how far an army can travel via marching in 2 years? Shipping is even further. A nation that does literally nothing in this timeframe can alter the outcome of a war in not participating and has clearly shown it is either unwilling or unable to participate.

I've toyed with the notion of penalty to non-participants, but something would have to be done about through-TI wars.

I was taking into account the time it takes raising an army as well and shipping it from afar [iirc it takes ~11 months to ship from western Europe to Australia with no canal].
Of course, if the enemy is much closer then the modifier** should be shorter [distance dependent?].

**and if they are not helping they'll receive a negative modifier with their ally; namely the -50 "R U KIDDING ME?!" modifier