Proportionality in warfare

[Al-Khalidi]

And yet, Boer Wars were exactly that, Britain lost, then mobilized some more, then lost more, made changes to the way tactical units fought, and eventually won.

And yes, at the height of war, Britain threw in 340+k troops British, 100k colonial and ~100k locals at boers, which, for context, was more then British expeditionary corps in France in 1940.

Ultimately it should depend on state of national finances, and maybe government popularity.

Boer war was an exception due to several independent factors. It was very different for typical colonial expeditions. Ofc in any case you can find some exception but historical game should have mechanics based on majority of events, not this one very special exception. By no means it can be used as a model for this crucial game mechanics.
Finances alone and government popularity is not enough to make this thing work right.

 

[mursolini]

Boer war lasted almost 3 years, British death toll being 20k dead and 20k wounded - far from usual vic 2 colonial meatgrinder, when in early 1900s casualties used to reach hundreds of thousands.

Victoria 2 had far larger standing armies, and "loses" translated into a lot less actual pops kills. So, this is a poor argument.

And yes, Boer war was exceptional case

Just out of exactly how many colonial wars in the first place? Maybe Italian failure to take Ethiopia is the exception?

of huge mobilization for a colonial war - many factors affected it, including prestige of empire being at stake. This does not mean that some limits on the scale of military involvement should not be implemented.

Some limit is already there, war exhaustion, monetary cost of war, ticking warscore, supply limit and attrition.

If additional limits have to be implemented, they should allow exceptions to happen.

You seem to have failed to grasp that your last sentence is exactly the core of ideas presented in this thread. Main obstacles, as agreed earlier, should be: finances, logistics, war support among POPs.

Additionally I provided some ideas on having to keep some troops garrisoned at home to prevent public order/prestige penalty.

I think you failed to grasp that Victoria 2 modeled some colonial wars fine, and others -not, and limits that are imposed should provide for exceptions to happen.

 

[mursolini]

Boer war was an exception due to several independent factors. It was very different for typical colonial expeditions. Ofc in any case you can find some exception but historical game should have mechanics based on majority of events, not this one very special exception. By no means it can be used as a model for this crucial game mechanics.
Finances alone and government popularity is not enough to make this thing work right.

Ok, so remind us, just how many of colonial wars started with colonisers being defeated first, and then demonstrate that them settling for loss was the norm, and mobilisation, with ultimate victory was exception.

So far, 2 examples were floated: Italian loss to Ethiopia, which, Ironically they also went in and redid after WW1, and British victory in Boer war. What other cases?

Ok, I'll throw in British-Zulu war as another case of colonizers initially being defeated, and winning.

 

[Kovax]

One way of limiting overseas or distant overland antics would be through supplies. If you have to ship supplies, and the further they go the more cargo ships or wagons you need, it gets difficult and expensive to field large armies far from home. You may even need to pull ships from your commercial fleets, causing shortages at home, and the consequent unrest that leads to.

HOI3 did one thing very right in that regard. Units that took casualties "repaired" over time by consuming "supplies", which could be considered to include not only food and ammunition, but replacement troops as well. If you didn't have enough supplies, the units didn't replace their lost manpower. Consider the implications for V3, where you've got an army crossing the Sahara Desert, and your supply chain isn't sufficient to replace losses due to the climate and other attrition factors. The army that comes out the other side is going to be a lot smaller, unless it was tiny enough in the first place to survive on the limited supplies available. No more of having France send several 100K doomstacks from Morocco, across the Sahara Desert, to attack colonies deep in Africa. Of course, the AI would need to be made to consider the cost and relative stupidity of doing this, otherwise it's just one more way that the player can abuse the AI.

I agree with the concept of using the difference in military power between opponents to modify pop responses to victory and defeat, so an "easy win" against a trivial opponent doesn't generate the same degree of impact as an embarrassing loss against them.

