Peace Conference being annoying again.

[Medu Salem]

So I was playing as the German Reich... even though I had historical AI focus on I didn't play entirely historical by denying Italy and Japan to join the Axis... instead I defeated the Allies (France/GB and their satelites) all by myself by 1940.

After that I turned my focus on preparing the war with the USSR.

As part of that I conquered Eastern Europe... and wanted to conquer Turkey as well so that I get a 2nd front in the South/Caucasus against the USSR so that they will have to move some troops away from their West front eventually, making it easier to move forward for my troops there.

Well what happened was this... a few days after declaring war against the Turks they decided just for the giggles to join the Chinese United Front. My first thought was... "What the hell"... because that NEVER happened before in any playthrough ever and I have done it like 5 times with Germany before in the exact same manner.

Next they obviously called all those Chinese fraction states into the war. At first I didn't care because they are far, far away and Japan was in the process of actually winning and grinding them up already anyway.

So I continued to invade Turkey and eventually they surrendered.

Now the peace conference is where I rage quitted. The damn Japanese had such a high war score against the Chinese United Front that they kept me from making ANY demands on Turkey... let alone annex them entirely. I couldn't pass on to raise my score because Japan did the same but at a higher rate... so eventually they got to annex ALL of Turkey and I got nothing.

The peace conference stuff is PURE garbage. And with PURE garbage I mean it is total crap. It isn't the first time I experienced some weird quirks with it, but this takes the cake.

Why the hell is it that just because I started a war with Turkey that Japan gets to make any demands even though I am not even in an Alliance with them and even though they contributed absolutely nothing for my war with the Turks anyway. Why am I put on the same war side as Japan in the first place. My war with Turkey (and even if they join the United Front which is also ridiculously unhistorical to begin with) should be treated seperately from the War the Japanese have with the United Front.

This should definitely be reworked... because it's plain annoying.


I even tried to reload from 2 different savegames I made before the war... and Turkey always joins the United Front after declaring the war... and the exact same happens again and again. So the only way I see out of this is cheat and annex Turkey by console command instead of actually waring them (even though I easily beat them) because I feel like the game itself cheats on me too and I won't have it that just because a game mechanic is totally flawed I can't proceed with my playthrough.



[edit]

lol... same happened with the Iran. Also joined the United Front... and after finishing them off Japan claimed everything again because it threw me onto the same side as Japan even though I am not allied with them and wanted my own seperate war.

What the hell is going on there. There is something seriously flawed there. Why are they all joining the Chinese in the first place. That never happened before. Probably something totally broken in the alignment of their govs/diplomacy or something.

 

[kettyo]

The AI modifier against joining a faction far away should be much higher. Also the modifier against joining a losing faction. It should happen only if the far away faction is very strong. You propably want to see an invaded Turkey join a powerful USA but not a dying China.

 

[GrandVezir]

Why are they all joining the Chinese in the first place.

World tension is high and China is accepting new faction members. This part makes complete sense: Turkey wouldn't just roll over and die just because Germany declared war. They would fight, and they would seek alliances to help them fight.

The peace conference thing is a bit wonky, but so is your plan to overrun Eastern Europe and Turkey/Iran to get a flank on the USSR. What *should* happen is that the Soviets should guarantee any country that borders them, that a hostile power (Germany) is justifying on, so that those powers join the Comintern instead.

 

[Medu Salem]

My arnies would have easily crushed the combined forces of the USSR and United Front at the same time and I would gladly have done it when getting there after finishing off the USSR if the war with the United front wasn't immediately over after Turkey surrendered.

Tbh I overestimated the strength of the USSR this time... even if it was already spring 1942 and they had worn off all their debuffs when I started the war... Still I basically cut through their westfront like they weren't even there. Went in with 12 armies each with 10 divs of Tank 4/3/2 template + 14 divs of infantry 14/4 template all with full support battalions etc... 3 invading from the North from Finland, 2+2 invading from the south at Turkey+Iran. and 5 on the mainfront.

Actually wanted to do a huge pincer movement but turned out at every attack of my tank divisions the Russian divisions already almost immediately ran off like scared chickens and got the overrun debuff. They didn't even have time to regroup at their frontline or anything... they pretty much got encircled and annihilated by the infantry divisions following behind the rushing tanks... all without manual interference into the battleplan... let the AI sort out the battle for me almost entirely. All that just because the Russians were too slow to move back to their own space in time. Result... 5 million dead russians and only 100k loss on my side.

