On aggressive expansion: What has changed in patch 1.5

[TheMeInTeam]

for 'same religion' -- Does that count based upon major religion, or minor?

Ie, Orthodox Bosnia being eaten by the Ottomans does ?? for the Catholic Austrians.

Also, is that HRE modifier applied if the nation getting the AE is in the HRE, or if the province taken is in the HRE? I have a feeling it's the first, which can explain silly coalitions in europe when you take non-HRE provinces near it.

Based on what he's saying here:

The culture and religion that are referring to the province being conquered and the country gaining the AE. I hope that my presentation did not create any misunderstanding.

For Austria, their AE would be "same religion group" (Orthodox + Catholic are both Christian). I don't recall culture groups, but if they're different then you'd get a .5 multiplier...or .75 if they are.

In other words, close to 1/4 what you'd see out of taking HRE stuff, unless the HRE thing is just flat-applied to all HRE members.

 

[bleakie]

for 'same religion' -- Does that count based upon major religion, or minor?

Ie, Orthodox Bosnia being eaten by the Ottomans does ?? for the Catholic Austrians.

Your case can be classified as "same religious group" and "different culture group".

Also, is that HRE modifier applied if the nation getting the AE is in the HRE, or if the province taken is in the HRE? I have a feeling it's the first, which can explain silly coalitions in europe when you take non-HRE provinces near it.

Both conditions have to be satisfied. The HRE modifier only applies for HRE states when you take an HRE province.

 

[MadDjinn]

ok, thanks.

While I'm pretty sure it's not part of the current mechanics, would it make sense to add rivals to the AE calculations?

Ie -- Country A attacks Country B and takes lands.

Anyone who has rivaled Country A gains some +modifier to AE.
Anyone who has rivaled country B gains a -modifier to AE.
If rivaled to both, then no modifier to the AE calculations.

And/or -

Anyone who has been rivaled by Country B, and has rivaled Country B, gains a major --modifier to AE when Country A takes lands from Country B.

edit:

the main thought I had wrt this question is that coalitions are crazy now. Assume country A gets a coalition against them. Then Country B takes a lot of their lands in the war. Now Country B has a lot of AE against them and may get the coalition to switch to them instead of Country A.

 

[MadDjinn]

an example of the AE spread in 1.5 --

I won the hundred years war as England. I did not force Provence to give provinces back, nor did I take any from France. This war comes with a set AE, which then gets modified by the usual modifiers.

So... other than the obvious (and likely very correct) Burgundy gaining 50 AE and joining a coalition against me, I had every single European country gain at least 22 AE against me. The AE stopped at Lithuania, which thankfully will keep Muscovy out of the coalition, for now.

Aragon and a few other nations joined the coalition against me as well (some waited until after they finished their current wars). The ones that had waited, but joined, were over 30 AE. Oddly Castile did not join, even though they got the same AE as Aragon (probably a border thing). Before the war was over, Castile had rivalled me, but Aragon loved me -- which makes it even more nonsensical.

edit -

a small side note is that I had Austria and Portugal as allies (*but not in the war) and they both gained AE against me. Austria only gained 15 or so and continued to like me. Portugal left the alliance with me as soon as the war was over.

 

[knoddy]

the threshold has definitely changed for people joining the colilition. I loaded up my Mongol Khanate game last night after updating to 1.5 and as soon as I unpaused, Ming joined a colition against me, yet they were friendly with me previously, and I hadnt done anything aggressive for about 3 years before I saved. all of a sudden outraged and join colalition but nobody else joined and they left a few years later.

Also pretty sure the Horde tribal fude CB gives 25% AE not 50% (I think someone said 50% earlier in the thread)

 

[TheBloke]

an example of the AE spread in 1.5 --

I won the hundred years war as England. I did not force Provence to give provinces back, nor did I take any from France. This war comes with a set AE, which then gets modified by the usual modifiers.

So... other than the obvious (and likely very correct) Burgundy gaining 50 AE and joining a coalition against me, I had every single European country gain at least 22 AE against me. The AE stopped at Lithuania, which thankfully will keep Muscovy out of the coalition, for now.

Aragon and a few other nations joined the coalition against me as well (some waited until after they finished their current wars). The ones that had waited, but joined, were over 30 AE. Oddly Castile did not join, even though they got the same AE as Aragon (probably a border thing). Before the war was over, Castile had rivalled me, but Aragon loved me -- which makes it even more nonsensical.

edit -

a small side note is that I had Austria and Portugal as allies (*but not in the war) and they both gained AE against me. Austria only gained 15 or so and continued to like me. Portugal left the alliance with me as soon as the war was over.

What peace terms did you choose? Choosing the Personal Union option with France gives 37 AE with Burgundy and does not cause Portugal to leave the alliance. (That's down from 42 in 1.3.2, though both will cause Burgundy to form a coalition.)

So did you choose different peace options? Or are you playing on Hard difficulty?

If Hard, please mention that when giving details - that's a +50% boost to AE which needs to be known for any comparison.

 

[MadDjinn]

What peace terms did you choose? Choosing the Personal Union option with France gives 37 AE with Burgundy and does not cause Portugal to leave the alliance. (That's down from 42 in 1.3.2, though both will cause Burgundy to form a coalition.)

So did you choose different peace options? Or are you playing on Hard difficulty?

If Hard, please mention that when giving details - that's a +50% boost to AE which needs to be known for any comparison.

ah, ok. Yes it's on 'Hard'.