 

[The Goldfinch]

Just out of exactly how many colonial wars in the first place? Maybe Italian failure to take Ethiopia is the exception?

Literally any other colonial war was fought with limited forces. Start by taking a look at Sino - French war. Chinese achieved some victories and seriously undermined French position in negotiations. Despite that fact, limited French forces could be used.

I think you failed to grasp that Victoria 2 modeled some colonial wars fine, and others -not, and limits that are imposed should provide for exceptions to happen.

And when exactly did I say that exceptions shouldn't happen? Looks like a strawman to me

Your argument about bigger standing armies - so, err... Maybe sizes should be accurate so that pop counts are valid? Just a crazy idea for a game build around pops.

In the end I suggest a nuanced approach to the matter, translating to not every war being a total war.

Your suggestion is that... Well... only money should prevent a player from sending his pops to die in a war over completely irrelevant land? Then have it in EU 4 dude. I think that most of people here agree that Vic3 should be more ambitious than that

 

[Al-Khalidi]

Ok, so remind us, just how many of colonial wars started with colonisers being defeated first, and then demonstrate that them settling for loss was the norm, and mobilisation, with ultimate victory was exception.

So far, 2 examples were floated: Italian loss to Ethiopia, which, Ironically they also went in and redid after WW1, and British victory in Boer war. What other cases?

Ok, I'll throw in British-Zulu war as another case of colonizers initially being defeated, and winning.

Ok lets make an effort to educate you on reality a little bit. Victorian era was an era when colonizing nations had advantage over colonized ones, have you heard about that? So in perhaps 95 percent cases small expeditionary force, just as advocated in this post, was enough to achieve goals. If you need a proof for that, go and read a book. I can recall from my memory several cases, however, when colonizing nation was forced out without achieving main objectives and didn't simply use your brilliant idea to send 300k troops, I wonder why
1. Mentioned Adua.
2. First british invasion of Afghanistan.
3. Failed russian expeditions to Central Asia, most notably Bukhara.
4. French war with china.
5. French intervention in Mexico.
6. First british operation against Muhammad Ali.
7. Spanish attempts to retake Mexico.
8. Russian japanese war - perhaps russia should just send another 500k men from other parts of empire just like Britain in your amazing example?
9. Khivan campaign of 1839.
10. French expedition to Korea.
11. Egyptian invasion of Ethiopia (Egypt as more modernized power)
12. And hey, first boer war, why didin't british send mighty 300k at that time instead of making peace, I wonder
13. Basuto Gun war.
14. Second Mandingo war
And so forth. Literally EVERY single one of this war could end differently if GP sent more troops. I wasted a fair amount of energy in my fingers to try to explain to you that not every colonizer can send 300k men to die in jungle. I hope you will benefit from this 
PS: which doesn't mean that in SOME very special cases a GP can't send more forces ofc, but it's SOME, in other words, exception.

 

[Muezzinzade]

Ok, so remind us, just how many of colonial wars started with colonisers being defeated first, and then demonstrate that them settling for loss was the norm, and mobilisation, with ultimate victory was exception.

So far, 2 examples were floated: Italian loss to Ethiopia, which, Ironically they also went in and redid after WW1, and British victory in Boer war. What other cases?

Ok, I'll throw in British-Zulu war as another case of colonizers initially being defeated, and winning.

Funny how this person fights fiercely to defend the realism of each power sending 300k soldiers to any undeveloped piece of jungle on earth which is, as some people rightly pointed above, one of biggest flaws of paradox games
To the quite a long list to refute these claims, I would also add a some british wars with Ashanti, most notably Golden stool war

 

[Leoreth]

Many people here bring up logistics, and that's an important part of it obviously, but in my opinion there should also be limitations on how many troops you are able to mobilise (and from where) based on the war you are waging.

Limited wars are nothing new to Paradox games on the diplomatic side: we don't know how war goals will work in Vic3 but both Vic2 and EU4 have a specific war goal and war type that impacts what you can get out of the war without penalties and at what cost. In my opinion, this should also be reflected in how many troops you can bring to bear without penalties.

