Clearly you don't really understand much about history. The Dark Ages weren't really a thing like people imagine it, certainly not in terms of technological development. To the extent that they existed at all, the Dark Ages were a political and economic slump. And the political part essentially relies on you believing that Rome was super cool and damn it's a shame that it's gone.
Might be. Care to elaborate?
Then, there's the problem where your examples are incredibly cherry picked. You don't get to pick 5 years of the most tumultuous war in human history and assume that it is representative of technological progress in the 20th century as a whole. If there's some tech tree we have to climb to take us from armored cars to heavy tanks, why didn't that happen in the 20's right after tanks were invented? If anything, there was a retreat from the concept of heavy tanks, for entirely non-technological reasons.
First, I've corrected myself, picking 1935-1940 period. While "5 years of the most tumultuous war in human history" just started at the end of this timeline, in 1939.
Second. Strategic bombers, heavy tanks and diesel engines were not just invented, but mass-produced (or, in case of strategic bombers, ready for mass production) years
before WW2, not during. For example, the T-35 tank (designed in 1932, mass produced in 1933-1939; while the peak of production was reached in 1936) for heavy tanks. Diesel engines also were mass-produced, look up Mercedes-Benz 260D and Citroёn Rosalie Familiale 11UD (both were produced in 1933-1939); also, 500hp W2 tank diesel (mass production started in 1938). Third, strategic bomber TB-7 (aka Pe-8 or ANT-42) was designed in 1934-1938; in 1938, it was ready for mass production. The sole reason it wasn't mass produced is that USSR command didn't see the need for them in any forseeable future, but the production lines were there, ready to bake the cakes immediately after the command has been given.
And yes, I would love to hear about all the examples you have saved up.
I didn't. But if you state the requirements, I will dig up periods and then ask you to find something similar in scale done in similar timeframe. What will it be? Computers? Space industry? Lasers? Something else?
My first point is: No, it didn't happen before/after the timeline; you mostly just made those examples, or made some gross simplification of what actually happened. Next we'll be hearing about how mighty German warrior bands totally conquered Rome, and therefore German culture countries should get free CBs on France, Spain, North Africa, and Italy.
Please specify. Was was that gross simplification I made? That both Attila and Napoleon razed cities? Or that ultimatums were issued (granted, I oversimplified ultimatums themselves, but, I think, gameplay-wise it's not that gross)?
My point is thins should at least be semi-plausible.
And I don't ask for anything more.
"It could have been done, therefore let the player try it".
In short, it appears you want a realistic, down to earth game, that's completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots.
Where did that come from?
Don't mistake the game mechanic of declaring war with a "real" declaration. What you seem to be missing is the ability to surprise the enemy but it's already in the game: When you declare war your enemies will often have lowered their army maintenance, giving you up to 3 months of a military advantage. I'd thus argue that this feature has already been implemented.
You have a point here, thanks.
But then, wouldn't it be natural to put something like "attacking here will start war with %countryname%, do you wish to proceed?" alert, like in Civilization games? Or "moving your forces here will be seen as infringement upon %countryname% borders, do you continue?". All I want about the feature is just this.
Also total wars were rather unheard of in the time frame of EU3.
Which doesn't make them impossible (or implausible).
Enemy armies with 0 morale are wiped when encountering your forces, one of the best ways to achieve this is to surround them to control their movement. I am not sure how much more annihilation you need?
I need annihilation as a result of local operations, not global strategy. As in chasing the retreating defeated infantry with cavalry squadrons to round up and then utterly destroy them before they run into another army of mine. Like, "you lost and you want to run? not gonna happen". I don't ask for this to happen automatically, I ask only to lessen the role of chance, so a 5k foot army won't run away from 20k cavalries.
Terra Incognita in game terms doesn't mean that it cannot be accessed by group of explorers, it just means that it is impossible to perform game relevant actions there, i. e. the province cannot sustain settlements of a relevant scale and doesn't allow the crossing of sizeable forces.
But it's entirely possible to make some of those territories passable within the EU3 timeframe. Granted, it means years and decades of development and tons of ducats, but why mark it impossible and have players have such an annoying eyesore they can't remove no matter what?
