Declaring War shouldn't be immediate

[sdplissken]

Declaring war should not be something so immediate in the game. There should be some type of operational lag that you have, or some type of warning when forces are gearing up for war. It should not be just a click and then the enemy can storm over the border. I'm not sure that's realistic.

It doesn't have to be long, maybe 30 days, and maybe it could be tied to your intelligence numbers to know if someone is trying to attack.

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

Isn't that what the War Justification and War Goal systems are meant to represent?

 

[Hermerico]

That's what a war justification is.

If you mean the delay between when the war declaration is issued and is received by the commanding officers and the enemy government, then such delay is not really realistic either, since your army is aware and prepared to initiate offensive manoeuvres just as soon, if not even before the declaration of war has been sent to the enemy government

Germany didn't even bother to declare war on Poland, it just invaded without notice and Japan declared war on the U.S after having already initiated offensive actions in Hawai, Hong Kong and Thailand.

 

[sdplissken]

Isn't that what the War Justification and War Goal systems are meant to represent?

There are often times in the game where I can now complete the focus and just click declare war instantly, I don't think thats the best way to go about it. You don't typically get too much warning when that happens.

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

Even then, NF's are not insta complete. So the time spend "researching" it would be equivalent to the War Justification time. Another reason why espionage is important: to be aware of what NF's your adversaries are doing. I don't see the problem that you're aiming to fix, sorry.

 

[sdplissken]

Even then, NF's are not insta complete. So the time spend "researching" it would be equivalent to the War Justification time. Another reason why espionage is important: to be aware of what NF's your adversaries are doing. I don't see the problem that you're aiming to fix, sorry.

You don't get a warning that someone is researching "Demand Sudentland" or whatever. I'm saying that it's a little bit silly, everyone in the entire world knew about that situation. It would be nice to get a heads up that's all I'm saying when someone is doing a Focus like that. I don't think I should need several spies to make sure that every country on earth with a focus against me to track that.

Seems like something that everyone should know. And, yeah, I understand that you dont seem to understand what I'm talking about.

 

[jpd]

There are often times in the game where I can now complete the focus and just click declare war instantly, I don't think thats the best way to go about it. You don't typically get too much warning when that happens.

During the time your focus is working towards completion, the intended target of your NF wargoal (and it's alliance partners) receive an alert that you're justifying on them.

 

[sdplissken]

During the time your focus is working towards completion, the intended target of your NF wargoal (and it's alliance partners) receive an alert that you're justifying on them.

Ok, I will check it out again, I thought that I didn't get that during Deman Sudentenland, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[jpd]

Demand Sudetenland may be a special case. As it doesn't justify for war outright. It's the trigger for the Munich Conference event chain.

But I do know, from my own experience, that Russia doing the NF for claiming bessarabia triggers a war justification alert when Romania is in the axis, and I'm playing a nation that's also in the axis.

Hungary claiming transsilvania from a Romania that's also in the axis triggers this alert as well. So it works for multiple NF's that produce claims/war goals

 

[xtfoster]

There are often times in the game where I can now complete the focus and just click declare war instantly, I don't think thats the best way to go about it. You don't typically get too much warning when that happens.

Last time I checked, the targeted country still gets a warning when someone is doing a Focus that grants, or even might grant, a Wargoal against them.

 

[LordWahu]

There are a few times where the warning isn't properly triggered, so you do get surprised

But usually you are warned properly

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Isn't that what the War Justification and War Goal systems are meant to represent?

Yes, except for the rare times of bad special casing where they don't give notification and someone can just declare.

Demand Sudetenland may be a special case. As it doesn't justify for war outright. It's the trigger for the Munich Conference event chain.

Which, if the Czechs were already conquered, can result in some weirdness. At least, the last time I did it the result was DoW on spot. I was only mildly annoyed, since I was ready/not trusting the UI there.

You can also have this happen as Baltic nations. USSR can break M-R and attack you even if you're in Axis, and this doesn't trip M-R or call in Germany.

Without arbitrary special cases, the base mechanics of HOI 4 do the job OP asks.

But I do know, from my own experience, that Russia doing the NF for claiming bessarabia triggers a war justification alert when Romania is in the axis, and I'm playing a nation that's also in the axis.

You can get some weird/blatantly unfair interactions if someone else is already at war with Romania and controls Bessarabia. What precisely happens depends on the timing. But it's another good example of why focuses that take land or make puppets should require peace as a condition, and that territory isn't already a subject of someone else.