Ideally, this should mean that for a small colonial war far away from the metropole, you only have a limited amount of units and manpower available. Whereas there would be less of a limitation when fighting a war against a neighbouring great power, and up to none when defending your home nation against foreign aggression.

Then, if you fight a limited war and run out of the allocated units/manpower, the war there has run its course and you are forced to abandon it. I don't think that should enable to defender to enforce concessions except being freed from previous treaties imposed on them, but the war would be over. Alternatively, there could be a process where you have to ask your government to escalate the war and provide additional funds and manpower. That could work similar to the law passing process and would be unpopular if nobody at home cares about the war goal or the casualties were already severe.

Many great powers had to abandon wars not because they lacked the means to continue them in principle, often it was because the interest groups in power didn't think it was worth continuing compared to the gains.

Similar mechanics could also come into effect during alliances: faraway allies would be called into the war but they would never, and could never, march their entire army across the whole world just to intervene in some war of a far flung ally, which is another immersion destroying experience in EU4.

I don't know exactly how Vic3 would implement this exactly, because it is not really compatible with the relative freedom that basically all Paradox games give you in building armies and moving them around the world. I would argue that this freedom is an anachronism of an outdated army/warfare system that hasn't been fundamentally changed forever. Most systems in Paradox games are good and interesting because they push back against the player with limitations and rules that reflect historical circumstances, and the same principle should be applied to armies and warfare as well.

At the very least we need something more sophisticated than "faraway war = more attrition" because that's not cutting it.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

Many people here bring up logistics, and that's an important part of it obviously, but in my opinion there should also be limitations on how many troops you are able to mobilise (and from where) based on the war you are waging.

Limited wars are nothing new to Paradox games on the diplomatic side: we don't know how war goals will work in Vic3 but both Vic2 and EU4 have a specific war goal and war type that impacts what you can get out of the war without penalties and at what cost. In my opinion, this should also be reflected in how many troops you can bring to bear without penalties.

Ideally, this should mean that for a small colonial war far away from the metropole, you only have a limited amount of units and manpower available. Whereas there would be less of a limitation when fighting a war against a neighbouring great power, and up to none when defending your home nation against foreign aggression.

Then, if you fight a limited war and run out of the allocated units/manpower, the war there has run its course and you are forced to abandon it. I don't think that should enable to defender to enforce concessions except being freed from previous treaties imposed on them, but the war would be over. Alternatively, there could be a process where you have to ask your government to escalate the war and provide additional funds and manpower. That could work similar to the law passing process and would be unpopular if nobody at home cares about the war goal or the casualties were already severe.

Many great powers had to abandon wars not because they lacked the means to continue them in principle, often it was because the interest groups in power didn't think it was worth continuing compared to the gains.

Similar mechanics could also come into effect during alliances: faraway allies would be called into the war but they would never, and could never, march their entire army across the whole world just to intervene in some war of a far flung ally, which is another immersion destroying experience in EU4.

I don't know exactly how Vic3 would implement this exactly, because it is not really compatible with the relative freedom that basically all Paradox games give you in building armies and moving them around the world. I would argue that this freedom is an anachronism of an outdated army/warfare system that hasn't been fundamentally changed forever. Most systems in Paradox games are good and interesting because they push back against the player with limitations and rules that reflect historical circumstances, and the same principle should be applied to armies and warfare as well.

At the very least we need something more sophisticated than "faraway war = more attrition" because that's not cutting it.

Very good point about IGs. That's somehow what I meant when saying that sending huge forces to colonies woupd also be illogical from point of view of economy. I imagine some IGs interested in economy thinking same way
About attrition - well I imagine the terrain will strongly matter, jungle and desert being more deadly, but that is already in eu if I'm not mistaken?

 

[Leoreth]

Of course, and attrition is fine in principle.

