[HOD]AI alliance blocs

[Aromir]

The First World War is a pretty good example actually, given that most of the nations got involved due to preexisting military alliances.

Well except that it didn't happen that way.

While it is true that in the period leading to the first world war, there were a number of treaties, agreements and conventions between great powers which formed the basis for the later coalitions. But these treaties were mostly either very loose agreements of mutual friendship or very specific treaties of intent, but i don't think any of them of rose to the level of an ironcald mutual assistance pact. Closest thing were probably the agreements between Germany and Austria as they stated that one power would support the other in case of an attack by another great power, but there were clear definition of what "support" actually entailed and that led to long and confusing negotiations following the July Crisis. The pact between Germany and Italy, who originally was the third wheel in the so called triple alliance, just stated that the two powers would support each other in case either of them were attacked by France, and as we saw Italy ended up joining the other side. The Franco-Russian pacts were quite similar they simply stated that the two countries would support each other in case one of them were attacked by a member of the Triple Alliance, but provided no support against any other nations, seen by the lack of french support during the Russo-Japanese war. Britain while having signed several agreements with both Russia and France had never actually promised support, but choose to support them anyway. On top of all of that in theory none of the treaties actually applied, as none of them dealt with an attack on/by Serbia.

Non specific alliances really wasn't something a Great Power would really agree to as it greatly shackled their foreign policy.

 

[petertel123]

Well except that it didn't happen that way.

While it is true that in the period leading to the first world war, there were a number of treaties, agreements and conventions between great powers which formed the basis for the later coalitions. But these treaties were mostly either very loose agreements of mutual friendship or very specific treaties of intent, but i don't think any of them of rose to the level of an ironcald mutual assistance pact. Closest thing were probably the agreements between Germany and Austria as they stated that one power would support the other in case of an attack by another great power, but there were clear definition of what "support" actually entailed and that led to long and confusing negotiations following the July Crisis. The pact between Germany and Italy, who originally was the third wheel in the so called triple alliance, just stated that the two powers would support each other in case either of them were attacked by France, and as we saw Italy ended up joining the other side. The Franco-Russian pacts were quite similar they simply stated that the two countries would support each other in case one of them were attacked by a member of the Triple Alliance, but provided no support against any other nations, seen by the lack of french support during the Russo-Japanese war. Britain while having signed several agreements with both Russia and France had never actually promised support, but choose to support them anyway. On top of all of that in theory none of the treaties actually applied, as none of them dealt with an attack on/by Serbia.

Non specific alliances really wasn't something a Great Power would really agree to as it greatly shackled their foreign policy.

and how would you model this without alliances?

 

[Khorney]

allow countries to assist and call for assistance in a similar manner to CK2 holy wars would make for on the spot temporary alliances of convenience that currently only occur with great power 'status quo' interventions?

 

[Aromir]

and how would you model this without alliances?

Well i actually think the current Crisis system does a very good job of modeling the July Crisis and the Following War.

The July Crisis would essential be Serbia supporting serbian rebels in Bosnia and when the crisis reached boiling point Russia supported Serbia and was followed France, Britain and finally Italy. Austria was in turn supported by Germany and the Ottoman Empire and as the sides were unable to agree to peaceful settlement it resulted in a great war.

The only problem is that current system is that it pays too much attention to geographical position (and this is actually enforce by the alliance system) and too little to other factors such as cores, GP rank and so on, so getting a situation that turns out exactly like WWI is very unlikely.

Alliances don't really matter a lot gamewise right now. The only major effect they have on the game is making the otherwise historically pretty common "One on One Wars" almost impossible. You could really just remove them from the game and make a few adjustments to insure that spherelings would follow their GP's into war vice versa.

 

[Wizzington]

If you're still checking this thread - the AI info panel doesn't show up at all in multiplayer! not even a will/will not accept, you just have to blind hope

I'm aware. The game is currently not written in such a way to support this info in MP. It would take an extensive rewrite to change it.