Peace system is still a massive mess after a year

[kingsword]

USA wants 90% of Siamese land, Siam offers me to be my protectorate. I go to war. I totally demolish USA fleet, sink all of its convoys, it defaults 5-10 times. War support sits at 0 for years. It still rejects white peace because "capturing Bangkok through capitulation is possible" wishful thinking on capitulation desire. No you cannot, you sit with 500 divisions mobilized for 5 years and couldn't have one land battle even. You have zero hopes of opening a front. Yet Siam goes down to 0 war support eventually and instantly capitulates, exchanging nearly all of its lands for war reparations. I'm stuck with one province Siam protectorate for my efforts. By the end of war Siam HAD NOT LOST ONE SINGLE SOLDIER while USA lost hundreds of thousands of sailors.

The game still has other big problems but this I cannot fathom, how on earth does Paradox think it's alright to think "yeah this works as intended" after multiple big patches. I came back after a year and still I can't believe this game was made by the same studio whose games I have been playing for 20 years now.

Oh and Siam is landlocked now so I have to cancel my protectorate or they will starve to death. 1/20th of the campaign time wasted on essentially nothing.

 

[imaginariii]

Do the developers expect the player to fully occupy the country to get what we want (like how war score works in EU4)? I'm wondering what you were supposed to do in this case instead of destroying their naval power projection making the AI surrender, which is a reasonable thing to do btw, given that this is the age of gun boat diplomacy.

 

[kingsword]

The thing is that USA had to successfully do an overseas invasion logically. I had no peace conditions whatsoever, it was their job to do invasion, not our side. If there was any sense to this, USA had to capitulate. But by some magic non-sense their war support doesn't tick below 0. This is 100% bad game design.

 

[FocusedHope]

So, this particular issue is a problem with subjects and overlords' interaction with the peace system. Basically: because there are no war goals against you, you can go below 0 war score. But, because you're the overlord, you're the one whose capitulation gives them the war goals. So yes, capturing Bangkok is achievable by capitulation. And, for some reason probably caused by issues in a recent patch, despite you being overlord Siam was the one that got to negotiate the peace deal.

This is... very much bad behavior in my, and apparently your, opinion. One way or another, you'd think that the country whose war support determines capitulation, the country whose war support can't go below 0 if a war goal isn't occupied, and the country that gets to negotiate peace should all be the same country. So I'm not disagreeing with you that this is bad behavior, I'm just explaining what specific form of bad behavior it is.

That said, the reason their war support couldn't go below 0 is that War Reparations is a war goal, and counts as "occupied" if any state of theirs is occupied. Since you didn't occupy the war goal, their war support couldn't go below 0. IMO there really should be an "abandon war goal" feature, for if you want to force capitulation without getting a war goal you don't control, but there isn't.

 

[kingsword]

The problem with that approach however is that when the play started, Siam already put a war goal that is reparations. Afterwards I'm offered Siam as a protectorate for my war support. This order of events cannot be changed retroactively to make me the war leader. As far as I'm concerned the problems that lie within the peace system go beyond this and I already suffered through but this one was what broke the camel's back for me with its sheer absurdity.

The very simple solution is that war support should tick below 0 for the aggressor, they didn't come anywhere close to achieving their goals on the battlefield. They initiated, they demand. They failed hence their failure should automatically end up with at the very least a white peace. Let's say, I was made war leader as you proposed: I would never yield. Then the war would go on forever until campaign ends because their war support is stuck at 0.

I have to say, I played all Paradox games since EU2 and this one has the absolute worst peace system. It's like whomever designed it never even played EU2, much less any of the newer and much better of their games. It's a disaster really and these are the kindest words I can offer. If it was a bug, I'd be quite alright with it but I already witnessed that "can't go below 0" situation resulting in other inexplicable results that I'm convinced that it's fundamentally bad design that warrants a complete rework.

 

[FocusedHope]

The very simple solution is that war support should tick below 0 for the aggressor, they didn't come anywhere close to achieving their goals on the battlefield. They initiated, they demand. They failed hence their failure should automatically end up with at the very least a white peace. Let's say, I was made war leader as you proposed: I would never yield. Then the war would go on forever until campaign ends because their war support is stuck at 0.

If it weren't for the actual problem - that your war score can go below 0 despite them not taking their war goal - then they wouldn't have the "Conquer Bangkok is achievable by capitulation" -100whatever peace acceptance. And there is in fact a relatively significant ticking white peace acceptance for AI, so once you both hit 0 war score if not significantly before, they would be willing to accept a white peace whenever you are. In many wars I've been in where subjects aren't involved and don't cause the problem we're discussing, that's exactly what happens, so I think that part is actually working reasonably well. (Actually what usually happens in my games is I'm winning but slowly, so they're willing to accept a white peace, while I know I'm going to take their capital any month now so I keep going. But if I was actually stalemating and wanted a white peace, we would've had one.)

 

[FergusM]

The war support system, with auto capitulation, needs an overhaul.

