Every war is a total war

[maxirage]

World War 1 isn't even in the game's time period; it's not supposed to be simulated. But ironically enough, it's the best representative of wars in EUIII. A minor conflict evolves into a huge total war involving all of Europe. If Europe has colonies or expansion in Africa, then it becomes a real world war.

 

[CaptRobau]

The diplomatic side of warfare has always been one of the least intuitive parts of PDS' grand strategy games. Here's some of the things I would change:

Total war
Every war quickly becomes a total war, with all an AI's forces committed to the same goal. It doesn't matter if it needs to get them from halfway across the world. This happens for both the largest and the smallest of conflicts. Some sort of division into theaters of war might help alleviate that. It might also make it easier for the AI to give up a war if they've been soundly beaten in the theater they're fighting over.

Warscore
For some reason I need a warscore of 40 to get a province of 10. The actual numbers vary, but almost always do you need more warscore then it says in the negotiation screen. There's a whole calculation of war capacity, warscore, etc. but in the end it doesn't reflect reality and makes negotiations very obfuscated. As a player you never what you can get, which is not intuitive at all, and results in the AI not surrendering when it should. If I've beaten your entire army and am laying siege to all your provinces, just give up. There's probably some stories about countries being in completely unwinnable situations and not giving up but don't make the exception the rule. If I should get Calais according to warscore, give me Calais. I think it would also remove the problems with blobbing. Since countries don't constantly get their entire army wiped because they're willing to give up sooner, they won't have to rebuild their military ever single time. Now losing one of these unnecessarily 'total' wars against the player is a death sentence for every AI.

White peace spamming
If I'm the attacker I don't want to sign a white peace when I've just begun. I certainly don't want it when I've got almost all your provinces occupied. In the first situation I don't want any WPs and in the latter I'd rather they give me alternate peace deals, like money, broken alliances, vassalage. It might not be my goal but its more of a choice if the situation changes (other war, etc.) than a WP. WPs shouldn't be removed, but be more up to the attacker or after a very long time of war but no fighting.

Cascading alliances
Remove them. They happened but they were the exception to the rule. Use Dynamic Historical Events to simulate the evolution of the Thirty Years War from a religious conflict to a clash of major powers. The same goes for the weird switch of War of the League of Cambrai.

 

[OP13]

Now losing one of these unnecessarily 'total' wars against the player is a death sentence for every AI.

This! The biggest problem with these "total wars" imho. If you're a warmonging nation, almost every powerful nation you ever go to war against gets torn apart as soon as you sign a peace deal.

I like the "theater of war" idea. I think it would be pretty awsome if you could use only a limited number of units or % of forcelimit or actual number of units or at least have some kind of limit to the effort you can put in a war (maybe WE?) depending on the war type/objective, so that going to war over a colony/trade rights/whatever would not decimate a whole army and ruin a nation.

I also think you should not be able to ask for territory if you went to war over something totally different. If you go to war over trade rights, you can ask for trade rights and maybe money or some other compensation but you may not ask for a province (well maybe you could but at least not without taking a huge infamy hit).

 

[medopu]

*AFAIK cascading alliances were implemented because some players annoyingly complained that they wanted to include "their new-acquired" ally after the war has started, so they made that available, but doing so, they didn't want to handicap player too much so they made that possibility for AI also, and this is where you gett those cascades.

*White peacing
You can always just ignore them. AI doesn't get the ability to know, if player "would accept the peace offer" or not, and it's not even a big deal, it's not like it spams your screen, just ignore it, focus on war and try to win it

*Warscore


If in your situation, you got 40 warscore and couldn't get calais, even though you obliterated their armies, then it's something wrong with calculation of war-exhaustion, not warscore.

Let me put it this way:
1.)If an enemy has perfectly intact army and you have an almighty 90% warscore AI shouldn't even consider making anything worse for itself than a white-peace.
2.)If an enemy has an obliterated army, no manpower left and you have 10% warscore, then my son, you should gain wargoals, that take up 10% or even more sometimes.

And if it doesn't work that way, something is wrong, but definitely not with the warscores.

 

[CaptRobau]

I haven't heard a single good word about cascading alliances. Make the call to arms available to players if you must, but remove the ability for the AI because let's be honest it can't handle it.

Searching for white peace spam on PDS gives almost 2000 results: it's annoying to a lot of of people. White peace should be used by the AI as a meaningful offer, let's say when the player gets embroiled in another war and is losing that or if the war has gone on for years without a single shot fired. Not a month after the DoW when nothing has been decided yet.

The 40 warscore was an exaggeration. What I'm arguing for is that warscore reflects how the war is going for you. If you have 0 it's status quo, if it's 100 it's total defeat (and accepting every peace negotiation). Now it's separated resulting in a system that's unclear to players and results in having to spill more AI blood than is necessary.

