Help me with alliances

[unmerged(36339)]

I'm playing as Castile. Scotland declares war on England and I join them along with France, seeing my big opening to push into Bern and beyond. I also go against Portugal since they are allied with England.

I grab all of Portugal, the English Bern and Gibraltar. But France agrees to peace and gets Bern and the English get Gibraltar back. Scottish troops land in Portugal and agree to peace, giving me only one Portuguese province as the spoils and the war is over.

I kept checking for separate peace but could never get a province before the others beat me to the peace table.

How could I have done this any differently?

How is the leader of an alliance determined? Why did Scotland and France out-rank me when I had more troops in the province and singlehandedly conducted the sieges?

 

[Dell19]

It depends on the patch. In one of the older patches the nation that declares war becomes the alliance leader. In the current patch it is the nation that created the alliance that is the alliance leader which is why you should always try to create your own alliances. Its one of the most annoying features of the game.

The best solution in this situation is usually to agree a white peace with one of the small nations that are not the alliance leader so that you end up fighting a separate war against the other nations. A last resort is to edit the saved game file so that you are now the alliance leader for the war.

 

[unmerged(36339)]

I'm using patch 1.09.

Can you get bit the other way, if you declare war and allow your alliance members to join? Can they still override you with peace or are you the leader since you DOW?

This is very confusing. I'm not sure why you would fight so hard if you don't get any of the spoils.

 

[unmerged(44916)]

In 1.09 you should never invite your allies to a war you can win alone if you are not the alliance leader.

If you want to be the leader when you dow, you'll have to use an earlier patch.

 

[unmerged(3931)]

The best solution in this situation is usually to agree a white peace with one of the small nations that are not the alliance leader so that you end up fighting a separate war against the other nations.

You can also make a separate peace with the alliance leader if you click on the shield in the peace negotiations window and select "separate peace". Then you can continue your own separate war on the other members of the alliance.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

Rasnell, if you are the alliance leader in 1.09 you are safe asking allies to join. They can make separate peaces (unless they are vassals). So they can get out of the war. But they can only do that using their own warscore, so, you'll never be placed in the situation where they use your warscore to their advantage. On the contrary, you can use their warscore to your advantage, although AI allies usually are not much help with warscore unless you help them.

There are good reasons not to invite your allies: namely, that they are dumb and will tend to mess up your plans via losing lots of warscore in battles, causing attrition to you via their dogpiles, and maybe take provinces you don't want sometimes. Generally once you get to be a power you should not invite allies if your alliance is large, except if you are trying to grow an ally (i.e. let them take provinces at 2BB per, then diploannex them). But before you are a big power you definitely need to know how to use AI allies to your benefit. Forming your own alliance, or knowing how to join and split wars, is an important part of that.

 

[unmerged(36339)]

What determines the alliance leader? How do you know who is the alliance leader?

I have another example that just happened to me: Austria DOW vs. me (Spain) and all the Allies (France, others) join to help me. I capture and control three provinces from Austria. While sitting idle with 19 armies in one of these controlled provinces, France marches in, sparks a battle where there were previously no enemy forces, somehow gains control of this province from me and then promptly declares peace on behalf of the entire alliance.

I assume this means that France was the leader of my defending alliance, but I don't know how to know that. And I guess that France moved into the province with more armies than I had and somehow Austria must have sparked a fight?