All well and good. I'm playing Britain now. I have almost nothing on the continent , 5 crown colonies in North America and extensive holdings in the Kongo area.
Manually offer the peacedeal yourself, that doesnt sound possible
You should be able to offer full money and war reps day 1 to get them to peace out, I found that happened alot this patch with ai not taking lands
Literally impossible, for you and the AI. The AI here can have access to several things which reduce warscore cost, such as Diplomacy Ideas, policies, maybe monuments, and high Absolutism, depending on when in the game it is. Colonies frequently cost very little to demand, and high Admin Efficiency (from Granada's monument and high absolutism, for example) will make them virtually free. And unless you've been doing heavy development of Scotland and Ireland, that's also true for those territories. If you're using Suggest Offer from the peace negotiation window, you can see the total warscore you are offering and which territory contributes which cost: Go over them and count up the percentages, and chances are you'll find them not exceeding 100%.
I really wish I'd had the presence of mind to screenshot it. It will happen again, eventually.
Colonialism cb has 75% cost for colonies, but 125% cost for everything else iirc, or mightve been ae
You are correct - except it's even less for colonies; only 25% cost - but depending on when you are in the game, 25% increase in cost (which is what 125% is, as 100% is baseline cost) is peanuts compared to what you get from ideas, admin efficiency and some monuments. Diplomatic Ideas alone reduce it by 20%, meaning you're at a 5% increase for non-colonial land. If they also have, say, 20% Admin Efficiency, they will still get all non-colonial land for 85% of base cost. And in the late-game, 20% is extremely conservative; many nations will have significantly more than that.
Which means you'll have actually lost manpower, ducats, generals in the process, suffered devastation and WE meaning more at risk of losing the next one or a rebellion getting a bit further ahead rather than having stacks parked in offendening provinces 5 months beforehand
It can still be worth it - last time I lost a war was when playing Kazan with a weak alliance network and I got declared on by Muscovy. By engaging their + vassal armies on flatlands I was able to do quite some damage, but also burned through my manpower in the process. I ended up having to surrender Ryazan's lands (I had made them my vassal, and thus I already popped the missions to get claims on Muscovy's lands) and that was it. I got some revanchism despite not losing any of my own lands, and the truce bought me enough time to expand further so I was the one to declare on them next war and win.
Or having a trait that makes it harder for the ai to accept.
Frederick the great was on the verge of being full annexed, and then boop, miracle of the noise of Hohenzollern