My problems with attrition are:
1. The rules as they are in EU4 reward splitting stacks to avoid attrition but the combat mechanics reward creating deathstacks. That just creates a situation where you constantly have to split and merge stacks depending on the situation and if you don't you are forced eat attrition. What is the point of making me do this.
2. Attrition isn't sufficient to represent the logistical challenges of deploying troops somewhere across the globe. In practice great powers have deep enough manpower pools to eat the attrition if it's absolutely necessary, and there are micro tricks to avoid it as per the above that are unfun and lessen the effect the mechanic is actually supposed to have. So we can keep attrition with more sensible rules than in (1) but we should also have something else that makes it much harder to deploy troops long distance in the first place.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

Of course, and attrition is fine in principle.

My problems with attrition are:
1. The rules as they are in EU4 reward splitting stacks to avoid attrition but the combat mechanics reward creating deathstacks. That just creates a situation where you constantly have to split and merge stacks depending on the situation and if you don't you are forced eat attrition. What is the point of making me do this.
2. Attrition isn't sufficient to represent the logistical challenges of deploying troops somewhere across the globe. In practice great powers have deep enough manpower pools to eat the attrition if it's absolutely necessary, and there are micro tricks to avoid it as per the above that are unfun and lessen the effect the mechanic is actually supposed to have. So we can keep attrition with more sensible rules than in (1) but we should also have something else that makes it much harder to deploy troops long distance in the first place.

HoI has a system that might solve it partially. There is one supply for the whole big region. Lets say we arrive in Sumatra. If we don't have a port and significant areas under control, we starve no matter what, how much we split this force. If we control a port and have a fleet there to connect it to other port supply gets better. Better still if we get to control more areas. But overall supply limit for such regions is not sufficient to sustain bigger forces unless you have invested heavily to build huge infrastructure having it under total control for years.
But no matter if entire region is under control, whether troops are split or stacked, hell lot of soldiers die due to tropical illnesses anyway.

 

[Yogh]

There should be a way to portray the tactical advantage the 'natives' have in fighting on their own lands against a coloniser from half a world away.

Think of how British forces where defeated in Afghanistan during this period by a force of poorly equiped Afghans but who knew the terrain and used efficient harrassment techniques.

Of course, the fact that battles happen in entire provinces cannot really model how a smaller force can hold mountain passes and valleys and use hidden trails to their advantage. More terrain granularity is needed (I seem to remember that Imperator: Rome did it to some extent). Maybe this could be modelled by a combat buff for unrecognised nations fighting on their own lands and a debuff for colonisers? Sounds a bit gamey though. And any buff or debuff can be overcome by sending an absurdly massive army. Any ideas on how to model this?

 

[Will Steel]

After defeat in the battle of Adua, and annihilation of its army, Italy had to abandon plans of conquering Ethiopia.

This would never happen in vic2.

Instead, Italy would send another army. And another one. And would loose 300 thousand men if needed.

In vic2, you play Egypt and Britain attacks you. You cornered and anihilated 60k British army. Whats next? They send 200k more from India. And more, if needed.

I think we can all agree its plainly wrong.

Here is my idea:

Warfare should have some mechanics to ensure its proportionality. Not every war could be a total war back then. Limited forces could be used in most cases.

Your society can demand you to stop after one defeat. You should not be able to dedicate all of your resources to a small conquest war. Emptying your borders to fight colonial war on another side of the globe should be considered pure madness.

This would also make smaller nations have some some hope in opposing great powers. Defeating one expedition force could possibly win their freedom for a time being.

The only Paradox game in history which got this right was, weirdly, Crusader Kings 2.
That is because most of the warscore came from battles, not land occupation (although occupying lands, especially wargoal lands, helped a lot). That makes it unique in all PDS games so far in my opinion.

