Defender of Faith shouldn't be getting called in to defend provinces overseas

[Question]

Case in point :

Right now the mechanic is that the DOTF has to defend you if your capital is on the same continent. The problem is obvious : The DOTF has to defend trade companies and colonies over seas (if they dont have sufficient provinces to form a colonial nation).

Its just silly. Your overseas provinces should be your own problem...the DOTF should be there to defend your home provinces. Its ridiculous to expect the DOTF to sail to Asia to defend some trade company there.

Some kind of limitation should be put in place to avoid these ridiculous call to arms. Range limitation can be easily done with the range = X condition. Maybe something like 150 or 200 ingame units would be good, the DOTF shouldnt be expected to defend someone too far away that they cant reach.

 

[grotaclas]

How should the game distinguish a war which is about the home provinces from a war which is about overseas provinces? The war in your screenshot was declared with the Imperialism CB so the wargoal is actually the Castilian capital in Europe.

 

[Question]

How should the game distinguish a war which is about the home provinces from a war which is about overseas provinces? The war in your screenshot was declared with the Imperialism CB so the wargoal is actually the Castilian capital in Europe.

The war goal actually doesnt matter. The DOTF mechanic only checks for the location of the capital. Also ive modded imperialism to use superiority because the AI kept declaring imperialist wars with unreachable capitals (essentially meaning that they can -never- win the war). So no, Castille's capital isnt the war goal here.

DOTF calling in should have some kind of range limitation, already explained in the OP. DOTF shouldnt be expected to defend your trade companies in Asia or wherever.

Its like Hamburg joining Venice's trade league. It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Im sure some others can come up with some other possible sanity checks here to avoid silly call to arms.

 

[grotaclas]

The war goal actually doesnt matter. The DOTF mechanic only checks for the location of the capital. Also ive modded imperialism to use superiority because the AI kept declaring imperialist wars with unreachable capitals (essentially meaning that they can -never- win the war). So no, Castille's capital isnt the war goal here.

DOTF calling in should have some kind of range limitation, already explained in the OP. DOTF shouldnt be expected to defend your trade companies in Asia or wherever.

Its like Hamburg joining Venice's trade league. It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Im sure some others can come up with some other possible sanity checks here to avoid silly call to arms.

I know that the wargoal currently doesn't matter for the DotF. But my question still stands. How should the game know what the war is about? Or let's say it in a different way: which provinces should be considered for the range? This is especially important for wars like imperialism where all provinces count as justified demands. Inca could take Castiles european provinces in that war and if I see your screenshot correctly they have some provinces in Italy which are not to far away from you by any measurement. Maybe they don't have the colonial range for that currently, but if the war would go on long enough they might even get the unrestricted coring age ability.

 

[Tue_p3]

Huh castille is protestant?

I agree with you, but I don't think it's gamebreaking. Maybe put it in the suggestions forum

 

[st360]

The DOTF mechanic only checks for the location of the capital.

So the defender of the faith wont be called to war in case of a non Ottoman invasion of Balkans, horde invasion of Russia, North African invasion of Italy or Spain or New World invasion of Europe. Literally the ONLY scenarios where a defender of the faith is appropriate.

So whats the point of a defender of the faith? To have France stopping Bosnia and Serbia from going to war on the other end of the continent? To prevent 1 province minors from growing to 2 provinces?

 

[Meglok]

So a Catholic DotF is supposed to protect any catholics who are attacked by other religions. But european DotF under your scenario is just supposed to ignore catholics being attacked in South America? Why, because it is inconvenient?

Nope, with great power comes great responsibility. Suck it up buttercup, board your transports, and defend your faith.

 

[holyvigil]

A localized defender of the faith would be cool. But not being able to be the defender of the faith and not getting protection from the defender sounds bad.

 

[Question]

I know that the wargoal currently doesn't matter for the DotF. But my question still stands. How should the game know what the war is about? Or let's say it in a different way: which provinces should be considered for the range? This is especially important for wars like imperialism where all provinces count as justified demands. Inca could take Castiles european provinces in that war and if I see your screenshot correctly they have some provinces in Italy which are not to far away from you by any measurement. Maybe they don't have the colonial range for that currently, but if the war would go on long enough they might even get the unrestricted coring age ability.

Theres an overseas mechanic for one thing. Its :

is_overseas = yes/no

So for example in the OP scenario, the new world provinces are considered overseas, so the DOTF shouldnt be getting called in.

How do you know what will work? Testing. You play with numbers. You test till you find a number that works. That applies to everything. They could even code in a new trigger if the current ones dont work. There are lots of possibilities, think outside of the box.

You could even change imperialism so that only provinces in a certain range are eligible as targets or something. Because the AI really doesnt work well when you give them a CB for every province in the world. The "no coring range" age ability also creates issues with the AI from what I have seen, and leads to ridiculous border gore.

Inca cant take Castille's european provinces in a war because the AI will never move troops out of south america to do it. Every war involving the new world is pointless...the AI doesnt move troops across the ocean so it just stalemates. Over and over and over. I literally just saw France peace out with some native americans precisely because of this.

Infact, most of the time England/Britian just stays in the british isles and becomes useless for the rest of the game. When was the last time you saw them move troops off the british isles to fight on the european mainland? If they dont have any provinces on the european mainland, they just refuse to and sit in the isles. They are useless as a DOTF.

 

[Question]

So the defender of the faith wont be called to war in case of a non Ottoman invasion of Balkans, horde invasion of Russia, North African invasion of Italy or Spain or New World invasion of Europe. Literally the ONLY scenarios where a defender of the faith is appropriate.

