I played a lot of EUIV this year, thanks to a certain disease. After a short hiatus, I tried my second solo game with Emperor : a game with Serbia. I heard of the problem with indebted allies being unable to follow you in wars, but what I saw truly broke my game.
To explain what bugged me, I feel like I need to tell the little AAR of my attempts as a medium power to break free of this condition. So, I got out of the early wars successfully. At some point me and some allies were even able to push back the Ottomans a little. To guarantee my rear I allied with Hungary. I hoped to be able to use that alliance, combined with an austrian alliance, to curb the Ottomans.
Alas, while Austria, being overpowered like it is in Emperor, was debt free, Hungary seemed to perpetually have financial problems. Even though at some point I had 30 favors, I was unable to invite them in any war, even the smallest ones. Meanwhile the Ottomans were successively eating the Byzantines, Albania and Venice. The first two were my allies, but I broke the alliance shortly before the war broke out to avoid the penalties, since it was impossible to win against the Ottomans with my meager forces. At least that 100 spy network was useful for that!
Now while all of that was taking place, Hungary not only didn't want to join my war, they invited me in wars against a feeble Poland-Lithuania and Venice! Granted, those weren't big wars, but especially for Venice, while the very day before the war broke out they told me they were too indebted to go to war against the exact same country, they were now more than ready to go against them.
Ok, so you had a bad run with Serbia, I hear you say. Not the easiest country, try again and don't weep on the forum about it. To a point, I agree.
However, I still think there is a point to bring home here.
If in my situation the Hungarian AI acted by malice, because they knew they were the bigger dog and could do whatever they wanted with me, though painful, this behaviour would be understandable. If such a behaviour acted negatively on their diplomatic reputation and made it less likely that their allies would join their wars, or if it gave me some way to denounce their duplicity, in other words if it were a full diplomatic feature, I might even (cringingly) embrace it. If it were temporary, depended on their monarch's diplomatic stance or on my global diplomatic standing, meaning if they had been my only ally and I could use nobody to make them listen to reason (by saying I will abandon them if they persist in that attitude), I would have understood.
But they were only having "financial problems". Those financial problems didn't however prevent them to declare their wars, negating any positive effects my favors with them gave to me.
It goes back to my old pet peeve on this forum. While Paradox may think diplomacy is working fine in their games, I think it is the area that could be improved the most. Give us more tools to interact with our fellow AI allies and foes, to understand their motives and to counteract their whims. Make it so that a country diplomatic standing is as much an ongoing struggle than a war (maybe not as much, but you get the idea).
In my example, maybe I could have used more than 10 favors to bring Hungary to war despite their indebtness. Maybe I could have promised in advance all of Bulgaria to them. Maybe I could have denounced their unwilligness to go to war, could have given them some sort of ultimatum. Their attitude could have resulted of them knowing that I was utterly dependant on them (which wasn't the case since I allied Austria and Muscovy).
So, I guess In this lenthtly post, I'm in fact arguing for some possible features :
- A less crushing evaluation of debt by the allies when they see whether or not they can join an offensive war by the player (more in line with how they evaluate their chances in their own wars)
- The ability to use more than 10 favors to bring a country to war (we can already use 20, though, + promise land)
- The ability to promise specific land
- Having some sort of diplomatic standing, meaning that the more diverse your alliance network is, the more weight you have in an alliance even though you are smaller than your ally
- Conversely the notion for the AI that if you depend on them they can do more or less whatever they want with you (diplomatic isolation)
- Ultimatum to AIs who persist to act against their allies interests
- Possibility to "denounce" an AI unwillingless to join wars, resulting in a loss of reputation, prestige or other values (it would require, like in Stellaris, the ability to propose a war to our allies without actually declare it)
Anyway, I hope this post wasn't seen only as ranting and can provide some food for thoughts.
Regards,
To explain what bugged me, I feel like I need to tell the little AAR of my attempts as a medium power to break free of this condition. So, I got out of the early wars successfully. At some point me and some allies were even able to push back the Ottomans a little. To guarantee my rear I allied with Hungary. I hoped to be able to use that alliance, combined with an austrian alliance, to curb the Ottomans.
Alas, while Austria, being overpowered like it is in Emperor, was debt free, Hungary seemed to perpetually have financial problems. Even though at some point I had 30 favors, I was unable to invite them in any war, even the smallest ones. Meanwhile the Ottomans were successively eating the Byzantines, Albania and Venice. The first two were my allies, but I broke the alliance shortly before the war broke out to avoid the penalties, since it was impossible to win against the Ottomans with my meager forces. At least that 100 spy network was useful for that!
Now while all of that was taking place, Hungary not only didn't want to join my war, they invited me in wars against a feeble Poland-Lithuania and Venice! Granted, those weren't big wars, but especially for Venice, while the very day before the war broke out they told me they were too indebted to go to war against the exact same country, they were now more than ready to go against them.
Ok, so you had a bad run with Serbia, I hear you say. Not the easiest country, try again and don't weep on the forum about it. To a point, I agree.
However, I still think there is a point to bring home here.
If in my situation the Hungarian AI acted by malice, because they knew they were the bigger dog and could do whatever they wanted with me, though painful, this behaviour would be understandable. If such a behaviour acted negatively on their diplomatic reputation and made it less likely that their allies would join their wars, or if it gave me some way to denounce their duplicity, in other words if it were a full diplomatic feature, I might even (cringingly) embrace it. If it were temporary, depended on their monarch's diplomatic stance or on my global diplomatic standing, meaning if they had been my only ally and I could use nobody to make them listen to reason (by saying I will abandon them if they persist in that attitude), I would have understood.
But they were only having "financial problems". Those financial problems didn't however prevent them to declare their wars, negating any positive effects my favors with them gave to me.
It goes back to my old pet peeve on this forum. While Paradox may think diplomacy is working fine in their games, I think it is the area that could be improved the most. Give us more tools to interact with our fellow AI allies and foes, to understand their motives and to counteract their whims. Make it so that a country diplomatic standing is as much an ongoing struggle than a war (maybe not as much, but you get the idea).
In my example, maybe I could have used more than 10 favors to bring Hungary to war despite their indebtness. Maybe I could have promised in advance all of Bulgaria to them. Maybe I could have denounced their unwilligness to go to war, could have given them some sort of ultimatum. Their attitude could have resulted of them knowing that I was utterly dependant on them (which wasn't the case since I allied Austria and Muscovy).
So, I guess In this lenthtly post, I'm in fact arguing for some possible features :
- A less crushing evaluation of debt by the allies when they see whether or not they can join an offensive war by the player (more in line with how they evaluate their chances in their own wars)
- The ability to use more than 10 favors to bring a country to war (we can already use 20, though, + promise land)
- The ability to promise specific land
- Having some sort of diplomatic standing, meaning that the more diverse your alliance network is, the more weight you have in an alliance even though you are smaller than your ally
- Conversely the notion for the AI that if you depend on them they can do more or less whatever they want with you (diplomatic isolation)
- Ultimatum to AIs who persist to act against their allies interests
- Possibility to "denounce" an AI unwillingless to join wars, resulting in a loss of reputation, prestige or other values (it would require, like in Stellaris, the ability to propose a war to our allies without actually declare it)
Anyway, I hope this post wasn't seen only as ranting and can provide some food for thoughts.
Regards,
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