The 'fix' was to cap war support at 0 unless war goals are occupied. However, as illustrated by this thread, what constitutes occupying war goals is often arbitrary or nonsensical.

The cap at 0 has effectively made war support meaningless. Almost every war, both sides usually go to 0. So the war support itself is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is if you've hit the conditions or not.

There are many other odd cases due to this system. If you have a lot of war goals, but the enemy only has one (something small), you can get auto capitulated even though you're clearly winning the war by a huge margin because it's much easier for them to achieve their war goal.

 

[Leoreth]

I also think there is a general flaw in how war support is conceptualised. It's basically a counter that WILL go to -100 at some point (unless it is capped at 0 for often nonsensical reasons, but the reason the cap exists is because reaching -100 is predetermined). The only thing you can influence is the rate at which the counter goes to -100 and to try to get there slower than your opponent.

That sounds good in principle but the real problem is that it's fully disconnected what is going on in the nation being at war. If my (or any AI nation's) budget is under control, units are being supplied and reinforced, economy is doing well, nobody is radical or in turmoil - where is the lack of war support, or if there is a "vibes based" lack of war support why would the nation care about it to the point of capitulation? Clearly by no material standard is there a need for capitulation.

I think Paradox has somewhat recognised this, which is why there are so many special rules now that act outside of the war support. The mentioned score cap to ensure that one side getting bored of a war first does not result in territorial changes. But also outside factors like "we think capitulation is possible" or defaults having an impact on willingness to conclude peace but somehow not war support? It feels like they are slowly constructing a separate peace system that works outside of the war support rules anyway. Similar to diplomacy supposedly being all about various contributing factors but often there is an arbitrary -1000 We Do Not Want This factor that makes the rest of the system kind of pointless.

I really would prefer if war support was based on the material conditions of a nation's armies and economy and if both are good the war support remains high. Loss of territory and loss of battles (temporarily) should then subtract from this to force a nation to the table even if they are still in shape to fight.

 

[fr-rein]

We really need better diplomacy and types of conflict to avoid such situations.

 

[PedroLuiz]

The quick fix would be to add a "defend" Wargoal that is a status quo (maybe with some extra prestige) centered on the defender capital so that white peaces would happen more often

 

[kingsword]

I feel that I need to add some more context: Siam didn't tick below 0 and auto-capitulate. They reached 0 and their thumbs down became thumbs up because the bonuses on their capitulation desire went over their maluses. Also they felt reparations were a worthy trade for 90% of their land. If USA could tick below 0, they might have auto-capitulated but I'm not 100% sure. The problem here is both being stuck at 0 even though there's no progress on war goals indefinitely but also the insane capitulation desire code and numbers.

We can reach Bangkok: +105
We can reach another state: +105
We can reach one more state: +105
Default: -100

So yeah, the code is flawed that it thinks it can reach enemy lands when I pound it into its bones that it cannot happen. The only possibility is if I auto-capitulated by reaching 0 war support since I didn't have goals. How reasonable it is that AI will stick to a war it's losing horribly for a decade, default and that the game code will auto-capitulate a human player from war? It's totally unreasonable and illogical.

Aggressor has to provide results to prevent from going under 0 but also has to calculate if it's all worth it even if not profitable. All this resulted in USA going back 25 years in GDP. Should have given up for white peace when I destroyed their naval invasion and it never sent another landing force. It kept bashing its head against a wall until peacemaking code bailed it out.

 

[Rabid]

If you're not an achievement player, reload and debug mode exist for these sorts of situations.

I do agree though, it should be a hard rule that if the aggressor in a war can't achieve its goals, then it will capitulate to a white peace. The problem here is that capitulation is set to always be "capitulate to enemy war goals" which requires the insane system we're stuck with currently in order to avoid even more weird corner cases. There should clearly be the option for the defending party to declare "I just want this war to be over, neither of us is winning" and for the war to reach a natural conclusion without any war goals being enforced.

 

[TheBlahJ]

USA wants 90% of Siamese land, Siam offers me to be my protectorate. I go to war. I totally demolish USA fleet, sink all of its convoys, it defaults 5-10 times. War support sits at 0 for years. It still rejects white peace because "capturing Bangkok through capitulation is possible" wishful thinking on capitulation desire. No you cannot, you sit with 500 divisions mobilized for 5 years and couldn't have one land battle even. You have zero hopes of opening a front. Yet Siam goes down to 0 war support eventually and instantly capitulates, exchanging nearly all of its lands for war reparations. I'm stuck with one province Siam protectorate for my efforts. By the end of war Siam HAD NOT LOST ONE SINGLE SOLDIER while USA lost hundreds of thousands of sailors.

The game still has other big problems but this I cannot fathom, how on earth does Paradox think it's alright to think "yeah this works as intended" after multiple big patches. I came back after a year and still I can't believe this game was made by the same studio whose games I have been playing for 20 years now.

Oh and Siam is landlocked now so I have to cancel my protectorate or they will starve to death. 1/20th of the campaign time wasted on essentially nothing.