Had definitely more trouble against the clustered armies when I forced the Belgish army back into the lines of France army. There it took weeks to get any further since I didn't want to waste even more manpower by storming the magginot.

Crushing the US would be just as a breeze now... just from north to south since I annexed Canada. I am already outnumbering their economy at least by a factor of 2 if not more. So they don't have the slightest chance. Fun fact... they somehow managed surrender Japan by 1942 and puppeted them. Probably because Japan was spread thin trying to conquer China and had almost nothing left on their main island so the US probably naval invaded them. So if I knocked out the US I would get them too as a bonus so there is pretty much no major power left that could cause any trouble.

It's already pretty much game over. Would only take forever to annex all the small countries left. But that is just annoying because the justification time/casus belly stuff is also one of the most annoying features all Paradox games suffer from which drag out gameplay in endgame for eternity for no reason and it's kinda not fun to wait 120-180 days or more just to swat a 3-4 province fly that could easily be done even with one half baken army.


While the justification time may be interesting at the beginning as it gives the game the right pacing there... but towards the end it is annoying... There should be something like a mechanic that measures your power in comparison to (all) other countries and decreases/scales the time it takes to justify. Not only depending on the current World Tension. If you are already measurably more powerful (economically/military/etc) than the rest of the world combined then you shouldn't have to justify a war against anyone anymore. You just invade and don't care about the opinions of anyone else in the world because if they have a problem with it... well keep quiet or you are next.


That said I am kinda done with HoI for a while. The amount of annoyances still present in the game with the justification times... countries joining faction where it doesn't make sense and the peace conference stuff where countries get something to say who contributed absolutely nothing to the war kinda throw me off until better times. I kinda don't feel like it anymore if I have to use console commands to cheat because the game is cheating me first... or otherwise throwing roadblocks in my way trying to delay the inevitable.

I mean its just Turkey I annexed by command but I still feel bad about it because I shouldn't have to do that only because the game doesn't know seperate war fronts.

 

[Diakonen]

Taking land in the peace deal that is not occupied by you should be more expensive then it is now. And if it is not held by a faction member it should be even more expensive.

Also war score need to be changed. Now you pretty much gain a better score, the worse you play. (Losses in manpower = war score).
War score should be calculated by casualties inflicted, victory points taken, planes shot down and ships sunk. Nothing else.

 

[Longshanks51]

Taking land in the peace deal that is not occupied by you should be more expensive then it is now. And if it is not held by a faction member it should be even more expensive.

I would go a step further and have it so the states which a country captures during the war are exclusive to that country in the peace conference.
And the country that contributed most to capitulate another country (mostly capturing victory points) Should have to spend less war score making demands on that country.

 

[Diakonen]

I would go a step further and have it so the states which a country captures during the war are exclusive to that country in the peace conference.

What would happen if I capture a state but don´t want, but I have an ally that has cores on this state? He would then not be able to annex it.

 

[Longshanks51]

What would happen if I capture a state but don´t want, but I have an ally that has cores on this state? He would then not be able to annex it.

Well in the peace conference you would get to decide what to do with that state you captured, including giving it to another country.
Apologies, I should of specified that.

 

[kettyo]

I would go a step further and have it so the states which a country captures during the war are exclusive to that country in the peace conference.
And the country that contributed most to capitulate another country (mostly capturing victory points) Should have to spend less war score making demands on that country.

That's not a good idea because of how occupations within a faction are calculated. You might get locked out of any conquest because the game gave occupation to another country for supply reasons or because you have started invading from their territory. Taking land occupied by faction members should be cheap for this reason. Taking land occupied by others is already quite expensive.

 

[potato123]

Why are you playing vanilla game is the real question. There are mods for PC. The vanilla game is broken..

 

[Medu Salem]

World tension is high and China is accepting new faction members. This part makes complete sense: Turkey wouldn't just roll over and die just because Germany declared war. They would fight, and they would seek alliances to help them fight.

Well I agree that they kinda should seek help once they realize that they are outnumbered. Only makes sense.