So whats the point of a defender of the faith? To have France stopping Bosnia and Serbia from going to war on the other end of the continent? To prevent 1 province minors from growing to 2 provinces?

Um? That is not what I said at all? Please re-read the posts in the thread again.

If you are in Europe and you are getting called in to defend the balkans against the ottomans - okay. The DOTF should be able to reach the balkans from most of Europe, the only issue is if its Britain as the DOTF because the AI will sit on the isles and refuse to budge (but that is a problem with the isles in general).

If the DOTF is in Europe, then theres no reason they should be getting called in to defend provinces in south america, china, or random places like that.

I looked into modding this but theres no trigger to check for the war goal location currently. So the easiest method would be some kind of range limitation using the range = X trigger.

But in general, the DOTF call to arms mechanic is REALLY badly done and you can see the AI doesnt know how to handle it.

If there is a strong DOTF, Ottomans simply stop invading the balkans. The AI just doesnt know how to deal with DOTFs, players can use tricks to get around with it by flagging a country as a co-belligerent, etc, the AI doesnt know how to do that and just stops there for the rest of the game, unless the DOTF is removed or weakened (usually via player intervention). Im actually going to test and see how the AI performs if DOTFs are disabled entirely. Its been very obvious in my games that the AI expansion slows to a crawl after after the age of reformation because a great power will become DOTF and heretic/heathen threats get too scared to do anything.

 

[grotaclas]

So for example in the OP scenario, the new world provinces are considered overseas, so the DOTF shouldnt be getting called in.

I think you still misunderstand my question. How does the game know that the war is about these provinces? You are talking about "new world provinces". But there is nothing in that war that makes it about "new world provinces". You can take any provinces in almost any war that allows the taking of provinces. And if the provinces are not protected by a fort the AI doesn't need to sail over to take them. And disallowing the taking of further away provinces in an imperialism war would defeat the purpose of that type of war. Colonial range already limits the provinces that you can take. But it only applies when the peace deal is declared, but the DotF has to be called at the beginning of the war.
And whatever you propose should also work if the player declares the war.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

If the DOTF is in Europe, then theres no reason they should be getting called in to defend provinces in south america, china, or random places like that.

There is a reason they're called in. To defend their faith.

I have the opposite opinion of you. I think declining to defend once you have that title should be even more penalizing than it is currently.

 

[csward53]

As a side note, the AI becomes defender of the faith far too often. It sucks when the Mamluks are defenders of the faith for most of the game. Maybe that's historical, idk, but I can say that wars between the Ottos and Mamluks are a lot less frequent since the update. I think AI prioritizes it a bit much without a purpose for doing so. The lose DotF wars and then get shellacked by their neighbors once they lose.

 

[Sidolowka]

To prevent 1 province minors from growing to 2 provinces?

Be me

Play Mzab

Restart several times because Morocco allied both Djerid and Touggourt

Finally have a game where Touggourt allies Tlemcen

Can't actually fight Touggourt because Mamluks took Defender of Faith

Sit there waiting for Ottomans attack Mamluks

Ottomans get destroyed because they thought it would be a good idea to attack Albania/Venice/Austria-Hungary while Poland was the Catholic DoTF

Mzab_Try16_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup_Backup.eu4

 

[Vin55]

Dude just play as djerid the ibat achievment is way easier as Oman. But a good start is to wait until tlemcen gets attacked. Most of the time Tunis or marocco will kill them and their allies. Attack those with little allies and you are set. But I also had it as Tunis Ottoman lost 2 times in a row to all neighbours, Byzantium won against him in one game lol...
I was then killed by marocco and mameluck alliance... third time is a charme...

 

[Sidolowka]

Dude just play as djerid the ibat achievment is way easier as Oman. But a good start is to wait until tlemcen gets attacked. Most of the time Tunis or marocco will kill them and their allies. Attack those with little allies and you are set. But I also had it as Tunis Ottoman lost 2 times in a row to all neighbours, Byzantium won against him in one game lol...
I was then killed by marocco and mameluck alliance... third time is a charme...

I like Ibadi. Oman was a fun run but it wasn't really challenging, while Mzab was a real hard nut to crack. Pre-DoTF update you could manouevre your way through the Touggourt-Tlemcen alliance alone with some deft loaning and going over force limit, but these days it's just borderline impossible because the Mamluks will take DoTF before you can even get a coastline. You can't even No-CB your way into West Africa anymore because the Mamluks will come to the defence of West Africans that they didn't even know existed.

 

[Vin55]

Yeah I know had the problem of a too early defender as well I was Bavaria with lower Germany and Tirol. They where my ally and where convinced to defend any catholic remaining in the empire I stopped playing. That and the non existing economy for ai was too much. He had 2k debt but defender of faith yeah right. They should just make it a honorary title and it should only work against rivals. Making it easier for you to stop Ottoman as Austria without needing an alliance.

 

[Meglok]

As a side note, the AI becomes defender of the faith far too often. It sucks when the Mamluks are defenders of the faith for most of the game. Maybe that's historical, idk, but I can say that wars between the Ottos and Mamluks are a lot less frequent since the update. I think AI prioritizes it a bit much without a purpose for doing so. The lose DotF wars and then get shellacked by their neighbors once they lose.

This i would concur with. I don't think this change got much review as far as game balance as it should have. It can really impact the play of smaller nations. And it has definitely affected the traditional rivalries of nations like Ottomans vs Mamluks or Spain vs France.

Perhaps @Groogy can give it a look as part of the 1.31 patch?