Do cascading alliances ruin Divine Wind?

[Hardcore_gamer]

I bought EU3: Complete and HTTT on STEAM and since DW hasn't been released on STEAM yet I haven't bought it, however I have been looking forward to playing it.

However, then I heard about this thing called "cascading alliances" and horror stories about how it plunges Europe into a massive World War 1 style conflict every 10 years and how it just makes wars unfun and annoying.

Is this indeed the case? If so then I don't know if I will invest my money into DW.

I really like what I have heard about the expansion's other features, but the sound of this whole cascading alliances thing just really turns me off.

Care to share your thoughts about the feature?

Discuss.

 

[Sunfighter]

It causes some weird, weird looking maps as countries get territories from all over the place. The horde mechanic needs tweeked a bit, as it causes massive blob countries. You should see the Persia in my game, its huge And if you are with allies, expect to be called to war almost constantly. Sometimes if your lucky you are able to white peace or offer 25 gold right away to get out of the useless wars while still honoring your pledge, other times youre stuck for a stupid long time and their offers are insane.

Honestly though, on a challenge basis, it makes the game slightly more fun for the player because you never know whats gonna happen when you hit that declare war button. You gotta try your best to keep track of a virtually impossible to keep track of web of alliances, Generally for me, I waited till the country i was afraid of to be at war before declaring war on my target nation, usually this was able to keep the country i was afraid of out of the war.

 

[unmerged(64629)]

It doesn't ruin Divine Wind at all. Just just need to get used to it a little...

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

Honestly though, on a challenge basis, it makes the game slightly more fun for the player because you never know whats gonna happen when you hit that declare war button.

Doesn't sound like much fun to me, I want to know just how I will end up fighting when I declare war.

 

[Pitt The Elder]

It certainly doesn't ruin DW. But I don't think it helps it either.

 

[Jabarto]

It's a gamekiller for me. I was never that good at this game, and I thought it was bad enough trying to take on the inevitable alliance of every neighboring country that forms in every single game. It's one thing to take on all of your neighbors at once. It's quite another to have every Muslim from Tangiers to Baghdad screaming for your blood just because you declared war on Granada.

Honestly, though, I'm biased. I'm a pretty bad player, as I said, and I always resent anything that makes the game really hard, so don't let me deter you too much. The building system alone is worth the price of admission, and the horde mechanics have great potential for modding.

 

[Sandam]

i dont know why but i have yet to experience such a huge war... for me its quite normal. a bit more enemies in war but not WW yet.. maybe im just carefull to pick my enemies. or im just attacking rivals. so if you attack strong nation you can be sure alience leader wont change. but if you are attacking weakest one.. well, it saves some diplomats

 

[Strategyking]

Cascading alliances sound like something that will keep me from purchasing DW. A revamped asia would be nice, but if that's the only incentive beyond a HOI3 syle map.. I think I'll save my dinero.

 

[Ashantai]

I like it. It gives the player some pause because you can't necessarily go in and expect only one or two enemies. It also simulates escalating wars from history as well. Good examples would be the War of Independence, several of the Napoleonic Wars, 30 Year's War, World War One especially.

 

[Orinsul]

no they make it
its one of the best things and something EU3 has lacked for a very very long time

 

[Orinsul]

Cascading alliances sound like something that will keep me from purchasing DW. A revamped asia would be nice, but if that's the only incentive beyond a HOI3 syle map.. I think I'll save my dinero.

the rebel and building revamps are brilliant, and the cascading arent so much a problem unless you go around constantly warmongering, in which case it makes sense that things would turn against you.

 

[Pitt The Elder]

The other thing I should add is that your experience will vary widely depending on how large of a nation you like to play. For the big (land-oriented) hitters, cascading alliances are almost nice, as it adds a nice challenge. As an OPM it can be incredibly frustrating, as it become very difficult to expand at all - you really have to wait for your moment, or play the diplomacy game really well.

 

[unmerged(135868)]

It's caused a number of ragequits since I bought DW, I've been swamped by a neverending stream of nations piling on top of me, often I will have got the number of people in the war down to just me and the original enemy and pow! in comes another 5!

