How to end the total wars?

[Arizal]

If there is one thing that I dislike, in GSGs in general, it's how, in order to gain a few concessions, you have to wage a full war and fully occupy a country. The only incentive for compromise peaces comes from the desire to not lose some manpower or to have shorter truces. Sometimes, the player might want to leave a war earlier because he is busy on other fronts, but it is rare the AI will take advantage of an ongoing war. The calculation is there, of course, but it seems far too conservative. And when the AI does declare war, it often badly backfires, as the player is able to take advantage of the situation.

As long as you have one or two powerful allies, you don't feel really threatened by realpolitic. Wars are annihilation wars in which there might be a few uncertainties, but in the end your victory is certain. I'm of course not talking about that climactic war when you have to attack your big ennemy...

So, where am I going with that? I think those drawn out wars should be changed and become more evolutive. Mechanically speaking, why were small and surrounded countries still standing in EUIV era? I would guess that it had to do with the fact that they were guaranteed, that taking them on would cost something to the attacking power and that a war might be taken advantage on by the ennemy of the attacking power.

This is poorly represented in EUIV. The forewarning for a country declaring war on you when you are busy is not reliable, diplomatic pressions, outside "threaten war", are unexistant, and you have no idea of the threshold after which other countries might react. I'm not talking about AE, here, but about how far you can be weakened before others go against you.

Speaking of AE, the concept is nice, but it applies after the damage is done, once you are already in a position of force and the beaten powers are greatly diminished. In Victoria II, AE (or infamy) applied as you accrued the war goals during the war. The system wasn't perfect, but I definitely see that as a good idea for diplomacy.

This is not a suggestion, nor a very well built reflexion. I'm just wondering if any player (and history geek) feels the same way I do and would like the game(s) to be more about managing the diplomatic consequences of your actions rather than punching your neighbor once each 15 years and then waiting for them to calm down because of course in 15 years they'll have forgotten how threatening you are.

 

[Choorus]

There is a few things that need to be changed, some amongst them were to some extent present in EU2,

1. the supply limit needs to be much, much more localised, i.e. decrease very quickly away from your borders
2. AI should understand the supply limits
3. there should be no attrition cap.
4. getting a military access outside of HRE should be a big thing and armies marching through neutral territory should give it some devastation. Refusing military access should give limited CB permitting exclusively its enforcement. The AI should understand that powerful enough countries need to be given access, but smaller ones-no way.
5. AI should take the above into account when making alliances, so as to make them local as well
6. War exhaustion should be rising much more quickly
7. Low manpower should hurt economically
8. Stability should rise on its own, slowly, not on a click, thus no CB wars should be painful as hell
9. War goal-related score should tick a few times faster, so if a tag loses a province for a year or two, it would consider a peace offer.
10. Acting against mores of an era should give bad-boy that would not decay on its own, but rather only take some benevolent effort to lower.

All of the above should make wars become more local, fortifications in mountainous regions become historically obtrusive, sieges become costly. It could all scale nicely with technological improvements over time alleviating those issues.
We can then keep Napoleonic-scale pan-European warfare in the late game, but stick to realism and much more local conflicts in the early and mid-game.

These are not a direct answers to your proposals, but I believe they touch upon the same issues.

 

[Battlex]

What's the game like if you just make every province a lv1 Fort base again?

 

[RichardOlcese]

What's the game like if you just make every province a lv1 Fort base again?

Why "again"? Was that ever the case? I never knew about such dark and inhumane times.

 

[KaiserJohan]

What's the game like if you just make every province a lv1 Fort base again?

Dear god no!

 

[TeutonicTortoise]

Bring back the OG carpet sieges (please don't)

 

[Piotrzeci]

I have an idea, but overall I feel it's not possible.

You technically can move into a country, occupy conquest wargoal and wait out the clock. There is just one issue with that, it takes time during which the AI will try to reclaim it by attacking you with all its armies which makes it a total war. Alternatively the AI is incapable of taking the land back and their armies are simply too weak to challenge you; then the problem is that you might as well push harder and speed it up.

Since you need an army anyway and manpower is just a number that does pretty much nothing there isn't really much point to not defending yourself. In CK3 raising Men-at-arms is expensive and requires a war chest, sometimes it might just not be worth fighting over something small like a HRE vs France de jure war over one county. In EU4 the army is there and the only cost you get from fighting is the cash that goes into replenishment and manpower that you might have plenty of. I mean, there isn't really much point in giving up without a large war.

