Please give us console codes for land swaps!!

[Cinéad IV]

I'd have to disagree with it being an immersion breaker. The period's diplomacy involved a range of diplomatic mechanisms, often without resort to warfare. Territories routinely changed hands for money, or even in exchanges for other territories.

I really think we need some way to negotiate with other nations other than declaring war on them. If we want to stop human players exploiting the land purchase system, then just make it prohibitively expensive to engage in.
AI countries should be really reluctant to part with territories, and rightly so - you should have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

But TBH, I can't really think of a situation in Vicky 1 when a human player could really exploit the land purchase system (with the possible exception of uncivs using it to declare war on other uncivs they didn't share a border with, and that loophole was tightened up). Even in Vicky 1, a province cost a fortune.

 

[Samilou]

I'd have to disagree with it being an immersion breaker. The period's diplomacy involved a range of diplomatic mechanisms, often without resort to warfare. Territories routinely changed hands for money, or even in exchanges for other territories.

I really think we need some way to negotiate with other nations other than declaring war on them. If we want to stop human players exploiting the land purchase system, then just make it prohibitively expensive to engage in.
AI countries should be really reluctant to part with territories, and rightly so - you should have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

But TBH, I can't really think of a situation in Vicky 1 when a human player could really exploit the land purchase system (with the possible exception of uncivs using it to declare war on other uncivs they didn't share a border with, and that loophole was tightened up). Even in Vicky 1, a province cost a fortune.

Actually you could often receive excellent non-core provinces if you had decent relations, in ecxhange for techs only.

In RL however, it was often indeed expensive to integrate a newly acquired province even if you didn't pay much to the seller. Administration would have to be established, for starters.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I do not realy think that Pdox should waste their resources on a mechanic that would only be usefull for cheats when there are som many many many more important things. And realy, I someone is bothered by some borders, Im sure there will be plenty of people on the forums ready to tell that person how to edit the save file anywas

I know how to edit the save game files, I write programs for a living. Give me the file that has the province ID numbers and the save file, and I'll do it in five minutes.

Still it would be nice to have this in the game so you don't have to save, exit, Alt-Tab, edit, Alt-Tab, load... this is very very tedious. Event designing and save game fixing would be a lot easier if there were console commands that could create the same effects as what is possible through event commands.

 

[Cinéad IV]

Actually you could often receive excellent non-core provinces if you had decent relations, in ecxhange for techs only.

You would have needed a fair pile of money to back up those techs though, would you not? I'm hard pressed to think of ever getting a 'bargain' province, even with really high relations. You could use multiple techs, but you got punished with loss of prestige for giving more techs than the number of provinces you were asking for.

And quite frankly, an unciv looking to move into the modern world might be happy to lease out a coastal province in return for technical assistance (African rulers who tolerated and encouraged foreign trading stations in return for modern rifles, for example). If it happened in real life, it should happen in the game.

Vicky 1 had it pretty much spot on TBH (even if uncivs did get nerfed by not being able to perform land trades).

I'm sure it wouldn't take just too much hard work on Paradox's part to make the AI extremely reluctant to accept such deals unless a really significant amount of money and technical assistance was on the table. Make it an expensive thing to do, even between close allies, and you've taken away all the potential for exploits.

 

[Snaake]

In Vicky, it was possible to give another country 2 provinces and receive 3 in return (non-cores). By repeating this, you could buy a country out of Africa at no cost for example, given a few years.

As said, the AI logic for trades was bad.

 

[Cinéad IV]

In Vicky, it was possible to give another country 2 provinces and receive 3 in return (non-cores). By repeating this, you could buy a country out of Africa at no cost for example, given a few years.

If a player is going for that sort of an exploit, then that's his business. I've never done it, but I'm sure for some people it's the defintion of a fun game.

And if the problem is provinces going too cheaply, make provinces more expensive/worth more. Or make ultra-high relations mean less in diplomatic deals.

The MAJOR exploit in Vicky 1 was colonial wars. They've been done away with, so I'm happy. But I don't see why we should take away 'open negotiations'.

 

[unmerged(36774)]

In Vicky, it was possible to give another country 2 provinces and receive 3 in return (non-cores). By repeating this, you could buy a country out of Africa at no cost for example, given a few years.

As said, the AI logic for trades was bad.

Yes that is true and this exploit was so well know that it even had a name. Was it called 'beads for Manhattan' or something like that.

But i think there should be some way to change ownership of provinces or claims (if there even will be claim buildings) without a war.

 

[ECLoco]

...I cannot possible imagine it being hard to implement...

Yeah that's a classic in software development. Mostly dropped by completely clueless program managers, sales or marketing people. Sane companies try to beat that sentence out of their new employees as soon as possible.

 

[Cinéad IV]

Well, while Vicky 2 will be using a new game engine, the concept was there in Vicky 1, and even EU 3 (which uses the same engine) has a 'sell province' function.

 

[Ex Mudder]

Yes that is true and this exploit was so well know that it even had a name. Was it called 'beads for Manhattan' or something like that.

But i think there should be some way to change ownership of provinces or claims (if there even will be claim buildings) without a war.

Gunboat diplomacy?

And I think colonies don't have claims buildings any more, just some sort of influence model effected by how many troops you commit to the region. I wonder how that will work for the Pacific Islands though, or the US Northwest / Canadian SW.

I would like to be able to sell land or tech to minors, though. Feeding a SoI state better Coffee / Tea / Railroad techs would be easier than invading and annexing them to get their production up.