I chose the Union option and some gold (which doesn't increase AE AFAIK), nothing else. Which is why it is a good example of AE 'spread' for this thread.

Lithuania getting 22 AE was the furthest extent of it.

I'm not sure how many layers of 'distant' they use in the code, but it did seem pretty 'flat' (same amount of AE given) from the HRE borders out to Lithuania. That strikes me as a bit odd if they are expecting distance to reduce the AE the further you go (not to mention that Muscovy got 0 AE).

 

[unmerged(718015)]

I think a good mechanic would be that Aggressive Expansion scales up over time. Either base AE could scale up over time, or the "effect of distance on AE" could scale down over time. Any other things that could scale up or down over time to more accurately simulate history?

 

[StatikShocker]

what components of AE are in defines?

 

[grommile]

what components of AE are in defines?

The modifiers based on culture, religion, being in the HRE, and being distant overseas; the base AE cost of being caught fabricating a claim; the base AE costs of various things you can demand/offer in peace; and the AE multiplier for defenders in peace treaties.

 

[StatikShocker]

The modifiers based on culture, religion, being in the HRE, and being distant overseas; the base AE cost of being caught fabricating a claim; the base AE costs of various things you can demand/offer in peace; and the AE multiplier for defenders in peace treaties.

ok thank you I am not on my computer at the moment or I would have checked myself. can we make some modifiers negative to negate their effect (like core expiry), or are they already negative values

 

[randomscribbles]

This AE buff is brokenly strong. I'm playing an Ottoman game. At war with Hungary and Venice. I take all the Croatian cores as a prize and release them as a vassal to be annexed in 10 years (not the optimal strategy I know, but I wanted to focus on the east and get this done in one war). Fast forward five years after that war. Hungary declares a punitive war on me. By that time, the coalition had grown to this:

I haven't been to war in the five years since aside from a brief white peaced adventure with 3 province Aq Qoyunlu. I have no interaction with any Christian nations other than Venice, Hungary, and Bosnia (a few OPMs joined Venice once, but that's 100% it). Taking Croatia created enough aggressive expansion to make Sweden hate me. That's not ok.

 

[Charles555nc]

I think +50% AE on hard is a bad idea for creating difficulty. Give us more and more powerful ways of dispersing AE. Do you even lose AE when selling provinces back to their owners?

I mean playing as a province in Japan...you have to unite Japan and that creates a huge wave of AE, often making Korea Manchu and Ming hate you way before you even finish doing that.

 

[StatikShocker]

I know you want this to be a fact based discussion but I have an opinion here... regions are already implemented in the game (ex. iberia, france, low countries, anatolia) perhaps aggressive expansion should only affect adjacent regions to aggressor and victim... So if castille attacks france it can still upset britain, portugal, burgundy, aragon, morocco, and some hre, not to mention france itself. which is a big coalition already, and deservedly so if you accrue so much AE. But then it won't get silly, with sibir, majapahit, navajo, kongo, russia, sweden, and ottomans joining like they do as is.

edit: may I amend this: base it on capitals. this will prevent the issue of spain taking a french colony in indonesia causing a coalition of ming and vijayanagar. as well as japan smelling a coalition formed in europe because they border a portugese colony in Hokkaido. so AE for nations with capitals in regions adjacent to aggresor's capital region and victim's capital region.

 

[bleakie]

@randomscribbles: While Sweden joining a coalition against Ottomans is stunning news, I hope that you understand what you have done in your game (getting all of Croatia in one go, fabricating claims all over the border) is a complete neglect to AE management. This means while the exact effects of AE is debatable, your example would have limited use in a discussion about AE mechanics.

@StatikShocker: Culture is already playing the role that you are proposing for regions. For example, if you take Catholic Danzig from Teutonic Order, a Catholic Denmark will only get 100% of the base AE value (instead of 150% for same religion, same culture provinces). A better start would be to tweak the effect of distance on AE.

 

[randomscribbles]

@randomscribbles: While Sweden joining a coalition against Ottomans is stunning news, I hope that you understand what you have done in your game (getting all of Croatia in one go, fabricating claims all over the border) is a complete neglect to AE management. This means while the exact effects of AE is debatable, your example would have limited use in a discussion about AE mechanics.

Oh I know. I was still in a 1.4 mindset and wanted to get Croatia formed and vassalized in one war so I could focus on the Mamluks. I stupidly figured I could take the AE, be strong enough to survive any enemies it makes, and let it burn off slowly over the next few decades since I was done fighting in that theater. Needless to say, I underestimated the impact.

 

[MadDjinn]

there does seem to be either a bug or some AE given to rivals.

As England, I took 2 Scottish provinces.

For the most part (on hard, etc) the AE distribution was expected - close neighbours gained more, further countries gained less.

Except for Venice. The had rivaled me and gained an equal amount of AE to some much closer countries.

This was a standard 'conquest' CB and taking fabricated claims. the base AE was 22.5, and Venice took 15 AE. That is similar AE to Castile and Portugal, and 10 higher than Aragon, France, Austria and Denmark (the last 4 being allied or PU'd to me). 2ndarily to that, Savoy, Milan, etc along the coast and the whole of Italy gained 0 AE.

this is again weird that Venice gained a lot, when Castile, who is also rivaled to me, gained 16 AE.

As a basis for comparison, Scotland gained 50 AE (no surprise) and the Irish minors gained 33 each. Brittany and Burgundy each gained 22 (and yes, both are rivaled or hostile to me).