And that kinda leads to the idea that what would be needed is an "expected peace deal" thing. Basically you declare a conquest war for a couple of provinces, occupy them, win a couple of battles and saying "Hey, I just want these provinces" would count as meeting the expected demand and therefore make AI likely to concede it. Currently the length of war and not holding capital and... everything else mean that AI is not keen on surrendering to reasonable demands until they are sufficiently beaten, similarly you can't just say "Well whatever, just take it" because confused AI will just want to fight a long war to make sure they deserve it.. or something.

So like you know, a mix of CB based peace deal and EU4 customizable concessions, that there is something you seem to be fighting for and taking just that (and maybe some ducats) is a fair peace deal that could be agreed upon if you are doing well in the war, so pushing further would be more of a thing to do when you plan on taking more.

 

[Battlex]

Why "again"? Was that ever the case? I never knew about such dark and inhumane times.

How it used to be, but I dunno how terrain for it worked, do wish they brought back combat width varying on terrain as ck3 has it

 

[Vulkandrache]

Dear god no!

Dear god yes. That was much better than what we have right now.

 

[Deliberus]

What's the game like if you just make every province a lv1 Fort base again?

Ah yes because EU3 totally had forts with forcefield mechanics...

 

[Battlex]

Ah yes because EU3 totally had forts with forcefield mechanics...

Lv1 forts don't have force fields tho. And such a redesign might borrow IRs Fort design where if you occupy the surrounding provinces then you can pass the Fort

 

[sparta105]

The biggest problem I see is that the AI is very "stubborn". There's a "Lenght of War" modifier which starts at -60 and ticks up by 1/month at war. This means that that the AI wants to fight for at least 5 years before it is willing to admit that the war has gone on longer than it should have. This "stubbornness" is I feel the crux of the issue: The AI doesn't recognise that peacing out early is much more beneficial in certain circumstances.
On the other hand, if modifiers, which make the AI "stubborn", were to be removed, wars would end after the first battle which is also an undesirable outcome.

 

[Battlex]

The biggest problem I see is that the AI is very "stubborn". There's a "Lenght of War" modifier which starts at -60 and ticks up by 1/month at war. This means that that the AI wants to fight for at least 5 years before it is willing to admit that the war has gone on longer than it should have. This "stubbornness" is I feel the crux of the issue: The AI doesn't recognise that peacing out early is much more beneficial in certain circumstances.
On the other hand, if modifiers, which make the AI "stubborn", were to be removed, wars would end after the first battle which is also an undesirable outcome.

Something between threaten war and quickly peacing out for borderlands you seize would be nice

 

[Sapa Inca]

You would need:

1- Make warscore from battles more decisive.

2- Make ticking warscore for holding "war objective provinces" faster and more important.

3- Provinces without claims should cost more warscore to annex and warscore gain for occupation of provinces that are not war objectives should be very small.

4- If one side successfully occupy all "war objective provinces" and occupy all forts in the area and have huge war score advantage he should be capable of force peace treaties against the other side, even if the losing side is a player. This would punish bad positioned armies (if all your army is in India the possibility of lose a few provinces in Europe before your armies in India arrives to reinforce becomes a real concern).

These changes would be popular between the majority of players? I don't known, but without enforced treaty peaces there is no way to avoid every player war becoming a total war, players majority will always hate losing land and will always try to gain 100% warscore when winning even when this is not the most optimal strategy, without a mechanic that enforce peace treaties there is no way to avoid total wars.

 

[Arizal]

I think all the points made about the military aspect are good (except maybe returning to lvl1 forts, sort).

However, I think to make wars more punishing and dynamic, you would need more information on the diplomatic side as well.

I see it like this. You currently have an alert when a country is about to leave its alliance with you. Somehow, I would like to try a system in which other countries would be more prone to attack each other when they are in wars or weaker because of a war in which they over-exerted their country, but on the other hand the player would have more information about when he is about to go in that dangerous territory.

I’m inspiring myself from a series I started watching on Netflix yesterday : the Ottoman Empire. It seems like the concern of a lot of people is that Serbia and Hungary could attack while the siege of Constantinople drags on.