But an open "sell this for that" is too easy to abuse I'm afraid.

 

[Tayran]

Yeah that's a classic in software development. Mostly dropped by completely clueless program managers, sales or marketing people. Sane companies try to beat that sentence out of their new employees as soon as possible.

Seriously. The code already exist in event form. So its just to allow the console to activate it. The console already allows several commands to be activated, so why not seeding of provinces?

 

[Flooper X]

If you don't want the land in a peace deal, don't ask for it as a war goal.

How am I supposed to control the war goals of the AI?

I just hate it when two AIs go to war, and the result is a complete devestation of the borders, to the point where I can barely watch without being repulsed. Neville+land trades was always there for me in those situations, just to even things out a bit. I always hated the save-editing, reloading and whatnot I had to use for the same result in EU3 (but at least EU3 had a sell prov function, although a very limited one)

 

[Jolt]

I join the fray in saying that the land swaps were also extremely useful for me in correcting bad peace treaties

Phreaps creating a "get_province <prov id>" which transfers said province to the player's nation or
"give_ province <country tag> <prov id>" to transfer target province to target country, along with all its POPs (And respective Literacy, MIL & CON), fortifications and Industries.

Not that I understand if it is difficult to implement, but it would certainly be a quite helpful feature in fixing some of the weirdness of the AI in peace treaties.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

You would have needed a fair pile of money to back up those techs though, would you not? I'm hard pressed to think of ever getting a 'bargain' province, even with really high relations. You could use multiple techs, but you got punished with loss of prestige for giving more techs than the number of provinces you were asking for.

And quite frankly, an unciv looking to move into the modern world might be happy to lease out a coastal province in return for technical assistance (African rulers who tolerated and encouraged foreign trading stations in return for modern rifles, for example). If it happened in real life, it should happen in the game.

Vicky 1 had it pretty much spot on TBH (even if uncivs did get nerfed by not being able to perform land trades).

I'm sure it wouldn't take just too much hard work on Paradox's part to make the AI extremely reluctant to accept such deals unless a really significant amount of money and technical assistance was on the table. Make it an expensive thing to do, even between close allies, and you've taken away all the potential for exploits.

If you played Greece, you could for example annex some unciv Arabian states and sell them to the Turks in exchange for Cyprus, Crete and various other Gree provinces.

Turkey had arabic as a state culture so they paid premium for worthless real estate like Abu Dhabi, Dubay, Ryad etc. Since their cores in mainland Europe only extended to Saloniki they were willing to sell off the rest quite cheaply.

With this exploit you could gain Greece almost all its 1913 territory, plus Cyprus, by ~1860.

 

[Cinéad IV]

Well, the above is maybe a case for the Ottomans having cores on their European territories. It isn't a case for stopping land trades altogether.

But as I say, it's just a case of making land trades really, really expensive.

 

[gadajs]

The major issue is that the AI cannot handle the massive inflation which occurs late game. If you are playing a large, relatively peaceful empire, it will not be rare for you to have about 3-4 million in the bank by 1900 or so. Shelling out a tech and 50k in cash for an African territory in 1845 or Caribbean island might be expensive for Prussia, but buying Hainan and chunks of south east Asia for a million in 1910 is easy for Germany. This is before using the beads for Manhattan exploit.

 

[Cinéad IV]

Shelling out a tech and 50k in cash for an African territory in 1845 or Caribbean island might be expensive for Prussia, but buying Hainan and chunks of south east Asia for a million in 1910 is easy for Germany. This is before using the beads for Manhattan exploit.

Well, I wouldn't say it's easy - even with a superpower, it would take a long time to build up a million pounds. And if China considers Hainan's provinces to be core, then they simply won't be up for sale, period.

If it's colony trading between powers you're referring to, then why not? Land trades often took place between colonial powers as an alternative to war, and if Germany has successfuly industrialised and approaches a poorer colonial power with a decent offer, then why shouldn't that trade take place?

And if we're worried about beads for Manhattan, make every sale of land to another power include either a prestige hit (Like in Vicky 1, though maybe including ANY sale of land to another power) or a militancy gain for jingoist POPs.

Basically, there are ways of working around potential exploits other than having no 'open negotiations' button. And even if the exploits exist and can't be gotten rid of, I would far rather have the button and the idea that it *might* be misused, than not have it at all.

 

[unmerged(71030)]

If you want to split territory with an ally in a peace then your ally needs to state a war goal that they want that territory.

So, in brief: you have no input, and if you don't like it play some other game.

I sincerely doubt it would be hard to implement. If this is something which can be done by editing three letters in a save game file (as it can be in all other Clausewitz games), I find it hard to believe you can't code a simple console command which does the same (which you have done before). If you fly me to Sweden I'd be glad to explain this to your programmers.

I'm looking forward to the game, but the devs can get needlessly snippy. Sometimes a no is fine, but qualifying it with a well-thought out 'why not' would be nice now and again.

 

[Sute]{h]

I totally agree that extensive trading options like in Vicky I is to hard on the AI, but could we not get the sell province option from EU3? Mostly I'm thinking about multiplayer here, since province trading tends to be quite extensive between players. Otherwise it will require silly phony wars and stuff like that.

 

[Orinsul]

Why are people even asking for a step back from Victoria in Victoria II, if something was good in Victoria why get rid of it?
The land trading is a must, not only to get clean borders but colonial swaps and getting your satilities the provinces you want them to have or not to have.