I've noticed OPMs often use is as a means of angling for cash payouts too, they'll jump in when your war exhaustion is mounting and offer peace for a price.

They can cause some weird world-wars too, a global conflict spanning three continents because a minor baltic state declared war on an orthodox OPM, ect.

 

[Ironic]

I love it, instead of looking at a county and saying oh they only have one opm ally, easy conquest, now maybe in the middle of this apparently easy war France suddenly jumps in and your fighting for survival! It adds real risk and unpredictability to almost any war, which ( and yes i know eu3 isnt aimed at being completely realistic ) is how it should be, as in history as others have cited one was never sure who would jump in to support another.

 

[il_loco]

Quite the opposite, it is fun I think... In times of vanilla (and in the next expansion may be, I don't remember) the rebels would disappear instantly if beaten in a clash, then they changed the dynamics. I remember the frustration I experienced in my Ottoman Empire game while trying to kill nationalist rebels all over the Balkans. Then, you get used to it.
Although, most probably it will be fixed with a patch, it is not a big problem that it is argued to be. Of course, this is my humble opinion...

 

[unmerged(101730)]

I like it. It gives the player some pause because you can't necessarily go in and expect only one or two enemies. It also simulates escalating wars from history as well. Good examples would be the War of Independence, several of the Napoleonic Wars, 30 Year's War, World War One especially.

One of those isn't even in the time frame, one at the very end of it - which, by definition, means that the game mechanics don't cover it as well nor should they to avoid breaking all the other time periods - and I can't see any of the numerous wars of independence happening like that; the Dutch one certainly wasn't.

The Thirty Years' War now would be better modelled in the game as a bunch of wars which run in parallel instead of a single huge two-sided one. In some cases, the war involvement would be best modelled as simply spy action or war subsidiaries in game terms (see: Savoy). Consequently, it wasn't one peace treaty which ended it, but several (the last one in 1659).

 

[Haccoude]

Yes it ruins DW. It means that every war is a world war, which can be problem if you're a bad player or just dislike fighting 4-5 blobs if you want to expand at all. On top of that, it's also highly unhistorical and any challenge derived from it, could also be derived from any other mechanic with no basis in history.

It also simulates escalating wars from history as well. Good examples would be the War of Independence, several of the Napoleonic Wars, 30 Year's War, World War One especially.

No it doesn't. It shouldn't simulate World War one since that happened later in a completely different political climate.
Cascading alliances means any war escalates to the point that 4-5 countries on each side of the alliance is a conservativew estimate. Any war with less 6 participants at a time can't be simulated by the current system. Yes, cascading alliances can simulate the Napoleonic Wars, the War of Spanish Succession and the Seven Years' War. However, those were far from the only wars to happen during the 420 years the game covers. Also in those wars the great powers of europe (blobs) were on different sides of the war, hoping to contain their rivals. During CA wars however, they usually end up on the same side.

 

[Axe27]

It makes the game almost nonsensical. Me, little Byzantium, manages to sneak out and crush the Ottomans. Nobody DOWs me, though I did have to fight the Turkish minors which was a bit of a bonus. Then, I start taking down Frankish Duchies....

HOLY SHIT.

Literally, at one point in time I had every Italian State, Poland, Sweden,Scotland, and France and Friends, come after me. And that completely pales in comparison to my current situation, where I've got Lithuania and Poland (who DOW'd me without a proper casus beli), Venice, Aqueilla, France, and Castille fighting men, plus a Golden Horde who randomly DOWs me. The game becomes completely unenjoyable because almost any war in Europe ends with you fighting French/Austrian/Bohemian/Milian/English/Castillian stacks all at the same goddamn time.

Fix it for christ sake, because the game is completely freakin' ruined by the spending almost the entirety of the time barely surviving again most of western Europe as Byzantium a country where most of it's conquests have been against religious enemies and oncored provinces.

 

[TheCheeseMaster]

if your concerned about getting DW, wait until its on a sale so you dont waste too much money on something you didnt like.

 

[Mjuice]

I wonder if an option could be added in a patch to disable the call to arms function, as this is clearly something that many people don't like and it's not something that can be modded either.