You could start off as a small Visigothic kingdom in Spain (lets say in a modded 711 AD scenario), take on the gigantic empire of Umayyad Caliphate stretching from Indus to Lisbon, and still win if you somehow beat their armies in a row and capture a few counties. You could conquer England as Normans with like 5-6 good battles. You could win entire wars by destroying enemy armies before they could gather in one place and become doomstacks. It was even possible to force the scary Mongols into a temporary white peace if you were fast enough - by beating their initial armies repeatedly while rushing to take out key cities, ending the war before their real unbeatable armies marched on you. Mercenaries and a big pile of gold were a great thing in this regard.

That doesn't mean occupation didn't help, it just meant that battles were always the mainstay. Holding warscore was always an easy way to reach 100% quickly, but not always necessary. Battles were rare and meaningful.

Quite a good system that they unfortunately dropped with EU4, where battles don't do much and the only real way to win is to snipe enemy's manpower regeneration capacity as fast as possible (i.e. occupying their high development lands), allowing you to occupy more lands without retaliation. Winning battles serves little purpose other than to facilitate easier land occupation afterwards (plus a bit of prestige and military tradition).

And then PDS went that way in the extremes with Imperator and its casual, boring, button-mashing map painter style - battles are entirely pointless and worthless, give next to no warscore, and nothing happens without occupying land.
You can wipe out 90% of Rome's manpower, kill their emperor, fight a 20 year long war where you win every battle, but it means nothing without occupying lands. They will, as you said, keep coming back with reincarnated armies and never seek peace. Your warscore counter will sit at 0. Pretty ahistorical, considering the antiquity was all about massive battles deciding fate of empires (Rome stopped their conquest in Germania after one disastrous battle in Teutoberg, earlier the Seleucid Empire went into decline not long after losing the single but massive battle at Magnesia).

I hope Victoria returns to CK2 way, where battles were more emphasized and land occupation was secondary. That would create the result you want where a modernized and militarily successful Egypt can beat back the British to the peace table, without having to actually sail over to the UK and occupy London.

For examples in this era - Germany lost WW1, yet they hadn't even lost an inch of their home territory by the end. They almost lost Prussia in the beginning, but recaptured it immediately afterwards, and for the rest of the war the both the eastern and western fronts were fought outside of Germany.
Britain did not have to land giant armies and occupy 2/3 of Qing China to win the first Opium war, they just dominated the seas, defeated their navy completely and began blasting their coastal cities and forts into dust until the Qing gave up. Japan didn't have to occupy all of China to take over Korea in 1890s either.

 

[big red 3]

As others have said, I think the logistics/war opinion should play a big role in limiting it, should help stop every war from being a massive global conflict while also allowing for the exceptions (the British empire navy being massive and having the logistics to support a large army during the Boer war along with a friendly local settler community helping support public opinion) .

One other option could be some kind of garrison requirement. You need to keep a certain number of troops in certain provinces (colonies, regions of unrest and border regions) to prevent to colony from backsliding/unrest increasing/population getting angry. The French people should get pretty upset if you strip the German border of troops to fight in Madagascar. You could also tie it to the army limits, especially for liberal regimes. While the French people might support a large army, they expect it to be deployed to protect France, while the US (not during the civil war) the population shouldn't be willing to support an army much larger than a police force for the western states/colonies, unless a popular war breaks out. This would even work is more autocratic regimes. Russia will support a large army, but that army should need to spend most of its time in Russia propping up the government/suppressing unrest (could use the garrison requirement as well)

 

[maxk94]

I doubt Ethiopia will be an "unrecognized" country, France and Russia sent modern military equipment and russian attachés. (Italy too since they sold thousands of modern rifles and millions of ammos just some years before, talking of shooting yourself in the foot)

I guess Ethiopia will be like Tokugawa-Japan playable but not westernized yet

 

[Al-Khalidi]

The only Paradox game in history which got this right was, weirdly, Crusader Kings 2.
That is because most of the warscore came from battles, not land occupation (although occupying lands, especially wargoal lands, helped a lot). That makes it unique in all PDS games so far in my opinion.

