"Send Warning" concept should be expanded into "Ultimatums"

[Sinkillr]

Right now the "send warning" diplomatic feature is pretty useless and accomplishes only a small hit into your diplomatic relations with a country. I propose to expand this concept into ultimatums. Basically you should be able to make demands like you can in wartime (ex. give me province x, ducats, give up core, etc) in peacetime with your diplomats. If the other country doesn't give into your demands, then you can declare war upon it. However, to prevent spammy bluffs, if you don't declare war within 3 months of their refusal, then your prestige and power projection takes a -50 and -20 hit, respectively. In addition, if your ultimatum demands are too unreasonable, your diplomatic reputation and AE also takes a hit. Finally, if you don't win your ultimatum war, or there is a white peace, the other country's prestige goes up and your prestige and stability goes down.

Thoughts?

 

[magnusvejby]

Well this is too exploitable lets say they don't accept your ultimatum you get a free CB on them, that normally takes a year, and if they accept this you get a lot of stuff for free, but i like it and i would support this if, this would be well balanced. Maybe some of this would work:

When they accept your demand you should get a long truce 10-15 years i would say so you don't spam it.

You have to "Fabricate" a ultimatum so you just don't get a free CB.

And maybe and option like "I take 500 money and 1 province BUT I will promise to protect you for the next 10 years or so, that option makes them more likely to accept if they are a small nation.

They would be more willing to accept if they don't have any or few allies.
They would never accept if they are a great power, or if they are bigger than you.

But i would like this in game so +1 for me!

 

[Kljunas]

Well this is too exploitable lets say they don't accept your ultimatum you get a free CB on them, that normally takes a year, and if they accept this you get a lot of stuff for free, but i like it and i would support this if, this would be well balanced. Maybe some of this would work:

When they accept your demand you should get a long truce 10-15 years i would say so you don't spam it.

You have to "Fabricate" a ultimatum so you just don't get a free CB.

And maybe and option like "I take 500 money and 1 province BUT I will promise to protect you for the next 10 years or so, that option makes them more likely to accept if they are a small nation.

They would be more willing to accept if they don't have any or few allies.
They would never accept if they are a great power, or if they are bigger than you.

But i would like this in game so +1 for me!

I don't think there needs to be a "fabricate ultimatum" thing. It doesn't really make sense and if you need a CB why would you fabricate an ultimatum rather than a clam? You just should only be able to demand provinces you have claims/cores on. Same with the other ultimatums, you should have some sort of CB to make your demands. It just seem simpler and more logical to me for CB and potential ultimatums to be the same thing.

I guess you could be able to make ultimatums with no claims but that shouldn't give you a CB, on the contrary it should be more like declaring war with no CB.

 

[Maq]

Although I like the idea of an ultimative demand, there are considerable objections to this.
From historical point of view, ceding territory without fight seldom happened unless later period of the game. Tripartition of Poland comes to mind, but that occured as a result of previously unimaginable diplomatic pressure of three big powers.
I believe that before Napoleonic period, waging a war has always been pretty unpredictable action. The state machinery was not that efficient and precise to tell in advance the balance of powers. Even the much stronger party was always at risk of running out of funds, facing internal dissent, events like plagues used to be likely to occur, and many other factors could influence the outcome in significant degree. And beside that, alliances were not that binding as they are in present times. You could never tell who would come to enemy's assistance, neither who would take simultaneous yet independent action either against you or against your enemy.
In total, this unpredictability of outcome made even weaker parties to take their chance.
Perhaps somebody better informed may prove me wrong.
And as for gameplay, I'm afraid AI would prove unable to handle such an option in a reasonable fashion.
What I would love to see, however, is an option to offer tribute in exchange for maintaining peace. Both historically plausible, and makes sense in gameplay, too. I can also imagine the maths behind the other party's decision (not) to accept the offer.

 

[Chief of Staff]

I like this idea. +1

 

[Vistariel]

Rather than penalize you for not enforcing it, it should cost power projection depending on the size of the demands based on your current idea. I think the whole notion of needing a CB to go to war is undermined by this notion that one nation failing to meet the arbitrary demands of another is justification for war. The types of demands should be more diplomatic in nature and realistically things that drove nations to war through history.

A more realistic alternative would be the option to make demands for things you already have a CB for without declaring war, but the cost is power projection, and the results would still incur aggressive expansion in the instances of vassalization and territory acquisition. It would only be usable on nations significantly smaller than yourself, as peers would not capitulate.