Making Coalitions Interesting Again

[CrabHelmet]

... In less than 50 years you have conquered most of Northern Africa, swallowed Wallachia and either punched Croatia out of Hungary then force vassalized them or ate the land and released them, and probably got caught fabricating claims a couple times, and you're wondering why the AE you've gained formed a coalition of that size? Now I agree the diplomacy in EU4 is flawed, but I'm honestly not surprised by that at all.

Some of that coalition is sensible; some isn't. For example, it seems to me unreasonable to think England would have been sufficiently concerned by that expansion to join the coalition. The Ottomans are not even remotely near English territory, and were the English TAG under the control of a human and not an AI, they would probably stay out of the coalition then DoW France if the coalition actually went to war to take advantage of the situation. Same situation applies for Sweden.

 

[Grallak]

I think this way is far more realistic, and would make the game more interesting too!

Look at Sweden's defeat, all their neighbours coalitioned poor Sweden, reducing them to their borders today!

It was more of an alliance than a coalition, but they basically teamed up.

I do agree that there should be a limit to how far away someone needs to be to generate AE and that there needs to be a certain AE threshold before you can even make a coalition at all.

 

[Freudia]

On the topic: This sounds interesting as long as it doesn't mean that when you exceed a certain development each and every one of your neighbours join a coalition against you.

OP's suggestion involving removing alliances completely also comes across as 'you can only play a major, as playing a minor is having a deathwish as suddenly expansion becomes impossible because majors can just auto-declare on you because they don't need to wait for a 'coalition' to reach a certain size as they single-handedly are stronger than you.'

 

[Peanutcat]

I think this way is far more realistic, and would make the game more interesting too!

Look at Sweden's defeat, all their neighbours coalitioned poor Sweden, reducing them to their borders today!

That's not quite how it worked..

 

[Grubnessul]

OP's suggestion involving removing alliances completely also comes across as 'you can only play a major, as playing a minor is having a deathwish as suddenly expansion becomes impossible because majors can just auto-declare on you because they don't need to wait for a 'coalition' to reach a certain size as they single-handedly are stronger than you.'

I did add a suggestion for a "beg for protection" option.

 

[Grallak]

I did add a suggestion for a "beg for protection" option.

Hahahaha Right

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some of that coalition is sensible; some isn't. For example, it seems to me unreasonable to think England would have been sufficiently concerned by that expansion to join the coalition. The Ottomans are not even remotely near English territory, and were the English TAG under the control of a human and not an AI, they would probably stay out of the coalition then DoW France if the coalition actually went to war to take advantage of the situation. Same situation applies for Sweden.

Same for Iberia TBH, probably France itself too. Italy/Austria would have room for concern, especially Austria, in game terms. France probably wouldn't mind real pressure on the Emperor though.

Poland could go either way.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Same for Iberia TBH, probably France itself too. Italy/Austria would have room for concern, especially Austria, in game terms. France probably wouldn't mind real pressure on the Emperor though.

Poland could go either way.

Yeah, I agree, I was just picking the relatively non-controversial examples so someone didn't try arguing the toss and saying "no, France being there makes sense because the Ottomans took Algeria!" or whatever.

 

[Violent AI]

I was thinking about something similar a few days ago, while watching the War & Peace BBC series.

I got some brief ideas for an ambition system:
A country above a certain development level (say 300) must choose conquest ambitions (They get 200% AE from any other CB). They can mark it as provinces within a nation, or an entire nation itself and there is no limit to how many development worth of provinces are marked as ambition. Special claims are generated automatically on these provinces over a period of time.

An ambition value (AV) is calculated from the development of marked provinces - 1 development counts as:
1 AV - if the province owner is no more than 2 mil techs behind
0.5 AV - if the province owner is between 2-4 mil techs behind
0.1 AV - if the province owner is more than 4 mil techs behind



Ratio of AV to my own development affects many important factors (assume I have 300 development).
If I have Napoleonic Ambitions (300 development takes on 1500 AV i.e. 1500 development worth of similar mil tech nation), the ratio is 5.
If I have ordinary ambitions (300 development takes on 300 AV, the ratio is 1).
If I have minor ambitions, (300 development takes on 30 AV, the ratio is 0.1).

The ratio affects the following:
Time required for generating the special claims (i.e. time required before I can actually declare this war after choosing ambition):
1 year if ratio >= 5
5 years if ratio=1
10 years if ratio <=0.1

Province warscore cost:
10% if ratio >= 5
100% if ratio=1
200% if ratio <= 0.1

Province coring cost:
10% if ratio >= 5
90% if ratio=1 (10% discount from claim is added here - similar to current wars from claimed provinces)
200% if ratio <=0.1

Province contribution to overextension:
10% if ratio >= 5
100% if ratio=1
200% if ratio <= 0.1

AE per development:
10% if ratio >= 5
100% if ratio = 1
200% if ratio <= 0.1

These values are boundary values and the actual values scale according to the actual ratio.

After the special claims get generated, you get a special CB on the strongest marked nation (with all the marked countries are co-belligerents), and all the countries that own the marked provinces automatically join a special coalition against you, and the strongest nation in the coalition gets a CB against you.

Additionally, if you call in allies (say you're France and you choose to call in Ottomans and Russia, then the AV is recalculated based on your + ally development, instead of your own development).

You can make separate peace with all the nations, but the warscore demands from each nation cannot be more than:
1. overall warscore
or
2. warscore against the peacing nation
whichever of the two is lesser.

So if I am France and fighting a marked Austria and PLC, and have 100% occupied Austria (100% warscore) but only 27% warscore in overall war, then I cannot demand more than 27% in a separate peace with Austria. Alternately, if I have 27% warscore overall but only 10% against PLC, I can demand only 10% from PLC not 27%.