 

[OP13]

And if it doesn't work that way, something is wrong, but definitely not with the warscores.

Imho, what's wrong is that the AI overestimates its war capacity and underestimates his opponent's forces.

 

[grommile]

The first actual world war is in the EU4 period. The Seven Years War (1754-63) was fought in Europe, the Americas, India, Africa, and the Philippines.

 

[Atlanteax]

Imho, what's wrong is that the AI overestimates its war capacity and underestimates his opponent's forces.

As most clearly illustrated by OPM being either at 100% war capacity 'we are WINNING ... give us all your ducats!!' or 0% war capacity 'SUE FOR PEACE' (annexation prone).

Only seems balanced when it is large power vs another large power, but then again, the 'winning' large power usually takes the wrong provinces or settles for 11 ducats.

 

[Featauril]

Why don't they just make it like CKII? You can call allies, but only allies of the two countries which started the war can join in on the fun.

For instance, the seven year war, was between France's allies and England's allies. Same with most of the Napoleonic wars.

 

[Red John]

Cascading alliances would stop if the war leader didn't change. That's the most basic fix, you (potentially) fight their allies/vassals, and that's it. That's how it should be. It shouldn't go from Savoy - Bohemia - Austria - France.

(I think)

 

[fizy45]

i dont like total war. i prefer paradox games. i think you have the right idea that the two should not mix. well said

But Empire Total war gives players little bit diplomacy and with Napoleon it become better so if we take the fighting mechanics of Napoleon and add Eu diplomatic system well that can be awesome game

For me best games in strategy is Empire Total War and Europe Universalis 3 I spend countless hours in both games but Total War series lack diplomacy and Europe Universalis lack battle mechanics.

About the wars I completly agree with you players should be able to end wars without invading whole country in Eu3 winning wars and destroying enemy army makes no diffrence because you have to occupy all of the enemy territory and while we are trying to achive that because of infamy my country turn into rebel paradise.

There should be options to maintain status quo.

 

[unmerged(139685)]

Cascading alliances ought to be allowed to happen when the war keeps dragging on. So after a given period of time, say two years. Get your act together before the sharks smell the blood.

 

[Jadelith]

wars (not battles) have always been the weak spot of all of paradox's games, I think. you are always forced to bring the entire nation to its knees before you can sign a somewhat decent peace deal. for HoI (and vicky up to a point), that's understandable, but for other games it makes no sense. Especially in ck2, where wars feel more like whac-a-mole than anything else.

also, if you are going to add the worst piece of "feature" to eu4 that is cascading alliances, either make it moddable or declare it in a developer diary so that I can stop looking forward to this game. saxony declaring war on me and using up its entire army fighting me in 1480 because it is allied to austria who is allied to england who war dec'ed me is simply ridiculous. it is not feature, it is a mistake.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Cascading aliances are actualy very good thing, as long as they are limited, as it was done in the patch(only alliance leader can call in allies, and others just get alliance CB).

 

[kingofnoobs]

It would be cool if you could have "Theater Wars" where battles can take place in only a specific region...

 

[Hootieleece]

Maybe there could be a "Limited" War Feature.(like in Vicky1)Where You can fight everywhere (and take Provinces for WarScore)but only take colonies,money, or force Enemy to Break Alliances or reduce Sphere of influence.

 

[Featauril]

Maybe there could be a "Limited" War Feature.(like in Vicky1)Where You can fight everywhere (and take Provinces for WarScore)but only take colonies,money, or force Enemy to Break Alliances or reduce Sphere of influence.

Except no such wars ever happened AFAIK.

 

[Derp]

The war score presented to the player should be the actual warscore that the AI will accept. You can have the 'base' warscore in a tooltip or something along with the other modifiers.

 

[Gnomi]

I think that the current problem is fighting a total war is too cheap and too easy right now. Ideally, total war should be only possible under extreme circumstances -- such as, having centralized, unified country or having the existence of the nation itself at the stake. Otherwise, trying to wage a total war should be far more costly and impractical than loosing a small war.

Now, I don't know if that would actually make the entertaining gameplay, though.

 

[Jaol]

CK2 has the "ticking warscore" which might be useful here too. (Like maxirage said)

However CK2 is on general too restrictive with CBs... a game of opportunism like EU4 would do better with a slightly more flexible system. Maybe like in Victoria where you can add war goals on the fly, at some cost. If the AI can take your current war goals into account, then it could adapt its response somewhat, and might choose to cede to a demand after its army is beaten, without escalating to total war.

Yeah, V2's wargoals system is pretty good, although the AI often ends up adding so many that the war becomes a total war anyway. But something along those lines might work well for the EU timeframe.