DOW with military access should not cost 5 stability

[RedBstrd]

It seems strange that declaring war on someone who grants military access should cost a base of 5 stability, which is equivalent to truce breaking. Is there a reason why it costs so much stability?

Players can cancel military access without a cost (assuming that they, their war partners, or their enemies aren't inside of the nation in question), so the only time players suffer the stability hit is when they forget to cancel access. It seems odd that a minor accident should be one of the more punished actions in the game.

I would suggest either:
1. Making nations unable to declare war on someone who grants them military access, which would just be a reminder to the player to cancel the access.
2. Reducing the stability cost of declaring war on a country granting military access to 1 or 2 stability.

Note: I haven't done this accident in a while; I just see it popping up constantly in the "Worst Mistakes You've Made in EU4" threads and wonder "Why is this still a thing?"

 

[gdj]

It seems strange that declaring war on someone who grants military access should cost a base of 5 stability, which is equivalent to truce breaking. Is there a reason why it costs so much stability?

Because it is considered to be an act of supreme treachery, violating the customs of war of this time period (or indeed, any time period). It is not much different from truce breaking.

 

[Rabbit Burgher]

Perhaps we could see a reduced stability hit, but a large AE penalty?

 

[RedBstrd]

Because it is considered to be an act of supreme treachery, violating the customs of war of this time period (or indeed, any time period). It is not much different from truce breaking.

Respectfully, I don't find that argument to be very persuasive. From a conceptual point of view, treaties of military access didn't really exist as the game portrays them. CKII doesn't feature them and the mutual access system introduced into EU4 regards them treaties of military access as much less formal than a peace treaty.

The mechanics seem to be in place for game play reasons rather than for historical realism (the general philosophy of Paradox)... but the mechanics don't contribute to better game balance or anything. From a game balance point of view, I don't see the purpose of such a massive stability hit. As I noted, its sole purpose at this point seems to be to harm players who forget to check something. Can anyone think of any time that they've intentionally declared war on a country granting them military access while fully aware that they were going to take the stability hit? Ever?

 

[gdj]

The mechanics seem to be in place for game play reasons rather than for historical realism (the general philosophy of Paradox)... but the mechanics don't contribute to better game balance or anything. From a game balance point of view, I don't see the purpose of such a massive stability hit. As I noted, its sole purpose at this point seems to be to harm players who forget to check something. Can anyone think of any time that they've intentionally declared war on a country granting them military access while fully aware that they were going to take the stability hit? Ever?

Well, the purpose of this is to prevent "surprise attacks" like in CK2. With military access you can order your army to move into an enemy province and declare war one day before they arrive. Considering that AI armies are usuallly not fully funded in peacetime it would give you an easy victory. Worse even, you could move to a mothballed fort and take it without resistance in the same manner.

As to realism, i agree to your critique insofar as troops become black flagged when you dow a country where you have access and your troops are already there, thus really treacherous behaviour like moving to the enemy capital and declaring after your arrival is not possible.

 

[RedBstrd]

Well, the purpose of this is to prevent "surprise attacks" like in CK2. With military access you can order your army to move into an enemy province and declare war one day before they arrive. Considering that AI armies are usuallly not fully funded in peacetime it would give you an easy victory. Worse even, you could move to a mothballed fort and take it without resistance in the same manner.

As to realism, i agree to your critique insofar as troops become black flagged when you dow a country where you have access and your troops are already there, thus really treacherous behaviour like moving to the enemy capital and declaring after your arrival is not possible.

Agreed.

On the surprise attack issue, we could get around any exploit just fine by treating military access treaties just like alliances: preventing the player from declaring war on someone without canceling them. In 99% of cases (I would guess), the player would just be reminded to cancel military access and then proceed with the attack.

Again, to be clear, the problem isn't game-breaking but this change just seems to be a minor "quality of life" improvement to the game that I think we should have seen already.

 

[gdj]

OK, preventing a dow sounds definitely better than nerfing the penalties.

 

[RedBstrd]

Since this suggestion is less popular than I suspected, I thought I should elaborate on my reasoning behind my objection to the current rules. Sorry for the delay in a follow up post; I had a busy few days and could only budget time to read the boards and not post...