The benefit of such a system would be that it would allow nations to have higher risks/higher rewards options, while punishing strong nations for picking off minors one by one to build a power base.
Taking on a similar strength nation (ratio = 1) would be the same as a conquest war currently.

Additionally, every nation can see ambitions of my country, so my rivals and hostile nations will have additional incentive to want to ally my targets.

 

[darkfireslide]

That would be because the diplomacy in the Total War series is awful and always has been.

That's what I mean.

 

[darkfireslide]

I was thinking about something similar a few days ago, while watching the War & Peace BBC series.

So if I am France and fighting a marked Austria and PLC, and have 100% occupied Austria (100% warscore) but only 27% warscore in overall war, then I cannot demand more than 27% in a separate peace with Austria. Alternately, if I have 27% warscore overall but only 10% against PLC, I can demand only 10% from PLC not 27%.

The benefit of such a system would be that it would allow nations to have higher risks/higher rewards options, while punishing strong nations for picking off minors one by one to build a power base.
Taking on a similar strength nation (ratio = 1) would be the same as a conquest war currently.

Additionally, every nation can see ambitions of my country, so my rivals and hostile nations will have additional incentive to want to ally my targets.

Okay, but I'm fairly sure that most of Europe didn't really care when Albania got annexed by the Ottogirls, as an example. This is an interesting idea though, I suppose.

 

[Violent AI]

Okay, but I'm fairly sure that most of Europe didn't really care when Albania got annexed by the Ottogirls, as an example. This is an interesting idea though, I suppose.

Most of europe still won't care when Albania gets annexed by Ottomans. But if a large Ottomans only choose Albania as ambition, they have to wait a long time for the claim, and it costs twice as much to core them (assuming they already don't have a core).

 

[darkfireslide]

Most of europe still won't care when Albania gets annexed by Ottomans. But if a large Ottomans only choose Albania as ambition, they have to wait a long time for the claim, and it costs twice as much to core them (assuming they already don't have a core).

I feel like this would just be slowing down the game though. What might be more realistic is if there were a way to get big countries to guarantee smaller ones, to stop big nations from getting free annexations. It makes more sense.

 

[Violent AI]

I feel like this would just be slowing down the game though. What might be more realistic is if there were a way to get big countries to guarantee smaller ones, to stop big nations from getting free annexations. It makes more sense.

It wouldn't slow down the game - infact it can speed up the game if the player/AI decided to play aggressively - If Ottomans were to put all of Albania + Austria + Hungary + Mamluks as ambition (combined development is twice that of Ottomans, assuming Austria isn't emperor) and get 100% warscore, then Ottomans would get from each of them 100% warscore worth of provinces at:

coring cost reduced to 70% (excluding ideas)
AE reduced to 80%
province warscore reduced to 80%
province overextension reduced to 80%
The latter two allow taking more provinces in war.

 

[Politic Revolutionnaire]

Those who have been around since the original dev diaries of EU4 years ago may remember the excitement when the coalition system was announced. Now, a couple of years later, it is one of the stalest things in the game. As they are currently, coalitions are pretty much the bad boy points of old, forming at a magical threshold. I have pretty much never seen them form against the AI, not even when it was massive.

So, how to fix this? First, we kick alliances out as they exist now. They are not very interesting and I don't think they are very historical. Mostly, alliances seems to have had a goal, not just a blanco I'll-scratch-your-back guarantee. So once you decide you want to gang up on someone, you start a coalition and send out your diplomats to invite others to join. The invited country gets a screen exactly like the peace screen and selects what he would want out of the coalition (money, provinces, cancelling vassals, etc.), if it's victorious. Once the coalition founder approves of the demands, the coalition is officially formed. When it is deemed strong enough war is declared.

For defences, we already have proclaim guarantee. An option to ask for protection (at the cost of prestige) can be added.

Great Idea, but do you mean Make Coalitions Great Again? Anyways instead of guarantees and protection for replacing alliances there should be defensive pacts instead though guarantees should still exist and *maybe* not cost a relation slot.

 

[darkfireslide]

Great Idea, but do you mean Make Coalitions Great Again? Anyways instead of guarantees and protection for replacing alliances there should be defensive pacts instead though guarantees should still exist and *maybe* not cost a relation slot.

If you can warn a country without taking up a relations slot, then why should guaranteeing take a relation slot?

 

[Politic Revolutionnaire]

If you can warn a country without taking up a relations slot, then why should guaranteeing take a relation slot?

Good logic

 

[Freudia]

If you can warn a country without taking up a relations slot, then why should guaranteeing take a relation slot?

Honestly, warnings should take a relation slot and not the other way around. Warnings are currently too strong in what they do and are currently toxic and harmful design.

 

[drake546]

If more work is going to be put into anti-blobbing (which is really the heart of any discussion on coalitions and alliances), then something seriously needs to be improved in the trade and colonization part of the game, because both offer very little in the way of gameplay.

EU4, as much as I enjoy it, is right now a war game. None of the other parts of the game have the depth to hold the game up, if the war and expansion aspect of the game keeps getting ground down with more and more speed bumps and walls, then other parts of the game (trade, exploration, and colonization) HAVE TO BE IMPROVED. Take away the enjoyable warfare, and the game just has nothing of any depth to offer.

 

[Nassau]

Historically the Netherlands took great care in maintaining a balance around the Baltic Sea. While in game to, if they even do, ally either Denmark or Sweden and maintain this alliance throughout the game. Even if either Sweden or Denmark controls all the waters.