You could start off as a small Visigothic kingdom in Spain (lets say in a modded 711 AD scenario), take on the gigantic empire of Umayyad Caliphate stretching from Indus to Lisbon, and still win if you somehow beat their armies in a row and capture a few counties. You could conquer England as Normans with like 5-6 good battles. You could win entire wars by destroying enemy armies before they could gather in one place and become doomstacks. It was even possible to force the scary Mongols into a temporary white peace if you were fast enough - by beating their initial armies repeatedly while rushing to take out key cities, ending the war before their real unbeatable armies marched on you. Mercenaries and a big pile of gold were a great thing in this regard.

That doesn't mean occupation didn't help, it just meant that battles were always the mainstay. Holding warscore was always an easy way to reach 100% quickly, but not always necessary. Battles were rare and meaningful.

Quite a good system that they unfortunately dropped with EU4, where battles don't do much and the only real way to win is to snipe enemy's manpower regeneration capacity as fast as possible (i.e. occupying their high development lands), allowing you to occupy more lands without retaliation. Winning battles serves little purpose other than to facilitate easier land occupation afterwards (plus a bit of prestige and military tradition).

And then PDS went that way in the extremes with Imperator and its casual, boring, button-mashing map painter style - battles are entirely pointless and worthless, give next to no warscore, and nothing happens without occupying land.
You can wipe out 90% of Rome's manpower, kill their emperor, fight a 20 year long war where you win every battle, but it means nothing without occupying lands. They will, as you said, keep coming back with reincarnated armies and never seek peace. Your warscore counter will sit at 0. Pretty ahistorical, considering the antiquity was all about massive battles deciding fate of empires (Rome stopped their conquest in Germania after one disastrous battle in Teutoberg, earlier the Seleucid Empire went into decline not long after losing the single but massive battle at Magnesia).

I hope Victoria returns to CK2 way, where battles were more emphasized and land occupation was secondary. That would create the result you want where a modernized and militarily successful Egypt can beat back the British to the peace table, without having to actually sail over to the UK and occupy London.

For examples in this era - Germany lost WW1, yet they hadn't even lost an inch of their home territory by the end. They almost lost Prussia in the beginning, but recaptured it immediately afterwards, and for the rest of the war the both the eastern and western fronts were fought outside of Germany.
Britain did not have to land giant armies and occupy 2/3 of Qing China to win the first Opium war, they just dominated the seas, defeated their navy completely and began blasting their coastal cities and forts into dust until the Qing gave up. Japan didn't have to occupy all of China to take over Korea in 1890s either.

Emphasis on battle score is a good idea, certainly for some CBs such as punitive expeditions. Especially a defeat in significant battle in offensive war overseas should be very painful for GPs.
In some cases however occupying territory can be crucial for CB - for example occupying Beijing during boxer rebellion? Or Japan occupying Port Arthur

As others have said, I think the logistics/war opinion should play a big role in limiting it, should help stop every war from being a massive global conflict while also allowing for the exceptions (the British empire navy being massive and having the logistics to support a large army during the Boer war along with a friendly local settler community helping support public opinion) .

One other option could be some kind of garrison requirement. You need to keep a certain number of troops in certain provinces (colonies, regions of unrest and border regions) to prevent to colony from backsliding/unrest increasing/population getting angry. The French people should get pretty upset if you strip the German border of troops to fight in Madagascar. You could also tie it to the army limits, especially for liberal regimes. While the French people might support a large army, they expect it to be deployed to protect France, while the US (not during the civil war) the population shouldn't be willing to support an army much larger than a police force for the western states/colonies, unless a popular war breaks out. This would even work is more autocratic regimes. Russia will support a large army, but that army should need to spend most of its time in Russia propping up the government/suppressing unrest (could use the garrison requirement as well)

Example of russia suits perfectly - during Crimean war (more important than colonial expeditions) they still could use maybe one fourth of their forces, majority guarding frontline with german empires. I hope need to garrison vulnerable areas is mentioned.