Without it being a certainty that there will be war, maybe the alert that you are in a “dangerous zone” and risk being dragged in additional wars could trigger reactions of other countries like them demanding concessions, be it territory, particular treaties, extending truces (!).

This alert wouldn’t be the end of the world, but much like overextension being at 100% or AE reaching 50 in enough countries, it would be a warning that you are entering in uncharted territories and that people could take advantage of the situation.

 

[Battlex]

I think all the points made about the military aspect are good (except maybe returning to lvl1 forts, sort).

However, I think to make wars more punishing and dynamic, you would need more information on the diplomatic side as well.

I see it like this. You currently have an alert when a country is about to leave its alliance with you. Somehow, I would like to try a system in which other countries would be more prone to attack each other when they are in wars or weaker because of a war in which they over-exerted their country, but on the other hand the player would have more information about when he is about to go in that dangerous territory.

I’m inspiring myself from a series I started watching on Netflix yesterday : the Ottoman Empire. It seems like the concern of a lot of people is that Serbia and Hungary could attack while the siege of Constantinople drags on.

Without it being a certainty that there will be war, maybe the alert that you are in a “dangerous zone” and risk being dragged in additional wars could trigger reactions of other countries like them demanding concessions, be it territory, particular treaties, extending truces (!).

This alert wouldn’t be the end of the world, but much like overextension being at 100% or AE reaching 50 in enough countries, it would be a warning that you are entering in uncharted territories and that people could take advantage of the situation.

So are you asking the player to be told about the AI even without the babbling buffon personality, or for the AI to be more aggressive than it currently is, and so jumping in on rivals who are currently at war?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dear god yes. That was much better than what we have right now.

It worked, in contrast to the ongoing fort beta that's followed it.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Why "again"? Was that ever the case? I never knew about such dark and inhumane times.

In case you truly don't know, EU 4 inherented EU 3's fort system where forts only affected the province where they were built and were very cheap to build and to maintain (I don't recall if they even coated upkeep at all), meaning that it wouldn't be long until every.single.province. had a fort on it and you'd have to station an army above it in order to siege it. Granted, sieges didn't take too long to complete and you could just walk over a province that had a fort but occupying provinces was hell.

That system went away when they reworked the building and fort system way back when in Common Sense.

 

[Arizal]

So are you asking the player to be told about the AI even without the babbling buffon personality, or for the AI to be more aggressive than it currently is, and so jumping in on rivals who are currently at war?

I think what I’m getting at is that players (like me) might react badly to the kind of reactive mechanic I’m proposing. So by adding some kind of opting out option, like AE and OE are at their core, it could be possible to implement them without harming too much the sense of control players have.

It would be a feature that would only show when players overexerted themselves.

Now it might make the game too predictable. Unless you would play against a player you would be aware of the possibility that some country declare war to you because of your actions. But to an extent weren’t those information available for any informed ruler?

It wouldn’t kill the usefulness of babbling Buffon since it would still allow you to learn when the AI is attacking other countries and when exactly they are going to attack you.

Anyway, I didn’t see it like it and if you play a small power that alert would basically be always on. It sounded interesting when I wrote it...

A derivation of that idea could be that going below the threshold would unlock special diplomatic actions to your neighbours, like negotiate longer truces, extorting money or provinces, give them an intervention CB against you, remove the time limit for them to join as defensive allies...

 

[RichardOlcese]

In case you truly don't know, EU 4 inherented EU 3's fort system where forts only affected the province where they were built and were very cheap to build and to maintain (I don't recall if they even coated upkeep at all), meaning that it wouldn't be long until every.single.province. had a fort on it and you'd have to station an army above it in order to siege it. Granted, sieges didn't take too long to complete and you could just walk over a province that had a fort but occupying provinces was hell.

That system went away when they reworked the building and fort system way back when in Common Sense.

That sounds like hell. Thank God they changed it. But! occupying fortless provinces now, even if it's your wartarget, gives too little war points thingies. I mean, imagine a country with a level 3 fort in their capital and many fortless provinces. You can occupy their entire country except for the capital, and even then they wouldn't surrender. I mean, come on! Your entire country is occupied. You're surrounded in your castle. I can do whatever I want in your former provinces. Period. I won. But no... they won't still surrender because no fort was occupied. Come on!