As Gdj's post indicated, declaring war on a nation while receiving military access is a treacherous act that violates the norms of warfare at the time. Fair enough, it is (though one that I think that players only make on accident rather than as intentional treachery). Still, it is treachery... but more severely punished than other violations of the norms of warfare in the game:

• Declaring war despite a Royal Marriage (which was historically equivalent to an alliance in the game's early time frame), only costs 1 stability. The current mechanics treat a DOW on a country granting Military Access 5 times as egregious of a violation of diplomatic norms. At the same time, by every other metric in the game, Royal Marriages are more serious: signing one improves mutual relations by +25, they can't be canceled on a whim, and relations suffer if you cancel one. By contrast, countries don't care if you cancel a military access agreement through them and signing one doesn't increase their opinion of you.
• Declaring war on a vassal costs 3 stability. The current mechanics treat a DOW of war on a country granting Military Access more serious than a DOW on a nation with an agreement of formal protection that the player's country has extended to a junior partner. That seems odd.
• Declaring war without just cause (a Causus Belli) and forcing your nobility and peasantry to fight a war of aggression only costs 2 stability. The current mechanics treat this violation of the norms of the era's warfare as less severe than DOWing someone who grants military access.
• Likewise, initiating Westernization - that is, overturning the social, political, and sometimes military norms of a nation - only costs 3 stability. Currently, the nobility, peasantry, etc., of a nation get more upset over violation of one norm of warfare (don't declare on someone who said you could move through their territory) than overturning some of the fundamental social contracts (forgive the anachronistic terminology) and privileges of the country/its estates.

In short, even if we consider that a declaration of war on a country granting military access is a violation of the norms of warfare and international diplomacy of the time, it seems that the stability cost is excessive compared to other stability hits for similar diplomatic actions. On that basis, I think that the mechanic should be revised. The computer never makes the mistake (as far as I can tell), so it really serves the function only as a punishment to careless players.

If that situation really is an opportunity cost necessary to prevent a worse problem (as Gdj speculated) and we have no better alternatives, then it's fine. If it isn't, then I suggest addressing the problem for a minor "quality of life" improvement for players.

If the current mechanics are in place to prevent exploits (which is entirely possible), then I would suggest (as I noted in the OP) making a DOW impossible on any country granting Military Access. In other words, we could prevent exploits and accidental stability hits by treating treaties of Military Access like other treaties. We currently cannot declare war on allies, countries granting us trade power, or countries we have guaranteed. The mechanics could follow that pattern without any meaningful downside that I can see. Basically, the inability to declare war on a country granting military access would just be a reminder to cancel access and declare war in a month with no stability cost.

I don't see that either casual or hardcore gamers would lose out if we tried either revision.

Since I got more downvotes than upvotes (and only one reply with an explanation), I encourage those who disagree to vocalize their reasoning. Do you, for instance, think that violating military access (which really wasn't a thing as the game depicts during that time period) so much more shocking and appalling of an act than the diplomatic actions that cost us 1-3 stability? If you see an exploit that the stability hit is supposed to prevent, do you think that the current mechanic helps more than it hurts? Is the current set of mechanics really the best and easiest way to avoid whatever exploit might be there? I'm sincerely curious on these points since, as I noted above, this issue isn't my current crusade or anything; I was just reminded of the issue by seeing it brought up 4 times in 3 pages on the "Stupidest things you have every done in EU4" thread.

 

[gdj]

Allow me please to clarify my point concerning the treachery-argument. As you correctly pointed out, treaties of military access in its strict, literal sense were not common. That is true because the very nature of military access through a foreign country mandates that is automatically accompanied by other treaties and costums. Military access means:

* your army will not pillage, plunder or rob the civilian populace of the country
* your army will be supplied locally by buying the goods, be supplied by the local government, or have extended supply trains (the latter was not usual in this timeframe)
* your army will punish infractions by its soldiers, either through its own judicial framework, or by handing the criminals over to the local courts (or its equivalents)
* your army is not hostile to the local governments forces

Consequently, this is only possible when there is a bond of trust, or a bond of fear between the two governements. The former one usually means that the two countries are allied to each other, and that their armies can thus move freely through each others territory - even in peacetimes if the alliance treaty warrants for this. The latter one mandates that a pact of non-agression exists between these 2 countries - something that is strangely absent in EU4.

Now if an alliance exists between two countries, a declaration of war is not possible. Pacts of non-agression however are not directly modelled in EU4, the nature of access only suggests its existence due to the very nature of military access as outlined above. Declaring war on a country you have access to means you attack someone while a pact of non-aggression still exists, and you did not bother to declare the pact null and void in due time in advance.

This is no better than truce breaking imho.

As to the possibility of exploits, i have already given examples how this culd unbalance warfare as it is modelled in EU4 to some degree.

Thus i am still opposed to the idea to nerf the severe 5 stability hit.

I do agree now, however, that making a declaration of war impossible with military access would be a good solution, and have upvoted this suggestion.

 

[harezmi]

we should be able to DoW any country any time. consequences can be worked on and even include additional unrest for DoWing your allies. I think a pop-up window to confirm (remind) if we really want to declare war with those harsh consequences, after we hit the DoW button, would do it. we should not be prevented on doing something but reminded to make wrong decisions by accident.