This is a problem, yes, but the 100,000 dead should be a thing of the past, they reduced base weekly attrition from 2% to 0.8%

 

[Andrzej2]

Recently on MP I was Papal States and fought against Austria with the help of Bavaria and Spain. I controlled my wargoal which was Venice and also Lombardy. Not a single province of mine was occupied, I didn't have much radicals. Still capitulation was forced on me. Becouse it's extremly easy for a small nation to gather war exhaustion just from "number of casualties". So annoying.

If I control a wargoal and I don't have anything of mine occupied why would I capitulate in this case?

I also saw plenty other frustrating situation when my side had clear superiority in war but still forced to capitulate. Especially situation like OP described are frustrating. Your OPM allies just capitulating without even one battle. Or capitulating from casualties despite controlling wargoals.

Also I hate that one is instantly forced to capitulate. We have interest groups, coup mechanic which I never saw. Those should be tied to war exhoustion. So instead of instantly capitulating when WE reaches 100 we should start gaining some negative opinions from IG which are not jingoist. And then we would be forced to make peace by a threat of coup or to avoid rebellion, that would feel more natural and immersive than suddenly getting capitulated becouse some arbitrary number.

 

[kingsword]

This is a problem, yes, but the 100,000 dead should be a thing of the past, they reduced base weekly attrition from 2% to 0.8%

No land battles happened. Those were all navy casualties.

 

[Leoreth]

There should clearly be the option for the defending party to declare "I just want this war to be over, neither of us is winning" and for the war to reach a natural conclusion without any war goals being enforced.

This is a very succinct way of putting it.

There should be a distinction between "we want to get out of this war because we won't get what we want from sinking more resources into it" and "we want to get out of this war because keeping it going will have a worse outcome for us". The former should result in a white peace and only the latter in what the game calls capitulation.

Maybe a quick fix for this would be that if any participant bails out of the war it is only considered a capitulation if their opponent has positive war support? Otherwise it is considered a white peace and no war goals will be enforced.

 

[Leoreth]

Actually, another crucial aspect:

If I give anything to a third party nation in exchange for their support in the war, they should not receive it immediately. Instead, it should become one of their war goals with the additional clause that if the initiator presses any war goal, they must also press the promised war goals of their allies ("pressing" an obligation or state transfer would just mean that those take effect after the war ends - the target obviously should not object to this).

The problem right now is that allies bribed into a war this way already got what they wanted, which means they have no active war goal that the target can fail to achieve. This means their war support is not capped and can easily go down all the way into -100. Since despite how well the war is going relatively, war support will always only go down, it is only a matter of time until these allies nope out of the war and leave yourself on your own, while still enjoying their bribes.

Turning those promises into wargoals would help keep those allies in the war (as long as the capped war support crutch is in place at least) and also make it less frustrating if you cannot achieve your wargoals.

Conversely, it would also actually compel the player to do anything if THEY get bribed into a war. Because right now whenever the AI offers you anything you can usually accept and sit there without mobilising even a single army. With this change you would be motivated to ensure their victory.

 

[CrazyMe]

There is only one PDX game with a really good peace system - EU4. In all games released afterwards it is worse. I guess there are some reasons why they cannot replicate the EU4 system with some adaptation.
So I am not surprised they messed it up once again.

 

[TK3600]

USA wants 90% of Siamese land, Siam offers me to be my protectorate. I go to war. I totally demolish USA fleet, sink all of its convoys, it defaults 5-10 times. War support sits at 0 for years. It still rejects white peace because "capturing Bangkok through capitulation is possible" wishful thinking on capitulation desire. No you cannot, you sit with 500 divisions mobilized for 5 years and couldn't have one land battle even. You have zero hopes of opening a front. Yet Siam goes down to 0 war support eventually and instantly capitulates, exchanging nearly all of its lands for war reparations. I'm stuck with one province Siam protectorate for my efforts. By the end of war Siam HAD NOT LOST ONE SINGLE SOLDIER while USA lost hundreds of thousands of sailors.

The game still has other big problems but this I cannot fathom, how on earth does Paradox think it's alright to think "yeah this works as intended" after multiple big patches. I came back after a year and still I can't believe this game was made by the same studio whose games I have been playing for 20 years now.

Oh and Siam is landlocked now so I have to cancel my protectorate or they will starve to death. 1/20th of the campaign time wasted on essentially nothing.

Simple solution: war exhaustion tick down after 2 years. If not occupy the goal, it ticks down.

Casualty should be a constant reduction, not a tick. Only wargoal related tasks ticks. Throw away any rules blocks ticking below 0.

Lack of timed negative tick is crazy. It is in every game prior to it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

There is only one PDX game with a really good peace system - EU4. In all games released afterwards it is worse. I guess there are some reasons why they cannot replicate the EU4 system with some adaptation.
So I am not surprised they messed it up once again.

Yeah just copy EU4 diplo system already. The rest of Vicky 3 is good now.