 

[trenarrr]

Why not? The real thing was very much like that. Hell, they didn't even bother declaring war in some cases, Pearl Harbor etc.

 

[sdplissken]

Why not? The real thing was very much like that. Hell, they didn't even bother declaring war in some cases, Pearl Harbor etc.

They did observe the other side making preparations for war, your military probably noticed and gave the command warning an attack was imminent. I think that your intelligence level should tell you before an attack was declared. It shouldn't be immediate. But even more so, I think my problem was with a particular event. That so happens I didn't get a regular alert.

 

[mursolini]

I don`t think Belgium and especially Netherlands did historically get the memo that Germans are going to invade in a month.
So probably was Denmark and Norway, and USSR.
I`m also not sure if Japanese did get "notification" that USSR would invade Manchuria in a month.

It is somewhat of a problem, since you only get so few agents and can`t keep up with intelligence. But you do have radar and scout planes.

Considering how much effort was put exactly into securing surprise attack, shadow mobilization for Germany, I think it is fair to say they worked pretty hard exactly to secure that "invasion out of blue", and I think at least 3 surprise attacks can be granted to them: Poland, Netherlands and USSR.

Japan, also did put enormous effort to conceal Pearl harbor. It did mess up the timing, so DOW arrived hours after war started, but it was trying hard to secure surprise attack as well.

 

[--Yigito123--]

The thing with national focuses is that the war justification warning isn't automatic. The line "will_lead_to_war_with = (Country tag)" needs to be in the focus to trigger a warning for the specified country.

This line also tells the AI to prepare for war against said country. If a focus can lead to war but doesn't trigger the warning, it should be treated as a bug, since it can lead to the AI being caught unaware by a war it itself declared. Although last I remember, Sudatenland did trigger a warning...

 

[Gort11]

You definitely get a war justification warning as the UK while Germany's taking the Demand Sudetenland focus, I've seen it many times.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You definitely get a war justification warning as the UK while Germany's taking the Demand Sudetenland focus, I've seen it many times.

In the case where I did not, Czechs did not exist as a country any longer. It's been a few years now. I was Poland, but I can't remember the exactly timing. It's possible that something like this happened:

- I declare on Czechs
- Germany takes demand Sudetenland before I capitulate them.
- I capitulate them before the focus completes.

All I know is that there was no "demand for Sudetenland"...the event didn't handle it like usual when Sudetenland is held by Poland. I was well acquainted with HOI 4 BS by this point, and I knew it was around Sudetenland time, so I was already set up in the forts (this approach to Poland made the war quite easy a few years back, as Germany thinned out its offensive substantially to cover Sudetenland, blunting its offensive). I figured I'd get attacked one way or another, but I definitely didn't get usual warning.





This was old Poland focus tree. Managed to win it May 1940, so USSR was screwed.

One might say "well you did something ahistorical", but that's an invalid response to the complaint. The game breaks when you involve special cases to rules w/o notice. A less experienced player might have guessed Sudetenland focus wasn't valid/bypassed, or at least expected to be notified if an attack was imminent, since that's what the game normally does (even in true historical surprise attack scenarios like Pearl Harbor). This player might then have suffered a significant setback due to developer mistake rather than their own mistakes. It's not good for the game.

Edit: funny to get random disagrees w/o discussion. I get it when I state preferences that are different to other posters, but this is simply showing concrete evidence to prove what I describe actually happened.

That a) I was declared on and b) the game gave no notification that a war goal was being created against me are matters of objective fact. Also noteworthy that c) if you justify on a nation and it's conquered, you can't declare on the new nation normally, so this is also objectively an example of special casing breaking otherwise established rules. You might disagree on how important issues like this are (I consider them significant problems with how the rules are implemented), but that this stuff happens isn't a matter of opinion.

 

[balmung60]

During the time your focus is working towards completion, the intended target of your NF wargoal (and it's alliance partners) receive an alert that you're justifying on them.

To be fair, that only happens if the NF actually directly gives a wargoal. If it fires an event that can give a wargoal, the target doesn't get such a warning.

 

[DukofDeth]

Some of the national focuses that generate wargoals do not offer warnings because the code line "WILL_LEAD_TO_WAR_WITH = ($x)" has been omitted. The only war-goals that should not offer any warning are ones where one side demands something and if refused then a wargoal is generated but even some of those do have the LEAD_TO_WAR... code line.