 

[Life is Comedy]

By reading I saw all attention was given only to the warring countries. But as Victoria is also a diplimacy game, what if we saw it in another way ?

I can imagine a situation where other Powers are seeing this war as a potential opportunity/international problem and indirectly interfere if the war goes on to long.

An historical exeample would be the second piedmontese-austrian war with france backing italy. While there are multiple reasons the war ended after only one real battle, one was the threat of prussian troops on the Rhine river.

This would require serious balance and exploit potential awarness, but maybe if a "oversea war" is going on for a certain amount of time (ie. One year) other power will have the opportunity to start pressure. It doesnt even have to be war right away, but I can imagine some decision/events like :
1. Ask to stop conflict (white peace, limited war goal...) : if yes "prestige", if no "economic import cost sanction"
2. Make them ridicule (if war doesnt end whith victory whiythin X months, attacker losses "prestige", but receives a "massive" replenishment/moral boost)
3. Threaten war (if war continues, former will receive a "infamy discount" on one CB)

Nota: i'm using V2 mechanics (prestige ect...) as it covers not yet known game mechanics.

 

[The Goldfinch]

By reading I saw all attention was given only to the warring countries. But as Victoria is also a diplimacy game, what if we saw it in another way ?

I can imagine a situation where other Powers are seeing this war as a potential opportunity/international problem and indirectly interfere if the war goes on to long.

An historical exeample would be the second piedmontese-austrian war with france backing italy. While there are multiple reasons the war ended after only one real battle, one was the threat of prussian troops on the Rhine river.

This would require serious balance and exploit potential awarness, but maybe if a "oversea war" is going on for a certain amount of time (ie. One year) other power will have the opportunity to start pressure. It doesnt even have to be war right away, but I can imagine some decision/events like :
1. Ask to stop conflict (white peace, limited war goal...) : if yes "prestige", if no "economic import cost sanction"
2. Make them ridicule (if war doesnt end whith victory whiythin X months, attacker losses "prestige", but receives a "massive" replenishment/moral boost)
3. Threaten war (if war continues, former will receive a "infamy discount" on one CB)

Nota: i'm using V2 mechanics (prestige ect...) as it covers not yet known game mechanics.

I think your idea is very much in line with what vic3 diplomacy is aspiring for - at least I really hope for that!

Other powers watching you could also be another reason to keep some forces garrisoned in homeland

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I. based on this:

How about making society supportive of defensive war, more or less neutral when fighting with strong cb or defending an important ally, and prone to outrage when an aggressive war takes place a big distance from capital?

Colonial wars should be fought with the standing amry. Mobilizing non-soldier pops for wars should result in high unrest and radicalization unless the war is:

• Fought in core states.
• A defensive war.
• against a more powerful nation OR another Great Power.

This will mean that a European country would not have enough free troops for costly large-scale wars oversea.


II. Recruiting colonial manpower should be difficult.

• If the colonizer doesn’t give them rights, self-rule etc., they will be likely to mutiny.
• To keep them loyal, you would need to give colonial peoples concessions, which might displease some jingoist interest groups and make colonies less profitable.
• it might be possible to recruit a limited number of colonial troops if you pay them well (Gurkhas, Askari, Tiralleurs etc.). But it would be expensive.

This would prevent things like this:

They send 200k more from India. And more, if needed.

III. When planning wars, the AI should make a CBA: evaluate what they expect to gain, and calculate how much money and lives they are willing to pay for that.

If the war causes them to exceed these numbers, the AI should sue for peace.

 

[grommile]

After a humiliating loss, government can be toppled, or indeed its very form can be altered by revolutionaries using lost war as an easy proof of ineffectiveness of the current system.

There's design precedent within the series already

Vicky 2 gave you countrywide +2 Militancy (0-10 scale) for any wargoal you declared but did not fulfil, and that's a concept space that should be easy to build on.