The point was that some countries (Mostly China, Shianxi) of the United Front were basically on the verge of losing against Japan... and that they are far away and couldn't do anything about me invading Turkey anyway because they are basically cut off from any direct land access with Turkey. The United Front however did have a border with me at Raj and that part of Vietnam/Cambodia from France which I also annexed as part of surrendering Britain/France. So technically they could have invaded me there but I already stationed tons of troops in the area too as a preventive measure from a mistake I learned from which I made in an earlier playthrough because Japan always ends up justifying on me as well because I take British Malaya and Dutch East India as Satelites and they wanted them both badly... and they usually end up naval invading in Vietnam because it is the closest to them. Also Japan eventually invites Siam to join in on their cause... and that requires some troops/attention in that area.

The AI modifier against joining a faction far away should be much higher. Also the modifier against joining a losing faction. It should happen only if the far away faction is very strong. You propably want to see an invaded Turkey join a powerful USA but not a dying China.

The peace conference thing is a bit wonky, but so is your plan to overrun Eastern Europe and Turkey/Iran to get a flank on the USSR. What *should* happen is that the Soviets should guarantee any country that borders them, that a hostile power (Germany) is justifying on, so that those powers join the Comintern instead.

I also think that there should be scaling penalties for joining factions (and maybe also for ongoing stability of such a faction) the further they are away... except if there is a historical national focus that reduces/eliminates the penalty... such as Japan joining the Axis or the US joining the Allies eventually.

But for a small neutral country it should be their first priority to look for local help. Countries bordering them which could help them immediately... which would most likely have been the USSR.

I could live with that if they joined them on war declaration and started the war with the USSR early. That said in the end it wouldn't matter much to me because I would change my strategy for the next more optimized playthrough accordingly and invade Iran from East/Raj first and then swat both Turkey/USSR in one combined war... or leave Turkey alive and proceed to the USSR immediately and only take Turkey once I have taken down all major factions so there is nowhere left to go for them. Turkey isn't really economically interesting anyway, only for strategic access to the middle east.

Taking land in the peace deal that is not occupied by you should be more expensive then it is now. And if it is not held by a faction member it should be even more expensive.

Also war score need to be changed. Now you pretty much gain a better score, the worse you play. (Losses in manpower = war score).
War score should be calculated by casualties inflicted, victory points taken, planes shot down and ships sunk. Nothing else.

Agreed. I think that would fix most issues with the Peace Conference.

Why are you playing vanilla game is the real question. There are mods for PC. The vanilla game is broken..

Because I have found most mods tend to break the game even further.

 

[potato123]

Because I have found most mods tend to break the game even further.

How would a peace conference mod that lets you literally take all land for yourself or split with your allies ''break the game even further'' ? Now you're just being ignorant. But enjoy your fun vanilla playthrough.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Why are you playing vanilla game is the real question. There are mods for PC. The vanilla game is broken..

How would a peace conference mod that lets you literally take all land for yourself or split with your allies ''break the game even further'' ? Now you're just being ignorant. But enjoy your fun vanilla playthrough.

Instead of being passive aggressive, just tell him to use the Player-lead Peace Conference mod if that's what you mean.

 

[Medu Salem]

[...] to use the Player-lead Peace Conference mod if that's what you mean.

Honestly I didn't know that something like it existed. Only knew about some faction mods (which most likely would prevent Turkey from joining the United Front in the first place but also change/break other countries and non-related things I don't want to be touched).

I looked the Peace Conference mod up now but it is kinda still problematic because what if one experiences the problem but has Iron Man Mode activated (which I intended to do after testing my reworked strategy first). They can't mod or cheat their way out of this. They would have to accept being cheated by the AI and there is nothing one could do about it.

It definitely is something that should be fixed within Vanilla itself instead of having to rely on mods to do the job. Until then I might as well pretty much bury the Iron Man playthrough I had planned. And as for the non Iron Man Strategy Test... I pretty much reached world domination there already anyway.

 

[Diakonen]

How would a peace conference mod that lets you literally take all land for yourself or split with your allies ''break the game even further'' ? Now you're just being ignorant. But enjoy your fun vanilla playthrough.

If you hunt for achivements, this is out of the question.
I used to play alot of mods in the early days. But now I almost always play vanilla (all dlc, + some cosmetic) on Iron man, just because of achivements.
Then a weird peace deal can really mess things up if you are unlucky.